Chương 25: Flamels
Harry stood in Grandpa's office, looking up at Dumbledore who was writing something in a phoenix-embossed book. He sighed, watching the quill scratch across the parchment.
Another sigh escaped him as he kicked at the carpet with his shoe.
"It really won't be so bad, Harry," Dumbledore said with a soft chuckle, not looking up from his writing.
Harry just sighed again, louder this time. He had already tried everything - he'd even gone to Aunt Min and Uncle Filius, explaining how he needed to stay at Hogwarts to practice his abilities. But they'd just nodded along and agreed with Grandpa that some time away would be good for him.
And Snape... Harry scowled at the memory. The Potions Master had actually smiled when he heard the news, saying "At last the castle will have some peace and quiet after years of chaos from our arrogant celebrity." As if Harry caused that much trouble!
Another deep sigh.
"Ah, I believe it's about time we departed to France!" Dumbledore stood up, clapping his hands together cheerfully.
Harry ignored him, suddenly finding his shoelaces extremely interesting. Maybe if he just stood here long enough...
But then Dumbledore was beside him, holding a small ceramic mug in his left hand. His other hand came to rest on Harry's shoulder. "Now then, what must you remember to do?"
"Kick my legs back and forth so I don't fall on my face," Harry mumbled, reaching out to touch the mug. "And hold on tight."
"Very good! Now, careful..." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled.
Suddenly, Harry felt a sharp tug behind his navel. His feet left the ground, and it felt like someone had grabbed his insides and turned them inside out while yanking him forward. Wind howled in his ears as colors swirled around him.
Then it was over. They were falling through open air, and Harry automatically started moving his feet in a walking motion like Grandpa had taught him. Five seconds later, they both landed softly on grass.
Harry looked around, blinking to clear his vision. In front of them stood a small, humble house with a thatched roof and white-washed walls. Two ancient-looking people stood in the doorway, dressed in simple white robes. They had matching white hair and weathered pale faces, but their eyes were bright and alert as they watched their visitors arrive.
"Albus, my dear friend!" Nicolas Flamel practically sprung down the steps. "When your letter arrived, I could hardly contain myself! Come, come - is it true? But no, first things first!" He grabbed Dumbledore's hands and shook them vigorously.
While the two old wizards chatted, Perenelle Flamel made her way over to where Harry stood studying his shoes. She slowly knelt down beside him. "Hello, young Harry. I've heard so much about you from Albus."
Harry kicked at the grass, not wanting to be rude but also not wanting to talk. "Hello," he mumbled.
"I understand you're quite the artist," Perenelle continued gently. "We have a lovely garden you might enjoy painting."
"I guess," Harry replied quietly, though he did glance up briefly at the mention of painting.
"Nicolas, perhaps we should continue this discussion inside?" Perenelle suggested, noting Harry's discomfort. "I've just made fresh tea and biscuits."
"Oh yes, yes! How thoughtless of me!" Nicolas exclaimed. "Please, everyone inside! Though mind the doorframe, Albus - I still haven't fixed it since that explosion last month."
Once they were settled in the cozy sitting room, Nicolas could barely contain himself. "Now then, Albus - is what you wrote about truly possible? A different kind of Elixir?"
Dumbledore reached into his robes and carefully unwrapped a small package, placing the crystal phial on the table. The liquid inside gleamed with an inner light.
Nicolas practically pressed his nose against the glass, his eyes wide with wonder. "Extraordinary! The luminescence, the viscosity... I've never seen anything quite like it!"
He reached for his wand but in his excitement knocked it off the table. As he bent to retrieve it, several loud cracks came from his joints. "Oh, my old bones," he groaned, rubbing his back as he finally grasped his wand. He held it up to the phial, muttering detection spells under his breath.
Nicolas continued casting spells while Dumbledore watched with interest. The two old wizards were completely absorbed in their examination of the phial.
"Harry, dear," Perenelle said softly, "why don't I show you to your room while these two get lost in their research? They could be at it for hours when they're like this."
Harry glanced at Dumbledore, who gave him an encouraging nod without looking away from Nicolas's spellwork.
"Okay," Harry mumbled, adjusting his belt that held his art supplies and books.
Perenelle led him up a narrow wooden staircase that creaked under their feet. The walls were lined with old paintings - not the moving kind like at Hogwarts, but still pretty. Harry noticed how the light hit them differently than magical paintings.
"Here we are," Perenelle said, opening a door to reveal a small but bright room. A window overlooked the garden she'd mentioned earlier, and a desk sat beneath it. "I thought you might like having natural light for painting."
Harry walked over to the window, looking down at the colorful flowers below. "The colors are nice," he admitted quietly.
"They are, aren't they?" Perenelle smiled. "Nicolas tries to grow them the mundane way - says magic makes them too perfect. Though he does cheat sometimes when he thinks I'm not looking."
That got a tiny smile from Harry, though he quickly tried to hide it.
"Would you like to see my favorite spot in the garden?" Perenelle asked. "There's an old apple tree that's perfect for sitting under. And if you're hungry, I wasn't joking about those biscuits earlier."
