Chapter 22
"My lord, let me take care of this business! I will definitely find that bastard and bring him to you!" Bella said, standing up and looking confidently at the noseless man, and Snape breathed a sigh of relief. 'Apparently, at that time she didn't notice it ... sigh! And I forgot that this cube, when activated, immediately goes into invisibility until it is hit or the magic ends, and this function does not work for me as the owner, and how can I forget this this ... if I only saw how this toy works, and I almost didn't pay attention to it, eh ... a holey head, although ... if a Wizard like Bella concentrates on her surroundings, then she will be able to see it quite well, but, remembering how furious she was, it's unlikely whether she managed to notice something,' the Archmage thought embarrassedly, but still did not bother himself with this.
"Hmm… Okay, I'm giving you this task, but if you dare to fail the task…!"
"My Lord! I will definitely find the one who distributes those artifacts and…"
"Don't kill him, but bring him here: such talented artifacts shouldn't disappear on the side of that old man."
"As you command, my lord!" - the woman murmured with excitement, not taking her eyes off the dark Wizard, like a puppy who saw her parents for the first time, catching his every word and look.
"Hmm ... and what did she find in him ..." again glancing at the self-named Voldemort, Snape only sighed in disappointment. "Women still have strange tastes these days. Maybe Lich is in fashion now? Yes, and this Dark Lord ... one continuous inferior disappointment. What was the point of tearing your soul apart, because this will only harm the magic core and he will not be able to work at full strength,"
***
The very next day, from early morning, the Archmage stood in the training room, holding a jar of dark green mixture in his hands, and as soon as he opened it, a minty smell wafted into the air.
"What kind of masochism is this, even if you don't get used to it," the young man grumbled and, throwing back his head, began to eat the contents.
A few seconds later, the Wizard's face twisted due to the intense heat in the chest area, the former pallor was replaced by redness, and veins swelled all over the body.
Snape's figure was surrounded by a dark green aura, from the power of which the floor was covered with cracks, and if the Wizard had not foreseen this in advance, then most likely there would already be a huge hole in the floor and he himself would lie on the first floor.
"If I hadn't gone through this before, I would definitely pass out from the pain, damn baptism, I never thought that I will have to go through this again…" the Archmage hissed, clenching his teeth, clenching his fists to such an extent that the nails dug into the flesh, but the young man did not even feel this pain, because the heat in his chest only intensified, almost completely absorbing the upper part of the body and slowly descending.
What the Wizard went through was called "baptism by fire."
It burned almost all the fat and dirt from the body, and also strengthened and renewed the body down to the skeleton.
Usually, not everyone dared to go through this, and especially Wizards, famous for their weak bodies and low pain threshold.
Basically, only warriors practiced this, and Snape's teacher was a real knight in a robe. But only thanks to this potion, at that time broken and deprived of the will to live, the Archmage was able to regain his limbs.
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Half an hour later, the pain was replaced by a light refreshing feeling and a minty smell, from which the young man's pale face twisted.
"Now I understand how shrimp feel when they are thrown into boiling water while still alive…" the exhausted Snape muttered ironically, who was sweating to such an extent that he could just squeeze out his shirt, but even through all that displeasure on the Wizard's face, you can see that there was a barely visible smile, because he had finally taken the first step towards his serene life and former strength.
Raising himself with difficulty, he pulled his bag towards him, and in a moment the floor was covered with a variety of food.
After all, after baptism, he lost almost all his strength, and he looked like a skeleton covered in leather, so he needed to urgently recover, and then start training.
The Strengthening Potion itself operated on the principle that it gradually improved the physical form of the user, even if they did nothing at all. But if you also train at this time, then its effectiveness grows in proportion to the efforts made.
The potion could only be taken for a month, and then it turned into a poison that slowly destroyed the body, starting with the skeleton, making the bones so fragile that only a breath of wind would be enough to destroy them.
Therefore, Snape, even after the recent torment, immediately, having a hearty snack and regaining strength, began training in order to squeeze the maximum out of the potion…
***
For the next two weeks, the Archmage barely left the training room, except for outings for food and ingredients.
During this time, he was more or less able to regain his human appearance and no longer looked so much like a dystrophic, and in some places even muscles were visible.
Therefore, he could already calmly move around Diagon Alley without a raincoat, without attracting much attention to himself.
These two weeks passed quite measuredly for Snape: there were no guests, and he could calmly go about his business, redoing two more recipes from his world, which also promise to bring considerable profit, because they were mainly for women, the first is the Rejuvenating Potion, and , as the name suggested, it rejuvenated a person for twenty-four hours to the optimal age, as the person who accepted it wanted to see himself, and then returned to its original state.
Of course, the potion didn't make him immortal, even if he drank it for the rest of his life. Of course, Snape also knows the recipe for a real anti-aging potion that makes a person thirty years younger, and it could only be taken once in a lifetime, only some ingredients were missing in this world or they simply had not yet been discovered, and the selection of replacements for them required a lot of time and the experiments that the Wizard was going to conduct at Hogwarts on three experimental rats and one animagus.
