harry potter - Was Myrtle's death an accident?

Was she simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and got killed accidentally when the basilisk emerged from the plumbing or was it intentional, with Tom leading the basilisk to her?

Answer

I believe she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Tom M. Riddle didn't expect anyone to be in the toilet as he opened the passageway to the Chamber of Secrets. When Myrtle asked him to leave since she had heard a boy's voice, she saw two yellow eyes and died.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said when she saw Harry. “What do you want this time?”

“To ask you how you died,” said Harry.

Myrtle’s whole aspect changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question.

“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. …”

Also Tom was a very intelligent and calculating person. He would never kill someone at the very entrance of the CoS, resulting in him abandoning years spent searching for the place.

It is also shown that he needed to fix the current situation without previous planning when confronted with closing down the school.

Riddle slid off his chair and slouched out of the room. Harry followed him.

Down the moving spiral staircase they went, emerging next to the gargoyle in the darkening corridor. Riddle stopped, and so did Harry, watching him. Harry could tell that Riddle was doing some serious thinking. He was biting his lip, his forehead furrowed.

Then, as though he had suddenly reached a decision, he hurried off

Comments

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