House of Gaunt

"*Marvolo, his son, Morfin, and his daughter, Merope, 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

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, Salazar Slytherin, most notably the ability to speak Parseltongue. The Gaunts had branches in Britain and Ireland, although it is not known exactly where they originated. The last known members of the family 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.

## 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, whether in Great Britain or Ireland, from many powerfully magical wizards and witches, including Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and Cadmus Peverell, the middle of the Peverell brothers and one of the original masters of the Deathly Hallows; Cadmus possessing the Resurrection Stone.

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 steal 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.

### Chamber of Secrets 1700s

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.

### 19th century

In the 1880s and 1890s, Ominis Gaunt attended Hogwarts alongside Sebastian Sallow.

### 20th century

"*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.*" — The Gaunt's poverty and Marvolo's nature

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 Merope, whose emotional trauma made it difficult for her to use magic, making others believe she was a Squib. Merope's brother Morfin spoke in Parseltongue more than English and frequently terrorised Muggles, eventually leading to his imprisonment in Azkaban.

#### Birth of Lord Voldemort

"*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.*" — Merope gives birth to Tom Riddle then dies

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.

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 himself 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", which they interpreted as that Merope lied to Tom about being pregnant with his child.

She gave birth to their only child, who would become the notorious Dark wizard, Lord Voldemort. Marvolo, returning from a six-month term in Azkaban, died due to either shock at Merope's betrayal or never learning to feed himself, while never again mentioning his daughter's existence. Morfin, returning from his three-year sentence, then succeeded Marvolo as the patriarch of the family.

Morfin lived, as the last male heir to the Gaunt name, in solitude for the next thirteen years, with very poor care of his hygiene and household, causing both his appearance and the shack to deteriorate drastically. He was sentenced to life in Azkaban when his nephew, Voldemort, came to visit to learn about his heritage, who then used Morfin as a scapegoat for the murder of the Riddle family. With an implanted memory, Morfin easily confessed to a crime he did not commit, and was incarcerated until his death. By the time evidence of his innocence arose, his health already weakened to the point that he died before the Ministry could release him, and his body was buried at the Azkaban burial ground.

## Family traits

"*The man standing before them had thick hair so matted with dirt it could have been any colour. Several of his teeth were missing. His eyes were small and dark and stared in opposite directions.*" — A negative impression of Morfin Gaunt

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

Once a very wealthy family, the Gaunt family had squandered much of their gold early due to the Gaunt family's love for grandeur and mental instability, leaving them with very little inheritances for the later generations.

### Slytherin's wand

"*...the wand of Salazar Slytherin, one of the founders of Hogwarts, and that it contained a fragment of a magical snake's horn: in this case, a Basilisk. The wand had been taught by its creator to 'sleep' when so instructed, and this secret had been handed down through the centuries to each member of Slytherin's family who possessed it.*"

— Description
Salazar Slytherin owned a wand of his own making, made of snakewood and containing a fragment of a magical snake’s horn: in this case, a Basilisk horn. The wand had the distinction of being able to 'sleep' when so instructed, an ability taught to it by Slytherin himself. After his death, the wand was handed down the family: by the early 1600s it was in the possession of the Gaunt family.

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.

### Gaunt ring

"*See this? See this? Know what it is? Know where it came from? Centuries it's been in our family, that's how far back we go, and pure-blood all the way! Know how much I've been offered for this, with the Peverell coat of arms engraved on the stone?*"
— Marvolo Gaunt brandishing his ring at Bob Ogden
Marvolo Gaunt was in possession of a signet ring passed on from his Peverell ancestors. It was a gold ring inset with a black stone, engraved with what Marvolo Gaunt called the Peverell coat of arms. It had come into the Gaunt line from an heiress of the Peverells, not the Slytherin family. The ring passed through the male Gaunts (generation to generation), until it was stolen from Morfin Gaunt by Tom Riddle. The ring was stolen when Tom Jnr framed Morfin for the murders of the Riddle family.

This ring was eventually turned into a Horcrux by Voldemort and 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.

### Slytherin's locket

"*He looked at the serpentine* S*, inlaid with glittering, green stones: It was easy to visualise it as a minuscule snake... concentrating on the letter* S*, imagining a serpent, while the contents of the locket rattled like a trapped cockroach. It would have been easy to pity it, except that the cut around Harry's neck still burned... The golden doors of the locket swung wide with a little click.*"
— Description of the locket before it is destroyed

The Gaunts also held onto Salazar Slytherin's locket for many generations. It was a piece of jewellery originally owned by Salazar Slytherin that became an heirloom of his family. It was a locket of heavy gold with a serpentine *S* in glittering green stone inlay on the front. After descending down from Slytherin, it came into the possession of the Gaunt family. Marvolo Gaunt treasured this heirloom of this pure-blood heritage along with his ring heirloom.

However, Merope later sold it to Borgin and Burkes in order to support herself while she was pregnant. It later came into the possession of Hepzibah Smith, whom a teenage Tom Marvolo Riddle killed and stole the locket from (or, in Riddle's opinion, retrieved what was rightfully his). He also turned this heirloom of his mother's family into a Horcrux. Much later, it was stolen from its hiding place by Regulus Black and later destroyed by Ron Weasley with the Sword of Gryffindor.