Why is it no one ever has Harry talk to the basilisk? I mean, come on, its not rocket science. He is a parselmouth, its a snake, he has heard someone talk to it, its not really that big a leap. The only story I have ever seen where the two talk is this weird unfinished story on FF.net where Harry gets turned into a basilisk by the one in the chamber. I have just missed all the others, or are there really not any out there. And by any I mean good ones.

 

If you mean during the Chamber scene, because Tom says that he can't. Only listens to the heir, no one else. Otherwise, I've seen it thousands of times. It's quite common.

 

Yeah I had thought that to. Or at least why don't we hear the basilisk say anything in the chamber. But if only the heir can talk to it I guess Harry is screwed. Unless the fact the Voldemort passed some of his powers onto Harry would enable Harry to speak to the Basilisk

 

Actually, Tom only said that in the movie, not the book.

I think the main reason Harry never tries to talk to the Basilisk is that he is too scared to think rationally. Harry does try to talk to it in my story, but because it has standing orders from Slytherin to only obey his heirs, then it doesn't have to listen to him. Maybe it is something like that.

 

I think the vast majority of post-OotP, post-HBP, post-GOF, post-PoA, and post CoS fics don't have Harry talk to the basilisk because it's been dead for many years. And that would be a bit cuckoo.

But the alternate universes, and even Harry leaves to travel to an alternate dimension stories? He talks to it quite often. Usually it becomes his own super secret protector of the school. Or he bonds with it like one of his half dozen familiars. I'd say in fics where it's alive again, it seems that Harry has to kill it less often than he just talks to it.

And on a side note, please people spell-check your thread titles. It bugs me to look in a forum section at a list of titles and see things like the word "coversations."

 

But Harry should be able to hear it. Else he would not have been able to hear it through the walls after its rounds of petrifying

 

It's possible that the Basilisk had nothing to say. All it had been saying earlier was that it wanted to kill and rip things to shreds.

One thing that I've been wondering: Why is it that so many authors make snakes intelligent when the Basilisk, which is hundreds of years old, can hardly form a sentence?

 

Because the one Harry met in the Zoo was fairly intelligent. It knew what the sign by its tank contained. Was able to give a coherent thank you to Harry when he inadvertently released him. Obviously the boa although bred in captivity was around other snakes during his window for learning language and social behaviors. The basilisk sounds more like a person who was locked up as an infant by a parent and so missed that window of opportunity.

I would imagine that snakes that stay in a group living arrangement for longer periods of time would have the best lingual skills, as far as Harry Potter is concerned.

 

Oh, talking to snakes. Heh. Another cliche. Like, in tons of fiction Harry would buy/bond with a snake, Basilisk, or even with :shudders: Wyvern, and (how could we ever forget?) Dragon.

It's all good but, what's the use? Because it's 'cool' to have a snake? Because it's underappreciated both in fiction and canon: why not make use of a nifty ability? Because he needs another pet, preferably the one scary enough?

Like, make Harry bond with a snake, talk to it a little (here comes the notorious phrase: 'What issssszzzz thzzzis "name" you speak of, oh Speaker?' Keke), even get him to learn a few spells from it (like in some stories), and then outright forget it ever existed.

The only stories I can think of where the snake was relevant to the plot are IP82's (man, are you gonna f***ing update?), and the AU one with :shudders: Wyvern (the story's great but even thinking about it makes me shudder for some reason, :shudders. Then, Draco664's Basilisk was fun. And that's about all, I guess.

On the other hand, the already mentioned intelligence. If we consider canon, who'll want to talk with a snake obsessed with the phrase 'Rip... tear... kill...'? It doesn't sound like intelligent conversation. Though, come to think of it, in Insane!Harry stories (where he goes on a bloodthirsty rampage) he might consider such a conversation intelligent:

'Rip...' said the Baslisk.
'Tear...' echoed Insane!Harry.
'Rip...' contradicted the Baslisk.
'Tear...' corrected Insane!Harry.
The victim, having overcome his fear enough to be able to control his faculties, unclenched his eyes carefully and started to edge away from the pair, and, when he was far enough, started to run.

Heh.

 

Even that will not stop all fanfic writers
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/947886/15/