Riddle family

> "*Nobody wasted their breath pretending to feel very sad about the Riddles, for they had been most unpopular.*"
> ― The town of Little Hangleton's reaction to the murders[source]
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**Riddle** was the surname of a wealthy Muggle family that lived in a manor house overlooking the village of Little Hangleton, of which they owned a great deal of. They lived fairly close to the wizarding House of Gaunt. They were murdered in 1943 by Tom Marvolo Riddle.

## Family history

The Riddle family was a very old Muggle family. The family was very wealthy and owned much of the village of Little Hangleton. Their members were snobbish, arrogant, and unpopular. By the point of the 1943, the members of the Riddle family were all hated by the villagers that lived in the area. They were most hated by the members of the House of Gaunt, an ancient pure-blood wizarding family.

### Tom and Merope Gaunt elope

> "*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.*"
> ― Explanation on how Merope was able to bewitch Tom Riddle[source]
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Around 1925 Tom had a possible lover by the name of Cecilia. Also around this Merope Gaunt began to have obsessive romantic feelings for him. When Morfin Gaunt discovered this, he cursed Tom with hives. He did this in order to make him less appealing to his sister.

The Gaunt men were arrested by the Ministry and were sentenced to Azkaban. Afterwards, Merope either dosed Tom with Love Potion or cast the Imperius Curse on him, thereby forcing him to marry her. When Merope became pregnant, she ceased giving Love Potions or the Imperius Curse to Tom, believing that he had come to genuinely love her, or would at least stay with her for the benefit of their child. Upon regaining his free will, Tom, having felt like he awoke from a nightmare, fled from Merope and returned to his family home. Merope, alone in London, managed to find an Wool's Orphanage, where she gave birth to a son. Shortly thereafter, Merope died due to childbirth complications, having lost the will to live. Before her death, she asked that the baby be named Tom Marvolo Riddle, for his father and grandfather.

The younger Tom then spent the first eleven years of his life in the orphanage, completely unaware of the existence of the Wizarding world. In 1938, Riddle's future enemy Albus Dumbledore visited the orphanage to inform Riddle of the latter's acceptance into Hogwarts. Immediately after this, Riddle became convinced that his father was a Wizard and that his mother was a Muggle out of the belief that the latter could not have died if she was a witch.

Upon entering the school, Riddle became concerned about learning about his heritage. After learning of his descent from Hogwarts co-founder Salazar Slytherin, Riddle became interested in pure-blood supremacy and the Dark Arts. In particular, Riddle became obsessed with immortality and the creation of Horcruxes. In addition, Riddle began painstaking research on his father's name before eventually accepting that he had never set foot in Hogwarts. With only his middle name "Marvolo" to go on, which he knew from the orphanage was his maternal grandfather's name. After researching through old book of wizarding families, Riddle learned of the surviving Gaunt line. In the summer of his sixteenth year, set out for Little Hangleton to find his relatives. This would provide an unstable mixture for Riddle's adult personality and led to terrible events that would shape the history of the wizarding world for decades to come.

### Family's Murder

> "*Meanwhile, in the village of Little Hangleton, a maid was running along the High Street, screaming that there were three bodies lying in the drawing room of the big house: Tom Riddle Senior and his mother and father.*"
> ― A maid finds the bodies of the Riddle family[source]
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In the summer of 1943, Tom Marvolo Riddle visited the village of Little Hangleton after tracing the source of his middle name. He first stopped at the Gaunt shack, only to find his maternal uncle Morfin Gaunt, who had long been released from Azkaban. Morfin, upon seeing his nephew, threatened him with a knife and wand, believing the boy to be his father. Even though Riddle did not disclose his identity during this meeting, Riddle spoke Parseltongue to calm Morfin down. The two then discussed the whereabouts of Marvolo Gaunt (who had died years before), the elder Riddle, and Merope Gaunt. When Morfin revealed to Riddle that his (Riddle's) father was a Muggle, Riddle Stupefied his uncle and stole his wand and the Gaunt ring.

Riddle then proceeded to the Riddle House and found his father, grandfather, and grandmother in the drawing room. It is unknown if there were any words exchanged with the Riddles, but the youngest Riddle used his uncle's wand to cast the Killing Curse on his father and grandparents. Riddle then returned to the Gaunt shack and altered Morfin's memory, causing Gaunt to believe *himself* to be the murderer.

Tom Marvolo Riddle soon abandoned the name of his "filthy Muggle father", instead using an anagram to declare himself Lord Voldemort. Although Lord Voldemort died in the Battle of Hogwarts in 1998.

## Family members

 Merope Riddle (née Gaunt)
 Tom Marvolo Riddle | 31 December, 1926-2 May, 1998 | The half-blood son of Tom Riddle Snr and Merope Gaunt. He later became the most feared Dark Wizard in history under the pseudonym of Lord Voldemort. Died in his final duel with Harry Potter in 1998.

## Etymology

A Template:Wplink is a statement or question with a double or veiled meaning, and they were very common to Old English literature and poetry. This may also be in reference due to the fact that the Riddle family died in inexplicable circumstances for the Muggles living in Little Hangelton. Riddle games also appear frequently in folklore and mythology as a matter of life and death, such as in the tale of Template:Wplink and the Sphinx and in the opera Template:Wplink. The term "Template:Wplink" was also used by philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche to encompass the idea of the meaning of life. This could all allude to the mysterious and hidden origins of Lord Voldemort, who disliked and hid his Muggle ancestry, and who was obsessed with life and death.