Chapter 272 268. The Flamels. Part 4. Completion.

Pulling a vessel from the cabinet, Severus handed it to Perenelle.

"Take a look yourself, in case there’s something I shouldn’t see," he explained, and as soon as she took it, he turned to the right-hand cabinet and began studying its contents. "I thought you knew everything here."

"I rarely come here, only when Nicholas stays too long or when there’s a complete mess," she answered with a sad smile, opening the vessel, which resembled a small lidded pot. "So I’m not very familiar with the charms here, and he’s the only one who cleans up." As soon as she saw the contents of the container, she quickly snapped it shut and placed it into an artifact enchanted with Undetectable Extension Charms. Her eye twitched a couple of times, but otherwise her expression remained composed.

"Found it?" he asked, looking at her with amusement.

"Yes, it’s here." Though she sounded completely calm, her eyes betrayed her intense curiosity about how he’d known Nicholas kept this here.

"Then I think you can handle the rest yourself. You have far more connections here than I do, and it will be much easier to find a Veela willing to do this. Once you find one, just contact me. We’ll quickly perform the necessary ritual, and in nine months you’ll be able to dandle Nicholas himself, and then remind him of it every time he gets bored." Ignoring the disapproving yet interested gaze of Nagini, he winked at Perenelle, who smiled much more brightly in response, imagining the same scene.

"Thank you, Mr. Prince. I will contact you as soon as I find a suitable candidate."

"No need to thank me, I haven’t done anything yet," he added, shaking his head and checking the time. "I must leave you for today. I need to start preparations."

"Perhaps some tea? I also baked pies. They’ll go to waste, and I don’t eat sweets often..."

"Of course we’ll keep you company, right, Severus?" Nagini looked at him with a sparkle in her eyes, still remembering with childish delight the wonderful taste of that sweet dessert he’d treated her to earlier.

"Well... all right, but not for long," he agreed with a heavy sigh, yielding to that puppy-dog look that even Lucky would envy.

"Thank you!" she squeaked joyfully, circled around him to catch up with Perenelle, then began chatting with her, trying to get the pie recipe. Severus, with his hands behind his head, followed them, recalling the necessary dark magic ritual to implant a soul into a body...

---

They stayed as guests of Perenelle for about another hour, then returned home with a gift of four more pies. One was immediately claimed by Lucky, and the rest were shared with everyone.

"...Severus, but I still can’t understand how you knew that this thing could be there?" Nagini asked curiously, her cheeks flushed, sitting at the table with Eileen, who looked somewhat puzzled, unable to follow the conversation.

"Because their experiments are often very dangerous to one’s health and life, alchemists almost always keep a couple dozen liters of their own blood nearby, as well as other fluids, like certain genetic material. One never knows what might happen during their work, and damage to or even loss of reproductive ability is not uncommon at such times. Therefore, every self-respecting alchemist keeps all of this in reserve, just in case," he calmly explained, sipping jasmine tea and ignoring Nagini’s intense gaze.

"So... you also keep it at your... ow! Severus!" she exclaimed indignantly, rubbing her forehead where a sugar cube had landed.

Of course, she hadn’t felt any pain, but the sensation was unpleasant, and who would like having something thrown at them, especially in the face?

"Talk less. Everything is fine there and always will be, but you can always..."

"Pervert!" Nagini declared, snorting with embarrassment.

"And who’s arguing? All of us men are quite the perverts," Severus answered in the same emotionless voice, easily dodging a sugar cube, then catching it in midair and returning it to the sugar bowl. "All right, I need to get to work. Have a good day, ladies." Rising from the table amid Nagini’s disgruntled grumbling and Eileen’s amused smile, he headed toward the stairs leading to his laboratory. *I think the implantation ritual will suffice for our purposes, but one could also consider possession, although... it would be more interesting to combine them, and I’ll definitely need it again someday...*

But when Severus reached the second floor, he found a pensive Li Er waiting in front of his laboratory entrance. The spirit had just finished the day’s lesson with the Qilin.

"Do you want to ask something?" Severus asked politely, unsurprised by his visit, already knowing what he wanted to discuss.

"I heard that you’re going to resurrect that person..."

