Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter . . . those stories belong to the wonderful mind of J.K. Rowling. I can only hope to do half as good as her.

Tom Riddle's Last Moments

By DarthRoden

“Revenge is a dish, best served cold.” -Old Klingon Proverb

It was dark when Tom Augustus Riddle returned home from his brief visit with his latest conquest.

Tom smiled as he remembered how much he enjoyed himself with the girl, who had been little more than seventeen years of legal age. Of course, even if she hadn't been, then he would probably still have had her anyhow.

As it was, the woman had been in a fight with her own steady boyfriend over some reason or another than Tom hadn't bothered to pay attention to, as he'd been much too occupied with his own lustful fantasies of what he would do with her. He nodded in agreement whenever she wanted encouragement and smiled, he could be quite the charmer if he wanted to.

The girl had been just one more in an endless series of hearts that Tom had broken in the town of Little Hangleton.

He turned as he looked back at the town. The Riddle house stood on top of a hill, not unlike the manor of a rich and powerful landowner. Indeed, ever since he was a small boy, he always looked down on the sleepy little English village like a spoiled young lord.

Indeed, his parents did in fact own quite a bit of the town itself, so the description wasn't that far off.

He turned to open the door, but paused a moment.

Something did not feel right.

Tom turned back to look around, feeling as if he were somehow being watched. The wind rustled with the breeze of a fine summer storm coming.

There was a small crunching sound nearby.

Briefly he wondered if it were Frank, their gardener. He was a bit of a strange man. The war probably made him a bit slow sometimes, but despite that he'd done excellent work on the lawns and gardens.

Despite that, he would try to persuade his parents to get rid of him. The man gave him the creeps.
Sometimes he even wondered if the man were connected somehow with those . . . weird people.

Suddenly the bushes moved and he jumped a little. "W-whose there! Show yourself!"

Then a tomcat cat sprang from the bushes and leaped onto the porch.

Tom Riddle frowned and cursed himself for a coward. He kicked the cat hard when it came over toward him, probably hoping for a handout. It landed in the same bushes with a vile hiss and took off running in the direction of the cemetery nearby. From where he was, he could see that the cat was limping slightly.

He smiled a small satisfied smile. Show that little bastard to scare him.

Abruptly, his mind returned to his thoughts of women.

Like that tomcat, Tom Riddle had done his own prowling tonight, and for quite a long time. He was not the sort to settle down.

‘At least,’ he thought to himself. ‘Not ever again.’

That thought brought back to him a very vivid, yet unwelcome memory. The memory of his wife, or rather his ex-wife as she'd been dead for 17 years.

When he was a young man of about 22, Tom Riddle fell in love with a beautiful, dark-haired, green-eyed beauty who lived in the village all by herself.

He would not dignify her by giving her a name, but she had been young, certainly no older than 18 or so when she turned up out of nowhere, completely alone. She had no family, at least none she was willing to admit to. In fact, she had the air of a woman who was running from trouble and trying to start over somewhere new.

It was that brooding air of mystery, as well as her slightly wicked sort-of personality that attracted him to her. Not that she hadn't been a mistress in the bedroom, indeed that was one of her better attributes.

Tom Riddle would never have been one to believe that he would ever fall in love. That was the sort of thing for commoners like those that the young man looked down on all of his life.

Yet somehow, he fell in love with the woman, or at least he thought he did.

They'd been married off and he went to live with her in a house that his parents purchased for them just outside of town.

The blissful honeymoon lasted all of three weeks.

On the morning of the first of October, Tom Riddle learned the terrible truth about his new wife. To this day, the memory of that discovery brought a surge of anger throughout his entire body.

His wife . . . the girl he thought he'd known, and whom he'd brought into his bed and into his life . . . was a witch!

When he discovered this fact, he became livid with rage.

Tom Riddle confronted her. He hit her when she dared try to deny it, he struck her with his belt, his fist, his steel-toed shoe, till at last she told him the truth.

She told him how she was on the run from some other wizards whom she claimed were the former followers of some "Dark Lord" named Grindenwald, (a name that certainly fit in with that sort in Tom Riddle's opinion) as well as hiding from some other so-called wizards from something called the "Aurors" or some nonsense like that.

There was no way he was going to allow himself to be a part of some weird happenings by a bunch of nutters.

He declared his marriage to the sobbing woman on the floor over and done. He also informed her of his intentions to move back to his parents and that she was to have no further contact with him ever again. Also that she was to vacate this household at once.

The woman, his former wife, begged and pleaded with him over her sobs and wails that she loved him and wanted to stay with him, would do anything to stay with him.

Tom responded by beating her more with his belt till she was nothing more than a mound of pain and bleeding flesh.

Still, that had not been even enough for him.

Such had been his desire for revenge that he took her by force right there on the floor. She was too hurt to scream from a swollen, bleeding mouth that no longer had but a few teeth.

After that, he left for good and never saw the woman again.

A year later, he was informed that his ex-wife died while giving birth to a child.

A boy.

His son.

Tom knew that the child would probably grow up to be the same as one of those . . . abnormal people. So he disowned the child as well.

Sometimes at odd times, or idly when he had nothing else to think about, Tom Riddle wondered what became of that child.

The boy would probably be of age right now, having lived in an orphanage all his life, assuming that he had not been adopted out. Probably on his way to being a career criminal who would end up in some constable's jail for theft or worse.

Tom Riddle shook his head. That was not his problem, nor had it been for a long time.

He walked into the house and shut the door.

The house seemed strangely quiet. Usually his father was listening to the financial news on the radio or his mother could be heard talking on and on about some of her snobby partners at one of her many club meetings.

He could see the door to the drawing room was cracked slightly and that a fire was going in the fireplace.

