Milk_Is_My_Drug
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Chapter 124: The Weight Of Isolation
🕑 Added 2025-05-27 07:31:25 +0000 UTCDante stepped forward approaching the giant serpent. He knelt before Nagini, murmuring something under his breath. A soft blue light enveloped her. The entire school held its breath as they watched.
Hermione and Ron rushed toward Harry, who was still standing in confusion and shock. Ron was the first to speak, his voice urgent.
"What is he doing?"
Harry exhaled sharply, watching the scene unfold.
"She suffers from a bloodborne curse, it turned her into a serpent" he explained. "And he can cure it. He told her to step away from Voldemort if she ever wanted to be human again. That she wasn’t at fault for anything she did while being a serpent—especially if it meant holding onto the only person who understood her."
Ron and Hermione listened, their expressions shifting from concern to confusion.
Harry hesitated before adding, "Voldemort… told her to keep her distance. He said that if he survived today, they would finally be able to talk properly. But if he didn’t—" Harry swallowed. "He asked her not to avenge him."
The weight of those words settled heavily over them.
It wasn’t just Ron and Hermione who heard it—many students and professors nearby had also caught Harry’s words. A ripple of shock spread through the crowd.
The idea that Voldemort—the heartless Dark Lord, the monster who had terrorized the wizarding world—had such a human side was beyond their expectations.
Even Dumbledore, who had known Tom Riddle longer than anyone, looked deeply troubled. Regret clouded his blue eyes. How had it come to this? How had Tom walked this path so far that there was no return?
Dante stood up, taking two steps back.
Then, in rapid succession, he cast a series of spells. A silver light engulfed Nagini. Then red. Then green. Then gold.
The onlookers gasped as the transformation began.
Before their eyes, the great serpent shimmered and shifted. Her elongated body shortened, her scales faded, and her form changed until— A woman now stood where the snake had been.
She had Asian features, though streaks of white ran through her dark hair. Her hands trembled as she looked at them in disbelief. Then she slowly turned, her gaze falling upon her legs.
The moment realization hit her, she collapsed to her knees. Tears spilled from her eyes, streaming down her face as sobs wracked her body. For the first time in decades, she was human again.
A heavy silence filled the courtyard.
The students and professors watching from the sidelines felt an unfamiliar ache in their hearts. A curse that stripped someone of their humanity, forcing them to live as an animal for who knows how long—such magic was cruel beyond words.
Then, slow steps echoed through the stillness. Dumbledore stepped forward. His normally composed face was marked with deep emotion as he approached, his eyes locked onto the woman kneeling before him.
In a voice barely above a whisper, he spoke her name.
"Nagini?"
The woman looked up. Her tear-streaked face twisted with emotion as she stared at the man before her.
Her lips trembled. She tried to speak, but her voice broke. Then, in a shaky, stuttering breath, she whispered back:
"A…Al…bus…?"
Dante, standing off to the side, glanced at Dumbledore with mild curiosity.
"You know each other?" he asked. "Then perhaps you should be the one to start communicating with her."
Dumbledore turned his gaze to Dante, silent for a moment before nodding in agreement.
Dante said nothing more. Without another word, he turned and walked away, his presence retreating from the unfolding moment. Dumbledore moved closer to Nagini, lowering himself slightly as he extended a hand, his expression filled with quiet sorrow.
The courtyard remained eerily silent, everything that had happened left them questions and new things to think about.
Today had been a day of endless shocks to the school.
___________
Dante had barely settled back into his office, quill in hand, before the door burst open. Harry stormed in, Ron and Hermione flanking him, their expressions tense.
"That snake is evil!" Harry snapped, his green eyes blazing with anger. "I saw her kill people before! You shouldn’t have turned her into a human!"
Dante didn’t look up immediately. He finished the line he was writing, set the quill down, and finally raised a brow at Harry’s outburst.
"And why are you angry?" Dante asked, his voice calm, unreadable.
Harry clenched his fists. "I saw that snake kill an innocent man! She followed Voldemort around! And you heard it, Voldemort asked her not to avenge him! That means she was loyal to him!"
Dante leaned back in his chair, his silver eyes cool as steel.
"She had no choice," he said. "She did the only thing that made her feel human. Even if just a little."
Harry frowned. "There’s always a choice. She chose to follow him. Chose to help him. Chose to kill for him."
For a moment, Dante was silent. Then, he exhaled through his nose and asked,
"Do you like Hogwarts?"
Harry blinked, taken aback by the sudden question.
"What does that have anything to do with this?"
Dante didn’t answer. Instead, he asked again, his voice slightly colder this time.
"Which do you prefer? Hogwarts or a Muggle school?"
Harry hesitated, sensing the weight behind Dante’s words. "Hogwarts is definitely better. I’d always pick Hogwarts."
Dante nodded, as if satisfied with the answer. Then, his next words sent a shiver through the room.
"Next year, after you graduate, I will take away your magic."
Harry froze. For a second, the room was so silent. Ron and Hermione's faces twisted in horror.
"W-What?" Harry stammered, unable to process what he had just heard.
Dante tilted his head slightly. "Do you accept that?"
Harry’s mind reeled. The idea of losing his magic was terrifying. "No!" he blurted out.
Dante’s lips curved into a slight, knowing smirk. "You experienced magic. You lived this life, and you can't accept letting it go. If you had never known about magic, if you had never come to Hogwarts, your reaction might be different. But now? You know what you’d lose."
Harry opened his mouth but found no words.
Dante’s voice remained steady. "Let me ask you another question. If you had a choice between being a wizard or living with your parents as a Squib, which would you choose?"
Harry flinched at the question.
A choice between magic and his parents?
That was—
"Why are you asking me this?" Harry asked instead, his voice unsteady.
Dante's gaze sharpened. "Choose, Potter. What do you prefer?"
But Harry couldn’t. He wanted to meet his parents. He wanted to have lived with them. But he also wanted to be a wizard. How could he possibly choose?
Dante sighed. "You value the magic you’ve experienced and lived as much as, if not more than the parents you heard about. You don’t miss your parents, Harry. You’re jealous for not having them. But if I take your magic, you will miss it because you’ve lived it."
Harry felt something in his chest tighten.
Dante continued, his voice cool but firm. "Nagini had parents. Family. Friends. Magic. But she was unlucky to be born with a curse that slowly took everything from her. One by one. After decades of isolation and hopelessness, she found the one person who understood her. Who talked to her. To her, Voldemort was everything. And you blame her for that?"
Harry’s lips parted, but no words came out.
"You say there is always a choice," Dante said, his tone growing sharper. "So let me give you one."
Dante leaned forward, his silver eyes cold as winter steel.
"I can kill her and end her evil but in return I will curse you the way she was cursed. Turn you into a snake, where no one will understand you. Your friends will, at best, throw you a rat now and then to keep you alive. Can you accept that for the greater good? Would anyone accept it?"
A shudder ran through Harry. His hands curled into fists at his sides, his heart hammering in his chest. Ron and Hermione stood frozen, Dante’s words suffocating them.
Dante leaned back in his chair, his expression relaxed. "You are not a good person just because you don't do bad things, Potter. You are a good person if you can do bad things, yet choose not to."
Harry lifted his gaze slowly. Dante’s voice dropped, quiet but piercing.
"Similarly, you are not a bad person simply because you did bad things. You are bad if you do them despite having a choice. Nagini is not evil, Potter. She is just a victim. But you… you want to be the villain in her story."
Harry’s head dropped, shame burning through him. He hadn’t thought about it like that. He hadn’t thought at all. The weight of his own words, his own judgments, crashed down on him.
Dante watched him for a long moment. Then, finally, his lips curled into a small, knowing smile.
"As Professor Snape likes to put it, you are a true Gryffindor."
Ron and Hermione felt ashamed, but Harry barely reacted.
Dante picked up his quill again and flicked his wrist toward the door.
"Never underestimate the weight of isolation, the weight of loss, the weight others carry when making their choices. Now, unless you have anything else to say, I still have work to do."
Harry didn’t argue. Without another word, he turned on his heel and left. Ron and Hermione followed silently, their minds still spinning from what Dante had said.
Dante didn't look up again.
But as the door clicked shut behind them, he sighed.
