Moaning Myrtle

See also: Ghosts (Harry Potter)

Moaning Myrtle is a fictional character in the Harry Potter book series written by J. K. Rowling. The character is introduced in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as a ghost who haunts the second floor girls' lavatory at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. True to her nickname, Myrtle has a tendency to sob, whine, wail and complain, especially when death is referred to. Hermione Granger aptly points out, "She's a little sensitive."

Shirley Henderson played Moaning Myrtle in the movie adaptions of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Role in the series

In Chamber of Secrets, it is established that the character is the ghost of a Muggle-born witch who died while a student at Hogwarts (from the house of Ravenclaw), fifty years prior to the events in the book. The books indicate that Myrtle was often bullied during her years at Hogwarts, leading her to become extremely depressed and often retreat to the second floor girls' lavatory to weep. It is revealed through the events in the book that Myrtle was hiding there to elude Olive Hornby, a classmate of hers who perpetually tormented her with teasing, when the Chamber was opened and Tom Riddle's Basilisk emerged and killed her.

Tom Riddle used her death to create his very first Horcrux; his diary.

After death, Myrtle haunted Olive everywhere she went, harassing her in revenge for the teasing Myrtle had endured from her in life ("why, I remember once at her brother's wedding..."). Olive complained to the Ministry of Magic, who ordered Myrtle to return to Hogwarts. Ever since then, Myrtle has haunted the same lavatory where she died.

Unlike the other Hogwarts ghosts, Myrtle is not very sociable. She is perpetually depressed, morbid (she says that she spends a great deal of her time "thinking about death"), and takes offence at any imagined insult. Her constant moping and wailing causes plumbing problems in the lavatory which she haunts. Myrtle has a peculiar affinity for dwelling in the U-bend of certain pipes. Sometimes she is accidentally flushed out into the lake along with the contents of the toilet she was in.

Moaning Myrtle's role in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is to help Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger find out about the monster inside the Chamber of Secrets. Myrtle also helps Harry with his second task in the Triwizard Tournament, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It is Myrtle who tells Harry how to solve the puzzle of the golden egg that he retrieved in the first task, by opening the egg underwater.

Myrtle apparently has a slight crush on Harry; in Chamber of Secrets she admits to being mildly disappointed that he survived the encounter with the Basilisk, as she would have liked him (as a ghost) to live with her in her toilet. She also once spied on Harry while he was taking a bath in the prefects' bathroom (which she admitted to doing to others as well, implying a somewhat unexpected aspect of her character).

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she appears as a comforter to Draco Malfoy who is worried about the task given to him by Lord Voldemort. After Harry injures Malfoy using Sectumsempra, she did not hesitant to spread the news by screaming that Harry had murdered him.

External links

• Myrtle's Entry in the Harry Potter Lexicon