Disclaimer This story is based on characters created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Beta: Trilobitian

Behind the Name, Beneath the Farce

Summer 1942

Tom Marvolo Riddle was a handsome boy. He was tall, slender and had slightly wavy, jet black hair and his hunter green eyes contrasted nicely against his pale, flawless skin. He could melt any girl's heart with a simple, yet charming smile. He was poor, but brilliant; parentless, but oh so brave; a school prefect; a model student. He was idolized by the younger students and admired by the older ones. He was popular, especially amongst the ladies, and all the professors held him in high esteem.

'Well, most of them.'

The professors knew him as "brilliant", "intelligent", "smart" and an "exceptionally gifted" hardworking young wizard with "a bright and lucrative future". 'Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be…' Girls thought him to be a perfect gentleman, an ideal future husband and one of the most eligible wizards in the whole of Hogwarts. Everyone knew he was a half-blood, but the sneaky snakes had selected to forget this little unpleasant fact about his half muggle parentage.

And it was a farce, a brilliant plan to gain respect from the teachers and students of Hogwarts. 'But if you can fake it, you're in´ He truly was a brilliant young man.

Tom gazed out of the dusty window at a dark maroon 1936's Ford Pickup Street Rod driving down the cobblestone street. The truck was covered in layers of dried mud, and greyish black exhaust fumes billowed out from behind accompanied by loud and an increasingly annoying roar of an engine. A lone, dirty sheep on it's first and last journey to the slaughterhouse, was obliviously munching dry hay on the truck bed. It was a truly repulsive vehicle. In fact, all the muggle cars and other means of transportation were rather vile in his humble opinion. They were all slow, restricting, loud, claustrophobic and ugly. Tom gulped down the remainder of his single malt whisky, staring down at the now empty glass.

A slow smirk formed on his attractive face, ruining all pretence of his carefully constructed persona. 'You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else' The Slytherins knew him to be sly, cunning and ruthless, a true Slytherin, a worthy member of their noble house. 'If only they knew...' He was the true Heir of Salazar Slytherin himself, descendant of the greatest of the Hogwarts Four.

Tom poured himself another glass of Scotch, without the rocks, and took a large swig. He started digging into his worn brown leather bag, searching for his prized diary and grimaced as the fluid burned down his already sore throat. Normally he wasn't much of a drinker but today was different. At the moment, the muggle alcohol was his liquid gold, his salvation from the reality, how ever short or disgraceful it may be. It was also his punishment for the lack of control he had demonstrated a few days before. He managed to locate the black leather-bound muggle book and promptly dropped it on the dirty floor with a dull thud. 'Smooth, Tom. Very smooth.'

Usually he didn't drink, not because he didn't enjoy the taste, but alcohol simply didn't agree with him. Or it agreed a little too well, whichever way you wanted to put it. He hated being drunk. Alcohol lowered his judgment, his nearly perfect self-control, control which gave him power. 'Control your emotion or it will control you. Lack of control leads to lack of power and irrational behaviour…' behaviour is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes '…without controlling your own emotions you lose your power over yourself. And without power you can't control others...' Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is the man who has rationalized his emotions.

'Control is power.'

But sometimes, one needs to experience the lack of control to be able to truly appreciate it; one needs to lose it, before it's value can truly be comprehended. And Tom never wanted to feel so out of control ever again. He had never felt so weak.

'And power is everything.'

And thus, the reason he was in a rather giddy mood in a cheap muggle booth bar in the middle of a tense wartime London after only two tiny glasses of Scotch. 'And it's just barely past noon... Really, if the professors could see me now... Brilliant Tom Riddle getting thoroughly smashed in the middle of a Tuesday. Ha.'

He swiftly dove after the precious diary, nearly hitting his head on the table on his way up. He had much to write and analyze about-- Mainly about his unpleasant findings in Little Hangleton, but at the moment he was in no condition to document anything of a real importance. His little alcohol induced experiment on lack of control was the main reason for that. He snorted 'Named after that pitiful, pathetic muggle and that insane, weak and disgraceful excuse of a wizard.'

He had thought, or rather, hoped, that he would find his muggle father ignorant of his existence, unaware of his son and his maternal grandfather living in luxury, like any Heir of an old and noble family should. Instead he had found a bitter, vicious Tom Riddle Senior very much aware of him and his "abnormality". His own father had called him "Spawn of the Devil", an abomination that should have never been allowed to live. "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live." were his last words. ' A real dickhead' And his grandfather was long since buried, but his inbred, bald, hunchbacked and drunken Uncle Morfin was still living in a rotten old shack, smelling of sweat and urine. 'What a glorious family.'

