I first met Tom Riddle on New Year's Eve of 1926.
Of course, I really paid no notice to him at the time. He was just a squirming, wriggling, wailing newborn.
His mother was the expired corpse on the bed they had given her, the light gone from her eyes. White would be the best way to describe the situation, considering the snow outside. Her soul had wanted to leave for a very long time, it seemed, so hunkered down by depression and loss.
I took only one glance at the child, and saw that he was magical. Maybe things would change for the better, I thought. I left St. Mary's orphanage.
If I could have gone back and took young Tommy's soul too, would I have? I don't break the rules.
If you were to see me on the street, you wouldn't notice me. Only face to face, in your face, could you really notice me. Nondescript, average build, brown hair, black suit, black shirt, black tie. I used to have this really badass cloak, but I lost that to circumstance centuries ago.
The second time I met Tom Riddle was seventeen years later, in May of 1943.
There was a girl, young, with brown hair and glasses, alone in a toilet stall. She had a rare cause of death: petrifaction. Stiff as a board, I tried to take her soul away, but she struggled, fought back, and wrenched her arm away from my hands. I was confused, but allowed it: after all, it isn't my business what one does with their afterlife.
It was then that I turned my attention to Tom. The culprit? No, that would be the enormous snake that was slithering into a conspicuous hole in the floor of the bathroom. It was sunset, and the pinks, yellows, and orange hues filtered in through the high windows, making Tom seem almost angelic. It was clear that he wasn't, and only much later did I realize what the diary he held in his hands really was.
You wouldn't have really seen me in that cloak though, had I been wearing it. You wouldn't have seen me at all. When I lost the cloak, I also lost a stone, and a wand. The stone was something silly, something that broke the rules, but it existed. And when I saw it again, I felt chills come over me, and I looked into the sky and saw red.
I met him again just two short months later. This time, they were simply dead, all three of his victims. No markings or signs of a struggle, just souls segmented from the bodies. At the time, I was happy that the work was easy to do. Cleanup isn't that bad when you don't have to look at blood, gore, and mess, or smell it.
When I looked over at Tom, it was clear that he was the culprit. I could also see the familial resemblance: the murder of family? I was disgusted, but it wasn't as if I could do anything. Then I saw it. The stone, embedded in a ring on the boy's right index finger. I was fearful that he would see me, and that for the first time in ages, I would be at risk. Fortunately, he didn't. He didn't understand the significance of the ring. And at the time, I didn't either. Not the significance he had added to it anyhow.
Tom and I became partners for many years after that. He would pillage and massacre, and I would clean up. It seemed that he would progressively kill more and more people. Had I the time, I might have paid attention to the situation in the world and understood why. But I didn't have the time, and as dictated, I had to work, and work, and work.
Then came the night when I finally understood. October 31st of 1981, I found myself in Godric's Hallow, a mixed community that had been the home to numerous great wizards. Tom, or Voldemort, as he was calling himself now, broke through the door, and shouting and screaming boomed.
I hate the name Voldemort. I mean really, Flight from Death? He's scared of me and he put's that in his name? Oh yes, 'I'm The Lord Who Is Afraid of Dying, Fear Me!', that should work. He wears it proudly, when honestly, what was wrong with Tom, Thomas, or Tommy? What about Marv, Marvolo, Riddle, or Riddler?
James Potter died first, after a short duel with Tom. James must have only gotten off two spells before Tom used his trademark green light of death to silence him forever. The sky was a dark purple, and it smelled like burning. I could feel the breeze rush through the house, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that Tom was slowly stalking up the stairs, and I had to hurry or else I'd fall behind.
Oh yeah. The Wand. A little piece of wood I found on the ground. That's it. But in the hands of a wielder…infinite potential. Magic as you might call it, is focused around intent. It just so happens the piece of wood I found on the ground was fashioned into a wand by Antioch Peverell, the brother who received it from me. He used the heartstring of a thestral, and what was the wood? Elder. The Elder Wand. That's what they called it. Also the Deathstick, which I really like, and the Wand of Destiny.
Tom broke through the door with a lazy flick of his wand, and Lily Potter nee Evans didn't even raise her wand to the man. Instead she begged, in a shrill voice that had me on the verge of tears: "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" For some reason, Tom hesitated, tried to convince her to stand aside, as if he did not want to end her. But, like on many other occasions I had seen, Voldemort became impatient, and angry. Two words, a flash of green light, and Lily was my task now.
Despite how the wand had no power to begin with, and how it really doesn't win it's wielder every single duel, it does have a power. When you combine the Elder Wand with the Resurrection Stone and the Invisibility Cloak, you can control me. You can have me actually intervene in the world of the living. You can bring people back to life with no consequence. You can make me juggle while riding a unicycle around the rim of a volcano. Just don't ask me to shake your hand. You wouldn't like that. For being the Master of Death is not immortality, but simply power. And it carries a price: you will share my job with me, or be tormented forever after.
And then, Tom turned his attention to the fifteenth month old child. He smiled victoriously, and cast his trademark spell. It flew, almost in slow motion at Harry. And it hit him, on the right side of his forehead.
Then something surprising happened. At about ten times the original speed, the avada kedavra bounced back, and vaporized Tom Riddle. I looked at what was left, and saw nothing, but the smoke and steam of his wraith. Not a ghost, but a wraith. This wraith, Voldemort, perplexed me as it fled. For Tom Riddle was not truly dead yet.
I turned my attention back to Harry, and then I understood, for once, what was going on. Where the curse had impacted his head, was a tiny, lightning bolt scar. But I saw more than that. I saw a piece of the soul of Tom Riddle. It was then that I remembered the Diary, and the Ring with the Stone. I remembered a Locket, and a Cup, and a Crown.
Harry Potter was one more. A Phylactery, as Latin Wizards would call it. Or a Horcrux, as the Germans would call it. So while I was angered that I had been cheated not once, but twice in one night, I realized who the culprit truly was. Tom Marvolo Riddle. He had broken a fundamental rule of life and death, of which I was the caretaker.
For that, he would have my wrath.