He looked much as he did in the films — a full head of white hair, yet a face that suggested no more than fifty or sixty years of age, his true age utterly unreadable.
At the sound of their entrance, he slowly opened his eyes. Seeing Dumbledore, he smiled. "You're here, Albus."
Then his gaze drifted gradually to Kate.
"Ah, and this must be—" A flicker of surprise passed through his clear eyes. "The last descendant of the Shafiq family, I take it?"
Kate gave a stiff, polite nod. "How do you do, Mr. Flamel. My name is Kate. I am a descendant of Ariel Shafiq."
"I know — your brow and eyes bear a striking resemblance to the woman in the portrait." Flamel rose slowly from his chair. "If you don't mind, would you follow me to the study?"
Kate instinctively glanced at Dumbledore. She caught him quietly stepping back, giving her and Flamel space to speak alone — and gave a small nod.
She followed Flamel into the study by herself. It was not quite what she had imagined a study to look like. There were scarcely any books; instead, the shelves were crowded with alchemical instruments of every description.
With the half-month of alchemy she'd managed to pick up — barely enough to call herself a beginner — she could only identify a portion of them by name and function.
"My master once painted a portrait of that woman." Flamel made his way unsteadily to the bookcase and lifted down a creased, yellowed sheet of paper, spreading it open on the desk.
On the paper was a half-length charcoal sketch of a strikingly beautiful young girl.
If one looked past the somewhat rough draughtsmanship, one could see the resemblance between the girl in the drawing and Kate — in the line of the brow, the shape of the eyes.
"Is this Ancestor Ariel?" Kate stared at the portrait without moving, her voice a little distant.
Flamel gave a soft cough and rolled the portrait back up, passing it to her. "You are her descendant — it should stay with you."
"Thank you." Kate reached out at once — but the moment her fingers touched the scroll, her wrist was caught by Flamel's thin, bony hand.
"This bracelet — it's an alchemical item as well, isn't it?" Flamel's voice had taken on considerably more animation than before. "From the craftsmanship alone… it doesn't look like a modern technique."
He could tell even that?
Kate hurriedly removed the bracelet and held it out. "This is an alchemical item made by Ancestor Ariel. Please, have a look."
Her knowledge of alchemy was, at best, introductory — the kind that barely survived on paper. She certainly couldn't see through the bracelet's method of construction.
Flamel passed her the portrait, took the bracelet in turn, produced something resembling a magnifying glass, and began to examine it with intense, absorbed focus — nothing at all like the weary, elderly man of a moment ago.
Only a person like this, she supposed, could give themselves wholly to the path of alchemy.
Kate quietly tucked the portrait into her coin purse and stood waiting beside him. She watched Flamel run the bracelet through a battery of instruments, one after another, before finally venturing a careful question.
"If I may ask — is there something wrong with it?"
"No, not at all." Flamel's eyes remained fixed on the bracelet, his voice alight with excitement. "Only an alchemist of exceptional skill — one whose technique is extraordinarily refined and masterful — could have crafted an alchemical item like this."
Oh?
Kate blinked. Beyond adding to her Luck stat and regulating her body temperature, she genuinely couldn't see what was so remarkable about this simple little trinket.
Certainly nothing that ought to draw such lavish praise from Nicolas Flamel — the man who had made the Philosopher's Stone.
Had she truly been blind to the treasure in her own hands?
"This alchemical item should have companion pieces — other matching components. Hmm… judging from the alchemical equations on this one, there are at least five more corresponding items in existence."
Flamel murmured to himself, then lifted his head and looked her up and down. "You haven't brought any other alchemical items with you?"
"Well…" Kate smiled ruefully. "Ancestor Ariel died young, and most of the alchemical items she made have been lost to the outside world. This bracelet is the only one I have left."
"What a pity." Flamel straightened up, clearly disappointed. "Only when all six companion pieces are gathered will the alchemical equations on them be complete."
Kate sensed something odd in that. She couldn't help asking: "So what you mean is — the alchemical equation on it isn't complete as it stands?"
Flamel gave a pleased smile. "I expect you've read The Book of Abraham the Jew?"
"Yes — after you, every alchemist has come to treat it as one of the essential texts."
According to legend, Nicolas Flamel had once received a book from an angel in a dream — and when he woke, someone had truly delivered to him a volume called The Book of Abraham the Jew, identical in every way to the one in his dream.
