Good or bad, does it matter?

The rest of the week before the weekend passed quite calmly, the house elves with Lucky were exploring the castle, and Severus was finishing preparations for the ritual, double-checking each rune that was entered into the magic circle, because one slightest mistake could lead to terrible consequences, up to the degradation of the magic core.

On Friday, he met with Rowena again, asking her a couple of questions about his friends, to at least approximately know the country where they lived, as well as about any marks on their bodies and a description of their appearance.

Which, of course, she happily shared in full, even told about birthmarks, although when the conversation turned to Gryffindor, she honestly admitted that she could not say anything because of the vow given to the real Ravenclaw.

She also told him something else interesting. That same year, when her "friends" left the castle, a month later, a group of what she knew to be foreign wizards came to them, she understood this from their accent and behavior, who wanted to buy the school from Gryffindor, but he refused, while they paid special attention to her and offered to leave with them, promising "mountains of gold", access to their entire library, which, according to the guests, was dozens of times larger than Hogwarts, and also any books she wanted, even the rarest copies. But then she refused them, because she did not want to betray her friends and they silently retreated, which, of course, alarmed the three founders a little, although if Salazar was with them then, he would have definitely understood that everything was not very good, but the only "brains" left the castle.

Of course, there was also Godric, but he was very far from the "snake", in such "slippery" moments.

At first, they suspected them after Slytherin of Penelope's death, but then, the founders found no evidence of this, and now, after the truth was revealed, she realised that most likely her "friends" were with them, because how could they have found out about her?

After all, they really needed a person who managed to decipher something like this, and the fact that that organisation decided to kill them was also an expected outcome, since they did not want everyone to know about it, so those two women stayed so long near Ravenclaw and even helped with the work.

Although this information could not help him in any way, but now he knew for sure that their base was in another country.

And even if it were in Britain, it was unlikely that the "Black Star" would stick its nose here.

But he did not deny the possibility that there were spies of the organization in the country, who most likely also watched the school, so it was still not worth showing off the runes from his world, at least until the moment when he stabilised the core after strengthening ...

***

On Friday evening, having said goodbye to Slughorn, after some other additional classes, oddly enough, which, according to the professor, were already coming to an end, although they were calculated until the end of the year, but the Prince learned everything too quickly.

He returned to his room, from where he moved from the school to a specially prepared place for the ritual.

It was under the forest, almost twenty kilometres from the nearest settlement, in a huge cave the size of two Great Halls of Hogwarts, which was simply littered with hills of turquoise crystals, which all this time Shafiki bought up, on Severus' orders.

The method of amplification was quite simple, Severus wanted to subject his core to stress, and due to the fact that the magic in the crystals was completely pure, it could not "contaminate" it, thereby worsening the speed of magic absorption and the power of spells.

He was going to "force" the core to expand, absorbing huge flows of magic, which would press on the walls, but to a certain limit, so as not to destroy it under the pressure of magic.

The magic circle to apply was a matter of minutes, especially when you knew every symbol and bend of which it consisted, so, this morning, he levelled the stone surface and applied it, and only then ordered the house-elves to carry the crystals to the cave.

In addition, Severus did not forget about his protection, as well as about suppressing all sorts of magical surges, so as not to repeat what happened to them last time, when the Aurors appeared and he had to disguise himself as a powerful wizard, although this still played in his favor.

---

Standing in the very centre of the magic circle with his eyes closed, Severus made the final preparations, as well as checking the magic circle, and almost an hour after the transfer, he finally opened them.

"No unforeseen cases with a hundred percent probability should happen, but still no one is insured against accidents," a wooden ball appeared in his hand, consisting of roots and emitting incredible magical power, but not overwhelming, more calming, nothing else should be expected from the heart of the King of Treants, which was overflowing with natural magic that had an incredible healing effect.

"Well, it's time to begin," smiling softly, he looked down at Lucky and Nagini, standing nearby, "You will stand outside and guard this place until I finish and I say right away, it may take from two to three days."

"Maybe it was worth doing it tomorrow, when you rest?" the snake asked anxiously, approaching him and looking straight into his eyes. " I've already drunk the "Vigor Potion", next week I won't be able to sleep at all," leaning over, he gently ran his palm over her head, "Everything is fine, I've calculated everything."

"~ Meow!"

