Good or bad, does it matter?

With each new day, the meeting time set by the Black Star organisation was approaching faster and faster, which both they and Snape were looking forward to. 

Witold did not destroy the letter, but put it in one of the boxes, which was only to Snape's advantage and he could calmly eavesdrop on all the conversations about the upcoming, as they put it, "event", from the front rows. 

The plan for the meeting was simple to the point of banality, but with two ways: in the first case, if Severus agrees to join them, then everything will go smoothly; and in the second, as soon as a negative answer is given, a spell will be activated in the room that will block the magic and ten large guards will burst into the room, who will quickly tie him up, and Bella, to the "surprise" of the Prince, will be kidnapped, so they were going to manipulate him , if the wizard refuses to cooperate, and this will also become a kind of protection from Ichiros, if he really turns out to be such a powerful wizard, as Nestor said and judging by the information collected on him.

By Thursday, several people from the organisation had already begun to follow Bellatrix, whom Jose noticed when they stood right at him, or more precisely at the shadow in which he was hiding. 

{A/N: For reminder, this Jose is the guy who came back with Severus from the forest.}

Snape himself could not track them because they were too far away, so he told the shadow mage to keep an eye on her. 

"Black Star" already had everything ready for the "negotiations"; of course, the Slytherin was not going to upset them and also prepared several toys for a successful outcome of the upcoming event.

At Hogwarts, during this time, several incidents also occurred, one of which was the discovery, during a night patrol, by Filch, of three unconscious Gryffindors with scratched faces and hanging upside down at the exit of the castle, right on the peaks of the knight's armour. 

After they were brought to their senses, the investigation immediately began, but only they were silent, like fish and referred to the fact that it was too dark, so they didn't see anything, they didn't dare to tell them that it was a little kitten who did this to them, the rest of the guys will simply laugh at them, and who will believe it, and if they believe it, who in their right mind would want to incur the wrath of the entire female part of Hogwarts.

Already, as Snape later found out from their memory in hospital wing, where they lay for two days, these "individuals" were going on a night meeting with three Hufflepuffs, on the third floor, and on the way they noticed Lucky, who was heading towards the Slytherin living room, so they wanted to have fun with his pet and "wash" him a little with the help of Aguamenti*, but something went wrong, the kitten simply vanished and they lost consciousness, and then woke up in the hospital wing.

Of course, none of the students even thought that this was done by the "cutie", suggesting that 

he was simply afraid of the trio wizards, so he scratched their faces... all three. 

But the teachers were smarter, so they immediately guessed that something was not clean here, so Snape himself had to explain that this "little animal" was not simple, which they, of course, already understood, watching how Lucky appeared , then disappeared. 

Of course, he did not reveal all of his strength, but only three percent out of a hundred, talking about his ability to hide, intelligence not inferior to an eight-year-old child and strength like an adult man, but also adding that he would not have attacked just like that if he was not provoked.

Under the persuasion of Slughorn, they managed to hush up the matter, citing the fact that Snape only had a year left to study (school), and Lucky himself would not do this to students anymore, and if something like this suddenly happened again, he would simply leave. 

With this everything was resolved. And after this incident, the young people themselves shied away from the kitten as if it was fire and generally tried not to even breathe in his presence. 

Besides this, another bad event happened, Pomona Sprout, the head of house of Hufflepuff, found a pale, unconscious forester,lying near his own hut with a wound on his side when she came to him for some herbs for her garden. 

In Mungo it turned out that in addition to being wounded, he was also poisoned by acromantula poison, which was nevertheless neutralised, because its concentration was small, although if he had lain there for another day, he would have definitely kicked the bucket. 

And after HaSnape came to his senses, he immediately began to defend the spiders, citing the fact that he, through his own stupidity, earned this wound by accidentally stepping on the baby of one of them.

