Did Voldemort really have control over the Inferi?

Question

In Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore and Harry have this exchange right after they enter the cave and just before crossing the lake that would get them to the Horcrux Island where the Drink of Despair was located.

This is what is written:

Immediately a thick coppery green chain appeared out of thin air, extending from the depths of the water into Dumbledore’s clenched hand. Dumbledore tapped the chain, which began to slide through his fist like a snake, coiling itself on the ground with a clinking sound that echoed noisily off the rocky walls, pulling something from the depths of the black water. Harry gasped as the ghostly prow of a tiny boat broke the surface, glowing as green as the chain, and floated, with barely a ripple, toward the place on the bank where Harry and Dumbledore stood.

“How did you know that was there?” Harry asked in astonishment.

“Magic always leaves traces,” said Dumbledore, as the boat hit the bank with a gentle bump, “sometimes very distinctive traces. I taught Tom Riddle. I know his style.”

“Is…is this boat safe?”

“Oh yes, I think so. Voldemort needed to create a means to cross the lake without attracting the wrath of those creatures he had placed within it in case he ever wanted to visit or remove his Horcrux.”

“So the things in the water won’t do anything to us if we cross in Voldemort’s boat?”

“I think we must resign ourselves to the fact that they will, at some point, realize we are not Lord Voldemort. Thus far, however, we have done well. They have allowed us to raise the boat.”

Right in the bolded text, Dumbledore says that Voldemort needed to create a means to cross the lake without attracting the wrath of the Inferi in case he ever wanted to check on the status of the Horcrux.

Does that imply that Voldemort could NOT control the Inferi?
How then did Voldemort enchant the Inferi to defend the Horcrux in the first place?

Answer 1

Yes, Inferi are controlled by their creator.

Voldemort would indeed have control of the Inferi, because as Dumbledore explains to Harry, Inferi are corpses that are enchanted to do a Dark wizard’s bidding.

“Well, on that leaflet, it said something about Inferi. What exactly are they? The leaflet wasn’t very clear.’

‘They are corpses,’ said Dumbledore calmly. ‘Dead bodies that have been bewitched to do a Dark wizard’s bidding.”
_{^{- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 4 (Horace Slughorn)}}

Snape teaches his Defense Against the Dark Arts class that Inferi are corpses reanimated by a Dark wizard’s spells, and used like puppets to do their bidding.

“A five-year-old could have told us as much,’ sneered Snape. ‘The Inferius is a corpse that has been reanimated by a Dark wizard’s spells. It is not alive, it is merely used like a puppet to do the wizard’s bidding.”
_{^{- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 21 (The Unknowable Room)}}

So yes, since Inferi are controlled by the Dark wizard who created them, Voldemort would be able to control the Inferi he put in the cave where he hid his Horcrux.