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Sudden drowsiness and fatigue washed over Ian, and he couldn’t help but rub his eyes and stifle several yawns in a row. Nicolas Flamel turned to glance at him, evidently noting the young wizard’s abruptly lethargic state.
“How many days have you gone without proper sleep?” Nicolas Flamel squinted, noticing the darker circles under Ian’s eyes, though he wondered if it was merely his own aging vision playing tricks on him.
“I haven’t! Honestly, I slept soundly last night. I always make sure to get at least a few hours in each day, and I only stay up late now and then. I know how much late nights can mess with your growth.”
Ian’s mind felt as though it were slogging through treacle, and his vision blurred at the edges. This wasn’t just the usual fog from an all-nighter; it was something stranger, something heavier, almost like a sudden magical depletion.
The flow of his inner Magic had dulled, noticeably and inexplicably.
He had no idea what had caused the shift, but he was certain it was tied to the legendary shadow etched deep within his mind. That shadow had drawn off a great deal of his magic, but now it had gone eerily quiet. No matter how much energy Ian tried to feed into it, the shadow remained dormant, as still as a frozen Pensieve.
“You’re right. At your age, you ought to be avoiding those late nights,” Nicolas Flamel said, though his tone remained more amused than critical. He pulled open a drawer, intending to fetch Ian a restorative potion.
However,
“Hoot hoot, gurgle~”
The Bowtruckle that had been hiding in the drawer had just downed the last vial of Nicolas Flamel’s invigorating draught. Tossing the empty bottle aside with evident satisfaction, it clambered up Flamel’s sleeve, perched briefly on his shoulder, then sprang to the floor.
After a few gleeful hops, the creature dashed for the door and vanished with surprising speed.
Ian made a motion as if to catch it,
But whatever was in that potion had clearly been potent, because the little Bowtruckle left nothing behind but a blur of afterimages as it zipped around the corridor and disappeared from sight.
“Bowtruckles aren’t dangerous, right?”
Ian hesitated at the door, unsure whether to give chase. According to the Ministry’s classification, Bowtruckles were only rated XX, not considered threatening, so he wasn’t particularly worried about any sort of “Bowtruckle attack.”
In truth, Bowtruckles were rather shy and skittish. These gentle magical beings fed mostly on woodlice and other tree-dwelling insects, only ever lashing out when their trees were threatened.
The largest creature a Bowtruckle had ever managed to fend off was likely a woodpecker, and that was only thanks to their needle-like fingers aimed at pecking eyes.
“I think that little rascal just didn’t fancy sticking around. Don’t worry, Bowtruckles don’t typically ambush wizards. It probably just wants to scamper back to its tree,” Nicolas Flamel said casually, already turning his attention back to the imprinted magical texts spread out on the desk.
“Mm?”
Flamel paused. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was imagining it, but the excitement of a new research subject seemed to have sharpened his vision.
His spectacles now felt oddly ill-fitted, he removed them, adjusting the lens wheel atop the frame with curiosity.
“Perhaps my passion for alchemy’s rekindled something in me. I only hope it’s not just a fleeting burst of energy.” He looked down at his hands with faint wonder. They weren’t trembling nearly as much as usual.
In the past, his hands only steadied themselves during the most focused alchemical work. Perplexed, Flamel slipped his glasses back on and resumed poring over the text, casting the occasional glance toward the young wizard beside him.
“I was hoping it might help me grow a few trees,” Ian muttered, returning to the office with a sulky expression. “But instead, it just freeloaded off my snack stash for days.”
“The ungrateful little thing! I’ve always had a decent rapport with magical creatures, haven’t I?” He seemed genuinely upset that the Bowtruckle had scurried off after enjoying several days’ worth of his offerings.
“You can’t expect every magical beast to bond with you, just like you can’t expect every witch or wizard to believe in you,”
“Even Merlin couldn’t manage that,” Nicolas Flamel said with a light laugh, reaching into the drawer once more and handing Ian a small, unspoiled box of revitalising pills.
“For a little pick-me-up?”
Ian looked at the small pill, surprised. He held it up to his nose and gave it a strong sniff. A few of the potion’s ingredients were familiar to him, but most of the components were completely unknown. He couldn’t make out the full formula, much less decipher what effects it might have.
He could only guess from the bits he did recognise.
Still, he didn’t suspect Nicolas Flamel would ever give him anything harmful. That sort of thing was more in Ian’s wheelhouse. With that thought, he popped the pill into his mouth and let it rest on his tongue, trying to get a sense of its taste.
However,
The small pill didn’t give him any time to savour its flavour. The moment it touched his tongue, it slipped straight down his throat, leaving no trace behind. It was the very definition of an alchemical refinement, swift, seamless, and total upon entry.
