Did Harry speak to the Basilisk?

[thomasmwall <thomasmwall@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50480


I'll be darned if I didn't spend almost an hour looking for something 
in the archives on Harry speaking to the Basilisk.  I know that, 
somewhere, somehow, I ran across posts wondering why Harry didn't 
speak to the snake in the Chamber of Secrets, why he didn't attempt 
to counter-control it.

After rereading said installment in the series, this bit caused me to 
stop and ponder:

----
"Help me, help me," Harry muttered wildly, "someone - anyone - "

The snake's tail whipped across the floor again. Harry ducked. 
Something soft hit his face.

The basilisk had swept the Sorting Hat into Harry's arms.(CoS 319)
----

Now, this may be a stretch, but hear me out.

1) Riddle keeps ordering the basilisk to ignore Fawkes and kill 
Harry. For the readers, this is presented in English, but since 
Riddle's talking to the snake, it stands to reason that those bits 
are actually in Parseltongue.

2) If they are in Parseltongue, Harry would be able to understand 
them, although I concede that I don't think that there are any 
mentions in canon of Parselmouths speaking to each other. 

3) Harry, at this point in the series, is not always aware of whether 
or not he is or is not speaking Parseltongue, and the quote says that 
he "muttered wildly." So, he may just well have been muttering in 
Parseltongue.

Now, to poke holes in my own account.

1) I don't know why the snake would help Harry, except that maybe it 
doesn't like Riddle, OR (and more believably) maybe it just has to 
obey whoever speaks to it. We don't know the full nature of 
Parseltongue yet, whether it's merely conversational or imperative in 
nature, or both.

2) Even if the snake WANTED to help Harry, it isn't clear that it 
would realize the significance of the Sorting Hat, or its contents.  
But if it did, perhaps it thought that Harry would attack Riddle with 
the sword.

3) I don't know why the snake isn't TALKING in the Chamber of 
Secrets. Surely something's on its mind, having had both of its eyes 
poked out, and having Riddle screaming at it. It's curious that we 
don't know what the basilisk is saying during that final scene.


Or, maybe this is just a bit of JKR's deus ex machina at work again, 
and the whole thing is just a nifty coincidence.

-Tom