Application for deathdealed
OOC INFO:
Name: Calai'di
Personal LJ: calaidi
Are you over 17?: yes
Contact: calaidi@gmail.com, plurk: calaidi
Characters already in game: n/a
IC INFO:
Character name: Tom Marvolo Riddle
Fandom: Harry Potter
Age: 16
Appearance: Tom is described numerous times (read: every single time he's in a scene as Tom Riddle) as being tall, pale, and very handsome, with jet-black wavy hair and dark eyes. He has fairly long, thin fingers, though they aren't bony just yet, and a fairly thin but fit frame. Because his soul is no longer whole, occasionally when he's feeling a particularly strong emotion like anger or desire, his eyes will get a red tint or gleam to them. Having a good appearance is important to him to make a good impression on people, so he's very neat and clean, every hair in place and no wrinkles in his clothes, and he very rarely looks truly "casual".
He has a quiet, relaxed demeanour most of the time, almost arrogantly relaxed--he's very confident in himself and his abilities. He's very good at making a person feel comfortable in his presence (so long as that person doesn't know what he's really like). When he walks into a room and wants people to be aware of it, or if he just wants people aware of him in general, he'll project more of an in-charge type demeanour, but he's also very good at being unassuming and slipping into the background. His expressions tend to be small and seem more an impression of whatever feeling it is than actually being there. Generally, what he wants you to see is what you will see, unless he's really shaken-up/off-balance--then he has considerably less control over himself and tends to make bigger, more truthful expressions--or he's particularly thrilled about something--his espressions of "wild happiness" make him seem less human and do not enhance his features.
As he is a book character, the part of Tom Riddle will be played by Gaspard Ulliel.
Canon point: Just after making his first Horcrux
Cause of Death: Making said Horcrux
Abilities: Magic: In the Harry Potter world there are two basic types of people: those who have magic, and those who don't. Tom is one of those who does. In general, a wand and usually an incantation are necessary to preform controlled magic. Wandless magic is possible, and magical children often perform feats of it at random times, but it is almost always impossible to control. In the hands of a powerful wizard, magic can do almost anything (notable exceptions are resurrecting the dead and conjuring food from nowhere).
Tom is skilled at almost all magic, but he's particularly skilled in three areas:
Dark Arts: the Dark Arts are primarily used to harm another person in some way, although some darker branches, such as Horcruxes, cause harm to yourself or harm to the natural order of things. This harm isn't always physical--the Imperious Curse, one of the three Unforgivable Curses, incapacitates another person's free will and thus is entirely mental. With the Dark Arts, intention (to dominate, to step on someone else’s free will, to harm) is the most important, and Tom certainly has enough intention to cause serious harm to others.
Legilimency: the art of correctly interpreting another's mind, or magical mind reading. Eye contact is generally necessary for Legilimency, as is being nearby and having the desire to invade another person's thoughts, and though there is a spell to push one's mind into another person's, it can be performed non-verbally by a skilled Legilimens. Tom's particular skill at it means he can usually tell when a person is lying and he generally does not need to speak the spell out loud. Sixteen-year-old Tom is not, however, the master Legilimens that his future self is, he might be thwarted by someone good at blocking out psychic attacks. The counter to Legilimency is Occlumency, the art of magically defending the mind from such intrusions, and while Tom is also decent at this, he isn't nearly as good at this as at Legilimency yet.
Controlled wandless magic: Wandless magic is conciderably less exact than magic performed with a wand, though it can also be considerably more dangerous, since it works without the tools usually used to focus the magic. By the age of eleven, Tom was already conciously using and directing his magic without a wand. This was not a skill he let slip over the years, since it could be very useful in case his wand was ever taken away.
Parseltongue: the ability to speak to and understand snakes. This is Tom's most treasured ability. It's a very unusual skill that marks him as special even in the magical world, and it's also his proof that he's descended from the most famous Parselmouth to ever live in Britain, Salazar Slytherin. To anyone but another Parselmouth, Parseltongue just sounds like a lot of hissing, though to a Parselmouth, it sounds like their native language, if a little breathier.
Non-magical abilities: Tom is extrodinarily good at charming and manupulating the people around him to get whatever he needs from them. He will occasionally slip up, and it's much easier for him to work his magic on people less brilliant than him, but for the most part, what he wants a person to see is what they will see.
He is also quite brilliant, one of the most brilliant students Hogwarts ever saw, and he's very good at noticing small details and inconsistencies (which contributes greatly to how he can almost always tell if someone is lying to him).
