50 Chapter 50

Half an hour later, a man of about forty in a grey suit with a gold badge on his chest and a rather gloomy expression came to the Aurors. 

"You ten morons! Why the hell did you guys go to the world of Muggles and use magic right in front of over three hundred of them, are you out of your mind?!" he roared with fury, causing one strand of his brown hair to fall on his forehead, which was covered with swollen veins. 

"And if you idiots hadn't thought of using the joint Obliviate, you all should've said goodbye to work, and I could have been demoted because of you idiots!"

"Captain, we ourselves did not understand what was happening, as soon as we used apparition, instead of the Ministry, we were transferred to a completely different place!" almost crying, the commander of the detachment tried to justify himself, while the rest nodded vigorously, confirming his words. 

"It's like someone was mocking us!" 

"Yes! Each time we apparated we found ourselves in very strange places! Toilets, men's and women's baths, a swimming pool and even at the bottom of the ocean! This is nothing but a mockery, it is definitely planned."

Listening to his subordinates, the captain frowned, because he could see that they were not lying, and this could only mean one thing: someone specifically wanted to set him up or someone had a grudge against him. 

"It was like some kind of curse!" another Auror added angrily, making the man's frown deepen. 

"Have you met someone before going on the mission?" 

"With many units…we can't be sure exactly who it was…" 

"Tch! It's definitely the work of that bastard Fowler! Only he could think of such meanness!" It suddenly dawned on the rest of the fighters against the dark wizards, and they began to exchange glances in surprise.

"We really met him, he even wished us 'good luck'..." 

"I knew it! Fowler! I will take revenge on you! How dare you set me up like that?! You crossed the line, now don't expect mercy!" The furious flame burning in the captain's eyes made the rest of the Aurors swallow cold air, because they had never seen him so angry. 

"C-Captain Robinson, please calm down, you are shouting too loudly, in case someone hears you…?" One of the aurors said, trying to calm him down.

"Let them hear! But I will take revenge on him! He will pay for this!"

"Yes! Yes! Of course, but please calm down, we have to finish with that suspect first…" the Auror exhaled with relief, seeing that his boss began to cool down. 

"He's behind that glass," the Auror pointed with a nervous smile at Severus, who was snoring with a stupid smile on his face. 

At the sight of this peaceful expression, the captain's eye trembled, and he began to get angry again. "What the hell is he sleeping for?" going up to the glass, he hit it with his fist and yelled at the top of his voice into the magic circle that appeared. "STOP SLEEPING, YOU ARE NOT AT YOUR HOME!" 

"… Back off… old fuck… let me sleep…" the Archmage muttered, still not waking up, causing another wave of rage from the captain.

"What did you say?! You …!"

"Captain!" His five subordinates grabbed him trying to calm him down. 

"Our mission is not to beat him! We just have to interrogate him!" 

"Yes, I remember!" Breaking free from their grasp, he entered the room where the Archmage was chained.

"Get up!" coming close to Severus and not seeing any reaction, the captain snorted, and then, grinning he approached as close as possible to the archmage's ear and, sharply inhaling the air, shouted right into the archmage's ear. "GET UP, BASTARD!"

And... again, no reaction, except for some indistinct muttering, which shocked the man because for the first time someone had "reacted" like this.

"What?" The captain brought his ear closer to the archmage's mouth in order to hear what he was saying, but the next moment there was a surprised cry, and the captain flew a few metres back. 

"My head…what did I hit?" the Archmage drawled with "bewilderment" in a slightly sleepy voice. "And take this rag off me, I can't see anything!" 

With a groan, the unfortunate captain began to rise from the floor, one hand stroking the back of his head, and the other his chin.

"Captain!" Two Aurors ran into the room with shock evident on their faces and wanted to help Robinson get up, but he pushed them away and got up himself. 

"You…! You are doing this on purpose!" The captain said while pointing a finger at Severus.

"Aa? Who are you? What do you want from me and why did you hit me on the head?!" Severus tilted his head slightly in confusion.

"You were the one who hit me!" The captain shouted in anger.

"Um… how could I? My hands are chained to a chair…" Archmage said doubtfully at the man's accusations. 

"You hit me on the head!" 

"Oh you…!" 

From overflowing with rage, the captain turned purple. "Y-you…! You want to hit me again?! I won't leave it like that! I will definitely take care of you! Get that rag off his eyes."

One of the Aurors quickly approached Severus and removed the bandage. And then, right in Snape's face, he jabbed a withered dark hand on a string. 

"It was found among your belongings, do you have anything to say in your defence?" the captain looked with a grin into the stunned face of the Archmage. 

"For the possession of such a little thing, you will get a ticket to Azkaban for ten years." 

"Where did you find it?! I hid it very well!" At that moment, it was time for the Aurors to freeze, while exchanging glances in surprise, because it was they who had thrown this little thing to him. 

