So it's been years since I've uploaded anything and I'm sorry. I have moved twice in the last year and it's really messed up a lot of things.
Thanks goes out to Shippo704 (or as I call him, Shipoop704~) for ensuring I make good on my promise to him to not go to bed until this was finished tonight and uploaded.
He is very convincing when there is tea involved that I didn't make. And when he didn't let me procrastinate.
No flames. If you don't like it, don't read it. Simple enough.
~~!~~
Dumbledore stared at the stone on his desk. It sparkled in the low light of the fire roaring in the fire place. The red shadows dance on the desk, making the office more ominous.
There was a knock on the door. Dumbledore was shaken from his thoughts.
"Come in," he called, knowing it would only be one of two people. No one would visit him this late without reason.
The door opened to reveal a man with long, blond hair tied back in a ponytail and molten gold eyes. His glasses caught the flames in the hearth, tinting his lenses.
"Ah! Nicholas! My dear friend, how are you?" Dumbledore asked, smiling.
"I'm alright," he answered.
"Ha, Nicholas…" the headmaster heard someone snicker.
He turned to see a figure, not as tall as his friend standing off to the side. He was hooded, Dumbledore only being able to see the bottom part of his face. Red markings were visible along his jawline.
Nicholas turned to him. "What?"
"Nothing, nothing. Hurry up old man." The figure turned to Dumbledore's books, seeming to scan the titles.
Flamel turned back to Dumbledore. He could see the 'older' man was interested in the figure.
Flamel laughed. "I've never introduced you, Albus, this is Pride."
Dumbledore held out a hand to Pride, "Ah hello, my name is-"
"Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. I know." He didn't shake the hand.
"Ah, so you've heard of me?" The older man withdrew his hand with nary a show of awkwardness of not having the gesture returned.
"No, you used and broke my favourite coffee mug."
Dumbledore frowned. When had he broken a coff-? Oh, but that had been…
He shook his head. Those questions could be saved for a later time.
"So, Nicholas, how have you been these past years? I see time treats you well." Dumbledore offered up the chair in front of him meant for his guests.
"These past few years have been a reminder of why I have always loved travel. I may have travelled the lands when I was younger, but so much as changed and there is so much to discover anew."
"Ah yes, I remember you telling me about some of your travels when you were younger. Never able to stay one place for long." Dumbledore also remembered that sometimes, that was the best time to catch up on his sleep, when Nicholas was caught up in his past. It was only now that the younger of the two old men understood why Flamel could talk for hours about his past.
"Never and it was horrible…" he trailed off, looking at the figure by the bookcase. Dumbledore looked and continued to wonder just who his friend had picked up along his travels. The two men had seen each other not ten and a half months before and there had not been another with him.
"Might I ask who your travel companion is?" Dumbledore asked.
Flamel didn't seem to notice the question and stared off into space.
Dumbledore tried again, but with a new question. "Penny for your thoughts?"
That seemed to get Flamel's attention. "Seeing this stone again reminds me of my mistakes. I made many mistakes and they cut me to the core. I had a family, did you know that? I had a beautiful wife, two sons and a house on a green, grassy hill. I loved it, but I was scared, scared I would hurt them, so I left. Do you know what I returned to when I found the courage to face them? To tell my sons the truth that their mother already knew?"
Dumbledore was silent.
Flamel spoke again. "I found my wife's grave, my sons gone and my house burnt to the ground. They had moved on without me."
Dumbledore apologized. "That must have been tough for you, but I thought Perenelle was alive and well."
Flamel laughed. "My one and only wife's name is Trisha. Perenelle never really existed to be honest. I was desperate."
Dumbledore could tell that Flamel was finished with that subject and thought it time to move onto the reason his friend and companion had travelled all this way.
"So, how do you wish to go about this? I never knew the stone could be destroyed." Dumbledore eyed the stone. How would you destroy a stone of this nature? How explosive would it be?