“Smack, smack~”
Ian smacked his lips, trying to catch even a hint of taste, but to no avail. The pill had vanished without a trace. Still, its effects were immediate and unmistakable, his drowsiness lifted in an instant, as though a fog had cleared from his mind.
And that wasn’t all.
The lingering fatigue in his magical core, brought on by the sudden strain from the awakening of the legendary shadow, was dispelled entirely. His magic surged once more, thrumming with unusual vitality and fluidity.
“Professor, what sort of potion was that? Could I learn to make it?” Ian’s eyes shone with awe and curiosity. Compared to this, even his self-brewed endurance potion seemed woefully inadequate.
Nicolas Flamel chuckled quietly and took a delicate sip from his teacup.
“Well, first you’d need a Philosopher’s Stone. Perhaps in a few years’ time, if you’re truly determined.” The venerable alchemist gave a knowing smile, as if prophecy weren’t entirely outside his domain either.
“Philosopher’s Stone?” Ian echoed, blinking. He instinctively glanced at the scattered pile of Philosopher’s Stones he’d produced earlier.
“I’m referring to a complete one, a genuine Philosopher’s Stone still brimming with life essence,” Flamel clarified, his tone gentle but firm.
Ian’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Wait, you’re telling me what I just swallowed was Elixir of Life? I thought that came as a potion!”
His gaze shifted to the small wooden box still resting on Flamel’s desk, etched with intricate alchemical runes used for preserving delicate brews. It was the magical equivalent of a stasis chest, an enchanted container designed to keep potions fresh and potent for extended periods.
“Haha, you must’ve felt it, the warmth, the surge of energy. That pill held the essence of life itself.” Flamel’s answer, though indirect, was all the confirmation Ian needed.
He gulped.
“I thought you said you were running low on Elixir! You just handed me one like it was a chocolate frog! That could’ve cost you months of your life!”
Regret washed over Ian. He hadn’t even paused to ask what it was before downing it. Frankly, if it were a choice between feeling reinvigorated and ensuring Flamel lived longer, he’d have chosen the latter without hesitation.
The idea of losing such a brilliant alchemical mind to the Twilight Zone, a place so few returned from, was a loss the wizarding world could ill afford. And for Hogwarts, where Flamel occasionally taught alchemy? It would be devastating.
“The field of alchemy could fall behind an entire decade from this!” Ian’s declaration was dramatic, but not unfounded. Anyone who’d had a truly irreplaceable teacher would understand.
“You’re overstating it,” Flamel said with a warm chuckle, shaking his head. “It was just one dose of Elixir. For me, in truth, it’s a gain.”
He cast Ian a meaningful glance before returning his attention to the stack of imprinted magical texts. There were dozens, dense with runes, sigils, and archaic scripts, the product of Ian’s formidable memory.
A formidable collection indeed.
“To be honest, I’ve got a bit of a selfish reason, I’m hoping your knowledge might help decipher these texts,” Flamel admitted, voice quiet with something bordering on reverence.
Ian suspected as much. Flamel had likely seen these writings as a final, unfinished chapter in his life’s work, something he desperately wanted to resolve before his time ran out.
The old master smiled faintly, but didn’t comment further.
“Do you know what era these come from?” Ian leaned forward, his renewed energy now fuelling his curiosity, as Flamel placed the pages beneath a small, hovering orb of magical light.
Flamel nodded, considering.
“They predate Merlin. Some of these scripts were still circulating during his lifetime, but they originate from long before. In fact, the fragment I have came directly from Merlin’s own manuscripts.”
His answer didn’t disappoint. Flamel could indeed date the material with remarkable precision. But even so, Ian still couldn’t use that to determine the true age of the tower he’d seen.
Truth be told,
Since returning to the present, Ian had pored through magical history texts, some so obscure they were more footnote than fact.
But,
The cataclysmic destruction he’d witnessed, whole nations swallowed by calamity, appeared nowhere. Not even in the most ancient volumes of recorded wizarding history. As though it had been scrubbed from time itself.
“Hmm… It must’ve been around Merlin’s era,” Ian mused, recalling the tower’s carvings. They depicted in vivid magical detail the series of events sparked by his… unorthodox senior sister.
Yet,
Without knowing precisely how long Professor Morgan had lived, Ian couldn’t connect the dots between the tower’s age and her lifetime.
Perhaps, next time he entered the Twilight Zone, he could press Professor Morgan for more details. But as things stood, he’d only managed one trip there, and the cooldown between entries remained unchanged. His hope that a surge of Magic power might bypass the delay had proved false.
“There wasn’t any inscription or name on the tomb you discovered?” Flamel asked, a touch perplexed. “Anyone capable of burying that many Philosopher’s Stones in a single grave must’ve left some mark on history.”
His voice held genuine confusion, how could someone so powerful remain nameless?