"That’s true." He didn’t deny it; there was nothing secret about it, and he had long ago promised to help Li Er with his rebirth. "But this option will only work for those who have an intact soul. We could also experiment with you, if you’re ready to go through infancy, that is, spend nine months in a Veela’s belly, be born, lose your dignity for up to a year, and then spend a hundred-plus years restoring your former powers almost from scratch, then..."

"I understand. No need to go on." Li Er held up his hands with a nervous smile. "Forgive me... I thought that..."

When Severus asked directly, "That I forgot about you?" Li Er looked away, embarrassed. "No, I haven’t forgotten. But I don’t yet have a suitable method to resurrect you that would restore most of your strength, and at my current level, I doubt I’ll find one in the next five to ten years." Walking past him, Severus approached the laboratory door.

"I... understand, and I ask forgiveness for my distrust," Li Er said sincerely, folding his hands and lowering his head.

"It’s nothing," Severus said with a slight smile, shaking his head as he stood half-turned toward Li Er, looking him in the eye. "I understand completely. I would probably have reacted the same way if I had heard that someone who promised to resurrect me was doing it for someone else."

But his answer only deepened Li Er’s sense of guilt. Just as Li Er was about to say more, he heard a quiet pop.

"Once I’m able, the first person I resurrect will be you." A muffled voice came from the room. Li Er, biting his lower lip, silently bowed toward the door and, without raising his head, floated down the stairs...

---

Unsurprisingly, preparation for the ritual didn’t take much time. Just two days later, Perenelle contacted Severus, having found a suitable person.

Severus himself had finished reworking two magical circles, combining them into one. He’d had to give it some thought, but fortunately, he had experience.

Fundamentally, the rituals of implantation into a body and possession were almost identical. They shared the same foundation, with only a few differences.

The second was more secure than the first. The first simply implanted a soul into an empty shell without anchoring it, though its advantage was that it merged the soul with the body far better and left almost no trace of foreignness.

Many preferred the first, but the second was also very popular, especially among dark wizards and magical creatures like ghosts, as it allowed one to inhabit a body and preserve the soul along with the knowledge of the body’s previous owner.

Of course, Severus had told Perenelle in advance that the ritual was not a light one.

But she wasn’t very surprised; she understood perfectly well that it couldn’t be otherwise. She didn’t care. She didn’t subscribe to those foolish stereotypes about light and dark magic, especially after living with an alchemist who walked the line between light and darkness.

And if this would bring Nicholas back as she knew him, she was not against using even a dark ritual.

The very next day after that conversation, they met in Severus’s laboratory with a nervous Veela, a very beautiful woman of about thirty, who, though she knew what she would have to go through, was still anxious.

She’d never been in such a situation before, but fifty thousand Galleons before childbirth and the same amount after was enough to sway anyone.

She had been chosen after Perenelle studied the personal files of the best Beauxbatons graduates, those who were free of disease and bad habits but in need of money, since Perenelle couldn’t allow Nicholas to be born from just anyone.

The ritual itself passed without incident and took only a few minutes.

It consisted of only four stages: drawing the magical circle, fertilizing the egg, activating the magical circle, and placing the soul into it.

The soul would be stored in a seal on the Veela’s body, gradually filling the new, developing organism and restructuring it so that by the ninth month, it would fully occupy the already formed body.

Though it sounded unpleasant when described, it was the safest possible method of rebirth if the soul was preserved, one that even light wizards practiced, although it was considered dark.

But of course, there were exceptions to this ritual: Archimagi and above, as well as people with strong souls. Such people simply could not take this path.

A newborn organism could not withstand them and would die along with the invader.

So those wizards had to search for suitable bodies or grow them.

But that method, unlike this one, was not long-lasting. The new vessel would still die, and one would have to find another.

As for Archimagi, the merging of core, body, and soul was not a death sentence.

After their deaths, their souls separated from their bodies and departed to rest, and the wizards themselves could always do the same, but inevitable death awaited them afterward.

Nicholas was very lucky. He had been close to becoming an Archimagus, and if he had achieved that before the injury, they would have had to find another method of rebirth and wait another five to ten years alongside Li Er.

And deep down, Severus was even a little glad about this outcome. Perhaps after this, they would want to continue living. He really didn’t want to lose such wizards: wizards who had caught his fancy, with whom he could talk and learn new things. And in the coming battle, their strength would prove useful.

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