A/N: This is a spin off Stolen Destiny quest I run over at Sufficient Velocity. Should be able to stand alone. I wrote this for fun and because I could.
I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being-forgive me-rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.
Albus Dumbledore
For the second time in my life, I made a mistake large enough to take lives of people I loved. James and Lily were never going to attend another meeting of the Order, leaving me to seek solace with their surviving son. The cruel surprises did not crease.
I had no theory as to why and how future events unfolded; could not pinpoint the miscalculation, couldn't find the error in my judgement.
I had ensured young Harry's safe delivery to the doorstep of his aunt and uncle, accompanied by a short letter for their benefit. Professor McGonagall was overseeing the place as I retreated to my office to gather my thoughts on the future.
Not a minute after I had left, Harry Potter was taken by an unknown third party, right from under the nose of my deputy headmistress.
My search continues ever since.
Part I
Albus Dumbledore and the Curse of Bolyai–Lobachevski
I am the first one to give up my position in our silent game.
Silence can only bring me so far, after all.
"Apologies..." I look up, changing the strategy of my approach.
A long time colleague of mine matches my gaze instantly. His grey, old eyes are glazed by the great shade of old age, yet an unstoppable fire burns beneath it all, the unshakable determination of an immortal genius. Tall and lean, he continues to watch over, towering over my seat. The way he looks at me reminds me of a shining disappointment in a parent's eyes. Even while he hardly ever means that, Nicolas makes me feel a lot younger than I truly am with his presence alone.
That is not a merit to be celebrated.
He coughs, his short, raven-black hair shaking ever so slightly. This little demand for attention brings me face to face with one of my greatest adversaries in all matters alchemical, theoretical and experimental: Nicolas' mood swings.
I take in his pose and position, measuring the extent of the danger. He looks very much irritated at my perceived inattentiveness. From the way his hand is tracing the line of books on the huge bookshelf on the northern wall, he must have spent the few minutes since entering pacing around aimlessly. His frown is framed in the light stubble of his whitening beard, but he doesn't look as angry as he could have been.
The shift in atmosphere of the room has been palpable since he entered, but I have known Nicolas for a long while. Whenever he is in an angry mood, it is better to let him stew alone for a short while. After all, his sense of etiquette, or rather, the soft touch of his wife, forbids him to start any verbal crusades before I will fully acknowledge his presence.
We both know that this measured ignorance of mine isn't too hard to see through. Nicolas is nearly as adept at reading my tells as I am with his. Instead of acknowledging my fault, I pretend to not notice how he has seen through my own charade.
While I can tell he's not too happy about it, I cannot even begin to guess at the reason behind this interruption - and it better not be another discussion about Eugenia Jenkins - shouldn't have given in to his request and brought him that stack of old Daily Prophet issues good twenty years back.
It doesn't look like it is one of these however, because there's no sight of the newspaper on his person nor on the nearby mahogany reading table.
Still, it's always best to tread carefully with Nicolas. This time is of no exception. He's earned himself something of a reputation being difficult, time and time again, all stemming from his magically charming temperament.
This moodiness is part of the challenge of having him as a colleague, as well as a reason so few people agree to work with him these days. In the years past, the very same unpredictability had cost him a lot of potential partners in research.
"It appears I slipped into something of a daydream. Would you terribly mind repeating that last bit?" I say finally, offering a short, polite smile, hoping for a quick reconciliation.
We both know he hasn't said anything, but he decides to not raise into question the validity of my statement, meaning that the matter is truly important, if not entirely time-sensitive.
"Albus, it's your damned bird," the man begins his rant. "Is this some new custom amongst the current generations, letting their pets run amoc as yours does? This is the third time he's barged into my home. What's your excuse?" his choice of language this time is French, although he's just as fluent in English and a handful of other languages. French is what Nicolas feels most comfortable using... and that's a good sign.
"I daresay Fawkes had a good reason for the intrusion," I reply in the same dialect of French. The slightly dated Pontoise-bred French holds a special fondness for Nicolas Flamel. It's the dialect of his birthplace and one of the pillars of the 'proper French'. You can tell from my speech that car je ne fui pass norriz a Pontoise, but I am fluent enough that Nicolas doesn't call me out on it.
I sigh, closing the book, but not before committing the number of the page to my memory. Two hundred twenty seventh page of the first edition. Ah, Ignatia Wildsmith could work - her birthday falls right on the year for the numbers I want to recall - and I've actually planned to use the floo on my way back. The little mnemonic out of the way, I have to calm down my current host.
"Now, I am quite certain-"
"Yeah, yeah," he interrupts me. "I've seen the way he's domesticated you and how he has my wife wrapped around his feathery tail. I will not allow you to start playing to his tune today. I will have none of it. You'll get him to your office, and only then we can have our supper."
