Chapter 227: Chapter 224
After that day, Helena tried to behave as usual, but Filius Flitwick, the head of the Ravenclaw house, who communicated with her quite often, still noticed a slight change in her, but he did not focus on it much attention, and the fact that she began to talk much more softly with the students, and not just ignore them as before, suited him quite well.
But the others did not notice anything different in her which was normal, because the Ravenclaw rarely spoke to anyone, limiting herself to a couple of phrases, and among the spirits, the woman was a real black sheep, rarely attending the Death Anniversaries, preferring solitude in the house' common room or walks around the castle.
Almost the entire next day after yesterday's meeting, the ghost spent in the room with the portrait of her mother, but this did not raise many questions.
After all, she did not miss breaks and meals, still looking after the children of her house, and with Myrtle's help, who took on half of the "responsibilities", she was able to free up a huge amount of time.
And on Saturday, Helena disappeared for the whole day, at the same time, Severus had left for Romania and reached there by one o'clock, he was there to prepare for the upcoming meeting.
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[Romania. Pitesti.]
Sitting in a small Muggle restaurant, decorated in rather pleasant, orange tones, Severus thoughtfully looked out of the window, sipping tea as he watched the people passing by and the cars driving past the establishment.
In front of him, on the table sat Nagini, radiating childish joy as she was eating a piece of cream cake, squinting contentedly and savouring each bite, and not far from her stood a mirror copy of the snake, only in the form of a kitten, and there were not two pieces on the plate, but five, which he ate in the same manner, having finally learned to enjoy food, and not think about how to quickly fill his belly.
The meeting was scheduled for two o'clock in the afternoon not far from the building in which he was currently sitting. In order not to give Severus time to prepare and set a trap, Arnold gave the exact time and address only at eleven, and by this time the meeting place was already surrounded by a fairly decent number of wizards, or to be more precise, a whole hundred, who were located around and in the building itself, where the meeting was supposed to take place.
It wasn't hard to sense such a large number of wizards in one place, no matter how hard they tried to hide their presence, especially when they were all dark wizards.
After all, for Snape, they were like a black dot on a white background, hard to miss and constantly catching his eye. But Severus wasn't going to harm that wizard anyway, and the contract they had signed that morning couldn't stop him anyway, because he had learned to bypass such "toys", especially such mediocre ones, back in his first year at the "Magistrate".
But in addition to talking to that "young talent" and putting a seal into his body, Severus had another reason for coming to this country. He wanted to follow the necromancers and find their main community, located somewhere in Romania, and check something.
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Half an hour later, having paid the bill, under the surprised gaze of the waitress who froze at the sight of an empty saucer which was sometimes ago filled with a whole cake and a kitten with a protruding belly lying on the table, Severus left the restaurant heading along a not very crowded street, towards the meeting place, which was located two blocks ahead.
Nagini at this moment looked quite calm, but deep down she was very tense from the upcoming meeting with this man, whom she saw in that vision.
After all, the Prince still kept his word and showed him to her, and also told her about his plan for this wizard. And when they crossed the road through a pedestrian crossing, along with a small stream of Muggles, the nervous snake felt a warm palm on her head, which made her shudder, and after a few seconds calm down a little and relax. "Don't worry, I won't let that happen…"
"I know, but still... it's weird to meet someone who might kill you in the future…" she sighed, resting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes.
"I don't argue, but there's nothing special about it, it was just a vision that can always be changed," he looked at her with an encouraging smile, and then continued, "Am I wrong? We're already changing it…"
"What if we're not changing anything? What if we did the same thing in that vision?"
"That could be possible," he didn't deny such a possibility, since he had already thought about it himself, "But I said that I would change the future, which means I will, or don't you believe in me?" Severus said, squinting and with a hint of feigned displeasure, poking her in the nose, thereby causing a displeased snort from the reptile.
"I believed and will always believe in you," the snake snorted in response, poking him in the side.
"Then stop thinking about all sorts of stupid things."
"~Meow!" as if supporting him, Lucky released his claws and meowed threateningly, and then, looking around, he saw a man in a fur coat with epaulettes and a cap on his head, standing with his back to a small stall, on whose belt was a striped stick, in black and white colours, and to prove his strength, the kitten disappeared and a moment later returned.
A few seconds later, they heard a surprised cry "What the hell ?!" the Muggle in the cap exclaimed in shock, turning around at three dull knocks and seeing the deplorable state of his stick, divided into three completely even parts, he stood in place, staring at them with bulging eyes.
Nagini, who was watching this, was not very surprised, because she had once already seen how this little one played with the King of Chimeras, and the latter, experiencing incredible rage, tried to swat Lucky, and the kitten playfully dodged each attack and hissed something in response, from which the lion became even more "emotional" and tried to swat the little one with redoubled force.
But it was not the same with Severus who without holding back, gave a flick to the arrogant kitten, who meowed pitifully in response.