Background:
The main plot of the Harry Potter series takes place in a world very similar to ours, except that there's a whole secret society of magical people, creatures, places, and customs both hidden from and working alongside the more mundane world we're familiar with. These wizards and witches have hidden themselves and their world for about four centuries, and partially hid themselves for sometime before that, prompted in part by medieval witch burnings and escalating fear from the non-magical (Muggle) population. Wizards around the world formed their own governments, economies, schools, and other areas completely hidden from Muggles. In Britain, where the story takes place, this means places like the Ministry of Magic, Diagon Alley, and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Hogwarts was founded a thousand or so years ago by four very powerful wizards: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. Each formed a House where they took students with certain qualities: Gryffindor--the brave; Hufflepuff--hard-workers; Ravenclaw--clever, studious sorts; and Slytherin--the ambitious and cunning. Gryffindor also enchanted a hat that would sort students accordingly in the centuries to come. For a while, the four Founders got along and life was good, but it wasn't long before a certain clash of opinion arose between Slytherin and the other three. Slytherin felt that they should only teach children who were "pure-blood," meaning their families had always and only been wizards, whereas the other three felt anyone magical should be taught, pure-bloods as well as half-bloods (one magical parent and one Muggle/Muggle-born parent) and Muggle-borns (both parents are Muggles).
Slytherin finally built a hidden chamber in the school--the Chamber of Secrets--stuck a basilisk inside, and left. Slytherin was a Parselmouth, meaning he could speak to snakes, so he rigged the Chamber to only open to a Parselmouth and the basilisk would only answer to one of his descendants. He intended one of his descendants to eventually come to the school, release the basilisk, and use it to kill off or scare away any Muggle-borns in the school. The other Founders and numerous witches and wizards searched for the Chamber through the centuries, but it was never found and eventually the story was thought to be a myth.
It's unknown how exactly Slytherin's bloodline flourished through the next thousand years, except that along the way it mingled with the Peverell line and eventually became the Gaunt line. In the early 1900s, Slytherin's blood had dwindled to just one rather poverty-stricken family: Marvolo Gaunt and his son Morfin and daughter Merope. Marvolo was a very proud and arrogant man and had a deep hatred for Muggles and anyone who might like them or be related to them, something he passed down to his son as well. Neither of them cared much for Merope and they valued their two remaining family heirlooms, a ring with a stone carved with the Peverell crest and a locket once owned by Slytherin himself, considerably more than her.
The Gaunts lived near the village of Little Hangleton, which was also where the fairly well-off but Muggle Riddle family lived. Merope ended up falling in love with the Riddle's son Tom. Morfin figured this out and hexed him, prompting a visit from the Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. During this visit, Marvolo also found out about Merope's infatuation, both he and Morfin attacked her, and the Head had them both arrested and sent to the wizard prison Azkaban.
Now free to do as she wished, Merope used magical means, probably a love potion, to get Tom Riddle Sr. to fall in love with her and they eloped. Not too long after that, Merope became pregnant and also rather guilty for continuing to use the love potion. She probably convinced herself that Riddle would have really fallen in love with her by then, or else he would stay for the baby, but neither was the case. As soon as Merope took away the love potion, Riddle left and never saw her again. Sometime after this, Merope made her way to London and, desperate for money, sold the Slytherin locket, which eventually made its way to the collection of one Hepzibah Smith, a descendant of Helga Hufflepuff.
On December 31, 1926, Merope found herself on the steps of a Muggle orphanage in London. Within the hour, she gave birth to Tom Marvolo Riddle, named for his father and grandfather, and within another hour she was dead, leaving Tom to grow up in the orphanage.
Tom discovered very early that he was different than the other children. Most wizard children have little control over their magic, and their magic usually only manifests on accident or in life-threatening situations. By the time Tom was eleven, he was using his magic consciously and had some amount of control over it. He used his magic to bully the other children and make them fear him: on one occasion, he hung a boy's pet rabbit from the rafters; on another, he led a couple children into a cave on one of their outings, and the two were never the same afterward. He was more than ready to accept the idea that he was a wizard and that there was a whole world of magic when Professor Albus Dumbledore of Hogwarts arrived to inform him of the school.
Tom started his first year of school in 1938 and was immediately sorted into Slytherin. Most of the staff took a liking to him at once; Tom was careful to be polite and respectful in front of the teachers, and he was a very talented young wizard with a great thirst for knowledge. He very quickly rose to the top of his class and went on to become a prefect in his fifth year and Head Boy in his seventh. Among the students, he was somewhat feared, and he was soon the leader of a group who were behind some of the more nasty incidents of those school years, though they were never caught at it.
Sometime in his first year, Tom learned of the legend of the Chamber of Secrets and decided to find it. He was also obsessed with his heritage, convinced that his father must have been the wizard because a witch wouldn't have died so easily. However, he was eventually forced to accept that his mother had been the magical one and he began researching that side of his family instead. He discovered Marvolo's name in the old school records, discovered that he was indeed the descendant of Slytherin that he'd suspected, and discovered that his uncle, Morfin, was still alive. At this time and only with his closest companions, Tom began seriously using his nickname, Lord Voldemort, derived from an anagram of his real name, in order to distance himself from his Muggle father.
