Chapter 241 Della's Confession
After the first day of frankness, Della officially moved into Leah's house. Since most things had been pushed to Maggie before, Della, who only needed to check Yin Xin, officially began her short and leisurely vacation.
Every day, I sleep until I wake up naturally, read one or two books at random, and when I get tired of reading, I go find two little snakes to play with. In the afternoon, Leah, who has just finished catching up on her sleep, accompanies me to the shooting club to practice shooting and go shopping. Life couldn't be more relaxed and happy than this.
"I'll be back a little later tonight," Leah, who had returned from the shooting club with Della, sat down on the sofa in the living room. She subconsciously took out a cigarette and put a mint candy into her mouth to suppress her craving for cigarettes. "I'll get up a little later tomorrow, too."
"The weather is getting hotter," Della said, understandingly. Although she had never been to the bar run by Leah, she had seen the bright lights and nightlife there from afar. "There must be more customers."
"Yes, they are all dressed better," Leah said with a smile. She watched Maxine bring a plate of fruit and took a bright red tomato. "Before the holiday, the people who come are more diverse."
As she spoke, she started to eat a tomato. Leah loved eating tomatoes, a vegetable that was nutritious, convenient and most of the time cheap. Although she now had the money to make more choices and the tomatoes in the wealthy areas were not that cheap, she was still more accustomed to eating tomatoes.
"Will it be busy?" Della paused while taking off her gloves. She was a little worried that she would interfere with Leah's work and rest. "Should I have more rest time?"
"Idle time has to be wasted," Leah, who always spent her vacations in a muddle, pouted and shook her head, having a high level of awareness of her own undemanding nature. "Why not accompany you to the club? Teaching you how to shoot will also help me become more skilled. My boss said that when you can teach things as a teacher, you will become even more powerful."
Della found that when Leah was talking about something, she would always say "my boss". It can be seen that Leah respects that boss very much. The person who could make Leah so convinced must be a very wise person.
"That makes sense." Della, who always didn't like to argue, nodded in response to Leah's words and continued to take off her gloves. This pair of gloves was specially made for her to practice shooting. The recoil of the ladies' gun was still too great for an alchemist's hands that needed protection. If conditions permitted, Della would not compromise herself. She only followed Leah to the shooting club after the shock-proof gloves were made.
As for why I practiced shooting, well... it just came from the admiration for western novels I read when I was a child. Although the themes of those novels were freedom and madness, being able to touch a gun seemed to give me a little taste of that freedom.
"Don't talk about that. What's so good about work?" Leah waved her hand. She looked at Della expectantly. "Are we going to the study?"
The study is where they share their experiences. Due to the special nature of Leah's job and her strong sense of personal confidentiality, most of the time it is Della who uses magic to introduce her to the magical world in an immersive way.
"Have you prepared the cake up there?" Della smiled and stood up cooperatively. "Today we can talk about the government and the courts."
"It's not very academic, is it?" Leah, who had no knowledge at all, frowned. She preferred to listen to the flexible classes at Hogwarts, the rare goods in Diagon Alley and the unknown magical creatures in the wild.
"Believe me, satire is always interesting in any society." Especially since she is an eyewitness.
"That's right, you're always interesting when you talk." Leah liked Della's conversation without any intention of showing off. She stood up, put one hand on her shoulder and twisted her neck, and after telling Maxine who was cleaning to take a break, she went upstairs with Della.
When going upstairs, Della glanced at Maxine calmly, who was keeping her head down and looking obedient. She had tried to talk to this maid in the past two days, but the response she got was polite and cold. She was a rare person who was hard to see through at first glance.
As soon as she entered the study, Leah went to get some wine. She was addicted to cigarettes and alcohol, and she usually didn't stop. She would smoke and drink as long as it didn't interfere with her work. However, she took into consideration that Della was an underage girl, so she forced herself not to smoke in front of Della and tried to drink less.
She was just trying her best. Without cigarettes and alcohol, Leah really couldn't muster the energy to work.
In front of Della was black tea and chocolate cake, and on the cart next to her was a snack tower. In addition to various cakes, Maxine also carefully placed some cookies with the flavor of Leah.
"We call the government of the wizarding world the Ministry of Magic. The laws and notices of the Ministry of Magic are effective, and it is considered a real government." Della took a sip of tea. "But the Ministry of Magic that I personally feel is a collection of corruption, bribery and factionalism."
"It's the same as what we have here. Um, a department that I still don't quite understand is here to do the work?" Leah had some say in this. In her impression, after the news hyped up some laws to be implemented, the laws would always be delayed and then changed or disappeared.
In the past, she didn't care at all because she couldn't even make ends meet. After all, as long as it didn't involve the expulsion of vagrants, it had nothing to do with her. Now, because she has to pay more taxes, she always has to ask when the tax amount changes, and the first thing she asks is what reforms have been made.
It seems like a lot of things have changed, but life hasn’t gotten much better.
"On the surface, the only people who deal with government affairs are the Minister of Magic and the heads of departments like Diplomacy and Law. However, there are Aurors in the Department of Law Enforcement," Della briefly introduced the Ministry of Magic. "Aurors are combatants, elite combatants, but there is no clear boundary for what kind of missions they are required to perform."
"It's said that we are fighting against the dark arts, which refers to the magic crimes that the wizarding world generally believes to be evil. However, judging whether a case involves the use of dark magic is just a matter of a word from the superiors," Della curled her lips, "No one knows how many ordinary cases are classified as dark magic incidents."
"Will it be any different if I go back?" Leah was puzzled. In her understanding, Aurors still had to deal with things after all.
"The authority is different. The authority to interrogate and convict is higher than that of investigators, who are the people who handle ordinary cases."
