Basilisk

"Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size, and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it."

- Most Macabre Monstrosities

The Basilisk is a giant serpent, also known as the King of Serpents. It is a creature bred by Dark Wizards. Herpo the Foul was the first to breed a Basilisk; he accomplished this by hatching a chicken egg beneath a toad which resulted in the creature known as a Basilisk. Basilisk breeding was banned in Medieval times. The practise can be hidden when the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures comes to check by simply removing the egg from the toad.

Looking a Basilisk directly in the eye will immediately kill the victim, but indirect contact will merely render them Petrified. It is also the mortal enemy of spiders, who can intuitively sense them and flee whenever they do.

The Basilisk has a classification as an XXXXX creature, meaning it is a known wizard-killer that cannot be domesticated due to its immense powers. Since the Basilisk is still a serpent, a Parselmouth may place a Basilisk under his or her control. This depends on the relationship between the Basilisk and the Parselmouth. Tom Riddle was the only one who could command Salazar Slytherin's Basilisk, while Harry Potter had no control over it.

Physical appearance
"The light slid over a gigantic snake skin, of a vivid, poisonous green, lying curled and empty across the tunnel floor. The creature that had shed it must have been twenty feet long at least."

- Description of the snake skin The Basilisk can grow up to fifty feet in length, and is a dark green colour with large yellow eyes. These eyes have the power to instantly kill anyone who looks into them. Basilisk skin is armoured like that of a dragon's, which deflects spells cast upon it. The Basilisk sheds its skin at intervals, like all other snakes, when it grows.

Ecology
Basilisks can live a natural life of at least nine hundred years, though Salazar Slytherin's Basilisk lived for approximately a thousand years. This is accomplished by using Parseltongue to put the creature into a deep sleep that prevents it from ageing, similar to suspended animation. Their mortal weakness is the crowing of a rooster. Basilisks feed off vertebrate animals, it is unknown how much they eat at one time. The Serpent of Slytherin survived on rats. The male can be distinguished from the female by a single scarlet plume on its head.

A basilisk egg is the egg of said creature. They are chicken eggs hatched beneath a toad, thus creating the deadly King of Serpents.

Petrification
"Dark Magic of the most advanced kind."

- Albus Dumbledore regarding petrification

When a victim looks indirectly at the Basilisk's eyes, such as its reflection, they will merely become petrified, similar to the Medusa stare. This was the case with Hermione Granger and Colin Creevey. Myrtle Warren (commonly known as Moaning Myrtle) was not so fortunate and looked directly into the Basilisk's eyes, which resulted in her immediate death.

A way of surviving a Basilisk's gaze is by seeing it through another object. An example mentioned above was when Colin Creevey saw it through his camera, resulting in his petrification and his camera lens becoming melted. Justin Finch-Fletchley saw the Basilisk through the translucent ghost Nearly-Headless-Nick, and was petrified. The already deceased Sir Nicholas became petrified as well, although he did look at the beast's eyes directly. Hermione Granger was petrified, while gathering information on the basilisk. She discovered it was the monster in the Chamber of Secrets and that the serpent travelled through the pipes in the school. Hermione was petrified after seeing the basilisks' eyes in her mirror.

Petrification seems quite powerful, as the Elder Wand-wielding Albus Dumbledore concluded that the only way to reverse the effect was through the use of Mandrake Restorative Draughts. Phoenixes are immune to its deadly gaze. Spiders are terrified of the Basilisk, described as their enemy and they flee before it. Spiders (such as Aragog) also refuse to even speak of it or mention its name.

Basilisk's venom
Basilisk venom is an extremely venomous substance that only has one known cure: phoenix tears. Basilisk venom is so powerful that it can kill a person within minutes, making the person drowsy and blurry-visioned before they die. It has a very long lasting effect which still remains potent even up to five years or more after the snake has died. It can also damage inanimate objects so thoroughly that they are impossible to restore, and thus it is one of the few substances powerful enough to destroy a Horcrux.

When Harry Potter slew Salazar Slytherin's Basilisk with Godric Gryffindor's Sword in 1992, the sword became imbued with the basilisk's venom, giving it the ability to destroy a Horcrux. However, the venom is not poisonous. When Ron Weasley extracted a basilisk fang with his bare hands in the Chamber, he did not die.

Basilisks in the Wizarding World
Dark wizard Herpo the Foul, while in Ancient Greece was the first to breed a Basilisk. He accomplished this by hatching a chicken egg beneath a toad which resulted in the creature known as a Basilisk. Herpo was able to control Basilisks due to the fact that he was a Parselmouth and thereby could speak snake language.

Basilisk breeding was banned in Medieval times. The Ministry of Magic has said that all chicken coops in the Wizarding world are subject to police inspection in order to thwart Basilisk breeding. However, the ban is quite easy to evade, by simply removing the egg from underneath the toad whenever the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures comes to check. A more natural and effective limit on breeding is the simple fact that the creatures are uncontrollable except by Parselmouths, and therefore every bit as dangerous to Dark Wizards as to other wizards and Muggles. For this reason, the serpents remain mercifully rare; in fact, until the incident in 1943 described below, there had been no confirmed reports of Basilisks in Britain since the 16th century.

