Chapter 24: The Mysterious Mr. Flamel
Harry POV:
Halloween passed by, and there were a few new changes for Harry. For one, Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot had joined their friend circle. The troll's attack had traumatized the two, but Hermione had been able to keep them safe in the bathroom with a shield spell she'd read in an upper-level textbook. They'd clung to Hermione and the boys in the aftermath, and Harry couldn't deny it'd made things more interesting.
Hermione certainly seemed to like having more girls to get along with, and the bickering between her and Ron also decreased drastically. The red-head was also striving to do better in class, especially Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Another change had been Neville getting a new wand after exploding his old one saving Harry's life, and everyone could only marvel at how much better he'd become at doing magic. No longer at the bottom of the class, he was now firmly fourth best spell caster among the Gryffindor First Years. Harry was proud to say he was second best. Hermione, of course, was number one.
It didn't help much with his potion work, sadly, but there was only so much one could do when you had Professor Snape as a teacher.
It was mid-November, and the air was growing colder, and the leaves were almost all gone from the trees in the Forbidden Forest.
At the moment, the group was walking down the yard, eager to have another chat with Hagrid. Ever since they'd fought a troll, the four Gryffindor's and two Hufflepuffs had wanted to know more about magical creatures. And, since Care of Magical Creatures was only for Third Years, that meant chatting with Hogwart's half-giant Groundskeeper.
"I hope he's in, I'm freezing," Susan muttered, shivering as a chill autumn wind blew past.
"Where else would he be?" Ron asked with a frown. "This is his home."
"He could be tending to the animals for Care of Magical Creatures. I understand he does a lot of that, since Professor Kettleburn is getting old and losing limbs," Hannah said.
"Kettleburn… he's the professor with two wooden legs, a hook hand, and a fake nose?" Harry inquired.
"Yes, he usually sits at the far end of the table with the other electives teachers," Susan confirmed.
"Is it weird that the Hogwarts staff is so small?" Harry asked his friends. "It feels small to me with only one teacher per subject."
"I dunno," Ron shrugged. "There aren't that many students, so why have more teachers?"
"There's like a hundred or so students per year, except for ours. That's nearly seven-hundred students, minimum! My old school had dozens of teachers, at least one for every twenty students, and it still felt like there weren't enough for all of us."
"As much as I agree with Harry, I think we're getting side tracked," Hermione piped up as the six of them reached the simple log cabin that was Hagrid's home.
Harry stepped up and knocked on the door, which resulted in a flurry of excited barks from the other side. A muffled "Down boy!" rang out, and a moment later, the door opened up, revealing Hagrid, who beamed down when he saw the children.
"Ah, yer right on time! Come in, come in!" he said, urging the group to enter. He held Fang, the massive boarhound, back with one hand, as he was trying to get closer and lick the students faces.
"Hullo, Hagrid. Hullo, Fang," Harry greeted as he stepped inside the hut, Susan and Neville on his heels. It was small and cozy, if a little cramped due to the number of people within.
Fang panted eagerly, tail wagging rapidly as he saw so many people come inside.
"I got fresh scones fer ya," the half-giant informed them.
"Thank you, Hagrid," Hermione said politely, even though her smile was strained. Nobody else said anything, not trusting themselves to speak as their host brought out a pile of dark brown scones. Well, calling them 'scones' felt disingenuous. They were more like bricks.
"Tea?" Hagrid offered next, and everyone nodded. His scones may have been impossible to consume, but his tea was really very good.
As soon as the Groundskeeper sat down after serving everyone, Fang jumped and plopped down on his lap, refuse to budge.
"How cute!" Susan said, smiling at the sight. Big as Fang was, he looked tiny compared to Hagrid.
"Fang's just jealous o' me spending more time with Fluffy recently," Hagrid chuckled, patting the big dog fondly. He whined sadly, nuzzling closer to his owner.
"Who's Fluffy?" Hannah asked. "Is Fang getting a new friend?"
"Nah, Fluffy's too big to play with little ol' Fang," Hagrid chuckled. Harry and the rest exchanged confused looks. Fang was bigger than most wolves! How much bigger could this other creature possibly be if it made him look small?
