From Light Into Darkness

Hi! This isn't a story about Harry, which makes it different from the others I've done. It's about the life of Tom Riddle, and Lord Voldemort. It's kind of like a Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde, cus that's how I think Tom turned into Voldemort! Please review, give me ideas!

Thanks!

~*Lizzy~*

From Light Into Darkness

Tom M. Riddle paced back and forth in front of the headmaster's office. Tom knocked again, impatiently, on the door.

"Enter," a tired voice came from within the room. Tom, summoning up his remaining courage, trudged in.

"Ah, Riddle," the professor greeted him, "What is it you came to tell me?"

"I, Professor, sir, I know who opened the Chamber of Secrets."

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Later that evening, Tom Riddle lay down on his bed in the Slytherin dormitory, feeling somewhat satisfied, yet not quite. He had found a certain power in that lie he had told, the lie that got Ruebus Hagrid expelled for an awful crime that he had not committed. Tom, who felt neither guilt nor shame, was given top honors, and told to remain silent. He lay on the bed thinking to himself. What power the lie had. What glory to come out on top, even if the whole truth was not told. Tom smirked to himself. If one lie had gotten him this far, how far could many get him? He sat up, staring at the crisp blank pages of his diary… what to write, what to write? He wrote his name:

Tom Marvalo Riddle

How strange a name. As he stared at the words, it didn't seem to make sense. Who is Tom? Tom, such an ordinary name… he could think of better names for himself than the name given to him by his filthy muggle parents. He hated them. Hate was a feeling that came to Tom's mind very clearly, more clearly than anything else. He looked at his name, and after a moment, he hated it too. He needed a new name. I am… who am I? He wrote down:

Tom Marvalo Riddle I am…

I'm a god… a lord… people shall look up to me…

Tom Marvalo Riddle I am Lord…

…tomrvdle

He thought another minute… and the letter seemed to take shape on the page in front of him.

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

He stared at the words that had been invented by his own quill. A stroke of pure genius, it was. He could be innocent perfect Tom Riddle by day, and awesome, all- powerful Lord Voldemort by night… He would only tell his closest friends. No one else was to know…

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Tom Riddle had always been one of the brightest students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He had always felt a certain superiority to other students, especially large, bumbling, easy-to-take-advantage-of ones like Ruebus Hagrid.

Tom had also felt he had a special relationship with the portrait of Salazar Slytherin that hung inside the Slytherin common room. Whenever he had a problem, he felt he could almost talk to Slytherin, more than he could to his friends. Slytherin was an idol to Tom. In Tom's eyes, he was a great and powerful leader, never letting anyone stand in his way, a talented prominent individual that had helped to build the school. He had even enclosed the Chamber of Secrets in the school secretly as his own signature. Tom's ambition (since he'd learned about Hogwarts from his mother) was to be a great leader like Slytherin. He liked the feeling of being ahead, of people looking up to him, of being at the top of everything. He enjoyed passing his test without trying. He hoped to become head boy in his seventh year. But, being only a third year, his only hope at becoming powerful at school was to have a powerful social ego.

Tom's close group of friends were all for the idea of having fierce identities, even though his friends were more into going around scaring the first years than actually taking the high Lord Voldemort seriously. At first, Tom and his group of friends went around hiding their faces in their robes, talking in low voices, having secret meetings, and spooking first years. They would pretend to be enchanted by some crazy, awful, and purely fictional charm, dancing about the hallways like crazed lunatics, yelping, faces twisted in mock agony. Onlookers either laughed or screamed, but everyone had a certain respect reserved for Tom and his gang.

But it was Tom that came up with the idea of worshipping darkness and practicing the dark arts. At first, in their sixth year, they just joked around, making gothic shrines, painting their faces, learning a lot of awful, illegal, and fatal charms. But when no one was looking, Tom often snuck into the restricted section of the library to study up on the dark arts and powerful dark charms. Many dark wizards were powerful… gained power at an early age… many had gained their power through evil, fear, and darkness… never backing down, not at any cost. It was all very tempting to young Tom, and he didn't know just how far he might go.

