HORCRUX, THE FOSTERS & THE MARVOLO GAUNT'S RING

Today, The Fosters and The Grandma have announced that they found and destroyed Marvolo Gaunt's Ring, another Horcrux, last week. With this, they have already destroyed four of a total of seven. They continued helping Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley in their search.

Marvolo Gaunt's Ring is a golg ring, an heirloom of the House of Gaunt, descendants of Salazar Slytherin and Cadmus Peverell.

Marvolo Gaunt's Ring is an heirloom of the House of Gaunt, descendants of Salazar Slytherin and Cadmus Peverell.

It is a gold ring inset with a black stone, actually the Resurrection Stone, but neither Marvolo Gaunt nor Lord Voldemort were aware of its existence, engraved with what Marvolo Gaunt called the Peverell coat of arms, having come into the Gaunt line from an heiress of the Peverells, not the Slytherin family, which is actually the symbol of the Deathly Hallows.

The signet ring passed through the male Gaunts, generation to generation, until it was stolen from Morfin Gaunt by Tom Riddle while Riddle framed Morfin for the murders of the Riddle family.

While at Hogwarts, Riddle openly wore the ring. He later made the ring into his second Horcrux. Riddle did not enchant the ring right away, as he was seen wearing it while asking Horace Slughorn about Horcruxes, as seen through Slughorn's memories in a pensieve.

Albus Dumbledore retrieved the ring, eventually destroying it with Godric Gryffindor's Sword.

The ring's story begins and ends with its black stone. The stone happened to be the Resurrection Stone, one of the Deathly Hallows of legend, and had the symbol of the Deathly Hallows engraved on its surface.

According to The Tale of the Three Brothers, Cadmus Peverell, the middle brother, asked Death for the power to return people from the dead. Death supposedly picked up a black stone from the nearby river bank and gave it to Cadmus, promising him that it contained the power he had requested.

Once Cadmus returned to his home, he took out the Resurrection Stone and turned it over in his hand three times. In doing so, he brought back his lover who had suffered an untimely death. While she did return from the dead, she was not truly alive and wished to go back to the world of the dead since she no longer belonged in the living world. For Cadmus, it was like being able to see her but not able to touch her or truly be with her. Seeing the stone's limitations drove Cadmus to madness, and he took his own life to truly join his love in death.

The stone passed down Cadmus' family line. At some point, it was placed into a gold setting and made into a ring. The ring continued to be passed down the family line, eventually ending up in the hands of the Gaunts.

Marvolo Gaunt, the family's patriarch at the time, prized this ring, along with Salazar Slytherin's Locket, more than anything, even his own daughter, Merope.

When the family was visited by Ministry of Magic official Bob Ogden, Marvolo waved the ring in front of his face in an attempt to impress and intimidate Ogden. When Marvolo and his son Morfin Gaunt were arrested and imprisoned for assaulting Muggles and Ministry officials, his daughter Merope Gaunt abandoned the family to escape the mental torture her father continuously employed against her, taking Salazar Slytherin's Locket with her.

When Marvolo returned home, he had foolishly expected to find his daughter dutifully awaiting his return with a hot meal ready for him. What he found however was an abandoned house covered with an inch of dust and a note from Merope explaining what she had done and why. 

More information: Wizarding World

Marvolo died shortly thereafter, either due to his inability to take care of himself or the weakening of his strength from Azkaban. The signet ring passed to Morfin when he was finally released from Azkaban, and he continued to wear it in his delusional state for several years afterward.

Some years later, Tom Marvolo Riddle returned to Little Hangleton to seek out his family. He had been expecting to meet Marvolo, but instead found the half-crazed Morfin in the Gaunt shack.

Morfin remarked how Riddle looked very much like the muggle that had married his sister, Tom Riddle Snr. He told Riddle how Riddle Snr had left Merope and returned to his parents' home, the Riddle House. Upon learning of his father's escape and thus feeling that he had caused Merope's death and him going to an orphanage, Riddle stunned Morfin and took his wand. He then proceeded to the Riddle House to confront his father.

Frank Bryce, the Riddle's gardener, remarked later that he had seen Riddle ascending the hill toward the house. Riddle used a common spell to unlock the door and entered the house.

