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harry potter - How Could Hogwarts Have Realistically Accommodated the Basilisk 800 - 1000+ Years Ago?



This is the first of a three-part question on the basilisk plot in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.


Out of all the Harry Potter books, Chamber of Secrets is the most problematic for me as far as continuity and plot goes. I have issues with the whole basilisk plot. I have a set of three questions regarding Chamber of Secrets that I'm looking for CANON COMPLIANT explanations for. By "canon compliant", I mean within the spirit of canon, answers directly from the book(s), or quotes from J.K. Rowling.¹



  • In Chamber of Secrets the basilisk moves about the castle through the plumbing. However, if Hogwarts was built 1000+ years ago, that would precede indoor plumbing. How can this be explained, that the castle has original indoor plumbing? How could the Founders have anticipated this innovation?

  • The basilisk is described as very large: "as thick as an oak trunk" (CoS - page 318 - US Hardcover) and "able to grow up to fifty feet long" (FBAWTFT - page 3 - Scholastic) Would a snake this large be able to feasibly fit through standard-sized pipes used for indoor plumbing, even pipes sized to accommodate Hogwarts?

  • At the point indoor plumbing was installed in Hogwarts, how is it that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets wasn't obvious and easily discovered by those installing the indoor plumbing?

  • How could sinks be installed above the entrance, complete with a faucet marked with a serpent, indicating the entrance, without anyone knowing the significance of the serpent on the faucet?


How could Hogwarts have feasibly accommodated a basilisk 800-1000+ years ago, presumably without indoor plumbing?


¹ I find the Harry Potter Wiki to be inconsistent and oftentimes incorrect. I am not looking for any answer(s) sourced from the HP Wiki unless Wiki itself backs that precise fact with explicit canon quote. Just an FYI.



Question Two - How Was the Legend of the Basilisk Established?


Question Three - How Did Tom Riddle Find Out About the Existence/Location of the Chamber of Secrets?



Answer



The Chamber was NOT designed for indoor plumbing. If you recall, once they fell through the pipe, they were walking in the tunnel, with no pipes mentioned. The Chamber was not a "place where plumbing goes". It was more of a catacombs/hidden chambers, under the lake (presumably as per Ron's guess - "Under the lake, probably" was the exact quote), which was a part of architecture and castles since Well Before Hogwarts (e.g. Romans).


The plumbing was merely an easier way to get from the castle proper to the catacombs - and more likely than not, existed in some primitive form in original Hogwarts (e.g. a water spring for hand washing) even if not a bathroom.


The trickier question was whether the entrance from the bathroom dated from Slytherin's time, as it looked to be more modern. But for a wizard of Slytherin's accomplishments, making a spell creating an entrance which would "conform" itself to the current surroundings of the room was surely NOT out of the question - heck, they created Room of Requirement! A mimicking entrance is incomparably simpler!


Now, a much more difficult question is, if the Serpent used the same pipe that Harry and Ron fell through, how was it able to climb UP? It sounded like an extremely steep, nearly vertical incline.



As far as fitting into plumbing - no canon answer. But THIS! IS! HOGWARTS! . The stairways reconfigure themselves. Why not plumbing?


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