He didn’t ask Ian where the tomb was, nor did he attempt to persuade Ian to take him there. Nicolas Flamel understood the unspoken etiquette of the magical world, there were boundaries in such matters, and he knew better than to overstep.
In wizarding society, it’s considered highly improper, even offensive, to intrude upon another’s magical fortune or discoveries.
“Perhaps there is,” Ian murmured, recalling the image of the hooded skeleton he’d encountered in the tower. But he was fairly certain that skeletal figure wasn’t the tower’s original master; it had seemed more like a being bound or imprisoned there.
Yes, a being, more creature than spectre.
It wasn’t some vengeful spirit, that much Ian had quickly realised after bringing it back from the Twilight Realm. The hooded skeleton possessed an eerie vitality, one even stronger than that of many living beings.
“Why the word ‘perhaps’?” Nicolas Flamel raised an eyebrow, puzzled by Ian’s uncertainty.
“I found someone down there, chained up, but he claimed to have no memory of who he was, so I doubt I’ll uncover much from him,” Ian replied honestly.
His answer left Nicolas Flamel thoroughly stunned.
“Still alive? After thousands of years?” Flamel’s gaze instinctively returned to the pile of Philosopher’s Stones. He must have assumed the figure Ian encountered had survived through the power of those ancient stones.
“Well… alive might be the right word? I left him in the Room of Requirement. Perhaps you could have a look when you’ve time? I didn’t dare keep him with me, nor could I bring him back here.”
Ian retrieved his pouch to demonstrate, the enchanted bag clearly showing signs of frayed seams that had been hastily repaired with Spellotape and patchwork enchantments.
He had, somewhat foolishly, attempted to stuff the hooded figure into the pouch. But the moment he pressed the skeleton’s head in, the bag split down the middle. Had he not pulled it out in time, the pouch, which had taken months of careful enchantment to expand to over half the size of Hogwarts, would’ve been ruined entirely.
“You brought that kind of ancient thing back to school…” Nicolas Flamel’s throat went dry. The sensation was not unlike what many Hogwarts professors must feel on a daily basis when dealing with Ian.
How is this boy not in Gryffindor?
“This is actually one of the reasons I sought you out.” Ian seized the opportunity, rolled up his sleeve, and revealed the peculiar magical inscription etched into the skin of his forearm, part of the oath that bound him within the Twilight Realm.
“This…”
Nicolas Flamel leaned forward for a better look. The moment his eyes landed on the markings, his expression shifted. These weren’t just any magical texts. The inscription differed entirely from the ancient scripts Ian had brought him before, and Flamel instinctively shielded his eyes with one hand while grasping Ian’s arm with the other.
Though his grip was firm, it lacked strength, age had sapped his physical prowess long ago. Still, his reaction betrayed the depth of his concern.
“It seems to be a kind of magical oath, similar to an Unbreakable Vow,” he said at last, voice raspy with awe. “But it’s more intricate… far more potent, binding, and woven with a magic older than even most of our recorded rites.”
He continued to examine the glowing script. “I’ve seen something like this… in ancient accounts of forgotten priesthoods, whose members bore such markings. But yours is, ”
Nicolas Flamel abruptly stopped, his mouth hanging open slightly. His eyes flickered with a troubled light. Both his withered hands remained clamped on Ian’s arm, unmoving.
“A kind of what?” Ian prompted, glancing at the clock as the silence stretched past ten minutes.
Nick gave no answer.
Instead, he gently ran a bony finger along the edge of the inscription. Eventually, he sighed, released Ian’s arm, and gave a sheepish smile, scratching his head in a surprisingly youthful gesture.
“Nothing. I suppose I don’t really know either,” He admitted.
“Eh?”
Ian blinked in disbelief. After all that, this was the best Nicolas Flamel could offer?
He cast a suspicious glance at Flamel’s head, half-expecting it to taper into a cone shape. Had the great alchemist suddenly turned senile?
“Don’t look at me like that,” Flamel said with a helpless shrug. “I’m only human, you know, just one who’s lived a very long time. I dare say Albus would’ve figured it out in a moment, but me? I’m not quite so clever.”
That much, at least, was fair.
“Well, could you still help me study it?” Ian asked, producing a separate piece of parchment with a copied version of the inscription.
“Of course, though I don’t need that.” Flamel waved the parchment away, a faint trace of offence in his voice.
“Are you doubting the memory of an alchemist?” HHe teased, clearly meaning to say he’d already memorised the marking down to its final rune.
“No, no, never!” Ian hastily tucked the parchment back into his robes, though a flicker of doubt may have lingered in his expression. After all, Flamel was over six centuries old…
“Don’t worry, I understand your concern. From what I’ve seen, this oath doesn’t harm you. Quite the opposite, in fact, it recognises you as the dominant party.”
Nicolas Flamel looked at him meaningfully, his faded eyes glinting. Then, with a sideways glance at the enchanted clock on the wall, something seemed to occur to him, something that would, in turn, jog Ian’s own memory.
