[HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore the parselmouth?

[Peggy Wilkins]

No: HPFGUIDX 151116

On 4/18/06, yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com <yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com> wrote:
> > Potioncat:
> > This is very interesting! Why is it so hard for this group to think
> > DD is a Parselmouth?
>
> stevemac:
> I don't think anybody has a problem with whether or not DD is a
> parselmouth... it is whether there is any basis for it in the canon.

Peggy:
Alright, let's see what the most convincing evidence can tell us, if
anything.  In HBP chapter 17, "A Sluggish Memory," Harry and
Dumbledore are discussing Morfin's memory of being visited by the
young Tom Riddle, which they have just witnessed in the Pensieve.  In
this scene nearly all the dialogue between Morfin and Riddle occurs in
Parseltongue (as signified by italics in the text); and then the
discussion between Harry and Dumbledore follows directly:

[HBP pp. 367-8:]
  "And Morfin never realized he hadn't done it?" [killed the Riddle family]
  "Never," said Dumbledore.  "He gave, as I say, a full and boastful
confession."
  "But he had this real memory in him all the time!"
  "Yes, but it took a great deal of skilled Legilimency to coax it out
of him," said Dumbledore ... "I was able to secure a visit to Morfin
in the last weeks of his life, by which time I was attempting to
discover as much as I could about Voldemort's past.  I extracted this
memory with difficulty.  When I saw what it contained, I attempted to
use it to secure Morfin's release from Azkaban...."
[end excerpt]

What do we know?
* Dumbledore secured the memory himself, directly from Morfin.
* Morfin's memory involves an extensive exchange between him and Tom
Riddle that took place entirely in Parseltongue.
* After securing the memory, but before Morfin's death, Dumbledore
tried to use the memory to get Morfin out of prison.

While there is no direct evidence that Dumbledore understood or spoke
Parseltongue, I find it sufficiently convincing from this sequence of
events that he must have understood it at least; otherwise he would
not have understood the significance of Morfin's memory.

I suppose there is the possibility that this (being able to understand
a language one couldn't understand otherwise) could be interpreted as
a property of the Pensieve, and if that is the case, this evidence is
inconclusive.  However, I personally prefer not to invoke an unknown
property of Pensieves just for the sake of preserving Dumbledore from
the burden of somehow coming to know Parseltongue.

My final conclusion is that if it suits you (referring to the general
"you", that is, to each person as an individual) to believe Dumbledore
could speak and/or understand Parseltongue, then why not simply
believe so; if it does not suit you to believe it, then don't.  It
doesn't seem to matter either way, and short of other evidence or a
direct statement from JKR, there isn't enough evidence to be 100%
sure.  My personal position is, I believe he knew it, because that's
the simplest explanation of the above scene.  But that is just me;
YMMV.  :)

--
Peggy Wilkins
enlil65 at gmail.com