HORCRUX, THE FOSTERS & THE S. SLYTHERIN'S LOCKET

Today, The Fosters and The Grandma have searched Slytherin's Locket, another Horcrux. They want to find and destroy them to help Hogwarts to return to normality. The first Horcrux, T. M. Riddle's Diary, was destroyed by Harry Potter and he has explained the family how he could do it.

Slytherin's Locket was a piece of jewellery originally owned by Salazar Slytherin that became an heirloom of his family.

It was a locket of heavy gold with a serpentine S in glittering green stone inlay on the front. After descending down from Slytherin, it came into the possession of the Gaunt family, and Marvolo Gaunt treasured this heirloom of this pure-blood heritage along with his ring heirloom.

After Marvolo and his son Morfin Gaunt were sent to Azkaban, the locket was stolen by Marvolo's daughter Merope Gaunt, who sold it to Caractacus Burke for ten Galleons, a price far below what the priceless artefact was truly worth.

The locket was bought from Borgin and Burkes shop by a wealthy witch with an affinity for rare or valuable items named Hepzibah Smith. In the mid-20th century, Smith showed it to a young Tom Riddle, who was an employee of Borgin and Burkes at the time. Riddle was interested in the locket, and two days later, Hepzibah was found dead and her house-elf, Hokey, made a full confession.

More information: Wizarding World

Using the murder of a Muggle tramp, Riddle turned the locket into his third Horcrux and hid it in a seaside cave where he had hurt two children when he was in the orphanage. It was taken from the cave, however, by a defected Death Eater named Regulus Black with the attempt of having his house-elf, Kreacher, destroy it, but the elf was unable to destroy the locket.

It was stolen by Mundungus Fletcher from 12 Grimmauld Place, the home of the House of Black. During Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger's attempts to find and destroy Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes, they decided to track down the locket first after retrieving the fake one placed by Regulus from the cave.

They learned from Mundungus that it was taken from him by a Ministry bureaucrat named Dolores Umbridge, and thus the trio infiltrated the Ministry, found Umbridge, and retrieved the locket. Ron and Harry retrieved Godric Gryffindor's Sword from the bottom of a frozen pool and was able to destroy the Horcrux.

The locket was a creation of Salazar Slytherin, the celebrated Founder of Slytherin House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

When Slytherin created the locket, he enchanted it so that only a Parselmouth, like himself, could open it. When Slytherin left Hogwarts, he took the locket with him. After Slytherin's death, the locket was passed down his family line, and eventually came to Marvolo Gaunt, who lived outside the village of Little Hangleton. The locket was one of two remaining Gaunt family heirlooms, the other being a ring inherited down the line of the Peverell family. 

Contradictory to his obsession with the two heirlooms, Marvolo permitted his daughter, Merope, whom he horribly mistreated, to wear the locket around her neck.

After Marvolo and Morfin were imprisoned in Azkaban for assaulting both a Muggle and Ministry of Magic officials, Merope escaped the horrors of her childhood home and fled to London with Tom Riddle Snr Albus Dumbledore theorised that she had used a Love Potion to capture his affections.

More information: Wizarding World

After they had eloped, Merope became pregnant with Riddle's child. During her pregnancy, Merope apparently stopped giving Riddle love potions out of the hope that he would freely choose to stay with her or that he would at least stay for his child. However, after coming to his senses, Riddle fled from Merope, returning to Little Hangleton.

Desperate for money, Merope sold her only valuable possession, the locket, to Caractacus Burke for only ten galleons, either not realising that the locket was a priceless artefact or not caring. Not long afterwards, on New Year's Eve 1926, she came to a Muggle orphanage and gave birth to her son, Tom Marvolo Riddle, naming him after her father and husband. Merope Gaunt died shortly thereafter, leaving her son in the care of the orphanage.

Many years later Tom Riddle graduated from Hogwarts, spurned a wide variety of prestigious offers and took a job at Borgin and Burkes, because of the potential to work with Dark artefacts. In the course of his work, Riddle visited the elderly witch Hepzibah Smith on many occasions and charmed her with flowers and compliments.

After many visits Smith showed Riddle her most prized possessions: Helga Hufflepuff's Cup, an artefacts that she had inherited from her prestigious ancestor and the locket.

