Good or bad, does it matter?{HP}

After signing the contract, both wizards followed the old man, who led them to the basement, the entrance to which was located behind the counter, under the hatch.

In it, in addition to a couple of cages with owls, bats and snakes, there was also a variety of food, vials with potions and even a cauldron.

The elderly wizard did not stop and headed towards the large cage in which sat a strange creature, a huge, almost five-metre long, horned blue snake, which, noticing the approach of the wizard, exposed its fangs and hissed in his direction.

But the old man did not react to this at all and calmly, pointing his wand at the lock, whispered a few words and a clicking sound was heard in the room, accompanied by a red flash, and the cage slowly began to open.

But the snake, without stopping, continued to hiss until after a few seconds it simply disappeared, and another stone staircase leading even lower appeared before the eyes of the two customers.

This did not surprise Severus at all, because he immediately understood that the contents of the cage were a simple illusion and a very good one, but the man standing next to him on the contrary was very surprised, but he quickly pulled himself together, and they again followed the silent owner of the shop.

The staircase leading to the underground warehouse turned out to be much longer than the previous one. They had to walk along it for a whole minute until they got out into the open area, if such could be called a room, completely furnished with cages of various sizes, in which sat not simple domestic animals, but much more terrible creatures.

What was Zouwu worth: a monster the size of an elephant, frightening just by its appearance and vaguely resembling a cat. It had a red mane, unnaturally long legs with impressive claws, four fangs sticking up and a bushy tail, twice as big as itself, and also the Yeti: a large, humanoid creature, resembling a large gorilla covered in white fur and possessing incredibly deadly cold magic, with which it can easily freeze a person in a matter of seconds, and, like the other residents of the "prison", it burned the "guests" with a deadly look, accompanied by an evil roar.

The old man simply ignored them and turned to the two wizards. Putting on his most friendly smile and focusing on the guest, who did not hide his face, he said "If my memory serves me right, yesterday you asked about the Phoenix and the Qilin?"

"Yes, and also a dragon egg."

"Regarding the latter, unfortunately, I do not have such a product, every egg counts and the loss of one will immediately cause unnecessary attention, but I have a friend who can help with this, but the price…"

"The amount of Kanji, does not matter."

"Then I am sure you will be able to find a good match." a small scroll appeared in his hand, which, under the tenacious gaze of the third guest, he handed to the Prince.

"Thank you." having accepted it, the Prince nodded slightly, answering him with the same smile and putting it in his wallet, and then a small bag with a symbolic five hundred kanji appeared in his hand, which was equal to seven hundred twenty-two galleons, such a rate was, for the reason that kanji were slightly larger than galleons.

"Thank you to you as well young man, I am pleased to deal with smart people." putting the "present" under his robe, the man turned around and went somewhere deep into the dungeon.

"As I said earlier, you are very lucky, only yesterday we were able to catch three Qilin cubs, but their mother, unfortunately, did not survive. She just wouldn't give up, so we had to kill her, so much money was lost, my heart still bleeds…" with notes of sadness in his voice,he sniffed.

Snape did not comment on this in any way, as if it did not bother him, he just silently continued to examine the magical creatures, because it is one thing to see them in pictures in books or in Hagrid's memories, and quite another in real life.

Another minute later, they reached a small iron cage in which, pressed against each other, lay three small creatures that looked exactly like Muggle deer cubs, but unlike them, their backs and thighs were covered with bright, bronze scales.

And as soon as they saw the good-natured old man, they immediately began to tremble, and fear danced in their eyes.

"Each for five thousand kanji." turning to the buyer, he named the price, pointing his palm at the cubs.

"Hmm... okay." Severus nodded, studying them with interest, coming closer to the cage, "I'll take them." he added with a soft smile, squatting down, continuing to use scanning charms on the cubs.

"Okay, which one exactly?" the old man asked, grinning contentedly, rubbing his palms in anticipation of a quick profit.

"All of them." and a huge bag of gold landed on the floor, from which the owner of the shop, shocked, goggled at the young man and the second customer's reaction was not much different.

But the Prince did not pay much attention to the two wizards, excitedly studying the structure of the core of the three Qilins.

In addition to the fact that a small amount of dragon blood flowed through them, this could be easily understood by their scales, but their cores were completely white, this meant several things: firstly, they could be "repainted", taught any elemental magic; secondly, a predisposition to white magic, which included many directions, from divination, real divination, up to the manipulation of souls, these were simply amazing animals, and even Severus was perplexed about the fact that magic allowed the killing of such light creatures.

[A/N: In same sense as how the "Magic" of Harry Potter world does not allow the killing of Unicorns, placing a curse on the person who kills them.]

The cubs shrank even more under the man's gaze, but one of them rose to his paws and carefully headed for the bars, looking with his clouded eyes at the wizard until he came close to them.

The Slytherin himself was a little surprised by such a reaction, but noticing a strange glow in the baby's eyes, he immediately guessed what was happening and, unnoticed by the others, made a circular motion with his finger and Qilin's gaze immediately cleared up, but at the same time, he still only looked at him and did not take any action.

