72 Harry Potter : Chapter 71: Aftermath IV

The summer sun shone cheerfully amidst the few stretches of white clouds while a cool breeze from the ocean ruffled the feathers of the owls and the long, grey fur of a Norwegian Forest Cat that moved too purposefully for it to be natural.

The French village wasn't any more picturesque than any random one present on English soil: it wasn't quite rural, the roads were covered by cobbled stones, and the two stories buildings were of the kind that hosted a shop on the ground floor, and the family owning it right above it, unlike Diagon Alley, Repose de Jeanne wasn't overtly magical.

Sure, the shops hosted magical businesses, and there was the odd goblin or hag moving about, but there was none of the thundering joy that characterized the main shopping hub of Magical Britain.

The colors of the buildings rolled between white and a pale light blue, the signs weren't enchanted to sing about the greatness of the wares, and of course, there wasn't a Gringotts Bank with its distinguished marble, no Ollivander's with its mysterious, ancient air.

The big cat trotted across the streets and took a coiling road that led to the outskirts of the village, where a small chalet on two stories rested in the middle of a roughly circular courtyard surrounded by a low wall of fluvial stones piled over each other.

The ground itself was covered by green, lush grass that swayed gently in the cool, oceanic breeze, and the feline jumped adroitly on top of the wall, its green eyes washing over the property with the detachment typical of the creature.

After taking a measure of the area, the cat quietly jumped off the wall and crossed the courtyard, reaching the door just as it opened, revealing the appearance of a man: he stood around one meter and 75 centimeters in height, with salt and pepper hair that fell just shy of his narrow shoulders.

His lightly tanned skin and shaved jaw acted as a background for the straight, long nose and piercing hazel eyes. With his deep expression wrinkles, he could be anywhere between 40 and an extremely youthful looking 65 years old random muggle.

His hazel eyes were fixed on the cat sitting in front of him, studying the creature with an interest it hardly deserved. There was no threatening motion on his part, no telling bulge in his button-up shirt that might reveal the presence of a wand, and no mundane weapon strapped to his waist.

Yet the witch in a cat's shape was frozen as she tried to overcome the man's presence: he looked ordinary in every sense of the word, yet... something just beyond conscious thought was stirring in alarm.

An instinct that had proved invaluable during the previous adventure of her summer was pulling Minerva by the ears, and without her conscious input, the hair on her tail flared up in warning.

Still sitting in front of the open door, with her tail puffed up, Minerva remained still for what felt like an endless second.

"Ah," the man spoke with a slightly nasal voice, sheer understanding of the situation wrapped like a heavy cloak over his narrow shoulders, "you must be Minerva."

Silently, he moved aside, inviting her into his home while his hazel eyes rose once more to scan the edge of his property.

The cat managed to cross the threshold and to take a few steps in the well-lit corridor before the door was closed behind her, and she felt for an instant like she was underwater, the wards intertwined with the house's wall passing over her and through her with a weight that she immediately disliked.

"I probably could manage a conversation with a cat, but I imagine it is hardly needed." the man's nasal voice shook Minerva out of her temporary uncertainty, and with a ripple to fast for the human eye to follow, her shape grew until the cat was once more a witch.

Standing with her back held so straight it was almost painful, the Gryffindor witch gave a brief curtsy: "Master Flamel, it is an honor."

"We will see about that." the man replied with otherworldly calm as he passed her by, and she was forced to quicken her pace to follow him in a living room where a tea set was already waiting.

"Englishmen still enjoy tea beyond any reasonable limit, do they not?"

The man sat into a straight armchair and quietly invited her to do the same.

"I accepted to talk with you to stop young Albus from pestering me through Perenelle." his eyes fixed themselves on her hands as she drank the jasmine tea that carried just a hint of honey.

"If I was the kind of person to cater to other people wills, I'd never get anything done, and I never took a student incapable to finding me on their own, nevermind one as young as you."

Minerva hadn't managed yet to introduce herself, and this man had apparently already decided to refuse to teach her.

Besides the disappointment, a burst of anger was quick to flush her cheeks.

"If this is the case," she sniffed as disdainfully as she could manage despite the wonderful tea warming her mood, "I don't see why you couldn't have said so in a letter, sparing me the time to come here."