She told the young man that she hoped he would appreciate the unique history the objects' possessed. Hepzibah stated that both objects had considerable powers which she had not fully tested, and detailed the locket's historical value. Smith admitted she had paid a heavy price to Caractacus Burke to obtain the locket, and that Burke had previously bought it from a ragged-looking woman, Merope Gaunt, having paid her a mere pittance for it.

By this time, Riddle knew of his family lineage and knew the ragged-looking woman Smith referred to was his own mother. Riddle returned the cup without incident, but when the time came to replace the locket, Riddle briefly hesitated and a look of intense hunger washed across his face, before he let the locket slip through his fingers.

According to Dumbledore, Riddle saw the locket as rightfully his due to its past connections, and is one of the reasons why he would covet it more.

More information: Screen Rant

Two days later Smith was found dead and her elderly house-elf, Hokey, admitted to accidentally poisoning her mistress' cocoa, mistaking a little known, highly lethal poison for sugar. It was later believed by Albus Dumbledore, however, that Riddle had murdered Smith himself and embedded a false memory in the house-elf to escape detection, not unlike his murder of the Riddles in Little Hangleton a few years earlier.

As Smith had quite a collection and many hiding places, it was assumed that the priceless artefacts were simply hidden in her house. Later, Smith's family discovered the cup and the locket were both missing, but by then Riddle had already quit his job and disappeared, not to be seen or heard from again for a decade.

Riddle murdered a Muggle tramp and used that murder to make the locket into a Horcrux. This was a marked departure from his other Horcrux murders, as he tended to choose deaths significant to him in the creation of Horcruxes.

Many years later, the locket was hidden by Riddle, now styling himself Lord Voldemort, in a seaside cave he had visited as a child. It was in this cave that he committed an act so horrifying that he shocked fellow orphans Dennis Bishop and Amy Benson into muteness.

In addition to the natural barriers, Lord Voldemort hid the locket in this cave with several magical enchantments to guard it.

First, the cave could not be Apparated into or Disapparated out from; second, an unmarked door that could only be opened with the payment of blood wiped upon the cave walls; third, an Inferi-infested lake; fourth, an invisible rowboat that would transport only one wizard at a time safely across the lake; fifth, a stone basin filled with a green potion that could not be parted, vanished, transfigured, or otherwise made to change its properties.

The only way to remove the potion from the basin, thereby exposing the locket at the bottom, was to drink it. The potion caused unbearable pain to the drinker and forced them to relive their worst memories and face their worst fears, as though in a nightmare.

If the drinker had any strength left, in their desperate thirst they would be forced to drink water from the lake, as any water magicked on the island would disappear. The drinker would therefore be unable to imbibe anything but the lake's water, which would awaken the army of Inferi.

Before becoming a Horcrux, the locket was described by Hepzibah Smith as having all kinds of powers, though she failed to elaborate, and the only way to open the locket was to speak to it in Parseltongue.

After it was turned into a Horcrux, the locket had many additional powers. Most noticeably, the soul shard within seemed to willingly exert a negative influence on those in its proximity. When worn by Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley in late 1997, it made them all irritable, suspicious, and unable to summon enough happiness to use a Patronus.

More information: Screen Rant

However, someone as malicious as Dolores Umbridge would have an affinity rather than an aversion to it, and not be hindered by it. The locket also had magic in place to protect itself; when Ron attempted to destroy it, it created a vision to show him his worst fears and deepest insecurities.

At times, it also burned very hot, such as when Harry wore it in proximity to Nagini, another Horcrux, and when he tried to pick it up while its continued existence was being threatened. It even attempted to strangle Harry to prevent him from retrieving Gryffindor's sword, knowing that he would use it to destroy the locket.

It seems the glass of the locket allowed the piece of Tom Riddle to have a visible, although immaterial presence; when the locket's doors were open, Riddle's eye could be seen watching from inside.

On a similar note, the locket may also have had the potential to possess individuals, in a manner similar to another Horcrux (Tom Riddle's Diary), as Harry saw a trace of scarlet in Ron's eyes at one point during the locket's attempt to prevent him from destroying it.

More information: What's Your Grief

 

 

She slid back the fine filigree 

clasp and flipped open the box.