“I also found this.”
To help Nicholas Flamel better determine the era of the tower, Ian retrieved the enormous enchanted clock he had brought back with him.
The massive timepiece, larger than several Ians put together, looked positively ancient. When he set it on the floor, it gave a dull, echoing thud. The dial, conspicuously missing its hands, bore the marks of time and tempest alike, its surface weathered and worn.
“Merlin’s beard…” Nicholas Flamel was, once again, completely dumbfounded.
‘What was going on lately? Why did this student keep dragging bizarre, broken time-related contraptions to him? And not just any, they were all ancient magical constructs! Hadn’t the Department of Mysteries supposedly destroyed every last original Time-Turner centuries ago?
Where in Merlin’s name had this colossal artifact come from?! Flamel leaned in, running his fingers over the faded runes inscribed on its surface. The alchemical symbols were unmistakably of the same structure as the magical glyphs Ian had brought from the tower earlier. He exhaled heavily.
“Albus must have seen something in you. You’re both the same, always unearthing old relics and then dumping the trouble on me.”
Shaking his head with a mixture of resignation and amusement, Nicholas turned to a long, narrow cabinet and rummaged through its cluttered depths until he retrieved a strange, arcane-looking device.
“What’s that?” Ian asked, curiosity ignited by the peculiar design. The object was about the size of a small magical trunk and crafted from a silvery alloy rarely seen outside of ancient vaults. Its surface shimmered faintly with complex, laced carvings, each glowing softly, as though etched with dormant enchantments.
Every line seemed to pulse with long-lost magical principles. In one corner was set a faceted crystal, clear, gleaming, and glimmering like a star caught in glass. Ian could feel instinctively that the crystal was not only the device’s heart but also the key to unlocking its hidden potential.
“I call it the Prism Box of Secrets,” Said Flamel, grunting as he lifted the thing. Ian quickly stepped forward to help, but Flamel deftly avoided him, clearly refusing to admit that his age was catching up with him.
“It’s for deciphering the nature of obscure magical artifacts?” Ian guessed, a bit uncertain, still focused on the crystal.
“Exactly,” Flamel confirmed. “We may not be able to translate each rune or inscription directly, but this helps analyse the inner workings of ancient magical constructs by comparing their structure and resonance to known magical laws.”
“After all, most magic shares fundamental patterns. Even the oldest glyphs can be broken down if you understand the logic behind their design. Those ancient enchanters weren’t creating magic from nothing, they worked within the same magical reality as we do.”
Flamel began pulling out several long, hollow tubes from the Prism Box of Secrets. They looked surprisingly like something a Muggle tinkerer might cobble together, but any seasoned alchemist knew that refusing useful knowledge, even if inspired by the Muggle world, was folly.
With careful, methodical precision, Flamel connected the tubes to various points on the old, broken clock.
“Even broken things like this can be analysed?” Ian asked, surprised. He knew he was still an amateur in the alchemical arts, but he hadn’t expected such a complex system to be decipherable in its current state.
“You underestimate me, young man,” Flamel replied, a chuckle escaping his lips. It took him over ten minutes to finish attaching the final threads of tubing.
“Step back a bit.”
As Flamel bent down to initiate the ritual enchantment, he glanced at Ian, who instinctively tightened his grip on his wand and cast a protective charm around himself.
However,
Flamel’s next words left him utterly speechless.
“No, not because it’s dangerous, I’m just afraid you’ll swipe the core crystal from my device the moment my back’s turned. I’ve half a mind to believe you’ve practically emptied the tower you stumbled into.”
Ian was left without a retort.
“…”
He was about to argue that he wasn’t a thief when Flamel twisted the prism into place, and the Prism Box of Secrets suddenly roared to life in a silent, blinding blaze of colour.
Scarlet like dragonfire, sapphire like ocean depths, emerald like ancient forest, golden like mid-morning sun, violet like starless void, silver like moonbeams, and obsidian like shadowed corners of the soul…
The rotating gem locked itself onto an unseen axis and began turning smoothly, casting a kaleidoscope of luminous beams throughout the room. Periodically, it would flare with light, drawing streams of magic inward.
Ian couldn’t make sense of the device’s precise workings, but he was beginning to understand why Flamel had been so protective. The shifting crystals looked like they could buy a manor in Hogsmeade apiece.
The spectrum of colour soon coalesced into a focused beam that lanced through the old clock, scanning it from within, as if plumbing its secrets.
Time stretched slowly onward.
New symbols began to appear on the surface of the Prism Box of Secrets, not the familiar scripts of Arithmancy or Ancient Runes, but something entirely foreign. Even Ian, a polyglot fluent in over two dozen magical dialects, found himself utterly lost.
