Gryffindor's Sword and Slytherin's Dragon

A lot there - see Pauli's comment below on my mention of the sword and ring post. It would take a long time to delve into the many layers of the COS battle of Sword vs. Basilisk, but here are a few quickies: 1. Granger draws out a word play ... "sorting hat" and "sword-in hat;" which ... who knows. But more importantly he points out the heritage of pulling swords out of things. (I just had to put it that way because it reminds me of the "society for putting things ont top of other things" in a Monty Python sketch). Excalibur could not be removed from the stone except by the true heir of Uther, just as, to quote DD, "it would have taken a true heir to pull that from the hat." (Granger thinks, and I agree, that his is one of the tip-offs to Harry being the true heir of Gryffindor). 2. The stuff on LOTR fits the ring and sword in a scheme of revelation, particularly revelations such as Boromir's dream about the Isildur's bane, and whether such "riddles" are to be the height of revelation, especially when confronted with more direct revelations/gifts such as the sword. The snake - the serpent, or dragon (I think the scene in COS is also drawing on the legend of St. George...) was also a revealer. He was more cunning than any of the other beasts, and when they listened to his advice - their eyes were opened, and they saw that they were naked, and they were ashamed. Now, going on this line, a question arises: did the sword/hat and the Basilisk reveal anything to Harry? The Hat revealed to Harry that not only did he want to be in Gryffindor, but he should be there. Harry calls this into question only to have it re-affirmed by DD and explained at the end. But what causes his doubts? He finds out he is a parsel-mouth, that he can hear a snake speaking and thinking, one snake in particular - the Basilisk. Slytherin's monster tries to "reveal" things to Harry, but they are false things, lies. First the Basilisk is the occasion for Harry thinking "maybe I'm not as good as I thought, maybe I'm not a Gryffindor, maybe I'm a slimy and selfish Slytherin." It was first the snake on the table at the dueling class, but once they know Slytherin's monster is a Basilisk, this is when he really starts to think it makes sense, when he starts to buy all the rumors. Then, in the Chamber, under the direction of Tom/Voldemort, the Basilisk "tries to reveal" to Harry that, "not only are you a Slytherin, you're not particularly good at being even that. Only Tom can control the Basilisk and soon it will kill you all too easily ... some hero." These "lessons" from the Basilisk, of course, meet the same doom as Sauron's Ring.