"You have my sincerest apologies, dear friend." I slip a hand into a pocket and draw out my wand. Beside the calming French I need to make use of yet another tool in my disposal. With a short wave, I summon a treat from my reserve, from one of the small drawers in the second guest bedroom. It's a cozy little room on the second floor that I tend to occupy whenever I stay at the Flamels, and I've taken liberty of stocking up in necessities since the start of my visit. "Perhaps something to sweeten your mood, Nicolas?"
His hand twitches, but instead of reaching out to take the offered confectionery he simply intertwines the fingers keeping both hands close to his stomach. "What even is that thing?"
"A Cadbury's Creme Egg," I offer. "It's a rather popular Muggle treat. Haven't you heard their tune? How do you eat yours?" My take on the words can't have as much charm as when I first heard it, playing in the muggle streets, but it does get a raised eyebrow out of Flamel. Perhaps it was a mistake returning to English for their curious little slogan. "Doesn't ring any bells?" I switch back to French.
Nicolas scowls, glancing around his house. The master clock shuffles closer to show off current time (a quarter past five), but it's not what the man is looking for, and dejected, it retreats back to its proper corner. My bet would be Nicolas is looking towards the study, as if walls didn't exist in between, where his wife is currently busying with Fawkes.
Spend some time with the Flamels and you start suspecting magic at play, with the way each always knows where the other is. Their secret isn't in some enchantment, nor do they play clever tricks over the visitors. This is no spell, but a result of six hundred years in marriage.
"That's all well and good, Albus, but do you really expect me to indulge in sweets before supper?" Nicolas breaks my line of thought.
"I deresay there is plenty of time before then," I point out. "While it wouldn't take more than a moment for Perenelle to prepare our upcoming meal, I can only conclude that her cooking has been put on hold. You wouldn't have come to me in such a hurry otherwise."
"She wouldn't have if your damned bird would-"
"Nicolas, please," I interrupt, before a new wave of anger fully forms. "I will see to it that Fawkes departs as soon as possible but while we wait, a little treat here or there won't do us any harm."
"Fine." He takes the little confectionery, and I summon another one for myself, concealing a smug smile. There's the calmer Nicolas that I was hoping to conjure.
"They're not usually on sale this time of the year," I point out, and get up, guiding the book back to its place on the bookshelf with my wand. The other books shift to the sides to allow another into their ranks, and without my direct intervention, too.
"Mmm," is his only response, as we start our short trek towards the right wing of the house - my host curiously fiddling with the packaging of the little treat.
As the rising storm has been finally dealt with, I allow my mind to move away from Nicholas while we're walking to his wife. The candles lighting the library section of the house douse themselves out as we leave, and the carpet eats up what little dust we left in our wake.
The Flamels never bothered with house elves, instead electing to weave a thousand hidden enchantments into their home. They had a load of time to perform these as neither likes to move, instead electing to change their home to meet their current needs.
I allow myself a second of calm as we walk past a corridor covered with various paintings, taking time to glance at the surrounding landscapes. Every single one of them depicting some place of the world, a window to everywhere. None have any human figures in them, even as a few show off a flock of birds or a curious, if flighty squirrel watching over our passing.
I'd wager you'd be hard pressed to find a single portrait in the whole house. I had tried once, years ago, in vain. That's just the way Nicolas likes it to be.
The return of Fawkes is in itself a very important event. I'm sure Perenelle is very much aware of the significance and she must have been the one to send Nicolas to get me to her side. I'm certain she's doing everything she can to help Fawkes recuperate, but we both know that the phoenix needs the hand of his adopted human to be truly happy.
I'm anxious as to the meeting. After all, it should have been me to greet my companion - however much Perenelle dotes on Fawkes - it is my duty to attend to him personally. One of the many duties I have been neglecting. My stay with the Flamels might have numbed me to the pace of events, allowed me to believe an illusionary sense of slow passage of time. I increase my pace, stepping over a rag that tried to polish my already pristine shoes.
Why hadn't Fawkes tried to reach me himself, and why has he chosen to rely on the nagging of my old friend to bring me to him, instead? Maybe he didn't have a choice? It's a worrying thought. Could there be something capable of harming a phoenix that interceded in Fawkes' path? If so, what could it mean for my future search? I couldn't send Fawkes on yet another run, if this danger proved persistent. Even if the smart creature might ask for it.
There's entirely too much of a burden I've already placed on the shoulders of a phoenix. Fawkes had volunteered, which made the nagging guilt bearable, but it wasn't making me happy about it. He was brave, heading on to an adventure neither me nor Nicolas were sure he'd return from. Not once, not twice, but three times already.
The fact that both of his previous returns have seen him come back exhausted and empty-clawed was not a thing I'd like to dwell on. In general, the lack of success of the previous two attempts does not bode well for the next ones...
During this short loss of faith, I fall back to the words of Nicolas, who, for all his semi-artificial unpleasantness, had been the one to bring my attention to the fact that even when Fawkes fails we get a drop closer to solving the ever growing mystery of Harry Potter's disappearance.
