Lin Ze stood in front of the fireplace at the French Ministry of Magic, brushing soot off his clothes.
The French Ministry of Magic's architectural style was completely different from its British counterpart's.
If the British Ministry of Magic went for understated practicality, the French one seemed determined to carve the word "luxury" into every slab of marble.
Gilded ceiling reliefs depicted all sorts of magical creatures, enormous crystal chandeliers slowly rotated overhead, and the floor was tiled in alternating black-and-white marble diamonds, polished enough to reflect people's figures.
"Corruption. Utter corruption," Lin Ze muttered as he took it all in.
"Excuse me, are you Mr Lin?"
A young witch in impeccably tailored, dark blue uniform robes hurried over. Her short blonde hair gleamed in the light, and her professional smile looked as though it had been lifted straight from an etiquette textbook.
"That's me. And you are?"
"I'm Lilia Claire, liaison officer for the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Mr Delacour sent me to meet you. He's already waiting for you in the conference room."
"Mr Delacour?" Lin Ze's steps faltered.
"Yes. Mr Delacour is in full charge of the International Auror Joint Operations Group." Lilia maintained her professional smile.
"Is there a problem?"
"No problem. No problem at all." The smile on Lin Ze's face never shifted, but his mind was already in turmoil.
His future father-in-law was actually the overall head of this joint operation.
That meant he would be working right under his father-in-law's nose every day for a while.
The memory of that dinner in London was still vivid.
This is fine. Lin Ze followed Claire through the resplendent corridor, mentally preparing himself.
I'll just treat it as getting used to the father-in-law and son-in-law relationship in advance. Besides, I'm here to work. Business is business. What's there to be afraid of?
Lilia led Lin Ze to a pair of carved wooden doors and knocked.
The doors opened silently.
He took a deep breath and walked in.
The conference room was large. Seven or eight uniformed people sat on either side of a long table, all with straight backs and serious expressions.
An enormous French Ministry of Magic emblem hung on the wall at the end of the table, its intertwined gold and silver patterns gleaming beneath the crystal chandelier.
And seated at the head of the table was none other than Mr Delacour, the man Lin Ze had spent the entire walk mentally preparing himself to face.
Today, he wore dark gray, high-collared robes with the silver badge Lin Ze had seen last time pinned at the collar, and held a steaming cup of coffee.
When Lin Ze entered, his gaze swept over him from head to toe, missing nothing, from Lin Ze's fresh robes to the dragon hide boots he had made a point of polishing today.
Lin Ze felt as though a human scanner had just scanned him.
"Mr Lin Ze, welcome to the French Ministry of Magic." Mr Delacour set down his coffee cup, his tone like the opening remarks at a meeting between two heads of state.
"Please, sit."
Well, look at that. Pretending you don't know me? So that's how you want to play it, old man.
"Thank you." Lin Ze took his seat, his back just as straight, his hands resting on his knees.
A heavily bearded French Auror beside him leaned over and whispered in heavily accented English, "I heard you took down three Death Eaters single-handedly in Britain?"
"I just got lucky." Lin Ze gave a modest smile.
"Lucky?" The bearded Auror raised his eyebrows.
"Combat ability isn't something luck can account for. How about a spar sometime when we're free?"
"Richard, we're in a meeting." Mr Delacour gave the bearded man a cold look.
The Auror named Richard immediately ducked his head and obediently sat up straight.
"All right. Since everyone is here, we can begin." Mr Delacour stood and tapped the wall behind him with his wand. An enormous magical map slowly appeared.
The map was densely marked with arrows and symbols between France and Britain. Several locations were circled in red, with annotations in French beside them.
"The objective of this joint operation is to trace a shipment of prohibited magical items that entered France from Britain." Mr Delacour pointed his wand at a red-circled location on the map: the Port of Marseille.
"Three days ago, French Aurors intercepted a shipping container at the Port of Marseille. It held a shipment of magical items bearing the Dark Mark, including cursed daggers, poisonous potions, and several unregistered, prohibited wands."
He paused, his tone growing more serious. "According to the container's shipping records, these items were dispatched from Britain in the early hours of November first."
The early hours of November first.
Barely a few hours after Voldemort's fall.
"Have you identified the sender?" Lin Ze asked in standard French, drawing sidelong glances from several of the French officials beside him.
When did this kid learn French?
Delacour, too, looked at Lin Ze in surprise.
"Not yet." Mr Delacour shook his head.
"The sender used a false name, but we've already taken the recipient here in France into custody. He's a local smuggling ringleader in Marseille named Antoine Dupont. He's currently being held at the Auror detention facility in Marseille, but the interrogation hasn't been going very well."
"Dupont?" Richard, the bearded Auror, snorted disdainfully. "That fellow's tight-lipped. We've questioned him for three days without getting a single word out of him. We used Veritaserum, but his willpower to resist it is strong. Increasing the dose any further could easily cause permanent brain damage."
"If Veritaserum doesn't work, try something else," Lin Ze said.
Everyone's eyes turned to him.
Lin Ze leaned back in his chair. "For hardened operators like him, resisting Veritaserum is already an instinct ingrained in their bones. Rather than meeting him head-on, we should try a different approach."
"What approach?" Mr Delacour asked.
"Start with what he fears. Everyone's afraid of something, especially someone like Dupont. His backers were the Death Eaters. Now that they've scattered with their leader's fall, what he fears most would be former followers of the Dark Lord killing him to silence him..."
"Or having the fortune he spent half his life painstakingly building confiscated... or his wife and children getting dragged into it."
After listening, Mr Delacour nodded, then picked up his coffee cup and took a sip.
"Go on."
For the rest of the meeting, Lin Ze went over the interrogation techniques and psychological analyses he had picked up from modern crime novels.
After the meeting ended, Mr Delacour asked Lin Ze to stay behind alone.
"You're coming to Marseille with me first thing tomorrow morning."
"All right."
He nodded and turned to leave. Then Mr Delacour abruptly added, "Olivia wants you to come over for dinner tonight."
Lin Ze stopped in his tracks.
Here it comes.
I knew there was no escaping it.