Salazar Slytherin was responsible for the construction of the Chamber of Secrets beneath Hogwarts dungeons. It was specifically created for the purpose of purging the school of all Muggle-born students. The Chamber contained a Basilisk, which could be controlled only by his own 'true heir', and use it to rid the school of all those he considered unworthy to study magic. In 1943, when heir Tom Marvolo Riddle opened the Chamber he used the Basilisk to attack Muggle-borns.

The Basilisk actually killed one girl by the name of Myrtle Warren. In 1993 Riddle opened the Chamber again, through the use of one of his seven Horcruxes. Using the bit of his soul encompassed by the diary he possessed Ginny Weasley and forced her to do his bidding. During this second opening of the Chamber numerous Muggle-borns were petrified, due to catching a glimpse of the Basilisk's reflection. While he still attacked Muggle-born students, his ultimate goal was to lure Harry Potter into the Chamber and kill him. Harry Potter ultimately slayed Slytherin's Basilisk by stabbing it with the Sword of Gryffindor.

The skeleton of Slytherin's Basilisk lays within the Chamber today and is over 20 feet long. During the opening stages of the Battle of Hogwarts Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley went down into the Chamber to fetch Basilisk fangs in order to be rid of Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes. They had to resort to the fangs after losing their earlier means of destroying Horcruxes.

Etymology
The Ancient Greek basil(eus) means "king", with the suffix -iskos being a diminutive, the whole having the sense of "princeling" or the like, purportedly for the crown-like white spot on its head.

Behind the scenes

 * The basilisk is apparently based on the serpentine creature from real legend, but it is much larger. The sheer size of the Basilisk from Harry Potter may have been inspired by the real 50-foot prehistoric serpent.
 * According to Igor Karkaroff, Alastor Moody has smashed apart a birthday present that he thought in paranoia was a cleverly disguised basilisk egg before finding out it was a carriage clock.
 * The basilisk is often confused with the cockatrice, but the basilisk is born from a chicken’s egg hatched beneath a toad, while the cockatrice is hatched by a chicken's egg incubated by a serpent. The cockatrice is also usually depicted with wings, while the basilisk is not. Due to this, it can be assumed that J.K. Rowling either had the two confused, or decided to combine the two. A cockatrice is the product of an egg laid by a cock (a male chicken) and incubated by a toad or a snake, can kill by looking at a person, touching them, or sometimes breathing on them, and was slain instantly by a rooster's crow.
 * Although an average basilisk is said to have an average lifespan of 900 years Salazar Slytherin's Basilisk lived for approximately 1000 years, being there since Slytherin built the Chamber of Secrets around that time.
 * In, the basilisk is male because it has a red plume on its head.
 * Newt Scamander stated in the fifty-second edition of that there have been no recorded sightings of Basilisks in Britain for the last 400 years. Harry Potter wrote in his copy of the book "that's what you think".
 * Wearing glasses will not protect a person from the fatal effect of the basilisk's stare, because glasses still allow one's line of vision to connect directly and clearly with the serpent's eyes, unlike looking in a mirror or through a camera.
 * It has been theorised that spiders fear basilisks because arachnids can see 360-degrees around them and cannot shut their eyes, leaving them extremely vulnerable to the monster's killing gaze, although this theory does not explain why frogs and dragonflies do not fear the basilisk, as they have an even greater field of vision.
 * In, Harry watches the basilisk by its shadow on the floor.
 * It is unknown why there are male and female basilisks, as they are produced by a chicken's egg hatched by a toad. However, it's possible that, unlike real-world hybrids, basilisks are capable of reproduction as Moody had a present that "he thought was a well-disguised basilisk egg", suggesting that basilisks can lay eggs.
 * Rubeus Hagrid asked Aragog "many times" to name this creature, but Aragog refused to speak of it.
 * In, the Basilisk is shown to hear Harry Potter, something that Tom Riddle's memory also points out. However, snakes lack ears and can only detect things approaching by feeling vibrations. Though it is possible that Basilisks, being magical creatures, indeed have the ability to hear. In the book, Riddle instead only tells the Basilisk to smell Harry Potter.
 * Despite written physical descriptions and imagery, it appears basilisks can grow horns (like its distant American relative the horned serpent; but seems to have shared a trait with European horned serpents of mythology, i.e. ).
 * Quite ironically, the way of hatching a basilisk - in the nest of a chicken - is also fatal to a Basilisk if there is a rooster around, which there would be if the chickens are used for breeding.

Appearances

 * PS G

Notes and references
Basilisk Basilisco Василиск Bazyliszek Basilic Basilisco

Basilisk Basiliski בסיליסק バジリスク Basilisk Basilisk pt-br:BASILISK (BASILISCO) Basilisk 蛇怪