Chapter 4
Merope Gaunt is an odd child. Beautiful, but odd. She comes from a long line of inbred people, who by the time she was planned for, could hardly speak any tongue but that of the serpent.
Merope grows up speaking only that very same language, for what else is allowed in a house whose upmost authority figure forbade what he deemed as too lowly for his progeny, unpure though one of them was.
It feels wrong to say, like this was not how her world was supposed to spin, but Merope is the product of a second marriage.
The Gaunts, for generations now, have fervently kept the bloodline pure, marrying sisters to brothers, uncles to nieces, so on and so forth.
This tradition is carried on in the production of Merope's elder brother, Morfin, born to his aunt-mother, a name no longer spoken in their house, and Marvolo Gaunt.
Death during childbirth seems to run in the family.
Modern muggle research would show that's what inbreeding gets you, low fertility rates, mangled babes, and a whole slew of ghastly issues.
Merope, however, has a different mother.
Sixteen-year-old Mirella Gaunt neé Lucia arrives in Little Hangleton to no fanfare, in the dead of night, one late spring. She dies two years later, having lived only long enough for Merope to have been weaned.
Notably, nobody ever turns up looking for her.
The only thing her little girl is set to inherit is the woman's wand, though that is cast aside into a dusty cupboard.
A brood mare has no need for a wand.