Nicholas laughed again. "Everything can be destroyed; it's just a matter of how fragile it is."
He stared at the stone for a moment, studying it before he said, "Pride, come here a moment."
Pride looked up from the book, meandered over and stopped.
"Is that?"
"Yes, but-"
"You said-!"
"Enough! It's not the same method. Tell me how you feel."
Pride seemed to hold back before he stepped closer. He looked up at Flamel who nodded. Flamel picked up the stone and Dumbledore noticed that Pride flinched when it was brought closer, stepping back and almost hissing.
"It's alright," Flamel said softly.
"I don't want to touch it."
"You don't have to if you don't want to."
"It's weird."
"I know."
Flamel was usually a soft spoken man, even with his larger stature, but Dumbledore had never heard him like this.
It was as if Flamel was speaking to a frightened animal.
He was holding the stone on a steady palm. No matter how long Pride stared at it, Flamel did not move. Dumbledore was further intrigued by the interaction.
He wanted them to hurry up though, wanting a decision to come soon, but Flamel held up two fingers, saying to not move.
Pride didn't notice the movement and inched closer, flinching back and then stepped closer again when the stone didn't move on the resting palm. An agonizing five minutes later saw Pride within two feet of the stone. He reached out and poked it. It moved with the force but did nothing else.
Pride reached out again and gently took the stone in his gloved hands. Dumbledore grew nervous. What would this person do with the stone? What did he want with it? Why was Flamel letting him handle it? Dumbledore remembered when it was first created, he wasn't allowed to handle it too much. Flamel had said one wrong move could activate it when you least expect it. What was so special about this Pride person?
After some time had passed, Pride spoke up again. "It's…it's empty. There is no life to this stone at all. There hasn't been for some time either…"
Pride lowered his hood, but in the low light of his office, Dumbledore couldn't make out much. He saw a young man with blond hair and golden eyes, similar to Flamel. He could see the markings better, wrapping around both his throat and the jawline, but disappeared beneath black jacket Pride wore.
"I would say it's harmless now. You can smash it easily or deconstruct it, whatever." He had yet to take his eyes off the stone and Flamel spoke up.
"What do you see?"
Pride didn't speak and Flamel repeated the question.
"There is…something else…a spark of some kind…"
Flamel didn't push him, waiting for whatever Pride was going to say.
When Pride finally did speak, Dumbledore understood none of it. The young man was rambling and Flamel answered in short sentences. Dumbledore had thought he knew a fair amount about alchemy, but when faced with this discussion, he realized he was barely an amateur.
Until a few words were said in understandable English.
"That's the array to create gold, with alterations."
Pride was silent. He looked up at Flamel, stared long and hard, snorted and burst out laughing.
"You…you need a stone…oh my god!" He clutched the stone and his stomach.
"Pretty funny, isn't?" Flamel laughed along with him, reaching out for the stone. "But it's alright to destroy?"
"Yeah, just destroy it. It's not use to anyone," Pride said, all but throwing the stone at Flamel who caught it with ease.
Flamel spent no extra time with the stone, instantly crushing it in his grasp.
Dumbledore hadn't had enough time to say his piece before it crumbled to the floor. The shattered remains rained from Flamel's hand and, no longer bound together at the centre, they turned to sand.
"Might I ask why you deemed it necessary to destroy the stone? If the stone was empty, even then, it could have been used for research purposes. We could have researched how to make it even stronger." Dumbledore was saddened by the needless actions of Flamel.
"There is no need to ever research the stone again. It's life has run its course and now, like everything, it must die. What was the lesson I drilled into you, Albus?" the old man asked.
"Life can only flow in one direction. One is all and all is one, but even so, I do not understand. It is a stone. How can a stone have life?"
Dumbledore heard an angry scoff over from his bookshelf. Pride was glaring at him, openly expressing his disgust in Dumbledore's answer.
Flamel shook his head. "Albus, all things have life, whether they live a day or a millennium."