 Although, as Severus later found out, already from Slughorn, who knew much more than the others, since he was the head of house, the acromantulas simply drove the giant away, and when he refused to leave and wanted to know the reason why they wanted him to leave, they wounded hum and he had no choice but to quickly get to Hogwarts and drink the antidote, but on the way to his failure, the man met several more monsters attracted by the smell of blood and the wound only widened, as he had to run all the way to the castle and when he reached the hut His strength ran out and he lost consciousness. 

The prince was not very surprised by this, since it was only a matter of time, because after what he did in their colony, they definitely really disliked people and HaSnape was no exception, but even in this case, it was clear that Aragog did not want to harm him, since the concentration of the poison was not even lethal for a half-giant like him and if it weren't for the monsters chasing him, the forester could have easily reached Hogwarts, but fate apparently decided to play a cruel joke on him or maybe take revenge for all those dangerous creatures , bred by Rubeus and walking through the forbidden forest...

***

The meeting was scheduled for two o'clock in the afternoon, on the outskirts of London, on a small estate, away from populated areas and bases of the Ministry of Magic. 

Due to the fact that Snape had never been there, he had to move to the point closest to him, and from there follow the owl, which led him quite quickly to the place where Witold was currently located. 

The mansion itself was ordinary, had only three floors and was surrounded by an iron fence, and in addition to it, there was also a barrier above it that kept Muggles away. 

And as soon as Severus landed on the ground, at that very moment the gate swung open and a young man with green hair and a rather friendly smile came out, while a bit of surprise slipped into his eyes, after all it's not every day you see someone uses the spell of flight, because even in their organisation not many are able to fly, at most five people, but not one of them is in a hurry to reveal their secret. 

"Welcome Mr. Prince, we've already been waiting for you." 

"Thank you," Severus nodded meekly, slightly straightening the hood of his robe and smiling back at him in the same way, "But don't you find my reaction strange, it's as if I came to demand a ransom, and not a small one?" 

"Of course, we will definitely pay it, but I think that we will have something else to discuss…"

"That's it, well, okay, take me to your leader."

 "Yes, please follow us," the man turned his back to Severus and headed towards the building, and five guards surrounded him in the shape of a "square." 

"It feels like I'm under escort and they're taking me to an interrogation room," the Prince drawled with a hint of amusement in his voice, causing the shoulders of one of the guards to tremble, "I don't blame you for anything, I just got into this situation once before because- for misunderstandings with the Ministry of Magic."

"That's how it is, but don't worry, we just want to discuss something," the member of the "Dark Star" calmly assured him without turning around, "And also take our man, who did not behave in the best way, I'm sorry for their behaviour." he added embarrassedly and so naturally and emotionally that Snape just wanted to exclaim, and believe it….. if of course he didn't know the truth.

"You will also forgive me, at that time I was away, and now you know what a turbulent time it is, so I told my house-elf that if someone knocks and demands to be let in, he will activate the protective and attacking charms, but I didn't expect these people to be so weak…"

"It's okay, it was all our fault," the man answered again without even changing his face, while the Slytherin could easily read the thoughts of the man standing in front of him and besides gloating and contempt for Laurus and his people, he didn't do anything else , but this was not surprising, because in the memories of a member of the "Gold" branch, he saw how Laurus behaved arrogantly towards others and directly insulted them, and the members of the "Steel" branch simply could not do anything about it and tolerated it, since he was higher in rank than them and such an attitude towards him was quite natural. 

Large, gold-decorated double doors swung open and the group entered the building. 

Inside, the mansion, with the exception of a dozen wizards standing at each window and near the stairs leading up, was completely empty, although this was not surprising, because outside, on the right, there was a sign that said "for sale."

 The guards only glanced at them out of the corner of their eyes, and then returned to their duties, as if not interested in the "guest". 

Severus was a little amused by this, but he did not show it on the outside, but only looked around with a bit of interest, as befits a seventeen-year-old boy.

 'Well, I just have to hope that everything will go according to plan and I won't have to carry out a massacre... at least now…' and with these thoughts, Severus stepped in...

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