Chapter 51

A few minutes later, Severus and ten Aurors led by Robinson, moved forward towards the office of the Minister of Magic, located almost on the top floor of the Ministry. 

In order not to attract much attention, Severus used an anti-apparition spell on himself that created glowing gold-plated shackles on his hands, and he also stood in the very centre of the group, with his hands behind his back, which were held by two other Aurors.

The archmage, of course, did not use Imperius on any of them, because this is a very impractical spell, and experienced fighters with dark wizards during a conversation would definitely be able to understand that the person in front of them is under control. 

Therefore, he applied a different spell from his world, but it did not subdue the mind, instead it made the person believe in any nonsense that the caster would say, but only for an hour, and at the moment, by "order of the Minister of Magic", they had to bring Severus to him for an important conversation. 

Of course, as with Imperius, a person with strong will can overcome the spell but there is also a difference, if the caster's will is stronger than the target, then it will be almost impossible to find out whether he has cast the spell or not.

And, as the Archmage expected, during the journey from the dungeon to the third floor, in addition to several scanning spells, other Aurors approached them, considering their group's behaviour to be suspicious. 

But after talking with Robinson, they let them pass, because he did not show any signs of being affected by mental magic and even behaved as usual.

Slowly, the group reached the large doors guarded by four wizards.

"Captain, what is the reason for your visit?" one of them asked gloomily as he closed the door. 

"By order of the Minister," Robertson chuckled proudly, raising his chin, the rest of the guards looked at each other in surprise, because they were sure that the minister was not waiting for anyone. "Frank, go check on them…" 

"It's not worth it," Severus came out in front of the group, dispelling the shackles on himself and at the same moment four wands were aimed at him, but the aurors with him just stood there with empty eyes.

"Who are you?! Raise your hands so we can see them!" One of the guards said.

"Why, you know yourself that the minister allowed me to visit him, and we are old friends too," the Archmage said with a broad smile, to which the guards began to exchange glances in surprise, and then it seemed to dawn on them, and they quickly lowered their wands. 

"Please forgive us! I completely forgot about it, Mr. Harold is already waiting for you at his place, come in," with apologetic faces, they quickly stepped aside and even opened the door for him. 

"Mr.Minister, your friend has arrived… this is…" the guard looked at Severus in embarrassment. "Snape." 

"Oh! Yes! Snape! Once again, please forgive me." 

"Who?" A surprised voice came from the office. And, as soon as Severus went inside, he saw a large room in a minimalist style, where, in addition to three bookcases, two flowerpots and a table by the window, behind which sat a surprised middle-aged man in a gray business suit, with slicked-back chestnut hair and a pipe in hand, there was nothing else. 

"Minister, it's me, Severus Snape, the guy from whom you thought of stealing the potion recipes with the use of the Imperius, how could you forget me?" Severus's "greetings" made the minister choke and dropped his pipe.

[A/N: "Pipe" as in Cigar]

"You all can go, we want to talk in private," Severus looked at the guard, who, like a dummy, nodded and quickly closed the door. 

"You…how did you get here…?" trying to remain calm, the minister asked, glumly looking in his direction, while tightly squeezing his wand under the table and at any moment ready to attack the intruder with his crown spell. 

"I asked Robinson to bring me here."

"So you used the Imperius?" 

"No, I just asked, that's all, I didn't break any laws," Severus chuckled, without any fear and sat down opposite the Minister of Magic.

"I hope, now we can discuss pressing matters?" Severus said.

"And what did you want to discuss with me, since you got to this point?" The minister questioned, still shocked by all this.

"Well, first of all, trying to set me up. You know, I am a law-abiding citizen, I pay taxes, but you decided to do such a disgusting thing to me. It was very ugly." 

"From the very beginning, it was stupid to start such a business without a good background" The minister said with a slight smile.

"You know, the last one who told me so "burned out" ... A funny pun, isn't it?" The archmage said and hearing this the smile began to slip from the face of Harold Minchum, because he was not a fool and understood what the Archmage meant. 

"So that was your doing…" Harold asked, squeezing his wand even tighter. 

"No, it was my teacher, I'm still just learning, I'm very far from him, he probably wouldn't even need a minute to burn this place, what do you think, should I call him? As I understand it, Voldemort is not enough for you, well then there will be another one." With a bloodthirsty grin, Severus looked into the eye of a slightly pale man. 

"Or can we talk heart to heart?"

"What do you want? Money? Power?" Harold questioned with heavy breathing.

"I already have enough of all this, but I would not mind getting a couple of hundred thousand more, but in general I have a different option: I want to cooperate with you." 

"Cooperate…?" Harold's face showed surprise. 

