Riddle’s School Years
Dumbledore was transfiguration teacher when he first met Tom Riddle in the summer of 1938.1 We do not know if he was as yet Deputy Headmaster. I find it interesting that Dumbledore’s reaction to Riddle is to pretend to light his wardrobe on fire. His idea of the way to persuade a young boy to reform is to threaten to destroy all the boy owns. The message is clear: behave because I am more powerful than you are. The verbal message is equally clear: behave, or we will exclude you from our society and leave you to your poverty.
The second is absolutely typical of how an Englishman would treat an orphan in the 1800s. Given Dumbledore is born in 1881,2 he is in that sense very much a man of his time. It is the first that is curious. There is no attempt to educate Riddle in morality, no sympathy for the lack of role models in his life, no carrot, all stick. It is very different from the way that Dumbledore will later deal with Draco, but is very reminiscent of the way that Dumbledore will refuse to explain why Harry should respect Snape except that Harry should obey.
Dumbledore claims to have kept a close eye on young Tom,3 and yet observed nothing as Tom searched for and found the Chamber of Secrets, opened it, and terrorised the school. It was only after Myrtle Warren4 died that Riddle felt that he was being watched.5 This contradiction has lead some to speculate that a more evil Dumbledore than I can account for intentionally moulded Riddle into a dark lord.6 Perhaps because he felt that society needed an enemy, perhaps because he thought that Riddle could be more/better controlled than turned out to be the case, perhaps because he wanted the fame of defeating a second dark lord. As I said, a Dumbledore that evil is not particularly compelling to me. My personal thought is that despite what he would later tell Harry, Dumbledore did not watch Riddle all that closely those first few years. Dumbledore may not have trusted Riddle’s apparently good behaviour, but he was complacent. He thought that he had sufficiently intimidated Riddle and allowed his vigilance to slacken. It took Miss Warren’s death to awaken Dumbledore to his responsibilities, and only then did he actually watch Riddle. Dumbledore feels no need to give Harry insight into his own failings, and so claims to have done more/better than was really the case. He watched Riddle closely enough that it would never again be safe to open the chamber. If he had watched Riddle consistently as he claims, then Riddle could never have had the opportunity to cause that death. One less horcrux to have been made, perhaps even no opportunity to learn of them at all.7
How much of the failure to investigate Miss Warren’s death is on Dumbledore? How much of it is on Headmaster Dippet, how much on the nature of Hogwarts, the traditions and laws that make it quasi-independent from the Ministry? How much is on the fact that Miss Warren came from a fully non-magical family? This is before the defeat of Grindelwald, so Dumbledore had a fraction of the influence he would latter have. I am inclined to blame the lack of investigation here on forces and situations that pre-date Dumbledore. He did not help the situation, but in this one instance, he did not create it.
Before the First Fall
Riddle graduates, works for an unknown amount of time as a purchasing agent for Borgin and Burke, then disappears. He returns sometime in the late 1960s, already in command of the Death Eaters,8 for a doomed interview for the DADA position. Dumbledore intimates that he knows much of what Riddle has been up to. Why does he not act? We do not know what power Dumbledore has in the Wizengamot or the International Confederation of Wizards, but we do know that he has been nominated for Minister of Magic three times. His official power may be unknown, his unofficial stature is already quite great; in British society, the latter may actually be more important. This is particularly relevant because Dumbledore will stand up the Order of the Phoenix and act outside the law. If he is willing to do so, then he can be held accountable for failing to do so soon enough or effectively enough. If you are going to break the law, and worse lead others to do so, make it mean something. That is not perfect morality, but being a vigilante and failing seems to me worse than saying that you were forced to take the law into your own hands because the government was too corrupt, too penetrated by the Death Eaters, to be effective.
The Prophecy
The immediate rebuttal is that it does not matter that Dumbledore did not act, because Harry will be subject of a prophecy stating (effectively) that Dumbledore lacks the power to defeat Riddle. This argument has no weight.
Firstly, it has no weight because the prophecy has not happened yet. Dumbledore is failing to act not because he knows that someone else is the only one who can, but for some other reason. We do not know if it is fear, agreement with Riddle’s goals, a mis-guided sense that Riddle can be redeemed, or what. We only know that Dumbledore is failing to act when he, as yet, has no reason for holding back.
Secondly, even after hearing the prophecy, Dumbledore tells us that the prophecy only has the power that we give it.9 Mrs. Rowling, speaking outside the books, confirms that prophecy does not have some cosmic force of fate, but rather acts as a goad, triggering actions, but not forcing behaviour.
If neither boy was ‘pre-ordained’ before Voldemort’s attack to become his possible vanquisher, then the prophecy (like the one the witches make to Macbeth, if anyone has read the play of the same name) becomes the catalyst for a situation that would never have occurred if it had not been made.10
Dumbledore realises that both Riddle and Harry could have ignored the prophecy; the corollary is also true, though less intuitive: Dumbledore is not bound by it either. If prophecy need not come true,11 then Dumbledore could have done more than battle to a standstill, he could have truly spared Harry.
Summation
It is in this light that we must question why the war dragged on for eleven years before Riddle’s first defeat. Why, knowing that Riddle would return, Dumbledore does nothing to investigate how or why Riddle avoided death. Why, learning about the horcruxes in Harry’s second year, Dumbledore waits until the summer after Harry’s fifth year to hunt them down. Why, knowing that he will die, he entrusts the knowledge to Harry and gives him no adult to confide in. Why he allows him to confide in Hermione and Ron who can help little, but not in Lupin, Kingsley, or Moody who might have truly helped.
Harry Potter Wiki. “Tom Riddle” Last Edited: 2021-09-22. Last Viewed: 2021-09-27.↩︎
Mrs. J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince p. 301. © 2005 Pottermore Publishing. American Kindle Edition.↩︎
Harry Potter Wiki. “Myrtle Warren” Last Edited: 2021-08-05. Last Viewed: 2021-09.27.↩︎
Mrs. J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets p. 312. © 1999 Pottermore Limited. American Kindle Edition.↩︎
citation needed.↩︎
old-crow. An Inconvenient Truth Chapter 9 Published: 2009-05-24. Updated: 2016-06-22. Last Viewed: 2021-09-27. Speculation that Riddle learned about Horcruxes from the Chamber of Secrets.↩︎
Mrs. J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince p. 369. © 2005 Pottermore Publishing. American Kindle Edition.↩︎
Mrs. J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince p. 425. © 2005 Pottermore Publishing. American Kindle Edition.↩︎
Mrs. J. K. Rowling. “F.A.Q.: About the Books” The J.K. Rowling Index Publication Date: 2004-05-15 to 2007-12-21. Last Viewed: 2021-09-27.↩︎
Mrs. J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince pp. 423-424. © 2005 Pottermore Publishing. American Kindle Edition.↩︎