Chapter 61 The Rose and the Snake 1
Deep in Knockturn Alley, under the dome of the "Night Owl's Lair" auction house.
The suspended magic crystal lamp cuts the turbid light into greedy fragments, casting them on every face that wears a mask but cannot hide its desire.
The air was filled with the unique fishy-sweet smell of expensive dragon's blood crystal, mixed with sulfur and rust, and an even stronger smell - the smell of money and power.
Abraxas Malfoy sat in the VIP box on the second floor, his long platinum hair neatly tied behind his head, revealing his smooth and full forehead and the cold teardrop mole at the corner of his left eye.
His slender fingers rested on the silver staff with a snake head, and his gray-blue eyes, like the surface of a frozen lake, stared calmly at the crystal bottle covered by a magic shield on the auction table below.
In the bottle, a viscous liquid like molten ruby slowly flowed. It was the essence of a mature Hungarian Horntail. It was of extremely high purity and was in high demand on the black market.
"Thirty thousand Galleons! Gentleman from Box 37!" The auctioneer's hoarse voice rose with excitement.
Abraxas raised his hand slightly, and Dobby, the house-elf standing beside him, immediately screamed out a price: "Malfoy family, forty thousand!"
There was a suppressed gasp from the audience.
That price is enough to buy a street.
But Abraxas knew that this "dragon blood" was the key bargaining chip for him to gain connections with the Nordic Ministry of Magic and he could not afford to lose it.
He picked up the iced fire whiskey at hand and took a sip. The cold liquid slid into his throat, but it couldn't suppress the subtle irritation in his heart.
In the corner, a gaze so hot that it almost burned through his back was like a leech attached to his bones, and it could not be shaken off.
"Forty thousand once! Forty thousand twice..."
"Forty-five thousand!" A sharp, deliberately coquettish female voice suddenly rang out, interrupting the rhythm of the hammer that was about to fall.
The sound came from the next box.
The beaded curtain was roughly drawn aside, and Clarice Black burst in.
Her golden curly hair was carefully groomed, but a little messy due to her rapid breathing, and her blue eyes were burning with desperate fire.
She was wearing an expensive black velvet dress with an exaggerated brooch made of real black swan feathers pinned to her collar, which was inconsistent with her ferocious expression at the moment.
"Brother-in-law," she ignored the stagnant air in the box and rushed straight to Abraxas, the rich smell of perfume hitting his face.
"Why are you in such a hurry to buy dragon blood? Are you trying to curry favor with some goblin merchant, or... are you stocking up on stock for your 'little hobby' again?"
She lowered her voice deliberately, but emphasized the three words "little hobby" very much, and her eyes swept meaningfully over the suitcase he carried with him, which was cast with many shrinking and concealing spells.
Inside was a batch of "special" dragon's blood crystals that he was handling, and the source could not withstand the strict investigation of the Ministry of Magic.
Abraxas put down his glass, and a thicker layer of ice formed in his gray eyes.
"Clarice," his voice was low and pleasant, yet it carried an undeniable coldness. "This is an auction house, not the Black family's backyard. Please be aware of your status and the occasion."
"Identity? Occasion?" Clarisse seemed to be ignited, and her voice suddenly rose, attracting many curious eyes from downstairs.
"My identity is that I love you deeply! Mrs. Malfoy's position is too unstable for that sickly Orion to hold, so it will be mine sooner or later! But what about you? For five years, you haven't even bothered to look me in the eye!"
She excitedly pulled out a small memory bottle from her handbag that was gleaming with a faint silver light. Inside, a ball of flocculent silver substance was surging restlessly.
"Look at this! Your 'deal' with that smuggling captain in the Norwegian fjords last month... was quite exciting! Tell me, if this memory appeared on the desk of the editor-in-chief of the Daily Prophet tomorrow morning, or... was sent directly to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic, how much would be left in the Malfoy family's proud coffers?"
The threat hits you squarely in the face.
Abraxas' fingers gripping the snake-headed silver staff tightened slightly, his knuckles turning white.
The air in the box seemed to have frozen into ice.
Clarisse had a sickly smug smile on her face. She moved closer, almost touching Abraxas' ear, her breath as sweet as orchid, but as cold as a venomous snake.
"Tonight, accompany me to see the new opera 'The Phantom of the Rose', just the two of us. Otherwise... I can't guarantee where the contents of this bottle will appear."
Abraxas' fingertips suddenly tightened, his knuckles turning white. He stared at the small crystal bottle in Clarisse's hand. The cold light reflected from the bottle was very similar to the threat in her eyes.
Clarisse only smiled more broadly, her fingertips gently circling the bottle, as if she was sure that he had no room for refusal.
The stalemate in the air seemed to be stretched tight by an invisible thread.
The auctioneer downstairs seemed to notice something was amiss in the VIP seats and hesitantly called out, "Forty-five thousand... Is there a higher price? Forty-five thousand..."
Abraxas felt a strong wave of nausea.
Opera? And Clarisse? That would be worse than listening to a troll howl all day.
He looked at Clarisse's beautiful face, which was distorted by crazy obsession, and at the memory bottle in her hand that was enough to put the Malfoy family in huge trouble. The string of reason was stretched to the limit in extreme irritability and disgust.
Just before the auctioneer's gavel was about to strike for the third time, just when Clarisse thought she had won and a smile of victory appeared on her lips - Abraxas suddenly stood up!
The movement was so fast that it created a gust of wind.
He loosened the silver-green tie that was bound around his neck, as if the tie was Clarisse's suffocating love.
The cold grey eyes no longer concealed the deep disgust and a hint of madness that came from being driven to desperation.
He looked down at Clarisse, a cold smile that was cold and even cruel at the corner of his lips.
"Opera?" His voice was not loud, but it clearly penetrated the slightly noisy background noise of the auction hall.
With a determination to perish together with her, the words reached Clarice's ears clearly, and also fell into the ears of a gossip reporter from the Daily Prophet downstairs who was holding a miniature retractable ear and disguised as a waiter.
"I'm so sorry, Clarice. My dear 'boyfriend'"—he emphasized the word with a touch of sarcasm—"has a terrible aversion to opera."
"That would be more disgusting to him than a chorus of trolls."
"You know, if he knew that you not only wanted to ruin our rare time alone, but also wanted to threaten me with such... despicable means,"
Abraxas's gaze pierced the memory bottle in Clarisse's hand like an icicle.
"What do you think the 'Dark Lord' would do with an annoying, buzzing fly?"
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