I enter the room first, with a haste that puts a toll on my old bones, but I can already hear the Phoenix song and all is well with the world once more. This time, Fawkes' trill is different, a lot different than the last two times.
There's a blooming warmth spreading from my chest, called forth by Fawkes' song of his success. I know I should not hope for too much, but it's a start.
A good omen.
"I hear you, old friend," I say in place of the greeting for Fawkes even as I haven't yet seen the whisk of him, the sound of my voice is surely to bring his mood to even higher spirits. "You've done it."
My view is blocked by none other than Perenelle Flamel. She's the lovely wife of the grumpy genius alchemist, and in her long years of marital life she has managed to put her leash down on the man's worst habits and behaviour. I can feel the way Nicolas straightens upon entering the room and is instantly rewarded with the woman's smile in turn.
She carries her chestnut hair braided into a comfortable pair of hanging braids, with but a sprinkle of grey hairs hidden in them. Her face is clear, without any marks of the old age unlike Nicolas' three wrinkles on the forehead. An inattentive observer could place her at forty years old at most, but even a short examination of her pose and bearing would give one a warning that this is not the case.
"Albus," she says my name, and for briefest second I am reminded of the voice of my grandmother from my mother's side. I offer her a small nod, and she returns the gesture, moving smoothly to the side of Nicolas. You wouldn't even give her a single hundred years with the springiness of her gait.
There's no more place for the Flamels in my mind; as finally, finally, with Perenelle out of the way, I have been given a full view of the large oak work table. There, lying on the soft pillow Perenelle must have conjured, is Fawkes. However majestic a phoenix can look, he's not even close to the image.
Fawkes is, in a word, spent.
His bright, magical song keeps stealing ever more from him, getting ever so weaker. Instead of a melodious tones, a shrill choking noise breaks the tone. In place of a well practiced melody a mangled mess of sounds. Fawkes has been twisted and turned by the winds of chance, tired beyond belief. His colors have vaned, the life seeping from him before my eyes. His plumage is ruffled and uneven, feathers falling out right before my eyes, and he looks older than I have ever seen him.
A single eyes is open, tracking me, but when Fawkes tries to raise his head to look up at me with a greeting, he winces instead, the whole body shaking with tremors that force his beak to bump down on the table.
My heart beats together with that dull thump, as I cannot look away from the damage I have caused. Even when I had witnessed his latest burning, he hadn't been as broken as he is now.
All my fault.
"Thank you," I repeat once more, but that is not enough nor ever will be. A thousand debts owed for this magnificent creature. I move to his side, leaning closer, whispering. "You found him, didn't you?"
I do not have to ask, but I think I need Fawkes to reassure me, to tell me I haven't been making yet another mistake. I brush gently at his feathers, careful not to aggravate the state he is in. Phoenixes are magnificent creatures, able to bear pain and hurt like none other, but that very resilience is what makes my heart bleed.
The phoenix' song pauses, and he offers me a happy thrill of victory. Broken up in pieces, shattered with uneven tones, it still is enough to conjure back some warmth to my soul. My fingers brush at one of his wings. "It will be alright, my dear friend."
Maybe, just maybe, his sacrifice had been worth it.
Fawkes is warm at my touch, very nearly burning hot. It all speaks of his soon to come burning, freeing him from this sorry state. I hope for it to come sooner, but something keeps Fawkes holding back just a drop more, prolonging this torturous state.
I whisper kind words and I keep the touch, sensing him relax a tad more. Then, quite unexpected for me, the phoenix opens his wing and leans to take something hidden underneath it with his beak. It's an incredibly frail move, and I have to help him hold the wing steady, so weak has he gotten.
It's a piece of rough paper. My fingers scrape on the surface feeling at the oily, uneven patches of it's make. It seems to have been pressed together without much grace, it's coloration grey and lifeless, and both sides carry weak markings of the pencil. The edges of it look singed by the unseen flame. Perhaps, touched by the means of the travel?
"Now, what do we have here?" I whisper to myself, wondering at how Fawkes overcame the seemingly impossible limitation of his travel, and brought something back. I have spent countless hours with Nicolas, counting and recounting the equations needed for the exchange while pushing through the boundaries. All in effort to reach to the impossibly distant place where Harry Potter must have been taken to.
Our research has implied that any unaccounted part of exchange is impossible to be transferred at all. Pushing through the boundary meant being precise, and we have only prepared to compensate for a single phoenix, a single individual. Bringing anything else though... that's something we haven't yet solved in a satisfying manner. To add to it, we have decreed such an attempt highly difficult and dangerous and as close as it can get to being functionally impossible.
Yet...
"Is that what I think it is?" Nicolas finally breaks the silence, having finished devouring his treat moments before. "The bloody bird broke the boundaries?" he offers a rude remark, but then his wife's hand finds the back of his neck, gently pushing her fingers upwards, through his dark hair, travelling in a circling motion.