Harry considered for a moment. He still didn't want to be here, away from his home. But he hadn't eaten in nearly a week, and the garden did look pretty. "Maybe just for a little while," he said.
"Wonderful," Perenelle beamed. "And perhaps you can tell me about your paintings while we have our snack? Albus mentioned you've done quite a few."
Harry followed her back downstairs and through a side door that led to the garden. The apple tree stood at the far end, its branches spreading wide to create a natural canopy. A worn wooden bench sat beneath it, looking comfortable despite its age.
"The biscuits are chocolate," Perenelle mentioned as they settled on the bench. She pulled out a tin from her robes. "Nicolas says they're too sweet, but I think he's just grumpy because I won't let him add experimental potions to them anymore."
That got a small smile from Harry.
She offered Harry the tin. "So, what do you like to paint?"
Harry took a biscuit, thinking about his answer. "I like painting the Great Lake at sunset. And sometimes the creatures in the Forbidden Forest, when I spot them from the Astronomy Tower, though I don't need to see them anymore... The unicorns are hard though - they move too fast for me to get a good view of their faces."
"You've seen unicorns?" Perenelle asked, genuine interest in her voice.
"Once. I spotted a herd near the forest's edge while I was flying above the lake." Harry paused, realizing she might not understand what he meant, but Perenelle just nodded.
"Albus mentioned you could transform. That's quite remarkable for someone your age." She took a biscuit herself. "Would you like to see something interesting?"
Harry nodded, curious despite his lingering reluctance to be here.
"Follow me," Perenelle stood up, brushing crumbs from her robes. She led him past beds of colorful flowers and herbs, some of which Harry recognized from the books on Herbology. At the back of the garden stood a tall hedge. Perenelle tapped it three times with her wand, and an archway appeared.
"This," she said with a wink, "is where we keep the exciting parts of our garden."
Through the archway, Harry saw plants he'd never seen before. Flowers that changed colors as they bloomed, trees with crystal fruits that chimed in the breeze, and what looked like a small pond filled with liquid rainbow.
"Nicolas likes to experiment," Perenelle explained. "Sometimes things go wonderfully right, and sometimes... well, that's why we keep them even further back than here."
Harry walked forward, forgetting for a moment that he was supposed to be unhappy about being here. "What's that one?" he asked, pointing to a bush covered in what looked like tiny floating lanterns.
"Ah," Perenelle smiled. "That's what happens when you accidentally cross Fairy Lights with Whistling Daisies. Would you like to help me water them? They make the most interesting sounds when they're happy..."
Harry hesitated. He was supposed to be sad about leaving Hogwarts, not having fun in some garden. But the tiny lights bobbed so invitingly, and his fingers itched to capture their glow in a painting. "Okay," he whispered.
Perenelle handed him a small copper watering can. "Just a gentle sprinkle," she instructed. "Too much water and they start singing opera."
Harry tipped the watering can slowly, and the bush erupted instantly in soft chiming sounds, like dozens of tiny bells. The floating lights swayed and pulsed with each note, creating patterns of light that shone through the air. Some of the lights broke free from their stems, floating up to circle around Harry's head while humming a cheerful tune.
"They like you," Perenelle said, watching as more lights detached to join the impromptu dance. "Usually they're quite shy with strangers."
oo0ooOoo0oo
Harry and Perenelle returned from the garden, their robes smudged with dirt and grass stains. The Whistling Daisies had been particularly excited about being watered, spraying them both with rainbow-colored droplets that left odd patterns on their clothes. Harry had found himself enjoying the experience, which he hadn't expected.
They found Dumbledore and Nicolas in the sitting room, surrounded by diagrams full of many numbers and glowing magical instruments. The crystal phial containing the Elixir sat in the center of a carved silver platform etched with different carvings.
"It's the most peculiar thing, Albus," Nicolas was saying, gesturing at a floating near-transparent diagram. "The patterns simply refuse to stabilize. Every detection matrix I've tried - even my modified Paracelsian framework - just... slides off."
"Yes, the same occurred with my attempts at magical signature analysis," Dumbledore agreed, adjusting one of the instruments. "The Revello series produced null results, and even Ollivander's Principle of Magical Coherence fails to apply."
Nicolas tapped his wand against some floating numbers. "Look here - the arithmantic values keep shifting between prime sequences. It's as if the potion exists in multiple magical states simultaneously." He conjured another diagram. "The base resonance suggests a transformation catalyst, similar to my Stone's output, but the overtones..." He shook his head in frustration.
"Perhaps your Glass could help identify the underlying principles?" Dumbledore suggested, before glancing at Harry. "Though I suspect whatever power is preventing our analysis won't allow full replication, regardless of methodology."
Nicolas followed Dumbledore's gaze to Harry, and sighed deeply as his hands covered his blue eyes for a short moment. "Yes... to think, at my age, I'd discover there are higher powers at work in this world. How wonderfully humbling."
