Voldemort killed personally?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 157159

Aussie wrote:
><snip> Myrtle was an oppertunistic death by the Basalisk, not
pre-meditated.

Carol responds:
Surely Tom Riddle wasn't just taking the basilisk for a walk. He had
released it from the statue and taken it out of the Chamber of Secrets
for a reason--to fulfill his role as Slytherin's Heir by carrying on
"Salazar Slytherin's noble work" of ridding the school of "those
unworthy to attend it." There was no other possible reason for having
the Basilisk with him. Moreover, I don't think it was a random death.
He probably knew quite well who was crying and that she was a
Muggleborn. He had the Basilisk with him with the intention of
"killing Mudbloods," to use his own words to Harry in CoS. If he
hadn't found Myrtle in the restroom, he'd have sought out another
victim. There was nothing "opportunistic" about it.

See my post on this topic upthread.

Tinktonks wrote: <SNIP>
>
> > DD being wrong about using Nagini to kill Frank Bryce opens up an
> important question for me though. DD seemingly thinks that Nagini
killed FB on LV's orders, he also thinks that Nagini was made a
Horcrux with FB's murder.
> > 
> > Is this a clue? Is DD's mistake (something that is pretty darn 
> rare) JKR's way of sneakily telling the reader that you don't need
an AK to create a Horcrux? <snip>

Carol responds:
I hadn't thought about it in quite this way, but you could be right.
In any case, a murder is a murder regardless of the weapon used, and
I'm quite sure that both Hepzibah Smith (descendant of Helga
Hufflepuff and ownder of the cup and the locket) and Myrtle (Tom's
first murder victim) were used to create the cup and diary Horcruxes
respectively. I certainly don't think that an AK is required. (BTW, I
wonder how many other victims of LV and the DEs were poisoned rather
than AK'd. Lucius Malfoy sold quite a few poisons to Mr. Borgin when
he was clearing out Dark artifacts in preparation for Mr. Weasley's
inspection of his manor.)

As for Nagini, I still think that she's a Horcrux but that she was
made on before Godric's Hollow. I raised the question of whether she
might be something else (a familiar spirit, that is, a demon in animal
form) but didn't get any responses. (And, no, I'm not suggesting that
JKR has an Old Testament thou-shalt-not-suffer-a-witch-to-live concept
of witches, wizards, and their familiars. I just think that Nagini is
something more than a snake, even a magical snake, and there's nothing
that fits her description in FBAWTFT.) If anyone is interested in that
idea, the post number is 157144.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/157144
> 
> aussie wrote:
><snip> For a long time I have thought young Tom is 
> repeated in young Draco.

Carol responds:
However snooty and prejudiced and generally obnoxious Draco may be, he
has yet to hang his schoolmates' pets from the rafters or torture them
in caves. Draco is the product of his upbringing by pureblood
supremacists, at least one of whom is a DE, and perhaps, if Hagrid is
right, of the Malfoy blood (IMO, Hagrid is just as prejudice in his
way as the Malfoys with his "blood is important" attitude and his
sneering at Squibs and Muggles, but I digress.) And Draco, for all his
faults (and I don't regard him as innocent, by any means, especially
for letting the DEs into Hogwarts and setting off the chain of events
on the tower) does at least lower his wand slightly, finding that
killing a helpless, wandless, "stupid" old man isn't nearly as easy as
he thought it would be.

Tom Riddle, also partly the product of his "blood" and upbringing (in
his case, spartan and loveless but not cruel), but neither heredity
nor environment can explain the cruelty he displays from a very early
age. Yes, both Draco and Tom think they're special, but so do James
Potter and Sirius Black, the "arrogant little berks" we see in
"Snape's Worst Memory." There's a huge difference between the bullying
and arrogance we see in those three, even adding in Draco's views on
pureblood superiority which the other two don't share, and the
completely amoral inhumanity of young Tom Riddle, whose sense that
he's special leads him first to unleash the monster in the Chamber of
Secrets to prove that he's the Heir of Salazar Slytherin, "greatest of
the Hogwarts Four," and then, after having committed four murders at
the age of sixteen, including that of his own father, to seek to use
those murders to make himself immortal through the creation of
multiple Horcruxes.

Comparing Draco to young Tom Riddle is like comparing Buckbeak to the
Basilisk. IMO, there's no comparison.

Carol, wondering where the Snape posts have gone