"Uh, okay," Ron said slowly. He then picked up one of the rock-like scones, taking a nibble. He winced at the pain in his teeth and quickly put it back down. As he did so, he noticed that a newspaper was being used as a tray for the petrified snack food.
"Huh, looks like Gringotts was broken into," Ron muttered, noticing the date it'd happened. "Nothing was stolen, though. Odd."
"And to think, it happened the day after I visited t' bank fer Dumbledore. Good luck, that," Hagrid chuckled.
"What were you doing for Dumbledore down there?" Susan asked curiously.
"What? Tha's none of yer business!" Hargid spluttered.
"Okay, sorry," Susan said, holding up her hands in surrender. "I was just curious!"
"Well, there's nothing going on! And if there was, it's between Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel!" Hagrid harrumphed.
"Uh-huh," Hermione said with a suspicious frown, which was shared with Harry and the rest.
"So! Hagrid! I've heard about this thing called a Mooncalf," Harry spoke up, changing the subject. "What can you tell us about them?"
An hour and a half later, Harry and his group departed from Hagrid's hut, full of tea and ridiculously dense scones.
"So…" Harry said, trailing off as they got closer to the doors of Hogwarts. "Anyone else suspicious about how, uh, odd Hagrid was acting?"
"It was very strange," Hermione agreed.
"He's terrible at keeping secrets," Ron commented.
"I know that look," Neville said, narrowing his eyes at Harry, Hermione, and Ron. "You want to investigate what he was talking, don't you?"
"Yup," Harry said with a nod.
"Why not?" Susan replied.
"Yeah, could be fun," Hannah said with a grin. "Anyone wanna bet it has something to do with the off-limits corridor on the third floor?"
"No way, that's a suckers bet," Ron scoffed.
"Yeah, that was kinda obvious," the blonde Hufflepuff pouted.
"Third floor hallway… why there?" Harry wondered. "Couldn't someone just go to the fourth or second floor and remove some flagstones, see what's in going on that way?"
"Probably not," Hermione said. "According to Hogwarts: A History, the castle is charmed to be indestructible, and it cannot even be modified without the Headmaster's permission. I don't think we'd be able to break through the floors above or below the third-floor corridor."
"Is there anything even on the third floor?" Neville wondered. "Charms and Transfiguration are on the fourth floor, History on the second, Defense is on the first, the dungeons have Snape and potions, the Astronomy is self-explanatory, and the Greenhouses for Herbology are outside. Dunno where the other classes are taught."
"Runes is on the first floor," Hermione helpfully supplied. "But that's just because that's where the Runesmithing workshop is located."
"Come to think of it, you're right, there aren't any classes on the third floor. Anyways, we were talking about how suspicious it was when Hagrid clammed up after mentioning 'Nicholas Flamel,'" Hannah said. "And how weird he got with discussing Fluffy, whoever they are."
"Nicholas Flamel… I feel like I've heard that name before," Neville muttered to himself.
"Me too," Ron agreed. "It's on the tip of my tongue…"
"I could ask Edward," Harry suggested after a dive into his Occlumency turned up zero results. "He's pretty knowledgeable."
"But this is a magical world problem," Ron said, confused as to why Harry would ask help from a Squib.
"What about your brothers?" Hermione asked Ron before Harry could respond. "Or what asking your family, Neville, Susan, Hannah?"
"Fred and George don't know anything except pranks," Ron sighed. "And I doubt Percy would help. He's too much a stick in the mud. And Charlie and Bill are busy with their jobs to answer random questions. Mom would be suspicious about the question and probably find out about what we're doing, and then get mad at us."
"My grans not the most forth-coming woman in the world. She prefers me to find my own answers, but it couldn't hurt to try," Neville said with a shrug, and Susan nodded in agreement.
"My aunt is often busy, so I don't want to bother her with this," Susan admitted.
"And my parents aren't the most knowledgeable about magical stuff. Mom prefers the Muggle World after her family and friends died in the war, and dad's a muggle himself," Hannah said.
