Hey there! How are you all? Well, I am good now and hopefully won't encounter anymore problems that force me to not work on electronic devices. And so, here is the promised chapter! Hope you enjoy!!

Previously
"She might lose her magic forever."

Let's begin

"What do you mean she might lose her magic forever!?" Sirius and Percy asked together, horrified. Nico just gave them a grim and resigned look.

While thinking that she'd die, Sirius had been distressed. But it was ,somehow, still fathomable. Losing his magic was not something he had thought possible before. Being stripped of your powers, of the very thing that made you a wizard and different from other mundane humans was, to put it very lightly, nauseating.

And now his goddaughter, the girl he had sworn to protect the moment she was born, might suffer from something so rattling just because that No-nosed bastard had decided to play split-apart with his soul.

"But why? Can't we just go to a curse-breaker or an Unspeakable to get the job done? Or better yet, have the Goblins take a look at her scar?" Percy asked. "No Percy. The curse-breakers cannot destroy a horcrux without the use of fiendfyre, which will kill Cressida. And the Unspeakables would simply take a lot of time to first, believe us and then research on what can be done.

As for the Goblins, they might be very secretive and have different methods of dealing with things, even they cannot create a potion so powerful that it could purge a human body of something as vicious as a dark and tainted soul. I am saying that she might lose her magic because what I am going to do will require a lot of magical energy and that has to be from her core itself. Her soul should be strong enough to let the other latched upon itself be wrenched away.

Because if I am not wrong, the only time it could've been possible was when she had been attacked for the first time. That would make the two souls, at the very least, tolerant of each other seeing as they have co-existed for 15 years now. It all comes down to her magical prowess and willpower."

"So, her core strength would decide if she gets to keep her magic or not?" Sirius couldn't help but ask. "Yes Lord Black. That and how much she wants the the soul leeching on her gone.

How are we going to explain all this to Heiress Potter, though?" Nico said. "You leave that to me." Percy spoke and Sirius knew it will be taken care of.

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Cressida couldn't wrap her head around what all Percy and Sirius had just told her. She was a Horcrux. A container for the Dark Lord's soul made after the cold-blooded murder of her parents. She was a vessel for something more evil than Satan himself.

And nothing could help her except for either death or death magic. Which Nico Di Angelo, apparently, was gifted in. It all seemed so so funny now. She should have been dead all these years because there is no way in hell that Dumbledore hadn't known. He should've killed her when she was a babe and the world would've been spared of her miserable existence.

And so arose the questions, had Dumbledore really groomed her with her death in mind? That she'd, one day, willingly sacrifice her life for the good of all others? Had he known that Sirius was innocent and still got him imprisoned? Had he been the one to Confound  The Jackson- Olympias into thinking that she was dead before Percy found her in Diagon? Was everything she'd known to be true until today staged by him for The Greater Good?

Suddenly, she felt a hysterical laugh bubble past her lips. She laughed and laughed as tears cascaded down her cheeks. Why me?

She felt warm hands pull her into an embrace, pine and musk. Sirius. She felt herself clutch onto his shirt as he rocked the two of them. Her, angry and hysterical and him, understanding and comforting.

After what felt like hours, she felt darkness drag her under.

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Cressida couldn't help but fidget as they all waited for Nico to arrive. It had taken her a week to come to terms with the fact that she had only two options to choose from. Either die or Risk Losing her Magic. Neither seemed comfortable enough to choose from.

While she'd never been afraid of death, she still had a lot of things to do and couldn't just accept it like that. And her magic was what made her Cressida Potter. What signified that her parents had indeed been magical and she was a part of them.

Life or Magic. What could she not part with? In the end, after a lot of contemplation, she'd had decided to pull on her Gryffindor bravery and risk the ritual. After all there was only a minuscule chance of complete depletion of her core, right?

As clock ticked by, she grew more and more nervous. What if I died even during this ritual? What if I really lost my magic and became a squib? What if Nico wasn't able to get rid of the soul? What if-

"....idda. Cressida?" She was flung out of her thoughts by Uncle P, who had been shaking her shoulder for quite some time. "Nico is here, kiddo." She smiled sheepishly at him before standing up and heading to the the rune circle drawn in the middle of the hall. She looked at Nico, who looked like he would rather be anywhere than here.

"Lie down in the middle of the circle and close your eyes. I'll do the rest." She gave him a jerky nod before following through. Within a few minutes, she felt someone sitting beside her, their body hovering over her face.

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Sirius could only stand back and watch as Nico sat by his goddaughter and drew a darker than night blade from its sheath. He realised that it was made of same metal as the sword strapped to the boy's hip all the time. He dipped the smallish blade in a bowl full of a pale green liquid that he recognised as the one that Percy had poured in Cressida's mouth, one drop at a time.

Nico started to murmur under his breath as he very slowly touched the tip of the blade to Cressida's scar. When he was done chanting in whatever language he had, he slowly pushed the blade into her skull. He could only stare in shock and horror as his child writhed and screamed at the sudden intrusion of the sharp device.

He didn't care if this interrupted the ritual but he wasn't going to watch as his kiddo let out those torturous screams. He ran headfirst into the circle only to be flung back into the wall. There was a barrier around the circle! He could only helplessly watch as tears streamed down Cressida's cheeks and her body shook violently.

A lifetime later, something black started to seep out of her forehead, bubbling as it did. Nico begun to chant again as the black misty fluid started to disappear. When no more fluid could be seen, Nico pulled the blade out and poured the remaining green liquid onto her forehead.

As soon as the boy stepped back, Sirius ran over to his goddaughter and hugged her, hard. She'd passed out of pain and exhaustion. He stood up and looked at Nico pleadingly to answer the unspoken question.

"She should be fine in a few hours. Her magic is very strong and her core was practically brimming. So, yeah, she might not be able to practice hexes or spells for a week or so but there will be no permanent damage."

And Sirius let himself breathe.