And this is, how it begun...

It's possible. In canon Dumbledore knew how to understand Parseltongue, don't know about speaking it though. However this is Dumbledore we're speaking about here, he can do anyting with enough time apparently.

EDIT by Minion:
This thread once was a Santi-Derailment...

 

Yeah, but then, without the aid of a spell, Ron fucking Weasley managed to speak it. Sure, it was only a password for the CoS, but still . . .

 

I would like to guess that the entrance to the chamber of secrets might be simply password protected and not fluent in parseltongue by itself.

I mean the fake snakes were listening for "shhhashi" instead of for "open" in parseltogue.

And hissing "shhhashi" at a snake wouldn't make it hear like "open", but only "shhhashi" ;D

That's just a random theory that popped into my head ;D

 

Now that you mention it, I can go point this out to everyfuckingauthor who used the open-as-parselmagic(-of-intent) cliche. I mean, technically, as everyfuckingauthor who used the cliche of parselmagic agreed in unspoken consensus, only parseltongues can use parselmagic. -sheepish grin- Never looked so deeply into it. Before open-is-a-parselspell cliche was only ever that, a cliche that was clever the first time, plagiarism the second and third, and cliche the rest of the million fics. >: (

 

Seems to me that "parselmagic" was stupid to begin with. We have Avada Kedavra from Aramaic, Imperio from Latin, Wingardium Leviosa from JKR's ass (it's most certainly not from Latin!), Waddiwasi from English and French, Alohomora from Malagasy, and Pack from English (OotP ch. 3), so why in the hell would saying a spell in, what is essentially a foreign language, be any different?

 

Because it's 'magical'. /sarcasm.

The only thing Parseltongue would be good for, in casting spells, is not allowing your opponent to know just exactly what you're throwing at them.

 

And that's what silent casting is for anyways.

 

I imagine talking to and commanding snakes is useful, I mean in the CoS DiaryRiddle could command a goddamn Basilisk. A huge ass snake that can kill people with a stare and venom that wrecks everything. And if you can use Parseltongue to use magic I figure there's got to be more to it, it's a language so there's bound to be different ways to use spells or even new spells.

Come to think of it, how in the Hell would you use Parseltongue to cast magic? I keep on getting this image of a snake wrapping it's body around a wand and trying to use magic. It's a funny image.

How does Parseltongue exist anyway? Correct me if I'm wrong here but wasn't it something like a King Basilisk giving it's blood to Salazar or some shit? Couldn't that be replicated?

 

Sounds like Fanon to me. Yeah, commanding a basilisk could be useful but they're incredibly rare. In general though, when you see that wizards can transfigure and coerce most animals, it's really not going to be that amazing without rare snakes like Nagini or a basilisk.

I think it's a cool concept but the real usefulness is the assumption of lineage as in a certain crowd it's going to carry a certain amount of prestige.

It has been done to death, though.

 

They're manufactured. If I remember right, a basilisk is the product of a chicken egg hatched by a toad. Theorectically, anyone can make one, so I wouldn't exactly call them rare. The CoS one was only 'speical' because it was so fucking old.

 

The illegality of it would probably put some people off. Besides, who would want to creat a monster they can't controll and can kill them with a look (litterally in this case) or a bite?

 

While this is cannon, I've always suspected that this was either ignorance or willfully withholding of information by the book's author. I mean if it really is that easy than we should expect a lot more of them, truly if you were a dark lord who could command snakes wouldn't you have an army of Basilisks. Even with a such a strange weakness it would make sence to give your snakes a command to kill everything and than deafen them to prevent the roster's crow from having an affect or perhaps charm the Basilisk ears so they can only hear your commands.

My own theory is that Basilisks are a rare natural snake that has no natural weakness to a rooster's crow, but if the their egg is placed under a chicken(specifically a rooster) along with some type of magic happenings(spell,curse,charm,runes, really take your pick) than the Basilisk is born embedded with a great weakness and thus you have a fail safe for the beast.

A Basilisk is born from a frog or snakes egg hatced under a cockerel(rooster).

A Cockatrice is born from an egg laid by a cock and incubated by a toad; a snake might be substituted.

