Good or bad, does it matter?

In front of a sullen man with green hair, stood a nervous young man in a robe with a dagger on his belt. "Are you saying that contact with the surveillance group has been lost?"

"Yes, this morning they still haven't sent a report and haven't gotten in touch, and when we tried to track them using a seal, it didn't give any result, so we can't say whether they are alive or dead, maybe something is blocking the communication with marks, so we…"

 "I see," Witold interrupted him sharply, folding his hands in front of him and thinking deeply, "Spencer, one of my best people in terms of espionage and information gathering, but how was he able to notice him, and even catch him? after all, even I can't keep up with him... now I can understand Nestor. If there is such a powerful person behind that boy, then it's not surprising that he went over to their side. I was too naive and self-confident…" a tired sigh burst out of his mouth.

'This week, I lost two strong wizards and sixty more subordinates, and all through the fault of this boy, but we cannot allow such serious losses anymore, otherwise the whole plan may fail and after that the leader will definitely not pat me on the head, and it will be generally surprising if I am not removed from the position of leader, first I should report him and wait for a decision…', breaking out of his thoughts, he looked up at his subordinate, "I order you to stop digging under the Prince for now and concentrate on suppressing all gangs , what's with the spies in the Ministry?"

"Everything is in perfect order, no one was exposed, no suspicious actions occurred in their direction," the man quickly reported, feeling relieved that everything turned out okay.

" I see, Go, you're free."

"Yes!" And as soon as the man was gone, Witold got up from his chair and, going up to the wall, he touched several bricks in a certain sequence and the next moment it began to tremble, and a small passage opened.

The room behind him was almost completely empty, except for a large mirror attached to the wall, around which a red magic circle was drawn.

Coming close to the circle, he touched the empty area in the circle with his palm and it shone sharply, and a small ripple appeared in his reflection in the mirror, after a few seconds it was replaced by a face in a white mask with patterns and blond hair, and Witold immediately fell to one knee.

"What's happened? You don't usually contact me during missions... " said a calm, masculine voice with a bit of playfulness. 

"An unforeseen factor appeared, two 'magus' and sixty more people were lost…"

"Oh... this sounds very interesting, tell me everything," he asked in a much more "lively" voice, "Who is this person who made you suffer such losses?"

"Yes…"

---

Over the next ten minutes, the wizard told everything that happened during the mission without hiding anything, after all, this was their leader, and deceiving him was not the best idea, because he had ears everywhere, and perhaps he already knew about these serious losses. "...and also, this is all we could gather for him," the man finally finished, but without seeing any reaction on the leader's part, he felt as if a stone had been lifted from his soul, because Witold really didn't want to lose his position, and During his service, he completely studied his leader and could tell exactly when he would get angry or laugh, in this case - a calm reaction and a finger pressed to the mask indicated that he was thinking, which meant that the man did not have to worry for his place, but still he still had a small grain of doubt left.

"Don't take any action against him for now, I will send a third group, the Gold Squad, to you as support."

"Yes!" A bit of relief slipped into his voice, because after the loss of Spencer's group, he really missed such wizards, and the direction of the "Gold" department was espionage, "Thank you!"

"Soon I will contact you and tell you my decision on this issue, and don't disappoint me anymore, " after the last words spoken in a completely casual tone, the man(Witold) shuddered with his whole body and finally the picture in the mirror was replaced by his reflection. 

"It was close," wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, Witold rose to his feet and headed for the exit, "With a group from the "Gold" squad, it will be much easier to complete the task..." Although the fact that he will have to give a small part of the reward to them did not sit right with him, there was no choice...

***

The next week, like the previous days, turned out to be just as quiet, to the surprise of all residents of the magical part of Britain. 

Many even thought that the war was over and that some kind of peace would finally come, and there was no news in the newspapers, so some especially brave ones began to get out, but mostly only during the day, and in the evening on the street, as before, it was completely empty, because there was no news about the end of the war yet, but everyone understood well that behind the silence there is always a storm, so no one relaxed. 

Although the same could not be said about the dark part of the magical world, where there was a real war between gangs and every day their number became less and less. 

Only two stood out among them: the "Union of Ink", under the auspices of the "Black Star" and the "Dark Snakes", owned by the "Death Eaters" and gradually, the former, ousted the latter, capturing an increasing part of the territories. 

