Chapter 100. Garden Underground.
The path was far longer than he had expected, and without the boost from wind magic and the leather armour, they would not have reached the end of the gorge until evening.
At last, after an hour and a half, light appeared ahead, far brighter than the artificial glow of the crystals near water sources.
Severus did not relax. He threw up another barrier, because he had no idea what waited there. What if the serpent had left a trap for uninvited guests?
Once he was sure it was an exit, he slowed to a walk. The barrier around him hummed faintly, responding to the thick magic in the air, and Severus kept his focus tight, ready to reinforce it at the first sign of danger.
"Stay alert," he said sharply, trying to make out what lay beyond the glare.
"I know," Nagini replied, squinting toward the mouth of the gorge. Her eyesight was a little worse than Severus's. Where he could already make out shapes, she saw only blinding light, so she focused on their surroundings instead.
When they finally reached the end, they stopped right on the threshold. Nagini felt only confusion at the sight that opened up. Severus froze in genuine shock, and for a heartbeat he did not even breathe. Then, coming back to himself, he gave a crooked smile, pulled between two impulses. On one hand, he wanted to take it for himself. On the other, he understood that doing so could destroy this country and, worse, expose magic to the whole world. He crushed the greedy thought immediately and forced his attention onto everything around them.
Before them stretched a colossal cavern. At its centre floated a diamond-shaped crystal the size of a nine-storey building, casting a warm glow that lit the entire space like a bulb in a small room. Roots held it in place from above and below. Around it spread a true green garden: trees, flowers, herbs, shrubs. The air was warm and damp, heavy with pollen and the sharp, clean bite of raw magic. It was paradise for any potioneer or herbologist. A river ran through the middle, fed by a waterfall pouring from the ceiling.
And yet Severus's eyes kept drifting back to the crystal.
"What is it?" Nagini asked, noticing where he kept looking.
"A magic storage," Severus answered with a weary sigh. Even in my world, that would be priceless.
"And what does it do?"
"It feeds the entire barrier, drawing magic from inside and outside, storing the excess like a reservoir and releasing it where the enchantments need it. If you break it, you know exactly what happens."
"Severus... you will not..." Nagini understood in an instant what he had been considering. Just as Severus had learned her, she had learned him, and she could read him from half a glance.
"I thought about it. I want it, badly," Severus admitted. "But I am not that inhuman. I might not care about them, but I am not going to arrange genocide over a passing obsession."
That calmed her a little, though she still kept her eyes on him, which made Severus smile.
"Come on. Let us have a look around," he said, ruffling her head. Severus stepped into the garden and began examining the plants with mild interest, searching for whatever had pushed that serpent into evolving toward a dragon. Still, an incredible place. The magic here is the same as in the ents' forest, and I doubt nature did this. Someone hauled that crystal down here and tied it into the barrier. Whoever did it was definitely Archmage-level or above. The enchantments are too advanced. So the theory that the magic of the past was stronger, and the wizards with it, might actually be true.
He had already scanned the area with magic and found nothing interesting except the barrier surrounding the crystal. Naturally, nobody would leave something like this unguarded.
Still, among the countless ordinary herbs and rarities long believed extinct, he found white aconite growing between two small trees. The flower looked innocent, almost delicate, but Severus knew how fast a mistake with it could stop a heart. It was a deadly plant, like regular aconite, but with white petals instead of purple. Besides being thought extinct, it was also one of the ingredients in Nagini's potion that Voldemort had just given him.
"Nelly," Severus called.
Nelly appeared at once, smoothing her white robe and staring up anxiously. "How is the serpent?"
"Master, the serpent will survive. The blood loss is recovering quickly, and the wounds have already closed completely."
"Good." Severus produced a box and handed it to her. "Collect every herb you recognise."
"Yes!" Nelly went to work immediately.
Severus kept walking through the garden, which was more like a small forest, though there were not quite enough trees to earn that name.