Tom swirled the glass around in his hand, looking at the golden mixture thoughtfully and emptied the glass in one huge swallow, shutting his eyes tightly, trying to fight off the fiery sensation. He opened the diary near the end, golden letters 'T. M. Riddle' shining in the bright sunshine, mocking him. 'Let's see then...' Tom dully stared at his empty hand and took a large breath, he exhaled slowly and reached for a quill.

He wrote 'Tom Riddle' on the top of the page in his sophisticated silky script. With a name like Tom Riddle he could hardly strike fear in anyone's heart. 'Not even first year Hufflepuffs' so changes must be made, and hopefully the end result would be a bit more intimidating than Lord Grindelwald. 'No self-respecting Dark Lord should be named akin to a muggle summer and winter alpine resort in Switzerland.'

Pouring himself another glass of the amber coloured whiskey he scribbled 'Lord Riddle' He stared at the words blinking slowly 'Not overly creative' and crossed them out swiftly. 'And Lord Tom would be shameful to even think about...' he gave an unhurried blink and took a sip of whiskey '...a little late for that.'

And even though girls did have a tendency to call him either Merlin "Oh Tom, oh Merlin!" or God "Please Tom harder, oh God yes…!" depending on their parentage, of course, 'Merlin Riddle' was a little extreme.

He collected the rest of his self-respect 'I shall fashion myself a new name then, a name wizards everywhere shall one day fear to speak, when I become the greatest sorcerer in the world' and gave himself a mental pat on the back for the menacing speech well done. Nevertheless, the name 'Tom Riddle' held dreadfully little warning in it. 'An anagram then.'

A little scribbling 'Lord…and that leaves me what...? T, I, D, M and E' and scraping later 'Lord Timed' and 'Lord Id Met' were the only recognizable words his superior mind came up with.

'Fear me.'

Even his thoughts sounded sarcastic.

His options were terribly limited and in an attempt to free himself of the restrictive designation of 'Lord' he downed another glass in one huge swallow. 'This time without the title Lord.'

Twenty minutes of quill scratching and several exasperated snorts, followed by a mouthful of whiskey, sometimes two, he had one hundred and eight dreadfully rearranged names before him. The best had to be 'Dirt' Old Me'. It had even a little bit of intimidation in it, however diminutive and misleading that might be. But when other options ranged from 'Model Dirt' 'May be accurate...' to 'Toddle Rim' 'Big and bad...' and from 'Dirt Do Elm' to 'Red Lid Tom' The transvestite extraordinaire' he just knew he was doomed.

Setting down his quill and placing the diary in his back pocket, Tom staggered to the men's room whistling along with Glenn Miller's Moonlight Cocktail and offered a dazzling grin to an attractive brunette waitress in her early twenties. She winked back, abandoned her rag and shouted "I'm off to break" following him into the lavatory.

Ten minutes, a quick name exchange: "Hi, I'm Bethany" and an amazing blowjob later, Tom was back at his booth gripping the quill loosely and consuming whisky with an airy attitude.

He opened the diary and gazed at his latest handiwork, getting an eyeful of 'Rimed Dolt' and various other horrendous anagrams shimmering out of the ivory coloured pages. 'Not good…' "Dim Re Dolt" 'sounds like Dumbledore… Good thing he is not a Dark Lord… Dark Lord Bumblebee… Run for your lives! Sweet Merlin what next, Dark Lord Grasshopper, Lord Moth, Lord Dragonfly, Lord Beetle, Lord Mo…Wait. Lord Dragon?'

'No, I'm missing r, a, g, o and n…Besides regular snakes are more my thing.' he took a gulp straight from the bottle 'Lord Apep, the Egyptian evil serpent demon, deification of darkness and chaos and opponent of light and order…' a contemplating sip of whiskey ' Sounds good, though given that the Egyptians composed an entire tome, 'Book of Apophis' also known as 'The Books of Overthrowing Apep', quite aptly named in fact, about dismemberment, I'm babbling aren't I, and disposal of said demon…that could be considered to be bad publicity.' a sizable swig 'How about 'Snake-God' then, North Americans did, yes I'm definitely jabbering, often portray them as hybrids or shape-shifters; capable to change between human, either that or I'm hearing voices in my head, and serpentine forms whilst keeping the characteristics of both... at least I'm still vaguely on the topic.'

