Moaning Myrtle’s Death Was An Accident Whether Wizarding World Fans Like It Or Not

Many people who have read the Harry Potter series or watched the films all believe that because Myrtle’s death was used to make the diary a Horcrux that this means that Voldemort (pronounced with the “t” silent as confirmed by J.K. Rowling herself), aka Tom Marvolo Riddle, had intended to murder her but there is clues and logical explanations that point to Moaning Mrytle’s death being an accident and not a planned death.

The Entrance to the Chamber of Secrets Would Have Been Exposed

One thing a lot of fans don’t see and is very logical is that planning to murder someone near the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets would have exposed its exact location. Voldemort was arrogant but he wasn’t stupid and wouldn’t plan a murder so close to where the entrance was as it took him five years at Hogwarts to find the Chamber himself and he wouldn’t have wanted to have all that effort go to waste by plotting to murder someone near the entrance and possibly expose it to the Hogwarts staff, especially not someone as wise as Dumbledore himself being a teacher.

Moaning Myrtle’s Story of Her Death Describes it as an Accident

When Harry and Ron figure out that Moaning Myrtle was the victim who had died when the Chamber of Secrets had been opened 50 years prior to the events in the book and go to ask her about her death, she describes it as such:

“Ooooh, it was dreadful,” she said with relish. “It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I’d hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then —” Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. “I died.”

“How?” said Harry.

“No idea,” said Myrtle in hushed tones. “I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away. …” — Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998)

Myrtle’s telling of her death indicates that Voldemort had no idea that Myrtle was in the bathroom at the time of her death. It is heavily implied that what had happened was, Voldemort had gone into the bathroom and had just opened the Chamber in Parseltongue and Myrtle opened the stall door just as the basilisk was coming out of the opening, she saw its eyes and then died.

Dumbledore Didn’t Describes Myrtle’s Death As Murder

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, when talking about Myrtle’s death Dumbledore says:

“As he moved up the school, he gathered about him a group of dedicated friends; I call them that, for want of a better term, although as I have already indicated, Riddle undoubtedly felt no affection for any of them. This group had a kind of dark glamour within the castle. They were a motley collection; a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty. In other words, they were the forerunners of the Death Eaters, and indeed some of them became the first Death Eaters after leaving Hogwarts.

“Rigidly controlled by Riddle, they were never detected in open wrong-doing, although their seven years at Hogwarts were marked by a number of nasty incidents to which they were never satisfactorily linked, the most serious of which was, of course, the opening of the Chamber of Secrets, which resulted in the death of a girl. As you know, Hagrid was wrongly accused of that crime.” — Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)

Now if it had been intentional murder, Dumbledore would have said so as he’s not one to sugarcoat the severity of something so serious.

In conclusion, I am sure a lot of people would say it had to be murder because of the fact Myrtle’s death was used to make the dairy a Horcrux, however, one thing that contradicts this is Voldemort unintentional making of Harry a Horcrux. If a Hocrux can be made unintentionally, than who’s to say an unintentional death can’t be used to make a Horcux? It’s not like Voldemort was remorseful about her death, so I believe it still counted.