Dumbledore still did not understand how a rock could have life and he was reminded why he had stopped studying alchemy and pursued magic; they were completely different directions to some of the same problems. Dumbledore hated that he could be impatient, but he always thought that you didn't have time to stop and smell the roses, that you needed to save people without delay.
He saw now that he could have saved so many if he had learned to trust others more than he loved himself. Maybe now was far too late for that lesson.
Flamel wandered over to a chair and sat, letting his tired body slouch in an undignified manner. Dumbledore followed, but had the decency to pretend he wasn't wanting to do that exact thing.
The two old men sat and watched Pride pick up and put down various books, seeming to find a correlation between the subjects. Running between six books he had temporarily claimed as his own, he began a new research project.
"There is only one reason he is here today and that I let you find out about him." Flamel inclined his head towards the furious teen.
"Oh? And why is that?"
Flamel was silent.
"I already have a Philosopher's stone in my possession, one that cannot be used by any other person but myself. It is a disgusting abomination and when you came to me saying you wanted to help my research in the stone, I almost didn't accept, but did because I wanted a new way to create the stone without…the original method."
"Why create another if you already had one?"
"I have my reasons, but most of it was curiosities sake. Could I recreate something of that magnitude? Was it possible everything in my life…could have been different?"
Dumbledore asked, "Did we recreate it to the same magnitude?"
"Not even close. The one we created is a cheap imitation, nothing more."
"How so? It is so powerful." The alchemist in Dumbledore was slowly being reawakened and questions began to race in his mind. "Why did you hide that you knew how to create a more powerful stone? Why not share the information?"
They could have saved so many people with the information! What were Flamel's motives?
"To you, it is an all-powerful stone that extends life and creates gold. To me, it is a dim candle compared to the roaring flames that are the true stone."
"What-?"
Flamel smiled. "Most alchemists worth their talent can create gold from lead. It's not overly difficult as long as you know the elemental structure of both. Extending life is done by taking care of yourself. The stone I possess, I will never tell a soul how to create it, but it can bypass the laws of…anything."
"But if we create that stone, we will be saving so many lives by the sounds of it. It can help us win against the darkness."
Flamel stared hard at the floor. "No, this stone which I possess helps no one and the means do not, and never will, justify the end.
"Why can't you tell me? I would never tell a soul."
"Because I refuse to have any other person follow in my footsteps. Not to mention, once Pride and I die, it will be impossible to recreate it."
"Pride?"
"Yes. He knows how to create a true stone as well. He wanted it so bad, but once he found out how to create it, he swore to find a different way."
"And who is Pride?" Dumbledore asked.
"Pride is … an accumulation of many mistakes."
Dumbledore felt like a teenager again, wanting to ask so many questions but not being able to.
"There is something else. Nicholas Flamel is a name I created when I came to England all that time ago as I was on the run. My name is Van Hohenheim." He held out his hand to the younger, more elderly looking man next to him.
"Van Hohenheim?"
"Yes, I'm sorry for lying all these years. I figured it was time to pay that equivalent exchange price I kept putting off. A name for a name."
Dumbledore wasn't sure what to say. He had never suspected that Flamel, no Hohenheim, had ever lied about something as simple as his name.
"And Pride? I suspect that that is not his true name."
"Well, Pride is his true name, but he had a name before all…this."
Dumbledore noticed that Hohenheim had his attention locked on Pride who had managed to absorb himself into a book. Dumbledore noticed it was Hogwarts: A History.
"What was his name if not Pride? I imagine only creatures like the fabled homunculus would have names as such." Dumbledore saw Hohenheim flinch at the word.
"His name was Edward and he was my son." Hohenheim's head dropped.
"Was?"
Hohenheim volunteered no more information. Dumbledore wanted nothing more than to see into this man's mind, but years of unsuccessful attempts reminded him that it was not possible. The white abyss that blocked the inner sanctuary of the man was not a vision someone easily forgot, but even so, it had taken Dumbledore a few attempts to finally surrender. He was unsure if Hohenheim had even noticed, though the wizard was sure he had.
