Chapter 178. The Black Star's Leader. Part 2. Arnold.
The moment they entered the room, Witold gave a slight bow to the man in the mirror. The masked man paid him little attention, instead studying Severus with obvious interest. Severus met his gaze in silence.
The staring contest lasted about twenty seconds. Witold fixed Severus with a tight, irritated glare, appalled that he apparently hadn't thought to show the leader any respect.
Just as Witold prepared to apologize for Severus's behavior, the masked man spoke first.
"This is our first meeting."
"Oh! You're right. It's a pleasure." Severus seemed to snap out of it and offered a slightly flustered smile. "I was just admiring your mask."
"Hm? Have you seen one like this before?" The man pointed the tip of his closed fan at his own mask.
"Mmm." Severus narrowed his eyes and studied the man's face thoughtfully for a few seconds, then shook his head with a faint look of regret. "My teacher studies history, and I once came across a similar mask in a book. But no, they just look alike. That one was flatter, and the design was slightly different."
"Is that so? A pity." All interest drained from the man's expression in an instant. He tapped the open fan against his palm and continued, "In any case, I called you here to ask a few questions and to give you an assignment."
"An assignment?"
"Yes. You need to demonstrate your abilities. The Copper Division is a research department, and I can't just appoint you as its head without justification. First, you need to convince the others of what you're capable of. Only after that can I proceed."
"I'm perfectly fine right where I am as a deputy," Severus said without blinking. Witold nearly stumbled in place.
"Watch your tone!" Witold all but snarled, fearing that this insolence would cost him his own position in the Diamond Division.
"And why not?" A brief gesture silenced Witold, and behind the mask, the leader allowed himself a slight smile.
"The higher the rank, the more work."
"I see. But the Copper Division is different. You'll be free to pursue your own projects, provided you can demonstrate their value and usefulness to our organization."
"Hm. All right then. What's the assignment?" Severus still sounded mildly put upon.
"We'll send you all the research on a particular formula. Your task will be to determine why it produces no effect."
"Understood. I'll do everything I can." Severus brightened and gave a confident nod.
"Glad to hear it. Now, tell me everything that happened last week." The warmth left the masked man's voice entirely.
"Of course. That day I was preparing for my O.W.L.s. I needed to go home to gather certain ingredients that weren't available at school. While I was there, unknown wizards appeared at the gates. They seemed suspicious right away, and I refused to let them through. They started demanding entry. I contacted my teacher, and while I was speaking with him, they broke through the barrier. My teacher's animals and the house-elf held them off for a while, but they were too strong, and one of them wounded me." A brief grimace crossed his face as if the memory of the pain were still fresh, but he continued. "Several hours later, my teacher returned. I can't say exactly what happened after that. He dealt with them while I was recovering in bed. But he told me they wouldn't trouble me again. That's the whole story, without going into detail."
"You said they broke through the barrier?"
Yes. They used a dagger of some kind to do it. But it won't work again, my teacher reinforced and upgraded the barrier," Severus said with unconcealed pride, as if he had done it himself. Witold's eye twitched involuntarily. The leader's reaction behind the mask was impossible to read.
"Did he say anything else about the attackers?" The man's voice remained expressionless.
"Hm. I suppose I can share this much." Severus stroked his chin thoughtfully, then added in a more straightforward tone, "He called them the Queens. That's all I'll say."
"Understood." After two slow taps of the fan on his open palm, the masked man shifted his gaze to Witold. His next words were a command. "Search the entire country. I want no trace of them left on our territory. Am I clear?"
"Yes! I'll see to it immediately!" Witold dropped to one knee, though inwardly he was smirking at the leader's performance. It was, after all, the leader himself who had let the Queens through, allowing them to attempt to capture Severus, and now he was playing the role of the wronged patriarch with complete conviction.
"Good. Now tell me about..."
The next hour was spent on questions: about Hogwarts, about Dumbledore in particular, about the professors. Beyond that, the leader asked about Severus's ideas and plans for the future.
Severus had to admit: the man was extremely careful and knew how to ask the right questions. Each one sounded simple enough and barely touched on the subject of his teacher. But if you assembled every answer and looked at them as a whole, it would make a very complete dossier. After that public execution, the Black Star had taken a deep interest in Ihiros, and that was hardly surprising.
