"BOOOOOMM!"

An explosion shook the entire room Harry Potter was in. There came the noises of something big collapsing above, and small pieces of debris rained down on the the top of his head. At the same time, the main electricity system of the house was killed, and all the lights went out for a moment before the secondary system, powered by magic, kicked in. Harry knew that it wouldn't last long, but he didn't need it to.

"Master, Voldemort just broke through the wards. Our vanguards had been crushed," the cloaked figure next to Harry spoke up in a synthesized male voice. "PF-052 is going to engage them in about twenty seconds."

"How many golems does she have left?" Asked Harry without turning around. He was busy focusing his attention on the complex magic circle on the floor in front of him.

"Forty-three, master. Ten of which are capable of using magic. Since PF-052 already handed her core to you, she can only hold them off for a few minutes."

"Not enough…" Harry mumbled. A deep frown appeared on his face. "NF-052, activate the building's defense system. Take the rest of the unfinished golems and hold the staircase. Also… Give me your core."

"Are you sure, Master?" The golem NF-052 inquired, slightly raising his voice at the last word. "I'm sure I can hold the line a lot longer if I have my core."

"I'm certain. If this… our last resort, is a success, I need the core to be able to create you again, just like PF-052," Harry sighed and held out his hand.

"Very well," NF-052 said, his tone perfectly neutral as he let the cloak drop onto the ground, revealing a pitch black body made of a special alloy, that was shaped like a set of armor, only less bulky, sacrificing weight and defense for mobility. His appearance was no less menacing because of that, especially his head, which is a helmet with a crimson glowing "V" line where the eyes were supposed to be. He then placed one hand on the center of his chestpiece. The Runes engraved there glowed for a few seconds before a hissing noise came. When NF-052 finally removed his hand, a piece of the armor underneath swung open, revealing a glowing ruby the size of an adult's palm. He reached in, removing the gem and handed it to Harry.

"Thank you," Harry nodded. "With this, I will make sure that we meet again."

"Of that, I have no doubt, master," MF-052 nodded as he shut his chestpiece. Immediately after that, the whole building shook again, violently. It almost threw Harry off of his feet, but he managed to hold on. A large piece of the ceiling fell down and crushed the potion rack on the far end of the room. Luckily, those were no longer needed.

"PF-052 just deactivated. It's my turn," the golem informed Harry. He then stretched his arm and opened his palm. One of the rings on his right hand glowed and morphed into a short sword, while another on his left turned into a black revolver. "Magic or not, a mere wizard is not a challenge for me."

Harry nodded as he watched the last of his trusted golems walk out of the room and close the door behind his back. With a final sigh, he then turned back to what he was doing before - preparing the magic circle for the ritual that, if succeeded, would give him another chance to turn this whole war around.

Harry's mind then wandered as his body continued working as if he was on autopilot. He couldn't help but wonder what had gone wrong, and how Voldemort could gain such an enormous advantage on them. His mentor had told him before passing away, that he still have a couple of years left, enough time to build up his golem army, and unleash them on the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. But something happened, something unexpected. Just a month ago, Voldemort suddenly got a huge boost to his magical power and changed the way he operated into a much more aggressive stance.

Within such a short amount of time, one by one, the resistance fell. Unsurprisingly, under the management of an incompetent Minister, the Ministry was the first to fall. The horde of terror then began to sweep across the country, eradicating any person or group that dared to stand up against their master's reign. With Albus Dumbledore leading them, the Order of the Phoenix was the last organization to be destroyed, just three days ago. Dumbledore was killed by Voldemort in a public duel in Hogwarts' courtyard. Down he went, and with him the last hope of the wizarding world.

Harry, on the other hand, had long retreated from the frontline. In the early days of the war, he acted independently, fighting at battles across the country alongside various groups. However, as the war dragged on, and manpower was becoming shorter as the days went by, he decided that it was time for him to retire, and focus on creating more golems, to supplies their side with the soldiers that they needed. At the same time, the two special golems, NF and PF, whose cores and most magical functions were created by Harry's mentor, and the bodies by Harry himself, were sent to the battlefield. They were both in their 30th model back then - NF-030 and PF-030.