His rising anger at the impossibility crashes into the proverbial shore, and he instantly stops mid word, instead coughing awkwardly.
Perenelle beams a bright smile at Fawkes over Nicolas' shoulder. I am grateful for her gesture, as it reduces the stress for the phoenix.
"I meant," Nicolas turns his attention back to me, voice calm, and collected, even as his eyes have lost some of their previous focus. "We both agreed that in our equivalent exchange we'd be unable to account for anything else?"
"The conclusions seem to suggest otherwise," I reply absentmindedly, taking the mysterious piece of paper into my left hand, careful not to tear it. Already it seems to be barely holding in one piece. "We only proved that equivalent exchange will not work for more than one person. Yet, our calculations allow for deviation within a certain confidence. Depending on how magic interacts with said individual, be it a boy or a phoenix, pushing through the boundaries doesn't necessitate breaking them."
Nicolas closes his eyes, no doubt redoing our calculations in his head, or trying to remember the numbers from before.
I take a quick mental rundown on the Fawkes state. I've watched over him for a long time, long enough to remember the discrepancies without having to take another look. My hand travels to gently pet the phoenix while I look back to Perenelle.
"He has been missing the two tail feathers since before his return, hasn't he?" I ask gently, carefully letting my fingers trace the spot of the missing feathers. Fawkes feels warm, literally burning up from inside, which means his burning day is ever so close, a lot sooner than expected.
"He has," she replies. "I find it strange, too... Nothing about Phoenixes suggest they could lose their tail feathers involuntary, except during their burning time... Fawkes is nearing his, but it wasn't as pronounced when he had just arrived," her words only confirm my suspicions.
I'm sure Nicolas has some idea about it too as he opens up his eyes, penetrating gaze focusing in on the form of the phoenix on the pillow. The missing feathers are key here, and I have unlocked a door to understanding. Fawkes proved even smarter than I could have expected.
"You played the laws of nature to your favor," I touch gently on the darkening beak, and the phoenix leans into the touch, warmth spreading up my palm. The life wheel of a Phoenix is nearing a new turn. "It was remarcably well executed, and smarter than two old men could think of."
The idea behind it is quite simple. We've stolen it from the force which had whisked Harry Potter away. We've built a whole theory upon the findings of that night, and the core principle has remained unchanged through the years.
The exchange has to be equivalent, otherwise pushing through the boundary will be impossible.
We have used this equivalence principle by sending Fawkes forward, but to keep everything stable and to the letter of the laws, we've had to return every drop of the mass that we've conjured from the other side of the boundary. Not a drop more, not a piece less. Any spell we used had to include this return clause by design.
Any significant difference in the materials used, and the exchange would have failed, effectively stranding Fawkes in whichever plain lies beyond the boundary. Fawkes knews this from what we told him and he played a trick over us; he had left a part of himself behind to bring something more back.
It can't have been very precise, meaning he must have burned and shredded himself in the transfer process. This was why he arrived aged that much. He has sacrificed a lot to bring me back what could only have been an important piece of the mystery.
I paused in thought for a blink of an eye. Fawkes had given up not one, but two feathers of his tail, an event quite rare in a phoenix' life and that might have meant that it would leave one other person without his half-promised threasure. Olivander.
I suppose there's little chance the wandmaker would get his wish for yet another phoenix feather now. "Should I tell Ollivander you declined?" I ask calmly.
Fawkes twitters quietly into my palm.
"He's asking for a good cause," I jump to defend the man, but we both know it's a failed effort before I even begin.
Fawkes closes his eyes and lazily opens one of them.
"Yes, he is a good man. Only slightly bonkers," I offer, tracing my hand over the back of the bird.
Nicolas lets out an undignified snort.
A short trill answers me and I let the matter be. At the very least, I can now tell Ollivander I tried.
Before I grant my full attention to the intriguing piece of paper, the phoenix reveals yet another gift from beyond the boundary, as he coughs up something right into my palm just as I caress his neck. Cool to the touch, in vast contrast to quickly spreading heat, it is a small, killing-curse-green pebble.
That last action calls forth even higher heat and I have to move my hand away.
Moments later, Fawkes bursts into a blindingly bright flame. First, all of the discarded feathers start smoking with a simmering heat, forcing all three of us to step back even further. Then, the pyre grows to envelop the whole bird in white-hot fire.
Nicolas tries to present himself as dignified as possible, while Perenelle lets out a short gasp. Whereas I simply transfigure the pillow under the bird into a large silver bowl - both for the ashes and so the flames do not burn through the oaken table.
The burning, if wonderful to witness, isn't the main focus of our attention, however. Nicolas has a positively hungry look on his face as he eyes the final trinket in my hand. Unlike the piece of paper, which was of interest only because we had not yet figured out how Fawkes brought it over, this time, the item brought through is magnitudes more intriguing for the old man.