“Can’t read them, can you?” Flamel grinned. “That’s because I made the language myself. No one else can understand it.”
He puffed up slightly with pride as he stepped forward, ready to interpret the secrets only he could reveal.
Many times, those like Nicolas Flamel, wizards who had lived long, extraordinary lives, found great amusement in crafting things that defied ordinary understanding. Creating an entirely new language, for instance, was something Ian had only ever seen on that old American Muggle television show, The Big Bang Theory, before he’d crossed into this world. In one of its episodes, the characters and their fans had cobbled together a fictional tongue by patching elements from other languages.
But this was different.
Nicolas Flamel clearly operated on an entirely different level. His self-invented language bore no resemblance to any script Ian had encountered. And Ian, who had mastered more languages than most living linguists, was absolutely certain of that.
[Language Proficiency (Level 7): 534/6400]
One glance at the shimmering system prompt in the Twilight Realm confirmed just how many dialects Ian had committed to memory. He devoted time each day to language study, be it Gobbledegook, Mermish, or even the obscure rune dialects used by ancient druids, so if anyone could speak on the topic with authority, it was him.
“What’s your device telling you?” Ian leaned in closer, his brow furrowed as unfamiliar symbols scrolled across the Prism Box of Secrets. He couldn’t decipher the script, not even a letter.
“Something… odd,” Flamel muttered, no longer shielding his findings from the young wizard.
He read in silence for a moment, the shifting patterns of light dancing across his aged face, his expression slowly transforming from intrigue to puzzlement.
“What’s strange about it?” Ian peered more intently at the device’s inner workings. Beneath the prism, a marvellously complex mechanical structure was visible, an enchanted contraption built from gears, runes, and alchemical coils. It resembled a living mechanism, like a miniature magical labyrinth, its workings whispering secrets only a master alchemist might understand.
“I initially assumed it was a variant of a time-turner,” Flamel began, squinting at the glowing readings, “but… now I’m not so sure.” He glanced at the colossal broken clock once more, his usually clear eyes now clouded with disbelief. “If my readings are correct, and my judgement rarely errs, then this isn’t a time-turner at all. It’s something far more peculiar… a time-capture device.”
“A time-capture device?” Ian’s heart skipped. He immediately recalled the time loop he’d been trapped in, one wrought by Salazar Slytherin himself. That particular loop had been laced with fate’s own threads, a high-level enchantment well beyond the reach of ordinary magic.
“So… you mean it repeats the same period of time? Like reliving the same day?” Ian asked, startled.
“No, no, no, it’s not quite that simple,” Flamel corrected with a wave of his hand. “This device doesn’t reset time. Rather, it seizes a segment, whether a few days or several months, and stitches the beginning and end together seamlessly. There is no reversion, no ‘starting over.’ Think of a Möbius loop: time flows endlessly within, and those caught inside continue to live, unaware that they’ve been looped.”
“A Möbius loop?” Ian echoed, attempting to visualise it.
“Indeed. And as long as this thing continues to run, time within it flows normally. A year, ten, even a hundred could pass, and no one within the loop would notice the cycle. It’s an incredibly intricate form of magical containment. But I cannot imagine why anyone would go to such lengths, it would take a staggering amount of magical energy to maintain such a device.”
Ian considered that. “Perhaps… it was meant to avert a catastrophe?”
Nicolas Flamel paused. The theory didn’t seem far-fetched.
“To hold back disaster… Yes, that could be it. But it would have to be something immense, something that threatened an entire magical civilization.” He rubbed his temples, visibly thinking. “Has there ever been an event like that in our history? A magical calamity on such a scale? Babylon, perhaps? Atlantis? Lemuria? You stayed in Britain during the break, didn’t you?”
Ian winced. “Er… not exactly?” How could he explain that the Twilight Realm couldn’t be found on any Muggle globe?
“…” Flamel simply stared at him.
Choosing not to press, the old alchemist turned his attention back to the broken device.
“In any case, we’ll need to repair this contraption. If we can get it functioning, we might determine how long it captured time for… and possibly even trace it back to its era of origin.”
The thought seemed to invigorate him. He was clearly enthralled by the mystery, the craftsmanship, the sheer magical prowess it would have taken to construct such a thing.
“These Philosopher’s Stones you’ve brought me, they were probably powering this device,” Flamel added, half-muttering to himself.
Ian wasn’t so sure.
From what he’d seen in the vision that heralded the tower’s appearance, the Philosopher’s Stones had maintained far more than just the clock. They had kept the entire tower functioning, feeding into its intricate web of protective enchantments and temporal fields.
The clock was but one cog in that vast, alchemical engine.
“Either way, young man,” Flamel said, tapping gently on the rim of the large clock, “you’ve brought me mystery upon mystery tonight. I confess, I’m just as eager as you to uncover the secrets buried in that ancient tomb of yours.”
With a flick of his wand, Flamel cracked open the front of the great clock. Inside was a lattice of golden mechanisms, still thrumming faintly with residual magic. His eyes landed on a hollowed compartment, an empty hourglass.
“Well, this is in worse condition than the time-turner Albus once asked me to repair,” he said, frowning. “Not a single grain of time sand left.”
“Is this… the time sand?” Ian stepped up to the workbench and picked up a smaller damaged pendant that had been set aside. He gave it a gentle shake, observing the few grains left inside.
Something was off. The colour wasn’t right.
But the texture and that peculiar “gravity” felt all too familiar…
“Be careful with that, there’s likely not much Time Sand left, even in the Department of Mysteries. If you lose these grains, we’ll have to get Albus and the others to grovel for funding just to scrounge up more.”
“It also contains part of my private stash,” Nicolas Flamel added as he began carefully disassembling the copper tubing from the large enchanted clock, shooting a subtle glance Ian’s way as he spoke in a low voice.
“Is this little bit really enough?” Ian asked, eyeing the tiny amount of Time Sand, just a few grains, really, easy enough to count by sight, with undisguised curiosity. His alchemical studies under Professor Morgan hadn’t yet advanced to this level.
“Of course not. Not even remotely. It wouldn’t be enough to run a teacup-sized timepiece, much less Albus’s contraptions. And for that massive clock of yours? Utterly insufficient. The quantity of Time Sand directly determines the temporal span we can affect.”
After securing the pieces of the device, Nicolas Flamel returned to Ian and gently took the damaged Time Turner from his hands. “But the Time Sand isn’t our most immediate concern. What’s more pressing are the materials needed to repair this Time Turner. Many of them… have vanished from our era entirely.”
“And the same goes for your large clock,” he added, his tone growing heavier with a kind of ancient fatigue, as though he’d come face-to-face with the relentless erosion of time yet again.
“I do know of a substitute method to create a similar magical alloy…” Ian said thoughtfully, pointing to the broken segment of the Time Turner. “It can produce an alchemical blend called Uru.”
“Hm?” Nicolas Flamel raised a skeptical brow at the young wizard.
Then,
Under that discerning gaze,
Ian pulled out a roll of parchment and began scribbling an alchemical formula. It wasn’t overly complicated, just extraordinarily dense. Line after line flowed from his quill, soon filling six sheets of parchment. As he finished each one, he handed it over to Nicolas Flamel.
By the time the final sheet was in his hands, Flamel’s expression had transformed completely, from puzzled, to stunned, to outright incredulous.
“This… don’t tell me you dug this up as well?”
Given what he now knew of Ian’s rapidly advancing alchemical aptitude, Nicolas Flamel had no choice but to conclude this was another treasure unearthed from some ancient resting place.
“More or less,” Ian admitted after a pause.
After all, Professor Morgan resided in the Twilight Realm, an otherworldly place populated entirely by the dead. That was, in a manner of speaking, quite like a tomb. So rounding things out… yes, he supposed he had “dug it up.”
“Hissss~~~”
Nicolas Flamel sucked in a long, wheezing breath. Had Ian not supported him, the old man might’ve toppled over in shock. He clutched his chest, wheezing like he might pass out.
“Is it too late for me to take up grave robbing?”
Even with Nicolas Flamel’s centuries of wisdom and cultivated detachment, he felt a genuine pang of regret. Ian just kept unveiling one marvel after another, as if entire forgotten magical legacies had been crammed into a school satchel.
“That’s a very labour-intensive job…” Ian muttered with a weary sigh, recalling the exhausting ordeal of excavating the entire Riddle family’s estate. His voice carried the weight of personal experience, leaving Nicolas Flamel momentarily speechless.
With gains like that?
Forget labour-intensive, he’d be willing to forgo sleep altogether if it meant results like Ian’s.
“By the way, while we’re on the subject of the Time Turner… can you check how it reacts with this stuff?” Ian seized the opportunity to pull out a small handful of pitch-black grains from his enchanted pouch.
Truly, it was only a handful.
However,
The moment Nicolas Flamel caught sight of the black sand slipping through Ian’s fingers and trickling onto the floor, he finally snapped. Clutching his chest again, he dramatically collapsed backward.
The elderly sleep well, they say, they can drop off just like that… Fortunately, Ian was quick and caught him before the renowned alchemist passed out entirely.
“Time Sand is an alchemical marvel,” Flamel gasped, once he caught his breath. “And what you’re holding, this black sand, is its base essence. Where it comes from is a mystery. My mentor only showed me a few grains once, long ago.”
Once stable, Nicolas Flamel immediately knelt and began painstakingly collecting the grains that had spilled from Ian’s hand, while Ian, whose fingers still leaked sand like an enchanted hourglass, watched with a twitching brow.
He leaked.
Nick collected.