He had spent years studying it, using it as his foundation, and had gone on to achieve legendary mastery in the art of alchemy.
The Shafiq family library held a copy of the book. Kate had read it once after getting her footing in alchemy, though some of its content was still well beyond her present grasp.
Even so, the entire contents of The Book of Abraham the Jew remained perfectly clear in her memory.
For most alchemists, alchemy served two purposes: the pursuit of eternal life and the pursuit of endless gold. Both had been achieved by the Philosopher's Stone that Flamel had created.
In the eyes of alchemists, Nicolas Flamel occupied a position not unlike God to Muggles, or Merlin to wizards.
And the two realms of alchemy that Flamel had proposed — the first of the body, the second of the spirit — held that alchemy was, in essence, the pursuit of the purification of body and mind. This conclusion, too, had been drawn from that book.
Now that Flamel had mentioned it, Kate found her thoughts drawn naturally toward that same conclusion.
She hardly dared believe what she was beginning to suspect. She stared at the bracelet on the desk with a deeply peculiar expression.
"No… you can't mean…"
"I haven't had the complete set to work from, but from the portion of the alchemical equation I can see, I can sense that Miss Ariel was indeed pursuing precisely that direction."
His affirmative answer left Kate's head spinning.
The two realms of alchemy — body, and spirit.
Judging from the Lover's Chain's known effects, there was no doubt: its primary domain was the body.
But according to Flamel, if the complete set of alchemical items were gathered and all the scattered equations unified, the purification of the spirit might become possible.
These were the two realms proposed by the very man who had created the Philosopher's Stone — and her ancestor had reached the same level, decades, perhaps a century, before Flamel himself.
The difference was that Flamel had achieved it through a single alchemical item, the Philosopher's Stone, while Ariel had worked through a whole set of distributed pieces.
A single piece of jewellery affected the body alone — but if the entire set were assembled, the effect it could produce ought to be comparable to the Philosopher's Stone.
Immortality…
So the set of alchemical items Ariel had made for the one she loved — had she made them to grant that person eternal life?
[Ding! Congratulations, Host — you have triggered an Extended Quest for Family Side Quest 2!]
[Extended Quest: Collect the companion alchemical items of the Lover's Chain, and acquire the relevant alchemical knowledge, in order to attain the ultimate realm of alchemy.]
Quests could have extensions? And wasn't this one just slightly unreasonable in terms of difficulty?
Kate felt as if she might stop breathing.
Dumbledore had been sitting in the living room chatting with Madam Flamel for well over an hour before Kate and Flamel finally emerged.
The expressions on their faces, however, could not have been more different.
Kate looked grave — even, honestly, as if she might burst into tears at any moment. Flamel, by contrast, appeared considerably lighter, as though an immense burden had finally been set down.
As if suddenly understanding something, Madam Flamel walked quickly to her husband's side. "My dear?"
"It seems the potion we have left should be more than enough," Flamel said, smiling warmly.
Dumbledore made his way to Kate's side — and found the girl looking up at him with a deeply aggrieved expression, her face scrunched into a picture of woe. "Professor, I feel like I'm under an enormous amount of pressure."
She had only wanted to meet this legendary alchemist who had bequeathed three hundred years' worth of knowledge to her — and perhaps fill in a few gaps in what she'd learned while she was at it.
Who could have foreseen that Nicolas Flamel would simply hand her his entire legacy?
Because her ancestor had created a set of alchemical items theoretically capable of achieving immortality, he had decided that entrusting everything — all his affairs — to Kate, the descendant of the brilliant alchemist Ariel, was the most fitting choice imaginable.
His own master had once been taught by Ariel; now, by passing all his life's knowledge and alchemical instruments to Kate in turn, he had completed a kind of circle.
In the path of alchemy, it amounted to a satisfying, full-circle ending.
Of course, he had also made clear: if Kate ever truly felt she was unsuited to the alchemical path, she could seal everything he had left behind and pass it on to a more fitting person when the time came.
But even so — the pressure was crushing.
This was Nicolas Flamel's legacy. Something countless alchemists outside these walls would have fought tooth and nail to obtain — and it had just been handed to a child who had barely started.
Kate felt utterly on the verge of tears.
"You've had a hard time of it."
