Merope and Tom

## Pairing Information

### Description

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.

### Blood Status

Pure-Blood (Merope Gaunt)Muggle (Tom Riddle Senior)

### Affiliation

Riddle Family
Gaunt Family
Little Hangleton

### Child

Tom Riddle

*"Within a few months of their runaway marriage, Tom Riddle reappeared at the manor house in Little Hangleton without his wife. The rumour flew around the neighbour­hood that he was talking of being 'hoodwinked' and 'taken in'... He left her, never saw her again, and never troubled to discover what became of his son.*" — The circumstances of their marriage

**Merope Gaunt** was the daughter of Marvolo Gaunt and **Tom Riddle Senior** was the son of Thomas Riddle and Mary Riddle.

Merope was a British pure-blood witch and direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin and a Parselmouth while Tom Riddle Sr was the son of wealthy Muggles who raised him to be snobbish and rude. Merope and Tom are the parents of Tom Marvolo Riddle, who was later known as the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort.

## History

**Morfin Gaunt**: "*She likes looking at that Muggle. Always in the garden when he passes, peering through the hedge at him, isn't she? And last night — Hanging out of the window waiting for him to ride home, wasn't she?*"

**Marvolo Gaunt**: "*Is it true? My daughter — pure-blooded descendant of Salazar Slytherin — hankering after a* filthy*, dirt-veined Muggle?*" — Discussion of Merope's infatuation with Tom Riddle Sr

Tom Riddle Sr 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 and Tom got married.

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 became pregnant with a boy, 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.

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.

### Deaths

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.

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*'.

## Relationship

Tom Riddle was a handsome and wealthy Muggle, who lived near Merope's house. Like many people in Little Hangleton, Tom looked on with disdain on her father and brother, because of their poverty, their strange shabby appearances, and antisocial tendencies to those around them. Tom's only mention of Merope, was briefly mentioning to his *Darling* Cecilia that Marvolo had two kids. Though Tom didn't seem to give Merope any thoughts, positive or negative, it was known that Merope was deeply enamoured by Riddle, and spied on him as he often rode by their house.

Tom may have tolerated Merope's presence to an extent, as Dumbledore theorised that she was able to convince him into drinking a Love potion on a hot day. Regardless the two eloped, she eventually became pregnant with Tom's child.

Dumbledore had theorised that Merope, who was deeply, truly in love with her husband, could not bear to continue enslaving him by magical means, and made the choice to stop giving him the potion, convincing herself that he might have truly fallen in love with her of his own accord, or even if he had not, he would stay with her for their child's sake. This turned out to be a fatal mistake; Tom, feeling as if he'd woken up from a nightmare, immediately escaped Merope to never return, claiming he had been 'hoodwinked' and 'taken in'. It was speculated among his neighbours that he had been tricked into thinking he was the father of her unborn child. Merope was heartbroken and devastated by this, to the point of losing the will to live, and later died shortly after giving birth to his son.

## Trivia

* Louise Molinaro and Antoine Musy portrayed Merope and Tom in The House Of Gaunt: Lord Voldemort Origins and are the official cast in Mischief Mayhem

* Merope forcing Riddle to marry her by a love potion or the Imperius Curse for the conception of their son, in addition to Merope's belief that Riddle was obligated to love her now simply due to that they had a child is symbolic for Voldemort's inability to understand love as it was due to betwitchment rather than true love, directing the Riddle Jr's entire life to achieving immortality and absolute power by sinking into the deepest concept of the Dark Arts (Horcruxes) and resurface as the darkest wizard of the 20th century, Lord Voldemort.
* Voldemort's mother's one-sided possessive desire for his father and Riddle only being with Merope due to magic can be contrasted with the mutual love of Harry's parents, James and Lily Potter, both of whom were willing to do everything for the other's happiness instead of their own. Merope giving up on life when she lost control of Riddle Sr rather than live for the sake of her son is also contrasted with Lily losing first her husband and then her own life immediately afterwards in their tandem effort to protect Harry from Voldemort.
* Tom Marvolo Riddle thought that Tom left Merope because he hated magic and left her after she revealed herself to be a witch, which is the reason Tom Marvolo Riddle hated Muggles. He never learned the real reason why Tom left Merope.