The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 519 Dinner Party
Hermione was wearing a simple and elegant blood-red dress robe today. Her hair was tied up in a loose bun at the back of her head, just like she did at the Christmas ball that year. It was fixed with a simple but charming hairpin inlaid with small elf white gems. At the same time, her fair and delicate neck was rarely exposed, looking very elegant.

"I finally understand one benefit of improving my strength." Hermione said as the two of them went upstairs. "I didn't like this kind of party before, because in order not to be rude in front of a group of people, I had to have a perfect hairstyle. But my hair is difficult to deal with. The last time I participated in this kind of event, I used a lot of hair smoothing potion to get it done. But now, I just need to let the magic flow through my hair a little bit."

Ryan felt speechless after hearing this. This was the power that could make people become gods, but it was a waste of talent to use it on smoothing hair.

When the two of them walked to the corridor outside Slughorn's office, they saw Harry and Ginny being welcomed in by Professor Slughorn. Thinking that the professor might be busy entertaining Harry at this time, a minute or so later, Hermione took Ryan's outstretched arm and climbed the marble steps and walked into Slughorn's office.

Slughorn's office looked much bigger than the outside. It was probably because he had cast a temporary Retractile Charm for tonight's party. Even though it was just a temporary measure, the office was still decorated very carefully: emerald green, crimson and gold curtains were hung on the ceiling and walls, making it look like a big tent. In the center of the ceiling hung a golden lantern that illuminated everything in the room red. There were real elves flashing in the lamp, and each elf was a bright point of light.

"Welcome, welcome." Slughorn came over wearing a velvet hat with a poppy that matched his smoking shirt, looking at Harry's position and the smoking camera. He should have just taken a photo with Harry.

"Good evening, Professor Slughorn." Ryan and Hermione greeted.

"I welcome you, Mr. Liang and Miss Granger. I wish you a good time tonight. I will leave first, because I have many guests to entertain today." After saying goodbye to Ryan and the others, he took Harry to introduce him to the guests.

It has to be said that although Slughorn is a bit utilitarian, he has a high rating in interpersonal communication. For example, he pays great attention to details and can give a good impression to everyone he wants to make friends with. For example, he is one of the few people who can pronounce Ryan's last name correctly, and most other people pronounce it closer to "cold".

In fact, Slughorn's attitude was what Ryan and the others wanted. After they came to a corner and each picked up a glass of juice, they began to look around the entire party scene.

Just as Slughorn said, there were indeed a lot of people here and it was very lively today: loud singing that sounded like mandolin accompaniment came from a corner in the distance; a few old wizards were chatting with green smoke from their pipes above their heads; some house-elves were walking through the jungle of calves carrying heavy silver plates. In order to ensure that they would not be discovered by wizards during service, they covered their bodies with large tablecloths, looking like small wandering tables.

"It's terrible. Harry has been occupied by Professor Slughorn. I have been waiting for a long time but the professor refused to let go." Just after Ryan drank half a glass of juice standing at the table, Ginny squeezed out of the crowd. Then she picked up a glass of juice from the table and complained to Hermione while drinking it.

"Your sweetheart is the most important and most dazzling guest at Professor Slughorn's party tonight." Hermione exclaimed, imitating the tone of the elves in the world of "The Lord of the Rings", and then she and Ginny laughed together.

Ryan looked at this scene and smiled slightly. Suddenly, he felt a bunch of unfriendly eyes falling on the two girls. Hermione also noticed this at this time. She naturally put her right hand on her left wrist, and seemed ready to take out a weapon from the bracelet on her wrist at any time.

When the two followed the gaze, they found that the person looking at Hermione and Ginny was a tall and thin young man with dark circles under his eyes and a bored look. But now the young man was looking at the two girls with a hungry look. "Vampire?" Ryan took a step forward to block the vampire's sight of the girls and glared at him. After all, this was Professor Slughorn's party, so out of respect for the host of the party, Ryan felt that he should just warn this impolite guy to stay away.

But unexpectedly, after the vampire looked into Ryan's eyes, he screamed as if he had seen something terrible, then knocked aside several people and tables and chairs and ran out of the office. A short man with glasses standing next to him who was originally chatting with Harry was stunned for a moment, then shouted, "Xue Ni, what are you doing?"

But his shouting had no effect at all. The vampire had already run out of the door and turned a corner and disappeared. The little man quickly apologized to the people around him, and then ran out to find his vampire companion. Harry finally breathed a sigh of relief. After looking around, he walked towards Ryan and the others.

"What happened just now?" Ginny leaned close to Harry and asked in a low voice after handing him a drink.

"I don't know either." Harry was also confused. "Those two people were introduced to me by Slughorn. The short one with glasses is Elder Worple, the author of Blood Brothers: My Life Among Vampires, and the other one is his vampire friend Bloody. Just now Worple was persuading me to write a biography of myself, but something went wrong when I was trying to get rid of him."

While Harry was telling all this, Walper also found the escaped Bloody in the corridor outside. To his surprise, when he found Bloody, the vampire was hiding behind a statue, holding his head with his hands and trembling. After being slapped by him, the vampire jumped up suddenly as if he was equipped with a spring.

"It's you. You scared me to death." Xue Ni wanted to run away again, but when he saw the face of the person coming, he finally breathed a sigh of relief. Then he collapsed against the statue and began to breathe heavily.

"What were you doing?" Walper said angrily. "We could have made friends with a lot of important people today, but you messed up everything! Why did you run away?"

"It's horrible!" Xue Ni looked terrified, and then said to Walpur. "You know, as a vampire, I am more sensitive than ordinary wizards. I saw from the eyes of a young boy that at least a dozen vampires died at his hands, and many of them were stronger than me. I was frightened for a moment, so I lost control just now."

"At least a dozen? There shouldn't be such a large-scale death of vampires in recent years, right? Wait, could it be that in Romania two years ago..." Walper's eyes widened as he thought of a horrible fact. "Anyway, we need to call Professor Slughorn to say hello before we leave. But you have to remember to keep this matter to yourself and not tell anyone. Since he has chosen to keep this matter unsolved, I believe such a person would not mind silencing a poor author and his vampire friend in order to protect his own secrets."

"I definitely won't tell it. As a vampire, I understand better the power of someone who can do something like annihilate a clan. You might as well cast a forgetfulness spell on me now." Xue Ni said from the bottom of his heart.

"Let's talk about it after we say goodbye to the professor. I think I will need to cast a forgetfulness spell on myself by then." Walper shrugged.

(End of this chapter)