"Yes, yes, they will feed you," smiling, he turned his gaze to the kitten, and then extended his hand. The baby froze for a few seconds, as if thinking about something, while not taking his eyes off the man's face, and then, as if having decided something, he approached him and put his head under him.

Still, in this short time and under the influence of this strange feeling of "closeness" and calm, the kitten really did become attached to Severus, and he fed him delicious food every day, played with him and allowed him to do whatever he wanted, albeit within certain limits of what was permitted, and he began to like this kind of life and had no intention of saying goodbye to it, and he had no intention of returning back to the forest.

"~ Mrrrrr…"

"Okay, enough of the tenderness, go, let's go," patting them on the heads, he stood up and directed his palm towards the exit, creating a passage so that they could calmly leave the cave, and not move along the crystals.

"We will wait for you outside…" Nagini whispered quietly, lowering her eyes, and then, turning around, crawled towards the exit.

"Okay, I'll try to finish as quickly as possible.."

"And I won't leave until you come out!"

"And now you have deprived me of even a choice, I could not even imagine that you are such a cruel girl," the young man drawled resentfully, receiving a displeased look from the maledictus in response.

"Don't be sarcastic! And just try not to come out in three days!" She said before leaving the cave, and the kitten, exchanging glances between them, tilted its head to the side in confusion, and then "meowed", and also ran after the snake.

And as soon as he was left completely alone, Severus pointed his palm at the exit and squeezed it, and the stone walls quickly joined, completely closing the passage.

"Let's hope that everything goes well and I don't turn into a masochist after these three days…" Severus crouched down, folded his hands together and slowly began to whisper a spell, the magic circle beneath him lit up and became brighter with each second, and the crystals followed suit...

The next moment, Snape's core began to fill with magic at an incredible speed, and a minute later, a groan escaped his mouth, he felt a sharp pain that abruptly rushed through his entire body, as if someone had stuck a red-hot knife into his chest, after which there remained a terrible, aching feeling, and then another blow to the wall of the core and again a sharp pain, from which he already gnashed his teeth, and then the aching pain began again... "Whoever came up with such a way to strengthen the core was clearly a sadist!" he hissed through clenched teeth, and then completely concentrated on the core, trying to distance himself from the pain...

********

Diagon Alley.

Seven unknown people in dark robes, almost completely hiding their faces, entered a small shop with a simple name - "Artifacts for Everyone", all that the man standing behind the counter could see was their mouths, but almost immediately, he felt something was wrong, and when they closed the door behind them, the wizard had already pulled his wand out of his holster and was tightly clutching it in his hand under the counter.

"May I ask what brought you to my shop?" the wizard asked, frowningly studying the "guests".

"Mister Macmillan, when meeting customers, you should smile, and not grab your wand." a soft, but cheerful, slightly hoarse female voice sounded from the wizard standing in front of the group, "The answer to your question is quite simple, we need information."

" And what kind?"

" You have a rather interesting artifact for sale," putting her hand under her robe, she took out a cube, at the sight of which the man's heart began to beat faster, but he did not show even a bit of surprise on his face, but only raised an eyebrow in confusion, as if not understanding what it was, "No need to pretend, and you'd better answer our question honestly, otherwise we'll have to visit you at home and…"

"Are you threatening me?!"

"This is not a threat, but a fact, and you'd better be more accommodating…" with each word, the tone of her voice became lower and colder.

"I'm telling you, I don't know what this is! This is the first time I've seen such an artefact! Do you think I would lie in such a situation?" Macmillan Sr. slammed his fist on the counter menacingly.

"Fred?" she looked at the man standing next to her.

"He's lying, when you showed the artifact…" the man began, but the next moment, Macmillan pulled out his wand and pointed it at them…

"Exp...!"

But before he could finish speaking, the woman waved her hand and a powerful gust of wind slammed him into the wall, and the wand flew out of his palm and landed at the feet of the smiling witch.

"We wanted to solve everything in a good way, but you leave us no choice, Mister Macmillan!" the lady chuckled with a hint of discontent, pulling the pale store owner towards her, who understood that these were not simple people standing in front of him and that they were not going to let him go anyway was clear without this, from their behavior and relaxed manner, because he had seen such people more than once.

"I promise to be gentle…" reaching out, she touched his head...

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Thank you for reading, you guys means alot to me.