Draco picked 5 elves who looked decent enough. Seeing the conditions of the elves Draco realized that they were mistreated a lot than a common house-elf. All of them had sunken faces and they were too skinny. All of them had a collar around their neck, which was tied too tightly as they had marks on their neck from it. The names of the elves were Ed, Fred, Ned, Red, and Ted respectively. All the 5 elves Draco chose were male and all of them were young and healthy. Each elf cost Draco seventy thousand and Five hundred Galleon. After paying the total sum of three hundred fifty two thousand and five hundred galleons, the man called Draco in front."I am a.s.suming you"re the owner." The man said looking at Draco and ignoring Lucius.
Lucius" mouth twitched listening to the tone of the man, he was already irritated by the dirty place and seeing the drunkard"s att.i.tude towards him, made him even angrier. Draco reading the mood hurriedly nodded.
"We need to do a simple ritual." The man said taking out a bottle of alcohol from his robe and chugging it all in, the alcohol spilled from his mouth and his entire clothes were wet. He wiped the alcohol of off his mouth and continued, "You just walk in front and open their collar with your hands, not your wand and release them. After that, they belong to you."
Draco nodded and walked in front of the elves opening their collar one by one, who upon doing so hurriedly kneeled on the ground.
"Thank you, Master, for releasing us." They said in unison, "We will repay this favor with unyielding loyalty for our entire life."
Draco nodded happily seeing the elves behavior.
"Now that"s done, I"ll be off." The man said snapping his finger and the moment he did, a sudden blackout happened for a tenth of a second and they were suddenly outside, the place was nowhere to be seen, it was like the whole building disappeared out in thin air. In the open field, Lucius, Draco and the five elves were standing there in a daze.
"What was that?" Draco mumbled to himself.
"The place is said to never exist in the first place." One of them elves spoke.
"Explain."
"Yes, Master. We don"t know much about this but it is said that the place was never meant to exist." Ed said. "Some of the old elves told us stories that the place would only appear to those who seek it and to those who mean no harm but after you visited the place once, it will forever be lost."
Draco raised his eyebrows and thought to himself, "Seems like old magic,"
"Let"s leave." Lucius said, impatiently. The idea of just standing in an empty field talking with elves made him uncomfortable.
Draco wanted to ask more but seeing the impatient Lucius, he didn"t. Draco opened the suitcase and whispered something, sticking his head into it. Soon a small growl came and Draco took out his head, "Go inside, you don"t have to do anything for now. I will later come in and explain your work to you."
"Yes, Master." The elves said as they slowly approached the suitcase and still afraid jumped in one by one.
"The work"s done, isn"t it?" Lucius said.
"No need to be so impatient father." Draco said picking his suitcase up, "I still want to go to the market the man talked about."
"To buy more creatures?" Lucius asked snorting, "The growl I heard-- what else have you got in there?"
"It"s a secret." Draco said, "If you don"t want to come, I can go alone and you can return back to the hotel room."
"Che, I will lead you there." Lucius said turning back, "It isn"t my first time coming here, my father, your grandfather bought me to this place once, so I know my way around and with me, we can apparate quickly over there."
Draco rolled his eyes and followed Lucius out towards the black market.
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After apparating here and there, asking some suspicious looking people, they finally reached the place. The entrance of the place was a door that leads straight down to an underground pa.s.sage, After walking down the flight of stairs they reached an open s.p.a.ce filled with different empty cages here and there. There was an enchantment on the roof that made it seem like the place wasn"t an underground room at all.
Unlike the elf shop, the place was filled with people all wearing black robes, covering their face. Before they entered the place both Lucius and Draco had their hood on as well, as they kept walking. The deeper they went the more the place stretched out with cages filled with different magical and even normal animals.
"The auction starts in 10 minutes." A voice sounded out throughout the place and all the people who were looking around started walking in a single direction. Lucius and Draco looked at each other and both of them walked the same direction as other people as well.
They all walked up to a tent, inside, the place was filled with chairs and at the very end of it was a huge stage with candles all over the floor. Many people gathered around the stage and quickly picked a spot to sit on. Covered in hoods, Draco felt like, he was in a cult meeting of some sort.
"These sorts of auction happens all the time in the black market." Lucius explained, "Even our family held some."
"How come I never knew about it?" Draco asked surprised.
"It was supposed to be that way." Lucius replied, "In honesty, I wasn"t supposed to know about it either. On the outside, our family has no affiliation to the black market remember."
Draco understood what his father meant, "Why hold an auction though? Isn"t it easier to sell those items quickly under a fixed range, as it will help reduce the risk of the ministry catching up to them."
"It will reduce the chances." Lucius said, "But people in the black market hold auction for one of two reasons, one, they are desperate for quick and more money and two they have a rare material. Considering that this place is a fixed establishment I am guessing the latter. We might be lucky if there is something rare in store for us."
Even though Lucius didn"t care much about magical creatures, he was still interested in exotic animals like the dragons and phoenixes, which were less likely to be tamed and captured. Keeping them was a sign of luxury none the less.
Draco nodded as what he said made sense. All the people kept on waiting as they chattered with each other when suddenly the candles that were on the stage floated up and lit on fire, lighting up the stage. A man wearing a traditional red wizard robes came out wearing a white mask.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Wizards and Witches and my honored guests, I thank all of you for joining us today in our auction." The man said bowing in greeting, "I am known as Merc and I will be your host today."
All the people clapped and cheered.
"We can get into action but first let us remove the nuisance, shall we?" Merc said suddenly taking out his wand and waving it around. Out of nowhere from the ground vines grew and started slithering around them, climbing up to some people and binding them.
Draco looked around and saw that out of all the people there, 8 people were on the chair struggling to get out as the vine quickly covered them. They started groaning in pain as the vine around them kept getting tighter and tighter and slowly the struggle was over.
"It looks like some of our guests have followers but lucky for them, we don"t hold them accountable." Merc said.
Draco didn"t figure what he was talking about until the vine released the people and Draco found one of the men who was lying dead on the ground with his hood flung open was an auror, who was present in today"s meeting. Draco looked at the other dead bodies who still had robes on and realized they probably must be the other aurors present as well.