Losing streak

Tom Marvolo Riddle hated losing.

He had hated losing to those disgusting children at the orphanage, he has hated losing to those wicked caretakers and matrons, he hated losing to those ignorant priests that claimed he was the devil incarnate, he hated losing to the Professor whose eyes were warm except when he looked at him and he definitely hated losing to those filthy rich, arrogant snobs who thought they had the right to rule the Wizarding World.

So he won and kept on winning against them, through his genius plannings, hardwork and natural talent.

He had even managed to defeat Death.

Or so he thought.

The first defeat came on the night he had gone to remove the final obstacle. He had sneered when he saw James Potter facing him without a wand and had taken a mere few seconds to kill the blood-traitor. That's what they get for believing in love and friendship — Pettigrew had been so easily lured to his side.

Then the woman who his faithful servant had begged to be spared. Well, Severus had served him well—he deserved a reward. He had originally intended to spare her, but seeing her beg for her child's life, not her own, snapped something inside him.

Till date, he had failed to understand how a mere babe had survived a Killing Curse, instead defeating him.

All because of that blasted Prophecy.

The second meeting with the child, who had started to attend Hogwarts shouldn't have resulted in his loss either. His vessel was an inadequate fool, but he had enough magical core to help him rehabilitate. He had managed to bypass all the silly traps set by the Professors, he had also managed to get a hand on the mythical Stone, but—

He still lost.

The child's hand had burned him like no other, it violently resembled the first time he had died.

He was furious when he figured out that the diary had been destroyed. His first, his largest portion of the soul—gone, just like a breeze. Malfoy suffered for that, suffered as he should.

He claimed their third meeting as a victory, but deep down, he knew it wasn't. He had revived, true, but he had also failed to destroy the very reason he even needed to revive.

Dumbledore destroyed his chances of getting even with the Boy-Who-Lived at The Ministry and that day, he had raged. His magic had lashed out violently, making his useless followers collapse. How dare that old fool still go on and on about love when time and again it was proven to be an unnecessary sentiment?

In the final meeting, he finally had the chance to cut off all the loose ends. Everything that he had been waiting for would be within his grasp. He pointed his wand towards the mere boy who remained the only one that had managed to defeat him more than once and —

"Avada Kedavra."

The boy fell like a puppet cut off its string.

— for neither can live while the other survives —

The words of the prophecy rang in his head as he saw the red jet of light fly towards him, the weary expression of the boy who defeated him for the last time seared into his brain.

Lord Voldemort hated losing.

So why did he have a continuous losing streak against a mere slip of a boy who didn't even use an Unforgivable?

THC/The Houses Competition.

House: Slytherin

Class: DADA

Prompts: [Theme] a losing streak.

Drabble.

Word Count. Total: 597 (google docs counted)

Beta. Lor.