Also during this time, Tom began researching ways to make himself immortal, no doubt spurred on by the death of his mother. He felt that a wizard should be able to overcome something as simple as death. He finally decided on using Horcruxes. A Horcrux is a piece of a person's soul stored in an object for safekeeping, the piece being torn from the rest by committing a murder. If that person is killed, that piece of soul keeps the rest of the soul anchored to the earth. That wizard would not truly be dead, as he still has a soul, and he would be able to regain a body in some way or another and go on living. This appealed to Tom the most, as he would be almost completely unreliant on anything to keep himself immortal, and he trusted his skill to keep his Horcruxes safe from harm. He also decided that he should have more than one Horcrux, to better ensure his safety; as seven is the most magically powerful number, he decided to spilt his soul into seven pieces--six Horcruxes and himself.
During his fifth year, Tom finally found the Chamber of Secrets and he did indeed open it and unleash the basilisk on the school. Almost all of the attacks resulted in the victim being petrified--none of them looked the basilisk directly in the eyes but only saw it though something or in a reflection. However, near the end of his fifth year, the basilisk did finally kill a girl, who had been unfortunate enough to be near the entrance of the Chamber right when Tom opened it. The school board called for the school to be closed if the attacks didn't stop. Tom had no desire to go back to the orphanage where he was raised, so he reluctantly pinned the blame on half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, who was well known for his love of dangerous creatures, and sealed the Chamber.
That summer, Tom went to Little Hangleton to find out more about his blood family. He met Morfin Gaunt in the Gaunt's shack, who told him that Marvolo was dead and my, didn't Tom look an awful lot like that Muggle down the way. Tom Stunned his uncle, stole his wand, and used it to kill his Muggle father and grandparents. Then he modified Morfin's memory to make him believe he'd done it, took the Peverell ring from him, and left. The Ministry of Magic arrested Morfin and never questioned his confession; Morfin was a well know Muggle-hater after all.
Tom spent a little more time researching Horcruxes and whether he could make more than one, on one occasion actually asking his Potions professor what he thought of the idea (though it was all for academic purposes, of course), but he soon had what he needed. Late in his first term of his sixth year, he used his murder of the girl near the Chamber to store a piece of his soul in his diary. The diary was his proof that he was the Heir of Slytherin and he had been the one responsible for opening the Chamber of Secrets. He didn't want all his hard work in finding and opening the Chamber to go to waste; with the diary, he could lead some later student to finish what he'd started.
And this is where he "dies"; cutting souls apart and storing the pieces in objects is tricky business, after all.
Personality:
Personality-wise, Tom Riddle is the quintessential Slytherin--he's cunning, ridiculously ambitious, and more than willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his ends. Almost since Tom was born, he's been manipulating the people around him to make his life more interesting. He enjoys having power over people, and he does believe that he is essentially better than other people, not the in least because of his heritage. When he was young, this manifested in him tormenting the other children in his orphanage. He made sure they knew he was in charge and that they had every right to fear him. He enjoys taking trophies from his victims; as a child these were just harmless trinkets, but they transformed into his Horcruxes, which he only created after significant murders (or will create, since at this point he's only created one).
At school, he was very skilled at showing his teachers the perfect facade: a wonderfully talented and intelligent young man who grew up alone but didn't let it make the best of him, who was polite and helpful and very charming. He had all but Dumbledore, and later Slughorn, wrapped around his finger, which suited him just fine. Tom is actually rather charismatic naturally, and he's very aware of times when he might need to turn on the charm to get what he wants. With his classmates, he had a small group who followed him and he was more himself with them, though still not completely. With them he was much more the leader he wished to be. With other students, he was the polite and talented boy the teachers saw, but with more of an edge so everyone would know not to mess with him.
Tom is also very much used to working alone and he has no desire to make friends. While some of his followers might claim they he were close and maybe even in his confidence, to Tom they're all pawns in a game and some are just more useful than others. He has followers out of his desire to be in charge rather than for companionship. This independence even extends to how he made himself immortal--he chose to make Horcruxes because he would be the least reliant on them. They simply existed and were essentially him and could protect themselves if necessary. Some other methods of immortality, such as drinking the Elixir of Life, would require him to be dependent on them. He would have to drink it regularly, and if the Philosopher's Stone was ever lost or stolen, or the Elixir contaminated, he'd be as mortal as ever, which was unacceptable.
His need for control and belief in his own uniqueness manifested in his fear of death as well. For him, magic should be able to accomplish anything, especially his magic, and death was certainly one thing that was out of most people's control. Not to mention, death seemed to be the end. He would simply cease to be. And he was too important to just end one day. And he was right--there was a way to "defeat" death--but then he had to do it “better” than anyone else.
He's also very, very fond of learning and testing the limits of what magic can do. He subscribes to the philosophy that "Knowledge is power," so the more knowledge he has, the more powerful he can become. He does not, however, see the value in certain types of magic, and others he deems as less important. He's never really understood or felt he's needed love, so any sort of love-based magic is outside his understanding. He prefers taking the offensive, making an invasive magic like Legilimency perfect for him, but he's practiced much less at the defence-based Occlumency.
