PAIRING: None
TABLE: Table 7 - DARK
PROMPT: #1 - HATRED
RATING: G
SUMMARY: The reason Voldemort chose Harry and not Neville that fateful night.
NOTES: I envision this as happening in Tom's fourth year, before he starts his killings and making his Horcruxes. He hasn't met his grandfather or uncle yet, but he has researched his family in depth, so he knows what his grandfather is supposed to be like. I know the Vanishing spell was fifth year material in the books, but imagine that Dumbledore teaches at a faster pace – and he doesn't have the Triwizard Tournament to worry about!
"...and for my birthday, I got a Silver Arrow! Can you believe it - a Silver Arrow, the best and most expensive broom on the market, and it's mine!"
Tom Marvolo Riddle listened to Potter's boastful words with a jealous heart. Forced to sit in front of that fool by Dumbledore - he'd never trusted him after the incident in the orphanage - he tried to Evenesco his kitten lackadaisically. His mind was on other things.
Tom was the talented one, the powerful one, and yet fools like Charlus Potter were given doting pureblood families. He, on the other hand, was stuck a halfblood, born of a pathetic muggle father and and a weak excuse for a pureblood, mother. The only saving grace in his bloodline on his mother's side seemed to be Salazar Slytherin - all his descendants until Tom himself had been weak, self-important fools like his grandfather was reputed to be.
Potter's parents, on the other hand, were not only alive where Tom's own were dead, but also extremely magically powerful. Potter got to return home to a mansion over the summers - his only choices were a drafty, empty castle, or a dull, depressing orphanage. As much as Hogwarts was home to him, he didn't want to spend time here over the summer, and wouldn't have done so if it weren't for the fact that it was the better of two evils.
Potter had the aristocratic name to go with his background - he, the last descendant of the noble Slytherin was stuck with the most common name possible - Tom.
Potter was popular and loved by students of all four houses, a Quiddtich star, touted to be the next rookie sensation once he left Hogwarts - all Tom had were the prospects of entry level jobs, and a few Slytherins bound to him by fear and a desire for power.
It was at that moment a decision was made which would change the future of the wizarding world. Tom Marvolo Riddle decided that if he couldn't be loved, he would be feared - and not only by insignificant teenagers, but by every person in the wizarding world. If he was stuck being a halfblood and saddled with a common name, he would make sure that no one knew of those two facts - and that those who did, would forget them. If he couldn't have a privileged, aristocratic upbringing like he should have had, he'd have a privileged, aristocratic adulthood instead - and the grandest one possible, too. If he had to bear the sight of fools like Potter being handed both power and respect right now, he would make sure that in the future, people would want his respect. The wizarding world would tremble at his feet when he became the most powerful wizard ever to live.
And as for Charlus Potter - well, as a thank you for making him realise some important facts, Tom would make sure that the Potter family name which the boy was so proud of, would become nothing more than a forgotten footnote in history books.