Ron WAS: Re: DH reread CH 4-5

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186310

Carol earlier:
>   Also, I don't think that Harry would have followed Bathilda up to her room if Ron had been there because Ron would have realized that she was speaking Parseltongue. 
> 
> Hickengruendler:
> 
> I agree with everything else you wrote in your post, but I want to make this small nitpick (Sorry ;-) ). Bathilda/Nagini in fact didn't speak at all, until she was alone with Harry and Hermione was left downstairs. Prior to that, she only made some gestures, so that Hermione didn't realize, that she was hissing. She only started to speak, when she was alone with Harry. I assume she would have done the same, if Ron were around.
>
Carol responds:

While Harry and Hermione are alone with "Bathilda" in the house, Bathilda calls "Come!" from the next room. Hermione (who, of course, hears only a loud hiss) reacts by jumping up and clutching Harry's arm. Harry (understanding the word and not realizing that it's Parseltongue) says "It's okay" and leads the way into the sitting room. "Bathilda" shakily attempts to light the candles (Harry thinks that she's forgotten how to do magic and lights them for her). Harry tries to get her to identify the merry-faced boy in the photograph and gets only a vague look in response. Hermione asks why "Bathilda" wanted them to come with her and receives no response at all. After that, "Bathilda" gestures to Harry, wanting him but not Hermione to come upstairs. Hermione asks whether Harry is sure that "Bathilda" know who he is. Partially reassured by Harry's affirmative answer, she lets him go upstairs. She stands in the hallway hugging herself nervously, but she doesn't stop him or warn him that the old woman may be far more dangerous than she seems. (DH Am. ed. 336-338)

Both Hermione and Harry are at a disadvantage here. Hermione has never heard Parseltongue (except for Harry hissing at the conjured snake in CoS, at which point Hermione, a Muggle-born, probably doesn't know what was happening until Ron explains it. It's Ron who tells Harry that he heard him speaking Parseltongue, which he defines as "snake language." After that, Hermione can connect Parseltongue to what she's read--that Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth--but for the first page or so of dialogue about Parseltongue, Ron, not Hermione, is the authority. CoS Am. ed. 195-196.) Later, Ron, who seems to have a bit of an ear for languages and is perhaps, like Ginny and the Twins, a natural-born mimic, recalls and can repeat the word "open" in Parseltongue having heard it only twice, the first time five years previously. I don't think he'd have had any difficulty recognizing the single word "Come!" as Parseltongue, and I think he would have been seriously alarmed, suspecting a connection of some sort with Voldemort.

Hermione, however, clearly doesn't recognize the single word that "Bathilda" speaks in her hearing as anything but a noise or she would have identified it as Parseltongue. She's just understandably uneasy. Harry, in contrast, behaves as he did with the conjured snake in PoA and again in the Pensieve excursion to the Gaunts' hut in HBP--he hears and understands the Parseltongue but doesn't distinguish it from English. Ron, alone of the three, has heard enough Parseltongue to recognize it immediately (as he did in CoS) and has heard Harry speak the word "open" in Parseltongue. "Come!" would be recognizable to someone in Ron's position as a word in "snake language," even though he wouldn't know what it means. I think he would have done more than grab Harry's arm. He would have called attention to the fact that the word had been spoken in Parseltongue. At that point, the Trio would have realized that there was more wrong with Bathilda than just being old and "gaga." Of course, they couldn't have figured out that she was a dead body inhabited by a magical snake, but they might have thought that she was possessed, which is close enough to the truth.

Carol, who also thinks that Ron also would not have let Harry go alone up the steep, narrow stairs in the company of a spooky and obviously deranged old "witch" even if he hadn't heard her speaking Parseltongue