Chapter 181

London. The Black Star branch.

A young man with short, green hair was kneeling with his head down in front of a mirror from which another man, about ten years older, with similar facial features and the same colour of hair, was looking at him, he looked rather gloomy and did not take his sullen gaze off the first one.

"brother, I did everything according to plan…"

"Idiot!" Vitold barked at him, barely holding back the irritation rising from the depths of his soul, because everything was going so well, he was able to bribe one of the workers of the "Department of Secrets", who reported on everything and also gradually began to get closer to the most secret objects, and thanks to this, he was finally transferred to the headquarters, it could not have been better, but today the leader contacted him and gave him three days to figure out what his brother had done, otherwise he would send him back to London.

"Sigh...what to do... it was worth trusting Robert's instincts then and not sending our people to the enemy camp, but what's already done cannot be undone, we'll have to clean it up as quickly as possible."

"Brother, what about what I suggested to you that day? You said then that it is impossible for now and that we can provoke everyone against us, if it does not work out …" swallowing and suppressing his fear, he suggested, looking into the eyes of the former leader of the department. "We have no other choice, and Laurus is with us, one hand is enough for him…"

"Hm…" frowning, the man thought about Charles's words for a long time, but still, he had to agree with him, because they were in a stalemate where they simply had no choice.

"Okay, but I hope you know who can not be touched?" Vitold asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Of course! Maybe I am a little cruel, but my brain is in the right place!"

"Then go ahead and report everything that happens, even the most insignificant change in the enemy's actions and do not try to hide anything from me again, like last time with the fact that the Ministry learned about our spies!" his quiet, bone-chilling voice, coupled with a pair of cold, icy eyes, made Charles tremble; he had seen his brother so angry for the first time.

"I... I just didn't want to distract you and decide everything myself…" swallowing, he tried to justify himself with a nervous smile.

"At least don't lie to me, or have you forgotten that I'm your older brother and know you better than anyone else?" measuring him with an indifferent look, he said, but after a few seconds a tired sigh escaped his lips, "Charles, envy never leads to anything good, remember that."

"What do you mea…" but he didn't have time to finish, as his reflection appeared in the mirror again, which from feigned surprise turned into irritation, "Tch! As always, he acts as if I owe him something, arrogant…"

Charles didn't finish the sentence, he just snorted, and then turned around and headed for the exit, "Call the commanders to me."

"Yes!" a voice sounded from behind the door, and then the sound of retreating footsteps. "I will prove that I am no less worthy of this place than you, brother!" he looked at his reflection with a burning gaze, tightly clenching his fists...

***

That same day, late in the evening, at Hogwarts, Severus, under a pair of eyes boring into his back, put his pen aside and, having gathered all the sheets into one pile, turned to the owner of those very eyes, who was Nagini.

"Okay, okay, I give up, you win today," Severus said with a tired sigh, raising his hands up, palms facing the snake, "And I thought that today you would stay with Eileen, so why did you come back?"

"Did you think I would leave you?" she lifted her nose up, "Without me, I simply doubt that you would have gone to bed at all."

"Hmm... reasonable," the Prince nodded in agreement, throwing off his clothes, and then, using a cleansing spell, he headed towards the bed, "But today I really was going to go to bed early, so you just came back in vain," having flicked her on the nose and earning an angry look in his direction, Severus quickly climbed under the blanket, "I'm still not a zombie, so I do feel tired," waving his hand, he turned off the light in the room.

"I would argue with the last statement," the snake narrowed its eyes slyly, moving to the pillow next to him.

"Hey, and this is already about…" but the next moment he froze and frowned after a few seconds.

"Something happened?" Nagini asked, puzzled, noticing a sharp change on his face, and she did not even think about the fact that he could be offended after her innocent joke.

"Someone is killing my spies, both in the Ministry and among the Death Eaters…" Severus, raising himself sharply, waved his hand in front of him and created a translucent screen, divided into a huge number of parts and showing completely different people, some of whom were sleeping, others were working, and others were fighting at that moment, and concentrating on one of them, he created a separate screen on which a wizard in a Death Eater mask, with several more, fought off other unknown people in dark robes who were trying to kill them,

"These clothes…" Snape almost immediately recognized the uniform of the Black Star killers, "Apparently, they were completely desperate, since they took such a step…"

"They are dressed like Gerald's people when they were still working for the Black Star," the maledictus also noted, remembering the day when Severus dragged them into the house and allowed the beasts to deal with them, "But why do they need this?"

"They have no choice, because they have lost all their advantage, and it will be much easier to subdue a herd without a leader, but most likely, they just want to sow chaos and take advantage of it, returning the lost advantage, while others will fight for the vacant places, but it is also not worth excluding the fact that they will want to subdue the leaders, in general, it is impossible to say for sure what they want to achieve by this, - again smearing his palm in the air, another screen appeared in front of him, on which was an office in which the Minister of Magic, at this time, was still working, filling out some papers, "You see, he also works late."

"What do I care about?" The snake chuckled indifferently, "Let him do it all day and night, and you should rest more often!"

"Hmm... apparently, I have a bad influence on you... you used to be so innocent…" Severus sighed sadly, for which he received a poke in the side from a displeased Nagini.

"Do you want to interfere?"

"No, let everything go its own way, although it is still a pity to lose so many spies, and I doubt that this old man will die so easily…" Just at that moment, a shadow appeared on the ceiling in the minister's office, which sharply rushed towards the man immersed in work, but, not reaching him a few meters, a blue dome appeared around the table, into which the shadow crashed, and then at the same moment, blue bundles separated from the barrier, wrapped around the killer, who, although he tried to break free, was unsuccessful.

