Author's note: Okay, okay, so I'm a bit nuts. I know that. I'm just like Voldemort, aren't I. I guess Voldemort here possessed me for a bit and made me write this. And since technically, he wrote it, well, of course you're going to review, or else he'll come to your house in the middle of the night and hang the Dark Mark over your bedroom. Okay, maybe I'll stop blackmailing you people. Maybe. ::bursts out laughing:: Just kidding. In any case, review.
The Life and Tragedy of Voldemort
Voldemort was born to Tom Riddle.We all know that. He inherited his father and grandfather's names. So his name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. We know that much from the absolutely wonderful books of the authentic Harry Potter. What you don't know is about his, er, "condition". Or about the exact reason Voldemort's father left him and his mother. Well, okay, it says it's because Tom found out she (the mother) was a witch. But here I am going to tell you the real reason...
Part I
Tom looked down at his wife. She smiled at him bravely, sweat drying on her face. He thought she looked beautiful anyway. Then she turned her head slightly away from him, and he followed her gaze. The bundle of linen brought out the slightly strained grin that was his.
"Our son," Tom said hoarsely. He leaned down, brushing his lips against Sally's forehead. Settling down in her bed, Sally spoke.
"Our son," she said, echoing his words. Her face had suddenly turned into a frown. "What will we name him?"
His features turned to one of concern when he saw the frown. "Sweetie, why, we'll think of a name, don't worry."
"We could name him Tom, after you." This timid statement was interrupted by a loud gurgling from the unnamed baby. They both smiled proudly.
"Okay," Tom relented. "What about his middle name? How about Marvolo, after my father." Sally noticed the sudden tightness of the nostrils, and she made an extra nice effort to say encouragingly,
"Of course, that's wonderful, honey. Now, why don't you go and rest, you must have been up all night."
Relieved that the naming had been taken care of, he left after assuring himself that she would be all right.
Sally bit her lip. She was going to tell Tom tonight. He probably wouldn't get so mad that way, since the baby had come...
She smoothed a bit of unruly hair from Tom Marvolo's face. He was beautiful. And, at the moment, fast asleep. Sally smiled distantly and sighed.
Tonight.
"Excuse me?" Tom said, unfriendly and very unlike the man Sally had loved for almost a year. She cringed.
"I am a witch," she said, drawing on the last bit of her courage. Oh, shit, was what she was thinking. "A real, well, a witch."
He shook his head, disbelief and anger mounting in his eyes. "No, you aren't." Sally felt a flash of annoyment.
"Oh, yes I am." she said quietly.
Tom still felt like this was a joke. A newly-parent joke, he thought. She can't be... telling the truth, it's absurd. "Um, honey? You- you can't be a- well, right?"
She finally looked into his eyes from where she lay on the sofa. Tom Marvolo lay peacefully sleeping upstairs, oblivious to the heated argument going on below. "Give me that stick of wood on the table," she said to him. Shaking his head disbelievingly, he went and retrieved the piece of wood he'd seen there before and tried to throw out, but was always stopped by his wife. Now he brought it to her, and she held it familiarly in her hand. She seemed to be thinking.
Finally, she said, "Accio!" and pointed the stick to one of the books lying on the floor. Tom appeared to be in total shock. He'd somehow seen the book, the actual book, go flying in the air to where it lay in her arms.
"I'm hallucinating," he said slowly. "There's no other reason." Sally shook her head, full of grief and eyes full of sadness.
"I made it move, Tom."
"No," he repeated. "It-it's me, it is I- I'm going out. Bye, sweetheart."
"But- but why, what?! Stay here, darling, wait!" Her words echoed in the room. She listened for the slamming of the door. When it came, she cringed again. "Holy- why, oh, God, why?"
Part II
"Ah! Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh! Mummy-get-it-off-me!" the ten year-old boy named Tom Marvolo Riddle shrieked helplessly until his mother heard him. Curious, she ran up the stairs, and opened the door as fast as she could. Then she gasped. For a moment, she looked stunned. As much as she had hoped it would not have happened, there it was. An owl. From Hogwarts. Let Tom not see it, she prayed. She realized Tommy was still shrieking with terror, so she walked over to where he lay, her beautiful boy, on his bed, and firmly but carefully lifted the handsome grey owl from where it had landed on his bed. Her fingers shook slightly as she took the letter the owl had in its talons. Tommy stopped shrieking immediately. There it was, just as she remembered it.
Dear Mr. Riddle,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hog-
"Mummy, what is it?" asked Tommy curiously, taking the letter from her grasp before she could utter a word.
"NO!" she yelled. She took the letter back form her son's hand. He looked bewildered, and she tried to keep her voice steady as she said,
"I think it's a mistake, honey. Come on, get dressed. Daddy is waiti- oh my." silently cursing, she lowered her head.