He also has a deep need to be seen as anything but common or normal. His name in particular bothers him, because there are a lot of Toms and it is a distinctly Muggle-sounding name. He was quick to believe Dumbledore about being a wizard because he was more than ready to believe he was special. His Slytherin heritage and Parseltongue ability are immensely important to him for the same reason--they elevate him above even most wizards. While at sixteen he might still be using the name Tom Riddle most of the time as part of his cover (using an unassuming name like Tom Riddle ensures some level of trust from other people, making them easier to manipulate, so it's still somewhat useful to him at the moment, even if he does hate it), he's already making plans to shed it entirely in favour of Lord Voldemort.
Most of this explains his extreme detestation of Muggles as well, even though he's a half-blood himself. In Tom's eyes, Muggles are weak and deserve to be ruled over, not hidden from. Muggles were also why he had to grow up alone in the orphanage, since it was his Muggle father who abandoned his mother while she was pregnant. He also bought into most of the pure-blood prejudices about Muggles and Muggle-borns after being in Slytherin--that Muggle-borns were really no better than Muggles and in fact, they might be worse because they had the audacity to have power they shouldn't have, and they were slowly destroying the culture of the wizarding world and diluting their blood, making successive generations weaker. Tom quickly learned to hide his own half-blood status and he was somewhat hateful of it, of being related to the weak Muggles.
Tom's primary philosophy, even at age sixteen, was something his older self taught to Quirrell in book one: "There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it..."
Old Game Info: n/a
Was entrance willingly or by force?: Willingly.
Outside item: His wand. Yew with a phoenix-feather core, thirteen-and-a-half inches long.
IC:
P.I
1st Person Sample:
A question, network, if you will indulge me. I'm from a world where magic is, while not common, not completely unheard of either. Can anyone else here can say the same or similar? I'd like to know if your experiences here regarding your abilities have been anything like mine.
Additionally, if anyone requires food, I have an ample supply and I will hardly charge as much as others might to obtain it.
P.II
IC Character Survey:
[ooc: Tom is a lying liar who lies and rarely tells the whole truth! Truthful answers will be in ( ) when necessary.]
1. Do you have any nicknames, street names, titles, or aliases?
I'm prefect of Slytherin house, if that counts.
(Lord Voldemort, Heir of Slytherin)
2. What is your full birth name?
Tom Marvolo Riddle.
3. Where do you live?
I spend most of the year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. During the summer, I live in an orphanage in London.
4. Give a two or three word description of yourself.
Brilliant, determined, studious.
(Ruthless, ambitious, genius)
5. What do you perceive as your greatest strength?
I work well under pressure, and once I start a project, I make sure to see it through to the end.
(My brilliance and magical ability.)
6. What do you perceive as your greatest weakness?
Occasionally I might get too invested in my work and forget to eat or sleep.
(Being human and thus mortal. The ability to die, the inevitability of death, is every creature's greatest weakness.)
7. Do you have any dreams or ambitions? What are they? If not, why?
I have far too many ambitions to list here. I suppose one would be to push the boundaries of magic enough to write my own book.
(To become the greatest sorcerer in the world. To become a master of death, with my Horcruxes and perhaps the Hallows, if they are not simply myth. To purge the wizarding world of those who do not deserve to have magic.)
8. How would you like to be remembered after your death?
As a great wizard, one of the greatest of this age. I don't know if I can compete with Albus Dumbledore and Grindlewald, but I'll certainly do my best.
(I will surpass them.)
9. If your features were to be destroyed beyond recognition, is there any other way of identifying your body?
No. I have no birthmarks, and I don't scar easily.
10. Do you, or did you, have any role models?
Before Hogwarts? No. But now...perhaps Merlin. Nicholas Flamel. Salazar Slytherin. All the Founders, really.
(And Herpo the Foul.)
11. How do you generally treat others?
Well, I hope.
(As politely and kindly as is needed to encourage trust, until I have no use for them.)
12. Do you trust easily (perhaps too easily) or not?
I do not. Most Slytherins don't.
13. Do you act differently than you feel (concealing your true thoughts)?
If I did, would I say so? That rather defeats the point, doesn't it?
(Yes, almost constantly.)
14. What habits would you find most annoying in friends?
Willful ignorance, untidiness, and tardiness.
(Any amount of disrespect as well.)
15. How do others typically react to you? Why, in your opinion, do they act that way?
Positively. I know nearly all of my teachers like me, and I'm not unpopular among the students. I do try to be somewhat friendly and helpful when I can.
16. Do you like food mild or heavily spiced?
Mild.
17. Are there any specific foodstuffs that you find disgusting or refuse to eat?
No, but I'm not fond of anything too sweet.
18. If you have a favorite scent, what is it?
The smell of the earth after a storm.
19. Do you believe in god(s) or not?
I believe it is impossible to know either way and it is pointless to waste time in trying.
20. Can you kill?
If necessary.
(Yes, and I have before.)