In J.K. version the Basilisk is born from a chickan egg under a toad. It would seem that either J.K. got her legends mixed up or she didn't even bother to check.

 

I think its just the fascination and mystery behind the language....since no one knows what can be done with it other than talking to snakes....
IMO Since it relates to slyntherine bloodline where 2 great wizards were born that surther mystifies it

 

Well aside from the route of a more complex 'ritual' (e.g. the first egg laid of a virgin hen...) it seems reasonable to think that its terror was understated in the book. No one ever seems to mention how lucky it is that only one person died in two separate years of directed attacks. It should be able to lay waste to places, even when just passing through.

Aside from being illegal, I'd think it would be seen as creating a highly deadly, uncontrollable aberration (somehow I'm not sold on the rooster's crow bit). With no sane use as a pet or non-rabid attack-snake, I figure that the few people who might have the resources to control one would do it for money (parts).

Making one at home sounds sort of like someone trying to make mustard gas with bleach, ammonia and balloons, except less controllable and more deadly.

Parseltongue could grow in the eyes of the people as it a) associates with things humans tend to fear, b) can potentially control them as assassins or spies, c) it might hold truck with big serpents like the basilisk, and d) people don't remember parselmouth George, from down the way, they remember the powerful ones.

As said above, it's also a language no one knows. There's a reason spells are in Latin: it sounds less cool to be shouting, 'I Protect!'

 

Perhaps random dark wizards don't make them all over the place is because basilisk take forever to grow into their powers. If they develop the death stare when they're 200 then most people probably won't bother.

 

That sounds extremely unlikely. I could see several dark family's who have the parseltongue ability breed them and care for them over several generation if it meant having an army of them to command. Given that wizard have a longer life span it would make since to prepare for the long term. You children or more likely your grandchildren would be alive to reap the reward of a dozen basilisks. Beyond that Voldemort and no doubt several other wizard were planning on or have taken steps to become immortal so it would make sense for them hatch as many as possible and in a few hundred years take advantage of it.

I highly doubt it take that long for a basiliks to fully mature, I would bet under 50 or even under 25. Regardless I would still expect to have more than a few of them in some dark families basements.

 

I think wizard lifespans are 140-200 years, so if Basilisks took two hundred years to mature, they would likely be seen by the average person as legends surrounding the few 'immortal' wizards.

Canon says the breeding was banned in medieval times, so I'd say that's the neighbours not wanting the parselmouth families breeding up an army.

I'd guess the book Hermione had in CoS was just your average bestiary–not something that would list the steps in making one, rather like describing the components of a gun only gives you a vague idea about how to make one, let alone safely. Chicken+toad seems simplistic for the 'king of serpents'.

 

I agree with Cenares. There's no specific reason to believe a basilisk develops their magical abilities after a specific amount of time, it'd be an obvious contrivance. I imagine the reason we don't see them commonly is because they've been described as very powerful and would be as deadly as Nagini, or worse.

You can imagine how it would stack the deck against the heroes to have an army of basiliks(sp?) to fight as well as death eaters. If I was LV, I'd have probably put a basilisk at the site of every horcrux, but you can see how quickly it would get boring if the heroes had to fight a basilisk at every corner.

They'd either get really god damn pro at it so it wasn't a challenge any more (boring) or every damn problem they encounter would be an epic struggle. If they all survived, every time, it would become unbelievable. They worked because they were a monster, see them every day and they become boring. It's exactly like the Lion and the Fox, familiarity breeds contempt.

If I was to make a story that needed an explained reason, in world, as to why they weren't that common though - it'd probably be better to make the egg come from a rare snake like someone else said or 'reveal' there's more to it than just stuffing an egg under a chicken.

 

May be just may be the way to make basilik is fake...The author might not have wanted to disclose the method of making them...Else Salazar slyntherine would have kept 50 or 60 snakes in the tunnels to accomplish mission.

If hermoine could get that book, so would have Tom- he could have created another snake to feel powerful or something.

 

I believe the method of creating a basilisk is laid out in fantastic beasts and where to find them. I could be wrong though.

If Newt Scamander published it in a Hogwarts textbook then I'm fairly sure it's not super secret knowledge.