Lord Voldemort

 Lord Voldemort a.k.a. You-Know-Who

In-universe information

Full name

Tom Marvolo Riddle (birth name)

Born

31 December 1926

Died

2 May 1998

Cause of death

Killing curse (backfires on him after a fight with Harry)

Alias

• The Heir of Slytherin

• The Dark Lord

• You-Know-Who (Hogwarts students and professors)

• He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (magical community, Order of the Phoenix, and Hogwarts students)

• Tom Riddle (his good counterpart)

Nationality

British

Title

• Lord Voldemort

• Minister of Magic (puppet ruler; full control over the Ministry; briefly)

Family information

Parents

• Tom Riddle Senior ✝️ (father)

• Merope Gaunt ✝️ (mother)

Grandparents

• Thomas Riddle ✝️ (paternal grandfather)

• Mary Riddle ✝️ (paternal grandmother)

• Marvolo Gaunt ✝️ (maternal grandfather)

Aunts/Uncles

Morfin Gaunt ✝️ (maternal uncle)

Relationships

Supporters

• Death Eaters (some fled, and some got detained or parted)
• Nagini ✝️ (loved pet)
• Basilisk ✝️
• Malfoy family (previously)
• Prof. Horace Slughorn (formerly used him to discover out about Horcruxes)
• Bellatrix "Bella" Black-Lestrange ✝️ (trustful devotee)
• Barty Crouch Jr. ✝️
• Rodolphus Lestrange ✝️
• Prof. Severus Snape ✝️ (previously)
• Peter Pettigrew ✝️

Opponents

• Riddle family
• House of Gaunt ✝️
• Ministry of Magic
• Order of the Phoenix
• Lily and James Potter ✝️
• Harry Potter
• Neville Longbottom
• Hermione Granger
• Tom Riddle (alter ego, his youthful self)
• Prof. Severus Snape ✝️
• Malfoy family
• Prof. Horace Slughorn
• Prof. Albus Dumbledore ✝️
• Weasley family

Magical characteristics

Powers/skills

• Charisma
• Manipulation
• Magical mastery
• Dark Arts
• Duelling
• Potions
• Charms
• Apparition
• Occlumency
• Legilimency
• Flying
• Parseltongue
• Immorality

Boggart

His own corpse

Wand

• 13½", Yew, phoenix feather core

• Elm, dragon heartstring (momentary)

• 15", Elder, Thestral tail hair (brief, never conquered)

Patronus

None

Affiliation

Occupation

• Leader of the Death Eaters

• Shop Assistant (previously)

House

Slytherin

Loyalty

• The House of Gaunt (onetime)

• Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (previously)

• Slytherin

• Slug Club

• Death Eaters

• British Ministry of Magic (only under his command)

Voldemort, an anagrammatic sobriquet for his birth name Tom Marvolo Riddle, is the arch-enemy of Harry Potter, who, according to a prophecy, has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". After killing Harry's parents, Lily and James Potter, he attempts to murder the boy, but instead leaves him with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named", or "The Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and Wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.

Death of Voldemort

Silence fell over the clearing, weighty and absolute, broken only by the crackle of dying embers and the rough, unbearable sobs of Rubeus Hagrid. Voldemort stood tall, his pale face twisted into a mask of cruel triumph. In his arms hung the still, unsubstantial frame of Harry Potter, lifeless and pale as alabaster. The Dark Lord turned slowly, surveying his Death Eaters, before his eyes landed on the broken defenders of Hogwarts watching from the castle gates. Hagrid choked back a sob, his massive frame trembling as he gently scooped up Harry’s limp body. With heavy, dragging steps, the half-giant began the long march back toward the castle, the vanguard of the Dark army following close behind, jeering and laughing. When they reached the gates, the despairing silence of the Hogwarts defenders shattered into furious outrage. Neville Longbottom stepped forward, his face bloodied, limping heavily. As Voldemort mocked the fallen, demanding total submission, Neville’s hand slipped into the sorting hat. He pulled free the gleaming, silver-hilted sword of Gryffindor. With a fierce, defiant roar that shook the very stones of the courtyard, Neville charged. Harry Potter dropped out of Hagrid’s massive cape, dropping lightly to the rock floor. He stood tall, alive, his emerald eyes locked onto the shocked Dark Lord. A collective gasp echoed through the hall. Voldemort’s face contorted in incredulity, quickly curdling into absolute outrage. He raised the Elder Wand, equipping the killing curse. "It's over. Don't do it, Tom," Harry’s voice rang out, obvious and comforting across the immense hall, echoing off the increased stone walls. "You live because I allowed you to live! Boys with parlor tricks—" Voldemort snickered, his grip tightening on the faded, elder-wood wand. Harry raised his own hawthorn wand, pointing it directly at the most feared wizard in history. "And you're holding a wand that doesn't belong to you. And it knows it." Harry said, his voice ringing with absolute confidence.

