Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 103183

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Debra" <hpsupergeek at y...> 
wrote:
> Debra:
> I don't think TR was involved in anything good before he went bad, 
> because as LV he mentions always having had so much hate in his 
> childhood, and at sixteen years old he said that he had been 
looking 
> for Slytherin's method of killing mudbloods for five years. I also 
> don't think there's a TR Jr. because according to Dumbledore, 
TR/LV 
> was the last remaining heir of Slytherin. And since JKR often uses 
> Dumbledore as a means of relaying information to the reader, I 
think 
> we can take that at face value and not argue over how much DD does 
or 
> does not know on the subject.

But you know, from the way Myrtle described her death, it doesn't 
sound to me like TR actually deliberately *planned* to murder her.  
As I recall, he didn't even know she was in the bathroom - she came 
out of the stall and surprised him in the middle of calling out the 
basilisk, and she died as soon as she looked at it.  I don't know if 
TR "sicced" the basilisk on her when she caught him, or if it was 
just there and she looked at it and dropped dead.  But I'm pretty 
sure that, whatever he was planning to do with the creature, he 
didn't actually PLAN this incident.  It just sort of dropped into 
his lap, and I don't suppose he was sorry to be able to put an 
annoying mudblood out of his way.  But considering how quickly he 
panicked when he saw the possible consequences to himself of 
Myrtle's death - Hogwarts being closed, and himself sent back to the 
orphanage - I wonder just what he thought he was going to do with 
the basilisk.  I would have thought he was bad enough to try to 
eliminate ALL the "inferior" witches and wizards at Hogwarts with 
it, but that would have had even worse repercussions.  Maybe he just 
hadn't really thought it all out; he was only 15, after all.

Wanda