I, Tom Riddle

Greetings. My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. 

You should call me Lord Voldemort.

Now, you all know my story. How I was one of the greatest Dark Lord in centuries and then got blown up by a baby.

But you know what? Like any self-respecting dark lord, I returned.

…And then got blown up again by the same bloody baby, who was now a teen.

It is painstakingly frustrating, I’m aware. For after all I did to achieve greatness, the mastery of the obscurest of magics, a seventeen-year-old boy defeated me with a bloody disarming charm. 

But that, I’m afraid, is not my story. Not really. I’m not saying this all did not happen. It very definitely did. But they are only the highlights, the worst of it, as shown to you by the so called ‘victors’. Victors, who didn’t bother with the true tale or my true purpose and doomed themselves. How, I envisioned a better future for them, and they spat on me at every turn. 

Me, their savior.

So, let me tell you the whole tale. My story, one of valor and courage. Of how I did what no one had the guts to do.

So, the story, as every other great story, starts on a dark, wintery night. 

No, scratch that.

It actually starts before that. I will just start over.

So, my story, unlike every other great story, doesn’t start on a dark wintery night. It starts in a small town, on a bright sunny day in the middle of spring.

I know. Who would want such a terrible start? But we must live with what we have.

So, on one bright sunny morning in the middle of spring as flowers bloomed and the birds sang, my mother, a young girl, sat by the windowsill, humming to herself as a pie baked in the oven behind her.

That was when a handsome young Englishman, the son of the wealthy town merchant, had ridden by on his brilliant white horse past the small window of the small, dilapidated shack, catching the eye of the girl.

Yes, the girl and the boy in the story are my parents.

Now, one would wonder how a wealthy young gentleman and a poor, lovesick girl from the outskirts of town would ever come together in a grand tale of romance.

The answer is simple. They wouldn’t.

At least, not in any conventional, swoon-worthy, fairy-tale way. You see, my mother, Merope Gaunt, was not exactly what one would call a great conversationalist. Or charming. Or, well… particularly attractive. Yet, she was cunning, like my prided ancestor. So, her strategy for romance was far more efficient.

She used her wits and magic, to great effect to gain what she wanted, like any self-respecting heiress of the great Salazar Slytherin should. She used a simple love potion to enchant the primitive muggle mind of my father.

Yes, my father, Tom Riddle Sr., was lured into wedded bliss not by love, not by fate, but by the magical contents of a cauldron. Now, some might say this was unethical. Some might say this was a violation of free will. Some might say my mother, like the rest of her family, was crazy.

I would prefer to say that she had the knack for creative problem-solving.

So, for a brief, enchanted period, my mother and father lived as a blissfully happy couple. And by "blissfully happy," I mean the absolutely worthless muggle who birthed me had no idea what was going on. He rode his horse, smiled on cue, and probably wondered why his brain felt like mush. 

Meanwhile, my mother basked in the illusion of love, dreaming of a future where they’d have a beautiful child with his aristocratic nose and her… well, her determination. That child, of course, was me. The greatest heir of Salazar Slytherin, and one of the greatest wizards to walk on Earth.

I was meant for greatness before I was even born. For the greatest of palaces and the most wondrous riches.

But, as the matron of my old orphanage said, God gave the toughest battles to the strongest souls.

And none were stronger than mine. 

So, things got complicated. My mother, in a fit of absolute romantic delusion and the fact that I, the greatest child to be in history, was in her womb, decided to stop enchanting my father and sought true love. 

She believed—honestly, sincerely believed—that after spending all that time under the effects of a love potion, he would somehow genuinely love her.

How foolish she had become.

Of course, spending time with a worthless, enchanted muggle who couldn’t handle even the briefest glimmer of magic, it was bound to happen.

The moment the enchantment broke, my father took one horrified look at my mother, another at his surroundings, realized he was living in a shack with a pregnant woman he didn’t remember marrying, and did what I would expect a muggle to do.

