After reading fics with different results of encounter in Chamber of Secrets I wondered what would happen if Harry or Diary!Riddle were caught in its deadly stare.

Would Harry just simply die ? Or would he land in antechamber of afterlife (like in DH) and be given a choice to die or to live, possibly even losing Scar Horcrux ? Basilisk is under direct control of Riddle so it could be "at the hand of the other". Could his mother´s protection tether him to life against this indirect attack of Riddle ?

And what would happen to Diary!Riddle ? Would he sacrifice life stolen from Ginny through their connection ? He is after all something between corporeal and incorporeal, truly living and memory so stare should have some effect.
(It seems plausible that Parselmouths have some kind of protection against the stare but there is nothing about it in canon as far as I know).

 

There are more similar questions:

What if a Dementor really had kissed Harry? Would it have to swallow twice?

And concerning Voldemort's immortality? Would a Dementor be able to suck out his soul? I.e. out of the back of Quirrel's head?

 

The only reason that Voldemort's Avada Kadavra didn't kill Harry is because he used Harry's blood to bring him back to life in GoF. That's the only reason. Tom Riddle/The Diary was not connected to Harry in the same way.

How is that plausible? You're relying on Indy!Harry fanon. He is not protected from a Basilisk's stare, he can not control snakes (Voldemort could only control Nagini because she had a piece of his soul), and, on that note, there is no such thing as parselmagic or written parsletongtue. It's just a language.

If you're asking these questions because you have a story idea, then place this in the plot-bunny thread.

 

I can speak Spanish but that doesn't protect me from a Mexican biting me, does it? D:

 

Oh lawl.

/thread

 

1. Harry would die. 'Nuff said. It does raise the question, however, of how the Heir (Riddle) originally survived his encounters with the basilisk when interacting with it. Plot hole?
2. Parselmagic is fanfiction.
3. Dementor would most probably suck out Harry's soul and the horcrux fragment, since one is essentially 'ball and chained' onto the other.

 

Hmmmm... though you can say "Te ordeno que no muerden". Go, try it.

 

The reason he lived is most likely a conglomeration of quite a few facts:

1: Their blood was connected

2: He was sacrificing himself willingly

3: He had a piece of Voldemort's soul in his head to destroy rather than his own

4: The Elder Wand was his, even if he hadn't realized it yet.

Without these multiple facets, Harry would most likely have been killed just like anyone else. Who knows, maybe he was the first human horcrux and you are always given that choice if you die as one, but I wouldn't think so. The Elder Wand was a Deus Ex Machina to allow Harry to survive despite the fact that he lacked decades of knowledge that Riddle already had, as well as the brains to use it properly.

 

I would think that Riddle simply employed caution while first exploring, and then commanded the basilisk not to look at him, or something. The basilisk would obey him not because he was a parselmouth, but because he was the heir, I guess (and maybe because he promised it food - I dunno, that's up for speculation, I suppose).

Personally, as a fan of Riddle's intellect, I find it hard to believe he would venture into the Chamber of Secrets, which is known to contain a monster, without taking precautions. Seems more common sense than a plot hole, IMO.

Also, Palindrome, I seem to have run out of thumbs up but damn. LOL!

 

Eh, yeah, that does make more sense, actually.

 

That's only the CoS movie.

 

It seems that I have probably failed to explain that I think it would be plausible for parselmouths to have some degree of protection (not immunity) against stare of Basilisk only when considering Potterverse and its magic system in its entirety and I am aware that there is nothing about it in canon.

Parselmouths in England were people who shared blood connection to Salazar Slytherin and were his heirs (HP is exception) and Salazar (according to legend) left them Basilisk to "cleanse" Hogwarts. Snakes are their pets and familiars or containers of their soul. Parselmouths can probably command them and they should have some degree of protection against various attacks of various species of snakes to assert their control over them or to protect them from indiscriminate and lethal methods of attack that snakes can use (it would be ironic if legacy of Slytherin (Parseltongue and Basilisk) eradicated his bloodline).

This is only my opinion and I do not claim it has any canon proof.

 

True that. But its a plot hole that Rowling left for us to ponder about. Personally I don't think its plausible to believe that Slytherin had any sort of immunity from the basilisk's glare. I mean its a huge snake, its not like he spent his time petting it while hissing sweet nothings in its ear. Actually it doesn't even have ears so how does it decipher hisses anyway?

