Chapter 52

After descending into the crowded hall and heading towards the floo, Severus  noticed a familiar figure with a long beard rushing towards his direction without noticing him. 

"Headmaster!" the Archmage waved to him with a smile, and Dumbledore, looking in Snape's direction with surprise, quickly went towards him. "Severus, my boy, as soon as I received your letter, I immediately headed here, is everything okay?" he asked anxiously, looking at the wizars from head to toe. 

"Thank you, but they let me go, the charges were falsified by someone, and after a conversation with Mr. Harold, in which I explained everything to him, he quickly resolved all my problems and even decided to help with my business."

"Help? Is that so… I'm glad to hear it," the elderly wizard nodded with a warm smile. "Then my intervention in this matter is not required, I am happy that everything turned out so well."

"Headmaster, how about coming to my place and having a cup of tea, after all because of me you had to quit your business and come here…" 

"I would love to, my boy, but I can't: there is a lot of work. I'm really sorry." 

"Ohh don't worry, but remember the doors of my shop are always open for you. You can come in for tea on the weekends, at this time I rarely leave it."

"Of course, I'll be sure to visit you sometime," Dumbledore nodded without changing his expression. "Then I will go. Have a nice day, Severus."

"To you too, Headmaster… have a nice day…" The Archmage waved his hand with a mysterious smile, and as soon as Dumbledore disappeared into the floo, Snape's smile grew even wider.

—---------------

In a gloomy cave, illuminated by one small firefly, stood a small creature wrapped in a dark outfit. From under that outfit, only a pair of green eyes could be seen.

In his hands he held a large pointed and very shabby hat, on which there were three hollows imitating a mouth and eyes. 

"…please send me back to the principal's office!" sounded a displeased male voice from the hat. 

In response, the small "man" tried to ignore him, as if waiting for someone. 

And so, after a few seconds, another person appeared in the cave, at the sight of whom, relief flashed in the eyes of the creature. 

"Sir, I was able to get it!"

"Well done," going up to the small them, the person patted the joyful little house elf on the head and looked at the hat. 

"Who are you and why did you kidnap me?! I don't know anything about anything, and even if I knew something about something, I wouldn't say anything!"

"And you are more talkative than I thought," the young man smiled. The smile was of course impossible to see, because the robe completely hid his face. 

"I need to ask you a few questions. If you answer, I'll leave you here and give Albus your whereabouts."

"Hmm… good." The Hat nodded.

"That's great, tell me where the sword of Gryffindor is." 

"Why do you need it?" The hat asked him sharply, with a scowl on its face. 

"I am fond of swordsmanship, and I need a decent sword." The person replied nonchalantly.

"I won't tell you, don't even ask, you can burn me on the spot right here, but I won't betray my creator!"  listening to the confident words of the talking hat, the Archmage could not help smiling. 

"Well~Well." a small fireball lit up in his hand.

"Stop! Why go to such extremes?! Let's discuss everything!" The Hat shouted in dread.

"Well, to be honest, I'm not in the  mood to play with you. Today I'm a little tired." Taking out a gold pocket watch from under his robe, Severus twirled it in front of the "eyes" of the sorting hat. 

"That's… where did you get it from?!" the hat exclaimed in shock, instantly recognizing the clock. 

"Your master gave it to me, and he allowed me to take the sword, but that fragment of the soul did not really know where Godric had hid it and how long he had lived in general, so he said to ask you and handed over this watch with the words that you would immediately understand, that I'm not lying." As soon as the wizars finished, the hat was silent for almost a minute, and then a sigh sounded. 

"The watch is real... but I still can't give it to you, because the sword is in me, but my creator put a spell on me, under which only a true Gryffindor, in danger and in need of help, can pull it out..."  Severus hearing this flipped up the hat and looked into it and simply did not see the bottom, there was only pitch darkness. 

"I promised that old man(Godric) not to harm the hat. Sigh, this will turn out to be a difficult task: I will have to destroy this spell, while not hitting the plexus of spells and runes of the hat itself ... "thoughtfully stroking his chin, Severus looked directly at the hat, while puzzling over the solution to this problem. 

Seeing the gloomy expression on his master's face, the house elf tried almost not to breathe, so as not to accidentally bring down Severus 's concentration, but the hat did not have such tact. 

"Hey! How long are you going to look at me?"

"I'm thinking, since you have a mind, will mind magic affect you?" But after a few seconds Severus shook his head. 

"No, it's unlikely to work, I'll have to carry you back, I can't leave you here."

"Do you still have a conscience?" the hat shouted in surprise. 

"Maybe I should leave you here?" Severus looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"I was joking!" And hearing this, the hat started chuckling nervously in response. 

After sometime, Severus with the hat and house elf came out of the cave and cast a spell of averting eyes from him, and then a slight gust of wind surrounded the three of them, which slowly began to lift them up.

"You can fly with magic?!" The hat asked in surprise.

"It's not hard, really, if you're proficient in wind magic." Severus replied nonchalantly.

