10 Oldest Characters In The Harry Potter Universe

by Danny Meegan

1. The Basilisk

The Basilisk harry potter and the chamber of secrets
Warner Bros.

Age: 1000+ (now deceased)

Salazar Slytherin’s Basilisk - first mentioned in Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets - has been around as long as Hogwarts castle itself.

Slytherin left the Basilisk in the Chamber around the same time that Hogwarts was built, in the hope that one day, the Heir Of Slytherin would control it and purge the school of those he deemed unworthy to study magic (read: Muggle-borns).

Hogwarts is said to have been founded roughly 1000 years ago (as mentioned by Professor Binns in the Chamber Of Secrets novel), placing the Basilisk's age around that same mark - possibly even higher. The creature was able to reach such a massive number by entering a deep sleep that prevented it from aging, which meant that it could have lived for many more years had it not been killed by Harry in 1993.

That's a hell of a lot of birthday candles to fit on a single cake...

Watch Next


Every Upcoming MCU Project Ranked By Anticipation

Horror

20 Horror Movies You Should Watch Totally BLIND

20 Upcoming Movies That Have Made ONE Big Mistake

In this post: 
Harry Potter
 
First Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!