-- APP END --
Name: Calai'di
Personal LJ: calaidi
Are you over 17?: yes
Contact: calaidi@gmail.com, plurk: calaidi
Characters already in game: n/a
IC INFO:
Character name: Tom Marvolo Riddle
Fandom: Harry Potter
Age: 16
Appearance: Tom is described numerous times (read: every single time he's in a scene as Tom Riddle) as being tall, pale, and very handsome, with jet-black wavy hair and dark eyes. He has fairly long, thin fingers, though they aren't bony just yet, and a fairly thin but fit frame. Because his soul is no longer whole, occasionally when he's feeling a particularly strong emotion like anger or desire, his eyes will get a red tint or gleam to them. Having a good appearance is important to him to make a good impression on people, so he's very neat and clean, every hair in place and no wrinkles in his clothes, and he very rarely looks truly "casual".
He has a quiet, relaxed demeanour most of the time, almost arrogantly relaxed--he's very confident in himself and his abilities. He's very good at making a person feel comfortable in his presence (so long as that person doesn't know what he's really like). When he walks into a room and wants people to be aware of it, or if he just wants people aware of him in general, he'll project more of an in-charge type demeanour, but he's also very good at being unassuming and slipping into the background. His expressions tend to be small and seem more an impression of whatever feeling it is than actually being there. Generally, what he wants you to see is what you will see, unless he's really shaken-up/off-balance--then he has considerably less control over himself and tends to make bigger, more truthful expressions--or he's particularly thrilled about something--his espressions of "wild happiness" make him seem less human and do not enhance his features.
As he is a book character, the part of Tom Riddle will be played by Gaspard Ulliel.
Canon point: Just after making his first Horcrux
Cause of Death: Making said Horcrux
Abilities: Magic: In the Harry Potter world there are two basic types of people: those who have magic, and those who don't. Tom is one of those who does. In general, a wand and usually an incantation are necessary to preform controlled magic. Wandless magic is possible, and magical children often perform feats of it at random times, but it is almost always impossible to control. In the hands of a powerful wizard, magic can do almost anything (notable exceptions are resurrecting the dead and conjuring food from nowhere).
Tom is skilled at almost all magic, but he's particularly skilled in three areas:
Dark Arts: the Dark Arts are primarily used to harm another person in some way, although some darker branches, such as Horcruxes, cause harm to yourself or harm to the natural order of things. This harm isn't always physical--the Imperious Curse, one of the three Unforgivable Curses, incapacitates another person's free will and thus is entirely mental. With the Dark Arts, intention (to dominate, to step on someone else’s free will, to harm) is the most important, and Tom certainly has enough intention to cause serious harm to others.
Legilimency: the art of correctly interpreting another's mind, or magical mind reading. Eye contact is generally necessary for Legilimency, as is being nearby and having the desire to invade another person's thoughts, and though there is a spell to push one's mind into another person's, it can be performed non-verbally by a skilled Legilimens. Tom's particular skill at it means he can usually tell when a person is lying and he generally does not need to speak the spell out loud. Sixteen-year-old Tom is not, however, the master Legilimens that his future self is, he might be thwarted by someone good at blocking out psychic attacks. The counter to Legilimency is Occlumency, the art of magically defending the mind from such intrusions, and while Tom is also decent at this, he isn't nearly as good at this as at Legilimency yet.
Controlled wandless magic: Wandless magic is conciderably less exact than magic performed with a wand, though it can also be considerably more dangerous, since it works without the tools usually used to focus the magic. By the age of eleven, Tom was already conciously using and directing his magic without a wand. This was not a skill he let slip over the years, since it could be very useful in case his wand was ever taken away.
Parseltongue: the ability to speak to and understand snakes. This is Tom's most treasured ability. It's a very unusual skill that marks him as special even in the magical world, and it's also his proof that he's descended from the most famous Parselmouth to ever live in Britain, Salazar Slytherin. To anyone but another Parselmouth, Parseltongue just sounds like a lot of hissing, though to a Parselmouth, it sounds like their native language, if a little breathier.
Non-magical abilities: Tom is extrodinarily good at charming and manupulating the people around him to get whatever he needs from them. He will occasionally slip up, and it's much easier for him to work his magic on people less brilliant than him, but for the most part, what he wants a person to see is what they will see.
He is also quite brilliant, one of the most brilliant students Hogwarts ever saw, and he's very good at noticing small details and inconsistencies (which contributes greatly to how he can almost always tell if someone is lying to him).
