Tom Riddle

Now most of you know Tom Marvolo Riddle as Lord Voldemort, but today the topic is not how evil Lord Voldemort was towards the end, but how the circumstances little Tom Riddle had to deal with. A lot of people know the general history of Tom, but if you were like me and kind of yawned your way through watching Harry Potter the first time through, (Hey, I didn’t know I’d someday swoon at the words Harry Potter!) then just like me originally you probably only know that Tom is a half-blood whose mother was a witch and was descended from Slytherin’s blood. That his mother was love-crazed for a muggle man who didn’t harbor any of the same feelings and had to use a love potion to marry him. And finally that Tom kills his own father because Tom Sr. had abandoned him and didn’t bother to pull him out of the rotten orphanage. When Tom was a little boy he discovered that he wasn’t ‘normal’, he could move things with his mind and manipulate animals and creatures as he wished, speak Parseltongue, and use his power to inflict harm on other orphans. He got into a lot of fights because of these abnormal talents and because of these fights he grew bitter towards the other orphans that lived with him. It’s speculated that Tom liked the idea of being different, and I agree. Tom grew up with orphans who hated him because of his abnormalities, so really why would he want to fit in with the ‘normal’ people? Now I’m not saying the Tom is innocent and should be called anything but a villain, because we all know that he is, but what I am trying to point out is how he could have turned out differently if things had taken a different turn. Had Tom tried to fit in and lay low, would he turn out to be a great wizard for other reasons? See, some people are born into circumstances, while others are driven to villainy. Could Tom have the perfect mixture of both to turn him into the Britain’s most feared Wizard, Lord Voldemort?