Chapter 229 - 228. Three Months Later.

Chapter 228. Three Months Later.

The little dragon, just as Severus had predicted, grew by leaps and bounds. In just three and a half months, he had nearly reached the size of the Qilin, comparable to the smallest blood wolf at just over half a meter.

Strangely enough, everyone welcomed the new pet quite warmly. He bonded especially well with the Qilin, whose bloodline also contained dragon ancestry.

With the Phoenix, however, the relationship was far from harmonious.

The bird, true to form, continued to regard everyone she saw with contempt, and Drake was no exception. While the others simply ignored it, his proud dragon nature would not allow him to let the slight pass. In that instant, he unleashed a burst of fiery breath at the feathered creature.

To the scaly one’s surprise, however, it had no effect whatsoever. The Phoenix simply brushed it off, greatly astonishing him. A fire of rivalry ignited within him immediately, and from then on, he attacked the poor bird almost every day. For the first month, she still fought off the little one.

Eventually, growing tired of this, since Drake simply would not leave her alone, attacking at the most unexpected moments, even at night, except during meals, the bird began to hide.

But to her misfortune, dragons possessed terrifying senses of smell, and he found her easily. The Phoenix had already begun to regret provoking this relentless creature.

Yet surrendering, especially to some upstart, was beneath a true Phoenix. And so, to this day, the bird endured all attacks but was too embarrassed to retaliate.

Lucky did not escape a similar fate, becoming Drake’s number one rival after seeing the reverence other magical creatures showed him. However, while the first time Drake had managed to catch Lucky off guard, the second time Lucky easily dodged the attack and rewarded him with claw scratches across his entire face, and even his scales offered no protection.

When this outcome repeated itself three more times, Drake decided to take a break and joined the King of Chimeras, who was training all the young ones under Severus’s orders.

Even so, he still challenged Lucky to a fight once a month, always losing within seconds, and then walked around with a scratched face for another week.

Severus did not think long about the name for the new pet and simply decided to call him Drake. He chose it because the name had two meanings: dragon and snake, which, given his build, suited him perfectly.

The Qilin also began learning White Magic from Li Er, but under Nagini’s strict supervision. She doted on them and ensured the old ghost did not dare teach them anything improper.

Nagini herself had also begun training with redoubled effort in the company of the three kings of the Inner Region of the Magic Jungle, after hearing from Severus about the progress of a certain dark witch.

During these months, nothing particularly special happened in Severus’s life, except for a few minor matters.

First, he had finally managed to establish a teleportation array between his home and the outer region of the Magic Jungle by finding a small loophole in the barrier. Now the blood wolves could go hunting in the forest once a week, which naturally delighted them, while the King of Ents and other forest beasts felt quite the opposite.

The problem with the ents was not difficult to resolve: simply by promising that the wolves would not come within five kilometers of their territory and would not use fire. Severus himself had already warned them about this.

*After all, who would want to shoot themselves in the foot?*

Training with Bellatrix also progressed quite briskly.

She even managed to surprise him somewhat with her diligence and hard work.

Now he was certain that by the end of this year, Britain would gain another Magister, and a formidable one at that.

Although she had previously approached their lessons with skepticism, after a month, when she tried her frequently used spells, she was amazed to find she could cast most of them wandlessly, though some still required incantations.

This was already a huge step forward, and Severus received a passionate kiss from a grateful Bellatrix.

Moreover, over the past three months, she completed the first few stages of training and could now manipulate raw magic with considerable skill even while moving. However, she could still be provoked into losing her temper easily, causing her control to falter, and they were currently working on this problem.

By the beginning of May, Bellatrix could already use almost all her spells without a wand, though not the most complex ones like Bombarda, which she tried to avoid using without a wand: firstly, because of the danger of blowing her hand off; and secondly, it was weaker than with a wand.

After all, the wand made it much easier for her to concentrate her magic, and over the past sixteen years, she had simply grown accustomed to it.

