It's rainy in Paris.
In an alley next to Furstenberg Square, there was only a "bang" sound, and several figures twisted and changed out of the void.
Aaron turned around and looked around, but saw that only Hugo and Moody were coming with him. He couldn't help but ask:
"What about the rest?"
"They will arrive later. Come on, let's go down first."
Moody said gruffly, and then he took the lead with uncoordinated but vigorous steps, and Hugo quickly caught up.
A group of three people came to the center of the square, facing the fountain statue, Moody coughed twice.
All around them, branches soon grew out of the ground, intertwining and twisting above their heads, turning into a birdcage-like elevator.
The elevator descended slowly, and soon the three of them arrived in a brightly lit hall with an obvious Art Nouveau style.
"At the end of the 19th century, the French Ministry of Magic encountered a crisis and was burned down by a group of thugs. This was later rebuilt."
As they walked, Hugo introduced Aaron.
They came to the front hall and stood in front of a beautiful female receptionist. She smiled and said hello to Hugo:
"Hello, Hugo, what have you been doing these days?"
"Hello Olga, how is Astolfo, is he still mad about the case?"
"Forget it - who is this?" The receptionist opened the book - she obviously knew Moody, so she looked at Aaron:
"This is Aaron Custer, an expert in solving vampire problems and our specially hired consultant."
"Oh!" The receptionist showed a somewhat surprised expression:
"Handsome young man, I hope you can pry open the mouths of those vampire bats and ask for something, otherwise Astolfo will be very angry - I heard that he was rejected by vampires again yesterday."
"I try my best." Aaron said with a smile.
While he was talking, he saw a group of people rushing in, led by a tall and handsome blond wizard. He looked slightly older than Aaron, probably in his mid-twenties.
"We were talking about you, Astolfo!"
Hugo waved to him from a distance.
The blond wizard listened to the Aurors' reports with a gloomy expression, but when he saw Hugo, his expression softened a bit.
He pushed aside several Aurors who were reporting to him, turned and walked towards Hugo:
"Didn't you go to England? Find someone who can communicate with vampires?"
Aaron saw the Aurors following him—I guess this Astolfo should be the leader among the Aurors.
He suddenly felt guilty. More than half a year ago, in Marseille, France, five Aurors were knocked down by a 'Muggle' with an umbrella, and one of them was standing in front of Aaron at the moment.
However, Hugo carelessly pushed Aaron forward:
"This, Mr. Aaron Custer, he has traveled in France before, and had some minor unpleasantness with our Auror colleagues, but it doesn't matter, he is good at dealing with vampires, this It’s documented in our files.”
Hugo introduced with a smile.
"It's you!"
Behind Astolfo, an Auror exclaimed: "I remembered that last year in Alsace, you walked out of a vampire's castle. The Auror misunderstood you and wanted to arrest you, but you They fell to the ground and ran away..."
"I was inexperienced and inexperienced at the time, so I shouldn't have left..." Aaron's toes curled up repeatedly in embarrassment.
"The person who led the team in that operation was my brother, Orlando."
Astolfo spoke, his voice was clear and his speech was fast, sounding very much like a passionate young man.
Aaron suddenly felt like he had fallen into a trap - these French guys were playing fishing and law enforcement with him, weren't they?
"But you did a good job, I hate my brother." A sincere smile appeared on Astolfo's face, which was somewhat beyond Aaron's expectation.
"Come on, Mr. Consultant - now that we have spent the money, I hope you can get things done. I will take you to see the specific situation first."
Astolfo did things very simply, without too many pleasantries. He took Aaron and others, took the elevator all the way down, then turned into a corridor full of portraits, and walked towards the end of the corridor. .
On the way, Hugo introduced to Aaron in a low voice:
"...Astolfo is now rated as the best Auror in the French Ministry of Magic. We all doubt that he will take over the Auror team after his brother is promoted.
"Achieving this level of success is entirely due to his outstanding personal abilities and has nothing to do with his origins in the famous pure-blood Alfredson family."
Aaron nodded, he was very familiar with this - he was able to find a job in his father's company because of his personal ability, and it had nothing to do with his surname Custer.
"I think it still has something to do with it, Hugo." Astolfo heard Hugo's whisper, turned around and said with a smile: "You still like to gossip about others, doesn't it feel good to be a know-it-all?"
Hugo smiled awkwardly. In order to cover up his embarrassment, he laughed and changed the topic: "By the way, Astolfo, I heard that your father was ill a year ago. How is he doing now?"
Astolfo's face suddenly darkened: "It's not very good. His condition has worsened and he has returned to his old house in the country to recuperate. I haven't seen him in a few months... Now everything at home is... My brother took over.”
"Ahem!" An Auror next to him coughed twice and reminded kindly: "Mr. Hugo, you don't have to chat if you don't know how to chat..."
"Uh..." Hugo touched his forehead, feeling even more embarrassed.
The group of people quickly came to the end of the corridor. Astolfo tapped the wall with his wand several times. Soon, the bricks shrank to both sides like building blocks, and the wall disappeared, revealing the room. Entrance.
"Come in, Mr. Advisor."
Astolfo said politely.
Walking through the door, Aaron saw a long room with a very high dome, and bunches of chandeliers tilted down, giving the inside and outside of the room a dark green color.
There are door-like storage spaces lined up on both sides of the house, which contain all kinds of strange things - a nest of writhing birds and snakes, a gold-painted coffin, and a ball of constantly twisting and changing things. black smoke...
"This is where Aurors place clues and evidence. Some confiscated dangerous items will also be temporarily stored here."
Hugo continued to act as his tour guide.
Astolfo waved his wand lightly, and in the corner of the room, a doorway opened by itself, and corpses flew out one after another. There were eight corpses in total. They died in different ways, and they all hovered in front of Aaron. .
"Didn't you say that most of them died by shooting their heads with their own wands?"
Aaron couldn't help but ask Moody, the way these eight people died... each one was more special than the last.
"That's our British wizard. The French are more particular about style and want to die differently from others." Moody replied.
Astolfo seemed to have not heard their conversation and asked with a normal expression: "Mr. Custer, do you see any difference between these eight corpses and ordinary corpses?"
different? The difference is that their way of death is weird...
Aaron complained in his heart, but still looked at the corpse in front of him carefully.
Above the corpse, the chandelier poured down...
After a moment, Aaron exclaimed: "The shadows—their shadows have disappeared!"
Astolfo raised his eyebrows and was a little surprised by Aaron's keen gaze. He nodded and said:
"Yes, your observation is spot on, Mr. Custer."
"Not just these eight corpses, all the wizards who committed suicide mysteriously during this period - including those Muggles we found wrong before, their shadows have all disappeared!"
"We temporarily named this phenomenon - amnesia."
