Riddle Manor stood on a hill overlooking the village of Little Hangleton, it was the largest building for miles around, the small village at the bottom of the hill was pure Muggle. Tom Marvolo Riddle had spent months making the house liveable again and casting strong wards around the property. To the Muggles below all that could been seen was an old abandoned home, the windows boarded, tiles missing from the roof, and ivy and other weeds spreading unchecked over the walls. But to those that were attuned into the wards, could see the Manor for what it was, a beautiful building full of life and love, magnificent gardens that were maintained by three of four former Black sisters; Cassiopeia Riddle, Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange. The lands and Manor had once belonged to the extremely rich Muggle family; Thomas and Mary Riddle and their only son Tom Riddle. The history of their life and death was well known to the village below, in the summer of 1943 a maid discovered the cold bodies of 63 year old Thomas Riddle, 60 year old Mary Riddle and their 38 year old son Tom. Rumors spread quickly throughout the Muggle world of how the gardener Frank Bryce had murdered them. The magical world knew better though, the three Muggles had been killed by the Killing Curse, after an investigation it was determined that the Muggles had been killed by Morfin Gaunt. While closer to the truth than the Muggle theories it was still incorrect. The Gaunt family was a prestigious Pureblood family that were the last to have Slytherin blood running through them. They lived just up from the village in a rundown cottage, the head of the family Marvolo Gaunt was a bitter old man who hated Muggles with a passion. He boasted their Slytherin blood proudly despite the fact that due to inbreeding the magical talent had dwindled down to practically nothing, the inbreeding had also left most of them violently unstable and extremely poor. The eldest child, the son, Morfin Gaunt could only speak in Parseltongue, the daughter, Merope Gaunt, was almost a squib only able to do the most basic of spells and even then it was a struggle for the poor girl. When she was sixteen she fell for the rich and slightly snobby eighteen year old Tom Riddle, her Father was arrested for attacking her in front of a ministry official after her Brother revealed that she had been watching Tom. Morfin got arrested for preventing the ministry official helping young Merope. Once on her own, Merope found it easier to perform magic and started to become a wonderful young woman, when she was seventeen she started a secret relationship with Tom Riddle. It was a theory of Albus Dumbledore she had used a love potion but the simple and easy fact was away from her family Merope grew more confident and it showed enough for Tom to notice her. On her eighteenth birthday Tom Riddle proposed and swept her away to live a life together. They lived happily for a year, Merope discovered she was pregnant with a baby boy much to Tom's delight, they agreed to stick with his families tradition and name the son Thomas. But when she was eight months pregnant everything changed for the worse.