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horcrux - Would Harry still be a Parselmouth at the end of the Deathly Hallows?



Near the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:



Voldemort "kills" Harry, destroying the part of his own soul that was in Harry.




Dumbledore tells us before this that:



Part of Lord Voldemort lives inside Harry, and it is that which gives him the power of speech with snakes, and a connection with Lord Voldemort's mind that he has never understood.



Given the above, does that mean that Harry would have lost his ability to speak with snakes at the end of the book? Or would his own mind have learnt Parseltongue from the thing that gave it to him, so that when that thing was gone he would still know how to talk to snakes? I don't think any mention of this is made in the book, but I'm very curious to know. It would be a shame if Harry was no longer a Parselmouth.



Answer



No, Harry loses the ability to speak Parseltongue once Voldemort is dead:



Nigel: Can Harry speak Parseltongue when he is no longer a Horcrux?

J.K. Rowling: No, he loses the ability, and is very glad to do so.




J.K. ROWLING WEBCHAT - 07.30.07 - THE LEAKY CAULDRON


This quote from J.K. Rowling doesn't indicate that Harry retains any knowledge of Parseltongue after Voldemort is dead and, frankly, it sounds like he'd be happy to forget any words he might have retained at one time in his young life. I think it's important to remember that when Harry spoke Parseltongue -- particularly in Chamber of Secrets -- it didn't sound like anything other than English to him. This was true even when he heard other Parselmouths speak Parseltongue. Read the chapter The House of Gaunt in Half-Blood Prince -- it demonstrates how Parseltongue didn't sound any different to Harry than English did. Now when Harry revisited the Gaunt's shack on the day Voldemort (then Tom Riddle Jr) showed up, when viewing Dumbledore's memory, Harry did somehow know it was Parseltongue Tom Riddle and Morphin Gaunt were speaking.


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