'…though 'God' may be a little rich... even for me… especially for me… no matter what the ladies think.'

'Considering what the muggles have done in the name of their gods, what kind of a wizard would want to be named after one?' In Europe alone, in the years 1450 to 1700, witch-hunts caused roughly between thirty-five thousand to almost sixty-five thousand executions, most of them muggles, but still, sometimes they managed to find a real magic user. The most common methods used to kill alleged witches and wizards were burning at the stake while still alive, hanging, sometimes strangling, and drowning, quite often by accident.

There were other sentences of course, the most common to be chained for years to the oars of a ship, or excommunicated then imprisoned. 'Rather brutal'

"A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones" Mrs. Cole had said to Tom when he was six, after he had, accidentally on purpose, set the priests hair on fire. Not that it was saying much, considering the man was more or less bald anyways.

'"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction"' the hypocritical idiots. Killing wizards even if their own Christ walks on waters and turns said liquid into wine…Speaking of alcohol' he gulped down good five swallows, calming his foul mood.

Going back to the snake theme, he wrote 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' and started thinking. All in all there were Sixty one thousand two hundred and sixteen different anagrams using at least one of the three different snake related words either in English or Latin, that could be arranged out of his name. First one, 'Morelia,a genus of pythons found in Australia, Indonesia, and New Guinea' was a killjoy. Not because it was Latin, but for it was 'a non-venomous snake' and Tom was very much poisonous… or at least intoxicated enough to be considered toxic. And there were no anagrams to be made out of the rest of the letters. 'Lord Morelia Tmvod' just doesn't quite cut it.

The next one proved to be a bit more productive. Overall, two hundred and ninety-six options to choose from. However, the Lora, Leptophis ahaetulla, is a snake found in Trinidad and Tobago and in northern South America. It feeds on small birds, frogs and lizards. 'And it is also known as the Parrot Snake. I can really see them shaking in fear after hearing that one. Lord Parrot Snake.´

His last option on the snake theme department was "the Devil Snake", "the Serpent of Genesis", more commonly known as the 'adder'. But given that when using 'adder' there were only seventeen candidates, the most cruel being 'Adder Vomit Roll Om'

Oh, you could just feel the ruthlessness oozing through those words. Really.

'So no snakes for me then.' After this heartbreaking discovery Tom felt miserable, or it could have been hunger, as his stomach grumbled loudly summoning a waitress, a blond bucktooth named 'Jeanne', as if by magic.

The food was terrible; the mashed potatoes were watery with an earthy flavour and some vaguely disturbing lumps, the steak was burned black on one side and raw on the opposite, the carrots had an unhealthy greyish-greenish tinge. Tom wouldn't have been surprised if the carrots had tried starting a conversation with him, they certainly seamed to posses some form of intelligence at the very least. He wolfed everything down faster than that half giant Gryffindor, Rubeus Hagrid or whatever his name was, washing the taste out with an unhealthy dosage of whiskey.

"Everything to your liking, sir?"

Tom looked intently at her dull blue eyes "Yes, thank you Jeanne, everything was as delicious as you are beautiful" presenting her with a drunken smirk.

"…"

"…"

His rudeness was obviously lost, as the blonde blushed all the way up to her dyed roots, smiling coyly and leaving with an extra sway on her boyish hips.

Snorting loudly Tom gathered his belongings, leaving some stolen and or blackmailed money on the table and walked out of the bar on to the busy street.

A wealthy lady walked past him, smelling strongly of perfume, her pointy nose high in the air. 'Narrow-minded Muggles… A race filled with prejudiced xenophobes and bigoted racists' a young woman with four whining kids threw a bag full of garbage on the sidewalk 'A race poisoning the Earth with their numerous offspring's and their mountains of debris' a homeless beggar was taking a leak on the side alley 'Muggles are a disease, a cancer of this planet and everything on it, a plague destroying and suffocating anything and everything with their wasting way of life.'

