"Paying seventy Galleons for a rush-order robe—this is daylight robbery, isn't it?"
At the French Ministry of Magic's grand hall, Kasenhis pointed to his robe, shimring with a faint purple magical glow, and complained to Ollivander beside him.
Ollivander simply smiled without saying a word.
Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions gave discounts for students due to subsidies, which made them affordable. However, at the normal rate… seventy Galleons, while steep, wasn't entirely unreasonable considering Madam Malkin had worked overti to make the robe.
Charging extra for urgent orders wasn't a cri.
Caught between a longti associate and an up-and-coming alchemy star, Ollivander decided it was best to keep his mouth shut. Sotis, silence truly was golden.
"By the way, have you prepared your speech? This isn't like those award ceremonies. Treat it like your classroom lecture—or even a thesis defense," Ollivander added.
"I didn't prepare anything… Honestly, I haven't even written the thesis. Why do you think I was only credited as a supervising professor on those two papers before?" Kasenhis shrugged.
"Wait—you were serious about that? I thought you were just being modest," Ollivander said, stunned.
"Heh~ What else? Do you enjoy writing papers?"
"Docunting your knowledge in writing is a captivating experience. You should try writing one yourself. Trust , you'd fall in love with it."
"...Alright, I'll give it a shot when I have ti," Kasenhis nodded. Before he could say more, a staff mber from the French Ministry of Magic approached him.
The staff mber led Kasenhis to the raised platform in the grand hall. There stood a podium, and behind it was an enormous magical holographic display device—allegedly sponsored generously by Nicolas Flal himself.
"Please begin, Professor Kasenhis. I've noticed your students enjoy addressing you that way," said an elderly, thin man with long, unkempt white hair, smiling warmly from the audience.
"Ahaha~ You're not a student, Mr. Flal," Kasenhis waved modestly, summoning a standard-issue enchanting table onto the stage.
"The basic structure of an enchanting table is incredibly simple," Kasenhis began, "and I've received many letters at Hogwarts about successful attempts to replicate enchanting tables. So, we won't go over the basic structure again here."
"Instead, let's dive straight into the principles of enchantnt. As you know, the principle lies in the use of runic scripts—though it's not limited to those. We can also directly infuse spells into items. For example, a sword enchanted with Flaming Fury. The downside? That sword would be useless for cutting butter—it would lt too quickly, and then vaporize entirely. And besides..."
"Does he always veer off-topic like this?" soone in the audience murmured.
"Isn't he a professor? All professors have this...quirk. My old professor used to steer every lecture toward his disastrous honeymoon," ca another reply.
"Are professors the sa all over the world?"
"Probably. Back when I was a professor..."
As the murmurs continued in the audience, Kasenhis stepped off the podium, casually grabbing a drink from the self-serve bar. He took a sip to soothe his throat.
Haah~
Giving a lecture to these alchemy bigshots was a far cry from teaching young wizards—it was far more challenging.
As Kasenhis mulled over this, he noticed a thin, frail figure walking toward him. It was none other than Nicolas Flal.
To be honest, the mont Kasenhis saw Flal, he didn't even dare to breathe loudly. Not out of so star-struck reverence for a legendary alchemist, but purely because he was terrified that if he puffed out a bit too much air, he might accidentally blow the old man away.
"Honestly, have you ever considered crafting yourself a magical wheelchair or sothing like that?" Kasenhis asked cautiously.
"Ahaha..." Flal shook his head with a gentle smile. "Of course not. The secret to staying healthy as an elderly man is regular physical activity. And the sa goes for young folks, too."
Kasenhis nodded in agreent and reached for a glass of vodka from the drinks shelf to offer Flal.
"Erm... Let clarify. That advice does not include unhealthy exercises for your stomach," Flal remarked, waving his hand dismissively.
"Fair enough," Kasenhis replied, pouring the vodka straight into his own whiskey glass. The two distilled spirits blended together into a strange concoction.
...It tasted terrible.
Kasenhis made a ntal note to never, under any circumstances, repeat that particular experint in his lifeti.
"This morning, Dumbledore sent a letter recomnding a talented young man like yourself," Flal began, as though searching his pockets for the letter. "A remarkable young talent, he said. I think I may have left it at ho, though..."
Kasenhis stared blankly at Flal.
"...You're just going to stand there and stare at like that?"
"Wouldn't that be sothing?" Kasenhis chuckled.
"Most people, when they see like this, rush to tell not to bother searching. Perhaps they're afraid I'll strain my back or they simply trust enough to believe I wouldn't lie about sothing so trivial," Nicolas Flal said, his tone light but amused.
"Well, if you want to look, go ahead," Kasenhis replied casually.
"What I an is, perhaps you should offer an excuse to stop looking, because I didn't bring the letter with today," Flal admitted with a sly grin.
"...You could've just said so from the start," Kasenhis replied, a bit exasperated as he stared at the elderly alchemist.
It all clicked now—Flal and Dumbledore got along so well because they were both the quintessential "cheeky old n."
"However, all of that was just an icebreaker," Flal continued. "You can think of it as a way for to ease into the conversation without things getting awkward. I ca to find you because I have a question. Dumbledore ntioned that you don't need a Philosopher's Stone or complex alchemical rituals to transmute anything into gold?"
Kasenhis gave him a faint smile, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a simple feather quill.
"Sothing like that," he said. Holding the quill in his hand, he let golden magic slowly spread from his fingers up the quill, transforming the entire feather into solid gold.
Flal took the golden quill, turning it over in his hands, inspecting it carefully. He squeezed it slightly, then bent it to test its malleability.
"Thank goodness I didn't et you in my youth," Flal finally said, his tone carrying both amazent and humor. "If I had seen this before I created the Philosopher's Stone, I would've absolutely given up on alchemy altogether."
"I thought you'd charge forward, undeterred, like a hero in the face of adversity," Kasenhis quipped.
Nicolas Flal waved his hand dismissively. "Don't believe the glowing praise in the alchemy textbooks about . I'm not nearly that magnanimous. The truth is, the reason I've co this far is twofold: first, because I do have exceptional talent; and second, because of that talent, my journey has been paved with flowers and applause at nearly every step."
"If it had been mud and insults instead," Flal continued with a self-deprecating chuckle, "Nicolas Flal would have long since crumbled into dust."
Kasenhis raised an eyebrow. "I'll make a note of that."
________
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