Disclaimer: Any character who shows up in here was J.K Rowling's first. Bet ya had no idea, huh?

The Tree of Knowledge

"And the serpent saith unto the woman, 'Dying, ye do not die," –Genesis 3:4

I

I have forgotten my grace. No more am I Nagini. To be Nagini I am not a human woman and I am not the earthly snake, rather I take their forms for as long as I need them. I may be separate creatures or bear parts of both the man and the beast in the same moment if I would like it. I cannot turn into Nagini the woman anymore, or anything that belongs to her. My womanly parts are gone; all there is left to me is the snake.

Before I could be just like a snake, it is different now. Before I was hidden away in the snake, the bee inside flowers. Now we are the same. I had wits and memories before. Today I do everything like a dumb beast! If I see a bird then I must have it, I see that it dies and I eat it. Sometimes I go to where snake eggs look vulnerable and uncovered, and I lie down on them and hope that they are warm enough.

I remember when he came to see me; I remember that! The rat with the nine fingers. He was the bravest of all the ones that served him, he visited a woman who could become a snake after all, and he came to me wearing his rodent form too. I tried to eat him up when he walked into the cave, a place where gold flowed in its waters, a house I had dressed up myself with my things and my sigil.

I pretended there was nobody home, it brought me joy to watch him never suspect something was amiss. I was not sad to live as a lady, but I would always enjoy a hunt if made the hunter. How could I not eat when food good as gave its consent for me to take a bite?

When I got tired of the game I took him with one move. As I hung him over my mouth by his tail he howled something like, "I am the messenger of the dark lord!"

My chuckle set him free, I was not able to hold onto him with my finger as tightly when I laughed, and I let one of the hands that held him cover my laughing mouth. His voice (the funny part) in that shape his voice was high, and it was sweet. It went something like a human child. I would have stroked his fur if he had not run away from me on his little feet. I would not have devoured him yet.

I let a part of me go by mistake, my foot turned to a rattlesnake's tail. Then my toe rings fell to the rocks and my anklet had split apart. Opals flew in every direction; they were made for a woman's foot, not a serpent's. He destroyed my laughter.

Jewels were to be loved, they are the key to a Nagini's life. They are one with the soul.

I went about my home trying to pick up the stones and see that they were well. I pressed them to my heart and rocked them. This naked vulnerability I showed made him come out again. Both animals and humans will seize the opportunity to confront a weakened foe.

He stayed at a good point for a nice start of running distance, then clothes began to show on his body with the help of some magic. The toy had a miniature hat and a grey suit of clothing. He lifted his hat for a moment and sat it back down on top of his rat head. He stood on his hind legs and spoke in a deeper man's voice, his whiskers twitching. He said he was going to save the one I was in love for, though of course said not 'love" to me. He said some more, but all I could hear were the words for Tom. When he said "the dark lord" just before, I did not know who he meant. He is called the Dark Lord, a kindness bestowed on him for his many charities. "Voldemort" was hard enough to remember as it was, I only knew Tom.

He said that he was sent to me by him. He heard his voice faraway in another land. I could see the land as he said it, though I did not know its name…. there were clouds coming …and rain.

He told me with many cracks in his voice that were not easy on my ears, that by our work together there were ways, ways to save. I listened to him like a child hearing a story with the most exquisite magic in it. I had forgotten how I had searched in every land that I knew of, that I had gone across oceans to be sure that he was nowhere. I didn't think of the stories I heard from travelers that his body was beyond cold, and beyond ashes and beyond dust, or of all the years I looked. I accepted his truth and waited for more truths.

He grew quiet after awhile until I screamed at him, "Tell me! You must tell!"

Even if I was screaming there was a smile on my face.

The rat grew large and then he was prepared to tell me all of it. I was going to receive him warmly and with welcomes, at first I was so excited, but then felt like a small hatchling while I was watching him grow up. He was a big tasty rat, with giant furry feet that sharp nails jutted out of, and a long rosy tail much bigger than my whole body sometimes grew. I suddenly felt afraid of another predator.

It was a long time before he found his human shape. He took off his muddied coat and hat, then made himself at home, finding one of my chairs from the treasure horde I relieved some travelers of. He asked for "hospitality." I asked him what that word meant. When I knew what it had to do with I offered him my knife to hunt with to feed his hungry belly, then pointed to the rain outside, he had forgotten it; he would not be thirsty if he but opened his mouth. He looked to me as if I had disappointed him, he must have only been sad for Tom if he was his master.

I was a little saddened that he did not want my knife for anything at all. I took it from a prince in the desert, but that was a long time ago. I liked that the handle fit around the palm, it was easier for me to hold. A knife could be useful, but I did not know the real art of the fight. The rubies that shone out of the handle though were the real joy. He probably only ate cheese and could not appreciate knowing the cow it came from.

Last I remember he was dumping water from inside of his boots onto my grounds, and he said to me, "Its been almost thirteen years since he disappeared. But thirteen's a lucky number, right?" He smiled at me with many teeth, and looked even more the part of his animal.

