The House of Gaunt

[steven1965aaa]

No: HPFGUIDX 151070

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, catherine higgins 
<saberbunny at ...> wrote:

>   Well, if DD could learn parseltoungue, with all the research he 
was doing on Riddle, he would have learned it, if it were at all 
possible.
    
If DD happened to already be a parselmouth, we don't know. It does 
say in the books about Tom and Harry as you said above being the 
only 2 was it "this century"?. But DD would have "passed through" 
Hogwarts 139 years ago. That's "many, many years" in my book....

Steven1965aaa:

Right, it was the diary Riddle who said that.  Good catch re: DD's 
age.  But we don't have any indication that DD is a parselmouth.  
Maybe parselmouth means one can speak it, i.e make the snakelike 
sounds, but one who is not born a parselmouth could learn to 
understand it?  I just wonder where/from who you would learn?  
Mermish would have to be understood by people at the ministry in 
order to communicate with the merpeople, and merpeople of course are 
intelligent and one could learn ftom them as well.  A snake on the 
other hand is a snake, and since Parselmouths are rare who would you 
learn from?