Chapter 143

London. "Black Star".

A thoughtful man with short green hair came out of a passage in a brick wall, which quickly closed behind him, but he didn't pay much attention to it and sat down at the table, lost in his thoughts.

"...after that attack, he is unlikely to want to talk to us, but try to establish contact, strengthen surveillance of him and find weak points, and in any way you must send a spy to the "Department of Mysteries", you have three months for this, do not disappoint me..." with gnashing of teeth he recalled the order of his leader, after he provided report of this week but how was he supposed to put a spy in one of the most protected departments of the Ministry of Magic, when only one of them managed to get through to become the assistant to the Chief Accountant, and that also only thanks to the huge bribe.

"With special difficulty, we managed to push three people into the Auror department, and you fucking order us to somehow, push our man there."  Hitting the table with force, he cursed "his beloved superiors" but still something had to be done, because Witold did not want to lose his home for years and hand it over to his younger brother, "Summon Robert and Laurus to me." 

"Yes, Leader!" an excited voice was heard from behind the door, followed by the sound of retreating footsteps. 

The head of the "Steel" department himself took a folder lying on the table with the name "Severus Prince", which had doubled in weight since Nestor's betrayal, and under it lay another name "Ichiros", only it was no thicker than an advertising brochure , because they were almost unable to collect anything on him, with the exception of particularly "bright" cases, such as: the destruction of the mansion in which the meeting between Voldemort and Ichiros took place, as well as the moment with the gangs in Diagon Alley. 

"If it weren't for these new potions..." the man sighed tiredly, because it was because of them that the leader of the organization became even more interested in the "boy" and demanded to establish contact. 

Opening the folder and flipping through a few pages, he stopped at a number of names with photographs: "Regulus and Bellatrix Black... it will be difficult with them, one is the heir, and the other is one of Voldemort's main pawns, Karner Shafiki... almost never leaves the store, but I doubt that he knows anything about recipes, and it's unlikely to be possible to manipulate them through him; Bellatrix Black would be more suitable here... and the last ones, the McMillans, he was also in contact with them..." with an irritated click, he closed the case and folded his hands in front of his face, "If it weren't for his enormous influence in the Ministry, the "boy" could have been detained and accused of murdering his father, and then interrogated through our people..." another tired sigh escaped his mouth, "All that remains is this woman, but in this case, peaceful cooperation will be impossible, it's worth trying to come to an agreement first, and if nothing works out, then we'll still have to use this method..." 

A few minutes later, two men knocked on the office and entered: the first had round glasses and a bald head, looking rather nervous, and the second, with short black hair and a long scar, from the forehead, crossing the eye and up to the chin, on the contrary, was calm, like a boa constrictor and ignored the irritated look of the "boss".

 "Robert, you have a new task, by any means to send our man to the "Department of Mysteries," you have two months to do this," from such an order, the eye of the wizard with glasses trembled and he already began to curse in his mind, like how his boss was cursing.

"Yes..." he said, not very cheerfully, and even his nervousness disappeared somewhere. 

"Laurus" the leader turned his gaze to the second subordinate, who looked him straight in the eyes with indifference, "Your task is to establish a connection with Severus Prince and invite him to us." although he was annoyed by the behaviour of the man in front of him, he had to admit that the man in front of him was a professional in surveillance and information gathering, and was only slightly inferior to him in strength, therefore, Witold tried to ignore these habits of his, "But only INVITE, and do not try to forcefully bring him here, did I make myself clear?"

 "Yes," he answered with a chuckle, but the leader of the "Steel" department decided to ignore this too, although he very much wanted to punch his overly crazy, albeit temporary, subordinate with his fist, but he could not do this, because in "Black Star" , the departments also had their own ranks, which were given out by the leader himself and, as he put it, "in order of importance," where: the first rank was occupied by the "Almaz" department, the second "Gold", followed by "Bronze", after that " Steel" and the last one - "Copper". 

