Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Miriam Strout

Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter - Character
Miriam Strout
Gender	Female
Hair color	Unknown
Eye color	Unknown
Related Family	Unknown
Loyalty	St. Mungo's

Overview

Miriam Strout is a motherly-looking Healer who works in a long-term resident's ward for spell damage (the James Thickey ward) at St. Mungo's.

Role in the Books

Order of the Phoenix

We first meet Miriam Strout when Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny happen to run into Gilderoy Lockhart at St. Mungo's. He has temporarily escaped the locked ward where he usually lives, and although she is not named in this section, Miriam Strout is the one who rounds Gilderoy back up and takes him back to his ward. Her cheerful assumption that the four friends are there to visit with Lockhart results in the four of them spending some time visiting. In the course of this visit, they see Miriam distributing gifts; Broderick Bode receives a potted plant, among other items. This also leads to Hermione, Ron, and Ginny becoming aware of the plight of Neville Longbottom's parents, who are there on the ward as well.

A short news article in the Daily Prophet tells how Broderick Bode was killed by a potted plant. He had been encouraged to tend it himself, and it had turned out to be Devil's Snare. The healer in charge of the ward, Miriam Strout, could not explain how it had gotten past Hospital security, and was on paid leave until the investigation was complete.

Analysis

We can see that much healing in the Wizarding world is done by means of plants and plant extracts; note the reliance on the healing powers of Dittany in the sixth and seventh books, along with the description of the uses of Bubotubers and Mandrake root. As such, it is a safe assumption that Miriam Strout, as a trained Healer, should have been able to recognize the potted plant as Devil's Snare. Why she doesn't recognize it is never completely explained.

Greater Picture

We will later find out that Bode had received his spell damage several months earlier, while under the Imperius charm, carrying out the orders of Lucius Malfoy. By the time we see him, his condition has already improved, to the point that the Death Eaters must be beginning to be worried that he might sufficiently regain his faculties to explain what he was doing in the Hall of Prophecies and why. Thus, by this time it was becoming necessary to end Bode's life. It is possible that Miriam Strout had been placed under the Imperius Curse, or perhaps had simply been Confunded, to ensure that the plant reached its victim and remained there; it is not likely that Death Eaters would leave something that important to chance.