SOURCE: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling (1998) and sequels.

DESCRIPTION: "The enormous serpent, bright, poisonous green, thick as an aok trunk, had raised itself high in theair and its greatblunt head was weaving drubkenly between the pillars...He could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow him whole, lined with fangs long as his sword, thin, glittering, venomous..." (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling)

Harry must battle the monster with his eyes closed.

NOTES: The Basilisl was brought to Hogwarts by Salazar Slythern and placed inside the Chamber of Secrets. From there the creature was to be used against muggle-born wizards, of which Slythern did not approve. The long-lived monster grow large and large and was released again fifty years before Harry Potter came to Hogwarts, by Tom Riddle who would become Voldemort. When Riddle released the Basilisk again Moaning Myrtle was killed and became a ghost haunting the bathroom that is the secret entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Fifty years later, Jenny Weasley, possessed by Tom Riddle's Memory would open the chamber again. Harry Potter could hear the Basilisk when it moved about Hogwarts inside the plumbing. Potter killed the Basilisk with help from Fawkes the Phoenix and the sword of Godric Gryffindor. Fawkes tore out the serpent's eyes and Harry stabbed it in the brain through its mouth. Harry used one of the Basilisk's teeth to destroy the diary that kept Tom Riddle's Memory alive.

Harry stabs the Basilisk and gets poisoned in the process.

HISTORY: The basilisk is a creature of legend, like the Phoenix. Rowling explains the old idea of how a basilisk is made: "Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or deadly than the Bailisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size, and live many hundreds of years, is born o a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad..." Such the medieval bestiary used to report. The actual animal was probably a cobra from India.

Fawkes blinding the Basilisk

---