"If you think that time is an issue, then Alchemy is not suited for you." the reply was given as uncaringly as one might comment on the weather.

"But you're quite lucky that Perenelle made me promise to at least meet you. She's terribly prone to cave to young Albus when he gets emotional you see."

Those words stopped Minerva, who simply gazed inquisitively at the impossibly older man. Had he just implied that upon seeing her he had changed his mind?

"Had I not met you personally, I would have missed the ritual scar on your left hand, and dismissed you as another of the countless talented and absolutely uninteresting, unoriginal students that spend years fruitlessly seeking me out." the man spoke without any discernible accent, with no particular tone, and yet each of his words carried an incredible weight.

The witch ut down her cup only to hold her left hand in her right, feeling incredibly exposed for a moment, before her quick wit came to her aid once more: "Are you saying that you only take students capable of finding you, and that are 'interesting'?"

"Albus of course doesn't know of the ritual you partook." Flamel mused out loud, completely ignoring her words.

"He can be terribly opinionated when it comes to the less common pieces of magic, and given the lack of scandal surrounding you, I'd say that nobody even noticed, although it can be because of the widespread ignorance that plagues most countries nowadays."

Minerva's lips thinned in distaste at being ignored, and after a few minutes of silence, just when she was about to be fed up with that man, Flamel asked: "How would you measure eternity when time doesn't touch you?"

"The only way is to submerge yourself with mankind." he answered immediately, "This is why I live with a new name and a new face every century, or so.

I got lost in my research from 1588 to 1711, and the world changed too much for my tastes, it took me the better part of the century to learn how to live in a world with a Statute of Secrecy, and another 50 years to relearn how to throw busybodies off my tail."

After another penetrating glare, the man took a deep breath, nodding to himself as he read something from Minerva's expression that confirmed an inner thought of his.

"Albus did give us some particularly entertaining years, only another managed, some times before... to be frank, I had no intention of holding the hand of another student this century, my research slowed down enough, even if I wouldn't have thought to use dragon blood as Albus did."

"Is there going to be some kind of test for you to teach me?"

"I didn't want to take another student so early." Flamel sighed, his eyes never leaving her form, "And today was for me to decide if I'd be willing to teach you." he nodded amiably.

"But to be a teacher is also to learn from the student, and I cannot waste both of our time with a mediocre girl, no matter how interesting her bloodwork likely is."

Minerva's hold on the hand that carried the mark of the ritual tightened minutely, and the centuries-old man sitting in front of her smiled crookedly: "I know Albus showed you the basics, but something that any Alchemist-hopeful worth anything cannot teach or be taught is the needed creativity and ingenuity."

The witch stared impassibly at the oldest man alive while she began reconsidering her choice of learning Alchemy from him.

Professor Dumbledore had been curiously tight-lipped about the kind of person he was, but now she started to see why: she could see Rubeus act like him if he lived that long: treating other people like useful experiments, giving some breadcrumbs of knowledge to see what unexpected direction they would take.

"You're about to complete your last year at Hogwarts, yes?" at her hesitant nod, he hummed thoughtfully before laying out the law, as it were: "First, during this year you'll take up a personal project, something original, something never done before, and present it to me the next summer."

Minerva barely held back from smirking smugly. Original projects were all that the Rùnda was about: it would be hardly impossible to figure out something. "What else?" she raised an eyebrow almost tauntingly, and Flamel was merciless in his answer.

"You will not take part in the current conflict." he steepled his fingers while he rested his weight against the back of his armchair.

"I won't spend time better devoted to my research on a girl only for her to throw away her life for some nonsensical notion of glory, justice, or whatnot."

Minerva's palms smacked lightly against the good of the small table as she rose to her feet: it wasn't that she had been planning to join the war effort, but if it came to that, she would be free to make her choices, like any adult witch in the world. "You cannot possibly

"Why?" his hazel eyes had never seemed so impossibly old, "Regimes come and go, and the ICW made a choice that was untenable in the long term, either because of people like Grindelwald or because of the muggles' ingenuity in devouring every crumb of knowledge available to them in this world of ours. My studies have the priority."

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