For awhile, things were going smoothly and it looked like the Light side actually had a shot in winning the war. However, Fate intervened and turned the table on them. Until now, no one knew exactly just what Voldemort did to give him that kind of power. Even Dumbledore was stumped when asked the question. But there was one thing that they all knew, the victorious side had been decided.

It all became clear when two days before his death, Dumbledore came to Harry to propose a plan, a last resort. The old man was going to keep fighting, to buy time for Harry to complete the ritual which was supposed to send him back in time. Once there, he would have years to prepare the golems, as well as figuring out what gave Voldemort power, and preventing that from happening.

Another explosion shook the building, and this time, Harry could hear shouting noises from the direction of the staircase that led up to the ground floor. They were getting close. There was no more time to waste on thinking about the past. Reaching into his robe, Harry took out five gems that he had spent the last few days to fill up with his magic. He then placed them around the magic circle before stepping in the middle. Nothing happened yet, but Harry could feel the magic in the room being amplified and echoed around him.

He then took a silver knife and with it, cut his left palm, letting the blood drop at his feet. His blood didn't form a pool on the ground. Instead, the moment it touched the carving of the circle, it started to spread out, multiplying along the way until every line was filled with the crimson liquid. At which point, the circle started glowing, filling the room with an eerie red light that pulsing slightly every few seconds.

The sound of fighting was getting closer. Harry tried his best to push those out of his head as he started chanting. It was a ridiculously long chant, and the result would be disastrous if he messed up even just one syllable. So he focused, and the more he mumbled the words under his breath, the brighter the light became, and the pulse was getting faster. As the last word left his mouth, the light was now almost blinding, indicating that the ritual was ready and waiting for the final phase.

Harry reached down the front of his robe and pulled out an hourglass shaped object - a Time Turner. As he held it in front of him, the door to the room burst open, revealing Lord Voldemort himself, followed by a dozen of Death Eaters, whose faces were hidden by their white skull masks.

"NO!" Voldemort hissed as he took in the state of the room.

"Yes, Tom," Harry found himself grinning, despite the situation. "I've succeeded, and you've failed. Farewell."

"Not yet. Avada…"

As the Dark Lord began to cast his spell, Harry squeezed his hand around the Time Turner, crushing it in his palm. He ignored the pain from sharp pieces of glass digging into his flesh as the time sand dispersed into the air within the circle, which soon started swirling and formed a small tornado, surrounding Harry himself.

"...Kedavra!"

The green bolt from the Killing Curse rushing at him was the last thing Harry saw before the sand obstructed his vision. He fell himself being sucked upward and everything went pitch black.

It was a painful ride.

It started out smoothly enough, but Harry soon felt like he was being sucked into a ridiculously small straw, not unlike what he felt when apparating. Only this time, the sensation didn't end after a brief moment, but seemed to stretch out forever. The speed at which he was travelling at and the perfect blackness of his surrounding made Harry feel like he could throw up at any moment. However, he also couldn't breath, and the lack of oxygen soon knocked him out cold, not long after the terrifying thought that he had somehow messed up the ritual appeared in his head.

When Harry finally woke up, the first thing he knew that he was still alive, which was always a good thing.

Secondly, he was alone. This was somewhat tied to the above point, since the last time he was awake, the only people in the room with him were Voldemort and his Death Eaters. If the ritual somehow failed and they were still there, Harry would be dead already.

The third point - This, Harry only noticed when he opened his eyes - made his heart almost leap out of his chest. He was staring at a very familiar ceiling. It was the ceiling of the ritual room, only it looked abandoned, just like before Harry found the building and decided to give it a makeover, turning it into a proper workshop.

This could mean only one thing - The ritual had worked.

"Yes!" Harry shouted in delight. His voice echoed in the empty room. "Bloody yes! I did it!"

Then, as if he couldn't hold it back anymore, Harry started laughing as a tear escaped his eye and rolled down his cheek. Hope filled his chest again as Harry realized that he was just given a second chance. Voldemort was going down this time, and hopefully, with any luck, not as many good people would die. Harry had long discarded the childish thought that the 'good guys' would come out of this whole and alive, but it didn't stop him from wanting to save as many as he could.

