Merope Riddle

## Merope Riddle (née Gaunt)

> "*Her hair was lank and dull and she had a plain, pale, rather heavy face. Her eyes, like her brother's, stared in opposite directions. She looked a little cleaner than the two men, but Harry thought he had never seen a more defeated-looking person.*"
> ― Merope's defeated and listless persona[source]
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**Merope Riddle** (née **Gaunt**) (c. 1907 – 31 December, 1926) was a British pure-blood witch, daughter of Marvolo Gaunt, and sister of Morfin. She was a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin and a Parselmouth. Merope grew up in a squalor ridden shack near Little Hangleton, with her father Marvolo and brother Morfin. Both of them were mentally and physically abusive towards her.

Merope developed an obsessive love for Tom Riddle, a handsome and wealthy Muggle. After both her father and brother were imprisoned in Azkaban, she bewitched and married Tom, getting pregnant. A year into their marriage, Tom Riddle was liberated from the effects of her magic and fled. Merope ended up alone in London and later died at Wool's Orphanage, soon after giving birth to her son whom she named Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Many years after her death, her son (with the name of Lord Voldemort) became the most dangerous Dark Wizard of all time.

## Biography

### Early life

> "*Pick it up! That's it, grub on the floor like some filthy Muggle, what's your wand for, you useless sack of muck?*"
> ― Marvolo's verbal abuse after Merope drops a pot[source]
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Merope Gaunt had lived in a shack near Little Hangleton with her father, Marvolo, and brother, Morfin. Generations of inbreeding left the Gaunts violent, mentally unstable, and poverty-stricken.

Merope exhibited little magical talent in her early years, and as a result was mentally and physically abused by her father, who called her a "*disgusting little Squib*", among other things. However, this was actually a self-fulfilling prophecy, as Merope's magical abilities were suppressed largely *because* of her father's abuse. It should be noted that a person's magical abilities can be affected by their state of mind, and powerful negative emotions endured on a chronic basis can interfere with or completely drain a person's powers, as Albus Dumbledore pointed out. By extension, it can be inferred that Merope had magical powers, but had never really used them nor developed them.

However, Merope's magical ability flourished after her father and brother were incarcerated in Azkaban and she was free from their abuse; she showed herself capable of significant magic, enslaving Tom Riddle either with the Imperius Curse or a Love Potion for an extended period of time. It is unlikely that Merope attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, though she did own a wand; it seems likely that she was taught magic at home. Another possibility is that Merope disciplined herself to the extent to become self-taught. Merope seemed to be in charge of cooking and cleaning in her family home; it is unknown what happened to her mother.

### Marriage

> "*The village of Little Hangleton enjoyed a tremendous scandal. You can imagine the gossip it caused when the squire's son ran off with the tramp's daughter, Merope.*"
> ― How Merope was able to bewitch Tom Riddle[source]
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At some point in her life, Merope secretly fell in love with Tom Riddle, an exceptionally handsome and wealthy Muggle, and the only child of Thomas and Mary Riddle, who lived nearby. Her father was livid when Morfin revealed this to him in the summer of 1925, and attacked her physically, but was restrained by Ministry official Bob Ogden. Ogden arrested both Marvolo and Morfin, who had cursed Riddle because his sister found him attractive. With her family gone, Merope manipulated Riddle into marrying her. She left the shack with a farewell note revealing her marriage to Riddle, and her existence was never again mentioned by Marvolo.

Although Harry Potter, upon learning of these events, speculated that she might have used the Imperius Curse or a Love Potion on Riddle, Dumbledore believed that she most likely used a Love Potion because it seemed more romantic. Dumbledore also speculated that she could administer the love potion to him while mixing it with water or some other beverage. In any case, Riddle became infatuated with her and they were married in late 1925, running away to London together. This caused great scandal in Little Hangleton.

After a year of marriage, Merope Gaunt soon became pregnant and decided to release Riddle from his mental enslavement, having grown tired of living a lie. Dumbledore thought that she did this hoping either that her husband would have truly fallen in love with her by that point, or that he would at least stay for the sake of their unborn child. Unfortunately for her, Riddle did nothing of the kind. Riddle awoke into a nightmare and fled back to his family's home, believing to have been bewitched, although according to Albus Dumbledore, he probably did not say that exactly, for fear of being thought insane. Instead, the villagers were told at most that he had been "taken in", in which they interpreted that Merope lied to Tom about being pregnant with his child.