Their main task was to bring the Archmage to the interrogation department with an accusation of keeping dark artefacts, and if they did not find anything, plant something and, using this excuse, confiscate all the potions from the warehouse for their "analysis". 

Also, in addition to this group, another one was sent to Hogwarts for the confiscation of the rest of the potions that would be stored there, and money. 

Robinson, on the other hand, had another task: that is to get the potion recipes through blackmail and the threat of Azkaban and in extreme cases he was even asked to use Imperius.

There were several reasons for this. One of them is that they did not have anything like these recipes in their laboratory. They had to spend a lot of galleons to buy a meagre amount of potions from Snape's shop. 

And because of the war there were many expenses, such as training recruits, purchase of artefacts, medical needs for the victims and much more. In addition to this there were other expenses such as wages for ministry employees and aurors.

The Hospital of St. Mungo, Hogwarts, and many other similar institutions were also financed by the Ministry of Magic.

In general, the pockets of the Minister of Magic were not ready for these kinds of expenses. For the same reason, taxes were raised to twelve percent, but due to the fact that most of the wizards left the country, they received much less money.

And so they had to use such a dirty trick in order to somehow escape from this hole and not take a loan from goblins at their horse-high interest. 

And with these recipes, they can produce much more potions and ship them overseas, earning a huge amount of Galleons, which should help them stay afloat and stay out of debt. 

For these reasons alone, permission was given to Robinson for the use of Imperius if Severus refused to give out recipes. 

"Oh-Ho looks like we caught something interesting," Robinson said with a chuckle, not knowing that it was a fake artefact. 

[A/N: He doesn't know about the task given to the aurors in detail.]

"Now you have only two options: the first, you go to Azkaban and spend the rest of your life there, and the second… transfer the rights to your recipes to us, and after that we will drop all charges against you.

"Um, for a simple scratch-back you want to send me to Azkaban?" Severus asked, blinking his eyes in surprise, looking at the gloomy captain. 

"It's a dark artefact!" Robinson said.

"Well… remembering the places it managed to visit, it could very well be the darkest artefact…"

For a few seconds, the Aurors were hung up. "In what places …?"

"Well… you know, I don't have a girlfriend yet…" the Archmage began with a blush on his cheeks and as Robinson heard this, he threw the hand aside with disgust. "… and there's no one to scratch my back, especially there...you know….under the shoulder blades, so I created this artefact, and it is also good in cleaning closed spaces, like somewhere behind a closet or under a refrigerator."

"Then why does it seem so strange?" 

"Well, It seemed to me that it would look cool, so I made it that way," Severus looked at the withered hand with a smile, which after a few seconds, under the shocked looks of the Aurors, rose up and flying up to Severus, began to scratch his leg. 

"Excuse me, it's been itching for ten minutes, but you continue, what other accusations are there on me?" the hand moved to the right shoulder and began to slowly massage it. 

Taking out his wand, the sullen captain waved it without a word, and a blue flash escaped from the tip of the wand, throwing the withered hand a couple of tens of metres back, and then he directed the wand directly at Snape's forehead. 

"What are you doing, Captain Robinson?" the Archmage asked him with a smile. 

"You're just making fun of us, am I right?"

"Hmm …" Severus just tilted his innocently.

"You should also understand why we brought you here."

"Well, there was nothing difficult in this, I'm generally surprised that you decided to "talk" with me so late, and I was hoping for a warmer welcome." 

"And what is your decision?" Robinson looked at Severus with mild annoyance. 

"Okay, I don't mind giving you the recipes, but…" 

"But?" Robinson probed excitedly.

"Three and a half million." 

"Why 'three and a half million'?"the captain asked in bewilderment, but a couple of Aurors understood and opened their mouths in shock. 

"Galleons, what else? That's how much I'll earn in ten years," Severus couldn't help but smile at the dumbfounded faces of the wizards. 

"If you get my recipes, you can easily pay off in a year by selling my potions in a much larger volume, and I'm not talking about ninety percent of the profits you will receive abroad." 

But instead of the expected "I'll inform my boss now and he'll make a decision" line, Robinson directly pointed his wand at the Archmage and grinned. "You yourself will tell us the recipes, whether you like it or not."

"I see, well, that means I was mistaken, I thought you would be smarter, which means I'll have to go to your superiors myself."

"Imper… "

"~Kha!" but the man didn't even have time to finish the spell as he was thrown into the wall, and Severus calmly got up from his chair and looked at a dozen Aurors waving wands in his direction with a defiant smile, but, to their horror, they could not conjure a single spell. 

"Is your magic not working?" Severus asked with a calm smile.

But instead of answering, eight of them sharply attacked the Archmage, and two rushed to the exit. 

"So you know something other than how to wave chopsticks, I'm surprised," tilting his head to the side, Severus dodged the fist of one of them, the other two went behind his back and grabbed Severus' hands, but Severus threw them at those who tried to go right and left , and then without much difficulty laid down the last three and looked at the two Aurors who were frozen at the door, who could not open the door. "I have to say, you guys are not bad."

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