Harry Potter's Most Unique Stolen Ability Didn't Do Jack for Him

Summary:

• Due to being Voldemort’s Horcrux, Harry Potter was a Parselmouth: a wizard capable of speaking with serpents.
• In the end, Harry didn’t use his Dark gift nearly as much as he could have, missing many opportunities.

Along with the piece of Lord Voldemort’s soul, young Harry Potter inherited some unique abilities from his parents’ murderer… It sounds horrible, we know. But at least, Harry could have tried to make some use out of it! Unfortunately, The Boy Who Lived didn’t even remember about his Dark gifts most of the time despite their being potentially useful.

Harry Potter Wasn’t Born a Parselmouth

The ability to speak and understand Parseltongue, the language of serpents, is an incredibly rare trait passed by blood. Many associate it with Dark wizards, but that’s only because Salazar Slytherin was the most famous Parselmouth, and his descendants inherited this gift — including Tom Riddle aka Lord Voldemort.

Harry Potter wasn’t born a Parselmouth; he received this ability when Voldemort accidentally turned him into a Horcrux. Harry’s “stolen” Dark gift created quite some complications for him in The Chamber of Secrets, but he never really used it.

Okay, he did once, but it was a one-off thing. Then, he just “forgot” about it.

Harry Potter Didn’t Use His Parselmouth Gift

The only plot-relevant instance of Harry speaking Parseltongue to achieve his goals was in The Chamber of Secrets: by using his Dark gift, The Boy Who Lived opened the passage to the Basilisk’s lair. The next time someone from the Trio used Parseltongue in a meaningful way was in The Deathly Hallows when Ron Weasley, who has never been a Parselmouth at all, managed to reopen the Chamber again.

But this was such a missed opportunity!

Don’t get us wrong: we’re not claiming that Harry Potter could have controlled Lord Voldemort’s pets. The Slytherin’s Serpent was under Tom Riddle’s direct control as the Heir of Slytherin, and Nagini was Voldemort’s Horcrux and personal attack pet. Neither of them could have been “talked down” using Parseltongue.

Still, the ability to communicate with snakes — actual snakes, not snake ornaments on a bathroom sink faucet — could have been very useful. Starting from The Chamber of Secrets, when Harry could have spoken to some of the snakes around Hogwarts to perhaps get himself an “agent” to investigate the voice and ending with using snake spies during the Horcrux Hunt’s recon missions.

Harry Potter had access to one of the most unique abilities in the Wizarding World and only used it to speak to faucets. That’s a little bit frustrating, especially when you think about the many scenarios his Parseltongue would have been useful.