### Childbirth and death

> "*New Year's Eve and bitter cold, snowing, you know. Nasty night. And this girl, not much older than I was myself at the time, came staggering up the front steps. Well, she wasn't the first. We took her in, and she had the baby within the hour. And she was dead in another hour.*"
> ― The night Merope died from heartbreak and long-term suffering[source]
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After her husband's sudden escape, Merope soon fell into a deep depression and lived as a pauper in London, selling her valuables to survive in order to gain some gold. Specifically, she sold her locket, a family heirloom which was one of her father’s most treasured ones, to Caractacus Burke for only ten Galleons, either not knowing that it was a priceless artefact, no longer caring, or a desire to sever ties with her abusive father and valuing the paltry profits much more than the painful reminder of her family. With her heart broken and her dreams in tatters, Merope stopped using magic altogether after Riddle's desertion, not even willing to raise her wand to save her own life (although, according to Dumbledore, it was also possible that her powers may have been sapped as a result of depression and also because of her unrequited love for Riddle).

On the night of New Year's Eve in 1926, she staggered up the front steps of an orphanage, ready to give birth to a son. She told Mrs Cole, a woman who worked in the orphanage, to name him Tom for his father, Marvolo for her father, and Riddle to be his surname. Mrs Cole believed Marvolo was a "funny name", and wondered whether Merope had come from a circus. Merope died without warning, within an hour, and her last words were a final wish that her son would turn out to look like his father, which Mrs Cole said that she was right to hope it since Merope was no beauty. It is unknown what happened to Merope’s body after her death.

### Post-mortem

> "*Merope Riddle chose death in spite of a son who needed her, but do not judge her too harshly, Harry. She was greatly weakened by long suffering and she never had your mother's courage.*"
> ― Merope's choice to die[source]
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Years later, her own son would find it difficult to believe that she could ever have been a witch, as she succumbed to something as mortal as death; he was, however, forced to accept that she was indeed a witch once finding nothing of "Tom Riddle" in the history of Hogwarts. It seems she was too depressed to use magic after Riddle left her when the effects of her magic wore off on him.

Her son would grow up believing his father married Merope of his own free will, only leaving her after discovering she was a witch. Although Merope had a choice, she chose death in spite of a son that needed her due to the utterly miserable existence to which she had been condemned. These circumstances caused even Harry Potter to feel a twinge of reluctant sympathy for Riddle. Merope's son would ultimately grow up to become the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort. Albus Dumbledore hypothesised that if Merope had hung on, and been there to express love and affection for her son, Voldemort might never have come to be. Nevertheless, Dumbledore and Harry did not resent her, as they understood that given her suffering and lack of inner strength, she could not in good conscience be blamed for her son's corruption. Her son, while contemptuous for her mortal weakness, did avenge her death by killing the elder Tom Riddle for abandoning both mother and son.

## Physical description

Merope possessed lank and dull hair. Her hair framed a plain, pale, and heavy face. Her eyes (like her brother's) stared in opposite directions. She seemed to keep herself cleaner than her father and brother, but when Harry first saw her in a memory, he still thought of her as the most defeated-looking person he had ever seen.

When she lived in the Gaunt household, she wore a ragged grey dress that blended in with the stone walls of the house, and her only adornment was Salazar Slytherin's Locket, which hung from a gold chain around her neck. Mrs Cole also described her to be *"no beauty"*.

## Etymology

* Merope is the name of a star in the star cluster Pleiades, named for a daughter of Atlas and Pleione in Greek mythology. This Merope was a nymph who married a mortal, Sisyphus, and bore him a son, Glaucus; some myths say that she is the dullest of the seven stars because she brought shame upon herself for marrying a mortal. Merope Gaunt's marriage to a Muggle may be an allusion to this marriage, as both suffered a resulting "fading away", and both Meropes faced mortality after their respective marriages. Also, Merope of mythology was the seventh sister, and seven is the most magically powerful number, perhaps alluding to her incredibly powerful son, who would later plan to split his soul into seven pieces in an attempt to achieve immortality.
	+ The name is also used in the famous Greek play, *Oedipus Rex*, written by Sophocles in 425 BC. The name, Merope, is given to the main character's adoptive mother. As in *Oedipus Rex*, the son of Merope in the *Harry Potter* series killed his father, although the difference being Tom had done so out of premeditated malice, whereas Oedipus had done so through a misconstrued prophecy that he would do so, and placed himself into exile as he resolved never to harm his kindly parents, King Polybus and Queen Merope. Getting into a fight with King Laius of Thebes, Oedipus fought back and struck Laius dead, never knowing Laius was his true father (until much later in his life).