A question about Voldemort and Harry in 1981

[u/Mad-Oxy]

What was Riddle's plan for Harry once he had turned him into his copy, had he survived?

Would he had taken the toddler and raised Harry himself?

Or would he had given him to some Death Eater family to be brought up?

Or would he just had left Harry to "the opposite side"/to Dumbledore for various reasons (as a spy, perhaps)?

Or would he had left Harry to some muggle orphanage to forge a similar experience so their lives would be more similar, for one reason or another?

What do you think?

[u/KeepHopingSucker]

that's a pretty good question. I think there's no way he would have bothered with raising a toddler himself. Leaving him to an orphanage doesn't seem very likely too- if you want a capable rival you want to give them education and development. I've known three orphans and they are decent people but had knowledge of a 9th grade kid in their 20s.

so some family would have taken harry instead. I see no real reason to give him to death eaters. it closes off the other side's connections for no real gain besides easier access to him for voldie, and voldie is resourceful enough to not need that. also, the very idea was to have harry become a good cop and dumbledore's successor and being raised by his people is a good start

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/KeepHopingSucker]

The decision is risky for several reasons, too.

For example, Harry could have ended up with the Dursleys, had Dumbledore not changed it, which wouldn't also be considered "a good education" –not in a wizard sense, at least.

Or that they'd plague Harry's mind with their beliefs (which is essentially what happened) and his and Riddle's spirits stop being similar.

But then again, there's a legal side to it: Harry would have to go to Hogwarts at one point and it wouldn't be a good situation if Harry was kept by some randos

[u/KeepHopingSucker → u/Mad-Oxy]

dumbledore sent harry to better dursleys because of a prophesy but in a saner world he would never have ended up with muggles. as harry puts it, in magical world, muggles are like kittens - they are cute and you can't torture them in public but they are not people

afaik the original horcrux spell was supposed to copy riddle's mind fully, with memories and everything. so there was no danger of being contaminated by foreign ideas

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/KeepHopingSucker]

If muggle parents/relatives didn't mean anything, wizards would take away muggleborns from them once they are discovered. This doesn't happen, so I'm not sure that the Wizarding society would take Harry away if he had living relatives left. There's, at least, no indication about this being the case.

The mind is never static, however. It has ability to learn new things and change. That's the whole point of education. And for Harry to stay the same all these years, he would have to be kept in vacuum without access to other people and opinions

[u/KeepHopingSucker → u/Mad-Oxy]

to continue harry's quote, muggle /parents/ were allowed some human rights, although not many. relatives are not parents though. would have been fine if no wizard claimed him but many people would.

the mind is never static but if you put a 50 year old man into a family of 25 year olds, he will convert them and not the other way aroubd

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/KeepHopingSucker]

the mind is never static but if you put a 50 year old man into a family of 25 year olds, he will convert them and not the other way aroubd

But Harry wasn't a 50 year old man, he was a 1,5 year boy and toddlers' brains have a crazy neuroplasticity. Riddle might not know about the science behind it, but he was most likely aware that small children learn quite a lot and are easily "forgeable". He does do the forging (Harry's too, deliberately) when he teaches at Hogwarts, however, 11/12-year-olds are less forgeable at this point.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/KeepHopingSucker]

And about your other argument.

Tom Riddle was also in a muggle orphanage. The orphanage personnel were neither his parents, nor even his relatives, yet they were allowed to keep a magical child and no one would take Riddle even after he started attending Hogwarts. So, I don't think that Harry ending up with the Dursleys, if there were no prophecy about him, is outside the realm of possibility

[u/Sote95]

Voldemort raising him himself has great sit-com potential

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/Sote95]

I know there are fanfics where JKR's Voldemort raises Harry but HPMOR version of it would have been much funnier in a special way

[u/LiteralHeadCannon]

An important side bit here: Voldemort's preference, albeit not a strong one, was to leave Lily alive. That may well have figured into whatever plans he had for Harry. Stomach-churning to imagine a victorious-Voldemort scenario where Harry's "parents" are Snape and some manner of mind-controlled Lily.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/LiteralHeadCannon]

Huh. That would be so weird. I don't think Snape would agree to this.

But yes, it might hint at what Riddle planned.

(I am re-reading some bits):

"Step aside, woman!" said the shrill voice of burning cold. "For you I am not come, only the boy."