Nicolas slowly shook his head, collapsing the floating diagrams with a wave of his hand. "The Glass might give us some insight into the transformative matrix, but..." He gestured at the small amount of liquid. "This is our only sample. Using the Glass would require at least three drops for a proper analysis, and there's no guarantee it wouldn't alter the remaining solution's properties."
He pulled out a piece of parchment covered in numbers that Harry didn't understand at all. "However, if we could isolate even a fraction of the underlying principles... Look here." He pointed to a particular equation. "The decay rate is nonexistent. Even my Stone's Elixir shows minor degradation over time, but this..." He tapped the crystal phial gently. "Perfect stasis. And the way it seems like it would interface with living tissue - the preliminary readings suggest it doesn't just halt aging, it actively reverses temporal degradation at the fundamental level and keeps it there."
Dumbledore leaned closer to examine the equations. "And you believe this could be replicated, even if only partially?"
"With enough research, perhaps." Nicolas began sorting a few parchments on the table into one stack. "The primary challenge would be stabilizing the transformative matrix without access to the original catalyst. But if we could identify the key frequencies... maybe using a modified version of Vagbhata's Resonance Theory..."
He looked back at the crystal phial, his hands clenching slightly on the table. "Albus, we must do our very best with this."
"Nicolas-" Dumbledore started, but Nicolas rapidly shook his head.
"I know what I told you before, about Perenelle and I being ready to move on. But now..." He gestured at his aged body. "We've been trapped in these failing shells for so long. If we must continue like this, growing even slightly weaker each decade for another century... yes, we'd choose to pass on."
Harry listened quietly, understanding more than they probably thought he did. He remembered how Chiara suffered each month, trapped in a body that wasn't really hers.
"But young bodies!" Nicolas's eyes lit up with sudden energy. "To truly enjoy life again to its fullest extent! No, we can't give up on this opportunity." He gripped onto the parchments tightly. "Even if some greater power is at work, what an fascinating challenge! If we can replicate it even partially... just enough to refresh our bodies..."
He looked up at Dumbledore, almost jumping in his seat. "We won't need to rely on young Harry's gift if we can create our own version. Think of the research possibilities!"
"I think," Perenelle interrupted gently, "that's enough excitement for one evening. Harry must be tired after the journey."
Nicolas blinked, seeming to remember they weren't alone. "Oh! Yes, of course. My apologies, young man. When research beckons, I tend to get carried away."
Harry shrugged, not really tired since his firebending exercises were way more exhausting than this. He watched the old alchemist shuffle his remaining loose parchment into a neat pile, seeing how Nicolas's hands shook slightly.
"Before we retire," Dumbledore said, standing up from his chair, "there's one more thing." He pulled out a familiar red bracelet from his robes. "Your Occlumency training should continue while you're here."
Harry took the bracelet, slipping it onto his wrist. The mental static buzzed faintly against his Hun Soul, barely noticeable at this setting. "Will you be coming back for practice?"
"Actually," Dumbledore smiled gently at him, "you'll have plenty to keep you busy here. Perenelle is quite the accomplished Herbologist - I believe you've already seen some of her more interesting specimens in the garden? She's also quite talented with various forms of art. I think you'll find her knowledge of magical pigments particularly fascinating."
"Oh yes," Perenelle added warmly. "I'd love to show you how to make your own magical paints. And there are several rare plants in the garden that create the most beautiful natural dyes."
Nicolas perked up from his diagrams. "And when you're not busy with that, perhaps you'd like to learn a bit about potions? Nothing too advanced, of course, but there are some basic brews that any young wizard should know."
"We'll make sure you have plenty to do," Perenelle assured him. "Though there will still be time for painting and relaxation, of course."
Dumbledore chuckled. "For now, I should return to Hogwarts." He knelt down to Harry's level. "Remember what we discussed. This isn't a punishment - it's an opportunity to learn from two of the wisest people I know."
Harry nodded, though his chest still felt tight at the thought of Dumbledore leaving. "Will you tell everyone I said goodbye again?"
"Of course." Dumbledore squeezed his shoulder gently. "Be good, and try to keep an open mind. You might find yourself enjoying your time here more than you expect."
After one final squeeze of Harry's shoulder, Dumbledore stood and bid farewell to the Flamels. Then with a soft pop, he disappeared.
Harry stood in the middle of the sitting room, suddenly very aware that he was alone with two strangers. Well, not exactly strangers since Grandpa trusted them, but still unknown. His instincts told him both were nearly as dangerous as Grandpa, which didn't help at all.
Perenelle broke the awkward silence. "Would you like to help me prepare dinner? Nicolas gets terribly clumsy in the kitchen, but I could use an extra pair of hands."
"I heard that," Nicolas muttered good-naturedly, already turning back to his diagrams.
Harry considered saying no, but remembered how nice it had been in the garden earlier when he'd given it a chance. "Okay. But I don't need to eat much."
"That's fine, dear." Perenelle smiled warmly. "Though I warn you - once you try my shepherd's pie, you might change your mind about that."
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