Chapter 212 The Decision to Make
What is the meaning of pursuing power?
Professor Cockrell asked Della to give him an answer after Christmas. Della kept thinking about this question on the way back to her new single room.
She, without a doubt, has great potential.
But in the past, she has always restrained her potential due to the supervision of Dumbledore and the restrictions of her friends... um... people around her.
Della does not reject supervision and restrictions, and even thinks that this is how it should be to a certain extent, because the happiness she gets from going to school has basically nothing to do with power.
The pearl hairpin at the beginning had nothing to do with power, the gifts from friends had nothing to do with power, and in the second year, Draco still regarded her as a Muggle-born wizard who needed to be protected.
When power is involved, joy is often gone.
However, happiness is not a substitute for strength. Strength is important because it is something you use to protect yourself.
But beyond self-preservation, what is the meaning of pursuing power?
Della had read a lot of books, both literary and biographical, and in those works, power had two main uses—to get more, or to protect others.
However, I don’t know if it’s due to differences in personal concepts, but during the reading process, Della felt that the second situation could most of the time be classified as the first situation, that is, using the excuse of protecting others to allow oneself to get more.
If the process of obtaining it is harmless and the excuse of protection is implemented, then there is no problem, and human selfishness is legitimate.
But if the process of getting something hurts others, or even hurts the person you say you want to protect, then it is not selfishness but hypocrisy.
So when she uses her power, will it be more selfish or more hypocritical?
After all, what did she want?
Power, wealth, and status are now within Della's reach, and she does not have a strong desire for those things.
In other words, the pursuit of power itself, just like Voldemort -
No, that's not right. Voldemort, who completely opened his soul to the dark arts, was not pursuing power itself, but the irrefutable authority brought by super power.
What Voldemort wants is a permanent sense of supremacy.
Della is not interested in this kind of thing. She doesn't think that "eternal one-person game" is a picture worth aspiring to.
Or is the goal to become powerful enough to defeat Voldemort?
Della had thought about this. Perhaps the dark magic of changing the soul could help her get rid of the restriction that "alchemical items cannot harm the creator". Unlimited manifestation might also allow her to defeat Voldemort in terms of strength.
But she subconsciously didn't want to do that. Admittedly, her appearance and personality came from Voldemort, and she was even enjoying Voldemort's fame now, but did she have to target Voldemort in the future and have her entire life be related to Voldemort?
Rather than seeking power for a specific person, Della would rather seek supremacy over everything.
In Della's view, manifestation is not as simple as simply pursuing power and maintaining sanity. It can be a beginning or an end. As long as she takes this step, her soul in every sense will change.
Della had not practiced the Dark Arts specifically since Voldemort was driven away in her first year.
On the one hand, the bad example of being overly obsessed with black magic is right in front of her, and she doesn't want to become a parasite; on the other hand, her talent is not limited to this. Della has many areas that she can go deeper into, and those areas may not be as powerful as black magic, but what's the point of her being so powerful?
For Della, there is no point in pursuing power.
Is she really going to manifest?
Is this the beginning of my journey to transform my soul and study the dark arts?
Or did she believe that manifestation could limit her unlimited potential, nip something in the bud - this was the end.
This was not a decision that could be made one step at a time. Della could not allow an ambiguous middle ground to exist.
But for a person who appears two-faced and is actually two-faced, after making a decision, can her inner self, which she never shows, really be so firm?
Della thought about it all the way, but when she walked into the sealed room that Karkaroff built specifically for her, she still had no idea in her mind.
There are two areas in the sealed room, the alchemy and magic experiment area outside, and a living room with complete facilities and a small storage room inside.
Because the first thing to do when arriving at Durmstrang is to use the Sadolin experiment to see how to make Maggie an adult, Della estimated that once the experiment began, she would have to keep a close eye on her for a long time and could not be disturbed, so she asked Karkaroff to build her such a closed room.
It would also be a good venue for manifestation.
.....
Della didn't really want to take this step.
The sealed room was luxuriously and neatly decorated, and even the alchemical equipment was shining with a layer of gold. Maggie, who had grown to about one meter tall, had already put everything in order. Seeing Della coming back, Maggie half-straightened up on the laboratory table and said, "Hashi-Assa (there is also a dressing table full of jewelry in the living room)."
"After all, Karkaroff can't afford to build this place." Della looked at Apep, who was locked in the birdcage with Ange, and then looked at Sadolin, who was obediently lying on Maggie's tail. She sighed and walked over to coax Apep out. "Mr. Jonas said he had prepared some gifts for me at the banquet."
Jonas, the name on the list. Maggie nodded, satisfied with his tact. "Hai-Xi (Who did Karkaroff take you to see)?"
"A professor who used to be - maybe even now considers himself a member of the Witch Party," Della revised her description of Cockerell, thinking of his hostility towards Dumbledore. "He taught me a new concept."
Della was a little reluctant to tell Maggie about the manifestation, but she knew she would tell him.
"Hai-(what)?" Maggie asked Della.
"Manifestation." Della lowered her eyes and explained to Maggie.
After hearing this, Maggie's orange eyes flashed, "Haishi-Sasa (You should do this, even after I become a human, I should do this)."
The reason why he didn't want to tell Maggie was that he would always point out things that she should have known she should have done from the beginning, from a perspective similar to his own.
Maggie is always the one who pushes Della to always be right.
"Yes, I should do this..." Della looked at Maggie's eyes that were gradually turning vertical, and did not refute. "When he doesn't know that we can't just kill him, nothing can comfort him better than the power of 'limited' and 'unlimited'."
The moment she understood the mechanism of manifestation, Della determined that this was the best option.
But no matter where the part she chose to manifest was, no matter how much benefit the manifestation brought her, when she did the thing she resisted because of Voldemort, the permanent mark that Voldemort left on Della Riddle was manifested in a concrete form.
She just didn't want to admit that Della Riddle's entire life had long been inevitably tied to Voldemort.