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HopingToWriteWell77 t1_j228dgb wrote

Reply to comment by Gaelhelemar in [WP] In an alternate timeline, the Sorting Hat attempts to prevent Tom Riddle’s fall by putting him into… by Chaos-Pand4

Well, he did enjoy torturing the other kids at the orphanage, didn't he? "I can make them hurt, if I want to." He got another boy's rabbit to hang itself from the rafters, and a couple of younger kids were so traumatized by him that they were, according to the orphanage head Mrs. Cole, "never quite the same after."

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Gaelhelemar t1_j22duz1 wrote

Yeah, that's upbringing, not because he was literally souless.

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HopingToWriteWell77 t1_j24inq9 wrote

Harry had a horrible upbringing, too, but did he torture other kids for fun? No, he just learned how to run really fast and avoid being punched.

However, if you look at Tom Riddle - who was well cared for, if not given as much love and attention as a child should have since there were so many of them at the orphanage - what do we see? We see a kid who collects harmonicas and other odds and ends from his victims when he is ELEVEN. At eleven years old, Harry was looking forward to not having to go to the same school as his cousin. Tom was a clever, sneaky liar who assumed Dumbledore was a doctor sent by Mrs. Cole to look at him, possibly take him away to a madhouse, and then promptly told Dumbledore that Mrs. Cole was the mad one who didn't like him and that he never touched any of the other kids or anyone's pets, and that she'd made it all up. He was a manipulative, clever, and downright disturbed child.

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