Just a question

[Hermione]

Does Ms. Rowling ever actually tell us in the books that it's Voldemort's grandparents who are killed?

[Scellanis]

yes, because the grown up son is voldemort's father, we know that...and the two others are the grown up son's parents so they have to be voldemort's grandparents unless volde's father was adopted.....

[Holly Golightly]

There really is no other explination... though I was very confused the first time I read it...
I thought that they people were Voldie, and his parents, and that he was somehow faking it, and managed to leave some kind of fake dead him behind, so that people thought that he was dead, and then he walked away. So that people would all think that Tom Riddle Jr was deadm and thus not be able to connect him as Lord Voldie... But then I eventually figured it out!!! It has to be his dad an his grandparents!

Yeah, I know, my brain works in VERY strange ways!!!

[Neo]

Actually Holly that is not a bad theory, with the change of some details that could be a possibilty (but one you understand what happens it is very clear the other one).

[Holly Golightly]

Why thanks Neo!
And here I was thinking that I was just being impossibly dense!

[Neo]

No way; it would have been very smart from part of Voldemort to have faked his death as Tom. (But then the thing about faking death would hae been repeated)

[Holly Golightly]

But the thing that convinced me that it was his dad and grandparents was that it called Tom their grown up son... who calls a 15yr old grown up??? expecially wen they called the boy who Frank saw walking away a teenage boy...>?

oh yeah, and also Voldie's mother died just after childbirth, so how could she be there, unless voldies dad remarried???

anyways, it's just got to be his dad and grandparents!!!

[Neo]

I know, I'm sure about that (I only say that with alittle changes the theory could have been truth)

And actually Voldemort must have been around 18, when that happened.

[Holly Golightly]

Yeah, but still... you get my point right?

who calls an 18yr old boy a grown up son???

[Scellanis]

ok.

Half a century ago, something strange and horrible happened there, ... Every version of the tale, however, started in the same place: fifty years before, at daybreak on a fine summer's morning, when the Riddle House had still been well kept and impressive a maid had entered the drawing room to find all three Riddles dead.
...
Elderly Mr and Mrs Riddle had been rich, snobbish and rude, and their grown-up son, Tom, had been even more so.
...
that the only person he had seen near the house on the day of the Riddle's deaths had been a teenage boy, a stranger, dark-haired and pale.

ok, that puts it exactly 50 years before book 4 was set.....which would mean that voldemort was a teenage pale dark-haired boy...its summer so he has just left school
the grown up son called Tom must have been living there for a while for him to have got that kind of reputation from the residents....but we know that during the time voldemort was at school he either lived in a muggle orphanage or spent all his holidays and term time at school.

and why would the grown up son Tom be voldemort anyway since his father dumped him when he was born so why would he have him back again and why would volde live with his father anyway, we know he hates him from the way he talks in book 2 and the fact he cant bear to use his real name.

one other thing...why does volde need to fake his death when dumbledore states that almost noone connected him with voldemort at the end of book 2.

the final point.

'You stand, Harry Potter, upon the remains of my late father,' ... and I killed my father,...
...
'You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was ... he didn't like magic, my father ...
'He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was born, Potter, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage ... but I vowed to find him ... I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name ... Tom Riddle ... '

ok, so we know the 3 bodies where burried in that grave yard and one of them has to be voldemort's father because he is used in the spell. Voldemort says his father returned to live with his father's parents.....that means that the three Riddles murdered by Volde have to be Volde's father and grand parents on his father's side.

[Holly Golightly]

I wasn't actually trying to convince people that the son Tom was Voldie, just saying that the first time I read it, that is what I mistakingly though...

As I've mentioned numerour times, sometimes I'm not the brightest spark in the pack...

[Neo]

Wow, Sonkem you went a little too far; we know that Voldemort killed his parents and grandparents. We just said that with slght changes the other theory could be true.

And even if almost noone realted him with Tom Riddle, it would be better if noone related him (because he would be dead)

And one thing, when Voldemort kills his father, he was 15 or 18?

[Scellanis]

he was 17/18

he was 15/16 (5th year) exactly 50 years before book 2

so he must 17/18 ....wait a minute....if book four says 50 years before....then volde must be in the summer between 6th and 7th year not the end of 7th year.....that has to be a mistake by the book...it must have been 49 years before for volde to have done it cos the time when the book states that it was fifty years ago is the summer hols between harry's 3rd and 4th year....

but harry was in second year when volde was in 5th 50 years ago so harry would have to be in the hols between 4th and 5th year for volde to murder anyone 50 years earlier....cos i cant see him doing it and then returning to school.....not unless the laws on underage use of magic were different then

[Holly Golightly]

Hrmm about the 50 yrs thing...

the way that I saw it was you know how sometimes you describe something as 10 yrs ago, but it might really have happened 9 or 11 yrs ago... it's just more common to say 50 yrs ago then 49 yrs ago... one of those generalisation things???

but I think that he went and killed them after he finished school... ie 17/18!

[Neo]

I'm almost sure he did after Hogwarts; but if CoS was 50 years ago, and he was in fifth, then two years more and he is out; that means he did 50 years and a couple of months before (I'm not sure I made myself clear)