The atmosphere in the Tulip Street apartment was a peculiar blend of ancient history and domestic comfort. While the world outside buzzed with the frantic energy of the late twentieth century, time seemed to pool and settle here, like honey in a jar.
"It's a common ambition," Albert said, gently swirling the amber liquid in his teacup. "Everyone enters Hogwarts dreaming of becoming a titan like Headmaster Dumbledore. It's the standard fantasy."
He took a careful sip of the tea and felt his eyes widen. The warmth was immediate, but the flavor profile was a complex symphony of spices and perfect creaminess that bypassed the standard "English Breakfast" experience entirely.
"I have to say, ma'am," Albert looked at Perenelle with genuine admiration, "this is, without hyperbole, the most balanced cup of red tea I've ever tasted. If you're ever looking for an apprentice—even just for the kitchen—please let me know. I'd love to learn the ratio you used here."
In his past life, Albert couldn't have told a high-end Darjeeling from a bag of dusty floor sweepings. But after years of navigating the ritualistic tea-drinking culture of the British wizarding world, his palate had sharpened. He could tell this wasn't just "good" tea; it was a masterpiece of centuries-old refinement. The milk didn't drown the tea, and the sugar didn't mask it; they acted as a stage for the leaves to perform on.
Perenelle's smile was sweet, the kind of smile that had likely charmed kings and alchemists alike for six hundred years. "You're very kind, Albert. I've tried to teach Albus, but he finds my brewing... well, 'tasteless' was the word he used last. He's a bit of a barbarian when it comes to tea."
"Everyone has their own eccentricities," Albert noted. "I hear the Headmaster's taste buds only respond to things that are at least fifty percent glucose."
He reached for a buckwheat biscuit from the plate. It was baked to a perfect, rustic crunch, releasing a deep, toasted wheat aroma that felt grounding. It wasn't sweet at all, which Albert preferred. For a man like Dumbledore, who treated lemon drops like a basic food group, this biscuit would have been a disappointment, but to Albert, it was the perfect companion to the tea.
As they sat, the conversation drifted toward the past. Nicolas and Perenelle began to reminisce about their first meeting with Dumbledore. It was a story that mirrored Albert's own situation—a meeting brokered by mutual acquaintances and a shared thirst for the "unexplained."
However, unlike Albert, who had been thrust into this meeting through a series of rapid events, Dumbledore had been writing to the Flamels for years before he ever stepped foot in their home.
"He was traveling the world back then," Nicolas recalled, his voice a dry rasp that carried the weight of ages. "He'd just finished his time at Hogwarts and was passing through France. He had a brilliant mind even then—raw, perhaps, and a bit too ambitious for his own good, but brilliant nonetheless. We spent months in that old workshop in Paris, debating the foundational laws of Transmutation."
"That was the summer you found the additional uses for dragon's blood, wasn't it?" Albert asked. "I remember reading that Dumbledore discovered twelve of them."
"The books like to simplify things," Perenelle said, topping off Albert's cup. "The truth is a bit more... collaborative. Many of those uses had been discovered by obscure witches in the Pyrenees or herbalists in the East centuries ago. But back then, information didn't travel; it fermented in private cellars. Albus was the one who gathered the threads, verified the science, and published it in a way the Ministry couldn't ignore."
"I remember Ivan Dillonsby," Harris chimed in with a smirk. "He spent a decade claiming Albus 'borrowed' his notes. He insisted he'd already found eight of the twelve uses."
"Dillonsby was a man who could find a conspiracy in a bowl of porridge," Nicolas laughed softly. "The man once claimed he'd perfected a powder that would turn any fireplace into a portal to the sun. The last I heard of him, he'd accidentally transported himself halfway into his own chimney and had to be pulled out by his ankles. History remembers the winners, Albert, and Albus was always very good at winning."
Albert listened, fascinated. He wasn't particularly obsessed with Dumbledore's biography, but hearing the human side of the legend—the slander, the messy collaborations, the academic rivalries—was far more entertaining than any textbook.
"History is written by the survivors," Albert murmured. "And you two have survived longer than most."