Severus also began teaching her dark spells, but for now only the simplest ones: Dark Sphere, Dark Barrier, Dark Thorns, and Dark Stream. These were mainly aimed at improving control specifically over dark magic, earning him another passionate kiss.

Besides the teleportation array and training, he attended to other matters as well.

Two months ago, he released several new potions to the market. Besides the Sobering potion, which had almost completely displaced its predecessor from the market, his shop’s shelves now featured: Mind-Clearing, Eloquence, and All Five Senses Enhancement. Though they did not achieve the same popularity as the earlier ones, they still boosted sales quite well.

Recently, wizards from other organizations and even countries had begun visiting him frequently, inviting him to join them.

He was even offered a comfortable position in the International Confederation of Wizards, but he had little interest in this, and he had no time for them and their behind-the-scenes games.

By the end of April, he finished work on the potion for dragon pox and had already submitted all his research and results to the Ministry of Magic for verification, patent approval, and permission to conduct trials.

In addition, he sent the same to Mungo’s. Thanks to Madam Pomfrey and Slughorn, who had signed the letter, it should soon be reviewed and answered. So Severus waited calmly, continuing work on the ritual, which he had nearly finished; only the finishing touches remained.

In the magical world of Britain itself, things were quite calm. During these months, no clashes or battles occurred at all.

At the moment, the Ministry of Magic was busy recovering from that battle, actively recruiting new members for the Auror ranks and even slightly lowering requirements for Hogwarts graduates who wanted to join, as they had lost too many in that battle.

The same was true of the Death Eater ranks, which were mainly being handled by the Malfoys and Corban Yaxley.

Voldemort himself had left the country and headed to Romania almost on the same day that Severus returned.

He learned this by reading Lucius’s memories, though he didn’t know what Voldemort was looking for there, and at the moment he wasn’t particularly interested either, since he had better things to do than constantly watch one noseless half-wit...

May 6, 1978. Gloucestershire.

Severus wore a thoughtful expression as he gazed at two transparent screens: on the first was a map with the familiar outlines of a white building and a small surrounding forest, encircled on all sides by a vast number of red dots; on the second were people in dark robes, whose numbers truly astonished him — almost two hundred people dispersed throughout the territory around his house.

The images on the screens changed every few seconds, one after another, showing wizards from different angles, who apparently thought that wearing Invisibility Cloaks meant no one would notice them.

Next to him, on the right, lay Nagini, and on his left sat a gloomy Eileen, stroking the head of a contentedly purring Lucky.

"The fifth attack this month... who is so eager to capture me?" Severus sighed wearily. He had already caught the attackers more than once, but they knew nothing about the client. Several weeks ago, he had also learned something interesting from those killers who had once been hired by Lestrange.

A bounty of one hundred fifty thousand Galleons had been placed on his head through the mercenary guild, where the leader of that group held a significant position — and two hundred thousand if he were taken alive.

Most interestingly, the information about him was very detailed, listing all his achievements and estimating him to be a very experienced mage who mainly used fire spells.

It also included a detailed analysis of his defenders — the wolves and house-elf — as well as his teacher, ihiros Ihiros. However, the teacher’s power level seemed deliberately understated, as if he were only slightly stronger than his student.

Who exactly placed this order was unknown; one day the notice simply appeared on the board, and a deposit of nearly half the amount had been paid into the guild’s bank account.

This situation had already begun to irritate Severus, who simply wanted to live peacefully and focus on his research, not waste his time searching for who-knows-who in who-knows-where.

"As soon as I find this damned client, I’ll skin them alive — I have enough healing potions for that!"

"Maybe it’s the Ferzi?" Nagini suggested.

"They could be taking revenge on you for that day," Eileen nodded in agreement, having heard plenty about them from the house-elf and Nagini.

"Who the hell knows, but... today, no one is leaving here alive!" Severus said with steel in his voice, already tired of all this. Not a single weekend in the past month had passed without an attack, and only at school could he relax a little. "Since you went after easy money, be prepared to say goodbye to your lives!"

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