💍 Marvolo Gaunt's Ring
Marvolo Gaunt's Ring was a gold ring inset with a black stone (the Resurrection Stone) that became Lord Voldemort's second Horcrux.
📋 Horcrux Information
- Object: Gold ring with black stone (Resurrection Stone/Deathly Hallow)
- Murder Used: Tom Riddle Sr. (Voldemort's father)
- Created: 1943
- Hidden: Little Hangleton, Gaunt family shack
- Destroyed By: Albus Dumbledore
- Destruction Method: Sword of Gryffindor
- Destroyed: July 1996
📖 History & Significance
The ring originally belonged to Marvolo Gaunt, Voldemort's maternal grandfather. The Gaunt family treasured it as a symbol of their pure-blood heritage and descent from the Peverell family (though they didn't know it contained the Resurrection Stone). The stone bore the Peverell coat of arms.
🎯 Creation
Tom Riddle tracked down his Muggle father's family to Little Hangleton. After learning his father had abandoned his mother, Riddle murdered his father, grandparents, and framed his uncle Morfin Gaunt for the crimes. He used his father's death to create this Horcrux, then stole the ring from his uncle.
🏚️ Hidden Location
Voldemort hid the ring in the ruins of the Gaunt family shack in Little Hangleton, protected by multiple curses and enchantments. He placed it in a golden box hidden under the rotting floorboards. The location was meaningful to him as his mother's family home and the last remaining connection to his pure-blood heritage.
⚔️ Discovery & Destruction
In summer 1996, Albus Dumbledore tracked down the ring after years of research into Voldemort's past. He found it in the Gaunt shack and, in a moment of weakness, put it on - hoping to use the Resurrection Stone to speak with his dead sister, Ariana.
The ring was cursed with a powerful, lethal curse that immediately began to spread through Dumbledore's body. Only his exceptional magical skill contained the curse to his hand. Severus Snape provided emergency treatment, buying Dumbledore time but warning that he had about a year to live.
Despite being cursed, Dumbledore used the Sword of Gryffindor to destroy the Horcrux. The ring was left cracked and useless, though Dumbledore kept it to extract the Resurrection Stone, which he later bequeathed to Harry in his will (hidden inside a Snitch).
💀 The Curse
The curse on the ring was extraordinarily powerful - described as a "curse of extraordinary power, to contain which is to hold the inevitable at bay." It blackened and withered Dumbledore's hand, slowly killing him. Without Snape's intervention, Dumbledore would have died within minutes. Even with treatment, the curse was fatal and would have killed him within a year.
🔮 The Resurrection Stone
Voldemort never knew that the black stone in the ring was the fabled Resurrection Stone, one of the three Deathly Hallows. He only valued it as a symbol of his pure-blood heritage. Dumbledore recognized it and kept it after destroying the Horcrux, later leaving it to Harry Potter to help him face death.
⚠️ Dumbledore's Mistake
Dumbledore's moment of weakness - putting on the ring hoping to apologize to his dead family - nearly cost him his life immediately and doomed him to die within a year. He later told Harry: "I was a fool... After all those years I had learned nothing." This mistake, however, led to Dumbledore orchestrating his own death with Snape, which ultimately helped defeat Voldemort.