There upon the smooth crimson velvet 

lay a heavy golden locket.

 Hepzibah Smith showing Tom Riddle the locket for the first time

HORCRUX, THE WEASLEYS & S. SLYTHERIN'S LOCKET

Today, The Weasleys and The Grandma have searched Slytherin's Locket, another Horcrux. They want to find and destroy them to help Hogwarts to return to normality. The first Horcrux, T. M. Riddle's Diary, was destroyed by Harry Potter and he has explained the family how he could do it.

Slytherin's Locket was a piece of jewellery originally owned by Salazar Slytherin that became an heirloom of his family.

It was a locket of heavy gold with a serpentine S in glittering green stone inlay on the front. After descending down from Slytherin, it came into the possession of the Gaunt family, and Marvolo Gaunt treasured this heirloom of this pure-blood heritage along with his ring heirloom.

After Marvolo and his son Morfin Gaunt were sent to Azkaban, the locket was stolen by Marvolo's daughter Merope Gaunt, who sold it to Caractacus Burke for ten Galleons, a price far below what the priceless artefact was truly worth.

The locket was bought from Borgin and Burkes shop by a wealthy witch with an affinity for rare or valuable items named Hepzibah Smith. In the mid-20th century, Smith showed it to a young Tom Riddle, who was an employee of Borgin and Burkes at the time. Riddle was interested in the locket, and two days later, Hepzibah was found dead and her house-elf, Hokey, made a full confession.

More information: Wizarding World

Using the murder of a Muggle tramp, Riddle turned the locket into his third Horcrux and hid it in a seaside cave where he had hurt two children when he was in the orphanage. It was taken from the cave, however, by a defected Death Eater named Regulus Black with the attempt of having his house-elf, Kreacher, destroy it, but the elf was unable to destroy the locket.

It was stolen by Mundungus Fletcher from 12 Grimmauld Place, the home of the House of Black. During Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger's attempts to find and destroy Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes, they decided to track down the locket first after retrieving the fake one placed by Regulus from the cave.

They learned from Mundungus that it was taken from him by a Ministry bureaucrat named Dolores Umbridge, and thus the trio infiltrated the Ministry, found Umbridge, and retrieved the locket. Ron and Harry retrieved Godric Gryffindor's Sword from the bottom of a frozen pool and was able to destroy the Horcrux.

The locket was a creation of Salazar Slytherin, the celebrated Founder of Slytherin House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

When Slytherin created the locket, he enchanted it so that only a Parselmouth, like himself, could open it. When Slytherin left Hogwarts, he took the locket with him. After Slytherin's death, the locket was passed down his family line, and eventually came to Marvolo Gaunt, who lived outside the village of Little Hangleton. The locket was one of two remaining Gaunt family heirlooms, the other being a ring inherited down the line of the Peverell family. 

Contradictory to his obsession with the two heirlooms, Marvolo permitted his daughter, Merope, whom he horribly mistreated, to wear the locket around her neck.

After Marvolo and Morfin were imprisoned in Azkaban for assaulting both a Muggle and Ministry of Magic officials, Merope escaped the horrors of her childhood home and fled to London with Tom Riddle Snr Albus Dumbledore theorised that she had used a Love Potion to capture his affections.

More information: Wizarding World

After they had eloped, Merope became pregnant with Riddle's child. During her pregnancy, Merope apparently stopped giving Riddle love potions out of the hope that he would freely choose to stay with her or that he would at least stay for his child. However, after coming to his senses, Riddle fled from Merope, returning to Little Hangleton.

Desperate for money, Merope sold her only valuable possession, the locket, to Caractacus Burke for only ten galleons, either not realising that the locket was a priceless artefact or not caring. Not long afterwards, on New Year's Eve 1926, she came to a Muggle orphanage and gave birth to her son, Tom Marvolo Riddle, naming him after her father and husband. Merope Gaunt died shortly thereafter, leaving her son in the care of the orphanage.

Many years later Tom Riddle graduated from Hogwarts, spurned a wide variety of prestigious offers and took a job at Borgin and Burkes, because of the potential to work with Dark artefacts. In the course of his work, Riddle visited the elderly witch Hepzibah Smith on many occasions and charmed her with flowers and compliments.

