Lord Voldemort Overlooked the Easiest Way to Become Invincible and Immortal

Summary:

• Lord Voldemort did a poor job at hiding and protecting his Horcruxes despite his best efforts.
• The Fidelius Charm would have allowed Voldemort to be the only person able to reach the Horcruxes.
• With such secure respawn points, Voldemort would have had many more attempts at world domination.

Every Harry Potter fan has already come to the realization that Lord Voldemort really messed up when it came to his Horcruxes, but everyone has different theories about how he could have avoided their destruction. Many of them are…rather bizarre.

Some Potterheads are goofy about it and suggest Riddle Jr. should have launched the Horcruxes into outer space or used grains of sand on the world’s most random beaches as Horcruxes to begin with. We won’t dive into explaining why exactly those ideas would never have worked this time — but we will suggest a way better one.

What Was Voldemort’s Problem with the Horcruxes?

On paper, Horcruxes sound like a sure and fun way to ensure your immortality — that is, if you find deliberate murders and splitting your soul into pieces fun. Keeping parts of your soul safe and separate from your “main” body might be appealing to anyone scared for their life, but there is one issue Dark folks like Riddle Jr. overlook.

The urge to check in on your soul pieces must be overwhelming: after all, since you’ve already dared to split your very core, you’re paranoid and desperate enough. Hence, your Horcruxes must be accessible for you to visit them from time to time. This adds up to another fact: not every object can be turned into a Horcrux.

Since you split your soul, you assume someone wants to kill you. If you found out about Horcruxes, they can, too. And if they’re trying to kill you, they can trace your steps to the places you hid your Horcruxes and easily recognize them — once again, not every object works for that, and Horcruxes have a distinct Dark aura anyway.

That’s essentially how Lord Voldemort’s Horcruxes were discovered: by tracing down his life path (not him personally, this time) and finding special blatantly Dark objects.

How Could Voldemort Ensure His Horcruxes’ Safety?

Obviously, the main problem with Horcruxes is not that they could be destroyed; it’s that they could be found. Now, Lord Voldemort wasn’t cheap on protective magic: Hogwarts charms, crippling hexes, blood magic, and necromancy all came into play. But those measures were both excessive and insufficient at the same time.

Realistically, there was only one charm the Dark Lord needed. Though one of the most powerful protective charms, it was no issue for a wizard as powerful as Tom Riddle Jr., and it would have allowed him to keep the Horcruxes safe forever.

Enter the Fidelius Charm.

The most popular protective spell during the First Wizarding War, the Fidelius Charm completely hides a location from anyone other than the Secret Keeper and the people they shared the secret knowledge with. The Fidelius Charm is virtually impenetrable; its only weak point is that it vanishes after the Secret Keeper’s death.

But guess what? Lord Voldemort’s Horcruxes made him immortal.

If the Dark Lord were to protect the Horcruxes’ locations with the Fidelius Charm and appoint himself the Secret Keeper, there would’ve been no way for anyone beside him to ever access them. Better yet, even in case of his death, the Charm would’ve stayed since he could not die until all the Horcruxes and his body were destroyed.

Essentially, Lord Voldemort could set up completely secure respawn points for himself, allowing himself to never worry about the discovery of his Horcruxes. Merlin knows how many ages of Voldemort’s terror would have awaited the Wizarding World if this was the case and Riddle Jr. would have truly become invincible!

But fortunately for all the good folks, Lord Voldemort was an absolute moron.