Outwardly, it is but one small green pebble. Glassy to touch, it feels polished, light. It is as if a drop of cold glass had formed on my palm. Even as I look at it, its depths reveal a nearly invisible crack at the very middle, hidden under the smooth exterior. But it is not just that piece seemingly threatening to shatter that causes Nicolas to lean closer in attention.
It feels of magic.
With age, an experienced wizard - and I've been around for just long enough to be able to call myself that in select few areas - can learn to recognise the traces of magic. Can start to distinguish known magic from mysteries that he's yet to familiarise himself with.
Here it tastes of known, familiar world, yet carries a distinct feel of what lies beyond the boundaries. At the same time, it reminds me of one of the experiments Nico-
"What's this?" Nicolas jumps forward a couple of steps and I know he feels the stone even better than I do. Understands it with a deeper gift of the unparalleled alchemist. "Is that?"
"Is that what?" I ask, as I give the small stone yet another short look over, already planning to give it to my friend unless something jumps out at me. After all, Nicolas would be the expert of the two of us. "Care to share your theory?"
"Hah," Nicolas grins, completely lost in his thoughts. "It might be. I need to run a test. Or two."
"You're deliberately being obtuse," I point out. "It does not suit you."
"Give him what he's asking for, Albus. Of course, I expect you to supervise my old husband's new project. He could use some insight of the youth, as well as a drop of reason to go with it," Perenelle interjects. "Meanwhile, we should let Fawkes recover in peace, without the chitchatter."
"Hey, hey," Nicolas waves his hand towards her dismissively. "Who's the alchemist out of the two us? Albus is just going to get in the way," this time, his words aren't ringing with his harsh personality as much. He's been given a puzzle to solve, and whatever he might say about my incompetence in matters alchemical, I have it on good authority that I still hold the title of his most prefered partner for alchemical testing.
Perenelle laughs and shares a knowing wink with me."Whatever you say, Nick." She turns to leave the study, but not before getting a few last words in. "I was serious about supervising, Albus. I know that both of you can get carried away very quickly, and I was planning on cooking a decent meal today. Please, at least try to get back upstairs in time for the supper."
"We will do our best," I promise, but I do not lie about getting there on time. "Circumstances permitting."
She nods at me. "Just remember, if you're late, I'm not going to bother with serving a dessert, for either of you."
It's a bit cruel of her to play with my expectations like this, but all three of us know that it's a bluff.
Possibly.
If worse come to worse, here's another reason I had brought a whole box of english sweets when coming to France.
Moments later, I'm left with Nicolas and two mysteries on my hands. Quite literally, at that.
Deciding to go at them one at the time, I sigh, and offer the small stone for my colleague. Nicolas grunts his acceptance, and moves to the backdoor for the stairs leading down to the main workshop. The door swings open out of his way before he even reaches it, revealing the dimly lit stairwell. The house has been build with one idea in mind: every single place has to have an access to the main workshop, as you never know when an idea might strike into the head of the brilliant alchemist.
Apparating would be faster, but Nicolas holds a certain dislike for most forms of magical travel, electing to spend more time walking back and forth the stairs. It's an admirable quality and one of the reasons I learned to enjoy spending time in Hogwarts corridors, myself. Something of an adopted habit to think while moving through the stairwells, I suppose.
The only remaining course of action that is to follow behind Flamel. I gently open up the crumpled note. Walking and reading hasn't really been a problem for me since as long as I can remember and it's a lot easier when climbing down an unmoving flight of stairs than in some supposedly stationary Hogwarts corridors.
The contents of the letter are a bit unconventional, to say the least. In truth, they leave me speechless for quite a few steps. This seems to be a genuine, simple letter from none other but Harry Potter, yet...
'Sir, you know me, but I haven't heard of you,' it begins, and my steps slow down a bit.
"This is highly unexpected," I remark, and receive a curious grunt from Nicolas, who's waving his wand over the small pebble even as he slowly descends the cramped spiral staircase.
"The letter's written in Latin," I reply his unasked question. "Dated, theological-branch of Latin."
Nicolas shrugs. Perhaps he's mistaken my surprise as difficulty reading such a text. "You've read my works," he remarks.
"Not the same," I say, and it's true. Nicolas' use of Latin was completely different - that and he tended to mix in a generous amount of French: usually where he believed that a Latin phrase was simply unbefitting. He'd always provide a translated line in Latin even as he highlighted the superior, original texts in French.
We reach the workshop just I finish my third read-through.
The view of the lab takes a portion of my thought process, and I allow it to serve as a temporary distraction, a calmer moment to gather my thoughts around the newest surprise.
Nicolas lab is sealed behind a dark wooden door, marked with a few older runic inscriptions. No real magic in the symbols themselves, as they serve both as a decoration and a distraction for an an uncalled visitor. The door opens on his lightest touch, swinging open in complete silence, revealing a twisted array of alchemical apparatuses.
