Harry Potter: What If Petunia Was A witch ?

3. Roots of Voldemort

Disclaimer: All characters belong to JK Rowling. Also this Chapter contains section of Harry Potter wiki. This Chapter covers nothing new but how Voldemort rise. So those who already know that may skip this chapter.

Chapter Starts

The First Wizarding War had its roots secretly planted when Tom Marvolo Riddle was born on 31 December 1926 to Tom Riddle Senior, a wealthy Muggle aristocrat whose family was the locally unpopular gentry within the village of Little Hangleton, England, Great Britain, and Merope Gaunt, a pure-blood vagabond witch born into the antisocially dysfunctional and heavily inbred supremacist House of Gaunt, who lived in poverty across the valley from the village. Having eloped with Riddle Snr, while the latter was secretly influenced by a Love Potion, the couple caused a great scandal among the villagers over the common unpopularity (although for differing reasons) of the two families. But Merope grew tired of living such a lie when pregnant three months later, and thus lifted the bewitchment on her husband in hopes that he would either return her feelings or stay for their child's sake.
Instead, Riddle Snr fled back to Little Hangleton in utter disgust, leaving his wife in a state of depression in which she gave up the use of magic. Spending the rest of her life as a pauper on the streets of London, England, Merope sold a few stolen Gaunt heirlooms, and died in childbirth while sheltered in the Muggle-run Wool's Orphanage, unable to summon the strength to prolong her life, even for her son's sake. As a result, the orphaned Riddle was left to spend the first eleven years of his life in said orphanage. The coercive circumstances of his conception and extreme lack of parental love likely contributed to his many early warning signs of juvenile delinquency.
During this time, the secret wizarding world to which Riddle unknowingly belonged to developed new levels of anti-Muggle sentiment and economic growth. At some point before his birth, for instance, the notorious and radical Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald began launching his own magical supremacist revolution on the European mainland and indeed, across the entire wizarding world, fuelled by his quest to obtain all three of the fabled Deathly Hallows and his desire to expose the Wizarding World's corrupt and unethical laws and establishments. With his army of followers and one of the Hallows, the Elder Wand (which he stole from celebrated wandmaker Mykew Gregorovitch), in his possession, Grindelwald aimed to abolish the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy and subjugate Muggles under a new world order run by wizards, banking on the growth in fear and distrust for the non-magical people to grow his force until his defeat in 1945. Around the same time, cosmetic potioneer Fleamont Potter developed the wizarding beauty product Sleekeazy's Hair Potion, the sales of which quadrupled his family gold. He retired with his wife Euphemia a few years later but sold his company at a vast profit.

Between January and March of 1927, Magizoologist Newton "Newt" Scamander had his bestselling book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them published by Obscurus Books. Having faced Grindelwald thrice, and even aided in his first capture and loss in the election for Supreme Mugwump in 1932, Newt became a nationwide celebrity, and was known for having an integral part in the resistance and eventual defeat of the dark wizard and his acolytes. In the 1930s, magical historian Cantankerus Nott was suspected to have anonymously published the Pure-Blood Directory, which listed the 28 remaining famous pure-blood families in Great Britain, including the House of Black, Lestrange family, the Averys, and Riddle's own family: the Gaunts. Many (but not all) of these families considered themselves superior due to their blood status and looked down on "blood traitors" that supposedly betrayed their proud wizarding lineage by associating with Muggle-borns, who were referred to by many supremacists by the derogative title of "Mudbloods". Some pure-blood families were not included, such as the Dumbledore family, the Potter family, and the Scamander family, despite the Potters' high status in the wizarding community and influential background.