Little Hangleton Graveyard
From Harry Potter Wiki
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| Little Hangleton Graveyard | |
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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film) (Appears in flashback(s)) |
The Little Hangleton Graveyard was the final resting place of the Riddle Family of Little Hangleton. The three Riddles, Thomas Riddle, Mary Riddle, and their son Tom Riddle Sr., were all laid to rest in this graveyard shortly after being murdered by the teenage son of Tom Riddle Sr., Tom Marvolo Riddle (who would grow up to become the infamous Dark Wizard Lord Voldemort). It was also the site of the Battle of the Graveyard, the first battle of the Second Wizarding War.
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[edit] History
[edit] The Riddle Murders
In 1943, Tom Marvolo Riddle (the future Lord Voldemort) came to Little Hangleton to seek out his family and travelled to the Gaunt Shack, the former home of his mother Merope Gaunt. There, he found his half-crazed uncle, Morfin Gaunt, living in deplorable conditions. Gaunt (who had no idea that this boy was his nephew) immediately mistook Riddle for "that muggle that married my (Morfin's) sister," Tom Riddle Sr.. Morfin went on to tell the tragic tale of his sister, Merope Gaunt, and how she was abandoned by her husband (Tom Riddle Sr.) many years ago. Riddle instantly was enraged upon hearing this tale of what he saw as his father causing his mother's death and condemning him to a miserable life in a Muggle orphanage. After Morfin finished his story, Riddle stunned Morfin and took his wand. He then proceeded to the "big house over the way" Morfin had told him about, the Riddle House. Once there, Riddle used the Avada Kedavra Killing Curse upon his father and his Muggle grandparents, Thomas Riddle and Mary Riddle. Riddle returned to the Gaunt Shack and replaced Morfin's wand on his person and altered his memory so that he would confess to killing the Riddles and there would be no further investigation into the matter. The Riddle gardener, Frank Bryce, was accused of the murders on the Muggle end of the investigation. So two men paid for the crimes of the future Lord Voldemort while Riddle escaped with Marvolo Gaunt's Ring, stolen from Morfin by Riddle upon Riddle's departure. Soon thereafter, the baffled Great Hangleton Police were forced to release Bryce on a lack of evidence as the cause of death could not be determined. Morfin, meanwhile, proudly confessed to killing the Riddles to the Ministry of Magic (which recognized it as a wizard's murder instantly), and was taken away to Azkaban Prison to serve a life sentence for the murder of the Riddle Family. Soon thereafter, the three Riddles were laid to rest in a prepared family grave in the Little Hangleton Graveyard, where their remains would remain undisturbed for over fifty years.
[edit] Plot Against Harry Potter And The Graveyard Duel
Many years later, the adult Lord Voldemort hatched a plot to regain his body and murder his greatest enemy, Harry Potter. The potion he devised required three ingredients: bone of the father, flesh of the servant, and blood of the enemy. This meant that Voldemort would have to seek out the remains of his father, Tom Riddle Sr., in order to make the potion successful. He learned of the upcoming Triwizard Tournament that was to take place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry during the course of the summer of 1994. Shortly after extracting this information from Ministry official Bertha Jorkins and disposing of her, Lord Voldemort returned to the site of his first murder, the Riddle House, with his servant Peter Pettigrew in August of 1994. Frank Bryce, now an old man, saw a light in the windows of the Riddle House and went to investigate. Inside, he overheard part of Lord Voldemort's plan to capture and kill Harry Potter but was discovered by Nagini, who reported his presence to Voldemort. After a brief confrontation between Bryce and the Dark Lord, Voldemort performed the same curse upon Bryce that he performed on the Riddle Family more than half a century ago in that very same house, killing Bryce instantly.
On the night of the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament (which had been grossly manipulated by Lord Voldemort through his servant, Barty Crouch Jr.),June 24th 1995, Harry Potter entered the Triwizard Maze in search of the Triwizard Cup. Little did Harry or any of the other three Champions know that Crouch had bewitched the Triwizard Cup to be a Portkey to the Little Hangleton Graveyard where Lord Voldemort and Peter Pettigrew awaited. Due to his sense of fair play and sportsmanship, Harry insisted that fellow Champion Cedric Diggory take the Triwizard Cup with him to tie for first place in the Tournament. Upon touching the cup, the pair was teleported to the resting place of the Riddle Family, the Little Hangleton Graveyard, as had been planned. Pettigrew almost instantly murdered Cedric Diggory using Lord Voldemort's wand upon his orders. Harry Potter was tied to the tombstone of Tom Riddle Sr., and Pettigrew performed the gruesome task of adding the three ingredients to the potion (which included one of Tom Riddle Sr.'s bones, Pettigrew's hand, and some of Harry Potter's blood). Lord Voldemort was reborn, fully powerful once more. Voldemort gazed up at his father's former home and reminisced to Harry Potter about how his father and his family had once lived in "that house on the hill," and he went on to tell Harry about how he had murdered his father, who laid beneath Harry's feet. Voldemort then called his Death Eaters back to him and told them about his failed attempt to secure the Philosopher's Stone with the aid of Quirinus Quirrell three years earlier as well as the events that led to his return that very night.
Voldemort then ordered Harry Potter to be untied and to be given back his wand. The Dark Lord then briefly duelled Potter, who was forced to hide and dodge behind tombstones to avoid Voldemort's curses. Finally, Harry fired his own curse at Voldemort to disarm him at the same moment Voldemort attempted a Killing Curse on Harry. The two spells collided and formed a golden thread that connected their two wands. This rare effect, the Priori Incantatem, occurred due to the twin cores shared by the two wands, a feather from Fawkes, the phoenix of Albus Dumbledore. Harry's courage overpowered Voldemort's wand, and his wand forced the Dark Lord's wand to regurgitate "echoes" of the spells it had cast in reverse order. First came an "echo" of Cedric Diggory, then another of Frank Bryce, then Bertha Jorkins, then Harry's mother Lily Potter, and finally Harry's father James Potter. They instructed Harry to break the connection when he was ready and to grab the Triwizard Cup to return to Hogwarts while they held Voldemort off with what little time they would have to exist after the connection was broken. Cedric Diggory made his final request to Harry that he take Cedric's body back to Hogwarts to his family, which Harry agreed to do in honour of his fallen classmate and fellow Champion. Harry broke the connection and fled to the Triwizard Cup while the apparitions held Voldemort off. Harry was able to grab Cedric's body, summon the Triwizard Cup to him and escape from the Little Hangleton Graveyard back to Hogwarts to warn Albus Dumbledore of the Dark Lord's return.
[edit] Appearances
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (First appearance)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (video game)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film) (Appears in flashback(s))
