Chapter 222: Sorry
Seeing that Leonardo was too embarrassed to speak, Nicolas laughed and waved his hand, signalling him not to worry about it.
"Albus is the same as he was when he was young. Always full of… ideas."
"Go to Beauxbatons and have a look. Plenty of interesting things there. Give them a proper showing while you're at it."
His teacher's easy attitude put Leonardo at ease. These old wizards really did have remarkably steady temperaments.
Looking at his student, Nicolas suddenly remembered something.
"Come to think of it, last time you left, Headmistress Maxime of Beauxbatons happened to arrive with a young girl for a visit. Had quite a distinctive name—Fleur, I think…"
Leonardo recalled the brief glimpse he'd caught during the summer. The extraordinarily tall woman would have been Maxime, and the girl who had quite literally been glowing was Fleur.
It was the first time he had ever seen a person who truly emitted light. Thinking about it, Fleur had partial Veela blood, so that was likely a trait of her heritage. He wondered whether it also granted additional magical abilities.
There were quite a few wizards in the magical world who carried special bloodlines. Merlin, the legendary wizard whose name was known to every wizard, was said to have had half-nightmare blood flowing through his veins, granting him mastery over magic ordinary people could scarcely hope to learn.
Leonardo was deeply curious about this because the legacy Salazar had left at Hogwarts focused primarily on two angles, body and soul, studying a wizard's own magical circuitry in order to analyse their talent.
If that area were developed further, it might even become possible to achieve an Animagus form modelled on a magical creature. Or perhaps allow wizards to acquire the innate gifts of those creatures.
"Leonardo, do you think I should hold a funeral for myself?"
"Hm. What?"
Hearing this, Leonardo nearly thought he had misheard. What did he mean—hold a funeral for himself?
And the shift in topic was absurdly abrupt. Hadn't they just been talking about Beauxbatons?
Leonardo's bewildered expression made Nicolas realise how outlandish that had sounded, so he explained.
"Remember, I had Albus help spread the word that the Philosopher's Stone was destroyed? That was meant to deter anyone with designs on it, so they'd stop coming to bother me. But if you're going to put on a show, you might as well go all the way. If I hold a funeral, invite plenty of people, get some press coverage, wouldn't that be far more convincing?"
After a long pause, Leonardo recovered from his teacher's "thorough" plan and said, hesitantly, "But, Teacher, you spend most of your time on the ship. Those people don't really have any way to bother you up here, do they?"
There was another point Leonardo didn't say aloud: the ship's defences were almost certainly formidable. Any enemy would be blasted to ash before they got anywhere close.
Nicolas picked up his cola and took a firm sip through the straw.
"Still, holding your own funeral would be a novel experience. I'd never thought of it before. And if I wait until all the mourners leave, I could go take a photo next to the gravestone… Or better yet, I could forge a body indistinguishable from the real thing. That would really sell it."
The corner of Leonardo's mouth twitched. He thought he understood now. His teacher simply wanted to try the experience of attending his own funeral. He was even visibly eager at the prospect of crafting his own "corpse". For a legendary alchemist, that wouldn't exactly be difficult.