Riddle House

The Riddle House is the house that Voldemort's grandparents (on his father's side) used to occupy, in Little Hangleton. When Voldemort was a teenager, he traveled to the house and murdered his father and grandparents.

Originally, the Riddle House was home to the Riddle Family, composed of Thomas Riddle, Mary Riddle, and their son Tom Riddle Sr.. Thomas owned over half the valley where Little Hangleton lay, and the Riddle Family was easily one of the wealthiest in the vicinity. However, they were known to be snobbish and rude to many of the other villagers (save for Tom Riddle Sr. in his youth, who was on good enough terms with the other villagers to lean their feelings toward the Gaunt Family that lived nearby). The family lived in their mansion perched atop a hill overlooking the village that came to be known as the Riddle House.

Tom Riddle Sr. returned to Little Hangleton and the Riddle House upon his desertion of his wife, Merope Gaunt, and his unborn child, Tom Marvolo Riddle. He lived in the house with his parents for roughly sixteen more years before his son came to Little Hangleton seeking out his family. Upon learning of Riddle Sr.'s actions toward his mother and himself, Riddle stunned his maternal uncle, Morfin Gaunt, took his wand, and proceeded to "the big house over the way" that Morfin had told him about, the Riddle House, to confront his father with murder in his heart. Riddle proceeded to climb the hill (which was seen by the Riddles' gardener, Frank Bryce) toward the house, and upon reaching its summit, he used the common Alohomora spell to unlock the door and allow himself access. Once inside, Riddle found his father and his muggle grandparents in their drawing room. It is unknown if any words were exchanged between them (although there likely were as the Riddles were found with terrified looks on their faces; Voldemort would later remark to Harry Potter that his father "didn't like magic," something he could only have known if he had spoken to Tom Riddle Sr. himself in addition to telling Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets that his father had abandoned his mother after discovering she was a witch, which also implies that he likely spoke to Tom Riddle Sr. about these matters prior to sealing his fate with the Avada Kedavra Killing Curse), but what is known is that the Riddles were found dead in their drawing room with looks of utter terror frozen upon their faces, almost as if they had been frigthened to death.

The gardener of the house, Frank Bryce, was wrongly accused for the murders (as the door had not been forced, and Bryce was the only one with a key), but was let go when police could not determine the cause of death (since the Avada Kedavra Killing Curse leaves no sign of damage upon its victims). The Ministry of Magic however realized immediately that it was a wizard's murder and immediately suspected Morfin Gaunt. Gaunt testified proudly that he had killed the Riddles and had been awaiting his chance for some time, and his wand was found to have been the murder weapon. Gaunt was remanded to Azkaban Prison to serve a life term for the murder of the Riddle Family. So two men paid for the crimes of the future Lord Voldemort, while Riddle escaped Little Hangleton with Marvolo Gaunt's Ring, taken from the hand of Morfin upon Riddle's departure.

Over the years, the house fell into disrepair, and few people wanted to actually live in the house due to its gruesome history that connected it to the Riddle murders. Frank Bryce was kept on by the house's current owner to do the gardening and to tend the grounds of the vast estate, and Bryce continued to live on the grounds for over fifty years. Its current owner is a very wealthy man who owns it for "tax reasons," although no one in Little Hangleton knows what the reasons may be. Still, like many before him, he never showed any inclination to physically occupy the house.

In August of 1994, Lord Voldemort returned to the house with his servant, Peter Pettigrew, and Frank Bryce saw a light coming from within the house late one night. Bryce took his keys and traveled up the hill to the Riddle House. Upon entering and climbing to its second level, he heard voices. He had no way of knowing that on the other side of the wall sat the true murderer of the Riddle Family and the man responsible for all distrusting him in the village of Little Hangleton, nor that this was the "dark-haired boy" he himself had seen climbing toward the Riddle House that terrible day over half a century ago. Bryce was soon discovered by Nagini and subsequently was "invited" into the room by Peter Pettigrew on the orders of Lord Voldemort. After a short conversation, Bryce demanded that Voldemort turn around from the fireplace and face him "like a man," to which Voldemort replied that he was "much more than a man" and agreed to turn around, requesting Pettigrew to turn the chair he was sitting in around to face Bryce. When this was done, Bryce let out a horrified scream when he saw what was sitting in the chair (Voldemort's sickly, rudimentary body), and his scream continued even after Lord Voldemort raised his wand and performed the same curse upon Bryce that he had used on the family Bryce served in that very house over half a century before. Frank Bryce was dead before he hit the floor, dying in the same house and in the same manner as the family he had always been loyal to for over fifty years, falling to the exact same murderer as they did. In June of 1998, Voldemort would point the house out to Harry Potter, who had been teleported to the Little Hangleton Graveyard as a result of the Triwizard Cup's status as a Portkey, saying that his father and his family had once lived in "that house on the hill."

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince