Chapter 106: Currently Outside
Chapter 106: Currently Outside
After returning home, Fleur is more relaxed. She sits with Gabrielle, takes an apple brought by the house elf, and says while nibbling it.
“My dad is probably still working at the Ministry of Magic. He doesn’t come home for lunch at noon, but we don’t have to wait for him.”
“We’ll go to Nicholas Flamel in the afternoon.” Sherlock made his next plan, “After visiting him, then I’ll be going to Place Cachee, which is said to be equivalent to the Diagon Alley.”
“Yes, it is the central place for French wizards.”
Sherlock spread out on the coffee table that he had been carrying a map of France, pinched his chin, and said, “We’ll visit several famous Muggle places like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Notre Dame church.”
Harry reminded, “We need to go to a mall to buy some film.”
“Oh, yes, and get some film.”
The Delacour family had a great lunch, and Fleur told her mother that the wand had been stolen. Madame Delacour frowned, but she did not blame Fleur for losing her wand.
“Did you see that the thief who stole the wand was a goblin?”
Fleur nodded, “I’m sure he was the only one who passed by me and bumped into me at the time.”“It’s a pity to lose that wand, but it’s not a big deal.” Madame Delacour said solemnly, “But if the goblin steals the wand, it must be reported to the Ministry of Magic. It is a serious matter.”
Since the Goblin Rebellion was dismantled, they have longed for the right to have a wand. Regardless of their status, as long as a goblin touches a wand, it could mean a serious problem.
“I’ll let your father know about this and come back here.”
Fleur’s father, Mr. Delacour, works in the French Ministry of Magic. Although he is not the head of the Auror department, he has some connections in there.
After getting the news from home, he hurriedly left the Ministry of Magic and returned home. Compared with Madame Delacour, Fleur, and Gabrielle’s appearance, Fleur’s father is much more ordinary.
From the outside, he looked like an ordinary wizard and was even shorter than Madame Delacour. He simply said hello to Sherlock, thanked him for helping Fleur, and focused his attention on Fleur’s lost wand.
But Fleur didn’t know much, and she didn’t even remember what the goblin looked like. In the end, he could only leave disappointed and report the matter to the Ministry of Magic.
In the afternoon, Sherlock and Harry rested for a while at Delacour’s manor and got up to leave, ready to visit Nicholas Flamel.
When Fleur left with them, she had to make a trip to buy a new wand. Sherlock looked at the address on the letter from Dumbledore, and instead of rummaging through the map, he asked the locals to show them the way.
“Mr. Flamel and his wife were fond of listening to opera. They bought a small courtyard near the Opéra Garnier, where they usually lived when they were in Paris.”
According to Fleur’s guidance, Sherlock successfully found Flamel’s address in Paris. It looked no different from a normal Muggle courtyard, and there was no Muggle Repelling Charm. Because they saw a postman and naturally put a letter in the mailbox in front of the courtyard.
Sherlock parked the car and walked down with Harry and Fleur. They came to the door of the small courtyard and found that the iron gate was closed.
“We don’t seem to be late, don’t we? I remember that Professor Dumbledore gave me a time limit before August, and now it is only July 25th,” Sherlock said.
Fleur had also received a warning from Madame Maxime before, telling her that Nick Lemay would be leaving Paris in August, and she had to visit before then.
Just when they were wondering about the situation, Harry pointed to the number on the door and said, “Professor, there’s something there.”
Sherlock walked over to Harry and looked at the message on the door.
[Going out to enjoy the opera, will be back on the 26th]
“It seems that we came at the wrong time. He and his wife happened to be out.”
“No matter. Harry and I have nothing to do anyway. Not a big deal to come back tomorrow.”
Sherlock stared at the number 6 on the message. Since he used part of Voldemort’s remnant soul for Soul Stitching, his perception of magic has become much sharper, and he vaguely feels that this line of messages is a bit weird. But Sherlock didn’t think much of it.
After all, Flamel is a master of magic. Maybe he wrote this message using magic spells.