Background:
The main plot of the Harry Potter series takes place in a world very similar to ours, except that there's a whole secret society of magical people, creatures, places, and customs both hidden from and working alongside the more mundane world we're familiar with. These wizards and witches have hidden themselves and their world for about four centuries, and partially hid themselves for sometime before that, prompted in part by medieval witch burnings and escalating fear from the non-magical (Muggle) population. Wizards around the world formed their own governments, economies, schools, and other areas completely hidden from Muggles. In Britain, where the story takes place, this means places like the Ministry of Magic, Diagon Alley, and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Hogwarts was founded a thousand or so years ago by four very powerful wizards: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. Each formed a House where they took students with certain qualities: Gryffindor--the brave; Hufflepuff--hard-workers; Ravenclaw--clever, studious sorts; and Slytherin--the ambitious and cunning. Gryffindor also enchanted a hat that would sort students accordingly in the centuries to come. For a while, the four Founders got along and life was good, but it wasn't long before a certain clash of opinion arose between Slytherin and the other three. Slytherin felt that they should only teach children who were "pure-blood," meaning their families had always and only been wizards, whereas the other three felt anyone magical should be taught, pure-bloods as well as half-bloods (one magical parent and one Muggle/Muggle-born parent) and Muggle-borns (both parents are Muggles).
Slytherin finally built a hidden chamber in the school--the Chamber of Secrets--stuck a basilisk inside, and left. Slytherin was a Parselmouth, meaning he could speak to snakes, so he rigged the Chamber to only open to a Parselmouth and the basilisk would only answer to one of his descendants. He intended one of his descendants to eventually come to the school, release the basilisk, and use it to kill off or scare away any Muggle-borns in the school. The other Founders and numerous witches and wizards searched for the Chamber through the centuries, but it was never found and eventually the story was thought to be a myth.
It's unknown how exactly Slytherin's bloodline flourished through the next thousand years, except that along the way it mingled with the Peverell line and eventually became the Gaunt line. In the early 1900s, Slytherin's blood had dwindled to just one rather poverty-stricken family: Marvolo Gaunt and his son Morfin and daughter Merope. Marvolo was a very proud and arrogant man and had a deep hatred for Muggles and anyone who might like them or be related to them, something he passed down to his son as well. Neither of them cared much for Merope and they valued their two remaining family heirlooms, a ring with a stone carved with the Peverell crest and a locket once owned by Slytherin himself, considerably more than her.
The Gaunts lived near the village of Little Hangleton, which was also where the fairly well-off but Muggle Riddle family lived. Merope ended up falling in love with the Riddle's son Tom. Morfin figured this out and hexed him, prompting a visit from the Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. During this visit, Marvolo also found out about Merope's infatuation, both he and Morfin attacked her, and the Head had them both arrested and sent to the wizard prison Azkaban.
Now free to do as she wished, Merope used magical means, probably a love potion, to get Tom Riddle Sr. to fall in love with her and they eloped. Not too long after that, Merope became pregnant and also rather guilty for continuing to use the love potion. She probably convinced herself that Riddle would have really fallen in love with her by then, or else he would stay for the baby, but neither was the case. As soon as Merope took away the love potion, Riddle left and never saw her again. Sometime after this, Merope made her way to London and, desperate for money, sold the Slytherin locket, which eventually made its way to the collection of one Hepzibah Smith, a descendant of Helga Hufflepuff.
On December 31, 1926, Merope found herself on the steps of a Muggle orphanage in London. Within the hour, she gave birth to Tom Marvolo Riddle, named for his father and grandfather, and within another hour she was dead, leaving Tom to grow up in the orphanage.
Tom discovered very early that he was different than the other children. Most wizard children have little control over their magic, and their magic usually only manifests on accident or in life-threatening situations. By the time Tom was eleven, he was using his magic consciously and had some amount of control over it. He used his magic to bully the other children and make them fear him: on one occasion, he hung a boy's pet rabbit from the rafters; on another, he led a couple children into a cave on one of their outings, and the two were never the same afterward. He was more than ready to accept the idea that he was a wizard and that there was a whole world of magic when Professor Albus Dumbledore of Hogwarts arrived to inform him of the school.
Tom started his first year of school in 1938 and was immediately sorted into Slytherin. Most of the staff took a liking to him at once; Tom was careful to be polite and respectful in front of the teachers, and he was a very talented young wizard with a great thirst for knowledge. He very quickly rose to the top of his class and went on to become a prefect in his fifth year and Head Boy in his seventh. Among the students, he was somewhat feared, and he was soon the leader of a group who were behind some of the more nasty incidents of those school years, though they were never caught at it.
Sometime in his first year, Tom learned of the legend of the Chamber of Secrets and decided to find it. He was also obsessed with his heritage, convinced that his father must have been the wizard because a witch wouldn't have died so easily. However, he was eventually forced to accept that his mother had been the magical one and he began researching that side of his family instead. He discovered Marvolo's name in the old school records, discovered that he was indeed the descendant of Slytherin that he'd suspected, and discovered that his uncle, Morfin, was still alive. At this time and only with his closest companions, Tom began seriously using his nickname, Lord Voldemort, derived from an anagram of his real name, in order to distance himself from his Muggle father.
