Chapter 5. Road of the Defier
—Lord Voldemort/Tom Riddle POV—
[warning: War, Dark thoughts, Blood and Violence]
He hates the orphanage.
Noisy children, fighting, chasing, grabbing a piece of bread from each other, and not much different from the sewer rats. In times of war, no one can guarantee that they will see the sun tomorrow.
An older boy snatched a bit of his dry bread and flaunted it. He just looked coldly at him, remembering every bit of hatred in his petty expression. He thought, there will be a day, I'll make you die.
Mrs. Cole flattered the rich visitors, and some of the visitors who wore gold and silver disguised themselves as caring, exaggeratedly covering their chests with their hands, walking through the procedure with exaggerated tones, and then divided the funds originally intended for the orphanage with Mrs. Cole.
He hates everything here.
He was a child who looked too mature, not yet as tall as a windowsill, and liked to stand under the window to eavesdrop on adults talking. Sometimes they were dividing spoils, sometimes they were having affairs, and sometimes they talked about the worries about the war and the future.
He was called a little freak by others because strange things always happened around him. He didn't like this name, but he knew he was destined to be different from others.
Famine, disease, war. In this era, human life is the cheapest.
Perhaps it's only worth a bit more than a bullet, making it seem like a cost-effective trade to exchange a life for a bullet.
Another child died in the orphanage due to infection, and was hastily cremated and taken away.
He stared at the pale face of the body. Just a few days ago, the child was running around the orphanage fighting for bread, yesterday he was lying in bed moaning for water, and today... he had turned into a thing, a piece of garbage. The orphanage thought it was unlucky, so it hastily got rid of it.
He didn't understand why people could become like this, but he knew that he didn't want to become like this.
The sky was filled with gunfire, and German bombers whistled as they flew over. The entire city of London had become almost completely destroyed.
At night, the fire outside the window illuminated the sky. Many people screamed and shouted out other people's names as the earth shook with each deafening boom. Glass shattered into countless sharp fragments from nearby explosions, and debris fell from the sky, causing excruciating pain. He was almost buried in the rubble, struggling to breathe. He spat out sand filling his mouth and tried to dig himself out.
He heard other children in the orphanage yelling and trying to escape. Frau Kolff shouted loudly to take refuge in the underground station.
His leg must be broken, and the pain had almost made him unconscious. He tried his best to move the beam and stone that had pinned him down, but his young body simply did not have enough strength. The boulder did not budge, responding only with a sharp pain that felt like his legs were being sawed in half with every movement.
He heard a woman calling out a child's name; she must be a mother, he thought. But he had no mother. His mother died giving birth to him.
Gradually, the sounds of people around him ceased, and all that remained was the sound of mice moving about. His leg had lost all feeling.
The second round of bombings began, and the ground shook violently. Smoke and dust filled the air. But he couldn't stay here; he would die if he did.
He didn't want to die. He didn't want to die.
At this moment, he was even more calm, so calm that he felt his blood had dropped to freezing point.
He heard the orphanage staff moving to a nearby subway station; they had been bombed, so they would likely move elsewhere. He had to catch up.
To do that, he had to move the boulder first, get out of here, and then find them at the subway station before dawn.
He didn't want to die here.
He pushed the boulder with all his strength, but it didn't budge.
Despair began to spread like wild grass, entangling his heart and clenching it tightly. Then came the fear, the terror, he didn't want to die here. He didn't want to.
He remembered seeing various corpses many times before, and they all had lost themselves without exception.
But he was different from them.
He wouldn't die here!
In that instant, he felt as if a powerful force had broken through the clouds like lightning, wandering inside his body. Then, the boulder floated lightly like a feather.
He gasped, filled with ecstasy. He felt that electrifying power burning inside him, embracing him, warming him, and dancing wildly with his life and will, making every inch of his body tremble.
He knew his life was not meant to end. He had always known that he came into this world for a purpose.
The building of the orphanage has turned into ruins. The crumbling walls, window frames charred black by fire, and countless stones of various sizes bury the space that used to be rooms, where perhaps there are still other people, oh, those who took away his bread.
Once a prosperous London, he had seen those splendid buildings and glamorous people, but after one night of bombardment, they all turned into ruins. The young children first realized the meaning of destruction firsthand.