The office was silent other than Pride, now named Edward, turning the pages of a book. Dumbledore attempting to find ways to question the pair and Hohenheim just watching his son.
It wasn't for a few minutes that Dumbledore began to piece some of the subtle hints together. Times that didn't match up, physical attributes that left him questioning, things that didn't make sense.
"Hohenheim, can I ask you something?"
The older man looked at him.
"Is Edward, is your son, a homunculus?"
Hohenheim paused. "I knew I should have stopped talking at one point or another. There is only so much I can say about Ed before people put the pieces together. How did you get it?"
Dumbledore, before he continued, thought he should warn his friend, remind him of what homunculus were infamous for.
"Before I tell you, I fear that you might be manipulated by Edward into serving him. Homunculi, as I remember you telling me are incredibly volatile and dangerous as well as play underhanded mind games. They are emotionless and selfish, thinking only of themselves. I fear that, even if he is your son, you should not remain close to him long. Family makes everything so much more difficult."
Hohenheim looked at him, trying to remember when he had said that. When it clicked, he sighed.
"Ah yes, I remember telling you that once. I was scared of you finding out about Edward at the time. I must add that homunculi are only like that when they feel threatened. It is their defense mechanism. If anything, they are incredibly similar to humans, being able to blend in when the need arises, but it can be difficult if they have not been taught how to act like an average human. I fear not for my safety. Edward and I have been together since he was recreated as…as a homunculus."
"How long?"
"Hmm?"
"How old is he?"
"He is like me, he is over 600 years old."
Dumbledore hummed and sat back to think about it.
"Something I never mentioned was that a homunculus is created when a certain set of requirements is met while preforming alchemy. One of the requirements is uncommon now-a-days; unconditional love. Pride was created by…" Hohenheim turned to Dumbledore. "But tell me how you figured him out."
"Well, the first thing to set it off was the coffee cup comment. The last time I broke a mug that was not mine was when I was at your house when you lived in Godric's Hallow. I believe you were only there for about ten years. That was ninety years ago, but your son looks no older than eighteen at the oldest."
"Ah yes, he was incredibly angry when he found out." Hohenheim remembered the yelling that had happened after that incident.
"The next was that, how you speak of Edward with such pride. You are proud of him, but I didn't know why until now that you admitted to him being your son. Though I have a question; as you never told me about the homunculus, would you explain the markings on Edward? I have done my own research, but nothing extensive."
Hohenheim said, "Ah, yes. Every homunculus has a marking that defines them as such, and usually it is a small ouroboros somewhere on the body; palm, chest, eye, the likes. Something in Edward's creation went horribly wrong and an incredibly dangerous and highly unstable transmutation circle was carved onto his body. He knows what will and will not set it off as he, even before, had done extensive amounts of research on the circle."
That made sense to Dumbledore, but also made him incredibly nervous. What if Edward did something to set it off here? What would happen? Maybe for the sake of his school, he would look into the circle, but he would need to know what it looked like first, something he was positive neither Edward nor Hohenheim would show him.
He asked Hohenheim if either of them would sketch the drawing so that research could be conducted on it.
"I do not wish for this to become public or fall into the hands of anyone, so I am regretful to say that we will not be parting with the circles identity or appearance."
Dumbledore was fighting a losing battle. All he wanted was some help with fighting against the rising potential that was the reawakening of Voldemort, but his oldest and wisest friend was not helping him in the slightest. Was it because they were affiliated with the Dark Lord at one point?
No, that wasn't possible, otherwise, Hohenheim would not have entrusted the stone to Hogwarts, he would have just given the stone to Voldemort.
"Would it be too much to ask for aid in the fight against Lord Voldemort, even though as of right now, the threat is not there. I fear that in the coming years, it will grow substantially."
Hohenheim thought about it, but shook his head.
