1. The Birth of a Nobleman
August, 1928
Tom Riddle thought he had loved the Parley girl, and she had thought she loved him, too. But when he found out what she was and that she had lied to him that romantic night many, many months ago, he knew he could never return to her. He left her to return, humiliated, to the home he had left not more than a year ago in disgrace.
His parents were not as obnoxious as they could have been. Tom had been foolish, but at least no harm had come out of his hasty marriage to the common farmgirl he called Marssa. Tom hadn't told them the reason he had left his young bride, but they assumed it was because he had come to his senses and had decided to settle down and marry some nice girl appropriate to the Riddle Family's station.
Tom, however, had other reasons for abandoning his wife. One, and the most important, was that she was a witch – a real, live witch, who knew spells and enchantments. Young Master Riddle knew he could never love a woman like that. He figured the same as his parents; at least no harm had come from his stupid, foolish marriage to the local beauty.
How very wrong they were.
Barely a week after Tom returned home, he received a letter (by an unusual carrier, a tiny barn owl) saying Marssa was pregnant and requesting funds. Tom decided not to answer her pleas. Marssa continued sending owls to her husband, but it was no use.
March 1929
Exhausted and weak from lack of proper nourishment, Marssa collapsed one day on the steps of a Muggle chapel. She was in great pain and called for someone, anyone, to come and take her away. Marssa would have even welcomed Death itself. But that someone was the priest, an old, bearded man. He recognized her pains at once for signs of labor. As he dragged the dying woman down to the parish cottage, she tried to explain that she was only seven months pregnant, but he wouldn't listen.
"I know what this is, Miss," was all he said.
It was a terrible, long, difficult labor. Fifteen hours later, Marssa finally held her long-awaited baby boy. Her hair was damp with sweat and her face was pale, but she smiled weakly as she held her baby, His name was Tom Marvolo Riddle, named after both his father and grandfather.
"So if he ever meets them, they'll know who he is by more than looks," Marssa whispered, for she could feel the pangs of death creeping up upon her already.
The priest took Tom Jr. and laid him gently down on the opposite side of his bed, the infant gurgling as the man's beard scratched against his face. Suddenly, the priest stiffened, He turned back to Marssa, his eyes unfocused and staring, his mouth limp and useless. The woman watched in horror as the priest's eyes began to roll, and if she hadn't been in the clutches of death, she might have thought to call for somebody.
The man began to speak in harsh tones, quite unlike the kind, gentle voice he had previously used. "ALWAYS LIFE HAS A CYCLE. AS ONE LIFE BEGINS, ANOTHER ENDS. AND SO MUCH AS THE LIFE NOW DEPARTING HAS BEEN A MISRABLE, WASTED LIFE, SO WILL THIS NEW ONE BE. BUT AT THE SOLSTICE WILL COME A NEW FORM OF THIS LIFE ... AT THE SOLSTICE SIXTEEN YEARS FROM NOW, THIS NEW-BORN LIFE WILL TAKE A NEW FORM. THIS NEW LIFE WILL BE MUCH, MUCH GREATER THAN COULD EVER BE IMAGINED ... THE NEW LIFE WILL HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE LIVES AROUND IT, FORTUNES AND LOVERS WILL BE MADE AND BROKEN BECAUSE OF IT ... ONE IS BORN AS ONE IS DEPARTING ..." The priest's head drooped, he stumbled and nearly fell, but woke up in time and managed to stay upright. He looked around and seemed to guess at once what had happened.
"Have I had a prophecy?"
Marssa nodded. She had never seen one made before, but knew what this strange act must have been. The priest smiled and took her face in his hands.
"I knew from the moment I saw you that you were a witch," he whispered. "It will come true."
Marssa tried to think, but her head was heavy with fog and only one thought stuck in her mind. The departing life was hers and the new life was Tom's. Little Tom would be a great wizard. The priest took one look at her and knew she was in the last moments of life.
"Is there anything you would like your son to know?" he asked softly.
"I am Marssa," she whispered. "His father is Tom Riddle, and his grandfather is Marvolo Riddle. Take care ..." With these last words, Marssa Parley Riddle's soul left the earth.
October, 1929
The priest nursed Baby Tom until his was strong enough, then took him to a Muggle orphanage in London, simply because there was nothing else to be done. He wrote Marssa's last words down for the boy to keep. So Baby Tom grew up and indeed, sixteen Solstices later, fashioned himself a new name, a new form. His father, Tom Riddle, never married, but lived comfortably in his parents' house for sixteen years, not knowing what had happened to his wife and her child. If the brat was anything like her, good riddence, he thought.
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2. A Man Reformed
August, 1944
During the summer of 1944, the director of the orphanage where "Baby" Tom now lived found the note the priest had written long ago. He went to seek out Tom that night in the room he shared with some of the Muggle boys his age when he wasn't up at school.
Tom stared at the director, a big, burly man, in surprise. He had to ask whether Tom would like to see the note?
Tom read the hastily scribbled note over and over that night, despite comments from the other boys to put out the light and go to bed. He had learned his father's name at Hogwarts over the past five years, and why his father had left his mother, but to see it all written out like that, his mother's last words ... he had never learned her name ... she must not have gone to Hogwarts. So she was a poor village girl, then? ... Marssa was such a pretty name ... Why hadn't she put in her last name as well?
Suddenly, hatred replaced the curiosity Tom had so recently felt. Had Marssa been afraid of his father? The note made it sound as if ... as if she wanted him to do something, to avenge her in some way ...
He and his friends had started a Dark Arts club at school to teach themselves something beyond the elementary curriculum. He had learned Avada Kedavra there ... could he ... could he possibly?
But that was so stupid! Something he, Tom Riddle, soon-to-be Head Boy, brave and valiant and strong, could never do.
Tom suddenly flushed with anger and embarrassment at the sound of his own name. His mother, his own mother, had named him after the man she had feared the most.
And she had feared him. Tom was sure of that.
Later that morning, before anyone had woken up, Tom hopped on a bus and headed out of war-torn London. He had learned where the Riddle House was years ago at school, but he hadn't wanted to go there, until now. He reached Little Hangleton a little after noon, performed the curse quiet easily on not only his father, but his grandparents as well, got on another bus back to London and was at the orphanage before suppertime.
And indeed, at that summer solstice came a new form of Tom Riddle. From that day on, he referred to himself only as Lord Voldemort. By killing his father and grandparents, he proved that his heart went to no one. And this was good, he thought. If you love no one, no one can hurt you. Right?