It took him awhile for his laughter to calm down, and now his throat was parched. Harry sat up and took out his wand, one of the few things that he managed to bring with him without overloading the ritual's capacity, and conjured himself a glass of water. He downed it in one gulp, before serving himself another. Finally, his head cleared up, and he pushed himself off the ground.

So far, everything appeared to be fine, but Harry still had a lot to confirm. Most of all, he needed to know the date. In theory, the ritual was supposed to send him back exactly nine years into the past, but it certainly didn't account for the fact that the most magically powerful wizard of the age barged into the room at the last moment and cast a very potent spell into the center of the ritual. It could have messed up something for all he knew.

With that in mind, Harry walked out of the former ritual room, still feeling a little drained. As he walked along the corridor, up the stair, and into the building's main hall, Harry could imagine it, the battle between the Death Eaters and the golems led by his two trusted assistants. There was no trace of fighting, and the whole thing was in ruin and falling apart everywhere he laid his eyes on, but Harry was familiar with how each of them fought, and how ferocious they could be.

Unconsciously, he reached up and touched the pouch attached to his belt. In there were their two cores. Those were the most important, irreplaceable parts if Harry wanted to bring them back. Aside from the fact that they were created by Harry's mentor, who was both more skilled and more powerful than him, the cores also contained NF and PF's personalities.

Those thoughts occupied Harry's mind until he stepped out of the building, which was an abandoned church surrounded by thick forest. Frankly, it was the perfect location for a secret base. However, Harry still remembered how long it took him and his golems to fix the place, almost from ground up before it was even barely livable by human standard. Now that he was going to be alone for the foreseeable future, the task was going to take him forever, and he wasn't sure it was worth it in the end.

Something to decide on later, Harry sighed as he looked up at the remnant of his old home. For the time being, since no one knew who he was, Harry could always rent a room somewhere. Or better yet, he could sneak into Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, since if his memory served him right, Sirius was still in Azkaban during this period, and no one was living there except for the house elf Kreacher.

Living with that creature wasn't a pleasant experience, but Harry could always dose it with the Draught of Living Death and stuff it somewhere out of sight if he wasn't feeling charitable enough to fulfill its wish of having its head hanging on the wall together with the other elves.

Shaking his head to rid himself of the unpleasant images, Harry then cast a cleaning charm on himself, pulling up his hood to cover his face, before turning on his heels and apparated to Diagon Alley, where he could easily get his hand on a copy of the Daily Prophet.

It didn't take Harry very long to notice that something had gone wrong.

"Huh? That's… weird," he mumbled to himself while taking in the scene of Diagon Alley. To everyone else, it was a perfectly normal scene, a little uplifting even. The street was bustling with shoppers, and almost everyone was either chatting animatedly, or laughing with their companions. There were even lone window shoppers, who were completely content with hanging around in public place for an extended period of time without anyone to watch their back.

To Harry, however, it wasn't how he remembered Diagon Alley nine years ago. He remembered that after his parents had been killed, the war continued to drag on. As such, many other things were affected. Diagon Alley was one of those. At times, the place looked deserted, like a dead town. There were numerous closed and boarded up stores, and the shoppers were always in a hurry. They got in, did their business, then got out as soon as possible. They always looked down and avoided eye contact, and barely whispered anything to their partners.

All of those made much more sense under Voldemort's reign.

As it stood, the jovial scene was actually sending a chill down Harry's spine. It wasn't even the good kind of chill. He rushed toward the nearest newspaper stand and janked one copy out. His eyes immediately went to the place where the date was printed. What he saw made a deep grimace showed on his face.

June 5th, 1994.

"Nineteen ninety-four?" Harry asked out loud, drawing the attention of some passerby, but he didn't care. It looked like Voldemort still managed to get one last shot in. The ritual was supposed to bring him back to 1991, so he was now robbed of three extra years to plan and bring said plan into action.

Three years were a lot of time that could be used in his favor, but their loss wasn't Harry's main concern at the moment. If this was indeed 1994, then the scene he was seeing made even less sense. In his memory, by 1994, Diagon Alley was basically a ghost town. Not entirely, since the Goblins had taken the opportunity and claimed it for their own. Around a dozen stores were still operational, but they had to pay heavy taxes, making the prices skyrocket. Unfortunately, their goods were quite essential for the daily life of witches and wizards, so they still got customers, even if it was only a handful everyday.