Severus either played the fool convincingly or answered so vaguely that it was nearly impossible to form any clear picture of Ihiros. And toward the end of the meeting, he managed to use Point-Detection Charms to determine where the mirror's image was being broadcast from. He could not pinpoint the exact location yet: that would require far more time. But he could name the country and the city. It was China, somewhere in the greater Beijing area.
With an Archmage-rank core, it would have been far easier to locate the man while remaining entirely unnoticed, but that was beyond him at present. The charm required sustained concentration, and a conversation with the Black Star's leader kept interrupting it. He still had to think through his answers. As a result, he had not managed to locate the exact position in a single attempt as he had hoped. But he was now confident he could do so at their next meeting.
The fan disappeared from the leader's hand. He clapped once, and his tone shifted to something pleasantly neutral.
"Well then. That will be all for today. It was a pleasure to meet you. You're free to go: I have a few things yet to discuss with Vitold."
"And I won't keep you any longer. Have a good day, Leader." Severus nodded with a polite smile and turned to leave. But he stopped in the doorway, turned back, and added with a faintly sheepish expression, "Ah, pardon me. May I ask your name?" By this point, Witold had simply exhausted his capacity for astonishment at Severus's lack of polish.
"Arnold."
"Very well. Until next time, Mr. Arnold." With that, Severus departed, leaving the two wizards alone.
One of them felt a quiet anxiety rising in his chest. The other was just as calm as before.
After a minute of silence, the organization's leader let out a low laugh.
"Interesting young man. Very interesting. And quite a decent actor. Even I nearly believed the performance."
"Leader..."
"Be quiet." The man snapped his fan open with a sharp flick. "You'd better focus on the Ministry of Magic. Did you think I didn't know how little progress you've made there?"
"Yes, sir!" Witold flinched and bowed his head, swallowing whatever he'd been about to say about Severus's behavior.
"For now, stop having him watched. It's pointless." Witold looked faintly surprised by this but nodded. "Don't disturb me for the rest of the week unless it's genuinely serious." The leader left him with those parting words and disappeared.
Witold remained where he was for some time, turning over everything that had happened over the past hour and more, unable to understand what the leader had seen in Severus.
But he was no fool: fools didn't get appointed to command a division. He worked through it fairly quickly, replaying every question that had been asked and every answer Severus had given.
Don't tell me that boy... was acting the whole time. Witold stared blankly ahead in quiet shock, finally grasping that he had been led by the nose from the very beginning, like a naive child.
They left the Steel Division's headquarters and Apparated back to Gloucestershire, where Nagini was already waiting.
"Well, for the next couple of months, probably through the end of the school year, no one will bother us." Severus summed it up with a smile, glancing at the "bodyguard" seated to his right: Eileen, now without her hood. This time, he had decided not to bring Nagini. Hiding a snake under a loose school robe was one thing, but hiding her under a fitted suit was another matter entirely, and would have looked extremely odd.
"That's wonderful."
"But... why did you get involved... with them?" Eileen asked, her voice still faint and labored. After several lessons, she had learned to sense life energy clearly, and the more a wizard carried, the stronger they were. Hardly anyone in that organization was weak, and their leader unsettled her the most: he was not far below her own level.
"I'll explain another time. I need to prepare." He rose from the bench, stretched, loosened his tie slightly, and headed toward the house. "We'll talk it all over this evening."
"Hm?" Eileen tilted her head in puzzlement and glanced at Nagini, who had barely reacted. That puzzled her even more. "Where is he going?"
"On a date," Nagini said with a touch of irritation, which surprised Eileen. She had assumed the two of them were together, and that those feelings were exactly why he wanted so badly to help Nagini become human again.
She turned the strange situation over in her mind for a few seconds, and then something began to fall into place. Her dark eyes brightened, and a smile spread across her lips. Eileen, first and foremost, was a true aristocrat: she had always followed the laws of that world, and family came before everything else.
Her brother's actions had made her life miserable, but she had no regrets; not with a son like this. She blamed neither her father nor the family name, only her own weakness and blind faith. It had been a terrible lesson, but one she carried with her for the rest of her life.
And so she had no objection at all to restoring the Prince family line and starting over with a clean slate. Though whether one woman was enough for that...
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