Disclaimer: Rowling wrote HP not me. And I must say I'm quite glad I don't own this particular guy.
Letter One- Tom Riddle to his father of the same name.
Dear Father,
How to begin this letter? Perhaps I ought to introduce myself. You do not know me. We have never met. In all probability you do not even know my name.
Your name.
I am your son. Shameful for us both, I imagine, to admit it, but it is so. Some portion of the blood that flows through my veins is yours. In place of sixteen years of birthday presents you give me this one gift. This exalted heritage. Half blood.
Sometimes, in dreams I find myself washing myself scrubbing my skin over and over until I bleed, and then finally I know I am rid of your stench. I would do it too, if I knew I could be rid of you in that manner. Unlike you in your fine mansion, I am no stranger to pain.
But of course, I know better than to think such actions could free me of you. This corruption runs deeper than my skin; it resides within my blood, within the very marrow of my bones. Only blood will wash it clean. Blood to cleanse blood. With every piece of muggle scum I wipe from this world, I wipe out you. With every crime I commit I become a little purer. It's worth it. It is. And yet- she lay so still. Her eyes were empty. And I wished- only for a moment- I wished I hadn't done it. That snotty little mudblood with the watery eyes, I wished she wasn't dead. I held her in my arms, half raising that flaccid body off the damp floor; I tried to shake her back to life.
That shouldn't have happened. It wasn't me that spoke those words, don't be dead Myrtle, please don't be dead. I am the Heir of Slytherin and I have no pity. No. It was you. Your blood within me calling out to the worthless little girl, your own kind. Deep within me polluted part of me, fogged with muggle humbug and sentimentality you made me want her alive even as she hit the floor. But I defied you, I resisted that sickness within me and every time I do that you get a little weaker. Salazar Slytherin would never have raised the girl up off the soiled floor. He would have left her where she belonged. But one day, yes, one day I will be worthy of him. Worthy of what I will become.
Oh, yes. I will kill again. One death is not enough to appease the sordid flood of corruption within me, I see that now. Even now I still wake at night, seeing her face, feeling her body hit the ground and I know that you're still there. Oh, you're hold may be weakening but you're still strong.
Once I would have rejoiced at the thought of having a part of you within me. Those first ten years at the orphanage I used to dream about you all the time. Bright technicoloured fantasies of love and revenge. You would be an explorer only just returned from a dangerous mission to find your wife dead, and now you had come to search for me. You were a soldier captured by the Bolsheviks but now you had escaped, walking barefoot across the Russian steppes to find me. Oh, you're roles varied: spy, magician, superhero, prince, but one thing never changed. You were always always looking for me. And when the time was right you'd be there striding in through the Orphanage gates. You would place me on your shoulders and ruffle my hair and ask me all about how I had been treated these past years. I would tell you everything, and you would be angry. That was the best part of the dream, your anger. I would watch you as you swept down upon the matron like a howling like a thunderstorm, knocking her down the stairs, crushing all the life out of her over inflated body with one flick of your finger. You would take the girls who laughed at me, the boys who hit me and throw them against the wall. Standing side by side we would hear their skulls crunch and we would laugh. Like a Samson you would tear down the orphanage walls around their ears until it was all destroyed and we alone would be left standing. Oh, yes. You were Superman.
All things change. Now, you see, I am my own superman. Now in my dreams it is I who blast that grey building into oblivion, who brings vengeance like a tidal wave before me. And I don't only dream. Oh no. Night and day I prepare for the time when I will do it. I will eradicate them all. And you shall be the first. When the time is right, when every incident falls into place I will break forth from this hidden shell and find you. Before many years have passed I will look down on your body and laugh, Tom Riddle.
And when it is done I will rise, re- born, a phoenix from the ashes. Then and only then will I take my place as a true son of Salazar Slytherin. I will be purer than the purest Black or Malfoy, because I had the courage to bring it about myself. The day Tom Riddle dies I shall be truly born, blossoming into the identity I have so carefully built for my self. I am Lord Voldemort. Every last particle of your polluting presence will be washed from my memory in the river of your blood.
So there you have it. My deepest ambition. Don't you think it fine? Don't you think it noble? How many Gryffindor's could boast that they had had the courage to pluck shame from their very breast, to spill their own blood that they may be re- born?
And every day the days draw nearer. I am close now. I can feel it.
I sign myself, for the last time
Tom Riddle