Is Harry a Metamorphmagus?

[ginnysthe1]

No: HPFGUIDX 116572


Vivamus wrote:

>As soon as I met Tonks, I wondered if this was what Harry would 
become, just because it was interesting like an animagus, but "not an 
animagus." Harry growing his hair back didn't occur to me as evidence 
for it until later.<

Kim here:  That's still perceptive reading.  That's one of the things 
I really like about this group, I'm learning to notice and hold onto 
more details while reading HP than I used to (and I used to think I 
was a smart cookie of a reader already!) It helps in other books I 
read too (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell as one current example).

Vivamus:

>Well, we know that DD told Harry that he can speak parseltongue 
because V could speak parseltongue, but how certain can we be that DD 
is infallible in this? In any case, it doesn't really matter, because 
parseltongue is still a generally-inborn talent, even if Harry got 
his through the curse that failed.<

Kim again:  I think the innate parseltongue ability that Tom 
Riddle/Voldemort has is on account of being Slytherin's (i.e. another 
parseltongue's) heir.  In which case it's almost certain Harry got 
his from Voldemort's curse.  (Which begs the question: is Harry 
Gryffindor's heir and if so, what innate trait did he inherit from 
him?)  As to parseltongue though, since he does have it, I wonder if 
it will somehow prove useful to him in future, not just in Chamber of 
Secrets.

Vivamus:
 
> <snip> The unfocused unconscious magic seems to happen when the 
wizard is extremely upset or stressed, doesn't it?  So it wouldn't 
happen in the normal scheme of things.  It also has to fit into 
something that makes sense from his point of view.   If Crabbe and 
Goyle were about to beat him up, for example, it just wouldn't occur 
to him to be bigger than them -- that's *too* strange.<
 
>How about this?  Harry likes a girl who happens to be taller than 
him, but somehow, when they get real close, they are always the same 
height.  Harry, of course, never notices this.  Or he notices, but 
the girl doesn't.<

Kim:  I bet you're not off the mark when it comes to how Harry would 
use Metamorphmagus ability.  I can see Harry wanting to fight the 
likes of C and G on his own terms, even if he is smaller than they 
are.   And you get the sense from canon that he may not end up 
growing overly tall, so it's quite possible some future girlfriend 
will be taller than he is, and that might bother him enough 
subconsciously to make him "grow" taller when he's with her.

Vivamus:

>Can you imagine the look on Snape's face if something nasty happens 
to Harry and it just goes away before Snape can gloat?<

Kim:  Definitely a hoot of an image.  These days whenever I think of 
book Snape's face, I think of Alan Rickman's, which IMO doesn't 
detract from the books at all!

Cheers, Kim