"I actually wanted this from the very beginning, but god knows why you decided to use such a bad way to fix a meeting between us." A sheet of paper appeared in Severus' hand, which he landed right in front of the Minister of Magic.

"What is this?" the minister asked in bewilderment, lifting the sheet and reading the first line in bold, he looked at Severus with a strange look.

"This is a contract where I will give you potion recipes for a small fee, at the beginning I only wanted fifteen percent of each potion sold, but after your "performance" I demand twenty-five, as well as the abolition of all taxes." 

"Stop! Twenty five percent?! It's too much!" Jumping up, Harold angrily slammed his fist on the table. 

"The cost of one potion is seven and a few Galleons," the Archmage said with a grin, cooling Harold's anger in an instant, causing him to freeze in shock. 

"Now what do you think? Am I asking too much?" 

"Seven?!" Harold asked in shock.

"And if you sell, like me, at ninety galleons for one potion, with my twenty-five percent, plus another eight for materials, you will make a profit of around sixty-one galleons per potion. Isn't that a huge profit?" Swallowing his words, the minister stared at the sheet with burning eyes, and finally after he finished reading it and not finding anything suspicious, he looked up at the smiling Severus again.

"I accept this condition," taking a pen, he was about to sign, but Snape stopped him. 

"Is there something wrong?!" Harold asked in slight confusion.

"Blood, this is a contract on blood, if it is broken, the blood of the signer will begin to boil until the violator is boiled from the inside. And also pay attention to paragraph "12.2", that the contract applies not only to you, but also to the post of Minister of Magic, that is, even after you leave your post, the next Minister of Magic will also be subject to the contract, and if he breaks, the same thing will happen to him." 

"That's how …" After hearing these words, Harold was no longer in a hurry to sign, but began to re-read it more carefully. 

Indeed, from the very beginning, he thought that the contract applies only to him, and only now the man noticed that in the column with the name is the Minister of Magic, that is, not him, but the post itself. But after some time he still said,

"I agree with these conditions."

"Wonderful, just do not forget about all the accusations." After the signing, the contract flew out of Harold's hand and burned up in the air, and a black mark in the form of a flame appeared on the back of Harold's hand.

"Thank you for your cooperation. By the way, I'm wondering who came up with this stupid idea to capture me and "knock out" recipes?" the Archmage asked with slight interest, looking at the man, whose appearance was rather tired. 

"I heard that you are a person who does not compromise, very cautious, while respecting the laws, and I doubt that you suddenly decided to kidnap a person in broad daylight, hang baseless accusations and, with the help of the Imperius, draw out recipes, something like this ... ugly, or what, is it really Crouch?" 

Seeing the ripples that flashed through the man's eyes, Severus's lips turned up. "Not surprising. A person like him who is able to openly announce that the Aurors are now allowed to use the Unforgivables and drag any wizard in for interrogation using something like Crucio or Imperius, could very well offer to do this."

Harold simply had nothing to answer: he himself allowed this all to happen. After all, for him it was also too much, but in wartime you need to be tough, and the sooner they can stop Voldemort, the sooner they will begin recovery. 

And that's why he spared no expense to achieve that goal, and that's why he embraced Crouch's idea. 

And the permission to use the Unforgivables even helped a lot in the war: only thanks to them they were able to cope with the giants and even capture several Death Eaters alive for interrogation. 

In the two years since the Ministry entered the fight against the Dark Lord, this was their first real victory. 

"In general, I hope for further cooperation, and even changing the name of the position will not help to avoid a contract, and even if you quit, the contract will still apply to you…So…I will wait for my Galleons every month, although this is already written in the contract. Good luck, Minister, and talk to this Crouch so that he doesn't bother me, otherwise I'll still ask the teacher to drop some firecrackers on him, and you will have to look for a new head for the Law Enforcement Department."

"Are you threatening us?" looking coldly towards the Archmage, Harold asked him sullenly.

"What are you saying, what threats? I'm telling you directly: maybe my teacher won't be able to destroy the whole Ministry of Magic, but a good part of it will be gone," Severus answered him with a smile, taking out a sheet of paper and putting it on the table.

"Here are the recipes. Have a nice day, Minister and about those Aurors….I hope you will sort it out yourself, and also, I hope that you will not tell anyone about our conversation: I don't want to attract special attention to myself yet …" 

And, as soon as the Archmage left the office, Harold, wiping sweat from his forehead and closing his eyes, fell into his chair. 

"Feels like I made a contract with a demon, and what spell did he use…? It wasn't Imperius, after all, but the level of danger was just as good, and perhaps even worse…" and sighing again, he put his wand on the table and looked towards the doors. "Call Crouch for me…"