Hey - this is my hand at writing a darker fanfic from what I've done before. So yeahh. Here ya go.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Harry-related, it's all JK's.
There's always been a chunk missing. Something, some part missing from his life. It didn't make sense. What pushed him off the edge? Most people assume it's because of the incident with his uncle that shook him awake, that caused him to become what he is today. But those people are wrong.
Let me take you back many years ago, back when the world was blissful and unaware of a certain young man, by the name of Tom, Tom Riddle. Those who knew him thought well of him, and those who saw him were instantly impressed. He was quite good-looking, but had a certain mechanical air about him - almost as if he were plastic; like he had no emotions to spare. His smiles were empty, his gaze was rehearsed. He had trained himself to please, and of course, who wouldn't be pleased by him? A youthful, attractive young man as he was, he had no problem persuading others to give him what he wanted. He could wrangle nearly anything from almost anyone with his charm, and this came in handy where he worked.
He had a day job at a store named Borgin and Burkes, a magical antique collection shop that specialized in the often dangerously occult. Tom was the man they sent in to retrieve an object they wanted from its owner. He was quite successful at this, and for that he received much praise. Sometimes, people at the store would wonder what such a bright young fellow like Tom Riddle would be doing with a shop job such as this, but they were often left hanging. Tom assured them he had no problem with his work, and, with a flash of a curious smile, he would persuade them to purchase one of the less valuable items in the store for a ludicrously high price. What's even more ludicrous is, they would often go and do just that.
What interested Tom Riddle in his job were the strange and mysterious artifacts he was asked to collect. They did all sorts of amazing things, some were said to be cursed; others, wield great power over the wearer. He was inclined to take them all for himself, but of course, he was in no position to do that. So he found himself one.
It was a simple ruse, really: he would simply go to the person in question's house and convince them to part with their dearest mystical treasure with his wit and charm. Once they did so, he would pocket the trinket carefully and conceal it, so that no one would realize he was keeping it for himself. Then, he would just go back to Borgin & Burkes, tell them that the said person wouldn't let go of their treasure, and leave it at that. People usually didn't question Tom; they left him to his own devices. This worked to his advantage.
Soon after discovering this new way to pillage through ages of antiques, Tom began to scout out his own artifacts to find. He would search through newspaper articles, history books, and of course, word of mouth, to find out the locations of any magical, powerful, rare items and go off and take them under the name of Borgin & Burkes. This proved no problem to him at all. Most of the world seemed too gullible for words.
Now, Tom was always on the lookout for more and more ways to locate antiques. He thought it was taking too long, picking up tips from people and stories and chasing leads. He needed a reliable source, a full catalogue of items. And this particular type of source came to him only a few weeks after he started his little plan. He was sitting in a back room at Borgin & Burkes, and came across a dusty, leather-bound book entitled "Darke Artifacts and Whence They Came From". Flipping through the book a little, Tom found it was filled to the brim with delightful information on almost every single power-charged object imaginable. There were a few he'd already collected, and several more he was in the process of tracking, but most of them he hadn't even touched on yet. It made him realize how he's only scratched the surface on all the gold-digging he could do. There were so many useful antiques in the book to look over he could scarcely contain his excitement. Turning each yellowed page, every item in the book seemed to get more valuable, more powerful, and more and more close to home.
Deciding to see if the book was still accurate after all its years, Tom picked an artifact from it that he would quite like to own. It was an amulet, an amulet that belonged to a French-Italian family named the Cameres. According to the dusty tome, it gave the wearer the ability to store an infinite amount of the wearer's magic into it, so in the event that you were weakened, you could take some energy from the amulet and you'd be back on your feet. You could even store other wizard's magic inside it, all you had to do was point the amulet at them and press your thumb into the back of it. Tom thought this was definitely worth looking over.
He had looked up the Cameres on the tacked-up charts of detailed family trees that were up on the far wall of the back room. These were quite useful for tracking down the last and latest family member of a certain heritage, so store staff could get in contact with them. He carefully looked over all the family trees, of all the families connected with the dark arts. He ran his finger over them, checking over each name for the last name "Camere". It looked like a lost cause - the family trees were too branched out, too numerous, and far too time-consuming. He had almost decided to give up the prospect, when he finally found it: Jacques Camere, the first in line of the Camere family. He had apparently changed his name from the non-illustrious last name of his parents (which was Traipe) to the far fancier-sounding 'Camere'. Tom looked to the right of Jacques' name, and found that this man had, according to the chart, married a sea nymph.
Tom cocked an eyebrow and double-checked he'd got it right. Yes, there it was. No name, but the words 'sea nymph' scribbled into the family tree rather messily in permanent ink. All right then, he thought, i suppose some people have had stranger beginnings. He flicked his gaze to the bottom of the Camere line. Almost none of the last row had the last name 'Camere'. In fact, most of the last row seemed too far apart and diluted from the main tree that it seemed impossible for the first Cameres to have passed on the amulet to. He looked them over again, and found, to the far left, the words "Angelique Victoria Camere". He had not noticed this installment in the tree because there were numerous scribbles across it, as though someone wanted to hide the name. Underneath the scribbles was a single scrawled word, in scratchy, faded writing. The word read very plainly, "Insane".
This was going to be a little tough.