tell me why... (about the Basilisk)

[btk6y at virginia.edu]

No: HPFGUIDX 27569

Hey all- don't know if this has been discussed, but I was rereading 
CoS and it occurred to me that Harry might have gone through a lot of 
trauma unnecessarily at the end of the book.  The basilisk is only 
supposed to be able to be controlled by the Heir of Slytherin, right?
 
And how does the Heir of Slytherin control it?  By speaking 
Parseltongue.  So I was thinking that Harry could have just said,
"hey 
snake, don't kill me, go back into the statue".  I know, you might
say 
that the basilisk is not controlled by Parseltongue per say but only 
by someone who is the Heir of Slytherin by blood, but that just does 
not make much sense to me because how is the snake supposed to know, 
really, what the DNA of the person is?  I personally think that 
Parseltongue is the key to controlling the basilisk and Harry should 
have tried to talk to it (of course, easy for me to say now). 
Anyway, 
thoughts are welcome and hopefully this hasn't already been discussed 
to death- thanks.