"What is happening here…?" Harry murmured. His head was spinning and his stomach felt like a huge ball of lead just dropped on top of it. Was the past changed somehow? If so, who did it? Was this even his past on the first place? Or the wonky ritual actually sent him somewhere he didn't belong?

Harry might never be able to find the exact answer to those questions, but he could gather enough information to hazard a guess. With that in mind, he put the newspaper down and headed toward Flourish and Blotts. Harry remembered that the store had an archive in the back, where they kept old books and newspapers. Hopefully he could find out what else was different in this twisted version of the past.

It wasn't 'what else was different'. It was everything.

Everything was different from what Harry remembered, ever since the fateful Halloween night in 1981. That night, or evening in his own version, he was being kept at Remus Lupin's house, and his parents, James and Lily Potter, were supposed to pick him up at around nine o'clock. Obviously, they never did. Peter Pettigrew had spilled the secret of the Fidelius and they were both killed during Voldemort's sudden 'visit'. The traitor was then killed by a raging Sirius, who everyone thought was the Secret Keeper. Afterward, Sirius was thrown into Azkaban. That was a huge mess that wasn't sorted out over a decade later.

Here though, things played out differently. Pettigrew apparently still had some good in him and didn't want to see his former friends got killed. So he lured them away from the house the night of the attack, saying that he would watch over their daughter, only for the Dark Lord to come and kill her later. And this was where things got interesting. She - little Iris Potter - didn't die, but Voldemort got himself killed instead. The rebound spell also killed Pettigrew on the spot.

In the end, James and Lily Potter were alive. Their daughter had been enjoying a happy life since then. Sirius never went to Azkaban, thus making Harry's plan of using Number Twelve no longer possible. Most importantly, the war that was supposed to continue on for decades ended right there.

Three hours later, a shocked and thoroughly dazed Harry dragged his feet out of Flourish and Blotts. Voldemort was gone, and so was the purpose of him using the ritual in the first place.

On second thought, Harry realized that wasn't necessary true. During his time digging through the mountain of newspapers, there were little bits here and there that proved to be quite interesting. One of them, dated one year after Voldemort's demise, was about the Dumbledore of this timeline warning people that the Dark Lord hadn't died, just disappeared, and was waiting for a chance to come back. It was the only time the old man came forward with something like that. Since it was never mentioned again, Harry couldn't be sure if Dumbledore changed his mind about the whole thing, or he was just silenced for the sake of not getting other people frightened.

But that changed nothing, I supposed, Harry sighed as he walked along the street of Diagon Alley. The sun was setting and the sky above him was turning into a beautiful shade of orange.

Even if the Voldemort here was still alive somewhere, he wasn't the one that Harry risked his life to get a shot at, thus, not his business. Of course, Harry understood that if he hadn't performed the ritual and stayed in his own timeline, he would have died, so he had no regret about leaving that world behind altogether. What he regretted was that he could no longer avenge the death of his mentors, as well as his friends.

For a brief moment, Harry was tempted to redo the ritual, but he soon realized that he had no idea if it was actually Voldemort and his Killing Curse that caused the error to send him to a different timeline instead of his own past, or even if it was an error at all in the first place and Dumbledore was just wrong when assuming the ritual's function. It was entirely possible that the ritual would send him further into the past of this timeline, which basically solved nothing, or it would send Harry away to one of the countless timelines out there, with absolutely no guarantee that he would land back in his own past.

Essentially, Harry was stuck. In the span of a few hours, everything he lived for had been rendered into nothing.

"What do I do now?" Harry groaned. For the first time in a long while, he was utterly lost and wished that his mentor would be here to guide him. Then, all of a sudden, an idea appeared like a light bulb just lit up inside his mind.

"Of course, my 'mentor'," he exclaimed. A wide grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, earning him a few odd looks from the people around. But again, Harry couldn't care less as he apparated away once more.

"Oh, bugger…" Harry couldn't help but groaned when he first laid eyes on the house of his 'mentor'. The Flamel residence was located on a small island that was under the Fidelius, plus other things. It was quite a stroke of luck since apparently, if it was in the same location, then the Secret would be carried over between timelines. Harry noticed this after realizing that he still remembered about Sirius's house.

