A/N: I've spent the past few weeks reading lots of good stuff about the young Voldemort. I felt inspired to write something myself. This is AU... Voldemort reflects on his life and how it fails a bit. (one-shot)
Tom Marvolo Riddle liked being alone.
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To him, it felt rather like locking the world away in a little box and setting it up high on a shelf where it didn't matter anymore. Nothing existed outside of the small, dark chamber furnished with a bed and a chair.
When he was alone, he wasn't forced to think of ways to make him seem more malevolent.
He wasn't required to kill people who didn't need killing.
He wasn't required to live up to his name, Lord Voldemort. The name had once been merely a thought, a whimsical one at best, never meant to inspire anything more than perhaps an odd look or a chuckle from anyone who heard it. It certainly was never meant to have these connotations of fear, of death, of violence. It wasn't even supposed to be "Lord." "Lord" conjured up images of bibles and stained glass windows and preachers preaching things no one cared about in Riddle's mind. Tom Marvolo Riddle was not a religious man.
If he was thought to be fixated upon the Dark Arts, then people were very much mistaken. Some people hated them, wished to eradicate their use. Others viewed them as the ultimate way to gain power. To Riddle the Dark Arts were merely another subject, like Transfiguration, or Herbology. They were studied extensively because they were difficult learn about. Tom Marvolo Riddle liked a challenge.
When he was alone, he didn't have to order Death Eaters around. The members of his so-called "Inner Circle" were powerful, well-educated wizards, but misunderstood the point of their organization. In fact, Tom Marvolo Riddle no longer associated himself with these men. They believed they were hunting people who disagreed with "Lord Voldemort's" so-called "views" on how the Wizarding community should live.
Tom Marvolo Riddle didn't have any views on this topic. As far as he was concerned, the Wizarding community was living just fine without his intervention. He wasn't interested in killing most Muggles either. They were just people who couldn't levitate objects with magic wands and thus found other ways to put things on high shelves. If anything, Tom Marvolo Riddle had admired their inventiveness and stubborn desire to succeed. The people the Death Eaters had hunted at first -- back at Hogwarts, were he was their leader -- were merely those that had done him wrongs in the past. They had scrutinized his blood status, treated him like filth, ignored him, or worse, thought he was "troubled" and wanted to offer "help." It didn't help that there were very many of these people, and Tom knew all their names. Tom Marvolo Riddle was an organized man.
When Tom Marvolo Riddle was alone, he wasn't required to act like he planned to take over the world.
In fact, he had never had any desire to. The Death Eaters were of a different opinion. They believed the only way to absolute power was by instilling Lord Voldemort as the absolute ruler of everything.
Tom Marvolo Riddle knew that Muggles were already running the world. The magical community was the minority, the minority that was forced to hide and was constantly under threat. Muggle authorities were smart enough to keep this minority unnoticed. Pointless Death Eater attacks were written of as natural disasters or terrorist bombings.
Tom Marvolo Riddle didn't want absolute power. He didn't need the Death Eaters sticking to him like they were attached with spellotape. He knew he would be much better off with a small isolated cottage in Scotland or Ireland, brewing potions or working with obscure forms of magic that no one knew or cared about.
Albus Dumbledore believed Tom Marvolo Riddle wanted immortality. Actually, he wanted nothing of the sort. Immortality was a concept he had studied very thoroughly and decided was not for him. It sounded, at best, tedious; at worst, suicidal. Unfortunately it had taken him a while to decide this, and Dumbledore had gotten it into his head that Riddle had made Horcruxes in his sixth year. To the young Riddle, it had sounded like a painful process that required messy spellwork and messier murder. Riddle did not like a mess. He made no Horcruxes.
Dumbledore also believed that Riddle didn't understand love. This was preposterous; Riddle understood love and had even been in love, back in the days when he wasn't surrounded by Death Eaters everywhere he went. She had been a clever and intelligent girl, very pretty, in Tom's eyes, with eyes like obsidian and mahogany curls framing a pale face. She was killed by Death Eaters six months after she met Riddle. They had said she was a threat.
It didn't matter. They knew Lord Voldemort had already forgotten.
But when Tom Marvolo Riddle was alone, he would remember. He would remember how peace had filled him as he gazed over the Hogwarts lake. He remembered the satisfaction of mastering a difficult spell. He would remember the quiet days spent studying in the sole company of the creaking shelves in the library, poring over books with fascination known only to himself. He would remember how she had touched his face, skin softer than a butterfly's wing.
Riddle didn't like to remember. It made being alone difficult. So he decided he would stay in the company of the Death Eaters, knowing that while they still feared him, still believed he was their leader, he would be safe. His safety -- their fear -- would come with a price.
Lord Voldemort would be forced to think of ways to seem more malevolent.
He would kill people who didn't need killing.
He would order around Death Eaters.
He would forget about love.
He would take over the world.
He would become immortal.
He would live up to his name... Lord Voldemort.
He would never remember again. He wouldn't want to remember.
He would pay a price.
He would die at the hands of one who remembered.
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Tom Marvolo Riddle resolved to be alone more often.
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