The Gaunt family were mean, cruel and the worst family to live with; being in Albania had nothing to do with it. At least that's what Merope Gaunt thought, her mother died when she was two years old, and her father, lets just say that he was a person who treat his only daughter, and in her opinion, the only sane person in her family, like a slave. Not to mention her father was so obsessed with pureblood mania that he once said that he would rather be six feet under than see his children marry a filthy Mudblood.

So she decided that she had to get away from all of this, and one day, when her father was still asleep, she took the two most prized Gaunt family heirlooms from her father, the Peverell Ring and Slytherin's Locket, with some of her possessions including the key to the Gaunt's Gringotts vault (not that they ever used it) and ran. Merope ran out of the house with all her might and speed because she just her father, Marvolo, wake up, as usual, rather late.

Merope had reached the forest by dusk and stopped there for the night. Even though she was only seven years old, she still knew how to take care of herself for a few days as she had gone out before without any warning given to her father, but that was usually to search for food. Merope had tried to imagine Marvolo's face when he realised that she would not be returning to him, ever.

At this picture she laughed so hysterically that her head swung back and hit the trunk of the tree that she was leaning against. "Ow, that hurt!" Merope exclaimed in an annoyed tone of voice. Hang on, trees aren't hollow, she thought intelligently. Merope stood up, and faced the tree. She had a look on her face that would make you as her thinking pose. Good thing I "accidentally" took Morfin's wand, she thought. She got the wand out, and thought in her mind what she wanted to do. Merope was rather intelligent for her age, but rather shy. She made a hole in the bark, only a small hole and put her hand in found something, it was cold and felt like metal, silver perhaps. She grabbed a hold of it and began to pull it out of the tree.