A certain Hogwarts professor of runes.

On the other side, Felix politely took his leave.

Amandina shrugged, looking nonchalant.

"Okay, if you ever have the chance to come to France, you can come here to find me, and I'll show you around Paris."

As Felix walked out of the prestigious university and stood under a row of plane trees, lost in thought, he keenly sensed that someone was watching him.

He turned the corner and walked into a narrow alley.

A young man with brown curly hair and a middle-aged man with a full beard appeared in a hurry. They chased him directly into the alley, turned two corners, and found that there was a wall at the end of the road.

The middle-aged man turned around abruptly, raising his wand high with imposing air, but the next second the wand in his hand flew out like a short stick.

A man with black hair and light blue eyes was looking at him calmly, toying with an ebony wand in his hand.

Maxwell Colbert opened his mouth, watching as his own oak wand obediently floated in front of the young man opposite him.

The accident happened so fast and silently that he didn't even have time to react.

"Uncle, he's disappeared. Did he Apparite?" The curly-haired youth stared blankly at the empty wall. When his uncle didn't respond, he belatedly turned around.

"It's him, it's him, he's the one who exposed the existence of the magical world!" the young man blurted out in broken French.

Felix looked at him with amusement: "I know the International Wizarding Federation's Secrecy Law better than you do. Which one did I violate?"

The curly-haired youth looked quite indignant. "I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears, you can't deny it. Hey, Uncle, why is your wand over there?"

With a dark expression, Maxwell Colbert, his face covered in a thick beard, snapped, "Shut up, Karami."

He looked at Felix: "I think there's a misunderstanding here. You're the Muggle expert here for the conference, right?"

"Misunderstand?"

“That’s right, I am Maxwell Colbert, an Auror from the French Ministry of Magic. I’m in charge of security for this meeting. My nephew is studying at Paris 1 University; he might have made a mistake.”

“I’m sorry, I may have misunderstood,” Karami said slowly, reaching for his wand tucked behind his back.

Felix raised an eyebrow, his fingers twitched slightly, and the wand in young Karami's hand flew out.

The two faces, one large and one small, looked at each other, then looked at the person opposite them and said with satisfaction—

"Now we can have a proper talk."

……

A restaurant on a street in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.

Felix took the menu from the waiter. "A salad, a French fish soup, a plate of salt-baked snails, and for the main course, I'll have beef stew in red wine. Hmm... dessert will be served later. That's all."

He handed the menu to the uncle and nephew across from him, asking, "And you two?"

Maxwell was still hesitating, but his nephew Karami had already taken the menu: "Uncle, what do you want? How about this blue cheese?"

Maxwell pointed at Felix and said to the waiter, "The same as his."

Karami ordered a lot of strange and unusual dishes.

"I suggest you pair it with a light wine," the waiter said.

Felix had no objection, while the other two were completely baffled.

The waiter noted down the name and left quickly.

Maxwell Colbert said with a complicated expression, "Now I believe you're a Muggle studies expert. What's your name?"

"Although it's a bit late, let me introduce myself. My name is Felix Heap, and I've published two books on Muggle studies."

Maxwell remained silent for a moment, then spoke: "Given your reputation, I believe for now that you have no intention of exposing the magical world, but I will investigate further. As for your attack on the Auror—"

"What Auror? I'm facing an unidentified wizard. It's normal for me to be a little nervous after just learning about the attack on Muggle research experts, isn't it?"

Maxwell asked with a serious expression, "You know about the attack? How did you find out?"

“Emerson Kane, Alice Alpha, Galsworth Moore…” Felix rattled off a string of names, and Maxwell’s face grew increasingly grim.

These are the names of officials from the French Ministry of Magic.

“I have extensive connections,” Felix said, picking up his knife and fork with a gentle smile. “Perhaps I could recommend one or two of them to you?”

Throughout the meal, Maxwell appeared somewhat dejected, eating in silence without even tasting what he was eating.

Krami quickly became acquainted with Felix.

"You're studying at Paris 1 University, what's that all about?" Felix asked, bringing up a topic that piqued his interest.

"My mother arranged it—oh, I'm mixed race—as an auditor, the kind without a certificate," Krami said.

Felix understood.

After leaving the restaurant, Clamy was dismissed, and Felix used Apparition to take Maxwell to Place Forstenberg in Paris.

This is the location of the headquarters of the French Ministry of Magic.

In the center of the square, four ancient trees guard a bronze statue. When they stepped into the area of ​​the ancient trees, their figures magically disappeared, and the people around them seemed not to see it.

As the two stood beside the statue, the roots of four ancient trees suddenly came to life, intertwining to form a birdcage-shaped elevator. Felix felt a slight tremor beneath his feet, and the elevator began to descend.

He glanced at Maxwell and handed his wand back to him.

"Thank you," Maxwell said sincerely.

He didn't want anyone to know what happened today; he was prepared to keep these embarrassing experiences buried deep inside for the rest of his life.

Chapter 161 Eavesdropping

The elevator descended rapidly, and after a brief period of darkness, Felix caught a glimpse of light at his feet, which was growing larger and larger.

A cacophony of sounds reached their ears as they arrived at a massive underground structure.

