Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Places/Little Hangleton

General Overview
Little Hangleton is a small village which is the ancestral home of Tom Riddle.

Extended Description
Little Hangleton is a village where the Riddle family used to live, and where both Riddle Manor and the House of Gaunt are located. Riddle Manor is used by Lord Voldemort and Wormtail as a base for their activities at the beginning of Harry's fourth year.

At the end of that year, Harry and Cedric Diggory are transported to the cemetery in Little Hangleton by Portkey. The climax of the story occurs there, in the cemetery, as Voldemort returns, the Death Eaters are called to report to Voldemort, and Voldemort duels with Harry.

Location


Its location is uncertain, however we are given one hint during the summer vacation before the fourth year: Two hundred miles away, the boy called Harry Potter woke with a start.

Analysis
Little Hangleton is Tom Marvolo Riddle's "ancestral home;" while he was born in London, his mother Merope Gaunt and father, the muggle Tom Riddle, both lived in this area, and his father is buried here. This is part of the reason that Voldemort, as Tom Riddle was later known, set up his base of operations here; one of the necessary ingredients for the potion that restored Voldemort was "Bone of the father, unknowingly given", for which access to the graveyard in Little Hangleton was necessary. Magic being what it is, it is in fact possible that the spell would only work if it was in the immediate environs of Tom Riddle Sr.'s grave, meaning that Voldemort, his servant, his foe, and his father's grave would all have to be brought together in the same place.

Tom Marvolo Riddle feels no attachment for the place, however. Despite being the closest thing to an heir left by his father, Tom Riddle, and thus presumably the actual owner of the manor house, Riddle Jr. had previously only visited the house for long enough to murder his father and grandparents. For Voldemort, the house is a convenient place for headquarters, where he is unlikely to be disturbed (once he has murdered the Muggle gardener), with no claims on its ownership apart from his own.

Greater Picture
While it is convenient in that he is unlikely to be disturbed there, the house at Little Hangleton is a bit too far away from the center of action for Voldemort once he starts taking an active role in events. Additionally, it is somewhat lacking in comforts, having been largely abandoned for some fifty years since Tom Riddle was murdered. It is almost certainly for these reasons that Voldemort moves his headquarters to Mr. Crouch's London house while controlling Mr. Crouch, and why he relocates to Malfoy Manor in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.