Now that I think about it, I'm not sure the Basilisk was such a good idea...

[Melanie L Ellis]

No: HPFGUIDX 57916

I was thinking about Salazar Slytherin and his left-behind basilisk last
night. Now, on the surface, the explanation was that it was left behind
so that one day, his True Heir could open the Chamber and rid the school
of Muggle-borns and non-PureBloods. But, um, how was that supposed to
work, exactly?

1. True Heir manages to lock all the Pure Bloods out of Hogwarts and all
the Muggle-borns inside and then lets loose the basilisk to wreak havoc. 

Um, nah. For one thing, even if such a thing were even possible to do,
how would anyone hope to get away with it? They'd get caught, and popped
off to Azkaban (or whatever was around before Azkaban), and what would be
the point? Yeah, it would get rid of a few years worth of student
Muggle-borns, but they could always start coming back the next year.

2. True Heir hides in the bathroom on a regular basis, with the basilisk
waiting by the door, straining his ear for the voices in the hall. Every
time he hears the voice of someone he knows is a Muggle-born, he opens
the door and lets the basilisk loose.

Yikes! True Heir would be hiding in the bathroom an awful lot, taking a
lot of chances of getting caught. And remember, the bathroom was *in use*
up until a few decades ago, when Moaning Myrtle came back to roost after
dying, then spending a few years haunting Olive Hornsby. So how's the
Heir supposed to get in on a regular basis? (I'm also going with the
assumption that SS was not only racist, he was sexist, and only a male
would be a True Heir.)

2-Alternate: True Heir lures Muggle-borns one by one into the bathroom,
then opens the Chamber and lets the basilisk loose.

Yikes again - how's he going to get boys in there? Perhaps with the
promise of a joke or prank, but even then, some boys would never fall for
it. (Like Percy Weasley - far too uptight.)

3. The basilisk is charmed to only be able to harm/kill Muggle-borns, not
Pure Bloods.

Eh, maybe.

Sooo..... thoughts, anything I missed, screwed up on, etc.?

Melanie Ellis
Alabama Homeschool Message Board
http://pub77.ezboard.com/balabamahomeschoolmessageboard

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