A/N: I don't own Harry Potter or any related characters
Word Count: 455
Warning: mentions of murder
How the mighty had fallen, how the kingdom had fallen under the control of a madman, a man whose entire life was dedicated to bring those he deemed had betrayed him to their knees. Lord Voldemort was that man, an orphaned child who had at one point sought to find his family, to find his name, but instead only found death and despair, destruction and lies.
Once upon a time, his family name had been something to be celebrated, something strong, something of power. He was the last in a long line of powerful wizards, but in the end, he was disgraced, abandoned, half of what he thought he should have been. His blood wasn't pure, it was tainted by a father who wanted nothing to do with him, a father who denied his existence entirely, claiming to have been bewitched and used by his mother. Lord Voldemort cared for neither of them.
His father for not being of noble blood and his mother for having the audacity to die giving birth to him. She had obviously been weak, falling in love with a peasant, not keeping the blood line pure, and yet... here he was, yet, he lived. He denied his father's blood, plunging himself into the linage of the noble house his mother had abandoned, the house that had beaten her, had caused her to run, and ultimately die in the middle of the night. They were a strong house, weeding out her weakness and Lord Voldemort felt akin to them.
He shed his birth name, taking a title more fitting of the man he'd decided to become. Slowly, he started building his power, finding ways to create new Dark Magics, new ways of making sure death never came to claim him the way it had his mother. He murdered the man who had fathered him, the man who denied him. Murdered the whole bloodline and laughed knowing he would never continue it, that the Riddle line would die with him, not that he would ever admit to being its last heir. That was too mundane for a man like him.
He gathered his followers, like minded individuals, men who where loyal to their blood, men who believed in the blood purity Lord Voldemort promoted. None of them knew the truth of his heritage, and by the time he was done with them, having brought them into his sway, none of them would have cared if they did. He smiled, a twisted thing, looking at the carnage they would cause in his name, looking at the way people whispered about him, the way the world now feared his name, as they should. He had come from nothing, and now, now he was everything.