The worthless stain of a human ran away, leaving a witch, his infinitely better counterpart, alone and stranded with a child.

And thus, my tragic origin story truly began.

My mother, heartbroken, abandoned, and with absolutely no concept of financial planning, barely lasted long enough to bring me into the world before promptly dying. No dramatic farewell, no final words of wisdom—just me, freshly born and promptly orphaned, left to the mercy of a Muggle orphanage.

And that, my friends, is how the greatest Dark Lord of all time started his life: not in power, not in glory, but in a drafty orphanage.

Now, one might think that this was the moment where my greatness began, and my destiny began to shine through. That even as a mewling infant, I demonstrated my superiority over my peers. That the matron gasped in awe at my very presence and knew she was holding the future ruler of the wizarding world.

No. Unfortunately, life was not that poetic. I’d say, it was pathetic.

I was wrapped in a thin, scratchy blanket, placed in a crib that had probably been used since the dawn of time, and left to my own devices in the most uninspired, dull, and utterly infuriating environment possible—a Muggle orphanage.

Imagine the tragedy. A wizard—the greatest of them—born into a world of mediocrity, surrounded by sniveling, runny-nosed muggle children who thought magic was nothing more than cheap parlor tricks performed by clowns at birthday parties.

But I knew better. Even then, I knew better.

From the moment I could walk, I set myself apart. The other children were weak, crying for attention, whining about hunger or cold. I, on the other hand, needed nothing from them. If I wanted something, I took it. If someone annoyed me, I made them stop.

And sometimes, strange things happened around me.

A bully would suddenly find himself dangling upside down from the rafters. A stolen toy would reappear in my hand as if it had never left. The matron's favorite cat, a ghastly thing with one eye, went mysteriously missing for two weeks before turning up in a state of... well, let's just say it wasn't the same cat anymore.

They feared me. They whispered about me.

But fear alone wasn’t enough. Fear was fleeting. Fear could be forgotten. I needed control. I needed power. And just when I was beginning to despair, just when I thought I would be stuck in that dreary, cabbage-scented purgatory forever, he arrived.

A man in strange robes, with a long white beard and an irritating twinkle in his eye.

"Tom Riddle," he had said, running his eyes over me. "I am Albus Dumbledore, from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Ah, yes. The man who would become my greatest enemy. The man who, even then, had the audacity to look at me with suspicion. The man who had the gall to set my wardrobe on fire because I was merely storing a few... acquired belongings from my less intelligent peers.

But despite his insufferable presence, he brought news that changed everything.

"You are a wizard, Tom."

I knew it. I knew it.

Finally, someone who recognized that I was different. Special. Powerful.

And so, I left the orphanage behind, stepping into a world that was rightfully mine. A world of magic, of knowledge, of endless possibilities.

Hogwarts.

It should have been my kingdom. It would have been my kingdom. It would’ve been the place where I would’ve freed my kind from the dastardly, snivelling cowards who were muggles.

But Hogwarts had its flaws. Oh, did it have its flaws.

For one, it was run by fools. Dumbledore, that insufferable beacon of righteousness, had already taken an interest in meddling in my affairs. Then there was that idiotic Sorting Hat, which had the nerve to hesitate before placing me in Slytherin, as if there had ever been any question.

And worst of all? The blood traitors. The Mudbloods. The ones who walked these sacred halls as if they had any right to be there. As if they were my equals. As if they were anything other than trespassers in a world that did not belong to them.

But I was patient. I was clever. I was stronger than the rest of them combined.

I was the true heir of Slytherin, the next of kin to the great Salazar himself. My blood reigned supreme. Prophecies spoke of my coming. Salazar Slytherin himself had seen it.

The great heir who would come and purge the world of the unworthy. Of those not deemed blessed by mother magic.

So, I persisted. I learned and I rose, both in repute and power. 

I sought out the forgotten chambers, the hidden knowledge buried beneath centuries of dust and neglect. I traced my lineage back to its roots, and I found it—Salazar’s great secret, his greatest legacy. The one thing he had left for me to prepare.

