Dumbledore the parselmouth?

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 151197

Finwitch: 
> BTW, it's entirely possible that Voldemort has hidden at least one 
> horcrux in a place where one can access only by speaking 
> parseltongue... Does the Chamber of Secrets have/had one, hidden in 
> the Basilisk's nest? Perhaps Fawkes brought Dumbledore the Ring 
from 
> there?



Potioncat:
I picked the most recent Parselmouth post to comment, but it's to all 
that I'm responding. 

Sinister, very sinister is Parseltongue. Anyone who speaks it must be 
sinister. Harry gets by because it really isn't "him" it's dirt from 
LV. It's ok for him to use it though. DD doesn't really speak it, 
because, well, he isn't sinister. So he must be able to glean gobs of 
information from a hissing pantomine.

It's not good to be left handed either. That's really sinister. If 
you are left handed, you'd better overcome it! Well, not so much now, 
but in the old days when people still believed in witches. It wasn't 
good to have a odd mole in those days either.Those were devil's 
marks. Both were something you were born with, something you didn't 
choose. You were marked by the devil! Get ready to swing or burn.

We've been set up. The WW was set up. Superstition in the WW has it 
that Parseltongue is a rare gift of Dark Wizards. DD tells us it is 
not Dark Magic. Come on...if DD says it's OK, then it's OK. 

Ron got a great deal of grief from us on this. But he doesn't say 
Harry is a Dark Wizard, or that Parseltongue is Dark. He says it's a 
rare gift and it's bad. But I think (on this most recent reading) 
that his point is that it makes Harry look as if he's the Heir of 
Slytherin. That was the big mystery in CoS. Hermione says it's what 
Sally was famous for.

Upthread someone quoted...McMillan?...on it being Dark. He was wrong 
about a number of things, although his logic was pretty good at  the 
time. I've always thought he should be an honorary member of HPfGU. 

So, point one: Parseltongue is not Dark in itself.

Where's the canon for DD speaking Parseltongue? Oh, dear. This is a 
subtle science, my friends, and it was slipped in on us. It was a 
very quiet canon, unlike the cannon in World WarI that you could hear 
being loaded before it even fired on you.

DD and Harry watch the memories. DD had already seen these memories. 
He knew what was in them and had picked up the little details. Could 
he really have guessed at it? Look at how much we disagree about 
what's going on in Snape's worst memory and we have it in plain 
English! Granted, we're no Dumbledores. He clearly understood 
Parseltongue, which is a gift, not a skill you learn. 

Then, to make sure we were paying attention, DD tells us. "great and 
good can also speak Parseltongue."

Point 2: Canon tells us DD speaks Parseltongue.

And as for Finwitch's idea that Parseltongue will be needed in Book &-
--Me too.