What wasn't a stroke of luck was that the two-story house in front of Harry looked a little abandoned from outside. Ever since the first time Harry met Nicolas and his wife Perenelle when he was just a child, they were already so old that the material desires in them were almost nonexistent. Despite having a stone that, aside from making them basically immortal, could also give them unlimited amount of Galleons, the Flamels were content with their simple life away from everyone, in a cozy house that, frankly, wasn't all that much to look at.

Still, Harry remembered that said house was extremely well cared for, even without a house elf, and that wasn't what he was seeing.

Except for a few minor details that could be contributed as the inconsequential differences between timelines, the house still stood tall with no visible sight of damage. The plant life around it, however, had been thriving. Wild vines hanging off the roof and climbing up the walls, even coiling themselves around fences and window bars. The gate creaked and pieces of rust fell down when Harry pushed it open. The weeds and grass in the yard were almost up to his waist. This wasn't a sign of neglection or mere laziness. There hadn't been anyone living in this house for at least a few years, and that didn't bode well for Harry.

Before he could inspect the house's interior, no doubt, only to find out that everything was coated with a thick layer of dust, a loud 'Pop' came from behind, making him turn around and whip out his wand, pointing it at the newcomer.

It was Albus Dumbledore. Still as old and had a bizarre sense of fashion as the last time Harry saw him.

"Who are you, young man?" Dumbledore asked, wand already in hand as he gave Harry a cautious look. "How do you know about this place?"

Harry thought about it for a moment, trying to decide on the best answer before speaking. "I'm Harry… William, Nicolas Flamel's apprentice. I was shared the Secret of this house by Nicolas himself. You must be Albus Dumbledore."

Technically, it was true. Nicolas was his mentor, and he did tell Harry about the Secret. Since the Potters were still alive here, it was better not to take their surname to avoid complications. The name William was an inspiration from Harry's late friend Bill Weasley in his own timeline. It was the first name that popped into his head.

"That I am. But Nicolas's apprentice you say?" Dumbledore narrowed his eyes slightly and Harry fell a wave of assault brushed against his Occlumency, but he held on and didn't break eye contact. "That's strange, because he never told me he had one. Pardon this meddling old man, but can you show me your face? I might have met you before and forgot."

"Yes, but any resemblance that you are about to see is purely coincidental," Harry sighed and lowed his hood. In the end, he couldn't hide his face forever. He could alter his appearance, but living the rest of his life under a disguise? Harry wasn't sure if he wanted that.

As expected, his appearance made even Dumbledore himself widened his eyes in surprise.

"I look like James Potter, I know. I get that a lot," Harry continued, ignoring the old man's rather comical expression. "But… I don't have any tie with him."

"I can see that you are not completely identical to him. Still… It's uncanny," finally Dumbledore nodded. "But that doesn't explain the situation we are in. If you are indeed Nicolas's student, how come I've never seen you before. The Flamels and I are close friends, and I visited them a lot."

"It seems like my mentor hasn't been completely truthful with both of us. I've never been told about his friendship with Albus Dumbledore himself either," Harry said. This was, again, technically the truth for this Nicolas.

"I wish I knew why he did that," Dumbledore shook his head. His voice, for a moment, was full of sorrow, making the dreadful feeling that was bubbling inside Harry's chest swell up. "Do you have any proof at all, that can prove what you said?"

"The fact that I know the Secret wasn't enough?" Harry raised an eyebrow. However, when Dumbledore only stared at him in silence, he sighed and unclasped the gold wristband on his right wrist and levitated it over to Dumbledore. "Here, you can examine this."

Back in his timeline, that wristband was the key into the Flamel house. If it wasn't on your person, you wouldn't be able to open the door or any window. Harry didn't know if it still served the same purpose here, but the fact remained that it was made by Nicolas himself. Someone as skilled as Dumbledore should be able to recognize that.

"Hmm…" In front of him, the old wizard was busy casting several charms on said object, frowning at some points, and appearing to be surprised at others. In the end he handed it back to Harry and nodded, putting away his wand. "Very interesting artifact you've got there, Mr. William. The crafting style was a little different from what I know, but it's definitely one of Nicolas's creations that was made specifically for you."

"So you believe me now?"

