Can Harry Potter Still Speak To Snakes After The Deathly Hallows?

If you have a phobia of snakes, you should probably stay away from the “Harry Potter” franchise. Every single movie features a snake of some sort, and not just because the main villain has one as his pet. Snakes are vital to the “Harry Potter” universe because of what it tells us about Harry; in the first book/movie, Harry’s conversation with a snake at the zoo serves as our first proper glimpse at his wizard powers. When he talks to a snake again in “Chamber of Secrets,” this time in front of the whole school, it sparks the beginning of Harry’s identity crisis. 

Harry learns that the ability to speak with snakes, aka Parseltongue, is rare even among wizards. Some of the only wizards known to be capable of such a feat are Lord Voldemort and Salazar Slytherin, the founder of the good-for-nothing Slytherin house. Luckily, Harry manages to prove that he’s not Salazar’s heir at the end of “Chamber of Secrets,” and for the rest of the series his Parseltongue skills are treated as a fun (if creepy) tool, not something to be ashamed of. 

So, why Harry can talk to snakes? As we learn in “Chamber of Secrets,” Voldemort had unwittingly attached a part of his soul onto baby Harry when he tried to kill him. In addition to accidentally turning Harry into the final horcrux (something we’d only find out about in “Deathly Hallows”), Voldemort also gave Harry the gift of Parseltongue. It’s just one of many examples of how Voldemort’s attempts to kill Harry keep accidentally making him stronger.

But at the end of “Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” Voldemort kills Harry. Or rather, he kills the part of Harry that carries Voldemort’s soul. So, what then? Can Harry still speak to snakes afterward, or will snakes always be a stranger to him from this moment on? The books are surprisingly uninterested in this question, but we can find answers outside the main text. 

As posted on Pottermore, the official website for the “Harry Potter” series founded by author J.K. Rowling in 2009, poor Harry can no longer include Parseltongue on his résumé when applying to be an auror. As the site explained:

“Harry being an accidental Horcrux meant he was bound to Voldemort in so many ways, just like Voldemort was bound to serpents. Not only could Harry speak the language of the snake, but could see through the eyes of Nagini, another of Voldemort’s Horcruxes, as it turned out. Once the part of Voldemort’s soul that dwelled inside Harry was destroyed, however, Harry discovered he was no longer a Parselmouth; an added bonus of Voldemort’s demise.”

The wording here’s a little strange. “An added bonus,” you say? Once you remove the unfortunate wizard stigma around Parseltongue, how can be it a “bonus” to lose the ability to speak to snakes? If nothing else, it sounds extremely useful for someone who works in Charlie Weasley’s profession (that’s Ron’s older brother, who works with magical animals). And I’m sure that Hagrid, who loves animals of all types, wouldn’t consider knowing Parseltongue a curse either. 

I for one find it depressing that Harry’s no longer bilingual, but luckily the series offers some hope that the skill isn’t lost forever… 

While there doesn’t seem to be a Duolingo app in the wizarding world, there are some hints throughout the series that you don’t need to be from a certain bloodline (or have someone’s soul fused to yours by accident) to know Parseltongue. It’s technically possible to learn the language the same way people learn other human languages: through lots of study. 

We don’t see anyone do this in the series, but there’s one moment in “Deathly Hallows” that (seemingly by accident) opens up this possibility. That’s the scene where Ron explains how he snuck into the Chamber of Secrets without Harry’s help. Ron had heard Harry saying the word “open” in Parseltongue in his sleep and was able to imitate the sound well enough to trick the gates into opening. 

Some fans thought this was kind of a dumb plot point, as it removes a lot of the mysticism around the snake’s language. “Chamber of Secrets” treated Parseltongue as this magical, inimitable thing, and this one moment in “Deathly Hallows” undermines all of that. However, I’m okay with the slight contrivance here; it implies that the ancient ability to talk to snakes won’t necessarily die out with Voldemort. If Harry truly wants to, he can regain the skill with a bit of study, and anyone else can learn the skill too if they apply themselves. Tragically, anti-snake bias in the wizarding world indicates that speaking Parseltongue will continue to be rare skill, but at least some hope remains that it won’t be entirely forgotten.