The moment Dumbledore had seen Nicolas on the call, he had expected some degree of protectiveness. What he hadn't expected was this, Nicolas reacting with open irritation, displeasure directed squarely at him.
"Nicolas, you seem angry," Dumbledore said, straightforwardly. "I wasn't placing any blame on Tom. I don't have the complete picture yet. I was only asking."
"Well, the picture is pretty close to what they reported," Tom offered with mild uncertainty. "The first half is accurate. After I left, Usagi chose to stay and spend some time there on her own, she likes the air in North America. As for what she did after that, I genuinely have no idea."
Dumbledore's expression settled into something quietly exhausted. "Tom. The situation has escalated considerably. Usagi has killed more than ten wizards at this point, some Graves family members, some Ministry personnel."
"Whatever the circumstances, can you have her leave that area for now?"
"Professor, I'm afraid I can't do that." Tom shook his head. "Unless the Graves family yields completely, Usagi isn't going anywhere. Otherwise, what's the point? Who's going to take my word seriously after this?"
"Don't try to talk me out of it. This had nothing to do with you from the start, and I don't need your help. Standing aside is enough."
"Tom, let me speak with Albus," Nicolas said, and reached over to take the notebook. Tom was more than happy to hand it off. He stood, stretched, and went to find Madame Perenelle in the adjoining room.
The last line he caught before the door closed behind him was Nicolas's voice, calm and direct:
"Dumbledore. Whose side are you actually on?"
The door shut. The carriage's soundproofing did its job, and whatever followed was lost to Tom. He wasn't worried. Nicolas wouldn't sell him out.
...
Inside the room, Madame Perenelle was sitting with Lucy Seven in her lap, playing with her with a warm, delighted smile. When Tom came in, she waved him over immediately and began asking him questions about the small creature with focused, genuine curiosity.
Madame Perenelle was not a simple woman in any sense of the word. She was, in fact, older than Nicolas himself, and what the outside world had never known was that it was she who had set Nicolas on the path of alchemy in the first place, and who had provided the initial funding that made his early research possible. Perenelle had been, at different times, Nicolas's teacher, his patron, and eventually his collaborator.
It explained, rather neatly, why Nicolas so often spoke fondly of his adventurous younger years. In that particular respect, Tom genuinely couldn't compete.
Once Nicolas's mastery had surpassed her own, Perenelle had quietly stepped into the role of assistant. But her understanding of alchemy still far exceeded virtually anyone alive, and the questions she asked reflected that, precise, technically grounded, and carrying a perspective that was distinctly her own.
"Tom, since you call Lucy Seven an alchemical creature, does that mean she can learn magic on her own?" Perenelle stroked Lucy's head gently as she asked what turned out to be one of the most essential questions possible.
The line between a living being and a puppet lay in thought. In the capacity to learn.
Even the most lifelike gargoyle was, at its core, a puppet running on rules its creator had written into it. Whatever intelligence it appeared to display was merely a reflection of the caster's own sophistication. There was nothing living behind the behavior.
Lucy Seven was different. Lucy Seven was perhaps not as clever as a gargoyle in raw cognitive terms. She got lazy. She made mistakes. She picked up on the emotions of those around her.
On the emotional axis, she met every criterion for a living being.
But learning magic independently was another matter.
Tom shook his head. "Not yet. Lucy Seven is missing one key threshold. Right now she can only use magic that has been inscribed into her in advance."
Perenelle's expression turned thoughtful. "A magical outburst?"
"You are remarkably sharp," Tom said, and genuinely meant it. "Yes. A magical outburst. Every witch and wizard goes through it. Only the magic produced in the aftermath of that rupture truly belongs to them, belongs to creatures like the Lucys in a way they can control absolutely and unconditionally."
Perenelle looked at him with a quiet smile, the same way she had once looked at a young Nicolas who had sworn with complete conviction that he would one day crack the secret of immortality.
Nicolas had succeeded in the end.
She was entirely certain Tom would too.
...
At dusk, the two Abraxan horses brought the carriage down gently into the back garden.
As Tom and Madame Perenelle stepped out of the cabin, Nicolas was just closing the notebook, apparently finishing his call with Dumbledore at precisely the same moment.
"How did it go?" Tom asked, idly. "Is the Headmaster coming to arrest me personally? Whose side are you taking when that happens?"
"It's settled. Dumbledore came around." Nicolas passed the notebook back. "This business won't touch you."
Tom shrugged with complete indifference. "It was never going to touch me. I didn't use a single spell through the entire thing. Does the Statute of Secrecy say anything about underage wizards not being allowed to get into a fistfight?"
"You genuinely didn't use any magic?"
Nicolas stopped. He thought back over what Dumbledore had described, which he had assumed to be a degree of dramatization. It was real?
"Which is why I told you there'd be no trouble."
Tom smiled and waved his hand. The carriage steps extended themselves smoothly down to the grass.
"Come on. Everyone else is probably already there."
...
At Hogwarts, Dumbledore did something rare. He took out a glass and poured himself a full measure of whisky.
The moment his hand touched the glass, frost crystallized rapidly across its surface. In the span of a breath, it reached exactly the right temperature for drinking.
From start to finish, that entire call had been Nicolas Flamel lecturing him.
The experience of being thoroughly told off, in all honesty, was not something Dumbledore had felt in a very long time.
Or perhaps, if he was being precise about it, not once in this entire life.
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