"For the time being, yes," Dumbledore nodded. "It's hard not to seeing how Nicolas gave you the key to his own house, since the Secret can be shared by various people now, you see."

"What do you mean by…" Harry frowned, but the answer soon came to him. "Oh Merlin, Nicolas is dead?"

"For a couple of years now, and his wife is with him," Dumbledore nodded solemnly. "How come you didn't know about that?"

"I… was involved in an accident abroad, and was out of commission for years," realizing his mistake, Harry hastily spun a cover up story. "Oh boy, this is not going well at all. How did they die? What about the Philosopher's Stone?"

"Destroyed, on their own request," Dumbledore said. "The Flamels felt that they've lived long enough, and it was dangerous to let the stone fall into the wrong hand. It almost did, in fact, but a brave soul managed to prevent that from happening."

"I guess I can understand that," Harry blinked. "I was just… excited to be able to see them again, but now…"

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine. If possible, please point me to their graves later," Harry sighed as the old man nodded. "I just need a moment to think about what I'm going to do next. I have no money and no place of my own, so I was hoping to continue my training here."

"How about this…" Dumbledore spoke, and Harry glanced up at him. "... You can live here for the time being, after cleaning all the dust away, of course."

"Really?" Harry raised an eyebrow. In truth, he was planning on it anyway, but it was always nice not having to deal with someone like Dumbledore getting in his way.

"Yes," Dumbledore smiled. His eyes twinkled in the sunset. Harry always found that uncomfortable. "Before their passing, the Flamels entrusted me with this house, but as demanded by my various jobs, I have to live at Hogwarts, thus having no use for this place. It's a waste leaving it all for the vines and dust, and since Nicolas trusts you, I see no problem."

"That's wonderful. Thank you. You really saved me there," Harry beamed up.

"Glad I could help," Dumbledore said. "Why don't we check inside the house? You might want to get at least a clean place to sleep tonight."

The two of them then walked up to the front door. Once there Dumbledore hung back and waited for Harry to open it.

"You still don't trust me," Harry said, not as an accusation, but a statement. The old man was checking if the wristband was really legit.

"My apologize. You can never be too careful."

Harry only shrugged and turned the doorknob. The door opened easily, however, once Harry set his foot in, he almost had to jump right back out due to the amount of dust inside.

"Ack…" He coughed. "I know it's been years, but…"

"We should probably clear the air first," said Dumbledore as he waved his wand, opening every window in the house, before casting a second spell, assuming to drive all the dust outside. He and Harry waited for a few seconds before it was deemed safe enough for them to enter.

Harry's hunch turned out to be correct. Every piece of furniture inside was coated with dust. The rooms' placement was largely the same as in his memory, but the decorations were different. Not that it mattered much.

The first thing to do was to clean up the living room. With the help of Dumbledore, it was surprisingly quick to turn the room into its prior pristine state. Harry helped his fair share too, since he was no slouch, having rebuilt parts of an entire church in the past.

"I think that's enough for now. I can finish the rest of the house later," said Harry, wiping a sweat off of his forehead.

"Are you sure you don't want to clean the bedroom as well?" Asked Dumbledore. "It's getting quite late after all."

"I can always sleep on the sofa," Harry shook his head. "To be honest, all this cleaning is quite dull. I'm hoping to go down to the workshop for a few hours before going to bed."

"A very studious young man," Dumbledore nodded his head in approval.

"Well, I need a change of pace. Besides… I'm a little losts," Harry confessed. "The purpose of my life up until now is gone all of a sudden, so I thought that I could continue my study. But as you've seen, my mentor is now gone too. Maybe tomorrow I can look for some ways to earn some living money, but I don't know what to do from now on beside continuing my study on my own."

"I understand that it's almost impossible to find someone like Nicolas to learn from. He's the best Alchemist of our time," Dumbledore said solemnly. "I truly hope you can find your path again."

"Thank you."

"Now, if you don't mind, this old man needs to return to Hogwarts," he continued. "Can I come back to visit?"

"Sure, even though I know you're just finding an excuse to check up on the house," Harry grinned, giving the wizard in front of him a small chuckle.

"That is also one of the reasons. Goodbye, Mr. William."

With that, Dumbledore turned and walked away. Before he could open the front door, however, Harry suddenly thought of something and ran after him.