Once, a muggle-born student had remarked that the more complex the magical or muggle machinery, the more movement or dynamic it tended to have. I could only chuckle at such an assumption, as I had time and time been proven otherwise by my dear friend Nicolas Flamel. His pristine equipment was kept in a chaotic, nearly insane array, various complex instruments surrounding the small space around us, reaching to the high ceiling.
Yet, in all that, seemingly insane configuration, not a single object move. Not a single sound could be heard. Not a needless light to distract Nicolas from his work. Completely frozen in time, it was hos Nicolas liked it.
It took me a good part of a year to get used to working in such an environment. Yet, with Nicolas here, now, the whole world of Alchemy is open like a book, frozen in paused reactions, stilled with a masterful enchantment.
A bubble of Dragon's blood threatens to explode out of a vial, but it will never move past that very moment of popping. A drop of green liquid is suspended over a complex potion, frozen in that motion forever. A dose of Felix Felicis is frozen in a tube running over our heads, and I have to lean under a particular protruding valve that could send it running back to the bowl, if it were allowed to move at all.
This pattern remains for the whole lab, and only on Nicolas word can anything do as much as fidget from its place.
I return my whole attention to the note as Nicolas starts on a leisurely pace towards one of the further workbenches.
It makes absolutely no sense.
It is impossible.
It is brilliant.
Clearly, there is an explanation for it, but I do not yet have one.
I take a few more steps, sidestepping the pacing Nicolas, and slump down on a seat I conjure for myself with the last movement. Then, I read it all a fourth time. The comfort of my seat does little to shed light on the matter.
Sir,
You know me, but I haven't heard of you. I have to ask you some questions. Who are you? Do you know of my past? How did I end up in Surrey? What was in the letter? Why are you searching for me? I hope the phoenix reaches you and can bring me back your reply.
Thank you for any answers,
Henry,
On the eve of St. Cormac,
September 14th 1215
"Well?" Nicolas asks, having placed the stone on the table. He's noticed how much I've been focusing on what should have been an ordinary piece of paper, and his curiosity has spiked up considerably, as well. "What does it say?" He tries to sound disinterested, but I know it is not so.
"September 14th, 1215, Surrey," I echo the words of the letter. "Either our assumption was even more prone to miscalculation or we have an additional factor in play."
We haven't spent as much time analysing the place on the other side of the boundary, not with our intense focus of getting through. Yet, if we had been building our theory on a wrong set of assumptions - and if the date and place in the letter was true...
This will require confirmation in the future, so until further data I'll have to assume we made a mistake by judging the nature of the barrier.
"Might be a joke. Or an attempt to steer you off course," Nicolas suggests. If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts? There might be truth under his line of thinking, but it wouldn't do us good to keep rooted to a single theory, not when we are being shown how big of a difference from our perceived truth there is, by the observed events.
"You heard the phoenix song," I point out. "It would have been quite different had Fawkes not seen Harry Potter in the flesh. This should be from the boy himself and that raises more questions than it answers."
"A good puzzle, that will surely have you walking around all night," Nicolas says and then gives me a short glare. I must have missed something truly important and am continuing to ignore it. Ah, he had expected a lot more attention to his part of the puzzle.
"I'd prefer it to happen at a later date," he says, confirming my guess.
"I'm sorry," I cast a few quick spells on the note, to preserve its current state for a longer while and fold it into the upper pocket of my robes. "So, as you've gracefully put it up in the study - is it?"
It's not just the game of the words this time - I have a fair bit of an idea of what he was referring to, but I can't help but feel that Nicolas wants me to ask about it. Doubtlessly, he will confirm it, while giving me absolutely no new information.
"Yes," he nods. "It is."
I offer him a pleasant smile in return for his word play. A bit petty of him, I suppose. However, Nicolas has gone a drop more forgetful in his old days and he forgot that I've read all of his books. Even when he did just remind me of them himself mere minutes ago. I know what he's playing at.
It's something of a side project of his: finding a way to crystallize magic in some easily accessible form. Theoretically, if one could pinpoint the magic from the ingredients used in potions or alchemical formulae, the art of the subject could be reduced to a few simplified principles, opening up the field for even higher audience of wizards. For now, the subject has only made progress on a theoretical level.
We had already proven it could be done - on parchment - even before the research in Dragon's blood, but our findings have never really moved anywhere substantial. In fact, Nicolas continued attempts only proved unstable, evaporating in the matter of days at best, and never with a prolonged reliability.
The specimen on his laboratory table was at least a year old, and perfectly stable.
"What's more, it looks in a perfect, if precarious balance," I point out, and see him grimace. "Didn't your first attempt..." last less than a second, before destabilising violently.
"Yes, yes," Nicolas taps at his nose, adjusting the small reading glasses he must have snached moments before. "Ruin my fun."
"I do apologise."
