Chapter 83

Lying on the bed, Severus looked thoughtfully at the ceiling, stroking Nagini's head. 'Am I in a hurry…? After all, I wanted to gradually bring her to this, and not throw everything out so abruptly, eh ... I hope that she can come to the right decision ' wearily sighing, he closed his eyes. 'And why is it so hard with these women …'

"Are you thinking about her?" came the calm voice of the snake, pulling him out of his thoughts. "How did you guess?"

"Women's intuition, but to be honest, you've been so strange since the moment you returned, did something happen?"

"Nothing special. Maybe I'm just thinking too much. That's it, sleep, tomorrow I still have to go to several places and check something," poking her in the muzzle with a smile, he lowered his head onto the pillow. "Let's hope I didn't make a mistake…"

***

The next day began with a short trip to the northern England village of Little Hangleton. There was nothing special in it, the most ordinary village, of which there were dozens in the country. But there was only one difference, it had a big mansion between two hills.

The mansion at the moment belonged to a certain George Mason, who has never appeared since the purchase, but its past owners were the Riddle family, which in the forties were found dead in this very house. 

To this day, this crime remains unsolved in the Muggle world. But Severus didn't come to this wilderness for that, although he was interested to look at the place where Tom had once killed his "family", but no more. 

To this place he came for a different reason - Voldemort's Horcrux. No, the young man was not going to destroy them, but only to protect himself if the dark magician decides to oppose him, if, of course, he manages to be reborn. 

And besides that, just look at the artifacts that he used as Horcruxes. Still, these were not the simplest things, but real artifacts of the founders. 

For the reason that Severus had never been to this place, he could not simply appear here, so he had to fly to Little Hangleton himself, and Nagini did not mind, because who would refuse to look at the earth from a bird's eye view. 

When he reached the village, he immediately cast a spell of averting muggle eyes so as not to attract the attention of ordinary people, and after a few minutes the wizard reached the slope of the second hill, where there was a simple dilapidated hut, around which there were tall thickets. The house looked like it hadn't been visited in decades and looked like it was ready to fall apart at any moment.

"Cute and no one can say that this house belonged to a pure-blooded Gaunt family, descendants of Salazar Slytherin." Severus drawled with a grin, thinking whether to take out a portrait and annoy the old man a little or not. 

Inside the "building", it was terribly dusty and dirty, the ceiling was almost entirely covered with cobwebs, and the floor was covered with soot and some other black thick liquid. 

In addition, there was a strong draft in the house due to the broken windows, but from the fist-sized stones near them and the shards of glass, Snape assumed that this was the work of the children he saw along the way when he walked to the shack. 

And then, looking down at the table, on which lay unwashed plates, spoons and a saucepan covered with rotting scraps, Severus could not help but sigh in disappointment.

"I don't understand how they could squander the huge fortune that Salazar left behind. I remember you saying that he had millions of Galleons in his account and a huge number of patents, they had to receive thousands, or even tens of thousands of Galleons a month, and how can they even live here?" Nagini was sincerely perplexed. 

"I'm glad our history lessons didn't go in vain," he nodded to her with a smile. "The reason is quite banal: they were idiots and did not know how to handle money. Instead of multiplying the fortune left by the great ancestor, they just spent and spent, that's the whole story, so you can't trust fools with money." 

Compared to school, there was almost no magic in this place, so finding the Horcrux was an easy task and he didn't have to ask the grimoire for the exact location of the ring. After all, he almost immediately felt a point where there was much more magic, and, approaching one of the wooden walls, Severus without any problems punched through it with his fist and pulled out the box. 

"It turned out to be easier than I thought…" opening it, he saw something that caused a strange mixture of surprise and burning dislike on his face. "Where did this come from?"

"What is it, what did you see there?" the snake asked him in bewilderment, noticing the change on the wizard's face and a strange tone, as if he had seen a sworn enemy.

"Hm? Ring. What's wrong?" She tilted her head in puzzlement, looking at the golden ring with a simple black stone. 

Severus did not answer anything, instead he raised it to eye level, frowningly studied the ring for a while. 'No… Although this stone is similar to the "Resurrection Stone" of that sect, the set of charms and runes is slightly different… The real one was able to pull the soul out of the other world, only the souls could not live in the world for a long time and in the end simply collapsed, and this one is more of a "False Resurrection Stone''. It doesn't possess that power, although it is also able to reach out to that world, but only in order to copy the personality…" A steely gleam flashed in the eyes of Severus. 

'I will tear off the hands of the bastard who created this thing…' Once upon a time, he had met with a similar stone, and then he almost resurrected his mother with it, blindly trusting the tales of the "Resurrection Stone", if Ichiros had not intervened at the right time, beat him well and explained what kind of thing it was and what its use could lead to, he would definitely have done what he had planned and would have regretted it for the rest of his life ... 

Taking a deep breath, Severus tried to calm down a bit. "I'm fine, don't worry," returning his former warm smile, he looked at her, feeling the anxiety of his snake through the connection." I remembered something bad." 

"If you are worried about something, you can always share it with me, and I will support you, no matter what happens." Nagini said, looking at him.

"Thanks, I'm glad I met you."

"Those are my words, " she pressed against him, rubbing her head against his cheek. "I understand that you are hiding a lot, but I will not demand that you tell me everything, however, I hope that someday you can completely trust me…" 

"I promise that someday I will tell you everything, but not now"

"Yes…"

Looking up at the ring again, he slightly cut his finger, and then pointed his palm at it, and, closing his eyes, the wizard began to draw various patterns in the air, and after a few seconds, when he finished drawing the last one, they flew into the stone, and with a flash inside it those same red letters appeared. "There goes one, there is one more, but it's not a fact that it's still there, but it's still worth checking."

---

 A few hours later, Snape and Nagini appeared in front of the cave, not far from the seashore, and almost immediately a feeling of disappointment flashed across his face, because he did not feel a Horcrux in it, but still the wizard also checked from the inside, because Riddle could well have cast a spell that blocked charm of detection, but even inside he couldn't find anything.

From Tom's memoirs, he left a horcrux - Salazar Slytherin's medallion - in this cave, on a small plateau surrounded by a moat, inside which there should be "terrifying creatures" in the form of ordinary undead.

But there was no traces of medallion or infernals in this place.

Maybe he had placed it in another place, and it would be quite difficult to find it without clues, so Severus decided to stop at the ring, because he had already destroyed three of the five Horcruxes, and branded one with a slave mark. 

According to the approximate calculations of Severus, based on the integrity of the soul, he suggested that there should be no more than six of them, that is, one more, in addition to the medallion, should be hidden somewhere, and it was already almost impossible to find them, so he decided to stop at the fourth. 

Certainly, if he manages to find the rest, he will gladly brand them too. 

And after that, they spent the rest of the day on the seashore, Severus had not been to the sea for a very long time, so he decided to combine business with pleasure: have a good rest and teach Nagini to swim.

***

The next day they returned to Hogwarts, where the daily routine began again: searching for the founders' stash, the usual activities, with Slughorn and the like. But not everything was so calm: a certain Lucinda Tolkelot - the captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team began to pursue him and offer to join them, and for what reason, Severus himself did not know, because, if he recall the lessons on flying on a broomstick, he was inferior to many. 

Even though the original Severus had tried hard to surpass Potter in this aspect, he couldn't, he simply did not have talent. 

In general, everything was too strange and confusing, but there was a good new- all the brooms were updated, after all, the galleons left by Severus went into a "good" direction, and not into Dumbledore's pocket.

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