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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 153943

KJ writes:
<snip> 
> I believe that the evidence would be presented as follows:
> 
> 1.	While we know that Tom did indeed release the basilisk, we are
not told of his actual intentions. We have only the remark that he
intended to continue Salazar's great work as a fifty-year old memory
of himself. As Salazar accomplished many other things besides
murdering students, this would be insufficient to prove intent. We
don't know if he actually released the snake or simply opened the
tunnel to bond with the thing.

Carol:
*We* do know why he opened the Chamber, as I explain below. So does Harry.
> 
> 2.	We know that Tom was speaking to the basilisk when he opened the
tunnel to the chamber, but we do not know what he said. No one else
understands parseltongue. It could not be proven in court that Tom had
actually issued instructions to the snake to murder Muggleborn
students. He might have been offering it dinner.

Carol:
And that would be innocent?
> 
KJ:
> 3.	Myrtle, herself, says that she heard a voice and opened the stall
door to tell Tom to go away.  All she saw when she opened the door was
a pair of yellow eyes. Looking into its eyes killed her. There is
nothing to prove that the snake was attacking Myrtle. If the basilisk
turned to look at the sound of the door opening, the same thing would
have occurred.

Carol:
Nevertheless, he brought it up into the school for one reason, to kill
Muggleborns. See below.
> 
> 4.	As the snake kills as a result of simply existing, and assuming
that Tom knew that, he could possibly be found guilty of criminal
negligence causing death. It would also be difficult to prove that he
knew that, prior to the death of Myrtle because, for some reason, Tom
could deal with it without being killed. He would be able to testify
that as nothing untoward happened to him, he could not be expected to
realize that it would happen to anyone else. I'm rather curious as to
why he could look at it and associate with it and not be killed. Flint?

Carol:
Could be a Flint, but as it only obeyed him, he could have commanded
it not to look him in the eye, or Slytherin could have commanded it
not to look his heir in the eye (Diary!Tom, being a memory, could look
it in the eye without harm).
> 
> 5.	Following the whole episode, he again confined the snake so that
it could not happen again. He may have had his own reasons for doing
so, but we are only interested in the presentation of the bald truth
and not supposition.

Carol:
We're given those reasons by Tom himself. See below.
> 
> 6.	Finally, there were no living witnesses to even suggest that Tom
was anywhere in the vicinity of the basilisk when it all happened.
Myrtle could not identify the person in the bathroom, assuming that a
ghost would be allowed to testify. Her statements would only prove
that an unidentified male was talking in the bathroom. All she saw
were two eyes. She could not even definitely state that she was
looking at a basilisk.
<snip>

Carol responds:
No doubt you're correct that it couldn't be proven in court, but what
matters for the books, and for us on this list, is whether Myrtle's
death would be viewed by Tom himself as a murder (using the Basilisk
as a weapon) and whether he could have used her death to create a
Horcrux (presumably the diary). If it *was* a murder, I would think
that it's being his first would make it sufficiently important for use
in making a Horcrux.

Granted, the WW could not convict Tom of murder or even of criminal
negligence even if they didn't have the supposed guilty party, Hagrid
(who was not charged with murder, merely expelled from school and
forbidden to practice magic--indicating, I suppose, that they
considered him irresponsible and dangerous. Tom was both, and more).
Even Dumbledore, who suspected Tom, knew he had no way of proving that
Tom had released the basilisk from the Chamber of Secrets and was
therefore guilty of Myrtle's murder.

Here's what we, as opposed to the WW, know about Tom and the Basilisk.

Tom was guilty of murder, three murders, in fact, about a month after
Myrtle's death. (She died in June of his fifth year, when he was
sixteen. The Riddles were murdered during summer break of the same
year. He returned to school the following year wearing Marvolo Gaunt's
ring but unable to create a Horcrux at that time. So Tom is capable of
murder.

Tom can control the Basilisk. "It won't come until it is called," he
tells Harry (308). IOW, it does not roam through the pipes on its own,
much less enter the school, on its own. Tom summons it by saying in
Parseltongue, "Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four"
(317). Only then does it leave the statue of Slytherin.

Tom views himself as the Heir of Salazar Slytherin, whose "noble work"
was to free Hogwarts from Muggleborns. That was the whole reason that
he kept the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. He worked for "five
whole years to find out everything [he] could about the Chamber of
Secrets and discover the secret entrance" (312), meaning that he
started this attempt as a first-year. After Tom frames Hagrid, he
doesn't dare open the Chamber again (i.e., release the Basilisk)
because DD is watching him, (and besides, that would reveal that the
monster who killed Myrtle was not Aragog). But he doesn't want to
waste "those long years [he] spent searching for it," so he preserves
his memory in the diary so that he can "lead another in [his]
footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work" (312)--i.e.,,
ridding the school of "Mudbloods."

That this is indeed his meaning is made clear by Harry's response:
"Well, you haven't finished it. No one's died this time, not even the
cat." And when he tells Tom that the Mandrake potion is almost ready
and the people who have been petrified are about to be restored, Tom
says, "Haven't I already told you that killing Mudbloods doesn't
matter to me anymore?" (312). Killing "Mudbloods" doesn't matter now
that he's found Harry, but it did matter when he set Ginny on the
Muggleborns and when he was in school himself. That was the whole
reason he opened the Chamber of Secrets in the first place--to commit
murder using the Basilisk as his weapon.

The Basilisk obeys only him (or Ginny, when he's possessing her. Ginny
"set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods and the Squib's cat"
(310). The basilisk did not act on its own in these cases, by Tom's
own testimony. It seems likely that the incidents that occurred when
Tom was in school, including Myrtle's death, also occurred because the
Basilisk was "set" on the victims. (Even Ginny writes in her diary, "I
think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!" 311.) 

Diary Tom orders the Basilisk to kill Harry ("Kill him!" 318). If it
had succeeded in doing so, surely Diary!Tom, though only a memory
fortified by a soul bit (and Ginny's stolen soul) would have been
guilty of murder, however difficult or impossible it would have been
to prosecute him for it.

Does Tom know that the Basilisk is capable of killing? Yes. Does he
intend to use it to kill? Yes. Does it obey him? Yes. Does it act on
its own without his authorization? No. He summoned it into the girls'
bathroom for one purpose only, to kill Mudbloods. He spoke to
it--surely an order, not conversation--before Myrtle appeared. How he
knew that the person in the stall was a Muggleborn is unclear, but
that he intended the Basilisk to kill her is not. Tom himself regards
it as a murder "Killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me *any more.*"
Harry regards Myrtle's death as a murder, too. He isn't blaming the
Basilisk for acting on its instincts. He's blaming Tom for setting it
on her, for "killing Mudbloods," in Tom's own words (though, of
course, Myrtle's is the only death, no thanks to Tom).

Tom would not have been able to get away with using Avada Kedavra at
school, but he could and did kill a Muggleborn using a Basilisk as his
weapon, and IMO, her death counts as a murder that could have been
used to create a Horcrux.

Carol, noting that getting away with murder is very different from
being innocent of murder