Choosing the Basilisk's Victims (was: Mrs. Norris)

[Audra1976 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 46744

I speculated:
<<Could the basilisk itself tell purebloods from muggleborns? Possibly, it could have 
been trained to do so by Salazar Slytherin if that was, in fact, the 
basilisks purpose for being in the Chamber.>>

Catherine says:
<<But that can't be right. One of the big tenets of Dumbledore and co. 
is that there is no difference between muggleborns and purebloods. If 
there was something as different as odor between them then there may 
actually be a genetic difference.>>

Now me again:
Personally, I believe the second scenario that I proposed in my previous post, that Tom commanded the basilisk based on information he received from Ginny, but I wouldn't rule out the idea that the basilisk could have been trained to know muggleborns from purebloods itself.  Saying that the basilisk could possibly sense the difference between the two, by scent or some other sense, is not saying that muggleborns and purebloods aren't equal.  

Men and women are equals, yet even we humans can detect  a scent difference between the two sexes, and our sense of small is extremely weak compared to other animals.  Snakes have a more highly developed veromernasal organ than any other vertebrate, and I would assume the basilisk has a powerful sense of smell as well.  It might very well be able to sense a difference between pureblooded and muggleborn wizards. 

Jazmyn wrote:
<<Come to think of if, not all victims were in fact muggleborn. Ginny is
pureblood, Nearly headless Nick is a ghost and we don't know if he was
purebred or not in life and the cat wasn't a wizard at all.>>

I say:
Nick was just in the way of Justin.  The basilisk may not have even noticed him there.  Mrs. Norris just happened to be around the bathroom when the basilisk came out, like Myrtle, and Ginny, well, that was Lucius's fault for giving her the diary.  Tom had to leech from whoever was in possession of the diary to become human again.

Audra