It was like an addiction. His friends figured he was only joking, and joined him in sessions of darkness sometimes, in which Tom tried to summon the spirits of dark wizards, or tried to perform powerful and highly advanced spells. Tom was growing hungry for power. Tom and his friends made a pact to take over the world when they graduated. His friends became very serious about dark magic, but Tom was always their leader. As a Hogwarts student, he had never seen the point in in fun activities like banquets in the great hall, or quiddich. Tom had never felt love from or for anyone, and never intended to. Rather than attending social events, his time was spent in the library jotting down spells, making up his own, reading up on dark wizards, shaking his head at the downfalls of such wizards, and thinking to himself what they could have done to become more powerful, finding their mistakes. There were no faults in his plans; after all, he was head boy, and very smart, which was nothing to spit at. His professors were all quite proud of him, although they began to see a change in his attitude: all work, no play; strive for perfection. He changed everything about himself that could be a weakness. His friends were no longer friends, but allies, colleagues, his crew, his inner circle. The teachers knew that Tom would grow up to be powerful, but they had no idea what the future held for Tom Riddle, the infamous Lord Voldemort.

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When Tom left Hogwarts, he was not quite prepared for the world of power and dark magic. Several nights after their graduation, Tom and his friends were discussing the future in a local pub on Diagon Alley. A group of odd, fierce looking wizards entered. The leader, a tall grizzly man with dark greasy hair, sidled up to the counter and peering around the pub with beady eyes. The rest of the wizards, maybe four or five, huddled around the door, whispering to each other. Tom had been watching them closely as they glared angrily around at the cringing customers. Suddenly the wizard at the couter pulled out his wand and demanded all the galleons in the cash register. The terrified store owner was about to hand it over, but someone in the back stood up. Tom's chair screeched as he shoved it away carelessly. Every head turned to him as he shouted,

"Stay where you are!" He pointed his wand at the wizard, whose eyes narrowed. Tom glared at his in return.

"I am Lord Voldemort. Obey me or suffer." Tom's voice was abnormally low, his eyes glowing red. Tom did not seem like the same person anymore, not did he seem remotely even like a person. His face twisted menacingly as the fire burned within him. The tall wizard, taken aback, stumbled away from the counter, pointing his wand at Tom.

"Make me." The customers gasped. A duel in the middle of a peaceful street-corner pub? Obviously neither wizard was one they would mess with…

"Tom, buddy, come on, sit down." His friend tugged at his sleeve. But Tom swatted his hand away.

"I am Lord Voldemort, and everyone here will fear me." As Tom pointed his wand around the pub, the people seemed to have no problem with that. Tom's eyes were still fixed on the wizard's steely gray ones. The wizard took several steps backward, and shooed his gang out the door. His wand hand was still extended, but even so, he backed out the door. Tom shook his head, as if jerking himself out of a trance. A few people cheered, but most were afraid of what Tom's next move would be. Tom grabbed his friend's arm.

"Come on. Let's get out of here."

"Tom, we didn't even order yet," his friend reminded him in a low voice. But they left anyhow.

That night, Tom had felt a surge of power strong enough to change him, physically and mentally, into a different man. He and his friends began to seek out dark wizards, and go through dangerous magical transformations to make themselves more powerful and more infamous. Eventually, people began to hear not of Tom Riddle, the poor orphaned boy who had come out of poverty to receive top honors at Hogwarts and become head of his classes and his year, but of Lord Voldemort, the horrible leader of dark wizards, fearing none, feared by nearly all.

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After Tom's downfall of power, when he remained unable to kill the sweet innocent baby, Harry Potter, he disappeared. His followers came out into the open, denying that they believed in dark arts, taking up normal wizarding jobs, but waiting, waiting for the sign that Lord Voldemort had indeed returned, and was rising back to power. And, as most wizards believed, just as Dumbledore said, that Lord Voldemort would not die, for there was question of whether he even had enough human in him to die…

Please read and review! Hope ya liked it. Tom Riddle/ Lord Voldemort, Dumbledore, and Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling, and the other charaters belong to me! Yay! Thanks for reading! Have a nice day…. right… see ya!

*~Lizzy~*