Moaning Myrtle's murder (Was: Harry a Horcrux?)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 153547

KJ wrote:
>     While I agree whole-heartedly with your timing, I have a hard
time recognizing the death of Myrtle as a murder. I don't think that
Tom released the basilisk with the specific intention of killing
people, that is just what basilisks do apparently. I don't suppose
that Tom concerned himself about it, but I don't think that it would
cause a split in his soul unless it was malicious and meant. I also
don't think that he would find Myrtle of sufficient importance to use
that murder as the basis for a horcrux. I have seen a few hardy
posters attempt to come up with sufficiently important people to match
to the horcruxes, but I find either too many murders or not enough
significant murders.

Carol responds:
At a guess, I'd say that the important murders are Moaning Myrtle
(I'll get back to her in a minute) as his first, all three Riddles
(ending the Riddle line and getting revenge), and Hepzibah Smith (for
her Hufflepuff heritage). That would cover the diary (Myrtle), the
ring (Tom Sr.), the cup (Hepzibah), and two more (the locket and the
Ravenclaw Horcrux for the other two Riddles?). I think that Nagini is
a Horcrux, but that she was made one before Godric's Hollow, which
would account for Voldemort's snakelike appearance even before his
return (see the description of his features when his head sticks out
the back of Quirrell's) and for his ability to possess her without
killing her.

To return to Moaning Myrtle: Diary!Tom says that he opened the Chamber
of Secrets and released the Basilisk to continue "Salazar Slytherin's
noble work"--that is, to rid Hogwarts of Muggleborns. As the Basilisk
slides through the pipes, it says things like "Kill! Kill! Kill!" That
is its purpose; it's the reason that Tom released it both in his fifth
year at Hogwarts and via the diary in CoS. He understands and speaks
Parseltongue, as does the snake; the snake obeys his orders, given in
its own language. Myrtle hears him talking to the snake before she
comes out of the stall. It seems to me likely that he ordered the
Basilisk to kill the girl when she came out. Tom may well have known
Myrtle's habit of crying in the bathroom or recognized her voice. And
he would certainly have known that she was a "Mudblood," such things
being important to him. (It's also possible that the snake could
recognize a Muggleborn by the smell, which could be why only
Muggleborns were attacked.) Since he had the Basilisk with him for one
reason only, to kill Muggleborns, why question that that's exactly
what he was doing in this instance?

If, say, Draco were to release a venomous snake into a classroom and
it bit a student and the student died, wouldn't he be guilty of
murder? Everyone seem to think that he would have been guilty of
murder if Ron or Katie had died even though neither was his intended
victim. Why, then, wouldn't Tom be guilty of murder when Myrtle
died--even if he didn't set the snake on her, as I think he did? A
Basilisk is even more deadly than a cursed necklace or poisoned mead.
There is no countercurse or antidote for its deadly gaze.

I don't understand why people see the snake as guilty of murder (yes,
it's an evil beast but it lacks human intelligence or a conscience)
and Tom as merely its innocent handler. He released the Basilisk for
the specific purpose of killing Muggleborns; it responded to his
orders. ("It only obeys me," he tells Harry in CoS, quoted from
memory.) I see the snake as a deadly weapon that he had every
intention of using on the first Muggleborn he encountered. And that
Muggleborn happened to be Myrtle.

Harry could have been expelled or worse for using Sectumsempra on
Draco. He might even have been sent to Azkaban if Draco had died
(given the WW's "justice" system). Surely Tom, who knew exactly what a
Basilisk was capable of doing, was guilty of a much worse crime than
Harry's, even if Harry's victim had also died?

I can cite quotes to show that Tom knew exactly what he was
doing--ridding Hogwarts of "Mudbloods" as Salazar Slytherin intended--
if that's what's keeping people from viewing Myrtle's death as murder.

Carol, who thinks that having killed Myrtle made it much, much easier
for Tom to kill his own family