How did Ginny open the chamber?

[Sherry Garfio]

No: HPFGUIDX 46755

Okay, I'm dreadfully behind after moving, and I've spent most of the
day trying to extract information from Yahoomort about this with no
luck (although it did point me to a lot of interesting posts), so I'll
just jump in with both feet, and hope they don't land in my mouth.

How exactly did sweet little Ginny open the Chamber of Secrets?  We
know she was under Tom Riddle's control, but you have to be a
Parselmouth to tell the sink to open up.  I'm not sure I can accept
that Tom made her speak Parseltongue; all evidence seems to imply that
Parselmouth is a gift from birth, not something you can learn.  We do
have Tom's own explanation, from chapter 17, The Heir of Slytherin (p.
310 US PB - I'm so proud that I finally brought my canon to work ;-)):

"I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. 
Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of *my* secrets,
to start pouring a little of *my* soul back into *her*..."

I suppose that this act of "pouring a little of *my* soul back into
*her*"  could be similar to Dumbledore's speculation on why Harry is a
Parselmouth - Ginny could have learned Parseltongue from her
connection with Tom, at least enough to say "Open up!".  But another
idea occurred to me while I was watching TMTMNBN-2 (twice this
weekend!):  What if the Weasleys are decendants of Slytherin?  And
what if Lucius Malfoy knows it?

I did run across several posts in my battle with Yahoomort that asked
why Lucius waited until this year to plant the diary.  What if he was
waiting for both Harry and a Weasley child to be at Hogwarts?  Any
Weasley would do, but waiting until Harry was at Hogwarts would serve
both to frame Harry and to give Riddle the opportunity to kill Harry. 
The older Weasley kids were probably too savvy by the time Harry
started to fall into Tom's trap, and Ron is too close to Harry to risk
using him, which leaves Ginny.

Now, of course, my proposition implies that the Weasleys would also be
Parselmouths, or at least Ginny, without anybody in the family ever
noticing this about each other or themselves.  But what if there is
something special about the *7th* child of a Slytherin decendant? 
This has been explored before in the "Missing Weasley Child" posts. 
If it's only the 7th child, then that would explain why Parselmouth is
such a rare gift: it would only occur in one bloodline, and only when
someone in that bloodline has at least 7 children.  What do we know
about Tom Riddle's family?  We know that his Muggle father abandoned
his witch mother while she was pregnant with him, and that he
subsequently grew up in an orphanage when his mother died (giving
birth to him?  Alas, my GoF is at home).  But do we know if they had
any other children?  If they did, given the conditions of orphanages
many years ago (which I know about only from reading Dickens), 7
siblings could easily have been separated, and Tom, being an infant at
the time, would never have known they existed.  But being the 7th
child of a Slytherin decendant, he would have been endowed with the
gift of Parseltongue.

As a side note, there has been speculation that the Weasleys' Muggle
relation (Molly's cousin, the accountant?  Alas, my SS is also at
home) is a link to red-headed Lily.  If so, that also puts Lily in
Slytherin's line.  We know that Harry is a "true Gryffindor",
presumably through James, so this lends creedence to those who have
suggested that Harry is heir to both Slytherin and Gryffindor, if
indeed being a "true Gryffindor" means being Godric Gryffindor's
heir.   Also, if the Weasleys are indeed Slytherin decendants, the
revelation of this would also make for an interesting dilemma for
Harry and Ron, although this revelation would have to come before
Harry's heritage is revealed, if he is indeed the dual heir.

Okay, you may now commence in blasting my theory.

Sherry