He told me at some point that we would need money for the journey and asked me to part with some of my belongings. I gave him a bucket of my emeralds, hoping that would be the first step we took to help Tom.

I never really thought something as horrible as Tom's dying had happened, not really. I was scared, not being able to see him. But I lived everyday without the bitterness of missing something. I was only panicked at the right time, because I could not find where I had places what was important.

The next night we went to an antique city in the southern west of the country, the place where he was trapped. It was here his flesh died, I thought that made sense that this was where it would grow again.

I have heard that this house is decorated with messages and art for its dead, ornaments, cards and similar things. I did not see those things the day I went, I was too filled with worry for the man I came for. The house was invisible to me really. As is any loveliness of the water when you pull back out what will drown from its abyss.

I climbed what was left of stairs to the highest floor left. I was unafraid of being harmed in the house that hung by just a string. I stood in the middle of the bedroom. I knew it was the room where all the pain and sorrow had happened with its violent look, which is why I went.

I removed my scarves and dropped feathers, and walked through the place, looking for the spot where he was hurt. I heard the loyal rat behind me, his small feet making the old boards squeak, but I did not turn around. I only looked at the walls, and then the floor, so riddled with hole after hole.

I saw scratches up and down the side of one wall and I went to them, putting out my tongue to get a better smell. Were they made by an animal or a man? How recent was the mark?

Then I saw a woman falling down with a baby in one arm, the other arm grasping the wall, still trying to live. She breathed so heavy but inhaled nothing. Her eyes saw nothing, they'd been closed and stared at their own sockets.

I grew cold and did not go further. Something struck the floor, I can hear its metal sound now in memory, yet I did not then, then I saw nothing but the vision.

I knew Tom was strong, so strong I did not feel afraid for him though it was a time of war… most times at least I did not. I knew he started the war too, he demanded revolution. People die in war, so if he is to make a kill why is he a different man? All it made him was a man. Men decide if the death is well-done or if it is vile, that is not customary thinking among mine.

The reasons for the war were nothing but words, difficult ones. Why should I be afraid for the statue of secrecy and if someone does not uphold it? It did nothing for me. What of it if he wanted Knights of Walpurgis? Perhaps I too should have such knights.

All I'd ever been fed from his hand was the milk of kindness, what showed him to be unwise?

I knew he died in a fight too, I knew he went to secure power. I didn't know who they were, why should I not wish well of him?

To see it is all that made the difference. To watch is stronger than knowing. To know is just another word, you might argue with a word, it's rare that one does not. But can you argue with a picture so easily?

I stopped and turned my head because of someone I could not touch or hear, for a face I'd see one time only, who had done nothing for me, and had a life I wasn't interested in, and a name I could not tell you.

Something cold touched me in that darkness, colder than I already felt. The rat assistant was slinking around me, he stood not very much higher than my skirts, not that others did, I was tall back then. He looked like a little boy by comparison.

I saw him pressing a golden cup against me, a cup with a whimsical animal engraved on it. It was this chalice that had fallen down from inside of my gown and made noise the moment just ago. I was its carrier. Tom had entrusted it to me long before his female knight, the eater of death.

I remember that well too. When Tom gave it for me to keep he did not look at me, like it was painful. His back was even turned. Eye contact is important. Why was he doing this?

He slid it to me with the white, long fingers. I loved him for his hands. I wanted human hands you know... I had hands if I wanted, but they never worked in the same way in exact. It was hard for me to write a note to put in the owl for Tom or to play some music, they were fakes.

Then Tom's eyes bored into me as they should, and he pulled my hands apart, holding them with soft paternal ways as he often did. "This cup is everything," he said. He said my name in the end too, but I no longer remember what that name is. Nagini is just a word, meaning "snake of royalty." It gets used by men as if to say "princess" and "prince." I was called something else in my mother tongue.

I examined the object, and found it plain, it had no good way of its design. I did not care enough to ask what it did. He laughed when I went about wrinkling my nose.

I kept his cup on my person during his life, but after the disaster of his assassination plot against the family I put it where I did not see it. Deep inside I must have thought the had cup lied. I did not know enough about what it was for me to think such things, but I put it away in any case. I was not so human to take it out and look at it when I was sad and missing him. It stayed out of the way and gathered dust until Peter the rat showed up at my doors. Yet I was enough human to keep it when I might have bartered with it to a more advantageous purpose. But let us come back to the moment in the house…

I saw the cup anew in the dark, turning blue in the shadow. I did not retrieve it, I no longer knew if I wanted him to live. When I stood not answering, Rat became panicked. "Do you see where he died?" he urged me. He snatched the cup away and began wandering about the room.

I must have glided away somehow. I thought I stood still but I was flying, an inch or three off the ground. I hovered there, the room was bright and alive, and the servant was gone. In the light everything that had been broken or was too old looked healed now. Mirrors lost their cracks, there were lights that had not gone out, flowers inside of a vase that I knew a moment ago to have been empty, spreads across the bed had all of their colors instead of having faded, a meal was fresh and hot with steam, and Tom was alive…

He was on his back in the corner of the room. His chest went up and down so, and his breath was guttural. His arms and legs looked heavy, they would not move. He whispered.