Also during this time, Tom began researching ways to make himself immortal, no doubt spurred on by the death of his mother. He felt that a wizard should be able to overcome something as simple as death. He finally decided on using Horcruxes. A Horcrux is a piece of a person's soul stored in an object for safekeeping, the piece being torn from the rest by committing a murder. If that person is killed, that piece of soul keeps the rest of the soul anchored to the earth. That wizard would not truly be dead, as he still has a soul, and he would be able to regain a body in some way or another and go on living. This appealed to Tom the most, as he would be almost completely unreliant on anything to keep himself immortal, and he trusted his skill to keep his Horcruxes safe from harm. He also decided that he should have more than one Horcrux, to better ensure his safety; as seven is the most magically powerful number, he decided to spilt his soul into seven pieces--six Horcruxes and himself.
During his fifth year, Tom finally found the Chamber of Secrets and he did indeed open it and unleash the basilisk on the school. Almost all of the attacks resulted in the victim being petrified--none of them looked the basilisk directly in the eyes but only saw it though something or in a reflection. However, near the end of his fifth year, the basilisk did finally kill a girl, who had been unfortunate enough to be near the entrance of the Chamber right when Tom opened it. The school board called for the school to be closed if the attacks didn't stop. Tom had no desire to go back to the orphanage where he was raised, so he reluctantly pinned the blame on half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, who was well known for his love of dangerous creatures, and sealed the Chamber.
That summer, Tom went to Little Hangleton to find out more about his blood family. He met Morfin Gaunt in the Gaunt's shack, who told him that Marvolo was dead and my, didn't Tom look an awful lot like that Muggle down the way. Tom Stunned his uncle, stole his wand, and used it to kill his Muggle father and grandparents. Then he modified Morfin's memory to make him believe he'd done it, took the Peverell ring from him, and left. The Ministry of Magic arrested Morfin and never questioned his confession; Morfin was a well know Muggle-hater after all.
Tom spent a little more time researching Horcruxes and whether he could make more than one, on one occasion actually asking his Potions professor what he thought of the idea (though it was all for academic purposes, of course), but he soon had what he needed. Late in his first term of his sixth year, he used his murder of the girl near the Chamber to store a piece of his soul in his diary. The diary was his proof that he was the Heir of Slytherin and he had been the one responsible for opening the Chamber of Secrets. He didn't want all his hard work in finding and opening the Chamber to go to waste; with the diary, he could lead some later student to finish what he'd started.
And this is where he "dies"; cutting souls apart and storing the pieces in objects is tricky business, after all.
Personality:
Personality-wise, Tom Riddle is the quintessential Slytherin--he's cunning, ridiculously ambitious, and more than willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his ends. Almost since Tom was born, he's been manipulating the people around him to make his life more interesting. He enjoys having power over people, and he does believe that he is essentially better than other people, not the in least because of his heritage. When he was young, this manifested in him tormenting the other children in his orphanage. He made sure they knew he was in charge and that they had every right to fear him. He enjoys taking trophies from his victims; as a child these were just harmless trinkets, but they transformed into his Horcruxes, which he only created after significant murders (or will create, since at this point he's only created one).
At school, he was very skilled at showing his teachers the perfect facade: a wonderfully talented and intelligent young man who grew up alone but didn't let it make the best of him, who was polite and helpful and very charming. He had all but Dumbledore, and later Slughorn, wrapped around his finger, which suited him just fine. Tom is actually rather charismatic naturally, and he's very aware of times when he might need to turn on the charm to get what he wants. With his classmates, he had a small group who followed him and he was more himself with them, though still not completely. With them he was much more the leader he wished to be. With other students, he was the polite and talented boy the teachers saw, but with more of an edge so everyone would know not to mess with him.
Tom is also very much used to working alone and he has no desire to make friends. While some of his followers might claim they he were close and maybe even in his confidence, to Tom they're all pawns in a game and some are just more useful than others. He has followers out of his desire to be in charge rather than for companionship. This independence even extends to how he made himself immortal--he chose to make Horcruxes because he would be the least reliant on them. They simply existed and were essentially him and could protect themselves if necessary. Some other methods of immortality, such as drinking the Elixir of Life, would require him to be dependent on them. He would have to drink it regularly, and if the Philosopher's Stone was ever lost or stolen, or the Elixir contaminated, he'd be as mortal as ever, which was unacceptable.
His need for control and belief in his own uniqueness manifested in his fear of death as well. For him, magic should be able to accomplish anything, especially his magic, and death was certainly one thing that was out of most people's control. Not to mention, death seemed to be the end. He would simply cease to be. And he was too important to just end one day. And he was right--there was a way to "defeat" death--but then he had to do it “better” than anyone else.
He's also very, very fond of learning and testing the limits of what magic can do. He subscribes to the philosophy that "Knowledge is power," so the more knowledge he has, the more powerful he can become. He does not, however, see the value in certain types of magic, and others he deems as less important. He's never really understood or felt he's needed love, so any sort of love-based magic is outside his understanding. He prefers taking the offensive, making an invasive magic like Legilimency perfect for him, but he's practiced much less at the defence-based Occlumency.
