I vaguely remember Tom Riddle's diary, was there nothing redeemable about Voldemort when he was young? I don't honestly remember, so I looked it up at the "Lord Voldemort" Wiki. Here's what it said:

In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does."

Cheers,
Michelle