The second potion had a rather simple name - the Beauty Potion, but, unlike those sold in Madame Primpernel's Rejuvenating Potions shop, it worked in a general way, that is, it affected the entire body, slowing down the aging of the skin, making it more elastic, soft and cleansing from "dirt" like blackheads and acne; stopped hair loss, made them stronger, richer, softer and easier to style; this is not to mention the effect on the body itself, such as burning fat, enhancing regenerative abilities, whitening teeth and correcting defects in the human body.
This was just a small list of what this potion was capable of, but the most important thing was the duration of the effect - exactly a week. And it was on this potion that Snape once made a small fortune by selling it at his school of magic, yet only children from wealthy families mainly studied there, and it was worth nothing for them to spend a couple of dozen gold.
***
After another tiring workout, the Archmage was about to take a shower, yet it was much more pleasant than using a cleansing spell, but he did not have time, because there was a knock on the door and an image of a silver-haired man appeared before his eyes, behind whom stood two more Wizards dressed also in rather luxurious outfits. "I hope he brought the ingredients…" After cleaning himself with magic and putting on his shirt, he went down the stairs and flung open the door. Lucius' shocked face met him, his mouth opening and closing.
"Come on, why are you frozen," and only after these words did Malfoy come to his senses.
"What happened to you…?" - the last time they saw each other was about three weeks ago, but in this short time Snape has changed too much, not to mention the fact that he has become taller than Lucius, he has also changed outwardly, as if several years had passed since their last meeting, and only the muscles that he could easily see through the shirt, which was not the right size, and therefore perfectly emphasized the body of the Wizard, which was worth it.
"The effect of a strengthening potion," the mage replied with a smile, sitting down at the bar table, "I understand that they are on "that" issue?"
"No, not yet," the aristocrat shook his head, while still continuing to stare at Snape, and the two standing behind him looked at each other in bewilderment, "These are my good friends, Matthew Goyle and Jonathan Crabbe," shaking his head, he introduced the two wizards, taking out a small purse from the inside pocket of his coat and handing it to him.
"This is what you asked for." As soon as the object was in the Archmage's hand, his eyes immediately lit up. "Thank you, you're just in time," quickly putting it in his pocket, the Wizard smiled contentedly, and then he took out several flasks with red and purple liquids from the bag, "And this is for you. Hope they come in handy."
"It is…?"
"I made them myself: the red one is a general-recovery potion, and the purple one temporarily increases magic power without side effects, but about the first one: I don't know how well it works on Wizards, but one of these brought back a Muggle almost from the other world, and As for purple, it will increase one and a half times magical abilities for about an hour," and once again Lucius widened his eyes in shock, but this time two other Wizards joined him.
"I am confident in their work, but more tests are still needed, and I hope that you can help me with this, and I will not remain in debt. If everything works out, you will receive the first batch for free, and I will sell the subsequent ones only to you until I open a store, but even then you will be the first in line, and you yourself know: with all those papers such a hassle, not to mention that these potions have to be registered and patented, I also need to get a license to trade. In general, this is at least half a year's work, even with the help of Professor Slughorn. I'm sure you know this yourself."
"Wait, have you created a potion that can increase a mage's magical abilities by 1.5 times without side effects?!" Lucius exclaimed, unable to stand it, grabbing Snape's hand and squeezing it tightly.
Nevertheless, such potions could be counted on the fingers for the reason that they were too harmful for the wizard's body and after taking such a thing, the Wizard's strength doubled, or even tripled (this, of course, depended on the potion), but after that he received it a powerful recoil that could chain the wizard to the bed, and if this also happened in the heat of battle, then inevitable death awaited him.
Therefore, almost no one used them, fearing what would happen after.
"Calm down, I'm ninety-nine percent sure that there are no side effects, but one percent still remains, that's why I ask you to test it," only after these words Lucius managed to recover and, embarrassed, quickly let go of the Archmage's hand.
"Ahem! ~ Ahem! I apologize. Of course, I will help my good friend," Malfoy said with a cough, with a smile that made Snape have a strong desire to punch him, but he still restrained himself.
"By the way, about your strengthening potion…"
"Jar…?"
"Yes," and a liter jar of dark green mixture appeared in the Archmage's hand, "A thousand galleons—and it's yours, well, of course, if you are not afraid of pain …"
"I'm the future head of the Malfoy family, will I be afraid of some kind of pain?" arrogantly lifting his chin, he directed his hand to an empty table, on which a pile of gold appeared in an instant, and then snatched out a jar.
"Well, you know, I warned you. And yeah, you have to drink everything at once."
"Understood, since that's all, then we're leaving."
"Of course, Good luck," Snape waved at the backs of the departing Wizards, while barely suppressing a smile. "You will definitely need it ..."
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