"And you are quite self-confident," Harold's dispassionate voice sounded, who was perhaps surprised by the appearance of the killer, but he did not show it on his face, "Someone has been trying to kill me for several months now, so do not think that you will be able to do it so easily."

But the member of the "Black Star" did not react to his words in any way, because the next moment, three more shadows appeared in the room, which immediately attacked the minister, and in their hands they held daggers that were painfully familiar to the Prince.

And as soon as the three wizards stabbed them into the dome from three sides, it simply dissipated in a few seconds, which truly shocked Minchum and finally made him worry about his life, but what he did not understand most of all was why no one had come to his aid yet, because they had made enough noise to attract the attention of the guards from the outside.

But the man still did not lose his head and already with a wand, tried to block the dagger with the help of Protego, but the shield he created did not last even a second and he felt a sharp pain in his chest, and his white shirt began to be covered in blood.

And when they were about to plunge two more daggers into his back, the door simply flew off its hinges and a dark-skinned man flew into the room, who quickly got his bearings and sharply pointing his wand towards the wounded man, he exclaimed "VENTUS VULUM!"

A stream of wind burst out of it, which was much faster than the murderers and surrounded the minister with an air barrier resembling a small whirlwind, and then it quickly began to expand to the sides, forcing the four to retreat.

"Mister Minister!" an unknown person in the form of an Auror exclaimed excitedly, appearing next to the man, and then stared angrily at the unknown people, who also did not hesitate and took out their wands, but …

"Don't expect that I will allow it!" pointing the tip of his wand towards a small candle, the flame on it flared up sharply and increased several dozen times, and making a circular motion with the wand, it followed his command like a puppy and quickly surrounded them, and then immediately began to diverge in all directions.

The killers who were farthest from the flames managed to transmigrate from the room, and the last one, who was unlucky enough to be in the corner, almost three metres from the enraged man, immediately created a barrier, but the flames were much stronger and destroyed it rather quickly, and then engulfed the shocked member of the "Steel" squad.

And a few seconds later the fire went out and not a single intact object remained in the room, and the floor, walls and ceiling were completely black, and only a small space around the two wizards was not damaged.

The dark-skinned wizard, tearing the shirt on the body of the heavily breathing, pale Harold, saw a purple border around the wound, from which blood was flowing quite profusely, his face darkened.

"Magic poison…" and, just at that second, a group of guards flew into the room, who were shocked by the picture that opened up, and then suddenly froze and turned pale, at the sight of the wounded Minister.

"C-Captain Brestver…"

"Why are you standing?! Call the healers!" and then he looked at the body in the corner and added angrily, "And him to the torture chamber, take everything he knows, you can use any methods, but I want the name of the employer and what organization he belongs to by ten o'clock tomorrow morning! Carry out!"

"Yes!" the last two immediately ran away, three more carried out the body in the corner, the rest surrounded the two people in the room and several stood at the entrance to the room.

The dark-skinned wizard himself looked sullenly at the wound, but he could not do anything, because it was unknown what poison was used and how it would react to the restorative potion, now all that was left was to hope for a miracle and that they would quickly be able to create an antidote, because it was impossible to start treatment until the poison was removed.

Shacklebolt, before coming to the headquarters, was calmly drinking beer in the bar with his deputy, after a hard day's work, and at the moment when they had already left, they were almost immediately attacked by five unknown people.

Perhaps, if he were alone, they would have had a chance to defeat him, but together with his subordinate, they dealt with them quite quickly.

The latter remained to guard the killers, and he himself quickly headed to the headquarters to report this, but already there, Kingsley learned that he was not the only one who was attacked, but Travers, the captain of one of the Auror squads,was killed along with four subordinates.

For this reason, he immediately went to report this, but approaching the Minister's office, Brustver felt something was wrong, and the guards hardly reacted to his arrival, which made the wizard even more nervous and therefore, he did not even think and destroyed the door...

A minute later, a group of four people in white coats flew into the office, led by an elderly wizard in a grey robe with a suitcase in his hand.

"To the side!" The old man barked menacingly, almost immediately noticing the purple edging around the wound and he did not even pay attention to the devastation in the office.

Putting his suitcase on the floor, the Ministry employee abruptly opened it and inside was a steel plate with a handle, grabbing which the healer pulled up and the next moment, it flew out to him.

But it turned out to be not just a plate, but the top of a huge steel cabinet, which was divided into seven tiers and filled with various test tubes, instruments and potions.

He grabbed another handle, which was located between the first and second shelves, and pulled out a small steel table, and then began to quickly rummage through each of them, taking out test tubes with different, unknown contents, saucers, vials and much more. And all this took him only ten seconds, but ...

"Mister Tracy!" the alarmed voice of his assistant sounded, who looked at Harold's wound in amazement.

"Don't interfere, we must get rid of the poison as soon as possible!"

"B-but the poison ...!"

"What's wrong with him ?!" He abruptly turned his gaze to the wound and froze with bulging eyes, seeing how the purple edging slowly began to disappear.

In addition, the elderly wizard, who was a few centimetres from the minister's body, felt the heat spreading from him, "H-how...? H-how is this possible...?"quickly taking out his wand, he used an analysing spell and to his shock, the poison really did slowly disappear, as if... something was burning it, while the victim's face gradually began to smooth out, all the earlier tension simply came to naught.

The other wizards in the room were also shocked by such a phenomenon. But the old man, although he wanted to study this "phenomenon", simply did not have time for this and throwing everything back into the cabinets, a wand appeared in his hand and without words, he created a barrier surrounding them: " Let's begin the operation!"

.

.

.

Thank you for reading please vote with power stones.

If possible do read my other fic, Venomised in Marvel.

You can read more on p@treon.com/lucifer09