"You don't need to cause problems to people you don't know until at least they hurt you, understand?"
"~ Meow…" he said resentfully, turning away, which caused a cheerful hiss from the snake, and Snape could not hold back a grin at the sight of this offended face, but he did not succumb to this "charm", but Nagini still felt sorry for this little actor, stroking his back with her tail, and he in response already purred contentedly.
"You're just making this impudent kitten more arrogant..." but the Prince still held back the urge to give him another flick, and they were already approaching the meeting place, so looking towards Lucky, Severus said "Run on, I don't want you to be noticed."
"~ Meow!" Nodding confidently, he disappeared, and Snape could not hold back a crooked smile at the sight of this incredible speed, because even with his current strength he could hardly keep track of him.
"The perfect spy and ... killer." By this time, Severus was already surrounded by dark wizards posing as simple Muggles, but no one even looked at the strangely dressed man in a black robe with a hood on his head, as if not noticing him. "You too, go ahead."
"Okay," nodding slightly, she began to shrink right before his eyes and in a few seconds became the size of a thumb and after admiring her for a few seconds, under the slightly displeased narrowed gaze of the miniature snake, he nevertheless transferred her to his front pocket.
"You should take this form more often."
"Hm!"
"So small, defenseless, but very poisonous... I could just squeeze you…"
"I'm going to bite you now," to hide her embarrassment, she hissed with a hint of anger, looking at the Prince with her black eyes from her front pocket.
"Okay, I'll keep quiet." he grinned and stroked her head with his finger, and then, looking up at a small, two-story building that resembled a typical warehouse with many exits for cars, he finally dispelled the spell and at that very moment dozens of pairs of eyes concentrated on him.
The dark wizards guarding the building were shocked to see the appearance of an unknown wizard, right in front of the building, bypassing the anti-apparition spells and the barrier that should have immediately detected him, which immediately made them tense.
But as soon as the unknown man threw off his hood, revealing to all the wizards the face of a man over forty, with a slight stubble, short, dark hair and a small scar on his cheek, they relaxed a little and did not interfere with the entrance to the building, immediately recognizing the person with whom the meeting was scheduled.
The meeting place was a small but empty hangar, where three dozen wizards had gathered, in dark robes, with one common feature - an unhealthy pallor.
Most of them looked sullenly and simultaneously with contempt at the "guest" who had entered, simply not understanding why they had all been gathered in this place and why they had agreed to this meeting, to which only one person had come.
Severus himself did not pay much attention to them and calmly approached a round table with three chairs, he simply sat down on one of them and completely ignoring all the gathered necromancers, closed his eyes and began to wait for the last two to arrive.
At the same time, he was examining the building and noting each wizard in his head, because if it came to a fight, he had to make sure that he could kill each wizard with one precise movement.
But he didn't have to wait very long, after a few minutes he felt the appearance of three more wizards: one "Master" at the beginning and two in the middle of this rank, one of whom, to the surprise of the Prince, was almost as strong as Arnold.
As soon as they entered the room, Snape immediately recognized all three wizards: the first was the commander of the "Diamond" squad, whose face he saw in the memories of the leader of the "Black Star"; the second, a "young", but very nervous talent from the vision of Qilin; and the last one was a necromancer, the head of the community of necromancers, Xardos.
His face had been hidden under the grey hood of the robe, for more than two hundred years, no one has ever managed to see what he looks like and because he wear gloves, many assumed that he managed to achieve the impossible, to become a real Lich, the highest degree of development in the field of "necromancy", an immortal being with incredible magical power, who could study magic for the rest of eternity.
At the same time, Sandro also studied the wizard sitting at the table, about whom Arnold told him, but what puzzled the man was that he did not feel anything from him, as if the most ordinary, third-rate wizard was sitting in front of him, only…..
"Don't even think about checking him out or being rude..." Xardos' hoarse, but at the same time wary voice sounded in his head, causing genuine shock on the face of the "Almaz" squad leader, and all he could do was blink his eyes in amazement and answer: "Yes..."
But panic appeared in the gaze of the "young talent", for the first time since they entered the hangar, hearing the voice of the head of the community and his teacher, who ordered him not to dodge and answer only the truth if he wanted to survive, and the tone with which these words were said immediately made it clear what kind of ass he was in.
'Yes, damn it, how could I insult him?!' the dark mage almost screamed in his mind, over this injustice. The leader of the community sighed wearily to himself, looking at the back of the sitting wizard, whose body was surrounded by a crimson aura, which was nothing more than a life force, the size of which always personified the strength of any wizard. And... it simply amazed him with its size, almost completely covering the entire hangar.
At that moment, his entire being screamed to run and as far away from this man as possible, and his mind understood that this was impossible, so he decided to just go with the flow.
"If I had known that I would meet such a monster, I would not have come to this damn meeting at all..." he thought melancholically, calmly sitting down opposite the stranger and preparing for the upcoming conversation in the hope that everything would work out today...
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