"What is it, Sally darling?" Tom stood in the opened doorway, his eyes puzzled. "What is this, Tommy?" As Sally stood, transfixed with terror, he reached out and picked the letter up from where she had let it slip from her hand. Sally braced herself for his anger.
After two minutes, she stood, still and eyes shut tightly. Daring to lift her head, she encountered Tom's steady agze. Tommy looked confused, from one parent ot the other.
"Mummy, Dad, what's the matter?" he uttered, before Tom spoke in a low, barely contained voice.
"This is it, isn't it." It wan't a question. His eyes had a glazed look to them. "The letter. He's a witch, just like you. I knew it- I thought I- you are." He said, still in that voice. Sally started to sweat nervously, glancing toward the door. Tom saw her look and shook his head slowly. "No. You are, he is. I am not. You are what you said you were. I thought I had imagined it, but no. You and him both. You are against me."
Sally looked frightened and started to feel a bit concerned. "Honey?" she asked shakily.
"What the hell do you want with me? I will not give anything to- you." He spoke the last word as an insult. By this time, Tommy was shrinking, awed, trying to make himself as small as possible in the doorway of the bathroom.
"I will have nothing to do with your people. You are all nightmares. This is a nightmare. Go- aw- away." He closed his eyes, adverting the apparently disgusting sight of his wife breaking down into tears. Yet, when he opened them, she was still here.
"Oh, no. No, no no no!" his eyes filled with shocked tears. He tought he saw the stick- no, wand. She was a witch. Going to kill him with her evil-. She had decieved him all these years.
"NO!" shaking with imagined fear, he stumbled on his way out. "You'll- never- get me!" he gasped. There came the sound of a thud, followed by the slam of the door. Sally had a flash of that night ten years ago, when she'd thought he'd left her for good. She'd been wrong. It was this time.
She broke down, sobbing hysterically, sobs racking her body. "Mummy?" a small hand came and patted her on the back. "Don't worry, I'm here for you. Mummy, what happened?"
Tommy's mother only sobbed more. His ten-year-old brain was going round and round in circles. What was wrong with Mummy? Did Dad just leave her? With cold certainty that washed away the naiveness, Tom Marvolo Riddle knew he was right.
Tom Riddle had just left them.
"Mummy?" asked Tommy cautiously. "Mummy?"
She tried to smile. "I'm not a mummy," she tried to joke. She gave up and said instead, seriously, "Tommy, promise me that you'll take care of yourself, no matter what."
A shadow of concern crossed his face. "Mummy, what's- I mean, yes, yes, I will. Whatever it takes." He repeated. His mother smiled. Feeling slightly better, he smiled trembingly at her.
"Well, then. Go to your room and get dressed. I will be fine, don't worry, darling. Just go and- get dressed, yes." He didn't budge. Somethin was wrong with her eyes. They had the same look his fathers had had this morning. And besides, he already was dressed.
"I am dres-" he protested timidly.
"GO!" she yelled suddenly. Her hand snaked out of the inside of the weird, black robes she was wearing. She held the stick of wood Tommy had found once under her bed. Tommy started to breath nervously.
"Go!" she repeated, a smile twisting her lips. "I'm okay. I'll be fine, darling." She laughed a high, cold, evil laugh that would remain with Tom Marvolo Riddle for the rest of his life. He turned and bolted for the stairs.
"Mummy?" he called, hoping to get an answer. He did. A loud yell of words he'd never heard before, a flash of green light and he was down the stairs once again. Once down, he nearnly tripped over his mother's robe-covered body.
"AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!" He started to scream uncontrallbly. Sally's lifeless eyes stared back at him. His finger touched the phone. Still screaming, petrified and quaking with terror, he picked it up and by rigid instincts, dialed 911.
"911, may I help you?" cheerful, calm voice came at the other end. What the woman heard was indistinguishable.
"AAAAAAAHHHHH! AAAAHHHH! MUMMY!!!!! Help!!!!"
"I'm sorry, but you'll have to calm down, sir. Can you tell me why you're screaming?"
"AAAAAAHHHH! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!! Mummy's dead! AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!"
Poor kid, thought the lady. He sounds a bit off. Well, they'd told them what to do in these cases. She turned to her computer, putting the phone down gently onto the desk.
"Address... here it is." she muttered, still hearing the tinny screaming of the poor kid on the table. She picked up the red instant-line phone for the police. "Guys? Here's the address, go there, now. Some kid's having a fit, his mom's died or something. Yeah, go, that's what I heard."
"Okay, kid, there's going to be police coming over there, don't worry. Can you tell me your name?" She said, hoping for an answer.
"AAAAAHHHHHHH! AAAAHHH! Aaaaaahhhhhhh!" No such luck.
"Well," she sighed as she hung up, "at least the cops'll take care of him."
"This is all Dad's fault," Tom Marvolo Riddle could be heard saying. The house was swarming with policemen, neighbors and passerby.