After many visits Smith showed Riddle her most prized possessions: Helga Hufflepuff's Cup, an artefacts that she had inherited from her prestigious ancestor and the locket.

She told the young man that she hoped he would appreciate the unique history the objects' possessed. Hepzibah stated that both objects had considerable powers which she had not fully tested, and detailed the locket's historical value. Smith admitted she had paid a heavy price to Caractacus Burke to obtain the locket, and that Burke had previously bought it from a ragged-looking woman, Merope Gaunt, having paid her a mere pittance for it.

By this time, Riddle knew of his family lineage and knew the ragged-looking woman Smith referred to was his own mother. Riddle returned the cup without incident, but when the time came to replace the locket, Riddle briefly hesitated and a look of intense hunger washed across his face, before he let the locket slip through his fingers.

According to Dumbledore, Riddle saw the locket as rightfully his due to its past connections, and is one of the reasons why he would covet it more.

More information: Screen Rant

Two days later Smith was found dead and her elderly house-elf, Hokey, admitted to accidentally poisoning her mistress' cocoa, mistaking a little known, highly lethal poison for sugar. It was later believed by Albus Dumbledore, however, that Riddle had murdered Smith himself and embedded a false memory in the house-elf to escape detection, not unlike his murder of the Riddles in Little Hangleton a few years earlier.

As Smith had quite a collection and many hiding places, it was assumed that the priceless artefacts were simply hidden in her house. Later, Smith's family discovered the cup and the locket were both missing, but by then Riddle had already quit his job and disappeared, not to be seen or heard from again for a decade.

Riddle murdered a Muggle tramp and used that murder to make the locket into a Horcrux. This was a marked departure from his other Horcrux murders, as he tended to choose deaths significant to him in the creation of Horcruxes.

Many years later, the locket was hidden by Riddle, now styling himself Lord Voldemort, in a seaside cave he had visited as a child. It was in this cave that he committed an act so horrifying that he shocked fellow orphans Dennis Bishop and Amy Benson into muteness.

In addition to the natural barriers, Lord Voldemort hid the locket in this cave with several magical enchantments to guard it.

First, the cave could not be Apparated into or Disapparated out from; second, an unmarked door that could only be opened with the payment of blood wiped upon the cave walls; third, an Inferi-infested lake; fourth, an invisible rowboat that would transport only one wizard at a time safely across the lake; fifth, a stone basin filled with a green potion that could not be parted, vanished, transfigured, or otherwise made to change its properties.

The only way to remove the potion from the basin, thereby exposing the locket at the bottom, was to drink it. The potion caused unbearable pain to the drinker and forced them to relive their worst memories and face their worst fears, as though in a nightmare.

If the drinker had any strength left, in their desperate thirst they would be forced to drink water from the lake, as any water magicked on the island would disappear. The drinker would therefore be unable to imbibe anything but the lake's water, which would awaken the army of Inferi.

Before becoming a Horcrux, the locket was described by Hepzibah Smith as having all kinds of powers, though she failed to elaborate, and the only way to open the locket was to speak to it in Parseltongue.

After it was turned into a Horcrux, the locket had many additional powers. Most noticeably, the soul shard within seemed to willingly exert a negative influence on those in its proximity. When worn by Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley in late 1997, it made them all irritable, suspicious, and unable to summon enough happiness to use a Patronus.

More information: Screen Rant

However, someone as malicious as Dolores Umbridge would have an affinity rather than an aversion to it, and not be hindered by it. The locket also had magic in place to protect itself; when Ron attempted to destroy it, it created a vision to show him his worst fears and deepest insecurities.

At times, it also burned very hot, such as when Harry wore it in proximity to Nagini, another Horcrux, and when he tried to pick it up while its continued existence was being threatened. It even attempted to strangle Harry to prevent him from retrieving Gryffindor's sword, knowing that he would use it to destroy the locket.

It seems the glass of the locket allowed the piece of Tom Riddle to have a visible, although immaterial presence; when the locket's doors were open, Riddle's eye could be seen watching from inside.

On a similar note, the locket may also have had the potential to possess individuals, in a manner similar to another Horcrux (Tom Riddle's Diary), as Harry saw a trace of scarlet in Ron's eyes at one point during the locket's attempt to prevent him from destroying it.

