Miss Radley was a suspicious little cat, was she? Ikenna was amused at her internal dialogue, for it was easily readable when she eyed him like that, but he did not display any emotion whatsoever.

"Call it... curiosity," he answered mildly. "A phoenix is an usual choice for a pet, if you could even consider one that. But I'm sure you have the proper paperwork on him and such...." He trailed off his sentence in an open-ended tone in case she chose to elaborate as she should. Phoenixes were protected magical creatures the last time Ikenna had checked.

But he wasn't suspicious of the Head of Magical Creatures. No, far from it. He quite liked where this conversation was going.

"I agree entirely, if by 'others' who have done wrong you mean those littering, lazy wizards and inept, ignorant Muggles." Again, Gevrik gave no open sign of whether or not he actually believed what he had said or if he was just testing Erica... or if both were true.