Tom walked in to say hello to his parents.

"Mother, Father, I . . . " his voice trailed off at the sight that greeted him and paused in mid-step.

It took his mind a moment to catch up to what his eyes were telling him.

His elderly parents were laying on the plush carpeting on the floor in front of their high-backed chairs.

Dead.

He stood there, and found he couldn't quite move. Did he still have legs?

Tom Riddle forced himself to walk forward to look at his parents.

Both of them were old, but the odds that both of them were dead from natural causes at once was not conceivable to him.

In addition there was that look on their faces. Both of them had looks of pure terror etched into the death masks that were their faces.

He shuddered and his heart pounded hard in his chest, as if it were ready to explode at any moment.

"Welcome home, father." Came the sound of a cold, harsh voice behind him.

Tom Riddle turned quickly and came face to face with a young teenage boy dressed in strange black hooded robes. The hood was down to reveal a full head of black hair and dark sinister eyes.

In his hand was a small stick which Tom recognized at once.
It was a magic wand.

Similar to the one he'd found in his wife's dresser that day, except that it was longer and made of a darker wood.

Tom looked up at the boy, his body once again seemed unable to move. His temples and arteries thudded in his neck and head in anxiety. He could literally feel the sweat forming on his back and his forehead.

The boy smiled at him. It was not a good smile at all, nor did it meet his eyes.

The smile was hauntingly familiar to him in some way, as if he'd seen this person somewhere before . . .

Then, with startling clarity, the words he'd spoken sunk in and Tom Riddle began to shake, feeling his bowels loosen slightly.

The boy looked like he did at the same age, with the exception of the smile . . . her smile.

His son.

He wanted to say something, but no words could come out.

The boy looked at him with a hungry sort-of look and said, "What's the matter, father? Cat got your tongue?"

Tom Riddle blinked. ‘Cat? Did he...how could he have known about the cat? Can he read minds!’

Then the boy laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. Too high strung. It was a high, cold laugh that somehow didn't seem to suit him.

"I have been waiting for this moment all of my life, my dear Muggle father." The boy said to him, looking into his eyes.

Tom Riddle looked into those dark eyes, and for a moment there, he could have sworn they held a red glint to them. Instead, he saw something in them that frightened him most of all and he suddenly realized what was happening.

His son, his long lost son, was home . . . and he was here to kill him.

Suddenly he remembered his dead parents laying on the floor nearby and found his voice, though it didn't come out as much more than the squeak of a mouse.

"Y-you killed them?" He said in almost a whisper.
The boy smiled at him. "I tried to make small talk with my dear grandparents, but alas I am afraid they both got boring rather quickly." He shrugged.

‘He's utterly mad,’ thought Tom, feeling close to a heart attack at any moment now.

The boy inclined his head. "Oh no, father. I assure you, I am quite happy. At long last, I can meet the man responsible for my life. A life of misery in a foul Muggle orphanage. A like of obscurity and pain that I could not begin to describe to you."

Now his face twisted into a look of utter hatred, making his handsome features suddenly very terrifying.

Tom Riddle dropped to his knees, tears began to flow from his eyes. He was suddenly very afraid and knew he was never going to leave this room alive. Yet his mind screamed at him to try and talk his way out of it . . .

"P-please! No! N-not me!" He blubbered.

The boy looked at him disdainfully and crossed the room toward him very quickly, pointing the tip of the wand directly at the spot between Tom's eyes.

He closed them, feeling the tears flow down his cheeks and his body heaving in fright. The warmth at his crotch told him he just pissed himself.

"Be silent! I am not here to listen to your pathetic pleas for your useless Muggle life!" The boy hissed at him. "Lord Voldemort does not grant mercy!"

‘Lord Voldemort?’ Tom Riddle tried to gather the meaning of that name in his mind.

The boys spoke to him then, and Tom could hear the wicked amusement in his voice as he said, "Do you like it? It is the name I have chosen for myself, one much better than the name that my dead mother gave with her dying breath. The name of the Muggle and the fool who helped bring me into this world. The name, Tom Riddle. You, my dear father."

Tom opened his eyes, his vision blurry and he could see the raging hatred on the young man’s face. "T-tom, I . . . "

Tom . . . Lord Voldemort continued, as if he’d never been interrupted, "I have come back to thank you father. Because of you, I now know what my ancestor, my wizard ancestor, believed to be was true. Mudbloods and Muggles would be the downfall of the wizarding world. Indeed, your actions have helped me to find my ultimate destiny, father. Would you like to know what that is?"

At this point, Tom Riddle was crying hard . . . not too much unlike the beautiful young woman that he’d almost beat to death 18 years before and raped.
"I will avenge myself on the Muggle world, beginning with those who treated me as anything less than what I am now. Starting tonight, I will begin to rid the wizarding world of your sort. Then, I will destroy all of you Muggle filth!" The eyes of the boy, which Tom could not look away from, actually seemed to glow red with evil.

Now the lunatic who called himself Lord Voldrmort smiled an insane smile. "Oh, but listen to me go on and on. As much fun as this has been, well for me anyway, I am afraid I must go now, but not before I give you one last parting gift as my token of thanks to you for all that I have endured as a result of your arrogance and contempt."

Tom tried what would be his last change to starve off the deadly fate he knew was coming.

"SON! PLEASE! I..."

Those would be his last words.

These were spoken at the same instant that the dark-haired young man . . . Tom Malvolo Riddle - Lord Voldrmort - spoke the last words that his father would ever hear . . .

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

The last thing Tom Riddle ever saw was a flash of bright green light and felt the icy touch of death itself . . . and then he saw and felt no more.

The End

What did you think? Let me know OK? -D.R.