The Almaz department was engaged in protection, maintenance of the main headquarters, as well as recruitment into the ranks of the Black Star and distribution into detachments; "Gold", information gathering, espionage and assassination; "Bronze" and "Steel" mainly carried out global missions; and "Copper" was a large group mainly engaged in research and medicine, it consisted of: Alchemists, potion makers, artifactors, healers, medics, etc. 

And according to the rules of the organization, a group of a lower rank was obliged to obey another group of a higher rank, although there were additional nuances, for example, that this rule did not apply to leaders and their direct subordinates, and if suddenly the deputy of one of departments, will be sent to another, he will have the same rank as the leader, and also have the right to refuse the order if it does not suit him, so Witold had to restrain his impulses and endure all this.

 "Both are free," Robert responded, bowing slightly and, continuing to curse, left the room, and the second one did not even look in his direction and simply left after the first. 

And when the door closed and the sounds of footsteps died down, another dull blow echoed through the room, but a little stronger than the last time, and the guards standing behind the doors sighed heavily and looked at each other, smiled wryly at each other, they both hoped that today they could calmly pass their shift and everything will work out without any incidents…

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

Forbidden Forest.

At the same time, Severus, an hour after the successful deal with the Queen of the Sun Bees, finally reached the center of the forest, the only bright area in the entire thicket, because there were no trees around him and in the next thirty metres.

 It was an almost ideal, round green clearing illuminated by the full moon and the strangest thing was that it turned out to be completely empty, not a single magical creature, not even an insect, was visible, which of course made him wary, but no matter how much he scanned the area, he still didn't see anything, not  was he able to detect, so Snape thought that most likely a very dangerous creature lived in this place, which everyone was wary of and did not dare even enter its territory. 

But, like this, it was hard to scare him and therefore, for the sake of interest, he decided to wait for the monster that possibly lived in this place, and also to wait out the night, half of which had only recently passed.

"Maybe we should leave after all?" Nagini asked, warily looking towards the dark forest because of the foliage in which almost nothing could be seen, "I feel very uncomfortable". 

The boar completely agreed with her opinion and constantly looked around, and from almost every rustling outside the clearing, it almost jumped out of the blue, in turn, Severus lying on the lounge chair was completely calm, because as soon as the owner of this place enters the clearing, he will immediately know about it, in reality he did not relax his vigilance even for a second,  and his serene appearance was only to slightly dispel the hanging tension and wariness of his companions, after all, this place really belongs to some powerful creature.

"Oink…"the boar nodded in support, settling closer to the wizard .

 "Don't worry, I have everything under control, relax and sleep until the morning, tomorrow we will circle around this area all day and by Monday morning we should already have time to go around the entire forest," Severus smiled warmly and stroked the head sticking out from under his robe.

 "And once we return you to your human form, we will definitely return here, don't you agree, it's a good place to end the evening?"

"A human... this would happen faster..."

"Wait a little more, maximum two years..." gently running his palm over her head, softly, but at the same time confidently and firmly, he added, which caused a sea of ​​positive emotions through the connection.

"Uh-huh... " rubbing his cheeks she put her chin on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "Thank you…"

"It's me who should thank you..."

***

Until the morning, no one came to the clearing, which was quite strange, but this did not bother the Prince much, after all, it was a magical world and in this place there could be something that scared away the animals and this "something" affected only them, because similar things existed in his world, for example, monster hunters used a certain mixture of herbs, from which even monsters at the peak of the seventh rank turned up their noses, and there was even a flower, from the aura of which even rank 8 magical creatures ran away, and their strength was not inferior to the "Great Archmages", so he assumed that something similar was growing here too. 

As for the "White Lotus", it was still not in this place, although this upset the wizard a little, but the honey completely dispelled this unpleasant feeling. 

After a hearty breakfast, they were about to leave the clearing and continue on their way, but Severus felt someone's gaze on him and when he turned around, he was faced with a pair of familiar eyes looking at them from behind the bushes... - "So this is the owner of this little place…" Severus drawled with a smile, watching as the bush moved and a small, gray paw stuck out...

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