Why wouldn't Tom make himself the secret keeper to begin with?

I suspect that the Fidelius would just collapse in this case.

XD

He killed Lucius BEFORE he was told the secret by Lucius. If he does the same with the others, he will no longer know about his horcruxes and split his soul enough to destroy himself.

There are several inconsistencies with the Fidelius, I have them in my notes to abuse if I ever want to. :) This abuse has always bothered me because it just doesn't seem logical. It seems to me, that if the secret keeper snuffs it, then only those who know the secret can access "it", but they can't share it. Then when the last of them dies, then the secret should be discoverable again ... but that's probably too logical.

Searching...yes, this is #5 of 5 in my list:

5. Book 7 also brings up an interesting question on this spell. Hermione inadvertently "shares the secret" and allows someone to know about Grimmauld Place when he is holding onto her as she Apparates into the charmed area. Basically, she silently and implicitly gives him "the secret" by that action (or so the charm interprets it that way). How can he "be in on" the secret if she hasn't told him the "magic phrase"? Fine, he's in the house, but were Hermione to toss him out, he shouldn't be able to get back in (should he?), but that's not what the story implies (or else that was not how I read things, but perhaps the kids over-reacted and the story is told from Harry's PoV and he doesn't always understand all the theory of magic.

It's typical of Tom that he chooses to murder his own Death Eaters when simply using random murder victims he was going to kill anyway would work.

For that matter, I think the Bill Weasley precedent means he could have simply used himself as the Secret-Keeper anyway.

Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead, as the old saying goes.

Now, how in hell did Ron Weasley, who was never a secret keeper for anyone, manage to get his friends, acquaintances, a goblin, and a house elf to Bill's house?

Gawd, Rowling is a lazy writer.

Definitely something Voldemort would do, though perhaps using random low level minions rather than a rich supporter like Lucius.

It's unfortunate the books contradict themselves on the Fidelius. James and Lily using someone else as their secret keeper implies they couldn't have been their own secret keeper, but in book 7 there are the counter examples of Shell Cottage (where Bill lives and is his own secret keeper) and Aunt Muriel's (where other Weasleys are hiding and Arthur is secret keeper).

And when he attacks harry and his spell backfires either the fidelius will be broken or harry having a piece of riddles soul in him will enable him to know everything covered.

xxx Kudos xxx : )

Why didn't he just make himself the secret keeper?

I think your right about the secret keeper needing to not be the direct beneficiary of the secret, otherwise either Lilly or James would have been their own secret keeper.

This was good and it shows Riddle really did take care with his soul, in the books he was a bit careless. Tom is lucky Lucius did not use the diary and blood of a house elf to make the Dark Lord a follower or minion of the Malfoy family.

It probably would just fizzle out in short order. Though the Voldemort in this story, there ARE no secret keepers left for that secret; he never got Lucius to reinform the secret. Well, at least I think that's how it has to be? Thinking on it, I don't recall if that was an actual requirement or just a fanon caveat.

Even so, there's probably something where the caster of the spell cannot be the sole secret keeper, if not the secret keeper in general.

Couldn't Voldemort have just made himself his own secret-keeper? It would probably save the lives of quite a few Death Eaters, and it's not like Voldemort's going to tell anyone he made Horcruxes, even under torture.