There's a short pause, and Nicolas gaze moves to a complex alchemical apparatus on the far side of the room. From a distance, it reminds me of a powerful silver tipped hammer suspended over a small golden plate all hovering in the air, motionless. That's one I'd have chosen too, if I had not a single one of these to experiment on, but a whole handful. As we stand, the method which could give us the most answers would destroy the stone completely.
"...You'll want to keep it," he finally says, following my train of thought seamlessly. "I can't do most of what I wanted to."
"But it's an opportunity, isn't it?" I ask, finding my colleagues eyes - I have to say it out loud, to let him realize that long term examination might prove bountiful as well. "A drop of crystallized magic. A rare phenomena. Nearly impossible to manufacture - and you've got one right there in your grasp."
"No. Very easy to manufacture," he corrects me. Something must have changed in his manufacturing process, then. After all, everything I have to go on was from his latest tractatus on the subject from twenty years ago and a select few mentions in our correspondence. "Very hard to keep stable."
A curious thing to note is that while Nicolas can hardly stand still, he hasn't yet moved on to an array of tests he had no doubt already planned while descending the stairs. That can mean only one thing. He needs my input. "So, which part did you want to hear my opinion on, before moving on to the first test?" I ask, smiling.
"If you could double check the angles of the spell matrix," he finally admits. "Might be a flaw in the spell I used."
The angles? That's an absurd request... it has absolutely no-
I will not judge before attempting it.
Me must have used a specific spell for taking the measurement. Perhaps-
"Paracelsus' Second?" I double-check, before moving in with the wand at the ready. Nicolas doesn't say anything, meaning that it indeed was the Paracelsus' Second Diagnostic Spell. The wand movement is difficult, and it has been a long while since I even had to use any of the Paracelsus' analytical spells.
Perhaps not even since we wrote down the eleventh use of Dragon's blood. It's a rare spell to use. Extensive research had proven that alchemical substances always follow certain patterns of spell geometry, and discerning those patterns takes a lot of precision casting...
The result of the spell flashes in my mind.
I do a quick mental calculation, as well as comparing the wand motions I performed to the ones I should have used. By all accounts I have cast it entirely correctly.
The result, however, is impossible.
Six impossible things before a meal. A smile creeps back into my expression.
"Well?" Nicolas claps once to get my attention. "Does it add up?"
"No," I offer. "It's not the result I expected, but it's not as impossible like my first instinct suggests."
I've already started to brainstorm on how it must have happened and even while I don't have any idea how to solve this problem yet, the very fact that the angle sum is different makes it from an improbable, theoretical exercise, into a search for an entirely plausible, logical reason behind a natural occurrence.
"You're the better one of us to summarise the implications. Find us an edge to grab on," Nicolas orders and takes a step back. "What does it mean if the spell geometry angle forms a structure with a sum less than 137 'celsus?"
I pace back and forth a couple of times, and recast the whole spell for the greater measure.
One hundred thirty six.
"According to a book I read," I begin. "The lower limit is such because values of lower than 137 paracelsus cannot be achieved in stable alchemical structures. There was a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition that-"
"I had to trim out for the lack of space." Nicolas laughs, interrupting my quote of his two decade old tractatus. "I just wrote that one - and if you want I'll show you the calculations I used - so you could go though looking for the mistake. It doesn't change my failure. I was wrong. This completely ruins the validity of my further research."
"That it does," I focus on the feeling of a cylindrical shape of the wand in my palm. There's something there that we're missing. Something simple. Something to do with the shape of the spell lines in this particular object that makes it different.
Once again, I return to my wand. I feel upon the curved line running around it's surface, meeting another one just like it.
I head read upon something like this before. I knew where the difference might have been hiding. We have been operating on a system that Paracelsus had perfected - and with it's axioms being held as true, it was a perfectly self-consistent system that couldn't be at fault here.
Perhaps, like the muggle geometry had been pushed past a single flat surface, we had been neglecting some dimension of the spell geometry? There had been suggestions and even work towards it, but beyond creation of some unstable spells the matter hadn't yet moved beyond its infancy. Even the proposed axioms were incomplete, not at this stage of research.
I needed to test it out.
Taking a surface of a wand-like cylinder... no, a hyperbolic plane with but the smallest of bends, I tried to imagine how a spell line geometry would look for a Lumos spell, placed on such a surface. While not a spell line with a complex structure to even scratch the surface of the complexity most alchemical components had, the geometrical approximation of Lumos was triangular in nature and the angles could be measured by the very same diagnostic spell.
The angles would have to turn out different if I shifted them onto a different surface. Yet, for Lumos charm to function, the triangle shape was vital. What would a Paracelsus' spell show me in this case? Would the spell even work?
I brandished my wand towards the ceiling, and for the first time in a handful of years, cast the light spell verbally.
"Lumos," I pronounced, butchering the spell geometry in a way it was never meant to be butchered.
Or was it?
