As you know, I’ve been listening to the Harry Potter series on audiobook.  Right now, I’m listening to Half-Blood Prince.  I’m halfway through so I’ll definitely be done before the 15th.  Incidentally, that’s only eight days away! :D

Before I read Deathly Hallows, I made a list of unanswered questions from the previous books, hoping they’d be answered.  Surprisingly, all of them, except one, were answered. (It’s the question listed under Order of Phoenix.) However, I think one can guess the answer to that question and get the answer pretty close to the truth so it’s not that big of a deal.

Now that I’ve read Deathly Hallows, it’s interesting to go through the books again because I’ve picked up on some foreshadowing that I didn’t before.  Also, I thought of a question I wouldn’t have before.  The question, which I thought of while I was listening to Chamber of Secrets, is whether Harry’s still a Parselmouth.

I posed that question to a few of my co-workers while I was listening to Chamber of Secrets and their gut reaction was, “Why wouldn’t he be?”  The answer to that question is because Harry was one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes.  The reason Harry could see into Voldemort’s mind was because of the little bit of Voldemort’s soul trapped in Harry.  That’s the reason his scar hurt when Voldemort was feeling particularly angry or happy.  Dumbledore also told Harry, more or less without going into the details of a Horcrux at the time, that was the reason Harry was a Parselmouth.

I thought it stood to reason that if the Horcrux was destroyed and Harry no longer felt pain in his scar, then he probably couldn’t speak Parseltongue anymore either.  Until today, this was just a hypothesis.  I found the transcript to a web chat JK Rowling had with some fans on July 30, 2007.

Nigel: Can harry speak parseltongue when he is no longer a horcrux?

J.K. Rowling: No, he loses the ability, and is very glad to do so.

I’m pretty happy to find this answer as I’m always wondering about these types of things.  (It was a link from Wikipedia on the page discussing the Horcruxes.)

It think it’s cool that I’m still thinking of things when I reread the Harry Potter series.  It’s the mark of a good story and writer.  And, I’m sure I’ll continue to think of questions as I reread each book for many years to come. ;)