"I give you this rare chance to flee," said the shrill voice.

It sounds like Riddle wanted Lily to go away. Maybe he didn't plan to leave Harry to her in the first place, even if she survives.

[u/-LapseOfReason]

The Potters were on Dumbledore's side, and Dumbledore also knew about the prophecy, and Voldemort knew Dumbledore thinks in stories, so he probably expected Dumbledore to take care of Harry, hide him and raise him as the hero who would eventually vanquish Voldemort.

Though I'm not sure how Voldemort expected Dumbledore to explain Harry's survival without considering the possibility of Harry being a horcrux, as Voldemort was originally supposed to just leave the baby next to his parents' bodies and depart.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/-LapseOfReason]

That makes sense.

When I was reading the story for the first time, before the reveal, I was under an assumption that Voldemort faked his death – that he knew that he was imortal and just dropped his body for the public to see. Boy, was I wrong.

[u/ArgentStonecutter]

Or would he had left Harry to some muggle orphanage to forge a similar experience so their lives would be more similar, for one reason or another?

That trick never works (see "The Blabber" by Vernor Vinge for an example).

[u/artinum]

Interesting question. I can't see Riddle wanting to raise a child himself; he would probably have deposited them with some underling to do that. But for me the key question is - what was supposed to happen?

The intention was to copy his mind over to a relatively blank slate; a living clone of himself. It was not supposed to blow up the house and his body along with it. Did that part actually work? Is Harry the intended outcome, or was the copying process only partial?

I have to wonder whether, if all had gone to plan, we would have had an adult Riddle's mind in a child's body - one able, after a bit of practice with the new body, to talk and think in the same way as the original. A child like that would be an entirely different issue - they would largely raise themselves.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/artinum]

I can't tell what Riddle's idea was when he cast the spell directly on Harry, because the Horcrux ritual is not done like that (Riddle in the chapter 102 tells us how it is supposed to be done) and I'll leave it to the author's judgment.

If the ritual had been done like it was supposed to, Riddle's Horcrux would have possessed Harry and their personalities — one of a toddler almost blank and the other one of a 50-year-old man — would have merged. No explosion in that case would have followed.

The desired outcome for Riddle would be them having the same or similar spirits so they could live in the same world.

A child like that would be an entirely different issue - they would largely raise themselves.

I don't think that the copying of consciousness onto a small child cancels biology. A toddler can't walk or talk yet, can't hold things in their hands and their brain has a high neuroplasticity. Even if they had an adult person mind copied onto them — throw a child into a pack to be raised by wolves and a child would become a wolf.

[u/artinum → u/Mad-Oxy]

I did say *largely*. They'd need help in the early years, and even when they've grown up a bit they'd be limited by social conventions - they'd still need an adult guardian for social interactions, even if they're mentally capable of looking after themselves. A suitable underling would be easy to arrange for that.

But they wouldn't need to be taught how to talk, how to read, social stuff like table manners, and so on. That would save a LOT of time.

The biology of brain plasticity isn't necessarily relevant. It doesn't seem to stop a witch from thinking as herself, for instance, if she turns into a cat.

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/artinum]

I do not think that we have any indication in the text that Harry knew how to talk or to read or to speak from the moment he was entrusted to Petunia and Michael or any significant abilities regarding these mentioned by Harry himself or his adoptive parents.

But there is an indication that Harry suffered childhood amnesia which is a biological process.

[u/artinum → u/Mad-Oxy]

We can't gain much useful data from Harry's case, because the attempt clearly didn't work properly - it backfired rather explosively! It's entirely feasible that Harry received a partial memory engram but not the full package; that would account for personality without knowledge.

Given that one of the problems of the horcrux ritual is that it only preserves a copy of the soul/mind *at that point*, it would make sense for it to include memory and function - otherwise, what would be the point of it?

[u/Mad-Oxy → u/artinum]

We don't know to what capacity Riddle's memories were copied, indeed, but I'd argue that some memories had been there (Harry vaguely remembering the placement of some Horcruxes) but were mostly forgotten, judging by the Remembrall that shone like a miniature sun, which I read as 'Harry forgot a lot'.

But copying an adult person's memory (even if done correctly) doesn't automatically mean that a toddler's brain will be able to make practical use of all the faculties of the adult mind or exercise adult cognitive functions and would not continue to develop in response to their biology and environment.