One of the most terrifying aspects of Harry Potter’s archenemy Lord Voldemort is his unearthly appearance, but how did the Dark Lord lose his nose? When Harry Potter fans think of Lord Voldemort it’s most likely the fearsome serpentine fellow with the deathly pale skin, gnarly gnashers, cat-like eyes and barely-there nose with only slits for nostrils. In other words, the guy who drank unicorn blood while possessing Professor Quirinus Quirrell’s body and has been trying to murder poor Harry Potter since he was a baby – that Lord Voldemort.
But Voldemort didn’t always look like a sinister snake-man hybrid. Back when he was known as Tom Riddle, his form was still human despite the burgeoning darkness festering within him. When Tom Riddle appeared in a flashback in Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince during his time at Wool’s Orphanage, he was a cute if creepy kid. Similarly, as a teenager studying at Hogwarts, he was a handsome young man and – most notably – still had a nose. Somewhere along the line, however, Riddle transformed into Lord Voldemort and lost his nose in the process.
But what happened to make Lord Voldemort look so terrifying? And, more specifically, what happened to his nose? Was it a bungled nose job, perhaps, or maybe chronic cocaine abuse when he was supposedly missing during the 1980s? Truth be told, nobody knows for sure where Voldemort’s nose went but there are a few convincing theories that potentially explain his problems in the proboscis department.
Some Harry Potter fans postulate that Lord Voldemort’s snake-like nose is a result of the potion Peter Pettigrew (aka Wormtail) concocted that gave He Who Must Not Be Named his creepy, rudimentary baby body in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. As one of the potion’s main ingredients was snake venom, it’s thought some reptilian DNA crept its way into his new form. However, die-hard Potterheads might recall in the Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince book Dumbledore meets with Voldemort (then still Tom Riddle) who wants to apply for the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position at Hogwarts. Chronologically, this took place a good few decades before Voldemort’s run-in with the snake venom potion, yet J.K. Rowling writes that even back then his appearance was changing and taking on a snake-like quality.
The most likely reason why Lord Voldemort’s nose disappeared and he devolved into such an evil-looking creature is that as he dabbled deeper into the Dark Arts, his appearance gradually became as distorted as what remained of his twisted soul. Basically, the more evil acts Voldemort committed over the course of Harry Potter, the more evil his outer appearance became.
Next: How Harry Potter & Lord Voldemort Are Secretly Related