"Godric thought about this for a long time, but he could not put it into practice," said the hat with praise in his voice, fascinatedly examining the surroundings from a bird's eye view. 

Nevertheless, hundreds of years have passed since the last time the artefact left the walls of Hogwarts, and all this time it has only been gathering dust on a shelf in the Headmaster's office, while only once a year it could unwind, looking through the memories of new students, learning a lot of new things and enjoying the beauty of the external world, and then again it gets locked in the Headmaster's office for a year and dispel its boredom by chatting with portraits and Albus himself. 

"Should I take this as a compliment?" Severus asked with a slight smile.

"Certainly! Godric was the greatest wizard of his time!"

"I see…" Severus  nodded with a smile, and after a few seconds, looking around the surroundings, he sharply frowned. 

"What is it there?" Looking in the direction the archmage was pointing, the hat saw... James Potter, running away from the huge lizards with horror on his face. 

"Ah! He needs help!" The hat said in surprise.

"Help, you say… he's from Gryffindor, right?" 

"A..? Yes." The hat tilted its head in response.

"Can he be called a true Gryffindor?" 

"I…why are you asking…?" sensing something wrong, the hat asked cautiously, and in the next moment it felt that nothing was holding it anymore. 

"Then help him. Let's hope he turns out to be gryffindor."

The hat shouted in horror, while in the depths of his soul cursing the grinning Severus , whose hood slightly lifted up. 

At the same time, on the ground, James was fighting off lizards the size of a car, but after a moment, surprise flashed across his face when he heard someone squeal and, lifting his head up, saw a falling hat. 

Several monsters also noticed the screaming object in the sky and rushed towards it. 

"Accio, hat!" the young man exclaimed, and a sorting hat immediately flew into his hand. 

"Are you… what are you doing here?!" knowing who he pulled to himself, James froze in shock. 

"Oh, you shameless bastard! How could you throw me here?!" Not paying attention to the Gryffindor wizard, the hat started cursing Severus but seeing the approaching monsters, its eyes widened. 

"Let's run!"

"Bombarda!" James Potter gritted his teeth as he blasted the creature away and quickly continued to run away. 

On the monster itself, there were no wounds left from this, with the exception of a couple of scratches, but such an action on the part of the "prey" only angered the monster even more. 

"Young man, how did you end up in this place?" finally calming down, the hat asked in surprise. 

"I don't know. I arranged a meeting to meet with my friends, and then suddenly I was here, and these monsters started chasing me…" James said while running.

"It was definitely him! He lied that he was going to carry me back, but from the very beginning he planned exactly this!"

"Who is this "he"?" James asked and noticing a puddle out of the corner of his eye, he stopped abruptly and pointed his wand at it. 

"Aguamenti!" At the same moment, several water jets as thick as a small pillar burst out of the puddle and threw the three lizards away.

"Run Kid! Run! Run faster, they're chasing us!"

"It's difficult, I've been running away from them for about an hour already, I'm almost exhausted ..." James answered him with a forced smile, continuing to retreat, but his speed dropped slightly. 

"Put your hand in me!" The hat said.

"A? For what?" James asked slightly confused.

"I will not let a student of the school my creator founded die! Even if I have to give the sword to that guy!" The hat said with a stern voice.

"Ah! Yes!" Accelerating sharply and moving away from the monsters as far as possible, James again waved his wand, throwing them back. 

"Faster! Now!" convulsively putting his wand back in his sleeve, James put his hand into the hat and, feeling the hilt, sharply pulled out a silver sword, the hilt of which was decorated with rubies, and on the blade it was engraved: "Godric Gryffindor." 

"Great, now show them the night of Gryffindor!" The hat extended anticipatingly, but instead of the expected massacre, Potter did not budge, but only examined the sword with interest. 

"They'll catch up to us!" The hat said in a worried tone.

"Not a bad sword," the young man said with a smile, and right under the shocking gaze of the hat, the space around them began to curve, and after a few seconds it again saw the outlines of that very cave, and then, looking up, the hat was speechless, because in front of him holding the sword wasn't James, but the man who he met in cave. 

"Y-you…! What was it?!" 

"Illusion magic plus reason is a great combination."

"How…? After all, everything was so realistic…" The hat said bewildered.

" A real illusion affects not only the visual function of the body, but also smell, touch, taste, hearing, and even more subtle feelings, but if you add the magic of the mind, then you can make any person really believe in the illusion, no matter how delusional it may be. And the sword, I tell you, is not bad, many times better than those sold in stores." taking out a turquoise board from a wallet, Severus turned it into a scabbard, where he put the sword. 

"Thank you for such a valuable gift," Severus waved it in front of his hat with a smile.

"Mph! You've got what you wanted, leave me alone now!" the hat muttered angrily. 

"Of course, I've already sent a letter to Dumbledore, he'll be here soon." Placing the hat on a small rock with the letter next to it, he created a barrier around it. "I'm going, give Albus my regards…" waving his hand to it with a smile, he disappeared, and the house elf disappeared behind him, leaving only the hat grumbling with displeasure…