Felix looked at the patterns and murals on the vaulted ceiling.

Maxwell noticed his gaze: "We've adopted a new style—constellation patterns, and some historical events. See that big sphere?" He pointed to the silver-white sphere above the dome, which was emitting a soft light, illuminating the entire foyer as if it were daytime.

“This didn’t exist before; it’s all thanks to the minister before me.”

The elevator landed, and Felix stepped out of the 'birdcage'. He looked around; the circular hall was divided into two levels. On the first level, several long desks were placed side by side in the center of the open space, and most of the seats were occupied, with people walking back and forth in a hurry.

The second floor was supported by some columns, and at the very edge was a passageway with railings. He saw someone standing in front of the railings, looking down at the people below.

"Are the buildings here arranged horizontally?" Felix asked.

“What? Oh, yes, it’s like a spider web, and we’re standing right in the center of it,” Maxwell said. “Unlike the British Ministry of Magic, I heard you’ve dug down more than ten floors?”

“As far as I know, it’s the tenth floor,” Felix said.

Next, Maxwell led Felix out of the hall and down a wide corridor to a small office. A sign on it read: Temporary Registration Point 2.

“I’ll bring you directly here, so you don’t have to go to the front desk and ask the receptionist, there’s always a long line there…” Maxwell pushed open the door. “Good afternoon, Willie. I’ve brought a friend to register for the Muggle Studies Conference.”

A light-haired wizard looked up. "Of course... there have been so many people coming lately, I haven't even had time to relax." He suddenly looked at Felix: "Do you like playing 'Bomb'?"

Maxwell interrupted him impatiently, "Willie, we're in a hurry, we need to get to the hotel soon. I get so angry just thinking about that American woman."

“Ha! But you have to follow her orders, right?” The wizard named Willie handed over a form while registering Felix’s wand. “Just fill it out casually, mainly the name, country and purpose of visit.”

Maxwell's beard twitched. "I'm following the minister's orders."

Felix quickly filled in the basic information, ignoring the section on magic proficiency on the form. When he handed it to Willie, the wizard stuffed it into the drawer without even looking at it, then turned to Maxwell with a gleeful expression and said, "But the minister told you to listen to her. Did that woman ask you to work as a waiter?"

Maxwell responded with a rude gesture.

As they left the office, Maxwell explained, "This meeting was requested by the Magical Congress of the United States from the International Federation of Wizards, and after all the committee members approved it, we were tasked with hosting it."

Why not go to America?

“What they asked for, who knows what they were thinking?” Maxwell clearly didn’t want to talk about it, and Felix guessed it might be related to the 'woman' he was talking about.

The two arrived at a fireplace. "The Busles Hotel, got it? You go first."

Felix grabbed a handful of Floo Powder and, amidst the shimmering flames, clearly shouted "Hotel Busles," before disappearing from sight.

Felix stepped out of the fireplace and was greeted by an interior decorated primarily in red and gold tones, with the most striking features being the red carpet and golden stone pillars, which reminded Felix of Gryffindor House at Hogwarts.

He found it slightly amusing.

Soon, Maxwell emerged from the fireplace, led Felix to a room, and then hurriedly left.

Felix pushed open the door. The furnishings inside were simple. He spent some time casting some protective spells before wandering around the hotel.

The hotel has seven floors. Felix strolled down to the first floor, chatted with the receptionist for a few minutes, and quickly determined that it was a Muggle hotel in a very remote location.

"Your tour group is really strange. Tourists only flock here in the fall to see the flowers and scenery. Right now, it's all bare..."

"And once we moved in, they wouldn't let us clean the room and made all sorts of strange demands."

Felix gave a few perfunctory replies; he didn't know how the French Ministry of Magic had negotiated and didn't want to say more.

There were two men standing at the door, one hand in their pocket. They looked very much like Maxwell, and he guessed they were guards assigned by the Ministry of Magic.

Felix asked the waiter if anyone named "Karedy Bubbaji" had arrived. The waiter checked the service list and said, "No, her room is 203, and it's currently vacant. It was just cleaned this morning."

After a polite thank you, Felix began to walk up from the first floor, checking for any traces of dark magic.

Along the way, they encountered several wizards from different countries. They were also invited experts, and Felix chatted with them for a while. Apart from those who couldn't understand each other's language, most of them were very friendly.

On the fourth floor, he discovered a huge auditorium with hundreds of seats.

'It seems the meeting is taking place here.'

The fifth and sixth floors were empty, but Felix walked through them one by one until he heard some noises on the seventh floor.

'Did I really see it? Or was it actually a hotel staff member?'

Felix's figure gradually blended into the surrounding environment, his footsteps barely audible, and he stopped at the door of room 705.

The sounds inside were very faint, but Felix saw two bright sources of magic through the black-and-white perspective. He tapped the wall with his wand, and the point where the tip of the wand met the wall became soft.

The conversation inside the room reached Felix's ears clearly—

"Haven't you received the list yet?" It was a woman's voice.

“No, he’s just being stubborn,” a deep male voice said.

"Can't you—" The woman's voice suddenly stopped, as if she had been put under a tongue-locking spell.

“You’ve also realized the problem. We can’t take a hard line; at least I refuse.”