Voldemort who used to be an intelligent, remarkable, and even literally good-looking, student at Hogwarts by the name of Tom Riddle, (and is still intelligent and remarkable, albeit by dark and destructive standards) had aspired to become the greatest wizard, and in his immersion into the Dark Arts, had become deformed.

In his 1981 attempt to kill the one-year old boy Harry Potter, Lord Voldemort lost his physical body, and had become weak and formless. He had taken on an abstract form that allowed him to possess bodies of animals suggesting that he had a permeable, spirit-like form. In the Sorcerer's Stone movie, Voldemort’s disembodied state appeared exactly like this, as he fled from Professor Quirrel’s body, permeating Harry’s body and finally fleeing---ghostly and angry. He lived as a parasite, taking refuge in the bodies of animals, of which, he preferred snakes most.

Voldemort’s first rise to power stimulated the formation of the first Order of the Phoenix, a society that opposed and fought against Voldemort and the Death Eaters.