I said cautiously, "Yes! I am here…" with legilimency, tilting my head. I was too overcome and too shocked to move toward him. I dug the painful nails of my fake hands into their palms, and the human part of me came, the teardrops. I said simply Tom aloud, and I was surprised to hear my own voice cracking.

I was still ever cautious however. I had six senses and only one of them could detect him, and the eyes are always the weakest of a snake's senses. I used all of them several times. I could not feel the heat on my lips that a living thing gives, his heat that I knew so well.

I saw him murmur, but could not feel a sound in my body.

I held my head up as high as it could go in my woman's form, my tongue came out, I made my jaw drop low. I stayed for so long to make sure I had the scent, but when I tasted the particles all I found was the dust of the old house and its spider webs. I pressed my tongue to my mouth's roof again to try to get a different answer, but it was worse the second time. I could get no shape, I had no sense of a man's size.

What I saw was not there in the room with me. It was no more than a dream.

Then a white shadow, a shadow like wings came down and entered the flesh of his body, going on through him. He would fall back that way if he were killed by an arrow, that is how it pushed him down. I could not help but raise my hands to the light, wanting to protect. I would protect any part of him I could, even just a vision of him.

A wound of light poured from his chest as he sank to the ground.

His eyes were cool and empty now. His face was pressed against the floorboards. His mouth had gone stiff yet it was open.

I was sure he was dead, but still he lifted his head, his neck was broken. He had told me before that he refused to die.

Of course I would have killed what was attacking him if I was there to do it, I would haven taken him away and gotten him healthy once again, but if I could not do these things I also would kill him to stop him from suffering so.

He coughed as his neck arced, revealing his throat. A seed of light was wrenched from it and he collapsed back to the floor, covering himself with his arms.

Death came at last. Something happened to his face, as if it were being ripped off at the skin. The house was plunged into darkness. No more light except for the white of his face as it changed in the dark, pulling in two directions at once. Then he cried out.

After that he could speak no more, but gnash his teeth and finally leave his mouth open, screaming without any voice, while the light fled his face like a bird. He grew faint and without features, the way his knights looked when they dressed in the masks.

What happened to you? A thing worse than death. You live but like this?

The image broke.

I whispered with both eyes red, "Give me the cup."

The rat was at my side, the cup was in my lap and I was on my knees. I sat the cup in front of me. I had no room for the pity of another.

The cup began to levitate. The window shutters struck the sides of the house many times. The lightning that fell outside gave us an eternal white to see by, never once ceasing. I felt water anointing me, coming in through the endless cracks in the house.

The cup rose high, filling with rain. Rat braced his hand upon my shoulder, I do not think he even knew he did this.

There was a windstorm inside of the house, it did not come in from outside though, I knew this came from the cup instead. The wind was chilly.

The dust in the room rose, removing itself from all objects it covered. The particles filled the room and disguised much of it, only could I see the cup, light was puncturing from it.

Rat readied his wand, he did not trust whatever was waiting in the dark. I grabbed his hand like a fool, and meant to stop him from defending us. I suppose I thought…

For a moment the room turned quiet.

Then the cup began to sing! Yes, sing. Music like the sound of mermaids came out of the cup. The room began to stir, the song seemed to become part of the walls.

I stopped what I was doing.

Then the storm started like before and drowned out this sound.

The cup was even higher in the air now, above the dust. It shook violently, left and right and then it fell to the floor.

The storm died. The only sound in the room was what the cup did as it rolled across the wood. Then there was the sound of winds and a rustle of trees, the sound of leaves as they fell across the house, and the sight of the shadows they cast.

I had the wildness of heart to be the first to walk over to that cup. The cup had rolled near a window, just underneath it. As I walked toward it I could see a trail of blood by the moon's light. It glinted before me, it was so beautiful.

The blood was issuing from the cup as if it were its drink, its wine. But it never emptied, the cup, it went on spilling itself.

I knelt beside it and sat it up. As soon as it sat upright the blood stopped, and the cup was filled. I leaned over the cup, the salt smell filling my nostrils and I thought I heard more music, low strings this time instead of a voice.

I gestured for the rat to come. He knew what I wanted, as he ran toward me he opened the box we'd brought with us… a box more important than any horcrux.

to be continued...

Author talks: Hi guys, its Lucius! I saw that I had some reviews and read them, and for the first few moments I was knocked speechless! I am completely touched to hear that I've made people so happy, that you really liked what I wrote, and took so much time with me. I never dreamed of hearing anything like this. I want to thank each of you so much. Z.R FlumeCloud (Zara) RegulusN (Glenda) and Whisked (Elly) you guys are sweet, not to mention made really well thought-out comments. I'll be checking out all of your writing too.

And don't worry, I've already actually got a little of the next chapter... like what's in that box. I should deliver in a week or two. I try to hurry back if someone's waiting on me, I care about my readers. But since I do care, I try hard to give them something worth their time... so I'm sometimes slower than I'd like to be! You guys have inspired me so much, thank you again!