We know of course that they were brilliant students, the like of which were never seen at Hogwarts but one can't do it all? Which subjects do you think Riddle and Dumbledore might've actually had to study for? Which did they have no aptitude for?

I like to think Voldemort was a poor flyer at Hogwarts. He was probably good at Divination in a way that made him take prophecies seriously. I can imagine him not caring for CoMC. Actually now that I'm thinking about it, they were probably flawless in the wanded subjects and average in the other areas.

 

Pretty sure they were geniuses of magic all around, it seems if you are on their level you just have a intuitive talent for all kinds of magic.

Dumbledore was noted to have won every prize of note the school had to offer and he also was even in his school years published in not just wanded subjects but also in potions magazines and all kinds of scholars like Batilda Bagshot contacted him not just in the wanded subjects.

Tom Riddle also was beloved by Slughorn for his skill and iirc he created some potions as well or had atleast the obscure knowledge to create the potion to create a rudimentary body and the potion at the lake in HBP.

They also had O´s in every subject so they were atleast highly skilled if not intuitively talented.

I also don't believe they were bad at flying Harry noted Dumbledores skill at flying in HBP and Voldemort did invent the skill to fly even without a broom which I believe Rowling said is kind of like a crutch like a wand and with enough skill you don't need which seems to indicate that he is very skilled at flying.

 

He probably didn't care for it but he still got an O in it. And while he most likely didn't care for the "Care" part of the subject, he was probably quite interested in dark creatures like Dementors, Werewolves and all that.

They weren't bad at anything. That's what made them so scary.

Yeah, it's possible that they couldn't fly brooms well but unfortunately there's nothing we can extrapolate from Canon to make that assumption.

 

Well, Dumbledore refers to music as a form of magic. I can't imagine either him or Voldemort being good at that. Also, Love as magic...something both dumbledore and voldemort sucked at.

But yeah, the actual magic stuff? They were geniuses.

 

Honestly, I'm not sure what we were supposed to take away from divination as an academic discipline. It sounds like you're either a Seer or you're not, and if you're not, you're wasting your time trying to learn it. But even if you are a Seer you'll only be effective in very rare trances you won't even remember afterwards, so everything from the classroom is entirely useless. If so, then it doesn't seem like there's much to learn about divination except not to rely on it, and neither Dumbledore nor Voldemort were Seers.

Of course, it only recently occurred to me that just as important as Voldemort taking Trelawney's prophecy seriously was Snape taking it seriously, which raises some questions about how he treated the subject that bears examination from somebody.

But back to Dumbledore and Voldemort, they lacked a few other magical gifts that aren't learnable, such as being Metamorphmagi, and it doesn't seem like either invested the time to become Animagi either, so you could say they're bad at that insofar as they never took the time to master that discipline. And I guess we don't see them brewing many potions on their own, but there's no reason to believe they'd have any trouble with that even if they might not be as good as specialists like Snape and Slughorn.

 

Keeping in mind that we're talking about high school level learning, its unlikely that someone of (what appears to be) distinctly above average intelligence, talent, and drive would fail to achieve Os all round. You don't need to be a genius or a prodigy to get an O in a subject, you just have to put the time and effort in to studying it.

They both struck me as variations on the concept of the polymath or renaissance man. If it can be studied, they could have studied it sufficiently to feel competent in discussing it and applying that knowledge.

 

In my headcannon, the stuff Voldemort was bad at was the stuff we saw as traps in the Philosopher's stone. So bad at CoMC, Herbology, Flying, Chess, Riddles, in that sort of order. However bad as the qualifier here should really be 'uninterested to remember' as opposed to outright bad, given that it had been 40-50 years since he'd studied any of it.

 

I think it's fair to say that Voldemort wishes he had put more time into understanding wandlore.

 

In my headcanon, Voldemort isn't a genius in the same sense that Dumbledore is. Dumbledore is a genius in the conventional sense, meaning that he excels at everything, has an intuitive grasp of magic, and possesses genuine intellectual curiosity. He's the type to seek out knowledge for the sake of knowledge. That doesn't mean he's infallible, obviously; he makes mistakes all the time, mostly related to how he treats people. But he's a true student of magic.

Voldemort, otoh, seems like the sort of fellow who would seek out only the kind of knowledge that could make him more powerful. He probably got fantastic grades, but was interested in CoMC only insofar as getting an O granted him some prestige. He sought out obscure knowledge like horcruxes because it would allow him to cheat death. He didn't give a shit about the uses of dragon's blood (or ten pin bowling). As Taure mentioned, he didn't know much about wandlore; neither did he know much about love or sacrificial-based magic. Or prophecies. Or the Department of Mysteries. Prior to the books, he didn't even bother learning how to resurrect his body if he died. Surely wandering as a spirit in Albania for 10 years wasn't the plan.

He was capable of great feats of magic, and acquired obscure knowledge when it benefited him to do so, but mainly his 'genius' seems to lie in being obscenely powerful, ruthless, and amoral.

 

I'm assuming more of the "Ancient" stuff was lost on Voldemort. Which is why he didn't account for the sacrificial protection (he himself talking about it like he knew of its existence). He was also very unaware of matters in regards to the soul, splitting his soul seven times which eventually made it so that his after-life would just be perpetual hell.

Dumbledore, on the other hand, was probably a polymath and is stated to be a genius the likes of which the wizarding world had not seen before him. It's hard to imagine there was much he was bad at, even flying is kind of disproven for the man as he had fared pretty well on a broom with Harry in HBP.

Voldemort too was likely good on a broom, not to play Quidditch but because he just had an obsession with flying.

Though I am of the opinion that Divination was probably neither of their strongest subjects just because many "learned" people scoff at the idea of it. Then there are IRL Tumblr Girls like Parvati and Lavender that are master astrologists.

 

Voldemort did know about the sacrificial magic, Tom Riddle in Chamber of Secret actually recognizes how Harry survived after Harry tells him his mother died for him. It just seems like Voldemort didn't consider it.

 

I'm sure Voldemort knew a lot about sacrificial magic, but likely didn't seriously consider the power of sacrificial magic based on love.

 

I think it's more that they both have an intricate understanding of, and relationship with, magic such that they manifest their will with it. Think of the epic fight in OotP, where they're both transfiguring and charming entire chunks of their shared environment to duel each other. But also how Voldemort can fly, and old man Dumbledore is surprisingly light on his feet, almost athletic even.

Maybe even that their very beings and magic are intertwined, which I suspect is true for all magical folks, but only some see past the wandwaving and incantations.

So, in practice, Dumbledore casts the phoenix patronus to fend off dementors, while Voldemort somehow parlays with them. The end-result is the same—no dementors fucking with you—but very different routes. I like to think that Tom's red eyes and Dumbledore's twinkle are aspects of the same thing.

Magic isn't a thing you look at and draw conclusions from, even if wizards do do it for the sake of convenience. That's a very muggle thing to do. The wizard is Magic embodied, and there is no separation. When you are looking at magic, you are looking at the self.

I think people like Dumbledore and Voldemort have that mentality. Also Harry, and even Ron to some degree, but certainly not Hermione.

So, I don't think there's anything about magic that are truly beyond the grasp of the likes of Dumbledore and Tom. They are magic.