He also has a deep need to be seen as anything but common or normal. His name in particular bothers him, because there are a lot of Toms and it is a distinctly Muggle-sounding name. He was quick to believe Dumbledore about being a wizard because he was more than ready to believe he was special. His Slytherin heritage and Parseltongue ability are immensely important to him for the same reason--they elevate him above even most wizards. While at sixteen he might still be using the name Tom Riddle most of the time as part of his cover (using an unassuming name like Tom Riddle ensures some level of trust from other people, making them easier to manipulate, so it's still somewhat useful to him at the moment, even if he does hate it), he's already making plans to shed it entirely in favour of Lord Voldemort.
Most of this explains his extreme detestation of Muggles as well, even though he's a half-blood himself. In Tom's eyes, Muggles are weak and deserve to be ruled over, not hidden from. Muggles were also why he had to grow up alone in the orphanage, since it was his Muggle father who abandoned his mother while she was pregnant. He also bought into most of the pure-blood prejudices about Muggles and Muggle-borns after being in Slytherin--that Muggle-borns were really no better than Muggles and in fact, they might be worse because they had the audacity to have power they shouldn't have, and they were slowly destroying the culture of the wizarding world and diluting their blood, making successive generations weaker. Tom quickly learned to hide his own half-blood status and he was somewhat hateful of it, of being related to the weak Muggles.
Tom's primary philosophy, even at age sixteen, was something his older self taught to Quirrell in book one: "There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it..."
Old Game Info: n/a
Was entrance willingly or by force?: Willingly.
Outside item: His wand. Yew with a phoenix-feather core, thirteen-and-a-half inches long.
IC:
P.I
1st Person Sample:
A question, network, if you will indulge me. I'm from a world where magic is, while not common, not completely unheard of either. Can anyone else here can say the same or similar? I'd like to know if your experiences here regarding your abilities have been anything like mine.
Additionally, if anyone requires food, I have an ample supply and I will hardly charge as much as others might to obtain it.
P.II
IC Character Survey:
[ooc: Tom is a lying liar who lies and rarely tells the whole truth! Truthful answers will be in ( ) when necessary.]
1. Do you have any nicknames, street names, titles, or aliases?
I'm prefect of Slytherin house, if that counts.
(Lord Voldemort, Heir of Slytherin)
2. What is your full birth name?
Tom Marvolo Riddle.
3. Where do you live?
I spend most of the year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. During the summer, I live in an orphanage in London.
4. Give a two or three word description of yourself.
Brilliant, determined, studious.
(Ruthless, ambitious, genius)
5. What do you perceive as your greatest strength?
I work well under pressure, and once I start a project, I make sure to see it through to the end.
(My brilliance and magical ability.)
6. What do you perceive as your greatest weakness?
Occasionally I might get too invested in my work and forget to eat or sleep.
(Being human and thus mortal. The ability to die, the inevitability of death, is every creature's greatest weakness.)
7. Do you have any dreams or ambitions? What are they? If not, why?
I have far too many ambitions to list here. I suppose one would be to push the boundaries of magic enough to write my own book.
(To become the greatest sorcerer in the world. To become a master of death, with my Horcruxes and perhaps the Hallows, if they are not simply myth. To purge the wizarding world of those who do not deserve to have magic.)
8. How would you like to be remembered after your death?
As a great wizard, one of the greatest of this age. I don't know if I can compete with Albus Dumbledore and Grindlewald, but I'll certainly do my best.
(I will surpass them.)
9. If your features were to be destroyed beyond recognition, is there any other way of identifying your body?
No. I have no birthmarks, and I don't scar easily.
10. Do you, or did you, have any role models?
Before Hogwarts? No. But now...perhaps Merlin. Nicholas Flamel. Salazar Slytherin. All the Founders, really.
(And Herpo the Foul.)
11. How do you generally treat others?
Well, I hope.
(As politely and kindly as is needed to encourage trust, until I have no use for them.)
12. Do you trust easily (perhaps too easily) or not?
I do not. Most Slytherins don't.
13. Do you act differently than you feel (concealing your true thoughts)?
If I did, would I say so? That rather defeats the point, doesn't it?
(Yes, almost constantly.)
14. What habits would you find most annoying in friends?
Willful ignorance, untidiness, and tardiness.
(Any amount of disrespect as well.)
15. How do others typically react to you? Why, in your opinion, do they act that way?
Positively. I know nearly all of my teachers like me, and I'm not unpopular among the students. I do try to be somewhat friendly and helpful when I can.
16. Do you like food mild or heavily spiced?
Mild.
17. Are there any specific foodstuffs that you find disgusting or refuse to eat?
No, but I'm not fond of anything too sweet.
18. If you have a favorite scent, what is it?
The smell of the earth after a storm.
19. Do you believe in god(s) or not?
I believe it is impossible to know either way and it is pointless to waste time in trying.
20. Can you kill?
If necessary.
(Yes, and I have before.)
-- APP END --