"Aw, my most proud accomplishment. It takes strict attention and maintenance to keep the gardens fresh all year round." she said proudly.
I nodded "It must be a serious struggle what with the weather and different varietals you have." I said seriously.
"It has it's trials but you'll have to agree that the reward is well worth it." she said grandly sweeping her arms at the sea of color.
"Headmistress who's this?" Another person asked as they walked up.
It was a thin slightly disheveled man with wild brown hair wearing a ridiculously colorful suit.
"Andros, this is a little guest from across the channel, though now that I think about it I never did get his name." Madam Maxime said with a slight tilt of her head.
"Alexander Drake, aspiring merchant at your service." I said with a grand bow.
"Drake? Are you related to Sir Francis by chance?" The man, Andros asked with an intrigued look.
I shook my head "Not that I am aware. I'm an orphan you see so I have no family line to follow back." I said honestly.
"A pity. It would be rather interesting to see a conversation between our own portrait of the man and a descendant of his." the man said with a slouch of disappointment.
"Why would you have a portrait of an english muggle explorer?" I asked confused.
"It was a whim of the headmaster at the time. By the time anyone realized the portrait was of a muggle it had already been here for over a fifty years." Madam Maxime explained.
"I find it hard to imagine that a muggle portrait wouldn't have exposed itself almost immediately." I said with a frown.
"Ah, well sir Francis was quite well traveled you see and had long since discovered magic by the time his portrait was made. While discovering an entire school dedicated to it may have come as a surprise he could accept it easily enough with his experience." Andros chimed in.
"I can see it. Forgive me for changing the subject like this but you are a professor here yes? What is it you teach?" I asked curiously.
The man beamed "I have the honor of teaching the mostly overlooked but vitally important subject of History, both muggle and magical." he said proudly.
This caught me off guard.
"You teach muggle history as well?" I asked genuinely surprised.
"Quite so! We as a people are forever doomed to repeat history so long as we remain ignorant of it. While many in the magical community consider our magicless brethren a lesser race I am firmly of the opinion that ignorance of their history is ignorance of our own. For a great many years magical and muggle lives intertwined after all." he said seriously.
"I applaud your dedication to the subject. Perhaps I am rather biased but I personally agree that ignoring anything just because it's muggle is a foolish behavior." I said whole heartedly.
I meant it too as it was that same backwards ignorance that led to the rapidly approaching situation where the magical world will have no choice but to be exposed if it doesn't change. To be honest I considered busting the veil wide open and just seeing what happened but decided against it mostly because I wasn't strong enough yet. There was no mistake however, exposure was fast approaching as this worlds muggle technology followed the same track it was on in my previous life. The moment those smart phones with cameras get going with the internet the magical world was on a deadline. -
Andros beamed happily at my appreciation for his work but he didn't stick around to talk after that. Apparently he was actually off to do something and merely got side tracked because of us. Madam Maxime continued to take me on a stroll around the school introducing me to the various places of interest. The library in particular interested me because it contained various works by Flammel on alchemy that could be found nowhere else. It was actually the reason why Beauxbatons was the premier alchemy school in the entire world, well that and the man himself occasionally giving lessons on the subject.-
"Monsieur Flammel, I didn't know you were coming today!?" Madame Maxime exclaimed in surprise when she spotted a familiar thin old man placing a book on a certain shelf in the library.
"Ah Olympia! I just had some sudden inspiration that I wanted to jot down and save for future generations." the old man said before his gaze paused on me. "My you certainly get around it seems, Albus must have such a headache keeping up with you." he said with a light chuckle.
"You are Nicolas Flammel!? Why by Merlins beard was someone like you manning an shop counter!?" I asked stupefied.
Yes the same wiry old man from Alchimie that sold me the Giant's might elixir was standing before us.
"I sometimes enjoy seeing the sort of people that come to that old shop. I founded it you know, had to be something like three hundred years ago now." he said with a light smile.
"I see. That sudden inspiration you mentioned. It wouldn't happen to have been because of my visit that day could it?" I asked.