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In Goblet of Fire chapter 1, Frank lies about his wife waiting for him while he has no eye contact with Voldemort and Voldemort catches his lie. It is clearly stated that Frank and Voldemort were not facing each other.

We know that Voldemort is one of the greatest Legilimens of the wizarding world but for Legilimency you need eye contact. How did Voldemort know that Frank was lying?

"I don't know what you mean by wizard," said Frank, his voice growing steadier. "All I know is I've heard enough to interest the police tonight, I have. You've done murder and you're planning more! And I'll tell you this too," he added, on a sudden inspiration, "my wife knows I'm up here, and if I don't come back -"

"You have no wife," said the cold voice, very quietly. "Nobody knows you are here. You told nobody that you were coming. Do not lie to Lord Voldemort, Muggle, for he knows...he always knows..."

"Is that right?" said Frank roughly. "Lord, is it? Well, I don't think much of your manners, My Lord. Turn 'round and face me like a man, why don't you?"

"But I am not a man, Muggle," said the cold voice, barely audible now over the crackling of the flames. "I am much, much more than a man. However...why not? I will face you...Wormtail, come turn my chair around."

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  • Related: scifi.stackexchange.com/q/117725/76048
    – F1Krazy
    Commented Jul 13 at 9:13
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    This question is similar to: How good was Voldemort at reading minds?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem.
    – Dr. Doom
    Commented Jul 13 at 9:18
  • @F1Krazy - Similar, but not the same. OP is clearly under the impression that Legilimency was off the table. My answer shows that it wasn't
    – Valorum
    Commented Jul 13 at 11:44
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    @Valorum I agree. I only said they were related, I'm not one of the users that have cast duplicate votes.
    – F1Krazy
    Commented Jul 13 at 13:32

4 Answers 4

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Professor Snape states that there are circumstances in which legilimency can be performed without eye contact, although he doesn't elaborate. Presumably this is one of those cases.

‘The Dark Lord is at a considerable distance and the walls and grounds of Hogwarts are guarded by many ancient spells and charms to ensure the bodily and mental safety of those who dwell within them,’ said Snape. ‘Time and space matter in magic, Potter. Eye contact is often essential to Legilimency.’

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Chapter 24 - Occlumency

Note that Frank is a Muggle, scared, elderly, and his lie is very, very transparent. By comparison, Voldemort is one of the most skilled practitioners of Legilimency who's ever lived. There really can't be any combination of factors that would make it easier for a wizard to detect the truth, even without being able to look their victim in the eyes.

In case there are doubts that this was a one-off or a writing error, we do see multiple instances of another powerful legilimens (Queenie Goldstein) reading minds without eye contact being made, for example in film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them where she hears her sister while making direct eye contact with someone else.

QUEENIE and JACOB gaze into each other’s eyes. NEWT and TINA sit opposite each other, uncomfortably silent in the presence of such affectionate behaviour.

QUEENIE: (to TINA) I am not flirting!

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  • When was the existence of legilmancy (and its limitations) introduced? If it was in a book after the Goblet of Fire, then it was probably a retroactive effort to justify/explain Voldemort's claimed ability to see through lies, and the discrepancy about eye contact is simply an oversight/a rule that was then later discarded.
    – Alexia
    Commented Jul 13 at 14:16
  • @Alexia - Snape does it a bunch of times in the earlier books (probably); harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/…
    – Valorum
    Commented Jul 13 at 14:42
  • Were those instances by Snape explicitly called "legilmancy", or were they just a vague and/or implied magical ability to detect falsehood? Because of the serialized nature of the books, there are a lot of instances of things being written into later books to cover for/explain things that happened in previous books. If legilmancy's rules are established in book 4, they may not apply in previous books (due to not having been formalized as rules yet).
    – Alexia
    Commented Jul 13 at 16:52
  • Is the Tina/Queenie thing really Legilimency or just magical sisters sharing a telepathic-like connection that allows them to feel/hear each other, perhaps similar to the one between Harry and Voldemort? There’s also the fact that we see Legilimency from the point of view of the subject of Legilimency a number of times, when Snape tries to teach Harry Occlumency, and it is described there as something Harry is definitely aware of – his present surroundings vanish, and he sees a film roll of scenes and images. There’s no indication that anything like that takes place here.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 15 at 7:51
  • The latter point is possibly explained by this answer, which hypothesises that simply detecting whether someone is being truthful or not is a different level/kind of Legilimency to actually delving in and retrieving feelings and memories. Incidentally, this could also be the aspect where eye contact becomes essential: detecting truth can be done without it, delving deeper requires eye contact.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 15 at 8:02
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Voldemort didn't need to use Legilimency. He already knew Frank wasn't married.