"Besides, I think that the fewer people who know we're looking into this, the better," Ron argued, folding his arms. "I don't think we should involve anyone else in this."
"That's not a bad idea," Harry admitted. "I mean, I still think we should see if Edward or someone else can help later on, we should definitely keep our lips sealed about why we want this information."
"So, uh, to the library, then?" Hermione asked hopefully, and everyone else shared amused looks before Ron nodded.
"Yes, Hermione, to the library."
She grinned, and began to skip off to the massive repository of books, eager to start looking for tomes and the knowledge within. Harry had a feeling it would be hard to pry her out of there even with all of them working together.
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LINE BREAK
Dumbledore POV
'And there we go,' Dumbledore mused to himself quietly as he levitated the cloth-covered mirror over to its spot in the corner of an old, disused room.
Setting up the Mirror of Erised here might have seemed like an odd choice, but it was the best place to do so. It was out of the way for any students, and nobody was going to enter the place accidentally. Which was why it was the perfect place to tuck it away until he needed Harry Potter to find it.
He'd have to place the Compulsion charm onto the Potter's cloak around Christmas. The invisibility cloak - which Dumbledore had his suspicions about - was oddly resistant to spells, and anything cast onto it would fade rapidly. Even the strongest charms wouldn't last a month, which was unusual, to say the least.
Still, he had doubts that it would take that long for Harry Potter to try on the cloak. And the next time the boy needed to hide while wearing the cloak, it would guide him to this very room, where he'd find the mirror.
It was perhaps cruel, to taunt a child with the impossible dreams locked away behind the mirror's surface, but he needed to do it. Harry Potter needed to have his desires revealed and tested. Dumbledore needed to weaken the boy's resolve, fill him with hope and the desire to be loved. Only then, would he be able to defeat Voldemort.
Love. Such a strange thing. Powerful. Fickle. Able to move men to do great but also terrible things. And it was something Voldemort had never known. Either as Tom Riddle or the Dark Lord. But Harry did. Even if but a brief moment, Harry Potter had known true love, and this would be the key to defeating Britain's latest threat.
Dumbledore had checked, of course. The barrier of pure love Lily Potter had managed to cast upon her son was still intact - and he was quite curious how a mere Muggleborn had found a way to cast a lost spell only mentioned of in the oldest texts - and the old headmaster had a feeling it was going to be vital in the fight against Voldemort.
With a nod to himself, Dumbledore confirmed his plans with the boy and the mirror. When Christmas rolled around, he would charm the cloak and send it to the boy. Then, Harry would discover the mirror. A discreet ward would let the headmaster know when Harry showed up. And then he could guide the boy to the right decision and mindset needed for victory in the future.
And once that was done, Dumbledore would move the mirror to the last room in his trap for Voldemort. Or rather, Quirrell.
He snorted to himself. Did Tom really think he could hide from him that easily? It was admittedly a novel approach to bypassing the wards around Hogwarts by possessing the poor professor, but Dumbledore had picked up plenty of tricks in his century-plus of life. The turban the DADA teacher wore was used by Middle Eastern mages to bind and obscure spirits. The scent of garlic would cover up the stink of rot as the poor man's body broke down. And
But it served Dumbledore's goals to have the Dark Lord believe he had fooled him. And then, he would hide the stone in the mirror shortly before the end of school, which would force the possessed professor to hurry to steal it.
'And which any luck, I'll be able to convince Harry to go after him. Yes, an early confrontation with Voldemort will galvanize the boy. It will be good for him,' Dumbledore mused. And it would be a good test for the Boy-Who-Lived as well. Would he also fail to retrieve the stone? Or would it be locked away from him as well?
Dumbledore couldn't help but think of his old mentor as he thought about the mystical artifact he'd be using as bait. Nicholas Flamel had surrendered the Philosopher's Stone far more easily than he'd expected, but it was understandable. Perhaps not to men like Tom, but Dumbledore completely understood why the alchemist and his wife would want to go out on their own terms. The old wizard wondered when he'd be able to do the same?
'Only when my work is done,' Dumbledore thought to himself. The Magical World had to survive. And if two young men had to die for that to happen? So be it.
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Author's Note:
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