Gaunt shack



The Gaunt Shack was the home of the Gaunt family. It was a little shack located in the woods just outside the village of Little Hangleton.

Inhabitants
It was the home of Marvolo Gaunt and his two children, Morfin and Merope. They were the last remaining descendants of Salazar Slytherin and lived there in poverty, speaking Parseltongue to each other and living in deplorable conditions. The inside of the shack was thick with filth, but was somewhat kept in check by Merope. Morfin had even nailed a dead snake to the front door of the shack. They were once visited by the Ministry of Magic official Bob Ogden, who came to question Morfin about his habit of using magic in front of villagers. This is notable as the first canon appearance of Tom Riddle Sr..

About sixteen years later, when Tom Marvolo Riddle came to visit Marvolo to learn about his heritage, he instead found Morfin, along with a mass of filth, rusting pots, and mouldy food, which made the house nearly unrecognisable before Marvolo and Morfin's incarceration, due to Merope no longer taking care of the cleaning. After killing his father, Riddle framed Morfin for it, and left the Gaunt's house with Marvolo Gaunt's Ring. With that, the house became abandoned for years, and continued to deteriorate.

Horcrux Hiding Place
After the death of the Gaunt family the house was left deserted. Lord Voldemort decided to use this place to hide one of his Horcruxes, which was Gaunt's Ring taken from Morfin himself. The ring was left under the floor boards in the ruins of the house in a golden box with a curse of sorts placed upon it. In the summer of 1996, Albus Dumbledore visited the shack and retrieved the ring, reasoning that Voldemort would store his Horcruxes in locations relevant to him.

In 1998, Voldemort returned to the Shack to check on the Horcrux, after learning that one (Helga Hufflepuff's Cup) had been stolen from the Gringotts vault of Bellatrix Lestrange. Fearing for its loss, he discovered that the Ring had been taken from the Shack shortly before the Battle of Hogwarts.

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows