There was, Albus thought morosely, a perverse sense of justice in the universe. The cause of this thought was walking into the great hall at the height of breakfast just over a month after he lost the stone. Oh, he'd tried very hard to locate it as he didn't want to force his mentor into passing on. However the blasted thing was somewhere in a muggle area full of crates on small wooden floors. His scans for his tracking charm showed him that it was somewhere here, but the lack of precise direction suggested that it had been put in an expanded space. He'd spent a morning looking for wherever it was before his tracking charm gave him a definitive direction again, one that was rapidly receding from him to the south and up. With a quiet pop he disappears only to reappear on the large, paved area outside the monstrously large building he'd been in. Following the direction of the charm he could see a bright yellow muggle flying machine with a red stripe running along it. He finally had to admit defeat in tracking down the mirror when his tracking charm started returning rubbish results, typical of being underneath powerful wards, or even a Fidelius. So he had sent a message to his mentor asking if he could visit to talk.
Albus lifts his head to watch as his mentors ancestor, Ostanes if he remembers the label on the portrait correctly, walks confidently into the hallway his back straight and head held high. A cold pit of dread pulls at his stomach as he realises that the worst must have occurred, and his mentor is now dead.
"Dumbledore," – the man says urbanely – "can you explain this?" With a thump he puts the philosophers stone on the table in front of Albus. Albus' eyebrows rise into his hairline as he stares at the stone, a second thump as an identical stone is placed next to the first sees his eyes roll into the back of his head as he slumps face down into his baked beans on toast.
The man huffs as he lifts the headmasters face out of his breakfast, "Well that's annoying." Turning to the rest of the room he calls out, "Is there a Harry Potter here? I received a parcel from him a short while ago and thought I could thank him while I was here."
Pomona looks over from her seat at the teachers table, "Before that happens, maybe you should introduce yourself young man."
The man laughs, "Oh, right I really should. I'm Nicolas Flamel, and Mr Potter returned something very important to me."
The silence that fell over the hall with that statement was deafening, after a long moment a Ravenclaw bumping into the door while reading a book breaks the tension and suddenly everyone is talking at once. Many of those conversations involve chocolate frog cards being held up against his profile. For those near the teachers table Professor McGonagall's voice is easily audible over the muttered conversation.
"What proof do you have that you are the esteemed alchemist?" – Nicolas just raises his hand to show the Flamel ring at which point the professor sighs – "Madam Pince, would you be able to retrieve a magical heraldry book please?"
Once the librarian leaves, Minerva raises her wand and fires a cannon blast into the air, causing the hall to fall silent, and waking Albus up from his fainting spell.
"Attention everyone, this man claims to be Nicolas Flamel. Now, as I can see many of you are trying to identify him by his chocolate frog card. When I asked for proof of his identity he raised his head of house ring. While many of you are heirs or members of houses that have these rings and know how they can be used to identify you, some of the school haven't grown up in that environment. If you are ever in this situation in the future my first piece of advice would be to arrange to do your initial business at either Gringotts or the Ministry. Gringotts will charge you for Notary service, but also provide identification for every country where they have a banking presence. The Ministry will not usually charge you, but they typically only cover the United Kingdom and our continental neighbours. For those that have access to a family library that contains a book on heraldry, you can do the test that I will be performing. The specific spell required is always written in the front of the book, and while different books may have minor differences to the spells they will all have the same results. The spell will show a magical signature of both the person and the ring overlayed over each other. These signatures will form a two toned image which you then look up in the book. If image matches then the amount of one tone over the other will tell you how closely they match."
Albus stares at his mentor uncomprehendingly, "But how?"
Nicolas laughs, "Someone found a new use for my stone and sent me a sample of the result. What I want to know is how they got hold of the stone that you were supposed to be looking after."
"I, ah, they must have switched it before I placed it in a safe location."
"And where is this safe location?"
"That is what I wanted to visit to talk about."
The waspish voice of Minerva cuts into their conversation, "Albus, I think that you should really wait to verify that this is indeed your friend before you continue your conversation."
"Of course, your right Minerva."
It didn't take long after that before Madam Pince returned with a large volume. Once Minerva has conjured a lectern she places the book down carefully before opening it to the front page.
Nodding to the librarian, Minerva says tightly, "Mr Flamel, please place your hand on the inside cover of the book. Gently if you do not wish to rouse the ire of our librarian."
Once his hand is in place, Minerva casts the spell written on the first page and touches her wand to the ring and then the first page of the book. A trail of golden light following her wand from the ring to the first page. "You may remove your hand now Mr Flamel."
As he does so a strand of golden light pulls from the palm of his hand until it snaps back to the book and the whole book starts to glow. As the book glows a ghostly green image appears above the book and the pages in the book start to turn rapidly.
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Daphne murmurs to her class mates, "Do you have any idea how expensive that book must be, the one we have only projects the symbol, you then have to look up the name yourself. Even that would cost around 3,000g if you commissioned it from the Ministry today. 10 thousand if you ordered an international one from Gringotts. To have a book that will actively look up the signature for the ring must have taken some very heavy enchantment work."
"How does it work?" Hermione asks softly.
"We can talk about it later, look the book's almost finished."
They all turn to look at the book as it's pages slow down to one page turn a second, then one every 10 seconds before it turns back one page and a faint green glow can be seen from the page it turned to. Madam Pince calls out to the hall "Flamel, perfect match, Pater of house, Lord of house."
Daphne nods firmly, "What she's just read out is that the ring is from House Flamel. It is a perfect match for the first person bound to the ring, which is pretty much unheard of except for the founder of the house. Pater of house means that the person wearing the ring is the male founder of the house. Finally, Lord of house means that magic recognises that he is the rightful person to wear the ring. The fact that the book was able to give that much information means that it is on par with the official book in the wizengamot."
As Daphne carries on with her impromptu lesson to the Hufflepuffs and a couple of rubbernecking ravenclaws, Albus and Nicolas both leave the Great Hall. Later that day Nicolas meets Harry with Pomona and gives him one of the stones as a reward after getting the story of how Harry came across the stone. Sunbeam also agrees to show his phoenix how to get to the Realm of Magic so that Nicolas and Perenelle can visit and talk to the person that provided the second gift.
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Over the next few months Quirrell and his master try everything they can think of to retrieve the stone from the mirror. Unknown to his host, Voldemort is concerned about Quirrell, as he's been spending longer and longer studying the mirror and leaving it later to refresh his stocks of unicorn blood.
"I can see myself giving the stone to my master and he's rewarding me. Why can't I get the stone? It's right there I can see it"
"Quirrell, move get some unicorn blood."
"Ran out, and I'm so close. I can see it, it's right there."
"Quirrell, let me take control so I can get you the blood we need to continue unravelling the trap."
Quirrell sags to his knees in front of the mirror and rocks from side to side, "It there, right there. I can see myself giving it to you master."
Voldemort tries to push himself forward into his host, to take control temporarily. Only he recoils when Quirrell's nose falls off and crumbles do dust on the floor. Quirrell looks down and laughs as he tries to pick up the nose even as it's breaking apart in his hands. As he brushes his fingers across the floor they break off and start crumbling even as Quirrell starts laughing hysterically as he holds his hand up in front of the mirror.
Voldemort can only watch helplessly as the curse on the mirror finishes the job he started last year when he possessed Quirrell. Quirrell laughs as he holds his hand up in front of his face and grabs the stumps of his fingers with his good hand. The hand crumples like spun sugar before falling away into dust. He reaches out his hand and touches the mirror, as he does it almost looks like he's reaching into it as dust falls to the floor where his fingers meet the glass, followed by his hand, arm and then forehead as he overbalances forward and falls against it.
To Voldemort's vision, a spectral hand reaches out and grasps the ghost of his minion before pulling him into the mirror leaving Voldemort hovering as a black mist over the crumbling remains. It looks down at the dust of his minion, furious at the incompetence displayed by it, completely ignoring its own involvement in its death. With a final look at the room it flees to its sanctuary in the Albanian forests.
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Albus leads Nicolas to his office, still flinching slightly when he passes the occasional person going the other way. The mental after effects of the curse still recent in his memory. Rather than heading to his desk, he instead takes a seat by a seldom used coffee table. Nicolas takes a seat on the other side of the table.
"Albus, where did you think you put the stone?"
"I, uh, put it in a mirror."
"You put it in a mirror. Was there anything special about this mirror?"
"It was the Mirror of Erised."
"Then what?"
"I put an enchantment on the mirror so that it couldn't go to someone that wanted to use it."
"What was your plan to return it to me if I asked for it?"
"I would have just removed the enchantments and then extracted the stone."
Nicolas puts his head in his hands, then in a slightly muffled voice says, "Albus, what is the mirror of Erised?"
"A trap for the weak willed."
"Albus, did you know that there is a society in South America that believes that cameras and mirrors take a little bit of your soul when you look in them, or your picture is taken?"
"No, why would they think that?"
"You really didn't do any research on those sorts of mirrors before you decided to use it, did you? No don't answer that, I know you probably looked it up in the books here, but you didn't research that classification of artifact. A classification, I'll note, that they share with dream catchers."
"But dream catchers are just muggle trinkets, they've got no magic in them. I have a few hanging in my room from the days I spent exploring the world."
"And did you ever venture west, past the borders of MacUSA?"
"No, I'm not suicidal."
"It's far from suicidal to go to the west of the USA, you just have to go with respect and a willingness to learn. Dream catchers are a type of spirit/soul trap, one that is blood bound to someone. If they are then attacked mentally while they're asleep, the trap will draw the spirit or soul of the attacker to the trap. If they don't leave they will eventually get lost and absorbed by the magic of the trap."
Albus gasps, "So the muggle description is true! That means that it's dark magic, no wonder they say it's suicidal to leave MacUSA."
"You still think in terms of black and white magic I see. I thought I'd taught you better than that. No, dreamcatchers are benign magic because they have a passive activation and they don't seek to ensnare the victim. Mirrors of Vanity, on the other hand, are malicious artifacts. They pull part of your soul into the mirror to show you something, they then use that connection to make you want to return. Of course, souls being what they are will heal from looking at the mirror once or twice. Magical portrait artists do the same thing, which is why people can update their own portraits with proximity.
"I digress, where did you find the mirror you used?"
"In the vaults."
"And why was it put in the vaults?"
"For safe keeping?"
"Doesn't the vault have a ledger?"
"It did, but nobody knows where it is. It went missing centuries ago."
"Did you think to ask the headmasters advisor?"
"Of course" Albus scoffs as he waves his hands at the portraits "I've had many conversations with the past headmasters."
"Gods help me!" Nicolas throws his hands in the air dramatically, "Do any of you know the story of how the founders left an adviser for the headmaster or headmistress of the school?"
There's a fair amount of grumbling from the portraits on the walls, some affirmative and others not.
"Now, given that there are no portraits of the founders here. Unless one of you lot is a founder? Which is unlikely as magical portraits had only just been invented when I met Perenelle. So any such advisor must be someone else. Now I'm going to leave before I tempt myself to violate oaths and kill myself, especially now I've got my adulthood back."
As Nicolas stalks out he mutters "They're all γράσων" [AN:Ancient Greek - One that stinks like a goat]
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Sally-Anne looks up at the hospital nervously, it's shortly after the May bank holiday and it's time for her to get her new leg. Petunia squeezes her hand gently before leading her into the familiar reception. Once they've checked her details they escort her to a ward and give her a gown to change into. Not for the first time in her life she sits nervously on a hospital bed waiting for something to happen. When it does actually happen, she's surprised at how anticlimactic it is, as well as just how painful it is. They wheel her into the operating theatre, which is full of scanning equipment, before taking their blood samples and her usual brain scans. Rather than removing the net they use for the scan they leave it in place and running.
They then bring in the surgeon and staff along with the cap for her leg. She has a moment to notice the surgeon's eyes glaze slightly and then everything goes dark. An hour later she wakes up again in the same place, except her stump has been replaced with a metallic black cap.
"How do you feel?" Dr Kumquat says from the observation room.
Quickly looking around for the source of the voice, Sally-Anne finally looks up to see the doctor and her parents. "I'm doing OK. Hi Mum, Dad, how are you doing?"
"Good, good, I'll give you 5 minutes while they clear out the surgical materials."
Her mother leans over one of the mics, "We're doing OK sweety. How are you doing, they said that you were under for 3 hours."
"I'm, fine. Yes, I'm fine. That's so weird."
"What's weird honey?"
"I just blacked out, which is normal. But then I just woke up afterwards, and my leg doesn't hurt."
