Nagini: If she's not a Horcrux, what the heck is she?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 171996

Lisa wrote:
> 
> Good question -- I thought I remembered it, and just googled it.  
> According to Wikipedia: "Nagini is a fictional animal from the Harry
Potter series created by JK Rowling. She is a large serpent,
specifically a Brazilian Python who is the loyal pet of the main
antagonist of the series named Lord Voldemort. Lord Voldemort is able
to communicate with her due to an unusual genetic trait that he
recieved from his ancestor named Salazar Slytherin. Both Lord
Voldemort and Harry Potter are able to speak Parselmouth, the language
of snakes."
> Wikipedia, of course, is far from canon.  Perhaps the movie
portrayed Nagini as a python, and that's why it's sticking in my mind?
>
Carol responds:
As you say, Wikipedia is not canon, and Nagini's species is not
identified in canon. The person who wrote this entry may be assuming
that the Brazilian snake in SS/PS is the same snake as Nagini, but
that snake is specifically identified as a boa constrictor. At the
risk of sounding snide toward the author of this entry, he or she is
clearly no HP expert: The language of snakes is not Parselmouth but
Parseltongue. (A Parselmouth is a person who speaks Parseltongue.) So
I'd give this entry about as much credence as I'd give an opinion
expressed by a ten-year-old reader.

We do not know that the snake at the zoo is poisonous, whereas
Nagini's venom is both deadly and magical. We do know that the boa
constrictor is large and brown and capable of winking (evidence that
JKR is no snake expert). The snake seems friendly to Harry and says
"Brazil, here I come. Thankssss, amigo" he leaves. Somehow, I can't
imagine Nagini being that friendly and grateful to any human, even her
master. Nor can I imagine Nagini loose in the streets of London with
nothing about a murderous snake in the Muggle news.

Nagini, in contrast, is definitely poisonous, definitely female (the
snake in SS/PS strikes me as being male though the sex is
unspecified), and definitely evil, not only reporting loyally to her
master but circling the graveyard waiting to eat Harry after Voldemort
kills him. (I believe that LV feeds her his victims, e.g., Bertha
Jorkins, to dispose of the evidence. She's also clearly magical and
shares her master's anti-Muggle prejudices (she tells LV that "an old
Muggle" is standing on the stairs, eavesdropping on LV and Wormtail,
GoF Am. ed. 13). She is described only as "a gigantic snake, at least
twelve feet long" (12). I can't find any other descriptions except
"great snake" and "gigantic snake." (In OoP, Harry is inside the
snake's mind and can't see her.) I don't think we're given a color or
a pattern unless I've overlooked a reference to her, which is quite
posssible. (The snake in the film does look like a python, or a very
oversized rattlesnake, but the filmmakers didn't have much to go on
except their own imaginations.)

It seems unlikely that she's Brazilian as Voldemort seems to have met
her, or rejoined her, in Albania. Her name, of course, suggests that
she's from India. Possibly, LV met her on his earlier travels and
brought her to a hideout in Albania. (She can't be a native species
unless magical snakes are hidden by the same protections as dragons.
Plot hole? Improbability that we're supposed to gloss over?) She could
have been brought to England by Quirrell; I don't think that Wormtail
could have done it since he's not supposed to be seen in human form.

There's a better article on Nagini at answers.com

http://www.answers.com/topic/nagini

which suggests (as I've done independently, with virtually no
response) that Nagini is Voldemort's spirit familiar (which would
certainly explain how he could summon her, as DD summons Fawkes,
without having to deal with the difficulties of transporting a real
snake, even magically). Maybe, like house-elves, she can transport
herself magically, unaffected by Anti-Apparition spells. That would
also explain how she could get into the MoM unnoticed when LV was
possessing her. The answers.com article isn't perfect, stating that
she's "believed to be venomous" and in the next breath mentioning that
her venom makes it difficult for wounds to heal, and although it
mentions Wormtail "milking" her, it doesn't mention that he used her
venom as an ingredient in the potion that created Fetal!mort (GoF
656). It does, however, make the excellent point that she's the
"opposite" of Fawkes, whose tears heal wounds. The article states that
Nagini has a hood like a cobra's, but I can't find any such reference
in canon.

Anyway, I doubt very much that the friendly (male?) boa constrictor
from SS/PS is the same as Nagini, whose personality (so to speak) is
as venomous as her bite.

Carol, hoping that the boa constrictor somehow made it to Brazil but
assuming that he was captured by his keeper (once he recovered from
his shock) and returned to his cage and still expecting Harry to kill
Horcrux!Nagini with the Sword of Gryffindor