Percy Jackson and the Locket of Salazar [Book 6]

21) MerNOPE

Harry, just as troubled by what we had witnessed as me, turned to Dumbledore and questioned, "What happened to the girl in the cottage? Merope, or whatever her name was?"

"Oh, she survived," Dumbledore said calmly, sitting lightly in his chair and motioning for us to sit down, too. "Ogden Apparated back to the Ministry and returned with reinforcements within fifteen minutes. Morfin and his father attempted to fight, but both were overpowered, removed from the cottage and subsequently convicted by the Wizengamot. Morfin, who already had a record of Muggle attacks, was sentenced to three years in Azkaban. Marvolo, who had injured several Ministry employees in addition to Ogden, received six months."

"Marvelo?" Harry's voice was small, wrapping around the distantly familiar name with something shocked and on edge.

Tom Marvolo Riddle. Descendent of Slytherin. Speaker of Parselmouth. I immediately understood why Merope had set my nerves on fire. She looked like Voldemort, somewhere beyond all his monstrous features. The shape of her eyes, perhaps, or the way her cheeks caught the lighting — certainly not her nose, though. And the handsome man who'd been on that horse, was it such a coincidence that his name was Tom, when his mouth and Voldemort's curled in quite the same way?

"That's right," Dumbledore said, smiling with pleasure at Harry's uptake. "I am glad to see you're keeping up."

"That old man was —?"

"Voldemort's grandfather, yes." Dumbledore nodded gravely. "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. 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."

"So Merope," Harry leaned forward, eyes wide, "so Merope was... sir, does that mean she was... Voldemort's mother?"

"It does," Dumbledore said. "And it so happens that we also had a glimpse of Voldemort's father. I wonder whether you noticed?"

I thought the clue was a little too obvious, as the only other options were Merope's brother, Merope's father, and Ogden, and we already knew that two of them were sent to jail.

"The Muggle Morfin attacked? The man on the horse?"

"Very good indeed." Dumbledore seemed to find Harry's skills of deduction much more impressive than I did. "Yes, that was Tom Riddle Senior, the handsome Muggle who used to go riding past the Gaunt cottage and for whom Merope Gaunt cherished a secret, burning passion."

"And they ended up getting married?" Harry's voice was wracked with disbelief.

I was pretty certain that that did not happen, having seen enough of what Tom Senior thought of the Gaunts, but the image of a tiny, pale faced Voldemort being pulled around by his stony faced parents in a little red wagon entered my mind, anyway.

"I think you are forgetting," Dumbledore said, "that Merope was a witch. I do not believe that her magical powers appeared to their best advantage when she was being terrorized by her father. Once Marvolo and Morfin were safely in Azkaban, once she was alone and free for the first time in her life, then, I am sure, she was able to give full rein to her abilities and to plot her escape from the desperate life she had led for eighteen years.

"Can you not think of any measure Merope could have taken to make Tom Riddle forget his Muggle companion, and fall in love with her instead."

I still sympathized with Merope, greatly, but that did not mean I supported what was certainly a cruel act of hers. Her suffering did not excuse her actions.