~T.M Riddle~

Disclaimer: Let's see…whom does Harry belong to? Apparently, it's not me….

This is rated for angst, so don't read on if you can't handle that sort of stuff. It's sort-of my conception of the moments before Voldemort is killed, and what forced him into becoming such a monster. From Harry's POV.

*

Pain. Burning, inexorable pain, and not just in my scar, it was all over, all over…

Currently I lay in a pool of blood on the Hogwarts field, my wand arm shattered, unable to see out of my left eye, barely able to breathe due to my shattered ribs, but not yet dead. Voldemort was skilled in his penchant for sadism, and the day I had spent with him made life at the Dursleys look like a heaven-sent sanctuary, but I was not dead yet. Partly because of that little Boy-Who-Lived voice in my head that stubbornly forces me to cling to life, but also because Voldemort hadn't decided to finish torturing me yet.

Hate burned within me, so strong that I could taste its acid in his mouth, as the monster paced in front of me. I struggled in vain to get to my knees, to at least die with some semblance of pride, in stead of like a dog at his feet.

He smiled and laughed cruelly at my attempts, kicking me in my already wounded ribs, driving the breath from my lungs.

"Are you in pain, Harry Potter?" he hissed as I doubled up.

I did not answer him. "Crucio," * he called.

A cry was torn from my lips, as the spell reopened my wounds, driving away my previous assumption that I could not bleed any more than I already had. I retched, but nothing came- it was all emptied.

He stopped abruptly, and knelt in front of me, obviously to wring more satisfaction out of my pain. But then, he did something that surprised me.

"He was alive," said Voldemort, red eyes glossed over, as if recalling something distant in his memory.

"What?" I croaked, unable to comprehend what he was talking about, and surprisingly interested in it.

No- I hate him- he killed my parents- I thought then.

"He was alive, and still he put me in that hell hole. I was a freak, he told me when he came to visit me that one time. He would have never married my mother had he known, he told me. The bastard."

As if from some distant dream, dimly I remembered that as a child Voldemort had lived in an orphanage.

Why was he telling me this? Why now, when I was almost dead? What the hell good would it do him? I hate him.

"They beat me. They starved me. They forced me to work my hands to the bone, because, they claimed, they put a roof over my head. I was lucky to make it into Hogwarts alive. But once I got there, things changed. Did you know, Harry, that they sorted me into Gryffindor?"

He was talking as if carrying on a conversation with an old friend, I thought incredulously. "No- that can't be true, you're Slytherins heir!"

He laughed again. I wanted to wipe that expression off his face. "I was good in Gryffindor, for the first few years. Then, in fifth year, I returned 'home' for summer holiday, just as I always had. But the caretaker's condition had deteriorated even more. One day, in a drunken rage, he nearly beat me to death for 'getting in his way.' It hurt. A lot. I was convinced that it would be the end of me. So do you know what I did?"

I shook my head. I wanted to say, 'What do I care, you masochist bastard?' but could not quite bring my self to do it.

"I hexed him. The first one that came to mind. And it was the death curse. Then I panicked, because I knew the ministry was coming to get me for it, since I wasn't allowed to use magic as a student, and especially because I had killed a man. Back then I actually cared what the ministry thought. So I got my best friend in the orphanage, Kitty, to hide him in the basement when they came to search, and I set it up to look like a house elf did it. But before I could pull it off, they found Kitty in the basement, and they killed her on the spot because they were convinced she was the one who cast the spell. Needless to say, I was devastated. I didn't move for weeks. I had killed a man, and inadvertently killed the only person in the world that mattered to me."

"That's when I truly began my transformation to power. I vowed to myself that I would become the most powerful wizard in the world, and give payback to everyone for the pain that I had suffered. Whether people lived or died, how they lived, it would all be under my control! And that year I returned to Hogwarts, and opened the chamber. That year I showed up at my father's house, and I killed him. But it wasn't enough, Harry. I needed more."

"And I graduated, and traveled the world, and held true to my promise. I would have the world in my grip, Harry, if you hadn't stopped me. But now you will die, too, and suffer. You will know my pain!"

But at that moment, as Voldemort raised his wand, I stood and held out my uninjured arm. I don't know exactly what moved me to do it. The 'Cruciatus' curse bounced harmlessly off my palm.

Voldemort's face twisted in fury, but the anger from before that had burned within me had dissipated. It was pity, now, that filled me, pity for the creature in front of me.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry for your pain." He had spent the past few years trying to kill me, but now I understood him with clarity I could not achieve at fourteen. I shared his pain, partially, of being an orphan and living in an abusive household. I recognized him for what he was- a soul, twisted to the limit and then pushed beyond. I understood him as the creature I might have become, if not for my friends and godfather. And I wept for him, even as I recognized that I was stronger than his madness.

It was this understanding that enabled me to use magic without my wand, I think. I was able to clear my mind and concentrate, and utilize the powers that were granted to Gryffindor's heir.

"How can you understand my pain?" cried Voldemort, hurling another hex at me.

"Because," I answered him, "we are the same." The hex bounced off again. Belatedly, I noticed I had begun to glow golden.

"We are both heirs, Voldemort. Our paths were laid out for us before we were born, and there was nothing we could do to change that. You have done your part; now I'll do mine." Oh god, I thought, now I'm starting to sound like Trelawaney, talking about destiny. But I greeted the higher truth with respect, and called it as I saw it. What I had said was true; neither Tom Riddle nor Harry Potter had control over where their paths led.

Voldemort stood stiffly in front of me, lip curled in hate. "Damn you, boy," he hissed resignedly as I cast "Avada Kedavara" with the last of my strength.

Then Voldemort was gone, and I slumped to the ground, a sort of detachment filling me. Tom Riddle, dressed in Gryffindor robes, was now standing where Voldemort had stood. He smiled handsomely, now fully in possession of himself. "Thank you, Harry," he said, voice echoing strangely as if from far away.

"You're welcome, Tom," I sighed, and as the blackness took me, I wished only that I could see Hermione again, and Ron and Sirius and Hagrid, but most of all, Dumbledore…to tell him he was right, about everything.

Voldemort was dead, really dead, now. Now, and for eternity, he would merely be…Tom Marvolo Riddle.

*

*thanks to Unicorn girl for the info on the curses' spelling…unfortunately, I haven't read the fourth book in a long, long time…;^-^ I'm waiting for the fifth!

A/N: Just a re-post to clean up a few things…