He lay alone in bed, his injuries severe and making it difficult for him to move. There was no one to even bring him a sip of water.
The others didn't like him, they called him "freak".
He felt as if he was seeing the boy who had died in the orphanage from infected wounds. An infinite fear weighed heavily on his heart, almost suffocating him.
The human instinct for survival is so strong.
He knew that his leg had not healed properly because he did not receive timely treatment.
They had money, but they didn't want to take care of him.
The boy with the crutches secretly vowed to make them pay for it.
Because of his disability, the other children in the orphanage bullied him more and more recklessly. Hatred grew in his heart, he hated the orphanage, he hated all the people here, and he hated his own weakness.
The magical power that belonged to him was his only friend. His only friend was himself.
The other children gradually stopped bullying him because he would retaliate. He really enjoyed the fear in their eyes. Because now he is finally stronger than them. And now those children dare not call him a monster anymore.
Humans, bullying the weak and fearing the strong, how disgusting.
Smallpox was rampant, and the children in the orphanage fell ill and died one by one.
He overheard that there was originally tax funding to vaccinate children with cowpox to prevent this epidemic, but the money was embezzled by adults.
Hell on earth, piles of corpses, flies, rats.
He crawled out of the pile of corpses with difficulty. He didn't want to become another corpse among them.
With a weak and feverish body, plus a broken leg with an old injury, he couldn't walk at all, so he crawled. He crawled to find food and water, he would not give up on himself.
Every move felt like tearing him apart. But he didn't care about the pain, he just wanted to survive, he just needed to know where he was going next. He supported his injured body with his hands and crawled away, his palms bleeding profusely. Every foot of progress was painful, but firm.
He would not die here. Even if he had to crawl, he would find water and food.
Survive, survive, survive.
The people from the church said that he was possessed by a demon and took him away to exorcise him.
He returned to the orphanage. He knew that some abilities could not be used, or rather, they couldn't be discovered by others when used.
They said he was possessed by a demon, they said he was crazy. They didn't understand him.
Mrs. Cole said she would send him to a mental institution.
Another older child took the opportunity to mock and threaten him, asking if he knew about a lobotomy.
But he scared him off with his gaze.
He knew about lobotomy.
He didn't consider himself strong enough to fight against numerous adults, so he decided to pack his things and run away overnight.
On the same day, the old man with the white beard told him that he wasn't crazy, he was a wizard. And he was going to a school, to go back to the place where wizards belong.
In that moment, he seemed to see a ray of light in his life. He seemed to be falling down and down, into the abyss, until suddenly a beam of light pierced through the darkness from the distant heaven, and he seemed to hear the angel's call. Is he going to start a new life?
Then the old man pointed to his wardrobe. He told the panicked boy that his powers were still weak.
He eagerly accepted it, this was the first lesson in entering the wizarding world.
He declined the invitation to go to Diagon Alley together and stared at Dumbledore's back as he left. I will become powerful one day.
Ollivander told him that his wand, made of yew wood, had a very strong power of death. The phoenix feather inside it belonged to Dumbledore's phoenix.
He started to hate Dumbledore.
At first, Slytherin House did not welcome a crippled, Muggle-named, poor orphan.
His only friends were his own magical powers, and himself.
But he knew how human nature worked. People were greedy, cowardly, and bullied the weak while flattering the strong. If he became stronger, these people would eventually bow down to him. Oh, how he would enjoy seeing their faces at that time.
Because he was not yet powerful enough, he decided to be a good student and win the favor of the professors. This was not difficult. He carefully observed each professor's personality and preferences, and flattered them accordingly. In addition, he had excellent talents and excelled in all courses.
Soon, due to the professors' favor and his outstanding talent in magic, even though he was only a first-year student, Slytherin students no longer dared to look down on him.
It was just as he expected.
Human nature disgusted him. While thinking this way, he smiled formulaically and shook hands with Slytherin classmates to make friends.
He became more and more at ease and never made the mistake of revealing his true intentions to others, nor did he expose himself as a former orphanage resident. His disguise became increasingly difficult to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and he won the favor of all at Hogwarts.
Except for Dumbledore.
He really wanted to kill that man.
But he couldn't. He was not yet powerful enough and was no match for Dumbledore. He had to endure it. There was still a long way to go.