More information: What's Your Grief

 

 

She slid back the fine filigree 

clasp and flipped open the box.

There upon the smooth crimson velvet 

lay a heavy golden locket.

 Hepzibah Smith showing Tom Riddle the locket for the first time

MUNDUNGUS FLETCHER & GRIPHOOK, THE TRAITORS

Today, The Weasleys and The Grandma have known the stories of Mundungus Fletcher and Griphook, two controversial characters of Magic World.

Mundungus Fletcher is a half-blood wizard who was involved in many illegal activities and Griphook is a goblin who worked at Gringotts Wizarding Bank in Diagon Alley. Both of them betrayed their friends.

Before talking about Mundungus Fletcher and Griphook, she has offered them a new Cambridge Key English Test A2 Example.

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Mundungus Dung Fletcher is a half-blood wizard who was involved in many illegal activities, having a notoriously disreputable reputation as a petty criminal.

However, despite his illicit dealings, he was one of the original members of the Order of the Phoenix, a group dedicated to fighting Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

Despite this, many members of the Order had mixed feelings about him; however, he was very loyal to the Order's head, Albus Dumbledore, who once got Fletcher out of serious trouble.

Very little is known of Mundungus's early life, although it is known that he was born in Great Britain or Ireland to the Fletcher family.

When he was eleven years old, he received a wand, and attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for seven years. It is unknown even to the Ministry of Magic which House he was Sorted into, for reasons unknown.

Mundungus joined the newly-founded Order of the Phoenix.

He was disliked and mistrusted by most of the other members due his very poor reputation as a criminal, but was fiercely loyal to Albus Dumbledore after Dumbledore had helped him out of a bit of trouble. His acquaintances in the figurative underworld proved to be quite useful in gaining information for the Order. 

Mundungus offended Aberforth Dumbledore and was subsequently permanently banned from the Hog's Head Inn.

Mundungus Fletcher got the Marauder's Map by trading it with someone at Hogwarts. He was later attacked and the map got stolen from him by the attacker. He was also attacked by someone in white robes, although this was a separate attack.

When Professor Albus Dumbledore learned of the Return of the Dark Lord, he demanded of Sirius Black that the old crowd be alerted to the incident, specifically naming Mundungus, Remus Lupin and Arabella Figg.

With the return of Lord Voldemort, Mundungus rejoined the Order of the Phoenix, but preferred to carry out business deals on stolen goods.

Mundungus was supposed to be watching Harry Potter but instead decided to go off to buy some stolen cauldrons. When he returned to his post, he was shouted at and attacked by Arabella Figg for deserting his duties.

More information: Screen Rant

Mundungus stayed for supper that night at 12 Grimmauld Place, the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, much against the wishes of Molly Weasley, who blamed him for the earlier desertion of his post. Apparently, Mundungus had been clearing valuables out of the headquarters of the Order and selling them.

Harry caught Fletcher red-handed in Hogsmeade selling Black family silver to the bartender of the Hog's Head, which had been stolen from Sirius' house; these items and the entire residence at 12 Grimmauld Place were left to Harry in Sirius' will.

Harry confronted him using physical force before Mundungus disapparated and went into hiding. His exact whereabouts were a mystery, but it was later noted in the Daily Prophet that he had been arrested and sent to Azkaban for impersonating an Inferius. He likely escaped during the mass breakout described by Kingsley Shacklebolt. 

Fletcher presumably went into hiding after his encounter with the trio at Grimmauld Place.

He was not known to have taken part in the Battle of Hogwarts, but it is possible that he did, without being noticed by Harry Potter.

If he survived the war, he probably returned to his affairs as a disliked dealer of artefacts.

Mundungus was a short wizard with bandy legs and long, straggly ginger hair. He had bloodshot, baggy brown eyes and rarely shaved. His hands were quite grubby, and he was noted to have a particularly strong bodily odour of tobacco and alcohol.

Mundungus was a petty and unscrupulous criminal, specialising in committing petty crimes to make as much profit as he could. He always took valuable things from wherever he went, such as 12 Grimmauld Place. After Sirius Black's death, Mundungus stole his possessions, including Salazar Slytherin's Locket. He was also somewhat cowardly, as he abandoned Alastor Moody during the Battle of the Seven Potters.

