It's not something you just wake up with. It creeps up on you slowly, sidles up sideways and smiles and asks your name. And before you know it, you've gone too far. Voldemort's descent into the Dark. No child grows up dreaming of genocide.

The first thing you have to understand about Voldemort is that he is a result. Not a pretty one, not one that anyone wanted or expected, but a consequence of other's actions nonetheless.

That is not to take the blame off of the man (and he was a man) himself. His reactions, his decisions, were always his own.

The environment Voldemort - then Tom Riddle - grew up in was hostile, to say the least. His orphanage was not the most funded, his peers not the most forgiving. Something happened, or they sensed something different, but little Tom Riddle was marked as 'strange' and a 'freak' and this would mar him for the rest of his life.

His first transgression is small: merely a theft. But it teaches him things. That rules can be broken, that people are not omniscient, that sometimes he can hurt people in ways that are not physical. He takes from Mary Lewis the only thing she had left of her parents, a photograph of them, and she cries for days. She had pushed him down only two days before.

He also learns he has a talent for lying with a silver tongue and honest eyes.

It could have stopped there, but it didn't.

The orphanage monitors know that the children avoid Tom Riddle; that they exclude him from their games and when he is included it is as the victim, the villain, the one everybody loves to hate.

(In the end he becomes only what they expect of him.)

The monitors don't mean to, but they also ostracize him. The thought there's something wrong with him never actually forms in any of their minds - and yet one little boy constantly falls to the wayside, is always passed over in favor of another.

Time and again Tom Riddle experiences cruelty from his peers and, from his protectors, a distant coolness.

Like all children, he wants attention. Like most children, in order to get it he acts out.

Things go missing. Light bulbs burst. Furniture breaks in the strangest of ways.

Eventually, young Tom Riddle figures out that he's not getting blamed because no one can believe it's him causing all of it. Eventually he figures out that he's special.

This is a turning point. This is a choice which, made another way, could have changed the future.

Because little Tom Riddle chooses fear.

In a blind world, the man with one eye leads. That one-eyed man feels powerful, feels better than his kinsmen for the simple reason that, physically, he is better. In terms of nature and competition and natural selection, he is the best.

Humans have not been a part of nature for a while.

Tom Riddle, after figuring out that he could do things no one else could, is excited. Finally, here is something that proves what he has always known (what everyone everywhere has always known because it is human nature) that he is special, and better, and deserves to be treated that way. Children are not logical; as soon as he comes to this conclusion he also automatically assumes that everyone around him will know it as well.

Their behavior does not change. Nothing changes, and he feels cheated. He feels as if something precious has been taken away - and it makes him angry. It makes him want revenge.

Children are petty. Tom Riddle takes more things, hides them away in a box no one but himself can find. He lures children away from the group with tales of wonderful, adventurous things and he hurts them and makes them forget every time. It is a game he loves to play, watching them fear him without knowing why.

He thinks about pain. He thinks about fear. He thinks about murder. No one is there to tell him this is wrong.

Quite simply, Voldemort is one of those children society forgot. He never learns what is right and what is wrong from a teacher's mouth; his morals are based on observation and, as most know, people are hypocrites down to their very nature. Having never learned the rules, he makes up his own.

And then Tom Riddle is eleven and doesn't feel so little anymore. A strangely dressed man with white hair and a long beard sets his box of stolen goods on fire and his entire life changes in an instant.

This is important. This is the point when Voldemort realizes he wants to be something more.

Tom Riddle is misguided (still only misguided, at this point, certainly not evil) not stupid. He gets his books early, reads them, and gets more. He reads these, too. Finally the orphanage monitors are starting to question why they're leaving large amounts of money in strange places and he decides he doesn't need any more books.

Tom Riddle already knows exactly who he's going to be.

Not all purebloods are well-known. Some families are background - some trace their lines back to other countries. Tom Riddle decides his parents moved to England from Germany while he was still just a baby and died; he grew up in an orphanage without knowing about his powers. In Hogwarts, he will charm the other purebloods.

They will offer to teach him about his birthright, and he will accept.

Pay attention now, for this is where it happens. This is where it begins.

Starved for acceptance - though never willing to admit it to himself - Tom Riddle latches onto his yearmates. He emulates them, figures out what makes them laugh and smile and look at his just like that, like he's the best thing in the world. And he wants more.

Tom Riddle's friends like Quidditch and they like winning. Tom Riddle loves Quidditch and takes every loss as a personal defeat.

Tom Riddle's friends think muggles are inferior, less than human. Tom Riddle thinks they should all be killed, especially the ones stealing magic from purebloods.

Tom Riddle's friends are interested in Dark magic. Tom Riddle finds mention of the Darkest magic of all, in just one word: Horcrux.

A big part of the problem lies in the fact that Voldemort is charismatic, handsome, and intelligent. Something in him appeals to everyone. Something in him makes you think that this is a man you can trust, this is a man with dreams. This is a man who will go far - and take you with him, if you're willing to pay the ferryman.

At the end of his first year, Tom Riddle is in love with Hogwarts. He begs to be allowed to stay, offers to do chores and earn his keep. It takes a lot out of his pride to say that but he'll do it. He is refused.

His friends are all going abroad for summer. Tom Riddle goes back to the orphanage.

It is worse than ever. They have forgotten how to fear him - he tries to teach them again but gets a warning in a letter: magic is forbidden. Accustomed to having his run of the place, it's hard to settle back into a passive role.

This is about when he decides that his friends are right about muggles and that muggles should know their place.

Hint: it's a few kilometers below 'wizard'

No one grows up dreaming of genocide, not even Voldemort.

Every year it is the same dread of returning to the orphanage. Every year he watches the end approach with the gaze of a condemned man watching the gallows.

In his second year, he uncovers the legend of the Chamber of Secrets.

In his third, he traces his lineage - his real one - back to Salazar Slytherin. So this is why he can speak to snakes.

In his fourth, he figures out that the Chamber's beast must be a Basilisk.

In his fifth, he opens the Chamber.

In his sixth, he starts the attacks.

No one grows up dreaming of murder.

A girl dies in a bathroom to the sight of serpent eyes and Tom Riddle's soul rips in two. Lord Voldemort is born in death.

Monsters are created, not born.