The Ministry of Magic itself, although it knew about this confrontation, did not want to interfere, since it was accumulating strength in order to deal with all enemies once and for all, of course, not forgetting to feed the spies with misinformation with a grain of truth, although they caught one person just for show right at the moment when he was transmitting the information, and after that they also carried out a general check, but of course "no one" was found. 

This was done in order to slightly weaken the vigilance of the organisation, because if for such a long time they had not found anyone, it would have looked a little suspicious, and such actions forced the people from the Black Star, who were too active, to quiet down a little.

They started digging and going where they shouldn't. None of the groups was yet ready for open confrontation, fearing a stab in the back from the third time, so it all came down to a cold war, each gathering forces and information, looking for each other's weak points.

 Even though Voldemort knew that the Ministry knew everything about the organisation and spies thanks to Fudge's long tongue, he was in no hurry to talk about it left and right, because even though they were sworn enemies, they were at the same time residents of the same country and He wasn't going to give the country into the hands of some bastards, but at the same time, Tom wouldn't mind seeing them kill each other. 

Although there was another organisation that knew no less about the situation in the country than the Ministry of Magic and this was the "Order of the Phoenix", which, although it did not officially support the first, it completely shared their position in the fight against the Dark Lord.

 It was headed by Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 

After all, like Tom, he also had people in the ranks of the Aurors, one of whom was none other than Moody himself. 

Alastor was not a traitor or a spy, he supported both sides, which of course was known to Harold, who silently turned a blind eye to this, because now they needed help and especially from one of the strongest wizards in the country, therefore, at the moment he rather acted as a liaison between the two organisations.

And in the correspondence, they have already agreed that if war does break out, Dumbledore will take their side and hold back Voldemort while they themselves fight the Black Star...

***

And while everything in the world, as usual, was not calm, Severus also had not the best of times: 

"SO WHAT?" Severus shouted, holding a huge antenna in his hand and being twenty metres above the house.

"Just a little bit higher!" the jubilant voice of Nagini sounded in his head, who was currently in the house and looking into a small black box on which a dancing couple appeared, but with hissing and ripples on the screen.

 "And who pulled my tongue with this TV..." the wizard grumbled tiredly, rising even higher, "AND NOW?"

"Just a little more!"

"@#$%^"!" And what Snape was doing at the moment could not be compared to what he had to go through before, because due to the barrier and the huge amount of magic, any Muggle electrical things simply did not work, so he had to almost completely rework it to finally make it work , and also create a dome around the technique, which prevented magic from getting close to it. 

But even this was not the end, because the television signal also could not get through and he again had to work hard to get rid of this problem, because he would not create a hole in the barrier.

Having finished with all that torment, another problem appeared, the antenna, it could not catch this damn signal, for the reason that the Princes' house was too far from civilization and therefore, after going through about ten different ones, it settled on a three-meter white dish.

And finally, after a few more minutes, the picture on the screen became clear and the hissing disappeared.

Severus created a wooden pillar from the ground and attached it, and then finally descended to the ground, while the smile did not leave his face, because finally all this "haemorrhoids" was over. 

"Well, how is it?" asked the Prince, entering the house and looking contentedly at the snake watching TV, "Now you definitely won't be bored while I'm working."

"Yes! Thank you!" she nodded excitedly, clinging to the chest of Severus, who sat down next to her, and in response began to stroke her and also fixed his gaze on the screen. "But still, Muggles are amazing, to come up with something like this…"

"I agree, by the way," looking at the young man, she asked in bewilderment: " What is a VCR? I saw an advertisement for it on TV."

'It is usually connected to a TV and on special cassettes, you can record some programs, and these cassettes can also be bought in a store, but with some films…" and as soon as he saw Nagaina's shining gaze directed at him, A tired sigh escaped his lips, "Come on tomorrow."

"Okay, " the snake nodded, taking pity on him, but she was still very pleased that for her sake, he spent almost the whole day on this TV, which turned out to be an amazing thing, 'When I become a human again, I will definitely learn driving a car, it looks very interesting!' she thought with a sparkle in her eyes, looking at a beautiful woman in a black dress who got into the car and drove off into the sunset with a bright smile. 

But if Severus had heard these words, he would definitely cry tears of blood, because who would she ask to teach first? But he really thought about buying a car and improving it with the help of magic…