A/N: Written for the House Competition, Slytherin, Year 4, Prompt: Tom Riddle setting: Graveyard. Word count: 353
The graveyard was dark and dank and cold. Tom Riddle felt it was a fitting end for the father who never truly loved him. A searing hatred and resentment flooded him, going straight down to his very soul. Tom could feel his heart darkening, and a single tear slid down his cheek. He didn't mourn for his father. He never had, not even immediately following his father's death. He never would. The man didn't deserve it.
He mourned for himself, the orphaned boy who had been abandoned by everyone, loved by no one and who belongs nowhere. He mourned for his own soul, which was quickly being consumed by this darkness that grew stronger just as his will to fight it grew weaker. It frightened him how easy it was to give into it and how good it felt when he did. What would he become when it finally took over? Did it even matter? No one cared about him. He couldn't become any less than what he was now.
"I hate you!" He seethed, his frown deepening and his hands curling into fists. "I hate you! I hate all of you for making me this way! I hate you for leaving me!"
The darkness inside of him swelled up again, relishing the acidity of his anger. For a moment, Tom cringed away from it. Then, suddenly, a realization struck him. The darkness was the only thing that had never abandoned him, and it had never harmed him. Instead, it seemed to make his abilities stronger, more powerful. Everyone was afraid of him, and they should be. Why hide his anger? They deserved it for abandoning him this way. They should all have to fear the monster that they created. He could use that darkness in him to make them all pay. They would kneel before him and beg for their lives before he was finished with them. The entire world would tremble, and it would be all their fault. Everyone who had hurt him, or underestimated him, or abandoned him. He was going to make them wish they had never met him.