The Other Side

9. Tom Marvolo Riddle- Power

Tom Marvolo Riddle did not know what it was like to live anywhere apart from an orphanage. He rotted in that place for he knew that he was better than them all, that he was special and deserved to be treated as such. Unfortunately, the others did not seem to recognize that and merely treated him as odd rather than great.

Greatness was something that he had pursued for a long, long while. There was no point living without being great and everyone else was too foolish to realize that.

Since they did not see his greatness and merely saw him as different and not in a good way, he settled for punishing them. He killed their pets and scared them and stole from them and he wanted to do more, he craved more, but he could not control his greatness. It could not be tied down and he could not afford to be exposed because he was destined to rule the world and he would not be able to do that from the grave.

So, he continued on like this for the first eleven years of his life. Then, Albus Dumbledore came to his room and told him that he was special, but when he found out that there were others like him, others as special as him, he could not stand it. He had to do something else as well to rise to the greatness he deserved.

At least the fact that his ability to talk to snakes made him better, more unique and more special than the common multitude.

Albus Dumbledore was a soft, idiotic fool. He was too lenient and, although he noticed many things, he was a believer in second chances, no matter how many second chances one got. Although Tom looked down upon him for that, that was what kept the man's thoughts towards Tom pure. He knew that Dumbledore suspected him so very much, but he saw too much non-existent good in Tom to do anything about it. Tom had the rest of the teachers and all of the other students wrapped around his little finger.

And it was glorious.

They did what he said, heeded his every command, fulfilled his every wish and obliged his every whim and fancy. They were puppets and he was the puppeteer, he could tug on the strings and they would go where he pulled them. They would do what he asked, destroy whomever he asked them to and, in the end, no one but them would pay the consequences because they were too enamoured by Tom to turn against him.

The first three years at school were wonderful, but they were nothing compared to the next four.

During his fourth year, he began researching his family tree and he found that he was of the most noble line of Salazar Slytherin. Some more research led him to the knowledge of what his mother had done.

He hated her for it. She had marred and tarnished the pure, magical blood of Slytherin and had corrupted it by mixing in the blood of a filthy Muggle. That would not do.

So, by the time he was seventeen, he had murdered his parents and grandparents and blamed it on the foolish Morfin, his uncle, who had been weak enough to allow Tom's father to survive for so long, after he had played a hand in the destruction of the purity of the line.

All of this was a simple stepping stone to greater things.

He had followers, so many followers. They feared him and respected him and they would do anything for him. His word was law and he was only in school.

Then, he realized something that he should have realized a long time ago. His surname was still that of a dirty Muggle.

That would not do. He would have to change it, at least amongst his followers. He could not bear the reminder that his blood was only half pure because only the purest blood could be tolerated. That was when he became Lord Voldemort. 

His followers knew of this and of the reasons behind it, but they were too fearful and too believing to do a thing. They respected him and adored him and that was a feeling he reveled in. There was nothing more important than commanding the fear and the respect of lesser beings, beings that could be easily manipulated to give you unwavering faith and matchless power over them. Power led to conquering and conquering led to more power and the cycle continued until he could have the world.

For a boy who had nothing, power over the world was a prospect that he couldn't resist. Power in itself was a prospect he couldn't resist.

The feeling of someone completely subservient to him, someone so completely bewitched and under his control for the simple reason that he was powerful was the greatest feeling he had ever had.

Tom, in general, couldn't feel very much. He did not feel that foolish emotion that Dumbledore so stressed upon; love. He couldn't feel happiness or sadness. He couldn't feel bliss or empathy it even sympathy. All he knew was power and pleasure and greatness.

Greatness was something that he would do anything to achieve, even sell his soul. Fortunately, he did not have to do this. Instead, he became the master of his own fate and his own destiny. He killed to strengthen himself and, in the grander scheme of things, a few lives lost on his quest for power and domination did not matter in the least. He, however, did feel a limited amount of remorse for the pure blood he had spilt, but even that had faded with the realization that they had it coming for going against him.

The maintenance of blood purity of the oldest of magical bloodlines was a cause that Tom or, as he preferred, Lord Voldemort believed in and made others believe in because it was important, not only because the entire future of the wizarding world depended on it, but also because it granted him what he strived so much to get.

Power.

Power not just over his blind followers but also power over the world at large. Once Tom had gotten a taste of power in its simplest of forms as a Prefect and had used this power to escape the idiotic consequences of his efforts, he had been almost like an addict craving his next taste of the drug that was power.

He would go to extraordinary lengths for power and that was what made him great.