"I understand the threat of Voldemort, but I do not want to get involved. In every case that Edward and myself have involved ourselves, nothing good has come from it. I want to keep Edward out of this situation seeing as he could be used for the greater evil. He may be a homunculus, but he is also still human under all that."
Dumbledore tried a different approach again. "I understand that the homunculi can hold a special power and am I correct in believing that Edward's has something to do with magical objects?"
"Please elaborate." Hohenheim seemed confused.
"Can he peer at an object and see the magical qualities of them? If so, may I ask him to look at objects I believe to hold some significance to winning the fight against completely ridding ourselves of the remnants of Voldemort?"
Hohenheim looked at Edward. The boy had managed to get a book off a shelf two feet out of his reach. "He does have a special power, you are correct, but that is not it. Each homunculus has the ability to look into a philosopher's stone and tell you about it, but none really care enough to."
The 'creator' of the philosopher's stone looked at the watch on his wrist and said, "I think that's all you needed us to do. I think we should take our leave." Hohenheim rose to his feet, stretched and walked over to Edward. He easily pried the book from the clutches of the young man, returning it to the shelf and dealt with the grumpy face that accompanied it.
"You can read it later. We need to leave so that no one knows we are here."
That seemed to placate Edward, for now.
Hohenheim turned back to Dumbledore and sighed. "Well, I think this is goodbye, old friend."
"Must it be so?"
"Unfortunately, I think it is time you forgot about me. I bring nothing with me but bad luck and disappointment."
Dumbledore frowned at that. "I think not."
"Then you don't know me as well as you think you do. That's all I've ever done."
Edward made a face at that, but didn't say anything.
The headmaster had one more, relatively harmless question. "Before you depart, might I inquire about who Perenelle is? How she was created as a persona?"
He realized that might not have been as harmless as he had believed when Edward's face went bright red and he turned around, pulling up his hood.
"She is no one!" the blushing creature said.
"Edwa-"
"No!"
"Come on, it's not that bad."
"Perenelle is a stupid name and I hate it!" he yelled.
Hohenheim looked offended. "I thought Perenelle was a beautiful name."
"Yeah, two thousand years ago you archaic fossil."
The argument that happened in front of Dumbledore was interesting to say the least. There was a long history behind the woman, but he managed to learn one little tidbit.
"Edward is, or rather was, Perenelle?"
Hohenheim laughed. "Long story short, the border guards were looking for a man and a boy, so a man and a woman crossed. The wife part was a mistake on their part, not to mention, it proves that wizards are stalkers. That happened near the beginning of the entire 'Nicolas Flamel' run in a tiny village. No one was ever supposed to know. They wrote it down only one time. Never again was the name 'Perenelle' used other than that once and ever since, people have believed I was married."
Edward was silent, fuming about the memories. He took a few steps towards the door and turned back, waiting for Hohenheim to follow. With each minute that passed, he was a foot closer to the door.
The two older men said their goodbyes as Edward waited impatiently to get on the road again.
Dumbledore watched as Hohenheim and Edward turned their backs and left his office, swearing to never see him again. They both had a horrible habit of losing track of time and figured, Dumbledore's life must be nearing the end.
The headmaster went back to his thinking about the upcoming year and all the information he had received from his long-time friend. There was a lot to process and so little time in which to do so.
He was interrupted by a knock on the door some time later and a confused and frazzled McGonagall entered.
"Yes my dear? Can I help you?" he asked.
"I think you should be aware that two blond men were in the castle snooping around the dungeons. However, when I asked them to leave, they did, but not before saying, 'I don't understand the interest in moving stairs. Revolving doors move too and they are far better.' Does that mean anything to you?" she asked.
Dumbledore chuckled. "Not a thing, however, you need not worry. You can trust those men."
"How do you know?"
"There are many things I learned tonight and some best remain a secret." He held his index to his lips and smiled.
A secret he would cherish and remember over nights with a bottle of whiskey and a good laugh.