The other two wizards, still distracted by the bag of gold, did not pay much attention to the cub's behaviour and after a few seconds the cub shuddered and began to look at Severus without the previous trembling and with a much cleaner and clearer look.

But seeing how Severus put his index finger to his lips, the cub tilted his head to the side in confusion, as if not understanding what was wanted of him.

So Severus had to send him an image of what he needed to do and the cub, obeying, turned around and went back to his siblings, and the wizard himself rose to his feet and ran his finger along the lock,removing the barrier and other locking spells.

After such a step, of course, the others also paid attention to him.

"I'm taking them." opening the cage, a box appeared in his hand, into which, right before the eyes of the others, three Qilins were sucked.

"Ah... yes…" the old man nodded slowly, also putting the bag of gold into his artefact, while deep down regretting that he named such a low price, but what was done could not be undone, and since this "boy" was able to so easily dump so much money, then the people behind him should not have been the last, and he did not want to make extra problems by succumbing to his greed, 'But even so, I must squeeze as much gold out of this walking money bag as possible... damn, what a pity that there is only one Phoenix…'

"Let's move on?"

"Yes…"

The cage with the Phoenix was in another corner of the room, which they reached quite quickly.

But it did not cause any "surprise", the Phoenix was a couple of centimetres smaller than Dumbledore's, and otherwise, in colour, it was almost no different from the latter.

Although, still, it had one difference, that is the way it looks at them, the phoenix looked down from a small swing with undisguised contempt at the three wizards standing in front of his cage.

But Severus did not care about this, all he needed from this bird were its feathers, blood and saliva.

Of course, he was not going to kill it, because it was simply impractical, after all that will be just ending the supply and looking for these things in Diagon alley is a hassle in itself, so he did not care about the strange quirks of the bird.

Having paid the man six thousand kanji, he also threw it into the box, having previously blocked the magic.

After all, although Snape was sure about the wolves, he was worried about the Tsilina, no one knew what could have gotten into the head of this strange half-Phoenix.

And finally, having finished with this matter, the Prince decided not to leave so soon, but to walk around the "menagerie" a little more, because it was unknown whether it would still exist tomorrow.

This decision made the old man very happy, and he decided not to interfere with him and took up the second buyer, who was looking for Demiguis: a white, shaggy, monkey-like creature that could become invisible in times of danger and look into the future for a few seconds, so catching it was a real challenge.

_________

This walk lasted for another ten minutes, during which the Prince managed to go around all the cages, but he still could not find anyone interesting for his "collection".

All the others had limited potential, the maximum they could achieve was to compare with the Three Kings of the "Magic Jungle", and even then, he would have to pour a huge amount of resources into them, which is simply unprofitable and useless.

Although there was still a small exception, which was a huge monster cat, it is quite possible to reach the level of King of Chimeras, but even with such strength, it will not be able to help in the upcoming battle, one lower devil will simply tear it apart in a couple of seconds.

Therefore, Severus did not think about buying such an animal, and taming such a wild creature would be a real headache.

Looking away from the huge cage, with a cat chained with many chains, still growling in his direction, he raised his head up, feeling several dozen magical sources that entered the store.

"So the test purchase has already been completed, well, it means it's time for me to leave..." looking down at the monster again, he smiled softly at him and touched the cage, destroying the spell cast on it and the beast also felt it, from which some misunderstanding flashed in the beast's gaze, and then the beast heard a voice in his head, "With your ability to transgress, you should be able to get your brothers out of here and I know that you understand human speech and I recommend that you hurry, soon more people will come here to put your captor in the same cage, from where he will definitely get out, therefore, you must first kill him and as quickly as possible, and then leave this place..." in response, the monster grinned bloodthirstily and cracks appeared on the shackles on his neck, paws and tail.

"Don't touch the second person, just like those people who are moving here, he also wants to help you, well, I've said it all, good luck to you." And the man (Severus) standing in front of Zouwu's cage disappeared, the shackles flew to pieces, and after them, the next moment, the cage shattered and a furious roar echoed throughout the dungeon: ROAAAAAR!

Dozens of others roars echoed, and the cages, one after another, began to open, releasing the animals.

"W-what the hell?! Come on, go back inside!" the old man exclaimed indignantly, taking out his wand, but even a fool would have heard panic in his voice, because all the magical creatures with red eyes were looking straight at him, surrounding the wizards.

"Damn it! Damn it! We need to get out of here as quickly as possible!" and when he was about to transmigrate from the dungeon, the wizard felt a sharp pain in the back of his head, the wand flew out of his hand and he fell to the floor, where it was crushed by a powerful hoof, and when the elderly wizard raised his head, a stream of hot air hit his face, bursting out of the nostrils of a large, almost two-metre, red bull with three long horns on its head.

And after a few seconds, a heartbreaking cry filled with pain and despair sounded "Nooooooooo!!!"

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Thank you all for reading, please vote with power stones, you can read more chapters on [email protected]/lucifer09