Chapter 119

The next day, standing near the airport, Severus shook hands with the writer with a smile. "Thank you for your help Mr. Brew."

"And to you, Mr. Snape, in one short day, I was able to learn more about those jungles than in my entire life, now I don't even care if I die."

"Don't joke like that, you still have to live and, soon a new product in the form of a rejuvenating potion will appear in my shop. I promise you a good discount if you suddenly want to visit me in London, by then, I'm sure that your son will recover too." Hearing the words "Severus", the wizard was surprised for a moment, but after a few seconds, he quickly returned to his normal expression and answered Severus with the same smile.

"Thank you, Mr. Snape..." the man said sincerely, lowering his head.

"You know you can talk to me on a more casual basis right? And one more thing…" a book appeared in Snape's hand, at the sight of which Brew was surprised for the second time, because it was written under his authorship, "Will you sign it?" 

"Of course of course! For me, this is the biggest part!" a pen appeared in his hand and he signed the first page quite quickly, "By the way, since yesterday I have not seen your subordinate …"

"He flew on another flight."

"I see, but ... you be careful with him," he warned Snape in a much more serious tone. "He's a very dangerous man." 

"Of course, I know this myself," looking up at the clock, which already showed 12:45, Severus put the book into his wallet, "Thank you for seeing me off." 

"And to you, Severus…thank you, As soon as my son recovers, we will definitely visit you."

"I'll take your words for that."

 In response to Snape's words, the man smiled sincerely at him...

***

The flight back turned out to be much more pleasant, there were no terrorists and the like, so Severus could rest easy and watch the beautiful view from the window. 

Of course, with the help of a house elf, the Prince could have easily moved back to London, but the young man found this way of moving rather boring, and there was no need to hurry, because there was more than a month and a half before the start of studies. 

And while he was flying in an aeroplane, Severus also slowly got acquainted with the situation in magical Britain, and the first thing that really surprised him was that the Death Eaters again seized the initiative in the civil war. 

Although they have recently lost a lot of dark wizards, some of whom fled, and they were also abandoned by several magical peoples who previously sided with Voldemort, but by some miracle, they managed to defeat and kill a little more than thirty Aurors out of sixty-two, when the numerical superiority was on the side of the latter, and at the same time, they still gave the situation publicity, as if they themselves wanted to demonstrate their shame and helplessness against the dark wizards. 

It's just that there were no more details in the newspaper, except for the number of victims and winners, but Severus was still interested, because just a little more than a week ago everything led to the victory of "good" side, but suddenly such a drastic change looked very suspicious, as if someone decided to lend a helping hand to the Death Eaters, and they, in turn, happily grabbed it with their teeth. 

But besides this "good" news, there was another one that the saddened house elf brought him: some suicidal idiots decided to rob his store and they almost even succeeded, if it were not for Tobby who arrived in time, who repelled the attack, but sadly he couldn't capture them.

But, what is most interesting, the thieves worked very competently and cleanly, because in addition to the fact that they decided to carry out their operation at eleven o'clock at night, when both karner and the elf were absent, they also used an unknown artefact that completely turned off the signal and protective charms. 

It was like they had been preparing for this operation for a long time. Of course, Snape did not blame anyone for this, and he also doubted that someone from his own party could betray him, although if there was anyone else at his place, they would've immediately thought of their worker and perhaps the robbers would have achieved this by their(workers) actions, but the problem is that in the store there were only supplies for a week, and the rest for three months, was divided between the house elf and Karner, and if the second wanted to rob him, he could just run away with those potions at any moment, but Severus paid enough to prevent that from happening. 

Severus could not even imagine who it was, and they acted too well, which indicated that they were not ordinary thieves, but perhaps some kind of organisation that apparently wanted to get his recipes, as well as easy money , since a small part of the potions from the basement was stolen, and there was order in his room, but at the same time, the book that propped up the cabinet was accurately checked because Severus deliberately left several spells on it and when it was opened, the recipes simply disappeared. 

There were several similar things in the room and there were a number of spells on each, which was checked by the house elf himself, who knew everything about them, in turn, Karner himself knew only about one such thing, so Severus did not believe that Karner would betray him. 

