Six year old harry was both happy and scared that his aunt and uncle had left him alone at the park.
On one hand, he could play and relax as much as he wanted - but, on the other, it was getting dark, and there wasn't anyone else around!
He had been there for a long time; he tried to distract himself by playing on the swings by himself, and the slides. But soon he found himself looking around and starting to cry.
Why did they leave him?
When would they be back?
Harry wandered across the grass to sit under a big tree surrounded by bushes, pulling up his knees and resting his chin on them. He cried to himself more. It wasn't before he heard a noise, and he turned as a bush rustled.
In the dim light he saw a long, huge, glistening green scaled snake emerging.
Harry froze as its big slender head turned toward him, a long tongue flickering. "H-hi..." he whispered, shaking. "Please don't bite me, i wont hurt you! I didn't know you lived here..."
The great snake reared its head back. Then- "I don't live here. I don't live anywhere anymore..." A voice, quiet and that of a woman's, came from the snake!
"Why not?" harry asked, feeling a bit less afraid. His relatives would have said snakes couldn't talk, but this one could, and she sounded nice enough to him.
"You wouldn't under...stand." The serpent lifted her head higher, blinking at him. "Wait a moment, you can understand me?!"
"Yes?"
"You must be a wizard then, and a very special one," she mused. Her voice was excited. "How old are you, what's your name?"
"I'm six. My name's Harry, Harry Potter."
"Harry Potter?" She slithered closer and put her face to his body, flicking her tongue again. Her body raised up and she was on eye level with him. She was looking at his forehead. "You are the baby they were all talking about," she breathed, amazed.
"I'm not a baby!"
"Of course you're not," she agreed, drawing away and nodding like a person. "That was several years ago now."
"What do you mean I'm a wizard? Like...magic?"
"Exactly. And for you to talk to me, you must have a very special gift. Only a few have ever had it over the course of centuries. It's a magic power, Harry, called parseltongue."
"Parsel...tongue?"
"That's right."
"Do you have a name?" Harry asked.
She tilted her head at him, letting out a soft laugh. "I never imagined I'd hear someone ask me that again. It's Nagini, Harry. My name is Nagini."
"I think that's a pretty name."
"I never dreamed I would hear someone call me that again either..."
"Why not? You look pretty to me!" Harry said firmly.
"Thank you, sweetie. But that's besides the point." Nagini sighed, and it sounded like a faint hiss. She lowered herself to the grass and began slithering in a circle around herself. "Magic can be useful, and so wonderful - like how it's letting us talk right now - but it can also be very dangerous. Dark magic is the most dangerous. Harry, do you read fairy tales?"
"No. My aunt and uncle never read to me..."
"Well, there are many tales about people who are cursed to be trapped as animals. There is a very famous one about a woman who became a snake - Esmeree, her name was. A welsh princess. She was trapped forever, until she received a kiss that made her human again. That one wasn't a fairy tale: it was real. And I'm the same, Harry. I'm a person, just like you, a witch to your wizard, except...I'm trapped like this now. Living as a serpent."
"if I kissed you can I make you a person again?"
Nagini shook her head at him, and set it down on her coiled body. "That's very sweet of you, but that only works in fairy tales. The real Esmeree never got a kiss; they only wrote that in afterward to make it all happier. She was a Maledictus - that's what I am. A person doomed to be stuck as an animal for the rest of their life."
"That's really sad. I bet you're really lonely now."
"Yes..." Nagini sounded like she was going to cry! "I am." she paused. "But I've found you, harry! Someone I can talk to for the first time in...so very long now! I can't believe it!"
Harry thought harder than he had in his life so far, staring down at her. "If you don't have a home anymore, and you can only talk to me 'cause of my magic...then I'll just take you home with me! You can live with me, and we can talk all the time!"
"That is incredibly compassionate of you - very, very kind - but I couldn't. Muggles would try to kill me if I went anywhere near a house, and I'm sure so would your...aunt and uncle, you said you live with. They wouldn't want me around you."
"Then we won't tell them," Harry said quickly. "We won't even let them see you! We can do it! You don't have to be alone anymore, Nagini. I wont let you be. And if you do come home with me, then I won't be lonely either!"
"How can you be lonely if you have relatives to care for you?" Nagini asked quietly.
"W-well...they don't really like me..." Harry admitted, in whisper. He leaned forward on hands and knees, putting his face close to hers. "Neither does my cousin Dudley. He likes to make fun of me a lot. And my aunt and uncle say I'm a..."
"A what?"
"A lousy good for nothing, a freaky, ungrateful, stupid-"
"Alright, enough!" Nagini hissed loudly, her head lifting high. "I never want to hear you say those things about yourself again," she went on, more calmly. "And if they want to try calling you those things again, I might just eat them."
"You can't - my uncle's really big."
"I've eaten a deer before, Harry. I'm sure I can handle digesting your fat uncle."
Harry found himself grinning a little. "You better not though, or you might get sick."
"Of course. A few nibbles, here and there, then..." Nagini sounded amused. "I'll come home with you, Harry. You won't ever have to feel lonely again. You need that more than me. No child should ever...ever feel that way. And they shouldn't ever be called such words by their family."
