บท 134: Yule ball

The moment the conversation ended the flames of the nearby floo fireplace roared in an emerald color and a man stepped out of the fireplace not even bothering to remove the soot on his clothes from the floo travel. "Headmaster" he said respectfully towards Dumbledore who merely nodded at the man "Alexander" he said greeting the man. The man had short brown hair and eyes and a large but not fat figure. Alexander looked over at Nick and smiled warmly as he walked over and held out a hand. "Alexander Smith of house Hufflepuff and the auror in charge of escorting you to and from the ministers ball." he said happily.-

Nick shook the mans hand firmly "Nicholas Ravenclaw , current regent of house Ravenclaw and I apologize for the inconvenience." he said with a polite smile. Alexander laughed at this confusing Nick for a moment before he got an explanation. "My da's the current lord of house Hufflepuff and told me you'd be a sharp witted individual and like usual he wasn't wrong. You've had that name and title for all of about a month and yet here you are stating it like you've had it your whole life." Alexander said with a chuckle at the look of understanding on Nick's face.-

"I admit that I may have been practicing the introduction a bit recently." Nick said embarrassed at being figured out so quickly. "Trust me I get it , even now I get a headache even thinking about all the work set out for me in the future when my da retires as regent." Alexander said reassuringly. "I suppose we aught to make our way over to the ball , don't want to be late after all." Nick said casually and Alexander nodded in agreement.-

This was Nick's first experience taking the floo and he had to admit if was fairly interesting in a few ways. The first was of course how it still had a similar feeling to what apparition was said to be like as it was like being squeezed through a small hole. It wasn't as bad as that though as it didn't produce any turbulence or nausea. The second was that to his magical senses it was very strange as for the brief moment that the travel lasted it was like the magic involved cut through itself to work.-

The reason this was strange was that in the case of spells when such a thing happened it usually caused a heavy misfire or implosion of whatever spell it was. The fact floo travel seemed to require this phenomena left Nick astonished and confused. The final thing was that traveling like this required fire of all things in order to work and Nick had to admit that he had no clue why and it intrigued him. When Nick arrived at the ministry of magic he quickly dusted off his suit with the magic feather duster next to the fireplace. The entire atrium of the ministry which was normally bustling with activity had been transformed into a lavish ballroom with none of the normal features visible.-

There were tables with pristine white cloth over them and long buffet style tables with various elegant dishes that Nick couldn't identify at first glance. The ballroom had few people there already which made it clear that Nick had arrived early. 'Probably a tactic by Fudge to get some alone time with me before the other guest overwhelm him.' he deduced easily enough. And low and behold a slightly short man with a portly figure and rumpled grey hair walked towards Nick with a wide friendly smile.-

"Mr. Ravenclaw it is truly a privilege to make your acquaintance! Cornelius Fudge at your service!" the man said in such a way that even if Nick wasn't aware before that he could tell the man was a politician. Nick held out his hand with a respectful and polite smile of his own "Nicholas Ravenclaw , the pleasure is all mine Minister." he said politely and Fudge seemed surprised at how well spoken he was but quickly shook the hand offered and got back into the swing of things.-

"Truly you could imagine my surprise when I received your owl , an enchanter at your age! You are precisely as I imagined an heir of Ravenclaw , wise , well spoken and talented in the crafting arts. Did you know that I myself was a member of house Ravenclaw during my time at Hogwarts?" Fudge spoke fluently and with great enthusiasm in order to curry favor with Nick. Soon though more and more people started to arrive so as the host Fudge needed to go greet them leaving Nick free to find himself a place to sit while also grabbing some food from the buffet table.

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