Moaning Myrtle was a Mudblood...

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 146159

Magpie wrote:
> 
> There's no reason to assume Draco knows anything about Myrtle's
background or the fact that she was killed by the same person 
threatening him.  He made a reference to Myrtle in CoS in speaking
about the Heir of Slytherin opening the chamber and a Muggleborn
dying, but he doesn't necessarily know that Myrtle is the ghost of
that girl.  He didn't necessarily ask her anything about her
background.  The fact that Draco is bonding with a Muggleborn, one
whose murder he'd dismissed years before, even going so far as to
claim he wished he could help her murderer, could simply be ironic.
Now he's gotten his wish and is helping the Heir, and it's terrible. 
It would be cool for him to find this out if he doesn't know it
already, but I couldn't predict what his reaction would be to finding
out Myrtle was Muggleborn.

Carol responds:
I agree on all counts. It's unlikely that he knows she's a Muggleborn
and ironic that he'd seek consolation from a "filthy little Mudblood,"
but that's the least of his worries now. He can't confide in Snape,
who may have been his mentor in the past, but whom he now sees
(wrongly, IMO) as a rival for his "glory." He can't confide in his
fellow Slytherins, to whom he bragged earlier of the honor of his
mission for Voldemort. (I wonder, though, where Theo Nott fits in with
all this, since he, too, is a Death Eater's son and wasn't present for
the bragging session.) Crabbe and Goyle are fellow DE's sons and at
least one of them also has a father in Azkaban, but he either doesn't
trust them to keep quiet about his mission if he confided it to them
or he knows that their inferior intellects will prevent them from
understanding his dilemma. He's undoubtedly ashamed of his seeming
weakness and he's terrified for himself and for his mother, but unlike
Harry he has no trusted friends to share his fears and embarrassment
with. Who better than a dead person, a ghost (whom he may well have
met in the Prefect's bathroom), to understand his fear of death? And
much better a girl than a boy. A girl would offer sympathy and listen
to his woes, not pat him on the shoulder and tell him "bracingly"
(Fred and George-style) that everything is okay when he knows it's
not, but he can't confide in Pansy, who admires him and thinks he's
brave and gallant, a true Knight of Walpurgis on a crusade for the
Dark Lord. So it's Myrtle or no one.

Draco is still Draco, of course, and I'm guessing that anger and
embarrassment at having been seen crying and seeking the sympathy of a
girl (dead or otherwise) has something to do with Draco's attempt to
Crucio Harry rather than merely hex him as he would have done under
different circumstances. But Draco has grown desperate; he's already
attempted murder twice and has cast an illegal Imperius Curse, so a
Crucio is no longer the big deal it once would have been. Everything
has changed; even his interest in school and Quidditch is gone. Being
a Prefect means nothing to him. And yet being a DE is much harder and
more terrifying than he could possibly have anticipated. Draco's world
has turned upside down. In his confusion, he seeks solace where he can
find it, even from a homely ghost who haunts a girl's bathroom. It
would be the last straw to find out that she's the ghost of the
"mudblood" that Tom Riddle murdered. Like Magpie, I'm quite sure he
doesn't know it in HBP.

Carol, imagining Draco's ghost sharing the U-bend with Moaning Myrtle
in the epilogue of Book 7