Fleur and Harry have already returned to the car. Since he was not found at his house, they went on a recreational trip to the 6th arrondissement of Paris and a small alley.
The entrance to the French Ministry of Magic is also nearby, in the center of Furstenberg Square. When the wizard stands here and coughs, the roots of the surrounding trees rise out of the ground, forming a birdcage around people, and there is an elevator for them to descend.
The entrance to Place Cachee is somewhat similar to the wall of Platform 9 ¾. As long as you walk along an alley to the end, even if you see the wall blocking the road, you will go through it regardless.
It is precisely like Diagon Alley, except for the different architectural styles. The things sold here are similar. After Sherlock and Harry came here, they didn’t feel any different except that the buildings were more artistic and better-looking than those in Diagon Alley.
Some stores are even the same, such as Madam Malkin’s Robes, Flourish and Blotts bookstore, and other chain stores.
The two of them wandered aimlessly on the street for a while and found nothing interesting, so they simply followed Fleur to the wand shop to see her buy a wand. There are three famous wand-making families in Europe.
There are the Ollivander family in England, the Gregorovich family in Germany, and the Acajor family in France. All three families have established their own family-owned companies, whose main business is to make and sell wands.
Unlike Ollivander’s wand shop, which offers standard wands, Acajor’s wand shop advocates special characteristics.
The Wandmakers of the Acajor family firmly believe that wizards will encounter some magical substances related to them, and using these substances as the core of the wand will improve their compatibility with their owners. For example, Fleur’s grandmother’s hair would be used as the core because both of them are Veelas.
Of course, this does not mean that the Acajor Wand Shop does not have standard wands for sale. An older witch, wearing a tunic and golden glasses on her face, carefully measured every statistic on Fleur’s body before placing three wands in front of her.
In the end, Fleur chose the Rowan wood, a wand with unicorn tail hair and a nine-inch long.
Even after getting a new wand, she was still obsessed with the one she had lost. This suggests that she had a deep bond with her grandmother.
They walked out of the wand shop, and just as Fleur was about to speak and invite Sherlock and Harry to the bar on Place Cachee for a drink, a voice suddenly sounded on their left.
“Fleur?” They turned their heads and saw that it was the wizard they met before.
Sherlock still remembered his face, the person who was with Fleur when he first met Fleur in Aspe.
Fleur also saw him, but she frowned her brows, “Mr. Jonathan, we don’t seem to know each other well enough to call each other by our first name.”
The wizard named Jonathan touched his head and walked up to them with an embarrassed smile, “Sorry, Miss Delacour. I’m a little excited to see you here all of a sudden. Did you catch the thief that day?”
Fleur didn’t answer his question but stared at him and asked, “I want to know: Did you deliberately tell me the wrong location that day, or did you mishear it?”
Jonathan was bewildered, “You went to the wrong location? Are you suspecting me and the thief stole your wand? Why do you think that?”
Fleur didn’t dispel her doubts about him; she looked at him coldly, “Hopefully, you’re not involved in it, but if you were involved, I suggest you hand over my wand immediately. That way, I can also get my dad to drop the investigation from the Ministry of Magic. The matter has been reported to them.”
Jonathan stared, looking innocent, “Why do you doubt me? Did I do something wrong?”
“You better be doing nothing wrong.”
After finishing speaking, Fleur grabbed Sherlock and Harry’s arms and left without any intention of introducing them from beginning to end. Before being pulled away by Fleur, Sherlock took one last look at the necklace Jonathan was wearing on his chest.
It was a sign with a vertical line in the middle of a circle wrapped in a triangle. This logo felt familiar, and he felt like he had seen it in a book.
Harry asked Fleur curiously, “Since you suspect that your wand has something to do with him, why do you refuse to talk to him?
Fleur said in a low voice, “Don’t worry. I have told my dad all his information, and there must be an Auror investigating him now.”
Fleur is not stupid; on the contrary, she is smart. She knew that she shouldn’t take the risk and that it would be best to provide the information to the Ministry of Magic and leave it to the Aurors to deal with it.