But he had to admit, the wizards had their fair share of prejudiced individuals. Entire races of magic users were oppressed for things they had little or no control over. Lycans for their three-nights-a-month wolf form, vampires for their liquid died, veelas and succubis for their, to say it nicely, mating habits, goblins for their obvious intellect considering wealth. Wizards as well as muggles, tends to discriminate those whom their either fear or envy. 'And we hate what we fear for it makes us weak. What we really hate is our own weakness, but it is easier to hate others than admit your own weaknesses'

At the moment the Wizarding World was ruled by magic users whom called themselves Wizards. More correctly the Light Wizards. 'Hence the name Wizarding World, not United Races of Magic Users or simply Magical World.´

'They say "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" it's no wonder if the Wizarding World is this corrupted, when a small portion of individuals is given power over others. Infinite power over those who they hate… it's a miracle that they haven't destroyed said world entirely.'

'Yet.'

And the most ridiculous idea that the Light Wizards seemed to uphold, was to think magic either dark or light. 'There is no Light and Dark, there is only Magic and the intention of the caster.'

Tom walked in a small park and sat down on a broken bench furthest away from the muggles. 'They say "Nemo fit fato nocens" and yet when you are born a vampire you die a vampire and thus you are evil. You have no choice in your life… no matter what you do you are what you were born to be thus evil and people will always think you as such. "No one is made guilty by fate" my ass. Peer pressure can be a powerful thing'

He opened the whiskey bottle and took a large swallow 'Fate. A word that I hate' and another one 'I like to think I am the one who decides what happens in my life' and a third gulp 'That I'm not some pre-programmed puppet doing things because they were meant to happen, not because I choose to do so' and a fourth 'I am alive. I exist.' a fifth 'But if there is a fate, wouldn't that mean that I am not the one to make my own decisions… that they have already been decided for me… If thinking is a proof of my existence wouldn't that mean that I'm not alive, if I don't really think for myself? That I'm merely a pawn playing out my part in this twisted Divine Comedy?'

'Fuck fate and fuck Parcae, Moirae and Norns'

'And fuck Elpis' he wrenched the diary out from his bag spilling his other parchments all over the ground 'Hope. Such a foolish thing… I thought that I was over it. Hope only leads to disappointment and unreasonable expectations. Hope is illogical, irrational and foolish. In the end, only one you can trust is your self. No-one else gives a damn.'

He wandlessly summoned the fallen parchments organizing them according to the subject. Potions, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration. Half of his summer homework was now covered in dirt. "Wonderful."

A prime example of Light Wizards prejudice was staring him straight in the face. "Vampires: the soulless immortal beasts hidden in human body. Describe in your own words how to recognize and properly exterminate a vampire. Pay attention to vampires feeding methods and…"

'Nature versus nurture…' Half a parchment filled with misleading questions about vampire's behaviour such as "Explain 'bloodlust' in detail" or "Best weapons against a murderous vampire" and not a single question about "the Vampire Council" or how only a fraction of vampires had ever bitten a human let alone killed one. 'it seems that you can be born dark and it's all natures fault but when you are born in to a "Light" family and you somehow end up behaving against their way of thinking, they blame it on nurture, more precisely others. It is easier to blame others than oneself, just as it is easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right. People tend to be blind to their own mistakes.'

'It doesn't mean that if you can, you will. According to that train of thought every single first year student would be a murderer waiting for an opportunity to kill them all by All Hallows Eve.'

Swearing loudly Tom stashed the parchments back into his bag. Unfortunately, that train of thought seemed to apply how people treated the members of the Slytherin house. ´Just because Salazar Slytherin disagreed with the other Founders, they took it to themselves to punish every single Slytherin ever since. But hey, of course they were all evil, how could they not, they were ambitious, they were cunning and pure-blooded, just like Salazar had been.´ Well, most of them anyway.

Tom treasured Hogwarts above all else. Hogwarts was his home, his birthright, but sometimes, most of the times; he hated how the schooling system segregated them into groups, according to some selected aspects of their personality and preference they had when they were eleven. Not much room for character development.

And to teach children that it was all good and well to judge people by these few traits they were known to have. ´Really, like anyone could have that thin a personality.´ Gryffindors weren't just daring and brave; otherwise they would all be dead by the end of their first year, if they never used their brains to think things through. According to those traits Gryffindors would jump into anything head first, regardless the dangers involved. They had to have some form of self-preservation, in their thick skulls, to survive long enough to multiply.

And ambition meant they wanted to make something out of their lives, to succeed, to prove them self to be worthy wizards. How could that be a bad thing?

Tom gulped down the remainder of the whisky, and nearly choked on it.

He was in a dreadful condition. Never had he been so drunk before, and to his endless dismal he was still sitting on the broken bench, in the park filled with muggles, quite far from his room and his appallingly shaky and squeaky bed.

