The Peverell Family Crest is also the symbol for the Deathly Hallows
The Peverell brothers, Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus, are believed by some to be the subjects of the wizarding legend, "The Tale of the Three Brothers."
Each possessed one of the Deathly Hallows:
- Antioch: the Elder Wand
- Cadmus: the Resurrection Stone
- Ignotus: the Cloak of Invisibility
According to legend, Antioch's throat was slit in his sleep the night after winning his first duel with the Elder Wand. He had boasted of its power, and someone coveted the wand enough to kill him for it.
The legend also says that Cadmus committed suicide after using the Resurrection Stone to bring back his beloved (who had died an untimely death), having found the experience completely unfulfilling. Not only was Cadmus's beloved an echo of herself in life (q.v. Harry's parents as they appeared to him during his duel with Voldemort in the spring of 1995 at the Little Hangleton graveyard), she found the world of the living uncomfortable and wished to return to the afterlife.
Apparently, Ignotus lived a long and fulfilling life, and, having decided to elude Death no longer, passed the cloak on to his own son. Hermione located, and showed to Harry, the grave of Ignotus at the graveyard in Godric's Hollow on Christmas Eve, 1997. She recognized the family crest engraved on the headstone as the symbol worn by Xenophilius Lovegood at the wedding of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour the previous summer. After Ron rejoined them, they visited Xenophilius and questioned him about the symbol, which he said was the emblem of the Deathly Hallows.
The Peverell Family
Peverell was the surname of a medieval pure-blood wizarding family. Hermione reported in early 1998 that, according to Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Geneology, the Peverell name was among the first to "become extinct in the male line," meaning that the name had died out among wizarding families. Nevertheless, Marvolo Gaunt claimed Peverell blood through the female line, and had a ring with the Peverell crest. This ring was set with the Stone of Resurrection, and later became one of Voldemort's horcruxes.
According to Harry's near-death vision of Dumbledore, Harry too is a descendant of the Peverell line through his father James Potter, and hence Ignotus' cloak is rightfully his.