[HPforGrownups] Basilisk fang

[Amanda Geist]

No: HPFGUIDX 54127

Lynda asked:

> In the Chamber of Secrets fight between Harry and the Basilisk, the
snake's
> fang BREAKS OFF in skinny little Harry's arm.  The fang of a 60 foot long
> snake, it seems to me, would probably be about as big around as Harry's
arm
> would be at that age, or bigger.  So why did it break off?

#1 reason would be plot--it had to--but JKR is usually pretty good about
building reasons for things into the story, too. Some thoughts:

Maybe it broke out rather than off--that is, the fang itself didn't break,
it came out at the root. Malnutrition, perhaps, brought on by a thousand
years of a rodents-only diet. This makes sense to me, since some venom
evidently stayed in the tooth, enough to "kill" the diary; if the fang came
out at the root, perhaps it came off very close to the venom sac (or
included it).

Maybe basilisks, like sharks, have "replacing" teeth--if left alone, this
basilisk would have grown a new fang. Given that the only weakness of these
creatures is their eyes, having teeth that break off might be an
advantage--instead of keeping their heads (and thus, their eyes) close to an
opponent, the fangs break off, allowing the head to be withdrawn to a safe
distance until the venom does its work.

Maybe the advanced age of this basilisk has weakened its teeth.

Maybe the structural strength of basilisk fangs does not lend itself to that
type of stress--while your dentist is correct, and teeth are the hardest
material in our body, they do have internal structure. Cats' canine teeth,
for instance, are designed to act like knives; when they bite into a small
animal like a mouse and close their mouth, their jaw action causes those
teeth to "cut" between the animal's vertebrae to kill it. Those teeth are
built for that "horizontal" stress and stand up to it very well. However,
they frequently fracture and splinter when too much "vertical" stress is put
on them (direct upward pressure, such as occurs in our own up-and-down
"bite"). Perhaps the basilisk's fangs are designed beautifully for the
"vertical" stress of piercing, but when the "horizontal" stress of a snagged
fang occurred (pulling back instead of up), the structure of the tooth was
not built for this and could not withstand it.

Anybody else?

~Amandageist