[HPforGrownups] The Basilisk Didn't Do It

[Barb P]

No: HPFGUIDX 44932


Rita 
wrote: People seems to be overlooking what Mrs Bonsai (what a cute name!) has already pointed out about Tom Riddle's murder of his muggle family. They were not killed with an AK curse but by the Basilisk and we can be sure of
that because they are described " Lying there with their eyes wide open! Cold as ice!" and "each of the Riddle had a look of terror upon his or her
face", we should be able to recognize the effect of petrification as we've seen a lot of that in CoS: Mrs Norris is said to be "stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring" and on the same line are the words used to describe Hermione and the others.  
 
The words used are the same.  Precisely.  What the folks are missing who are espousing the basilisk-murder theory (other than the utter implausibility of Riddle bothering to take a basilisk to Little Hangleton) is that people who are petrified (who are NOT dead, let us remember) look remarkably like people who HAVE been killed by Avada Kedevra.  This is why, when Mrs. Norris is first found, she is presumed dead.  All of the adults thought, at first glance, that it was evident what had happened to her, and it took some prodding by Dumbledore to determine that she was not, in fact, dead. We do NOT know from CoS that someone who actually DIES from looking in a basilisk's eyes (Moaning Myrtle) looks like someone who is petrified.  Someone who dies in this way may look quite different.  We do not know; all we are told is what people look like who are petrified, which is NOT the same as death.
 
Cedric Diggory is described the same way as the dead Riddles, and we KNOW for certain that he was killed with Avada Kedevra:
 
"...Harry stared into Cedric's face, at his open gray eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised."
 
Furthermore, it would make no sense, dramatically, for JKR to hark back to CoS at this time.  I stand by my original assertion that she was progressing to the final horror of Cedric's death by describing the dead Riddles first, then the demonstration of the curse in the DADA class, then Wormtail putting the curse on Cedric, witnessed by Harry.  This is how Harry's parents died.  It's very important to the story.  The basilisk has no place here.
 
--Barb
 


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