Mundungus appeared to be braver than people such as Peter Pettigrew. Though he had a tendency to flee when the situation seemed grim, he never actually turned against the Order of the Phoenix. Also, his crimes mainly included stealing and robbing, never harming or killing others, meaning he was capable of compassion and decency. He was capable of loyalty and repaying debts, if only to Dumbledore.

Mundungus is an obsolete term for a malodorous tobacco.

A fletcher is an arrow-maker; one of his ancestors in the male line may have made arrows.

More information: Screen Rant

 

 

The so-called Inferius was nothing 

but a smelly sneak

thief by the name of Mundungus Fletcher.

Severus Snape

Griphook is a goblin who worked at Gringotts Wizarding Bank in Diagon Alley. He would later go on the run during the height of the Second Wizarding War following the fall of the Ministry of Magic and the raise of Lord Voldemort's new regime. He would later assist Harry Potter in his break-in of Gringotts in order to obtain Helga Hufflepuff's Cup.

However, despite being rescued by them, Griphook's general mistrust of wizardkind resulted in him betraying Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger when he believed they would not hand him the Sword of Gryffindor after destroying the Cup and other Horcruxes. 

This eventually resulted in his own downfall when the Goblins reported the Cup's theft to Lord Voldemort, who subsequently slaughtered all of them, including Griphook, in a fit of rage.

Griphook worked for Gringotts Wizarding Bank.

Griphook tasked his subordinate, the Curse-Breaker Bill Weasley with retrieving a golden dragon egg forged by the infamous goblin blacksmith Urgruff the Unwary, as it was residing with a mother dragon who had purloined it from him after she mistook it for one of her own eggs.

After the Curse-Breaker managed to successfully procure it with help from his brother and friends, Griphook requested that they regale him with the story of their adventure, and, after learning that one of Bill's accomplices, Jacob's sibling, had single-handedly subdued a Hungarian Horntail, proposed that they join Gringotts as a Curse-Breaker after graduating from Hogwarts.

He took Harry Potter and Rubeus Hagrid to vaults 687 and 713.

Griphook went on the run after the fall of the Ministry of Magic to Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters, because the Ministry of Magic placed wizards in control of the goblins and he refused to acknowledge any wizard as his master.

More information: Wizarding World

However, he had a last laugh when he was assigned to put Godric Gryffindor's Sword in Bellatrix Lestrange's vault. He noticed that the sword was a fake, but decided not to reveal that information to Bellatrix, as not to help the Death Eaters.

Harry soon came to Griphook to ask him to assist them in breaking into Gringotts to steal the Horcrux that was in Bellatrix's vault. Because of his favourable impression of Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger pointing out that all magical beings were united in resisting Lord Voldemort, Griphook agreed to help them -in exchange for the Sword of Gryffindor.

Griphook considered it goblin property, claiming that Godric Gryffindor had stolen it from Ragnuk, the maker of the sword. Harry reluctantly agreed.

However, Griphook's mistrust of wizards in general, and his feelings that goblin-made artefacts should be returned to Goblins once the original purchaser had died, led him to suspect that Harry Potter would not keep his word and relinquish the sword.

During the break-in, he managed to get hold of the sword, then fled into the caves calling for help to deal with thieves. Despite his betrayal, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger escaped with Helga Hufflepuff's Cup, now a Horcrux, flying out on a Ukrainian Ironbelly dragon used to guard high security vaults.

Being a goblin, Griphook severely distrusted wizardkind and hated wizarding arrogance, stemming from the fact that goblins had been treated brutally by wizards in the past.

Griphook had a somewhat barbaric and savage personality as he enjoyed the idea of pain in lesser creatures, was eager to harm wizards and showed pleasure at the idea of checking once every ten years if anyone was trapped inside Vault 713.

More information: Screen Rant

 

 

 As the Dark Lord becomes ever more powerful,

your race is set still more firmly above mine!

Gringotts falls under Wizarding rule, house-elves are slaughtered,

and who amongst the wand-carriers protests?

Griphook

HORCRUX, THE STONES & SALAZAR SLYTHERIN'S LOCKET

Salazar Slytherin's Locket

Today, The Stones and The Grandma have searched Slytherin's Locket, another Horcrux. They want to find and destroy them to help Hogwarts to return to normality. The first Horcrux, T. M. Riddle's Diary, was destroyed by Harry Potter and he has explained the family how he could do it.