Harry beamed. He reached out and patted her head, then stroked her scales. "Thanks! I cant wait to show you my room, and to see the look on their faces when they see you!"
"Yes, I can't wait either," Nagini agreed. "But you'll need to find a very good spot to hide me in your room."
"I can hide you under the bed!"
"That will work, I suppose. Which way is it to your house? And why are you out here alone?" Nagini said slowly, staring at him intently. "Did your relatives...leave you out here?"
"Yes..."
A long, loud hiss and a smack of her tail against the ground. She tossed her head left and right. "I might just take the risk of eating them! What kind of horrible, disgusting, abusive excuses for human beings...Well, the abusive kind, of course," she finished, more to herself than to Harry, it seemed like (Harry had no idea what that word of hers meant - "abusive"). "Show me the way home, harry. We'll have a better chance of sneaking me into your room like this, so at least that's something..."
Harry stood, looking around. He pointed. "I think it's that way."
"All right. Start walking. Stay on the sidewalk, and we can talk while we go. I'll have to stay to the bushes and hedges, though."
"Okay!"
Harry started off, leaving the park behind with Nagini trailing after him. She was fast, really fast!
"THERE'S A GIANT SNAKE IN THE BOY'S CUPBOARD!"
"Now your freakishness has gone too far, boy!" Vernon yelled, grabbing Harry's arm and squeezing it, dragging him into the living room. "You've gone and hocus pocus'd up a bloody dangerous serpent in our house! Around our Dudley! How dare you try and hurt our son, hurt us, after everything we've done for you!"
"I didn't make Nagini, I just met her at the park when you left me there!" Harry cried, squirming.
"Now you accuse us of abandoning you out there? We had more important things to do at the time, that's all!" His aunt shrieked, furious. "If you'd had a little patience we would have come back for you! But you come back now with a giant snake?! I suppose you were going to tell it to eat us, weren't you?!"
"N-no! I told her not to! She said she wanted to but I said no!"
"What do you mean she said no?" Petunia shrilled.
"She talks to me 'cause I'm a w-wizard! She said I have magic and I'm special and-"
His aunt screamed. "NO! I refuse to have this in my life again! I knew you were just like your damn mother and father, but this soon? THIS?! A freaky snake telling you this dangerous nonsense, this- NO!"
Harry stared. "My p-parents were m-magic?"
"Don't you dare use words like that in this house!" his uncle yelled, shaking Harry hard. "Magic is not real, and you are not some- you know what! I won't hear those words again, do you understand me?! Or I'll beat it into you until you've gotten the point!"
"But it's t-true, she talks, she said-"
"SNAKES. DON'T. TALK!" His uncle's fist flew out, smacking Harry in the head.
"OW! She's not a snake she's a person!" Harry cried, sniffling, tearing up and cowering, holding his head.
A loud hissing, a surge of motion, violent and furious across the floor, and then Nagini hurled herself at Harry's uncle! They fell together, her massive body twisting around his, wrapping up his arms as he tried to hit her, to shove her away. Her jaws snapped in his face, her head reared and her eyes fixed on his throat-
"Nagini please don't!" Harry cried, begging. "Please don't hurt him, just don't hurt them! L-let's just go back to our room, please!"
Nagini froze. But she was still poised to strike. Vernon was terrified, laying on the floor with his arms still wrapped up in powerful muscles of a giant serpent. "Tell them that I'm staying with you. Tell them you're going to have the second bedroom upstairs, now. Tell them that they're going to tell everyone else that I'm an exotic family pet. And tell them...that if they ever hit you again, I will eat them in their sleep. Tell them you are a wizard, and you'll use your magic if they don't do what I say."
Harry did his best to repeat it all to his relatives.
He watched their faces go from terrified to furious, and then terrified again. And finally, resigned.
"F-fine! FINE, if you want to use your freakish powers to steal more from us," his aunt snapped, her lower lip trembling. "To steal a room from our Dudley...It's just like you magic folks! You'll keep that m-magic monster of yours up there at all times, I wont have it in the rest of the house! Or we won't give you the room at all! There w-will be no talking snakes around the rest of us! And when Dudley gets back home, you are never to say even a word about talking snakes to him! I won't have you dragging him into this!"
Harry looked at Nagini.
"Tell her I'll accept those terms. I don't want to be around them any more than they do me," Nagini replied.
"She says that's...ok with her."
"Then get up there, NOW," Petunia hissed. "And you're going to clean every inch of it before using it!"
Harry ran upstairs. Nagini unwrapped herself from his uncle, and slithered after him swiftly. He entered the second bedroom, his bedroom now, with disbelief, shutting the door firmly behind him (after letting Nagini in all the way). He went to the dusty bed and sat down on it with a smile.
He laid down properly, sprawled; Nagini slithered up onto the bed beside him, pressing herself to his side.
"I can't believe you got me this," Harry voiced to her gratefully - sincerely. "Thank you!"
"You should have had this all along - and we weren't going to stay in the cupboard," Nagini replied with passion - and compassion. "Don't thank me for getting you what they should have given you from the start."
"Ok," Harry sighed happily. He rolled onto one side and he kissed her on the snout. "But still thanks," he added swiftly, grinning.
"You..." Nagini shook her head at him, then nuzzled his side with her nose.