In a couple of days, too many oddities happened, which alerted Snape, because everyone knew about his patronage from the Ministry, but his shop was still attacked, and even in such a turbulent time, when the government of magical Britain was especially cruel to its enemies and did not shy away from using the unforgivable during interrogations, and at the slightest hint, without trial or investigation, they threw them into Azkaban. 

He suspected that there was a fourth side in this war that supported the Dark Lord and if you think in a similar way, then the attack on his store, it was no longer surprising, like, they probably wanted to show the Ministry which side they were on.

Then the victory of the Death Eaters in such an unequal clash could be explained by the support from the fourth side. But still, these were only the thoughts of the Prince, without any confirmation and evidence, but the young man was sure that he was thinking in the right direction, and Karner had already begun to search for those who attacked the store using their connections in the dark part of magical Britain, but of course, Severus was not going to leave everything only to him. 

After all, it was still his shop, and the one who attacked him offended not only the Ministry of Magic, but even him, you can even say that those guys spat in his face and ran away, which of course Severus was not going to just forgive… 

**************

Upon arriving in London, Snape no longer used Muggle transport, but almost immediately apparated into Diagon Alley, which was once again empty and faded, just as it had been when the Ministry was losing the Civil War. 

"We were absent just for a week It, but it feels like a whole month has passed," Severus muttered with a smile, looking around the closed shops and frightened wizards who did not even look in his direction and seemed to be in a hurry somewhere, which was very unnatural for the only magical market in London.

"Diagon Alley has changed a lot since the day we left the country, " Nagini nodded in agreement, looking to the right with sadness in her eyes, where there used to be a pastry shop that made excellent banana ice cream.

"When the Ministry wins, it will definitely open again," noticing the sad look of his companion, Snape tried to console her.

"Yes…"

Turning his gaze towards the alley, Severus noticed that two suspicious guys were looking in his direction, who tried to pretend that they were looking at the man to his right.

"Hm…? What do we have here…?" looking directly into the eyes of one of them, he began to read his superficial thoughts, and it took only a couple of seconds and he looked away, "The Death Eaters, and they are even acting so openly, apparently, I underestimated the scale of the problem, they only accidentally noticed me and one already went to report ... okay, I don't care, I'll deal with this a little later." Shaking his head, he headed towards his shop, while reading the minds of the wizards passing by in order to get a better understanding of the situation in the country… 

In just a few minutes, they reached the building, which since their absence, compared to the rest, has not changed at all. 

The sign was still shining, which attracted the attention of people passing by, and near the entrance, as usual, everything was clean, a glass display stood out, behind which were three potions with the name, properties and prices, which simply shone. 

"It seems it was not for nothing that I left the house elf here to look after the shop," Severus nodded with a proud smile, looking at the neighbouring, gloomy shops, which scared away customers with their very appearance. 

And just at that moment, a middle-aged woman came out of the store, followed by a smiling Karner, with a "drunk" smile, waving after her, but as soon as he noticed Snape, he immediately froze, and Severus having measured him with a mocking look, passed by and entered the building. 

After a few seconds, Karner came to his senses and quickly darted back and with a guilty expression, lowered his head in front of "Severus", seated at the table, located to the right of the counter. "Mr. Snape, it's... well... there were no customers now, so I..." 

"Why are you justifying yourself to me like a naughty boy? I don't care about your personal relationships, the main thing is don't shirk work, I hope you didn't shirk?" Severus asked him with narrowed eyes, emitting a pressure, from which Karner, who was standing in front of him, turned sharply pale and quickly shook his head several times from side to side. "N-no, I've never shirked..." 

At the sight of the man's reaction, Snape couldn't help but laugh out loud, much to Karner's embarrassment. "I'm joking, calm down, and if you can start an affair with that woman, I'll only be happy for you," winking at him, Severus began to examine the room with a bit of nostalgia, in recent months he hardly went into his store, and the delivery of reporting and goods was handled by the house elf. 

"Okay, tell me what happened here, after all, the report is one thing, but I would like to hear everything in more detail and, by the way, could I find something?" Hearing the questions of "Severus", Karner became more serious and nodded with a bit of sullenness, yet Karner felt guilty that someone had sneaked into the store, and he could not even catch them and swallowing, Shafiqi began to tell: "Yes, it happened three days ago …"

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