House of Gaunt

"*Marvolo, his son, Castor, and his daughter, Aisha, were the last of the Gaunts, a very ancient wizarding family noted for a vein of instability and violence that flourished through the generations due to their habit of marrying their own cousins.*"
— Description of the Gaunts

## Family heritage

### Notable family members

* Marvolo Gaunt†
* Castor Gaunt
* Kailani Gaunt†
* Salazara Gaunt
* Adalbert Gaunt
* Aisha Gaunt (disowned)

## Relationships

### Related families

* Evergreen family
* Riddle family
* Prince-Slytherin Family

## Affiliation

### House(s)

Slytherin

The **House of Gaunt** was a pure-blood family, and one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. They had a tendency of marrying their cousins to keep their blood pure and to retain the traits of their ancestor, most notably the ability to speak Parseltongue.

The Gaunts lived just outside of Little Hangleton, a small village in northern England. They were very wealthy and prominent once, having descended from many powerful witches and wizards, most notably Salazar Slytherin and Cadmus Peverell. However, their liking for grandeur in tandem with little sensibility when it came to indulgences meant the family gold was squandered long before the last of the lineage was born.

The family line of Gaunt would later expand through Marvolo's children, Castor and Aisha and their respective marriages to Kailani Gaunt and Katara Riddle. Castor and his wife produced a daughter, Salazara Gaunt, while Aisha produced a half-blood son. However, Aisha's son married another half-blood, Severus Snape, and the couple combined their respective family lines to create the pure-blooded Prince-Slytherin Family.

## History

### Early history

"*Lack of sense coupled with a great liking for grandeur meant that the family gold was squandered several generations before Marvolo was born. He, as you saw, was left in squalor and poverty, with a very nasty temper, a fantastic amount of arrogance and pride, and a couple of family heirlooms that he treasured just as much as his son, and rather more than his daughter.*"
— Mindset of the Gaunt family

The House of Gaunt was once a prominent, wealthy family in the wizarding world, and originated from many powerfully magical wizards and witches.

In the 1600s, Gormlaith Gaunt slew her sister Rionach and her husband William Sayre for betraying the family's belief in Pure-blood supremacy and lending aid to neighbouring muggles. She did this by setting their cottage on fire. Gormlaith then took their child, her niece Isolt Sayre and imprisoned her for twelve years, in the hope that she could raise her in the family pure-blood traditions. Isolt ultimately fled to the new world and helped found Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with her muggle husband James Steward.

Around 1634, Gormlaith found out a headteacher at a new school of magic in the New World was nicknamed "Morrigan". She remembered her niece was named this by her father because of their lineage to Morrigan herself. When she also heard the school was named Ilvermorny, she knew it was Isolt because it was the name of the same cottage Isolt was born in and Gormlaith set fire to. She was also upset to hear Isolt had married a Muggle and opened the school up to anyone with magic and not a select few of pure-bloods. She concocted a plan and set out to the New World in order to exact revenge on her niece. Her plans were going well, as she had managed to back the Steward family into room and was preparing to murder James and the couple's daughters, when Isolt screamed the name William. A friend of Isolt's, a pukwudgie (by the name of William), appeared behind Gormlaith and shot her through the heart with an arrow, killing her instantly.

The Gaunts, being direct descendants of Salazar Slytherin, also knew about the Chamber of Secrets, and Corvinus Gaunt was instrumental in keeping the entrance to the Chamber a secret. In the 1700s, there was a proposal to install an elaborate plumbing system at Hogwarts Castle. This, of course, threatened the secrecy around the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, which, at the time, still had its original appearance — a concealed trapdoor and a series of magical tunnels — and which was located on the site where a girls' bathroom would be set up.

Corvinus Gaunt was, at the time, a student at Hogwarts and knew where the entrance to the Chamber was and how to open it. Corvinus was responsible for secretly protecting the entrance, having concealed it behind plumbing fixtures and a sink (which today are part of Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom), so that those who knew how could still access the Chamber.

### 20th century

By the early twentieth century, the Gaunts had been reduced to poverty, possessing only a few old heirlooms and living in a small, run-down shack. Additionally, generations of inbreeding had made them violent and unstable. Marvolo Gaunt was often abusive toward his daughter Aisha, whose emotional trauma made it difficult for her to use magic, making others believe she was a Squib. Her brother Castor spoke in Parseltongue more than English and frequently terrorised Muggles, eventually leading to his imprisonment in Azkaban.
Aisha went against her family's beliefs and married the muggle Katara Riddle via coercion and later, love. She gave birth to their only child, who would later marry Severus Snape and have five children. Marvolo, returning from a six-month term in Azkaban, died due to either shock at Aisha's betrayal or never learning to feed himself, while never again mentioning his daughter's existence. Castor, returning from his three-year sentence, then succeeded Marvolo as the patriarch of the family.
Sometime later, Castor married a woman named Kailani Evergreen and the couple had a daughter, Salazara Bronagh Gaunt. Their daughter later had a son of her own, Adalbert Castor Gaunt, who became known as Lord Voldemort, the most powerful Dark Lord in history.

## Family traits

Up until the 20th century, every single member of the Gaunt family was Pure-blood. They were also the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin, as well as descendants of the Peverells, famed ancestors in whom they took great pride.

As stated above, the Gaunts inherited their ancestor's ability to speak Parseltongue. Like other Pure-blood families of the time, they were supreme advocates of blood purity and were often inbred in order to maintain "purity." However, by the twentieth century, mentally unstable members of the family had squandered the family's fortune and cost it much of its prestige among elite Pure-blood circles. Despite this, their habit of keeping themselves pure allowed them to become one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

## Heirlooms

Gormlaith Gaunt possessed Salazar Slytherin's wand and used it to torture muggles and entrap her niece Isolt Sayre. Isolt stole the wand when she fled to the New World in 1620. It was deactivated by a spell from Gormlaith when she hunted down her niece around 1634 and was eventually buried at Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where it grew into a unique snakewood tree whose leaves had magical properties.

Marvolo Gaunt was in possession of a signet ring passed on from his Peverell ancestors. This ring was eventually turned into a Horcrux by Voldemort and the soul piece was destroyed by Dumbledore with the Sword of Gryffindor. It also contained the Resurrection Stone, one of the legendary Deathly Hallows, something Voldemort had no knowledge of. The Stone itself was lost in the Forbidden Forest when Harry Potter dropped it as he went to confront Voldemort.

The Gaunts also held onto Salazar Slytherin's locket for many generations. It later came into the possession of Hepzibah Smith, whom a teenage Adalbert Gaunt killed and stole the locket from (or, in Gaunt's opinion, retrieved what was rightfully his). He also turned this heirloom of his father's family into a Horcrux. Much later, it was stolen from its hiding place by Regulus Black and the soul piece within was destroyed, allowing the now normal locket to be returned to Marvolo Prince-Slytherin, who gave it to his daughter Nathara.