Nicolas smiled, though there was a flicker of something somber in his eyes. He set his cup down. "We have. And we've seen the cycles. People ask about the 'glory days' of the fourteenth century, thinking it was a golden age of magic. They think we lost some great secret to the ages."
"Did we?" Albert asked. "I've heard theories that ancient alchemy was more 'pure' than modern practice."
Nicolas shook his head slowly. "It wasn't pure; it was disorganized. The fourteenth century was an era of ignorance. Wizards were scattered, paranoid, and secretive. Because communication was so poor, every wizard had to reinvent the wheel. You'd spend forty years mastering a single lighting charm that your neighbor had perfected in ten. It wasn't a golden age; it was a fragmented one."
"So the 'lost' spells weren't necessarily better?"
"Most were dead ends," Nicolas explained. "They were random, unstable, and often dangerous. The spells that survived are the ones that were efficient. Magic hasn't declined, Albert; it has been streamlined. We've traded the 'unpredictable' for the 'manageable.'"
"For easier management," Albert repeated, glancing at Harris.
"Exactly," Harris said, finally breaking his silence. "The Ministry likes order. Order requires predictable magic. The wild stuff... the things that don't fit into a curriculum... they don't teach those anymore. Not because they don't work, but because they're inconvenient for the bureaucracy."
"It's a peaceful trade-off," Nicolas added gently, steering the mood back. "But the fourteenth century was a golden age for one thing: greed. Muggles were obsessed with alchemy because they wanted to turn lead into gold and live forever. They wanted to cheat the system."
"And you succeeded," Albert said.
"Did we?" Perenelle asked with a knowing look. "The Philosopher's Stone cannot create true gold, Albert. Not the kind that lasts. It creates something that looks and feels like gold, much like a well-cast Doubling Charm. But eventually, the magic fades. It's a temporary trick of the light."
"And immortality?"
Nicolas looked at his hands, the skin like translucent paper over bone. "It is a stay of execution, not a pardon. We understood that far too late. We've lived for six centuries, Albert, and we've spent five of them watching the world change while we stayed the same. It is its own kind of exhaustion."
Sensing the conversation was drifting into a territory that made the old alchemist weary, Albert shifted gears. He pulled his protective bracelet—the one he'd enchanted himself—from his pocket and laid it on the table.
"I've been working on this," Albert said. "It's a basic defensive piece, but I've been having trouble with the runic feedback when it's under heavy stress. I was hoping for a bit of... professional criticism?"
The atmosphere shifted instantly. Nicolas's eyes sharpened, the "tired old man" persona vanishing. He picked up the bracelet, turning it over with fingers that were suddenly steady and precise.
For the next few hours, the room became a masterclass. Nicolas didn't just give advice; he dismantled Albert's logic and rebuilt it with the casual ease of someone who understood the molecular structure of magic. He spoke of "harmonic resonance" in metals and "intent-anchoring" in the engraving process—concepts that Albert had only touched upon in the most advanced Arithmancy texts.
Albert's skill panel was a blur of notifications. His Alchemy skill and Ancient Runes skill were absorbing experience points at a rate that would have been impossible through solo study. He was essentially being given the condensed wisdom of six centuries in a single afternoon.
"You have a very strange mind, Albert," Nicolas said as they finished a debate on the properties of silver-infused leather. "You don't think like a thirteen-year-old. You think like someone who has already lived a lifetime and is just looking for the right tools to finish the job."
"I get that a lot," Albert said, offering a noncommittal smile.
As the sun began to dip, casting long, orange shadows across the Tulip Street apartment, Mr. Harris stood up and gathered his things.
"I have business to attend to in London," Harris said, nodding to the Flamels. "Albus is already back at the school, no doubt preparing for the arrival of the 'star student' everyone's talking about."
"You're leaving?" Albert asked, realizing he hadn't noticed how late it was.
"You're staying here for a few days," Perenelle said, placing a hand on Albert's shoulder. "Nicolas hasn't had a proper debate about the fundamental laws of Transmutation in years. You're staying as our guest. Mr. Harris will return to collect you when it's time to head to the station."