Who Hatched the Basilisk?

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 99322

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Silverthorne
<silverthorne.dragon at v...> wrote:
> Potioncat:
> 
> I wonder if there is any chance that the legend was just that?  
> Perhaps there was a chamber, but no monster. Tom Riddle found it and 
> hatched a basilisk in the chamber?  There are chickens on the
> grounds and lots of toads or is it frogs that's needed?
> 
> 
> Silverthorne:
> 
> ...edited...
> 
> As for how to hatch one:
> 
> A Rooster must lay the egg--during a certain phase of the moon, a 
> lot of legends say, .... It must be buried in a dung heap
> It then must be tended by a toad (or some legends say a snake) until
> the egg hatches.
> 
> Silverthorne/Anne

bboy_mn:

While we don't have the exact details of how to create and grow a
Basilisk in JKR's world, I think it's safe to say that it didn't grow
to a length of 40 to 60 feet in just a few years. This seems to be an
ancient long-lived creature, so my vote is for Slytherin to have
indeed hatched it.

Given my opinion, I will also agree there are reasons to be
suspicious. If Slytherin himself hatched it, that would make the
Basilisk 900 to 1,000 years old, and it seemed to be healthy and
thriving when Harry killed it, so no apparent signs of old age. That
would appear to imply that it had easily another 500 to 1,000 years of
life left in it. That's quite a long life for a creature that is not
immortal. 

Then there is the problem of food. There seemed to be a lot of rats,
mice, and other small creatures to eat, combined with the fact that
reptiles don't eat that much or that often. But in the course of 1,000
years and given it's enormous size, one must ponder just how much food
it takes to satisfy a creature that big. 

Then there is the problem of Basilisk 'waste'; you would expect the
Chamber to be knee deep in Basilisk Dung.

To the original question of how and why Slytherin would have had
and/or left a monster in the castle, I don't think he did. If the
Basilisk was indeed hatched by Slytherin then despite it's obvious
dangers, it probably would have only been a few feet long. 

One could also assume that Slythering could talk to it in Parsletongue
and control it in much the same fashion that Tom Riddle did. It's
clear Slytherin had an affinity for snakes, and what better snake for
a powerful parsletongue than the king of all serpents, the Basilisk.

Admittedly, it may not be wise to have such a dangerous creature, but
on the other hand, where's the fun if there isn't a bit of danger
involved?

I also think we need to be careful about what we /assume/ about
Slytherin. I think the Sorting Hat is our only reliable source of
information, everything else is myth and legend. The Sorting Hat
doesn't say that Slytherin was an evil racist. It says that he was a
benevolent founder of the wizards school and a good friend to the
other founders. Until they were divided over the issue of allowing
muggle-borns into the school. The other founders wanted to admit any
magical person, but Slytherin didn't trust muggle, and therefore,
didn't trust muggle-borns, and given the extreme persecution of the
day, that distrust was justified. Nearly all the negative aspects of
Slytherin come from the mouths of people who are pushing their own
agendas. Very much that way modern Islamic extremests have corrupted
the story and teachings of Mohamed to their own ends. Various
extremest Christians have also done the same thing through out history. 

Untill the end of the series, I'm putting very little weight into what
most people are saying about Slytherin.


bboy_mn