He spent day and night in the Hogwarts library, eagerly absorbing all the knowledge that could help him become more powerful.
He found the spell to heal his leg.
With his wand pointed at the old injury, he recited the incantation. After a burst of light, his leg was restored to full health.
In that moment, a wave of ecstasy engulfed him. He had never felt so fiercely that he could fix his own injuries, save his own life, possess power and control his own destiny.
He had always hated himself for his weakness, and also resented the orphanage, other children, Dumbledore, his classmates, and humanity.
Only when he felt powerful did his self-hatred diminish a little.
He was fanatical about magic, he loved his powerful self.
Equally intense was his hatred.
Summer vacation, unfortunately, he had to return to the orphanage.
The orphanage was not far from the seaside and he was assigned to take care of a group of younger children playing at the beach.
Sometimes, he would maliciously think about whether Mrs. Cole would come after him if some of the children drowned in the sea.
Fortunately, these children were not too naughty and did not bother him. They just obediently built sandcastles or dug trenches on the beach.
With the sea breeze blowing on his face and the blue sea and sky, for a moment, he felt a peaceful illusion as if the wars in the Muggle world did not exist.
Tom Riddle built his own castle on the beach, resembling Hogwarts. Even in this kind of game, he was able to do it amazingly, attracting the admiring looks of the children.
As the sun went down, the tide quietly came in.
When he finished packing the last handful of sand, a bigger wave rushed in from the distant ocean, bringing disaster to the children's castles and trenches on the beach. The wave washed over them, and all the structures were destroyed, leaving only ruins and rubble.
Tom Riddle was stunned on the spot. His gaze fell on the ruins of his castle, but it seemed as if he was not looking at the sand, but at something else through the sand. In that moment, the vast world seemed to be surging with darkness, like a bolt from the blue, as if this wave was a signal handed down to him by the entire universe.
In this world, everything flows, and all life will die, and all things will disappear. This is the fate of all things.
Experiences and memories of the past, wars, bombings, ruins, and death all swirled in his mind and connected in an instant, like a thunderous roar in the depths of time.
At this moment, Tom Riddle decided that he wanted to be eternal.
Eternal.
He wanted to be eternal.
Many years later, the Dark Lord would sometimes recall this moment of trembling clarity. He sometimes felt that this scene was the universe finally tired of the boring script that everything was heading towards death, and chose him as the challenger of the fate of all things, opening a new direction for the universe.
A small snake lost in the Forbidden Forest was brought into the castle by him and kept as a pet.
He "accidentally" let the Slytherins discover that he could speak to snakes. With a group of people looking at him with awe, he found it ridiculous.
The snake Miss Nagini seemed to have a simpler and slightly cuter mind than humans. He thought that snakes were better than people.
He named his lady Nagini.
Nagini wandered around the castle and acted as his informant, reporting the movements of the people he was interested in.
Her snake-like body easily traveled through the pipes hidden in the walls. Hogwarts had really fixed a lot of pipes, which made it too convenient for snakes to move around. Even he found it incredible.
The door to the Chamber of Secrets opened at the command of parseltongue.
Then he discovered something that caught all of his attention, that he found names on the Slytherin family tree. Contrary to his expectations, it was his mother, not his father, who passed down the magic bloodline. His mother, a witch, died in difficult childbirth.
At that moment, he realized that she wanted to die. If she wanted to live, she could have lived. But she...his mother, abandoned him and left him to suffer in the orphanage. His mother, who had never loved him.
"Avada Kedavra." The green light ended the life of Tom Riddle Sr. He didn't want to admit that the person with the same name and surname was his biological father, a person who disgusted him.
He was so disgusted that he couldn't breathe, and he had to erase the person's existence as soon as possible before taking a deep breath.
He also understood why his mother wanted to die. Because she fell in love with this man.
Love? How foolish... Love made her weak, love made her lose herself, and directly led to her death.
Unlike him, he wouldn't make such a foolish mistake.
He killed his biological father and then blamed his uncle, severing all family ties. These weak and despicable humans didn't deserve to live, so they should die.
Only he would be the first to achieve the concept of eternity.
Standing under the starry sky, Lord Voldemort blew in the night wind of Little Hangleton and stared at the stars.