Note: Like the title states, this is a challenge. I'll post prologues in the hopes that one of my readers will turn it into an amazing fic. The posts will be of various styles to appeal to different tastes. You may see some creature!fic, evil!harry, maybe even some baby!fic.

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Title: Tom

Summary: Making the decision to have a child--It's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. I never knew my heart was wicked until Merope Gaunt made the aforementioned decision for me. AU.

Disclaimer: Do I really need to say Harry Potter is not my own creation?

Author's Note- Many thanks my master-beta Erik deSoir.

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"I hate you. I hate you for deceiving me. I hate you for putting me in this position. I hate everything about you but I refuse to hate my child!" At any other time, Tom Riddle would have yelled for the entire world to hear, but at that precise moment, his son was hidden in a mass of blankets, nestled in the crook of his father's arm. Seething whispers would have to do. "I don't know how you managed it and I'm not sure I care to, but it doesn't matter now. I'm putting an end to it."

Gaunt. He couldn't have thought of a more fitting name for the wily woman sitting before him. Her body resembled that of a corpse rather than one of a woman who had given birth just days before. Limp brown hair framed sunken cheeks and a jaw line that seemed too masculine for his liking. "What do you mean… put an end to it?"

Shifting the bundle in his arms, Tom responded. "Tom is mine and mine only. You?" After pausing to survey the limp woman in front of him, he spat out angrily, "I wouldn't care less if you fell off the face of the earth and splattered into a million bloody pieces. It'd be no more than you deserved, you vile woman!"

Finally losing his temper enough to raise his voice, Tom began pacing the floor and patting the back of his now howling son. Seeing a look of concern in Merope's depraved eyes only maddened Tom more. "Why are you still here? I thought I had made it clear that you weren't needed. Do the world a favor and rid it of yourself!"

A single tear was the last thing Tom Riddle Junior and Tom Marvolo Riddle saw of Merope Gaunt.