Disclaimer: Tom Marvolo Riddle belongs to J.K. Rowling. He's all hers, and
she's welcome to him!
One Day
He left me. He didn't care that he irreversibly shattered my mother's heart, didn't mind that he was depriving his son of a much-needed father. Didn't care that he wouldn't be around to see me grow - to delight over my first word - "Mama," naturally - to cheer on my first halting steps, to read picture books to me at night and take me on hikes in the woods, identifying trees and birds and rocks for an inquisitive little boy. He didn't care.
He didn't even bother to attend Mother's funeral - my mother, who loved him and plucked out her heart to give to him and who never again could fill that vacuum in her chest after he left her. It didn't matter to him that once he had loved her even as she adored him - nothing mattered anymore when he found out she was a witch.
A witch! A small thing! Why should it have bothered him? Why should it have swept through his heart like a tornado and eradicated every last trace of love he had for her, leaving in its wake only a desolate wasteland of hate and revulsion? She shouldn't have told him. She should have lied her entire life to keep him. But she loved him and couldn't lie to him and then found out just how fragile and foolish and capricious a plaything love can be. He broke her heart. She never forgot him, never could turn over the last page and stare down at a new chapter devoid of his name, his presence. He abandoned her. He killed her.
And killed me. Killed the happy, sheltered, naïve little boy I might have become; killed the moody but essentially happy and sheltered teenage boy - denying but always feeling secure in his family's love - that I might have grown to be.
He robbed me of everything I had, everything I might have had, threw me into a cold and despairing Muggle orphanage. He even robbed me of my identity, labeling me with his own disgusting name - Tom Marvolo Riddle. All the misery I faced, all the years of unhappiness and feelings of worthlessness, I blame on him. All. And one day - when I am rich and famous and unbelievably powerful - I will return all the pain and regret and loss to him. One day I will be Lord Voldemort and he will rue the day he deserted my mother and he will know with horror as he looks at the tip of my wand that it is too late for all the regret in the world to save him. One day. One day the world will look at this unloved orphan and bow its head in fear and awe.
And no one will ever leave me again.
One Day
He left me. He didn't care that he irreversibly shattered my mother's heart, didn't mind that he was depriving his son of a much-needed father. Didn't care that he wouldn't be around to see me grow - to delight over my first word - "Mama," naturally - to cheer on my first halting steps, to read picture books to me at night and take me on hikes in the woods, identifying trees and birds and rocks for an inquisitive little boy. He didn't care.
He didn't even bother to attend Mother's funeral - my mother, who loved him and plucked out her heart to give to him and who never again could fill that vacuum in her chest after he left her. It didn't matter to him that once he had loved her even as she adored him - nothing mattered anymore when he found out she was a witch.
A witch! A small thing! Why should it have bothered him? Why should it have swept through his heart like a tornado and eradicated every last trace of love he had for her, leaving in its wake only a desolate wasteland of hate and revulsion? She shouldn't have told him. She should have lied her entire life to keep him. But she loved him and couldn't lie to him and then found out just how fragile and foolish and capricious a plaything love can be. He broke her heart. She never forgot him, never could turn over the last page and stare down at a new chapter devoid of his name, his presence. He abandoned her. He killed her.
And killed me. Killed the happy, sheltered, naïve little boy I might have become; killed the moody but essentially happy and sheltered teenage boy - denying but always feeling secure in his family's love - that I might have grown to be.
He robbed me of everything I had, everything I might have had, threw me into a cold and despairing Muggle orphanage. He even robbed me of my identity, labeling me with his own disgusting name - Tom Marvolo Riddle. All the misery I faced, all the years of unhappiness and feelings of worthlessness, I blame on him. All. And one day - when I am rich and famous and unbelievably powerful - I will return all the pain and regret and loss to him. One day I will be Lord Voldemort and he will rue the day he deserted my mother and he will know with horror as he looks at the tip of my wand that it is too late for all the regret in the world to save him. One day. One day the world will look at this unloved orphan and bow its head in fear and awe.
And no one will ever leave me again.