It was dark. This was mainly because it was night time, but also because there were no windows in the room. There was no furniture in the room, either. The room was almost empty. There was only one thing in the room. And this thing was a snake. A particularly large snake, actually. Her name was Nagini, the serpent servant of the Dark Lord, Lord Voldemort, who would be known as Voldy to his friends, if he had any (and he didn’t, but he didn’t really care; he was more interested in global domination, like all other evil masterminds). Nagini was on her own, although you’d probably already guessed that, because I just told you that she was the only thing in the room. She didn’t know where her master had gone “ he never told where he went, anyway, but Nagini guessed that he’d gone to do something quite evil, which was what he always did when he was bored.
Anyway, Nagini was thinking. She tended to do this a lot nowadays, as she was on her own a lot. If she were a normal snake, most of her thoughts would have been like this: when’s my next meal coming? Or, mmmm.... that was tasty.
Nagini, however, no longer thought like that (although she was getting hungry). No, she thought about much better things than that. At the moment, she was wondering how she could escape from this pitch-black room. She was rather fond of her master, but she was getting a little bored of him. To tell the truth, the most fun she’d had in her life was during the time when Master had just disappeared. Then, he suddenly came back, and she was drawn to him like a moth is drawn to a flame, or an iron filing is drawn to a magnet, or a fish is drawn to that bait dangling underwater on a bit of string...sorry. I got a little carried away there.
But she had had a lot of fun, hanging out with the adders and the grass snakes, and eating poor, unsuspecting toads. So “ how could she escape?
The door to the room was locked, of course. If it hadn’t been, she would have slithered off ages ago. Her master had taken to locking the door whenever he went out nowadays, instead of letting her slither around the house, and sometimes the surrounding countryside. She hadn’t told him that she wanted to leave (he wouldn’t have let her leave, even if she had asked), but he must have guessed what she was thinking, and locked her in the dark, empty room with nothing to do except slither round or meditate.
With a long, drawn-out creak, a door opened, bringing Nagini out of her reverie. Master must be back. Finally. She uncoiled herself and slithered over to the locked door, waiting patiently for it to open again.
Eventually, after what seemed like days, although it was actually only two minutes, Nagini heard the sound of the key turning in the lock. She grinned her fanged grin when the door slowly opened, to reveal master, complete with his pale face and snake-like eyes, and...Nagini sighed. She’d hoped that master wouldn’t bring back some of his friends. It wasn’t as though she was scared of them. Oh, no. None of them could compare to the evil that was Lord Voldemort. It was just that master seemed to prefer his human servants to her, his loyal Nagini. And there they were, Bellatrix, Lucius, and co., looking down at her and sneering.
She wondered where they’d all been. She couldn’t guess “ she had no idea where they ever went. No one ever told Nagini anything. This was because they couldn’t speak parseltongue, but even if they could, they still wouldn’t have told her anything. It was prejudice. Snakism, even.
Oh well. Nagini just lay there on the floor and listened to the humans talking to each other. She knew they couldn’t talk to her, and had no idea what she said when she was talking (it just seemed like hissing to them), but she could understand them, and knew what they were saying.
“Where is Pettigrew, sir?” asked Lucius, the one with the girly hair. “I’d expected him to be here.”
Lord Voldemort grinned his evil grin. He rarely grinned, because he sometimes scared himself when he did it. “Ah. Wormtail. I was going to tell you about him “ that’s why I summoned you all here tonight.”
There was a long period of silence. If Voldemort hadn’t been one of the most evil wizards to have ever lived, someone would have said, “Are you going to tell us then?” But no one did. They were too scared. So they just waited patiently instead.
“This is another of my marvellous plans,” Voldemort continued at last. “Personally, I think it’s one of my best plans yet. Of course, this is another plan to get Harry Potter and kill him, but that goes without saying.” The Death Eaters all nodded obediently. “I kidnapped Mrs. Norris, the feline companion of Argus Filch, the squib caretaker of Hogwarts, and brought her here, to this house. That was the first part of my plan. I won’t go into details, but I managed to...persuade her to help me. She does belong to the caretaker, as I said, so she knows her way round the school better than anyone else. Which is why I recruited her. I sent her with Pettigrew to the school, and between them, they shall be able to kidnap Harry Potter, and I shall finally be able to kill him!” And with that, he started laughing.
He stopped suddenly, and looked down at Nagini, who was still lying on the floor, looking up at the humans in front of her. “Oh, hello there, my darling Nagini,” he said, in parseltongue. “Sorry about that. I’d completely forgotten you were here. Come, my dear. Join us outside.”
Outside? Master was letting her outside? It had been days, week, months even since she had lain eyes on the outside world. And now he was inviting her outside. Something smelt fishy. And it definitely wasn’t Nagini, because she was allergic to fish.
Still, she might as well go outside. Just to see what it was like, to check if it had changed since she’d last been Out There. She didn’t think it had, but she should just check. And if it was as good as she remembered, then she’d be off, faster than well-greased lightning.
Master was already walking off, followed closely by his Death Eaters. Nagini slithered after them, and followed them along the corridor, down the stairs, and into the hall. Master, at the other end of the room, had opened the door, and was beckoning to Nagini. She slithered closer to him and stopped at his feet.
“Go on,” he said, in parseltongue again. “Go outside, Nagini.”
She looked at him questioningly, then did a snake shrug (which looks more like a wriggle, to tell you the truth), and went outside, into a small garden. Nagini looked back to see why master wasn’t coming out as well, and saw that he was still standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe and smiling his terrifying smile.
“Farewell,” he said to Nagini, once again in parseltongue. “I don’t need you any more…”
He slammed the door in Nagini’s scaly face. Silence reigned in the garden for a few moments, and then Nagini heard the key turning in the lock. She was locked out. Nagini was suddenly very angry. She had been locked out! By her master, of all people! Well, if he thought he could get rid of her so easily, he was wrong. Very wrong indeed. She coiled up on the doorstep, waiting for someone to open the door. The Death Eaters would have to leave eventually, after all.