Riddle House.
Wormtail clutched Voldemort tightly, carefully hiding behind a towering tree as he peered at the house before him.
The longer his gaze lingered on the house, the more fiercely terror surged through him, and his body began to tremble involuntarily.
Voldemort first spoke in a whisper of Parseltongue, then pressed his wand against Wormtail's heart, his cold, low voice reaching straight into his ears:
"Wormtail, what are you afraid of? You seem to know something about this place?"
His Parseltongue made Wormtail acutely aware that he was not only threatened by Voldemort's wand but also being watched intently by the enormous snake. The thought of snakes suddenly brought an idea to mind, and he blurted out:
"Master, my master, I remember the Gaunt family... that ancient family descended from Slytherin seemed to live nearby. Could this be the Gaunt family's house? Why is it so run-down? And I haven't sensed any trace of magic around here..."
In his panic, Wormtail hurriedly said everything he could think of.
At the same time, he held Voldemort even tighter, his gaze never leaving the house-anything to avoid direct eye contact with Voldemort.
After saying all this, he suddenly felt that everything made sense.
Almost no one in the wizarding world knew which family the Dark Lord actually came from. Based solely on his Parseltongue, they had judged him to be a descendant of Slytherin and a staunch supporter of pure-blood ideology.
But no one had connected him to the already declining Gaunt family. By the time the Dark Lord rose to power, Morfin Gaunt had already spent years in Azkaban, and his sister had long since disappeared.
Since the war broke out, Wormtail had heard Potter say that he and Sirius had visited the Gaunt family home in search of clues