Tom Riddle Snr.

**Tom Riddle Senior** (1905 – 1943) was an affluent English Muggle who lived in the village of Little Hangleton in England. He was the son of wealthy Muggles Thomas and Mary Riddle, who raised him to be snobbish and rude.

Tom was magically coerced into marrying Merope Gaunt, most likely by means of a Love Potion, although the Imperius Curse is another possibility. If it was the former, it was theorised that Merope stopped giving him the potion after some time because she thought that he would start loving her naturally, at least for their unborn baby. But the desired did not happen. He left her once she stopped bewitching him, sometime before the birth of their son, Tom Marvolo Riddle, who would grow to become the Dark Wizard Lord Voldemort. Tom Riddle Snr was very handsome and this was what attracted Merope Gaunt.

The latter's sixteen-year-old son, Tom Marvolo Riddle, later murdered him and his grandparents in cold blood. This was in retaliation for what Tom Jnr saw as his father's abandonment of his family. While neither his death nor that of his parents was notable among Muggles, as few Little Hangleton residents grieved, it would be pivotal in Wizarding history. His murder was used to make his father-in-law's ring into a Horcrux. In 1995, his last remaining bone helped his son return to full power.

## Biography

### Early Life (1905-1924)

Born to Thomas and Mary Riddle in 1905, Tom Riddle Snr lived in a luxurious manor house not far from a run-down cottage that was home to the Gaunts, a wizarding family descended from Salazar Slytherin and Cadmus Peverell, outside the Muggle village of Little Hangleton. Merope Gaunt, who led a miserable life of poverty and abuse at the hands of her father and brother, became infatuated with Tom, watching him ride by on his horse, sometimes in the company of a woman named Cecilia.

Tom, on the other hand, looked on with disdain on her brother for his mental instability and her father for his reputation of being arrogant and violently antisocial towards the Little Hangleton people. However, Tom himself was rather snobbish and rude due to his upbringing, and along with his parents, the Riddle family was most disliked by the townspeople.

When her brother Morfin noticed her interest, he hexed Tom with hives. The Ministry of Magic discovered this, among other incidents, and also arrested Morfin and Marvolo Gaunt for attacking Ministry officials. Both wizards were sentenced to Azkaban. While they were gone, Merope put Tom under a Love Potion and married him.

### Forced Marriage (1925-1926)

*Main Article: "Marriage of Tom and Merope Riddle"*

It was speculated by Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter that Merope used the Imperius Curse on Tom, but they decided that it was more likely she used a Love Potion to attract him. A Love Potion would have been much more romantic in her eyes than the Imperius Curse. In any case, the two married, despite public disapproval over "*the squire's son running off with the tramp's daughter*." At some point in their relationship, Merope became pregnant with a boy.

It was believed that Merope eventually stopped whatever enchantment she had used on Tom in the hopes that he had truly fallen in love with her since, or would at least remain with her for the sake of their unborn child. She was wrong on both accounts, as he had reacted quite badly when the enchantment was lifted and discovered the truth as well.

### Return to Little Hangleton (1926-1943)

Once Merope's enchantment was removed, Riddle came to his senses and no longer wanted anything to do with her, and thus fled back to his parents' house in Little Hangleton, and never bothered to find out even about his unborn child, let alone Merope. He claimed to have been "taken in" by Merope, which may have been an allusion to her being a witch. He did not state specifically that she used magic to seduce him, for the fear of being thought insane. Rumours in the town claimed that Merope had lied about being pregnant in order to induce Riddle to marry her. Riddle's son himself came to believe that his father abandoned Merope solely because he discovered she was a witch.

After Riddle left, Merope was left impoverished, despondent, and alone in London. Soon after, she gave birth to a son she named Tom Marvolo Riddle, after the baby's father and Merope's own father, Marvolo Gaunt. Merope died shortly after giving birth rather than live for the baby and the child was left in the care of a Muggle orphanage.

It was at some point after this that Riddle maried Cecilia and had two children with her.

#### Death

*Main Article: "Murder of the Riddle Family"*

In 1943, sixteen-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle, who would later take on the alias Lord Voldemort, ventured to Little Hangleton to investigate his heritage. He learned the details of his parents' union from his uncle Morfin Gaunt and sought revenge on whom he saw as the man who abandoned him before his birth. Tom Marvolo Riddle murdered his father and paternal grandparents with the Killing Curse and framed Morfin for the crime. His corpse was described as having a "*look of terror upon his face*."

### Legacy

Tom Riddle Snr was buried in a Little Hangleton graveyard along with his parents, and their deaths were not at all mourned by the townspeople due to being very unpopular. Tom's murder was used by his son to transform Marvolo Gaunt's Ring into his second Horcrux. Voldemort seemed to see this murder as retribution for the miserable existence his father had condemned him to in his abandonment, as well as his own triumph over his "filthy Muggle" heritage.

Voldemort made use of his father's murder again in 1995 when Peter Pettigrew used a bone from Tom Riddle Snr's grave to make the potion that resurrected him. Although hating his father, Voldemort did tell his servant Barty Crouch Junior about this hated heritage; Barty, who also had a disappointing father that he was named after, saw this as a common that binds him and the Dark Lord together, fueling his loyalty.

Although unpopular and not mourned, the townspeople of Little Hangleton were more concerned about *how* Tom died, fearing the possibility such a murder could happen again. They were particularly concerned that Riddle and his parents seemingly dropped dead for no reason, a highly improbable scenario. Frank Bryce, the Riddle family's gardener, was arrested because he was suspected for being the only one to have a key to the house but was released due to lack of evidence on the Riddles' otherwise healthy corpses. To this day, the Muggle authority have no idea how Tom and his parents died.

Tom's death would ultimately be avenged when Harry Potter defeated Voldemort during the Battle of London. However, Voldemort sired a daughter, Delphini, with his subordinate, Bellatrix Lestrange, prior to both their deaths at the aforementioned battle, thus posthumously giving Tom Riddle Senior a granddaughter.

## Physical Appearance

Tom Riddle Senior was a very handsome dark-haired man. His son, Tom Marvolo Riddle, was noted to be the spitting image of him in his early years, which suggests that the older Tom was also tall, pale, and dark-eyed.

## Personality and Traits

Owing to his privileged upbringing, Tom Riddle Snr was something of a snob, and could also be callous, rude and arrogant. When he and Cecilia were riding by the Gaunt Shack on one occasion, Bob Ogden ran out, having been terrorised by the Gaunts, and stumbled into Riddle's horse. Both Riddle and Cecilia "roared with laughter" at Ogden's bumbling and his ridiculous manner of dress.

Very handsome and wealthy, Riddle boasted to his companion about how much property his family owned. Riddle showed disgust at Morfin's violent behaviour, reacting with revulsion to seeing a dead snake nailed to the Gaunt shack's door, and urged Cecilia not to look at it.

He was shown to be snobbish, describing Morfin Gaunt and his father as "tramps" for their insanity and actions towards others (which was true). However, he was less hostile to them. Considering Tom's social status and the time period, he was actually rather polite in that statement, especially when considering the Gaunts were social pariahs among Muggles.

By the 1940s, Tom was described as being ruder and more snobbish than his parents, who were both very snobbish as it was. This made Tom immensely unpopular in Little Hangleton, and the villagers were not sorry for his demise. Whether Tom's personality changed after his ensnarement by Merope is unknown.