Seeing the legendary six-hundred-year-old alchemist scrabbling across the floor like a starving man during a food shortage, Ian gave up and simply dumped the entire handful of black sand onto the office floor.
He had more. Plenty more. His pouch was bottomless, after all.
“What are you doing?” Ian asked, watching Flamel now scurry away from the sand entirely and start rummaging through an old wooden chest beside his crafting table.
The master alchemist slowly retrieved a series of strange, half-finished magical tools, some appearing to be rusted iron prongs, others chipped gemstones gleaming faintly with hidden power. With skilled fingers and a focused gaze, Nicolas Flamel began forging.
The room filled with the ringing clang of hammer on metal and the glow of mystical fire, a symphony of alchemical craftsmanship. Within moments, he’d shaped several crude but functional tools.
Some resembled sharp excavation blades, others were shaped like arcane crowbars. He carved runes into each one with practiced hands while still responding to Ian’s question.
“You’ve dug up Merlin’s tomb, haven’t you?” Flamel asked suddenly, pausing only to give Ian a wide-eyed, conspiratorial look. “It must be Merlin’s. No doubt in my mind… If you’ve got Merlin, then I’ll go dig up Arthur Pendragon. I know exactly where he’s buried.”
“He had a cadre of wizards, didn’t he? There’s bound to be treasure in that tomb,” Nicolas Flamel muttered, his voice tinged with an uncharacteristic gleam of ambition, completely overtaken by the feverish thrill of magical discovery.
“Ah!!?”
Ian finally realised what Nicolas Flamel was forging, tomb-raiding tools!
As enchanted glyphs continued to etch themselves across the surfaces, one automated artefact after another gradually took form. Each gleamed with a faintly eerie metallic sheen under the dim workshop glow, and, most unnervingly, they moved on their own, twitching into readiness like magical constructs preparing for a mission.
“Wait, wait, wait! You’re far too old for this sort of thing! Tomb raiding isn’t something for someone of your… venerable status! It’s perilous! There are noxious vapours! Hex-laced traps! Quicksand! And curses that could rot the soul!”
“There are mummies, lingering spirits, guardian wraiths, animated gargoyles, hellhounds, illusion mazes, elemental rifts, shrivel-headed revenants, fox-spirits with blue-glowing eyes, and cursed kelpies that shriek like banshees!”
Ian’s attempt to scare Nicolas Flamel off was genuine.
He was truly panicking.
If Nicolas Flamel really tried to dig up King Arthur’s resting place, how would Ian explain it to the souls in the Twilight Realm? Professor Morgan might hang him from a floating cairn and lecture him for eternity.
“If you can do it, why shouldn’t I?”
Nicolas Flamel had no intention of stopping.
One enchanted tool after another came to life in his hands, animated with finesse and engraved with intricate magical inscriptions.
The craftsmanship was breathtaking.
And the speed? Comparable only to an alchemical automaton set to overdrive.
“I’m different! My family’s been doing this sort of thing for generations! We’ve got skills! I’m versed in ancient rites, geomantic channeling, ley-line mapping, tomb ward disruption!”
“Plus vault-echo sensing, astral-kick alignment, twin-finger divining, and the art of summoning the hill-sign! You don’t need to understand the names, just feel the ancient magic pulsing in them!”
Ian hadn’t expected Nicolas Flamel to react so… enthusiastically.
“Mm? I thought your family specialised in potioneering?” Nicolas Flamel arched a sceptical eyebrow; clearly, he wasn’t buying any of it.
“From my generation onward, my descendants will learn all my skills, so technically, that counts as generations, doesn’t it?” Ian replied with an awkward smile.
He darted forward and seized Nicolas Flamel, who was already halfway toward the forge again. With great effort, he confiscated the enchanted tools and pushed the elderly alchemist away from his workbench.
It really was just coincidence.
It wasn’t that Ian had intentionally waited for Nicolas Flamel to complete inscribing the final rune before making his move…
“Hmph, hoarding all the excitement and keeping the shinies for yourself!”
Nicolas Flamel gave a grumbling sigh and flung the last tool to Ian, clearly sulking. The young wizard could only smile nervously, unsure how to deal with the old man’s childlike obstinacy.
“Look, I’ve risked my life to fetch these treasures for you to examine, you don’t need to go and get yourself cursed! Let the younger generation deal with the tomb-crawling. That seems fair, doesn’t it?”
Ian was genuinely afraid Nicolas Flamel might resign as Hogwarts’ Alchemy Master and run off to become a full-time grave-looter.
“Hardship? What hardship? Is this what you call suffering?”
“Fate’s a peculiar thing; if it makes you suffer in youth, then it definitely won’t spare you in old age either. Just look at Albus.”
“When I first met him, he was barely out of school, just a bright-eyed lad of twenty, while I’d already had a century or two under my belt. I watched him rise, step by step.”