"Tommy?" Gloria, the elderly next-door neighbor said to him. "Why don't you come along with me, they're asking for you." Numbly, Tommy was led to a tough- looking policeman with outsized biceps. He answered the man's questions slowly.
"Yes. I was in the house."
"Yes. Mom had sent me up to my room."
"No, I don't know how it happened."
"Just a lot of green light."
After a minute or so of questions, the man nodded once and left. Tommy stared at one of the paintings on the wall. It was his mother's favorite, Monet. Flowers and-. He fell forward in a dead faint.
"Yuck," he whispered to the boy in front of him. "it looks like dead slugs."
"Yeah, doesn't it?" the boy replied. "Hi. My name's Micheal, what's yours? You must be new."
Tommy nodded. "Tommy. Mom just- I mean, she died yesterday."
"You there, stop talking." the matronly woman who managed the orphanage spoke to him sharply. "Finish up." Tommy protested, but Micheal just elbowed him in the ribs.
"What?" he demanded shortly. Micheal nodded over to the other table in the cafeteria where they were eating lunch. A large teenage boy of about seventeen stared at them both, hungrily shoving down the mashed slugs. Or macaroni casserole, if you looked at the sign.
"He's been here all his life. Mrs. Parsmenser's his mother."
"Ugh." said Tommy in distaste. He focused on his slop, trying to blank out the image that the spoken word "mother" had formed. He'd stayed here that night, upon encouragement from the police. Now he wished he hadn't. It looked like he was going to stay here the rest of his life.
While he sat, thinking, an invisible form swooped silently into the smelly room. Albus Dumbledore's eyes traveled over the mass of students from beneath his Invisibility Cloak until he found one, black haired and miserable, trying to make conversation with the Muggle boy.
"Time to act quickly," Dumbledore thought.
Tommy cried out in surprise when he felt a hand grab his shoulder and whirled around.
"What's wrong with you?" Micheal asked. "nobody there."
Tommy looked around in puzzlement. "Who- what?"
A voice whispered in his ear. "Meet me outside the back door tonight at seven. Don't worry, everything's been arranged."
He gasped. Micheal looked at him strangely. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing," he replied, not entirely convinced. "Absolutely nothing."
He was still skeptical as he walked out the door without interrupting the matron in her piano lessons at seven o'clock that night. Minutes later, he was no longer skeptical.
Everything was crystal clear.
Part II
He was finally alone in the common room, alone for the first time since Dumbledore had come and took him from the orphanage to Hogwarts. Tommy was alone to think. To sort out his mixed up feelings. He had to decide something tonight. Tonight was the night.
Tonight.
He stared into the dying flames, taking deep breaths and recollecting himself. He thought about his father.
Tom smiled grimly. Slowly, a fierce light could be seen shining from his eyes. Suddenly, he remembered his mother's words before she died. Now he understood partly how she'd killed herslef. By wand. He began to speak under his breath. It was beginning to seem simple.
"Whatever it takes, Mummy, whatever it takes." Suddenly, something inside of him snapped and the real him came through, for the first time in his life. He laughed. Then he laughed again. "Whatever it takes. Don't worry, Mummy, I'll be fine."
And he laughed; a high, cold, evil laugh.
"Remember me, father? It's Tom. Remember? The child you left, along with my mother, that one day. Just because she was magical, you had to, didn't you. Well, hello, father." Tom said snidely, his voice betraying the bitterness and mistrust he had accumulated over the years. He could see the huddled form of his father, cringing on his bed, shadows plainly visible.
He walked away from the door, nearer to the burden, the start of all his troubles.
"Why- you're here, Tommy. Coming to get me." Shivering with uncertainty, his father, the one whom he was named after, said nervously.
Tommy laughed. "I am no longer Tommy. Call me- Lord Voldemort." He grinned evilly, exposing his wand. His father gave a great shuddering of breath.
"Tom Riddle, what on earth are you doing?" the hushed voices of Tommy's old grandparents came into view. Tom moaned softly from where he lay in his bed.
"Nooo, get out of here, Mother, Father, go, save yourselves, it's-"
Voldemort turned to smile mockingly at the newcomers, finger pale in the moonlight twirling his wand like a baton. "Why, it's a family reunion. How nice. The first one I've ever been to. Better for me. Bad for you."
The Riddles opened their mouths in indentical elderly fear.
The last thing Tom Riddle ever saw was the face of his once-beloved son. And heard, for the last time, the insane laugh of his once-beloved wife.
Another note: You see that thing down below? The Review box? Just asking. To all you people. well, okay, so I made up a bit about Voldemort. But Where on earth does it say that his mother died during childbirth? Or maybe I haven't read about Volemort that much. Anyway, review, tell me what ya think. (and maybe, Voldie pretended that his mother died in childbirth...ah....)
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