The Real Origin of Tom Marvolo Riddle

Once upon a time there was a witch, young and beautiful and good. As is the way with such witches, before long she met a man and married him. Together they had a baby, a bonny, golden-haired boy. She called him Tom after his father and Marvolo after her father.

The boy was less than a year old, and as good-natured as a boy can be, when he fell sick unto death. The young couple loved him and hugged him and procured the best doctors they could afford. Tom Marvolo recovered - but such a change! Once he smiled and laughed, now he bawled for hours on end. Once he eagerly ate his mashed apple and oatmeal, now he tipped it on the floor as soon as he saw it.

Tom's maternal grandmother visited and said one word - eggshells. Foolishly, his mother refused to believe such a thing. Her eyes were blind to the old wizened face and thin frail body, believing them to be a result of the illness. The child remained.

Within a couple of years the young couple were not so happy as they had been before. The child continued sickly and frail, with intelligence far beyond his years. Tom Marvolo was three years old when his mother used her wand to defend herself during an argument. When her husband recovered he packed his bags and left, back to his parents' home. There he stayed.

The witch was still young, but care made her no longer beautiful as day after day she toiled to feed the cow and the pigs and grow a few vegetables for herself and the child. Tom Marvolo was so disagreeable that she looked forward desperately to the day he would start Primary School.

Then one day the child disappeared. She wept and sobbed and looked everywhere. Her mother came to comfort her and assure her that he had returned to his own people - as such children did - and a blessed relief it was. The young witch dried her eyes and went out and got a job and lived comfortably ever after - but she didn't ever marry again.

Tom Marvolo Riddle pretended to be asleep. He knew what was happening alright - he'd viciously bitten and kicked his grandmother when she stole him away. Before the door opened he smoothed his face and curled up like a little child, eyes closed and long lashes lying like feathers on his cheeks. The old lady who opened the orphanage door exclaimed in wonder at the beauty of the child lying there, wrapped in blankets. Tom Marvolo was taken into the orphanage - and a miserable place he made it. Yet no-one thought to test him with eggshells. Why would they? They'd never seen the bonny baby who first bore his name.

Eight years later a headmaster, a minister of magic and two professors sat around a plate of ham sandwiches and a flask of pumpkin juice at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They discussed all the ten and eleven year old children whose names were on a list of parchment - and some who weren't. In due course they came to the name: Tom Marvolo Riddle.

"What do you think? He's half blood, mother was Head Girl in her time."

"Never shown any sign of magic, has he?"

"Horrible child, if reports are true."

"Come now minister, we can't expect perfect behaviour from an orphan boy."

"With even a drop of his mother's blood in his veins, he's sure to do well."

"It's settled then? We'll send him the letter next week."

Tom Marvolo Riddle looked curiously at the letter. His house matron shook with excitement - or was that relief? - as she handed it to him. In eight hundred and ninety-seven years living in the British Isles Tom had not heard of a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He immediately determined to go and learn all he could.

The rest is history. Tom Marvolo applied himself to thoroughly learn every new skill he could, while avoiding detection by Albus Dumbledore. He was certain that Dumbledore was the only wizard in the school who knew that he was a changeling and not a real boy at all. He kept an annoyingly close eye on him, but was unable to prevent Tom's rise to power.

Until, that is, Tom Marvolo set himself against an enemy too great for him. The true heir of both Slytherin and Gryffindor, the boy whose birthright he had stolen. Harry Potter was not much more than a year old when he looked Tom in the eye and pronounced the word - changeling - even as Tom Marvolo tried to kill him. Shrieking in pain, the changeling fled up the chimney and returned to fairyland. There he waited, till the time came when he could once more return with power to destroy his adversary.