Chamber of Horcruxes/languages

[zanooda2]

No: HPFGUIDX 161337

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "finwitch" <finwitch at ...> wrote:
>
> > bboyminn:
> > As to whether Dumbledore explored the Chamber or not. I
> > don't think so, partly because there is no indication that
> > he speaks parseltongue, and Harry was away from the school
> > immediately after the incident.

> Finwitch:

> It's possible for Dumbledore to have checked out the chamber, I'd say...
> 
>  I mean Fawkes got in there somehow; There's no indication that the
> entrance was ever closed (no mention of it at all, only of Myrtle) so
> why not?
>

zanooda:

But the Chamber was closed, in fact both the lower and the upper
entrances were closed. First, when Harry and Ginny left the Chamber,
"Harry heard the stone doors close behind them with a soft hiss" (CoS,
p. 323 US). Then, after Harry and the others are back in the MM's
bathroom, they can see that "the sink that hid the pipe was sliding
back into place" (p. 325).

It seems that DD could get into the Chamber only if he really was a
Parselmouth himself, and I'm still not convinced that he was. There
was a great discussion about this on the list around the time I joined
(that's why I remember it so well, it was one of the first threads
that I read here), in April or May, and there were lots of really good
convincing arguments in favor of DD being a Parselmouth, but I'm still
not sure. Parseltongue seems like something you are born with, not
something you can learn.