"Exclude dissidents!" Leah immediately shouted out the words she had heard from her boss.
"If you are caught by the Aurors, you may not be convicted, but most of them will be half dead because the Aurors can use painful black magic to interrogate people," Della added, "So in recent years, the Ministry has also been giving investigators more weight and increasing restrictions on the deployment of Aurors."
"Let me guess. Those who come from the Law Enforcement Department tend to be Aurors. Others, especially those who are afraid of being liquidated, tend to be investigators!" Leah expressed her guess. After getting Della's nod of affirmation, she snapped her fingers with a proud look on her face, feeling proud of herself for being quick to understand.
"The magic world also has these twists and turns," Leah sighed after being proud. She leaned back on the sofa, and her impression of the magic world was slightly worse. "It seems that even if you know magic, you can't do without money and power."
"We are all members of the society, what's the difference?" Della forced a laugh out of her throat, with a sarcasm on her face that Leah had never seen before.
"You said before that you were kicked out of the country," Leah sensed something from Della's expression and immediately remembered what Della had said to her before, "You won't become the unlucky one caught in the middle, will you?"
"No way..." Leah shook her head, "You are only 14 years old, even if, even if you have a father like that, you shouldn't be..."
"Something happened in my school a year ago. I was a victim and a suspect. I was taken to the Ministry of Magic for investigation by an investigator," Della continued, confirming Leah's guess. "A lot of things happened in between. To sum it up, an interrogator somehow found out my background and determined that I was the criminal. She tried every possible way to convict me. Under her manipulation, I was brought to court."
"I only found out later. Although I was brought in by the investigator, who also advocated my innocence, the various people who heard about my background were eager to know the truth. So, whether they were against my father or supported my father in the past, they pushed for the trial to begin. It was an exception and the trial was transferred to the Auror side."
Leah frowned when she heard this, she remembered that Della mentioned that Aurors had higher authority to convict.
"If convicted, a 13-year-old child won't go to jail, but he will definitely be imprisoned, and his use of magic will be restricted," Della continued. She looked calm, as if she was just talking about something that had nothing to do with her. "I might be kept under guard until I die."
boom--
The wine glass in Leah's hand was crushed by her, the flying glass shards scratched her hand, and the wine mixed with scarlet blood fell all over the floor.
"Leah!" Della screamed, and her indifferent expression finally became lively again. She walked over and cast magic. Glass shards flew into the trash can and the liquid on the ground evaporated in an instant. Finally, Della held Leah's injured hand, and the wound healed in an instant.
Leah now felt nauseous at the sight of this magic that always excited her.
Just because you have an extra magic, you can look down on a little girl and persecute her with justification?
Leah's face turned ugly, and she was full of dirty words, but she swallowed them all because of Della in front of her. "You were not convicted in the end, but you were still kicked out, right?" She was so angry that she exhaled while speaking.
Della was silent for a while, nodded slowly, and immediately explained to Leah, "To be honest, I had a pretty good year. I met some very good friends and had some good teachers, but - but -"
Della wanted to comfort Leah, but when she started talking, she couldn't control herself and tears welled up in her eyes. "It feels terrible to be left out."
This was the first time she had spoken out like this since the trial that changed everything.
Leah is not from the wizarding world, so she won't look at her with the preconceived notion of being the daughter of the Dark Lord.
"I have been cursed. I cannot stay in the wizarding world of Country Y or meet my wizard friends in Country Y. The coldness deep in my bones will force me to stay away from everything I am familiar with, miss, and love."
Della in front of the wizard and Della in front of Maggie both calmly accepted their current situation of exile. She also knew clearly that even if she was not exiled, with her title as the daughter of Voldemort, everything that was familiar, missed and loved would be changed.
What's more, Maggie was not someone she could show weakness to, and Della was even less likely to act weak in front of other wizards.
But is Della really as calm in her heart as she appears to be?
"This is too torturous..." Della's voice fell silent, "The coldness from the inside out can hardly suppress my hatred."
How can I not hate it?
How can I not lament the unfairness of fate?
Is she willing to be Voldemort's blood daughter?
But who cares what she thinks?
Fear, hatred and greed were things she had to accept.
"Sometimes, I even think about how to torture them, torture those who bring hatred to me, but they are just pitiful people." Della's eyes were already very moist, and she spoke with a tearful tone. One of her eyes kept flashing dark blue. As she spoke, she suddenly laughed, and laughed several times in a row, and tears welled up in her eyes.
"But what could I have done wrong?"
She finally shouted it out, and Leah pulled Della into her arms, patting her trembling back gently.
"You're not wrong, Della." Leah was still furious as she hugged the girl, but the anger was tinged with sadness, which strangely calmed her down. "You should torture them too. Aren't they forcing you to be the one to torture them?"
"If you are angry, just let it out. Don't bear it any longer, Della."
Listening to Leah's low voice above her head, Della buried herself deeper in Leah's arms, trying to bury all the weakness on her face, but her tears kept coming out and she could not control her weakness this time at all.
But apart from this rare weakness, Della is still Della. After venting her grievances, she felt much more relieved, and her first thought was to erase Leah's memory of the fragile Della Riddle.
She just couldn't control herself just now. She shouldn't be like this. She shouldn't be so weak in front of outsiders.
That wouldn't be Della Riddle to be weak like that.
Della, who was still crying, moved her fingers. Not only did she think so, but she also really wanted to do it. It would be ok to be unrestrained for once, but she still had to erase all traces afterwards. Leah was a Muggle, and she would do it very cleanly.
clang-
The sound of the door being opened forcefully stopped Della from casting magic on Leah. A tall man with a playful look on his face rushed in, and Leah's face immediately darkened.