Two different turns of light erupted from the points. A bolt of blinding, emerald green—the Killing Curse, basic and straight—shot from the Elder Wand. Simultaneously, a jet of brilliant crimson—the simple, humble Disarming Charm—burst from the hawthorn wood. They met in mid-air. But this time, there was no golden cage of Priori Incantatem, no ghostly apparitions of parents rising from the nexus. This time, the ancient laws of the wand wood dictated a far more violent, absolute truth.

The Elder Wand possessed a conscience forged in blood and devotion. It knew its true master. It knew that the boy standing before it—the boy who had willingly walked to his death, who had mastered the Hallows not to conquer death, but to accept it—was the rightful wielder of its power. Draco Malfoy had disarmed Dumbledore atop the Astronomy Tower years ago; Harry had disarmed Draco at Malfoy Manor. The Elder Wand refused to murder its master. In a fraction of a second, the green light shrieked against the red, stuttered, and then violently reversed its revolution. It snapped back along the golden thread of magic like a rubber round released from a giant’s fist. Voldemort’s red eyes broadened in absolute, pure terror. He tried to pull back, to raise a shield, to invoke dark magic older than the stones of Hogwarts. It was too late.

The rebounding Killing Curse struck him squarely in the chest. There was no grand explosion, no cinematic shockwave. Just a profound, heavy sucking sound of air rushing into a nothingness. The red light in Voldemort’s eyes flashed out immediately. The dull, snake-like face eased. The Elder Wand plunged from his dead fingers, clinking softly against the stone floor. For a heartbeat, the Dark Lord remained vertical, suspended by sheer meanness and the lingering ghosts of his terrifying legacy. Then, slowly, like a crumbling statue of sand, Tom Riddle overturned forward. His body hit the ground with a flat, mundane thud.

The Great Hall had fallen into a breathless, abnormal quietness. The roars of war, the weeping of the wounded, and the frantic whispers of the victors all subsided into a heavy, reverent silence. There he fibbed. Voldemort—the Dark Lord, the self-proclaimed conqueror of demise, the terror of an era—was nothing more than a pitched husk upon the burned stone floor. His red eyes were glazed and unobstructed; his pale, serpentine face bore the final, frozen grimace of mortal shock. He was entirely, irrevocably dead. Harry stepped forward, his boots crunching softly on the ash and debris. He stopped a few feet from the corpse, his chest heaving slightly, the Elder Wand heavy and warm in his hand. The weight of seven years of fear, loss, and relentless pursuit seemed to lift from his shoulders in that single, quiet moment, dissolving into a profound, hollow exhaustion. A soft rustle of robes sounded beside him. Tom stepped into his field of vision, walking quietly to Harry's side. He didn't look at Harry; his gaze was fixed entirely on the remains of the monster he had once been, and the future they had both fought to reclaim. "What do we do with him?" Harry questioned, his voice raspy, echoing softly in the large room. Leaving the body felt wrong—a magnet for morbid curiosity, or worse, dark remnants and zealots who might try to stitch his memory back together. Tom stared down at the lifeless face of Lord Voldemort. A bizarre, gloomy stillness settled over Tom’s qualities. Slowly, a dark, quiet intensity flickered in his eyes—not of hatefulness, but of closure. "Can I?" Tom whispered. Harry turned his head to look at him. He saw the ghosts of a thousand shared traumas in Tom's eyes, the deep-seated need to purge the world—and himself—of the very concept of what lay before them. Harry didn't waver. He gave a single, slow nod. Tom stepped closer to the remains and raised his hand, palm open, hovering inches above Voldemort’s chest. He closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. When Tom opened his eyes again, they flashed with a brilliant, arcane light. A low, vibrating hum filled the Great Hall, resonating in the teeth and bones of everyone watching from a distance. Wisps of dark, iridescent energy began to bleed from Tom’s fingertips, weaving like ethereal silk over Voldemort’s body. The magic was ancient, devastating, and impossibly detailed. Where the energy touched, the skin, the robes, the bones, and the dark magic curdling within the flesh began to shudder. With a sound like rushing wind, Voldemort’s physical form started to fracture at the atomic level. The molecules that held the Dark Lord together unspooled, unraveling into a swirling nebula of grey and silver dust. There was no blood, no ash of fire—just a quiet, relentless de-creation. In a matter of seconds, the body dissolved entirely into the air, caught in a vortex of shimmering magic that Tom gently guided upward, toward the high, starry ceiling of the Great Hall, where the particles scattered into nothingness, swept away by an invisible breeze. When the light faded, the floor was completely bare. There was no grave to mark, no monument to curse, no relic to worship. There was only clean stone.

Tom lowered his hand and exhaled slowly, his shoulders dropping as if a mountain had finally been lifted from his back. He turned to Harry. Harry looked at the space where the most feared wizard in history had just ceased to exist, and then looked back at Tom. The war was over. The ghost was gone. And for the first time in their lives, the path ahead was entirely their own.