Merope's Death

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 138112

Eric Oppen asked:
"How long was she able to keep filling TR, Sr. up with love potions? 
If her idyll had lasted a while, it could well be that her rotten
father and/or brother had gotten back out of Azkaban...and once they
were out, the first thing they'd do would be to track down their
escaped slave."

(snip)

"We know that Muggles can't diagnose the Avada Kedavra curse
correctly.  If Merope was already weak and ill (and, probably,
suffering from severe post-partum depression and emotional anguish)
all it would have taken would be for either Marvolo or Morfin to slip
into the room where she was and cast a quick A-K."

Del replies:
Interesting idea, though I disagree on some details.

1. It can't be Morfin, because of the timeline. We know that Morfin
got 3 years in Azkaban, while Marvolo got only 6 months. We know that
by the time Marvolo got back, he found an inch of dust in his house,
so Merope had eloped with Tom Riddle for at least a couple of months
already. And finally we know that Merope had Tom Jr about a year after
the marriage. So by that time, Morfin was still in Azkaban, but not
Marvolo. (All factual details come from the chapter "The House of Gaunt")

2. It can't be an AK, because the Ministry would have known. They
can't say who performed a curse, but they do know when, where and on
whom a curse has been performed. For example, they didn't know for
sure that it was Morfin who had jinxed Tom Sr, but they knew when and
where the jinx had been performed, and on whom, which is how they
deducted who had done it. So if an AK had been performed in a Muggle
orphanage, the MoM would have known, and DD would know that Merope had
been so murdered.

3. I can't imagine that Marvolo would have left the newborn Tom alive,
if he'd killed Merope.

But there are other possibilities, namely poison or a slower curse. It
is possible that Marvolo, not wanting to go back to Azkaban so soon,
chose a more anonymous way of killing Merope. It is even possible that
the curse was on the locket Merope had, a curse that was supposed to
slowly and painfully kill any rightful owner of the Slytherin heirloom
that would sell it outside of the family - it does sound like the kind
of thing the Gaunts would do.

Moreover, this curse/poison possibility would enhance the amazing and
very consistent contrast between Lily/Harry and Merope/Tom. Lily left
a love protection in Harry's blood. Could it be that Tom was born to a
cursed mother? This would make him a cursed baby, which would help
explain why he was so weird and scary right from the beginning (note:
psychology and genetics are enough to explain Tom's abnormal behaviour
even as a baby, but that doesn't preclude the possibility of a magical
curse on top of it).

So I do think that you might be on to something that would explain
both Merope's untimely death and Tom's "inborn" evilness. A slow
poison could even explain why Merope made all the strange choices she
seems to have made: stop feeding Love Potion to Tom Sr, not use magic
to help herself, and why she looked so destitute when she sold the locket.

JMO,

Del