Merope Gaunt

Merope Gaunt was a pure-blood witch and a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin. As a member of the destitute and fanatical House of Gaunt, she lived a life of abuse and misery. Merope is a tragic and pivotal character in the history of the wizarding world, as she was the mother of Tom Marvolo Riddle, the boy who would grow up to become the dark wizard Lord Voldemort. Her desperate and unrequited love for a Muggle, Tom Riddle Sr., led her to use a Love Potion to ensnare him, and the circumstances of her son's conception and her subsequent death are central to understanding Voldemort's inability to comprehend love and his hatred of his own heritage.

Merope grew up in extreme poverty and squalor in the Gaunt Shack near the village of Little Hangleton. She lived under the tyrannical rule of her father, Marvolo Gaunt, and her brother, Morfin Gaunt. Both men were cruel and abusive, constantly berating Merope for her plain appearance and what they perceived as a lack of magical talent, often calling her a “disgusting little Squib”. This constant abuse likely suppressed her magical abilities. Merope developed a silent obsession with a handsome local Muggle, Tom Riddle Sr., whom she would watch from the window of the shack. Her fixation disgusted her father and brother, who held a fanatical belief in pure-blood supremacy. When Ministry of Magic official Bob Ogden visited the shack regarding an attack by Morfin on Tom Riddle Sr., he witnessed the family's cruelty firsthand. Marvolo, enraged that Merope had not started dinner and had dropped a pot, lunged at her. Both Marvolo and Morfin were subsequently arrested for attacking Ogden and sent to Azkaban.

With her father and brother imprisoned, Merope was freed from their oppressive influence for the first time in her life. Her magical powers flourished, and she enacted a plan to be with Tom Riddle Sr.. She is believed to have used a Love Potion to bewitch him, causing him to fall in “love” with her and elope, to the shock of the residents of Little Hangleton. After they were married, Merope became pregnant. At some point, she made the fateful decision to stop administering the Love Potion to her husband, perhaps believing he had genuinely fallen in love with her, or that he would stay for the sake of their unborn child. However, upon being freed from the enchantment, Tom Riddle Sr. was horrified by the deception. He abandoned his pregnant wife and returned to his family's home, claiming he had been “hoodwinked” and “taken in.”

Heartbroken, destitute, and alone in London, Merope apparently lost the will to use magic to save herself. Desperate for money, she sold her last valuable possession, an ancient family heirloom, to Caractacus Burke of Borgin and Burkes. She received only ten Galleons for Slytherin's Locket, an object of priceless historical value. Heavily pregnant, she eventually stumbled to Wool's Orphanage. There, she gave birth to a son. She lived just long enough to name him Tom Marvolo Riddle, after his father and her own, and then died.

Merope was described as having a plain, “heavy, rather coarse-featured face,” with lank, dull hair. A distinctive Gaunt family trait she shared with her brother was that her eyes were “set in opposite directions.” She looked beaten down and perpetually frightened due to the years of abuse. Harry Potter, upon viewing her in the Pensieve, noted that she did not look ugly so much as “pale and scared-looking.” Her personality was shaped by her oppressive upbringing. She was submissive, timid, and desperately lonely. However, she also possessed a capacity for powerful, obsessive love, which manifested in her infatuation with Tom Riddle Sr.. This passion, while tragic, also revealed a disregard for another's free will, as she used magical coercion to achieve her desires—a trait her son would later exhibit on a terrifyingly grander scale. According to Albus Dumbledore, her ultimate decision not to use magic to save her own life showed a certain kind of “bravery.”

• Magic Suppression: For much of her early life, Merope's magical abilities were suppressed by fear and psychological abuse, leading her family to mistake her for a Squib.
• Potions: Once free of her family's influence, Merope proved to be a witch of considerable skill, capable of brewing and administering a Love Potion powerful enough to entrap Tom Riddle Sr. for many months.
• Parseltongue: As a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin, Merope was a Parselmouth, capable of speaking to snakes.

• Slytherin's Locket: Merope's most significant possession was a heavy gold locket marked with a serpentine 'S' in green stones. This was an ancient heirloom of Salazar Slytherin. She sold it to Borgin and Burkes for a mere 10 Galleons. It was later purchased by Hepzibah Smith and subsequently stolen by Lord Voldemort, who turned it into one of his Horcruxes.

• Marvolo Gaunt (Father): Her relationship with her father was defined by fear and abuse. He despised her and saw her as a disgrace to the House of Gaunt.
• Morfin Gaunt (Brother): Like his father, Morfin was cruel to Merope, taunting her and sharing his father's violent temper and pure-blood fanaticism.
• Tom Riddle Sr. (Husband): The handsome Muggle who was the object of Merope's obsessive love. He was the victim of her magical coercion and abandoned her as soon as he was free from her influence.
• Tom Marvolo Riddle (Lord Voldemort) (Son): Merope died an hour after his birth and never knew him. However, her actions directly shaped his existence. Conceived from a loveless, magically-enforced union, Voldemort grew up incapable of understanding love. He came to despise his mother for her “weakness” in dying and for her love of a Muggle, yet he also fully embraced his magical heritage from her side of the family.

• The name Merope is taken from Greek mythology. Merope was one of the seven Pleiades sisters, daughters of Atlas. While her six sisters had relationships with gods, Merope was the only one to marry a mortal, Sisyphus. As a result, she became a mortal herself, and her star in the Pleiades constellation is said to be the dimmest, as if she is hiding in shame. This myth parallels Merope Gaunt's story of loving a Muggle, losing her “magic” (or will to live), and the associated shame that led to her tragic end.

• In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Merope's backstory is severely condensed. The Pensieve memory of Bob Ogden's visit to the Gaunt Shack is omitted entirely, and her story is only briefly explained by Albus Dumbledore. (film)
• J.K. Rowling has stated that the fact that Lord Voldemort was conceived under the influence of a Love Potion is highly symbolic. She explained, “It is a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union – but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him.” (J.K. Rowling interview)