  1. Voldemort's been living in the big house for a while already. He surely would have taken an inventory of the threats before that night. He would know that the caretaker lived alone.

  2. Everyone in the village knows who Frank is. He's famous/notorious for "getting let off" of the Riddles' murders. If he had gotten married, it would be know by everyone.

  3. When Voldemort was a teenager and committed the Riddle murders, he would have followed (and probably laughed about) what happened to the caretaker, Frank. He knows full well all about Frank; he already knows he's not got a wife.

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  • 2
    Regarding point #3, his knowledge of Frank was decades out of date. Regarding point #1, the caretaker clearly lives in a nearby cottage, not up at the big house. I doubt Voldemort paid much attention to the villagers and their little lives.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jul 13 at 17:05
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    Valid comments, but since he's very weak and vulnerable at this time, I think he would have done a thorough scouring of the grounds for threats, including the cottage. His personal attachment to the Riddle murders may have made him act/follow Frank's story differently; he wasnt "just" a villager, he was proof of Voldemort's cleverness in fooling everyone :)
    – Canadian Girl Scout
    Commented Jul 13 at 17:21
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    The problem is that we're now getting into fan-fic territory. He might have scoured the grounds or he might have had wormtail do it for him. He might have overheard the villagers talking about how Frank never got married. He might have done a lot of things...
    – Valorum
    Commented Jul 13 at 17:45
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    @CanadianGirlScout but it's not the only thing voldemort knew. He also said "Nobody knows you are here. You told nobody that you were coming." he couldn't know all these already.
    – Dhruv Sharma
    Commented Jul 13 at 20:52
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    Personally I agree that this (or something along these lines) is the most likely explanation, but nevertheless it is speculative - there's nothing in the book that specifically validates this as the right answer.
    – David Z
    Commented Jul 14 at 6:21
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Let's ignore magic

We know that Voldemort is an expert Legiliment, but he doesn't have to use it all the time. People can detect lies without any magic, and some are better than others - Voldemort is likely highly capable of doing so even without magic.

Voldemort is a psychopath
Voldemort is designed as a psychopath. A common trope is that psychopaths are hyper-capable when contacting other people - they can manipulate, lie and deceive others, and can detect when they attempt to do the same. While research in this topic appears inconclusive, mass-media personas like Hannibal Lecter seem to stick to that idea.

He's overconfident
He considers other people (especially Muggles) as inferior beings, so him believing he can see right through their pity attempts at deceptions fits his character just right.

He's exaggerating
He might have said that just to maintain his image as the powerful leader. He talks to Frank, but really he wants to tell Wormtail "Do not ever lie to me, I will know and I will punish you" to scare him and deter from attempting to deceive the Dark Lord.

We see him detect lies where magic is out of question
As Alex's answer mentioned, we see Voldemort detect Harry's lie even at his lowest, where he cannot use wand and likely cannot use magic at all. Granted, 11-year old lying in highly stressful situation is a low hanging fruit, but Voldemort couldn't even see him at the time, so he knows that only by voice changes.

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    I think this gets far more close to the truth than the other answers. Its the reasonable, practical answer. The lie is very transparent. You don't need magic to call that bluff. This scene would have worked perfectly with any villain in any story, its almost a classical trope.
    – Polygnome
    Commented Jul 16 at 18:32
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    "Common sense is often mistaken for Legilimency"
    – htmlcoderexe
    Commented Jul 23 at 8:33
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Voldemort is able to detect lies without eye contact elsewhere as well. In Chapter Seventeen of Philosopher's Stone we find:

But he hadn’t walked five paces before a high voice spoke, though Quirrell wasn’t moving his lips.

“He lies . . . He lies . . .”

“Potter, come back here!” Quirrell shouted. “Tell me the truth! What did you just see?”

The high voice spoke again.

“Let me speak to him . . . face-to-face. . . .”

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  • That may not be evidence of actually knowing that he lied, but just believing that he did for other reasons. The request to speak face-to-face is quite likely to enable him to use Legilimency to be certain.
    – Miral
    Commented Jul 15 at 5:03
  • @Miral it’s as much an evidence as Voldemort’s claim to know that Frank is lying. In either case, we do not really know whether he truly knows or is just presuming.
    – Holger
    Commented Jul 15 at 10:40

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