The Chamber of Secrets.

Oh, the thrill of that moment. To stand before the sealed entrance, to utter the sacred words in the language of serpents and hear the grinding of stone as it opened for me, and me alone.

Inside, I met the guardian of my birthright: the great basilisk, a magnificent creature, bound by the will of my ancestor to cleanse Hogwarts of those who did not belong.

This was it. This was my chance. The first step in making Hogwarts what it was meant to be.

But, as always, the world was filled with idiots.

A girl died. A Mudblood, obviously, and while that should have been a victory, apparently, the world did not see it that way. They panicked. They shut down the school. And worst of all, they blamed me.

I had been so careful, so meticulous. But Dumbledore suspected. He always suspected.

So, I did what any great strategist would do—I adapted. I framed that oaf, Hagrid. He was simple enough, with his foolish love for beasts and monsters. A few whispers here, a well-placed accusation there, and suddenly the fool was expelled, his pet acromantula banished to the Forbidden Forest, and Hogwarts was safe.

But I was not done.

I would never be done.

That year, I learned something even more valuable than my ancestor’s secret chamber.

I learned that the world was blind. The world did not want power. The world didn’t want to change. The world, like muggles, was incompetent.

The only way to change it was by force. And those who had tried, like the great Gellert Grindelwald, didn’t usually go down well in history.

But they were not me. They didn’t have my drive, nor did they have my legacy. I swore that I would change the world and fulfil my prophecy. And if I became the villain, so be it.

Greatness is not rushed. Dominance is not claimed in a single night. No, I had more to learn, more to master, and much more to prepare.

And so, I planned. I decided to go beyond Hogwarts. Beyond Britain. To become greater than any wizard who had ever lived. I decided to conquer death itself.

For destiny itself, awaited.

And it would have been fulfilled, had it not been for the foolishness of the masses, and the influence with which the muggles had eaten away at us.

Alas, even I can only do so much for an ungrateful world that doesn’t wish to be saved.  Even the greatest minds are wasted on the unworthy.

The world, foolish and blind, chose to resist me at every turn. They clung to their mediocrity, their weakness, their fragile illusions of equality. They spat in the face of destiny, of progress, of the salvation I so generously offered.

And for what? To place their faith in a boy? A child who knew nothing of true power?

Pathetic.

I was cast down, not by a superior mind or greater magic, but by sheer luck and the interference of those too afraid to embrace the future I had envisioned. And now, they call it victory.

Let them. Let them celebrate their fleeting triumph, their fragile peace. Let them live in their delusions. Because history is not kind to fools, and the wheel of fate never stops turning.

One day, when their world crumbles, when the darkness they feared comes not from me but from the very decay they refused to stop, they will realize their mistake.

And when they do—oh, how I will laugh. I will laugh at all of them. At Dumbledore, at Potter, at all those who opposed me.

For I was the hero they needed, but didn’t deserve.

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AND… DONE! I hope you all liked the story!

Honestly? This was a crazy idea I had, and I thought, fuck it, let’s write this. So, I dipped into my crazy and birthed what you just read, given you didn’t stop in between and skipped to the end to see what the next update is. 

Speaking of which, the next update will be Guardian of the Soul: Infinity Saga. An excerpt from the next chapter has been shared on my discord server already, earlier today.

I don’t have much else to say. Oh, and no, I am not doing this again, probably. Dipping into this crazy, dark humor is tough for me and makes my mind spin. After this, I’m going back to completing my completely sane GotSIS chapter, before moving to Black Dawn.

As for RoLP, I have unfortunately decided to skip an update as I am feeling burned out and I sense that a cycle break would be good for the story ahead. I’ll get to it after GotSIS if I get the inspiration though. The burn is because endings are usually very tough and to land a story as humongous as RoLP is something I must work on.

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Stay Happy! Stay Safe! Keep Smiling! Keep Reading!

HPfanfictioner66