Once inside, Riddle found his father, as well as his grandparents, Thomas Riddle and Mary Riddle, in the drawing room. Riddle then used the Killing Curse on his father and Muggle grandparents.

It is unknown if there were any words exchanged between them before the actual murders took place, but what is certain is that the Riddles were found dead in their drawing room, with looks of extreme fear on their faces. Riddle returned to the Gaunt shack and modified Morfin's memory to make him believe that he had killed the Riddles himself.

Riddle replaced Morfin's wand on his person but absconded with the ring. When Morfin was arrested by the Ministry and found guilty of the Riddle murders, he was carted off to Azkaban for good this time. As he was being taken away, he continuously remarked that his father would kill him for losing the ring.

Riddle openly wore the ring at Hogwarts after these events, likely as a trophy, as seen on his hand in a memory provided by Potions Master Horace Slughorn. Riddle then questioned Slughorn about Horcruxes, particularly what would happen to the wizard that created more than one.

By this point, Riddle had already created his first Horcrux, his childhood diary, with the murder of a fellow student named Myrtle Warren. At some point shortly before or after his graduation from Hogwarts, Riddle used the murder of his father, Tom Riddle Snr to turn the ring into a Horcrux.

More information: Screen Rant

After that, he lost interest in wearing it any longer and chose to return it to the very place he had stolen it from: the Gaunt shack. He placed the ring inside a golden box and hid it beneath the shack's rotting floorboards.

He then set up many protective enchantments to deter outsiders from entering the shack and finding the ring. He also placed a powerful curse on the ring as well, one that would quickly lead to the death of the ring's wearer if not stemmed.

The ring was left there in the ruin of the Gaunt shack for many decades to come. In his entire time of possessing the ring, Riddle either never knew its powers or status as the Resurrection Stone, or simply did not have any use for it, as he feared the dead and did not wish to bring back anyone.

Albus Dumbledore continued investigating Riddle's obsession with immortality and suspected correctly that Riddle had created up to six Horcruxes. Dumbledore suspected that a good place to look for one of Riddle's Horcruxes would be the Gaunt shack, considering its importance to Riddle's past. 

 

Dumbledore travelled to Little Hangleton and found the remains of the shack, hidden amongst many weeds and brush. Dumbledore succeeded in passing through the enchantments protecting the shack and discovered the golden box holding the ring beneath the shack's floorboards.

He brought the sword of Godric Gryffindor with him as it now had the power to destroy Horcruxes since Harry Potter had used it to kill the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, which imbued the blade with the Basilisk's venom.

However, Dumbledore recognised the symbol of the Deathly Hallows on the ring's black stone and recognised it as the Resurrection Stone, something for which Dumbledore had searched for the greater part of his life. Hoping to revive his dead family members, particularly his sister Ariana Dumbledore, he disregarded the ring's status as a Horcrux and put it on.

This enacted the ring's deadly curse, and it began to quickly spread through Dumbledore's body, starting with the hand on which he had put the ring. After Dumbledore returned to Hogwarts, he used Godric Gryffindor's Sword to crack the Resurrection Stone so as to destroy it as a Horcrux.

While the act did destroy the ring as one of Riddle's Horcruxes, it did not stop the fatal curse. The curse gave Dumbledore's hand a withered black look, as though it had died. Severus Snape managed to stop the curse in his right hand, but warned him that he had only a year to live.

After the Horcrux was destroyed, Dumbledore continued to wear the ring for several more days. Most notably, he wore it when he picked up Harry Potter from Privet Drive and took him to persuade Horace Slughorn to teach at Hogwarts.

After Lord Voldemort discovered that Harry was hunting his Horcruxes, Lord Voldemort decided to make sure that each of his Horcruxes was still safe and to increase their protection. He decided that the ring was perhaps the least safe, and thus visited the shack first. Upon discovering that the ring had in fact disappeared, Lord Voldemort let out a scream of fury and quickly left to check the security of his other Horcruxes.

More information: Reddit

 

  

See this? See this? Know what it is? 

Know where it came from?

Centuries it's been in our family,

that's how far back we go, and pure-blood all the way!

Know how much I've been offered for this,

with the Peverell coat of arms engraved on the stone?

Marvolo Gaunt