"Wait, can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Dumbledore nodded.

"I've read in a newspaper. Do you still believe that Voldemort is out there, waiting for a chance to come back?"

Apparently, whatever question the old man was expecting, this wasn't it, judging by his brief gobsmacked expression. He soon regained his composure and said.

"I know he is. But that newspaper you spoke of is over a decade old already, and you still remember that?"

"It was a rather hard to forget article," Harry himself had no idea why he wanted to know if Dumbledore still believed that or not, but he figured that it was better to know beforehand than to be caught by surprise if it was going to happen at all.

"Alas, I can only hope so, but people nowadays tend to forget that easily," Dumbledore sighed. His expression then turned into a thoughtful one. The two of them stood in silence for several seconds before he continued. "How old are you, Mr. William?"

"I'm twenty. Why?" Harry frowned, not sure what to make of the sudden change in topic.

"If you're Nicolas's apprentice, does that mean you're also good at Alchemy? I don't know why he went out of his way not to tell me about you, but I know him. If he's willing to teach someone, that person must be some kind of prodigy."

"Oh…" Harry's eyes widened before he gave Dumbledore an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, even though I trained under Nicolas, I didn't set out to become an Alchemist. You see, I'm an Enchanter. A lot of my mentor's knowledge and skills can be applied to what I do through various methods, but it's not exactly the same."

"That's… unfortunate," Dumbledore blinked, obviously disappointed, but he recovered almost instantly. "Can you humor me, what exactly does an Enchanter do?"

"The subject is really broad, but to sum it up, I can enhance, weaken, or take away the existing attributes of a magical artifact. I can also give an object a magical function, within certain limits of course. There are many similarities between this and the way you normally put a curse or a charm on an object, only I can make the effect last longer, or even permanent, with less power and maintenance required. Again, that depends on the object itself, amongst other things."

"Very intriguing," Dumbledore said, nodding his head slowly. "The reason I asked you about it is because I've been wishing to bring Alchemy back into Hogwarts' curriculum for years, but Nicolas refused to teach, and there's no other who is quite at his level. I thought since you are his apprentice…" He then shook his head. "But again, what you just said piqued this old man's interest. Is it hard to learn your craft?"

"Enchanting? Not really, you don't need a natural gift like Divination's 'inner eye'," Harry scoffed. "What you need is knowledge about Charms, Runes, a little bit of Potions, patience, and a hell lot of precision. Some of the more complex things I've done in the past could take months to complete, and sometimes you'll be working with Runes on really, really small parts that will be made resistant to things like size changing spells."

"I see. An interesting, but complex subject, indeed," Dumbledore said. "I know it's sudden, but do you want to teach it at Hogwarts next year?"

"Me? Teaching?" Harry couldn't believe what he just heard. Albus Dumbledore was offering him a teaching position within an hour since they first met. He knew that being Nicolas Flamel's apprentice wasn't the only reason for the offer, and if the old man in front of him was the same as the one he always knew, then there was definitely an ulterior motive involved. But still…

"It will be a paying job, and who knows, maybe you will find a passion in teaching," there came another uncomfortable twinkling eyes as Dumbledore smiled at Harry. "I understand if you need time to think, of course. And it's not like I can accept you just like that either. You see, we don't usually hire professor this young, but exception can be made if you have something to show off your skill."

"I don't have anything on me right now," Harry shook his head. "But you're right, I need time to think this over. How about you come back in a week? I will give you an answer then, along with an enchanted artifact so you can see for yourself."

"Brilliant," Dumbledore nodded jovially. "Now, I really have to go. Goodnight, Mr. William."

"Goodnight."

As Harry watched Dumbledore's departure, a whirlwind of thoughts rampaged inside his head. During his apprenticeship under Nicolas, Harry had never set foot inside Hogwarts, and now he was offered a teaching position there. With his skill, he was confident that Dumbledore's little test wouldn't be a challenge. It was all up to whether or not he accepted the offer.

No matter, thought Harry as he walked toward the door that led to Nicolas's old workshop. He was sure that the answer would come within the week. The first thing he had to do now was to give the room he was in a thorough cleaning. The living room? That could be a little messy, but definitely not his workshop.