He had noticed long ago, on the far side of the cavern, a small tree bearing orange fruits like peaches. The pack leader had eaten one of those and grown stronger, gaining intelligence.
Severus did not believe the serpent would hand a wolf something so valuable, something tied to its own evolution. And if you looked closely, no more than two dozen fruits had been picked from the tree. He barely felt any magic from them either, as if they were ordinary peaches, but the moment one landed in his hand, he saw the runes set crosswise into the peel.
He had seen that sort of thing in his previous life. They were called miracle fruits. The more stripes with symbols, the stronger the effect, because each band was a sealed rune-pattern baked into the peel. That was also why he doubted the serpent had relied on these. A fruit with only two stripes was nearly useless, giving almost nothing. Miracle fruits were ranked from first to ninth by the number of stripes. A second-rank fruit was nowhere near enough to push an ordinary serpent toward becoming a dragon. At minimum, it would take a seventh-rank, perhaps an eighth, the kind that could even help a Great Archmage refine a core to its peak.
So only two conclusions made sense: either the serpent had hidden whatever truly helped it evolve, or it had already consumed everything, and that was why Severus could not find anything here with magic.
Still, even if two-striped fruits were trash in his world, in this one they could be a gift from the heavens. Here, even a tiny push could decide whether someone stayed prey or became a threat. A fruit with four stripes had once ended up in his own hands and helped him reach Master rank. So for Severus they were close to useless, but for ordinary wizards and magical beasts, they could mean a tremendous leap.
There were many kinds of miracle fruits. Some strengthened elemental affinity, others physical strength, others magic. This variety, judging by what it did to the pack leader, most likely boosted mental strength and a little magic. That was why the wolf had gained intelligence. And the serpent, after eating nearly a dozen, had squeezed out the maximum: its mind became humanlike, it learned speech, and it gained something resembling Legilimency and Occlumency.
Even these things had limits. Twelve fruits, and after that they stopped working, no matter how many more you ate.
Severus intended to eat a couple himself, just not now. Later, after he tested them on someone, preferably someone sturdy enough to survive a surprise reaction. People and beasts were built differently, so the fruit might affect them in different ways.
After circling the place three times over the course of an hour, Severus still found nothing, and for the last ten minutes he had been frowning. He tried to follow the serpent's tracks, but that was pointless. They were everywhere, overlapping, smudged, and broken by the water. More than once during the search he wanted to give the almost-dragon a proper thrashing for trampling so many ingredients underfoot, including unique specimens, as if it had been doing it deliberately. By then, Nelly had finished collecting everything of value, including the miracle fruits and the tree itself, which Severus planned to plant near the house. A few minutes later, they left the garden.
"Looks like my worst fear was right. The serpent devoured everything."
"It is not a disaster. We can look a bit further," Nagini said, with a hint of relief, sliding her tail along his back.
"It is pointless. I have searched everywhere. If we have to, we will gut the serpent and do a ritual, like with the basilisk," Severus said, shaking off the irritation and forcing his smile back. Nagini was so revolted by the idea that if she had been human she would have turned green, remembering how they had shoved that monster's eyes into her mouth, and the taste.
"Listen! I was starting to think being a snake is not so bad after all!"
"How thoughtful of you, saving me the work. Do not worry, I will do it for you."
Nagini's right eye twitched.
"You know what I meant."
"Yes, and I decided to play along," Severus said calmly, not embarrassed in the slightest. "I know you hate it, but you have to grow stronger. I do not want to worry about your life every second, and I want you to be able to protect yourself. Anything can happen, and if something separates us, I will be worried, and I cannot afford that distraction in a fight. Do you understand?" he finished more sternly, the smile gone, as if scolding a stubborn child.
"Yes. Sorry, it is just... they were disgusting," Nagini muttered, looking away.
"Do not worry. The next one will be easier."
"And what will it be?"
"Heart or brains. Your choice," Severus said, and Nagini froze with her mouth open.
"How is that easier?! And please tell me it will not be raw?!"
"If you cook them, the ritual will not work."
"Well..."
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