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harry potter - They knew where she was. Why didn't the Ministry of Magic ask Moaning Myrtle's ghost about her death?


Moaning Myrtle said she made sure Olive Hornby was haunted by her memory of finding Myrtle's body until Olive's dying day. Olive had to seek help from the Ministry of Magic in an effort to be free of the spirit, so the Wizards there knew a witness (Myrtle's ghost) to the 1943 murder had become available. After the Ministry of Magic exorcised Myrtle, she was relegated to Hogwarts, generally haunting the same stall in the same lavatory she died in. The powers that be knew where she was


What does JKR say about why no one at the Ministry of Magic, or any of the Hogwarts Professor's, asked Moaning Myrtle about her death?



Answer



J.K. Rowling hasn't said anything about why no one at the Ministry of Magic questioned Myrtle in her own murder.


I don't think Myrtle would have been able to tell them much.


Basically, she was in the loo crying, she heard a male voice and a strange, kind of made up language, and when she popped out of the cubicle to tell whoever it was to GO AWAY, she saw a great big pair of yellow eyes and ... died.


The biggest clue was the great big yellow eyes. I don't know if the Ministry would have put two and two together and come up with the Parseltongue aspect. Myrtle didn't see Tom Riddle, if I recall correctly (surely she would have known who he was -- Head Boy, handsome, brilliant, mysterious ... ) For that matter, would the Ministry have concluded the yellow eyes were a Basilisk's?


The Ministry had already accepted the story that Hagrid was responsible for opening the Chamber of Secrets and releasing whatever it was that killed Myrtle. Sometimes bureaucracies prefer a closed case over a properly solved one.


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