Tom threw the empty bottle over his shoulder, never noticing the two police officers walking past.

"Excuse me, sir?" an older voice said in thick London accent.

Tom unhurriedly turned to look at them, pulling on his best I-am-completely-innocent-and-utterly-harmless-look, only to receive two sets of raised eyebrows.

Suffice to say his first approach failed miserably.

He cleared his raspy throat, and was forced to focus on the pronunciation of every syllable, thus failing with the words "Officers. What a lovel- ...mmm. Well, what a surprise."

"No doubt" was the dry response from the younger officer.

"Would that have been your bottle, son?" the older one asked, pointing his baton at the abandoned bottle.

"Mmh…"

Tom's response must have displayed his astonishing intellect to its full capacity.

"Indeed" agreed the older officer.

Tom was thinking as hard as his intoxicated brain would allow, coming up with a plan that had never failed, though he hated to use it. Sympathy.

"Where do you live, son?" the senior officer asked kindly, seeing Toms miserable expression.

"In the orphanage, just down the street" he answered cheerlessly, waving his hand distractedly at its general direction.

The officers exchanged an understanding look, thinking he wouldn't notice.

"Just heard," Tom said sadly, "they don't know what happened, they just lay there, on the floor, all dead" he lifted a hand over his face, breathing deeply. "I mean, they had no injuries, they said so, but how can three people die all at the same time? It's not possible." he leaned forwards, hiding his face "They think they were murdered, they just don't know how they died."

The senior officer sat next to Tom, offering him a handkerchief "Who, son?"

Tom took the hankie with a shaky hand and blew his nose noisily "My dad, they found him, grandma and granddad dead yesterday"

'"Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire." It would be a waste not to use their emotions against them if they are foolish enough to let emotions control their actions.'

Needles to say Tom was on his merry way in less than five minutes with nothing but a warning "Don't let us catch you again, son" And he never would.

ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo

Half an hour later Tom was sitting in his small room fiddling with a small cardboard box, filled with a mess of small, everyday objects; a yo-yo, a silver thimble and a tarnished mouth organ among them. Treasures that he had stolen or taken from others, the ones Dumbledore told him to return.

He had returned them, and taken them right back again. He wasn't about to let his treasures away just because some batty old geezer told him it was wrong to steal and it wouldn't be tolerated at Hogwarts. Tom wouldn't miss any sleep for something as insignificant as theft.

"Theft… flight… Vol"

With a triumphant yet rather lopsided grin he mumbled "Now I got it" he started writing slowly, meticulously and still his handwriting was worse than a seven year olds 'I' he truly hoped he could make out his own scribble in the morning as he surely wouldn't remember anything 'am' his vision was starting to get blurry and his hiccup made the 'm' look more like a small explosion rather than a letter 'Lord' he closed his eyes trying to clear his head but the spinning just didn't stop 'Vo…' His forehead hit the table with a loud thud and the last thing Tom heard was the sound of a breaking glass.

ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo

Next morning Tom woke up with the largest headache ever recorded. In fact his whole body was in extreme agony, even his non-existent chest hair. He lifted his sore head slowly, grimacing when a loud crack of joints popping was heard. Really, he would have been amazed that his head hadn't yet fallen off, if forming such complicated thoughts didn't hurt so damn much and something cool and damp seemed to have attached onto his forehead, distracting said thought process.

He reached up, accidentally poking his eye with his thumb, and managed to get a hold of the offending object residing on his sticky brow. He peeled it of little by little, trying to minimize the potential damage on both his face and the object, which unfortunately felt like his beloved diary. With one last pull he managed to detach the diary and as it turned out the wetness was due to an ink bottle breaking and emptying onto the diary effectively ruining everything he had written last night.

Tom would have taken a lungful of air if he wasn't going to throw up; instead he made a mad dash to the bathroom, almost tripping over his shoes.

Ten solid minutes of non-stop vomiting later Tom stood up and looked up in the mirror. On his forehead read 'I am Lord Voldemort'

´Catching. Now all I need to do is come up with a personality. Charismatic and slightly insane, perhaps.'

It wouldn't do if Tom Riddle's reputation was ruined so early in the game, if ever. Personal life and all that.

ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo

AN: I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know what you thought! Please tell me what you thought about Tom Riddle. Did I get him well enough? Thank You for reading and hopefully reviewing.