Miss Moony would like to say that she doesn't own Harry Potter and that she had no help with this story from Miss Wormtail, Miss Padfoot or Miss Prongs.

Slight HBP spoilers.

------- I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good -------

The Good Die Young

Tom was an angel. He idolised the older children at the orphanage and was brushed casually aside, and sometimes he helped Cook in the kitchen, until she snapped at him to leave her to work without having to worry about him chopping off his fingers.

Tom Riddle was older than Tom, but not by much, and a little more cynical but still innocent. He went to school and did his best in every lesson (never good enough), and at the weekends he sat in his dormitory and read fairytales all day, until one day they came true.

Tom Marvolo Riddle was a bitter boy, angry at the way the world had treated him all his life. He murdered Billy's rabbit, and he tormented those two children in the cave (they deserved it, the arseholes). He left the orphanage without a single regret, and deeply resented being sent back every summer. Fairytales were no substitute for the real thing.

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.

Lord Voldemort was a bitter teenager who grew into an even bitterer man. He created an alias, killed his father, opened the chamber of secrets, and planned to rid the world of those filthy Muggles who'd squashed all his dreams. Plans escalate, and soon he was ridding the world of muggle-borns and half-bloods, too. Lord Voldemort was a far cry from the boy Tom.

'The good die young,' he told Wormtail when he asked during a rare lapse of eagerness to torture. Wormtail didn't enquire as to how that could be considered an answer to his question.

The good die young. Once upon a time, Tom; Tom Riddle; Tom Marvolo Riddle; Lord Voldemort: He was as good as good could be.