“Truth be told, I’ve very few close friends from his generation. Albus is one of the rare ones. We captured a steel-bellied basilisk together once, and he was with me when we discovered the twelve alchemical applications of dragon’s blood.”
“He had such brilliance, it startled even me, but fate, for all its irony, struck him with blow after cruel blow.”
“He’s the one who truly suffers.”
Thankfully, Nicolas Flamel didn’t insist on returning to his workbench. Ian wisely stayed silent at the old alchemist’s melancholic assessment of Dumbledore.
“Dumbledore has indeed endured more than most…”
He changed the subject, steering the conversation elsewhere with a calculated shrug.
“Ah…”
Nicolas Flamel sighed deeply, his eyes falling upon the initial sand Ian had conjured earlier, the raw component of true time sand, as well as the alchemical formulas Ian had produced.
“Still, perhaps fate has its own balance… It did grant Albus certain breakthroughs at just the right moments.”
“Maybe he really can…” Nick trailed off, halting his words as though he feared sharing too much too soon.
He understood now.
This boy, this Ian, was dangerous in the most unpredictable ways. If he exposed him to reckless ideas now, the lad might grow up with even wilder ambitions. And given his natural gifts, his seemingly endless luck, and the strange power he carried…
There might come a day when no one could stop him.
Especially not after what Nick sensed from that enchanted mark on Ian’s arm. No wonder Grindelwald had lingered at the school.
“Leave everything with me, I’ll fix your clock, translate these runes, and examine the contract glyphs. You’ve dumped quite the pile on me, haven’t you?”
“But who am I to complain, a humble servant caught up in the legacies of you rising stars?” Nicolas Flamel let out a breath somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh. Having reminisced about his past with Albus Dumbledore, he sank into his chair, cloaked in a quiet melancholy.
“Thank you for your help, Professor!”
Seeing that Nicholas Flamel wished to be alone for a while, Ian gave a small, respectful bow to express his gratitude, then turned and headed for the door.
“There’s no need for thanks; after all, I’m quite fascinated by these artefacts myself. And… the reward you’ve offered is already more generous than most of the legendary gifts ever recorded,” Flamel replied with a casual wave of the hand, already immersed in studying the strange items Ian had left behind.
And once the young wizard had gone,
As the door shut quietly behind him,
Flamel lifted his gaze, staring at the door through which Ian had just exited.
“I do wonder what other strange relics he might unearth…”
At that moment, Nicholas Flamel seemed like an entirely different person. The earlier sighs and air of melancholy had vanished without a trace.
Now, his voice carried a distinct undertone of eagerness, clearly, age had only sharpened his theatrical flair. Perhaps all that hurried tool-forging hadn’t been the impulsive whim it appeared to be. Perhaps only he knew their true intended purpose. People like him, those who adored curiosity and discovery, seldom dove into things directly. They preferred to sit back and enjoy the unfolding spectacle.
“He couldn’t have actually found Merlin’s tomb… could he?”
Retracting his gaze, he turned his attention to the large heap of black sand spread across the desk. This time, the awe in his voice was genuine.
With great care, Flamel gathered the black sand into a crystal-stoppered bottle. But he did not immediately begin to analyse it. Instead, he reached for a piece of thick parchment and began to sketch a few rapid strokes.
Urgent! Come now, immediately!!!
He wrote only that single sentence, but punctuated it with so many exclamation marks it looked more like a warding spell than a message. Once done, he sealed the parchment with a flick of his wand and passed it to the house-elf that had just Apparated into the office with perfect timing.
“Prolo! Take this straight to the mistress. If she’s still angry, just tie her up and bring her here, tell her I’ve discovered a secret not even Albus has uncovered!”
Nicholas Flamel spoke gleefully, clearly treating the matter with more delight than concern.
“Yes, Master,” the house-elf said with a deep bow. “Prolo shall obey faithfully. But Prolo cannot bind the mistress, Prolo may only suggest appropriate punishments for you, which always works quite well. Mistress will certainly come to Hogwarts in a hurry.”
It must be said, this house-elf might not yet match Dobby of the Malfoy family in eccentric flair,
But there was definitely a mischievous streak in him. Having delivered his cheeky comment, he vanished again before Flamel could respond.
“Ah!”
Nicholas Flamel slowly lowered his raised hand.
Yet the flicker of frustration faded quickly. With a few deep breaths, he steadied himself and turned his full attention back to the scattered magical texts covering the desk.
“Tsk, tsk… imagine that, me, actually working.” Though he grumbled, his voice held a trace of amusement. His eyes, however, were sharp with uncharacteristic focus.
This was genuine drive.
Not merely from his lifelong love for alchemy,
But because he had glimpsed a possibility.
A thousand years from now.
He and Perenelle… perhaps they would still have a chance to witness this world again.
(End of this chapter)
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