"Dr Kumquat told us that they no longer use drugs, they instead use a neural inhibitor to put your brain into a deep sleep. Oh, and while I remember, thank you for insisting that we get magic. The Scruberoo spell has saved us both a lot of time in the evenings. We both miss you, the flat feels empty without you."
"I love you too. How long are you here for?"
"We're both on our lunch break, so we've got another 20 minutes. Hopefully enough time for you to get your new leg and walk us back to the portal."
She chatted with her mother and father, weird looking net on her head and papery hospital gown and all, while the nurses cleared away all of the tools that they'd brought in. Idly she noted that nothing seemed to have any blood on it, but she assumed that was down to the interface so put it to one side. Far too soon the professor and Dr came in with her new leg on a trolley.
"Right Miss Perks, we're going to fit your leg and start doing the calibration. This shouldn't take too long, though if there's any complications we'll need to provide you with a similar prosthesis to the one you came in with while we go over the calibration data at the lab. Please lay back and we'll begin."
Sally-Anne took a deep breath and lay back, "I'm ready."
She felt the pressure as they pushed the leg into the connector on her stump, then she felt the resistance as they turned the leg into the correct position. The click as the latching mechanism locked into place seemed to echo in her head for a moment before it felt like someone shoved an ice-pick into her brain. The feeling was similar to the feeling while she was learning Simian, but only in the same way that a hearth fire was to a house fire.
She was vaguely aware of screaming, and someone shouting, "She's ok, there's elevated nanite levels in her motor cortex and touch centres. The interface is just teaching her how to use her new leg." Then as suddenly as it started, it stopped and she could feel her toes.
She looks down and giggles as she wiggles them and revels in the sensation of them moving. Of the feeling of pressure on her heel as it rests on the bed. Experimentally she pulls it up towards her, but she doesn't feel anything except the pressure. She pulls her good foot up towards her to check, and she can feel the sheet rubbing over her heel as she does.
With her brain flushed with endorphins she giggles up at the distraught faces of her parents, "Look, I can wiggle my toes, and my foot."
"Oh my dear child, are you OK?"
"I have my leg back, look! Of course I'm OK. It was just like learning Simian, just faster."
Her parents frown at each other at the blasé dismissal of the pain she'd just been in. Due to their fussing, and the necessity of taking new blood samples and doing a scan, it takes longer than her parents have for lunch. So Sally-Anne is most surprised to be skipping next to them after a broom flight to Glimerstone.
"Thank you for waiting for me."
Her father hugs her before crouching down in front of her, "You are our daughter, both of us love you very much. When we were invited to watch, we thought that you'd be staying longer. After you screamed in agony we couldn't leave until we knew you were not just physically OK, but also mentally OK. Don't worry about us, you are our child, and as such you will always be our priority. Even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes."
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In Hogwarts, with nearly ½ the year left to go, DADA becomes something of an eclectic mix of teachers and guest speakers as whichever teacher happens to be free puts their own spin on what the classes are supposed to be learning while the headmaster tries to find at least a temporary replacement. It seems like the only teacher not involved in the class is Trelawny, and that's more because no one trusts her to be sober than it is that she doesn't have the time. However, it is also far more informative for all of the students than the previous 6 ½ years that the oldest student remembers. Everyone was expecting Dumbledore to put a stop to this at some point, but for whatever reason he seems to be distracted by something.
The first year hufflepuffs also somehow manage to keep Hermione so busy that she doesn't realise that the end of year exams are approaching until the week before the exams. A little L therapy, and she's back to being the friendly, yet studious, young woman that they all love.
For the first year Hufflepuffs, the exams in Hogwarts fly past with ease, even the flying one. That is less true of the surprise exams they have in the Realm of Magic. Showing that they can use their brooms, cast basic spells, brew potions, and duel is easy enough. But they are then given a spell tome and told to read the first 3 pages and discuss what they read. Those who are able to understand those pages are told that they're Acolytes, while those that don't are still neophytes.
Unsurprisingly, only the Hufflepuffs that went through the rite of ascension latest didn't make it to Acolyte. Each one of which were determined to make it to acolyte over the summer.
Finally, the night before the leaving feast L and Simeon both joined the house for a party in the common room to celebrate those who were graduating this year.
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