Slytherin's Locket was a piece of jewellery originally owned by Salazar Slytherin that became an heirloom of his family.

It was a locket of heavy gold with a serpentine S in glittering green stone inlay on the front. After descending down from Slytherin, it came into the possession of the Gaunt family, and Marvolo Gaunt treasured this heirloom of this pure-blood heritage along with his ring heirloom.

After Marvolo and his son Morfin Gaunt were sent to Azkaban, the locket was stolen by Marvolo's daughter Merope Gaunt, who sold it to Caractacus Burke for ten Galleons, a price far below what the priceless artefact was truly worth.

The locket was bought from Borgin and Burkes shop by a wealthy witch with an affinity for rare or valuable items named Hepzibah Smith. In the mid-20th century, Smith showed it to a young Tom Riddle, who was an employee of Borgin and Burkes at the time. Riddle was interested in the locket, and two days later, Hepzibah was found dead and her house-elf, Hokey, made a full confession.

More information: Wizarding World

Using the murder of a Muggle tramp, Riddle turned the locket into his third Horcrux and hid it in a seaside cave where he had hurt two children when he was in the orphanage. It was taken from the cave, however, by a defected Death Eater named Regulus Black with the attempt of having his house-elf, Kreacher, destroy it, but the elf was unable to destroy the locket.

It was stolen by Mundungus Fletcher from 12 Grimmauld Place, the home of the House of Black. During Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger's attempts to find and destroy Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes, they decided to track down the locket first after retrieving the fake one placed by Regulus from the cave.

They learned from Mundungus that it was taken from him by a Ministry bureaucrat named Dolores Umbridge, and thus the trio infiltrated the Ministry, found Umbridge, and retrieved the locket. Ron and Harry retrieved Godric Gryffindor's Sword from the bottom of a frozen pool and was able to destroy the Horcrux.

Dolores Umbridge wears Salazar Slytherin's Locket

The locket was a creation of Salazar Slytherin, the celebrated Founder of Slytherin House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

When Slytherin created the locket, he enchanted it so that only a Parselmouth, like himself, could open it. When Slytherin left Hogwarts, he took the locket with him. After Slytherin's death, the locket was passed down his family line, and eventually came to Marvolo Gaunt, who lived outside the village of Little Hangleton. The locket was one of two remaining Gaunt family heirlooms, the other being a ring inherited down the line of the Peverell family. 

Contradictory to his obsession with the two heirlooms, Marvolo permitted his daughter, Merope, whom he horribly mistreated, to wear the locket around her neck.

After Marvolo and Morfin were imprisoned in Azkaban for assaulting both a Muggle and Ministry of Magic officials, Merope escaped the horrors of her childhood home and fled to London with Tom Riddle Snr Albus Dumbledore theorised that she had used a Love Potion to capture his affections.

More information: Wizarding World

After they had eloped, Merope became pregnant with Riddle's child. During her pregnancy, Merope apparently stopped giving Riddle love potions out of the hope that he would freely choose to stay with her or that he would at least stay for his child. However, after coming to his senses, Riddle fled from Merope, returning to Little Hangleton.

Desperate for money, Merope sold her only valuable possession, the locket, to Caractacus Burke for only ten galleons, either not realising that the locket was a priceless artefact or not caring. Not long afterwards, on New Year's Eve 1926, she came to a Muggle orphanage and gave birth to her son, Tom Marvolo Riddle, naming him after her father and husband. Merope Gaunt died shortly thereafter, leaving her son in the care of the orphanage.

Many years later Tom Riddle graduated from Hogwarts, spurned a wide variety of prestigious offers and took a job at Borgin and Burkes, because of the potential to work with Dark artefacts. In the course of his work, Riddle visited the elderly witch Hepzibah Smith on many occasions and charmed her with flowers and compliments.

Ron Weasley destroys Salazar Slytherin's Locket

After many visits Smith showed Riddle her most prized possessions: Helga Hufflepuff's Cup, an artefacts that she had inherited from her prestigious ancestor and the locket.