Dumbledore ruffled her white hair gently, then turned to look at the Flamels. "If my estimate is right, the potion you have remaining can sustain you for about one more week?"
"The most important matters have all been settled. One week is quite enough," Flamel said, smiling as he looked at his old friend. "Hogwarts must be getting busy with the new term soon — I won't keep you."
Dumbledore regarded him for a long, quiet moment, then gave a small nod. "Then I'll take the child back with me."
He reached out and took Kate's hand.
"Please wait a moment!"
Before they left, Kate — still looking grave — nonetheless stepped forward on her own to stand before the Flamels, and bowed deeply.
"Mr. Flamel, I am truly grateful for your trust in me — so please rest assured. Everything you have given me, I will take the very best care of."
She lifted her head, broke into a bright, slightly bashful smile at the two old people, then trotted back to Dumbledore's side and tugged his hand herself, her voice a little muffled. "Professor, let's go."
A flicker of warmth crossed Dumbledore's eyes. He took one last look at his old friend and his wife — then Disapparated, and was gone.
The moment they were back at Hogwarts, he was about to say something to the girl beside him when the little creature darted straight to Fawkes and buried her face in the great bird's feathers.
"Fawkes, I'm done for!"
It was the first time in living memory that Fawkes had glared at his own master. Dumbledore blinked, then shook his head with a helpless smile.
Well. She was still just a child, after all.
But before long, this particular child would make it impossible for him to keep smiling.
Kate spent a few days at Hogwarts. After nearly burning down several abandoned classrooms in the course of alchemy experiments, she finally set off back to the manor at the old butler's summons.
Alchemy experiments, it turned out, were genuinely expensive — both in money and in frayed nerves — especially given that she had a habit of causing the damage and then promptly fleeing the scene, leaving even Dumbledore unable to do a thing about her.
Saying a cheerful goodbye to Old Man Dumbledore, she collected the Portkey her owl had delivered and made her way back to the manor.
The moment she arrived, the old butler confiscated every dark object she'd been carrying — including the rather large pile of alchemical instruments Nicolas Flamel had left her. All of it, surrendered.
Presumably he had heard about her alchemical rampage at Hogwarts.
Every wall of the castle had protective enchantments on it — otherwise Kate would have managed to blow right through several of them by now.
For the sake of the manor, under no circumstances could Kate be allowed near any of these things until she had actually learned what she was doing.
And so… Kate's plans to explore the collection room were quietly shelved.
"These are the potions I commissioned from Horace Slughorn at considerable expense," said the old butler, his face perfectly stern as he escorted her to the study.
The desk was already covered in potion vials. "He came to visit a couple of days ago — but you happened to be away from home, so he said he would come again next year."
A hundred Gold Galleons a vial, ingredients included — which meant the labour alone was worth a hundred Galleons. The desk full of potions came to somewhere in the range of six or seven thousand Gold Galleons.
An Auror's yearly salary topped out at perhaps two thousand Gold Galleons — already a wage most ordinary wizards could only dream of — and yet it amounted to barely a third of what Kate had paid out in a single transaction.
No wonder Slughorn had come in person.
A thousand gold pieces for a horse's bone — the point was never really the bone.
Still, Kate felt a small pang of regret at having missed the Potions Master's visit. She had been hoping to catch him during the call and see whether the System could squeeze something useful out of him.
But then, since he'd already said he would come again — he was certainly going to show up next year.
If a little money was enough to earn a Potions Master's goodwill and tutelage, it was money well spent.
She stowed the exquisite potion vials safely in her coin purse, then shot a sidelong glance at the old butler and tugged lightly at his sleeve.
"Grandpa Rand, I promise I won't do any more dangerous experiments. Please don't be cross with me anymore~"
The old butler frowned down at her, and hugged the coin purse containing the dark objects even closer to his chest.
"Miss, term starts in a few days. Hogwarts has already sent the letter — remember to go to Diagon Alley tomorrow to purchase your second-year supplies."
Oh, right — she had almost forgotten about that.
Kate had exchanged letters with Ron earlier; he'd said they had snuck Harry away from his aunt and uncle's house and were planning to go to Diagon Alley tomorrow to buy their books.
They'd invited her along — they could all meet up there.
Kate's eyebrows lifted. She gave a sunny smile. "Got it!"
"Would you like me to accompany you?"
"No need — just have Jingjing tail me from a distance!"
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