Chapter 71. Construction Begins
Griphook left the dungeon somewhat shaken, especially after the second exorcism. After all, Severus had found another Horcrux in the Lestrange vault: Hufflepuff's Cup. It came with a small surprise: duplication charms and a flaming hand. He dispelled both without much difficulty, and after extracting that fragment of Voldemort's soul, he returned the cup to its place and reapplied the same protective charms.
Severus also transferred nearly all his Galleons into Vault 810. With the contract in effect, he wasn't worried about them, and between what he would soon receive from his shops in Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley, plus his shares in companies excluded from the contract, he wouldn't need that money much anyway.
After Gringotts, Severus didn't go straight home. First he visited the Ministry of Magic, where he redirected his potion payments to his account so he wouldn't have to visit the bank personally each month. Then he stopped by Shafiq's and gave him new instructions as well: redirect ninety percent of the proceeds to the bank.
An hour later, he returned to the shop, where Nagini was already lying on the table and having lunch.
"You took a long time."
"The goblins delayed me, but I have good news: I won't even have to trouble myself with the house." He looked at her with a smile, then erased the flame mark on the back of his palm as if wiping away dirt, and did the same with the Galleon sigil on his chest.
Contracts like that might bind ordinary wizards, but for Severus, who had mastered such things during his time in the Magistrate, they were child's play. As an Archmage, he had once nearly become a spy's slave, almost signing a contract of servitude disguised as a non-disclosure agreement. He had taken pity on her, as they were not enemies who had to kill each other on sight, and only luck had allowed him to notice that certain words sounded strange in context. One could say a single word saved him: "non-disclosure," or rather, one odd letter within it. In that moment, he recalled a tome on an ancient language, a unique volume from his teacher's collection, in which certain letters looked ordinary but carried entirely different meanings. What had betrayed her was that one word contained six such letters, making it sound like "sub.or.di." After quickly isolating those letters and examining them with the Grimoire's help, the strange word revealed itself as "subordination," and the spy herself instantly turned to ash.
After that incident, he devoted nearly two years to studying contracts, agreements, and other documents, learning countless subtleties. Even the Magistrate had employed someone who specialized in such matters, and Severus had learned a great deal from him. That contract had been his work, as had the list of rules for "A Good Grimoire." In the nearly seven hundred years the old man had lived, he had written an enormous number of documents. Even a single slave contract could run to ten thousand pages.
Severus, for his part, had devised countermeasures against them, mostly through black flame, in case he ever overlooked a similar trap. No one was immune to carelessness. Even the strongest wizard could be fed a potion to dull his mind, surrounded by enemies, or have a loved one taken hostage and forced to sign, because in the world of magic, anything was possible.
Leaving the cherry pie untouched, Nagini looked at him in confusion.
"I found someone who will handle the construction. I will just supervise it." He sat calmly at the table and took an apple. "Of course, I could have left everything to them, but I have a feeling those dwarves would definitely start cutting material costs to the absolute minimum."
"Glad to hear it. And how long?"
"Two weeks. They'll finish by the end of the holidays." Stretching and resting his chin on his hand, Severus looked at her with a smile. "Feels like I only just rested, and I'm already tired. Damn goblins."
At that moment, Nagini froze in shock.
"Do you have a fever?" she asked anxiously, pressing her tail to his forehead. "Are you really Severus?"
"Stop being sarcastic. Even I can get tired, and those bastards squeezed me dry. They fought for every Knut. It was awful. We spent an hour on just one question: how much I could withdraw from the account per month. We settled on twelve thousand three hundred twenty-five Galleons, three Sickles, and twenty-seven Knuts. They're supposed to be leaders, but they behaved like ordinary goblins."
"My poor thing. Let Auntie Nagini console you."
"I was just thinking about a dark green leather purse."
"I'm joking!" she grumbled in displeasure, though, through the bond, he felt completely different emotions.
"All right, all right. When you become a Lamia, I won't mind if Auntie Nagini consoles me at night." He dodged a pair of fangs without any trouble, got up from the table, and headed for the stairs. "If anything, I'll be upstairs, my La-mi-a."
"Now I'll show you a Lamia!" Nagini slithered briskly after him. Today she was going to get revenge for all the mockery.
The very next day, he stood near the Prince estate, and Nagini peeked out from under his collar, watching the thirty-odd goblins lined up behind them with interest. Most wore dark, simple clothes and helmets, except for one goblin in a suit holding the plans for the future fortress.
"No skimping on materials and no improvisation. Everything according to plan!" Severus enunciated each word.
"You've told me this three times already," the chief drawled wearily.
"I will remind you every day."
"Hmph!" Offended by such distrust, the goblin stuffed a plain-looking notebook deeper into his pocket and turned to the others. "Get to work!"
"I will also pay each of you a thousand Galleons when the work is finished, but for every mistake, I'll deduct ten Galleons from each of you," Severus said with a calm smile.
The goblins beamed at the first part of his announcement, but froze at the second, their joyful expressions still fixed on their faces.
Satisfied with their reaction, he turned to the house. Drawing his wand, he whispered something unintelligible, and with every passing second, the temperature around them rose until, in an instant, the entire house was engulfed in flames.
"Why are you doing this? There were many valuable things inside!" the foreman exclaimed, bewildered, staring at the burning building as if it were a terrible tragedy.
"You don't need to worry about that. Everything of value I've already taken. Nothing remains inside," Severus explained indifferently, watching the goblin exhale in relief and quickly regain his composure. Then, rummaging through his suitcase, the foreman pulled out a business card.
"Take it. We recently opened a small furniture shop. If you want to sell it, we'll gladly buy it at a good price."
"I'll keep that in mind." Severus nodded and slipped it into his pocket, remembering the items from the Room of Requirement. Now he didn't have to worry about who to foist all that junk on.
A few minutes later, the house had burned down completely, leaving only coals and ash. Severus swept the debris aside without much effort, using wind magic.
"You may begin." He stepped aside calmly, and the goblins wasted no time.
A huge assortment of building materials appeared on the ground. Some goblins began sorting them, while others, using a magic pen and consulting the plan, began marking the main points where the manor had stood, drawing directly on the ground and in the air with glowing ink. They worked carefully, with jeweler's precision, handling the materials as if they were their own children.
With a satisfied smile, Severus watched the goblins use their artifacts and thought that motivating them with gold had been a good idea.
He was not surprised by ordinary pens, but the hovering platforms and a stone golem three meters tall caught his attention: it had no magical core, yet it could still move. It was one thing to see the stone lions tied into Hogwarts's magical source, but this creature had nothing of the sort, and it was almost two hundred kilometers from the bank. However, after a closer look with magic, he lost all interest.
He had expected something like a magical accumulator inside the stone giant, but it turned out to be a simple rune that absorbed magic, several times weaker than what Severus had applied to the cube.
To ward off boredom, he decided to play cards with Nagini, drawing odd looks from the goblins. When they realized she could actually play and even won once, their jaws nearly hit the ground.
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