She told the young man that she hoped he would appreciate the unique history the objects' possessed. Hepzibah stated that both objects had considerable powers which she had not fully tested, and detailed the locket's historical value. Smith admitted she had paid a heavy price to Caractacus Burke to obtain the locket, and that Burke had previously bought it from a ragged-looking woman, Merope Gaunt, having paid her a mere pittance for it.

By this time, Riddle knew of his family lineage and knew the ragged-looking woman Smith referred to was his own mother. Riddle returned the cup without incident, but when the time came to replace the locket, Riddle briefly hesitated and a look of intense hunger washed across his face, before he let the locket slip through his fingers.

According to Dumbledore, Riddle saw the locket as rightfully his due to its past connections, and is one of the reasons why he would covet it more.

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Two days later Smith was found dead and her elderly house-elf, Hokey, admitted to accidentally poisoning her mistress' cocoa, mistaking a little known, highly lethal poison for sugar. It was later believed by Albus Dumbledore, however, that Riddle had murdered Smith himself and embedded a false memory in the house-elf to escape detection, not unlike his murder of the Riddles in Little Hangleton a few years earlier.

As Smith had quite a collection and many hiding places, it was assumed that the priceless artefacts were simply hidden in her house. Later, Smith's family discovered the cup and the locket were both missing, but by then Riddle had already quit his job and disappeared, not to be seen or heard from again for a decade.

Riddle murdered a Muggle tramp and used that murder to make the locket into a Horcrux. This was a marked departure from his other Horcrux murders, as he tended to choose deaths significant to him in the creation of Horcruxes.

Many years later, the locket was hidden by Riddle, now styling himself Lord Voldemort, in a seaside cave he had visited as a child. It was in this cave that he committed an act so horrifying that he shocked fellow orphans Dennis Bishop and Amy Benson into muteness.

Ron Weasley & Slytherin's Locket

In addition to the natural barriers, Lord Voldemort hid the locket in this cave with several magical enchantments to guard it.

First, the cave could not be Apparated into or Disapparated out from; second, an unmarked door that could only be opened with the payment of blood wiped upon the cave walls; third, an Inferi-infested lake; fourth, an invisible rowboat that would transport only one wizard at a time safely across the lake; fifth, a stone basin filled with a green potion that could not be parted, vanished, transfigured, or otherwise made to change its properties.

The only way to remove the potion from the basin, thereby exposing the locket at the bottom, was to drink it. The potion caused unbearable pain to the drinker and forced them to relive their worst memories and face their worst fears, as though in a nightmare.

If the drinker had any strength left, in their desperate thirst they would be forced to drink water from the lake, as any water magicked on the island would disappear. The drinker would therefore be unable to imbibe anything but the lake's water, which would awaken the army of Inferi.

Before becoming a Horcrux, the locket was described by Hepzibah Smith as having all kinds of powers, though she failed to elaborate, and the only way to open the locket was to speak to it in Parseltongue.

After it was turned into a Horcrux, the locket had many additional powers. Most noticeably, the soul shard within seemed to willingly exert a negative influence on those in its proximity. When worn by Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley in late 1997, it made them all irritable, suspicious, and unable to summon enough happiness to use a Patronus.

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However, someone as malicious as Dolores Umbridge would have an affinity rather than an aversion to it, and not be hindered by it. The locket also had magic in place to protect itself; when Ron attempted to destroy it, it created a vision to show him his worst fears and deepest insecurities.

At times, it also burned very hot, such as when Harry wore it in proximity to Nagini, another Horcrux, and when he tried to pick it up while its continued existence was being threatened. It even attempted to strangle Harry to prevent him from retrieving Gryffindor's sword, knowing that he would use it to destroy the locket.

It seems the glass of the locket allowed the piece of Tom Riddle to have a visible, although immaterial presence; when the locket's doors were open, Riddle's eye could be seen watching from inside.

On a similar note, the locket may also have had the potential to possess individuals, in a manner similar to another Horcrux (Tom Riddle's Diary), as Harry saw a trace of scarlet in Ron's eyes at one point during the locket's attempt to prevent him from destroying it.

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She slid back the fine filigree clasp and flipped open the box.

There upon the smooth crimson velvet lay a heavy golden locket.

 Hepzibah Smith showing Tom Riddle the locket for the first time