Unless you're trying to make a story out of this why are you so into the idea anyway? And if you are planning a story along this line of thought, use the plot bunny thread, it exists for a reason.

Remmy.

 

Tom Riddle didn't seem afraid of the basilisk. Why wasn't he avoiding it's gaze?

 

There's any number of reasons... but you've asked two questions. The first is why he wasn't afraid of it, the second is why he wasn't avoiding its gaze.

I think we can assume he wasn't afraid of the Basilisk as he commanded it/it recognised him as Slytherin's heir, and so would not kill him. Whether that's reigning in the death glare or just not meeting his eyes.

And I don't know if it explicitly states that he wasn't avoiding its gaze - if he actively avoided it it goes unsaid, if he didn't need to - well, could be something to do with non-corporeality (though obviously Nearly Headless Nick had some sort of problem), his blood, the magic in the diary... etc, etc. Take your pick. That's definitely the realms of fanfiction though because Rowling herself doesn't answer the questions - probably because she didn't know/care.

 

True but avoiding the gaze of the basilisk would be nearly impossible. From the descriptions of the CoS there were ment to be many puddles, and see if form there still means petrification. Seems a bit of a long shot really

 

There's no plausible reason for Riddle to be immune to the basilisk's killing/petrifying gaze, much less Harry. He had control over the creature because he was a parselmouth, not because he had some mystical connection to it through the blood of Slytherin. If Harry had gotten there first, he obviously could have faked his own status as an 'heir' and used the basilisk for his own purposes, given that he had information on how to contact the basilisk/get into the chamber.

As it did not say that Riddle way either avoiding or not avoiding the stare in CoS, it should be assumed he was doing the former through common logic.

 

I'm not sure about that.

a) He's barely corporeal and he's the embodiment of a piece of soul from within a horcrux, which is supposedly hella-evil, arcane magic. If anything (barring the phoenix, which we have to assume is immune to the stare because it was able to go after the eyes) could be immune, it would be something built of hella-evil, arcane magic. Non-corporeal ghosts are imprints, not actual pieces of soul.

b) I'd always interpreted the above as being exactly what you think it wasn't. I can't remember if its canon or common fanon which states only heirs of Slytherin are parselmouths, but the entire idea of the chamber is that it can only be found by the Heir of Slytherin, what is within it can only be harnessed by the Heir of Slytherin, etc. We unfortunately don't have an example of Harry using his common sense to simply say 'Stop, Mr. Basilisk, ignore the phantom diary' but I'm fairly sure that Riddle is confident that if Harry had said something like this, the beast would have ignored him. I don't think this is a case of 'Riddle got there first' but rather of 'Riddle has the actual claim'.

c) It would be entirely illogical for Slytherin to leave a monster in a chamber that is designed to be found which can harm him or his descendants, when there's next-to-no clues left as to what that beast might be. The way they'd not be harmed would be magic.

 

That we know of. It doesn't seem too unlikely that Riddle could have destroyed any clues once he'd found the chamber. I think we can safely assume he never planned on having any children to pass the secret on to, so his own Horcrux aside, nobody else would ever be going down there as far as he was concerned. I can't recall anything from canon that states Riddle went in blind.

 

Again, it is predominantly my interpretation, I should have said that clearer.

The whole thing of an 11 year old Riddle getting to Hogwarts with no idea who or what he is and gradually discovering all that he is and could become through his own work and influence among housemates is how I read into the HBP flashbacks. Clues, absolutely, but no how-to-guide. We know he went to Hogwarts thinking he was an orphan, and discovered the story about his father being a muggle. We know he was inquisitive, and knew how to push various buttons in the right places, which is how he was able to find out about Horcruxes. I apply the same reasoning to his heritage - just as Harry wants to know as much about his parents as possible, Riddle would want to know everything about where he came from. There's nothing in canon to suggest that anyone before him opened the Chamber either - it's a myth, even after Myrtle's death. A young, ambitious TR being the discoverer and opener of the Chamber fits my interpretation of his character to a T.

Unless we get a 40's era Dumbledore/Grindlewald/Young Riddle story from JKR I guess we'll never know. Though I think it'd be pretty fascinating if this is the book she's planning on writing.