The light on my wand tip was weak, unstable - quite a childish attempt at the spell - meaning my follow up diagnostic wandwork had to be quick enough to analyse the structure before it's collapse.
Nicolas beats me to it - and that's a great idea. Otherwise, I wouldn't have made it in time - to add to it, the wand motions for Paracelsus' Second themselves could have disrupted the readings on the original spell. The second after Nicolas' is done, the faintly yellow light flickers and disappears completely.
"What are the angles of the base triangle?" I ask quickly. "Is it less than hundred eighty?"
"Less. What did you do?" Nicolas says, surprised. "Why did it work with such an arrangement?"
"Lumos is a simple spell," I pointed out. "Forgiving for small mistakes, I'd say. I simply made one such a mistake in a very specific manner."
"You have a theory. Already testing it, too," Nicolas says, deep in thought. "And... You've gotten a positive result."
"Of sorts," I move on to an explanation. "My guess is that this particular object's geometry does not map out to a flat plain. I'm not exactly sure on the bend and have no idea how to even measure it as we are... For the sake of a mental exercise, imagine its spell geometry as a hyperbolic surface. Even a tiny bend would change the way a line behaves. Which would explain our wrong set of angles." I sigh. "I doubt it we can repeat the experiment with anything more complex this easily. As I've suspected, our analytical spells are wired for a flat plane."
It is as if my words turn on a switch.
I haven't seen Nicolas this lively in years. The fire that was constantly hiding under the mask of old age breaks through, and before me stand the wonderful man that gifted modern Alchemy to the world. The one who managed to break all the supposedly impossible limits of alchemy.
He has never talked about it, but most of his projects must have lost him a drop of meaning after inventing the philosopher's stone... What else could his heart desire, but for another revolution in the field? I was hoping the crystallized magic research would give Nicolas some of his inner determination back, but it seemed I was slightly off mark.
He had not desired another invention, rather a true innovation in the field.
"It's perfect," he announces. "We have five confirmed readings that give us a different angle on the geometrical expression of the spell matrix, and that means I can finally have something new and exciting to think about. The spell geometry in a bent plain of reference. I thought there was no use to the theory other than a mental exercise, but if the other tests confirm it..." He takes a deep breath. "It's going to be a revolution, Albus."
I nod. That it is.
"I'm not saying that your Harry problem wasn't interesting," Nicolas carries on without any sign of stopping. "But it lacked a certain sort of challenge that I've been looking for." He coughs, once, and leans back to the main work table. "Now, how to keep it intact, yet take it appart. Yes, how about..."
I listen in politely, ever so often offering a short comment or a small piece of advice, as Nicolas rambles on and on. Is it truly the difference of a slight bend in spell geometry that allows the little green stone to remain as stable as it is now? Whatever the case, it's an intriguing find, especially with that faint taste of Harry Potter in it's magic.
I can only hope that Nicolas' genius cracks the mystery of the stone, for me, I have to return to my part of the puzzle. The picture that Fawkes trinkets paint continues to form in my head. I am not even trying to crack it instantly, nor I was ever hoping to. While it all gives me a new perspective and more questions that I could ever consider simultaneously, I have been given the most valuable piece of information by Fawkes himself.
Harry Potter is alive.
He is safe, or at least safe enough for Fawkes not to make a fuss about it.
He has access to magic, or at least to someone who can perform it.
He is, relatively speaking, within reach.
At the same time, he's impossibly, unimaginably far.
The wrong angle could have meant two things. One, that a very smart and driven man had made an addition mistake no one could find for more than twenty years... or that we've been basing our search on wrong assumptions. After all, Magic was a living, breathing force to be reckoned with and if, in the place where Harry was now living, a more natural state of the spell geometry plain wasn't a perfectly flat surface...
No, the stone wouldn't have remained stable, when introduced to a different type of spell geometry, although the implications of the unstable Lumos spell were intriguing, as well. It was, exactly as Nicolas excitement highlighted, an interesting puzzle to crack. There must have been an underlying relation between the angles, one that I haven't yet considered.
This whole mental exercise of what-ifs and probabilities kept playing in my head, but all it did, was to obscure the most important question of them all.
What should I do now?
Harry Potter disappeared under my watch, from the very nose of the people I've trusted, mere hours after losing his parents. A tragedy I didn't manage to prevent.
My fault. All of it.
My responsibility.
Even if he was perfectly safe I owed it to him to offer whatever help I could provide, whatever effort young Harry required of me. I would go far to return the debt I owed. Both for his sake and for an easier night's rest for myself.
With that resolution I finally knew just what I was going to do in the nearest future.
"So," I begin the first phase of my plan, dragging Nicolas' attention back from his latest attempt to prove the impossibility of the object we were examining. I'm all but certain my eyes twinkled with a healthy dose of certainty for the first time since the night Harry Potter disappeared. "Since neither of us is getting the dessert this supper... Would you care for another Cadbury's Cream Egg?"