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Harry Potter Squib Tales Chapter 41
🕑 Added 2024-06-20 17:00:04 +0000 UTCChapter 41: A Promise for the Future
“I’m full,” I groaned, leaning back in my chair. I probably shouldn’t have had all that cheese, or that third serving of desert. But it was too good!
“I’ve never eaten snails before,” Sam admitted. “And I never thought they’d taste this good. You’re a master of cooking, Mrs. Flamel!”
“Agreed, you put five-star restaurants to shame!” Delilah praised, wiping her mouth with a napkin.
“Why, thank you, dearies. You both certainly know how to flatter an old woman,” Perenelle chuckled.
“Everything was delicious,” I praised, Harry bobbing his head in agreement. The meal had been amazing. There’d been an amazing cheese platter to start with, followed by ratatouille made with vegetables from Perenelle’s own garden, and some escargot, also hand raised by the woman. For the main course there’d been a whole cooked sea bass on a bed of asparagus, and filet mignon that practically melted in the mouth. Complimented with thirty-year old champagne from the actual region of Champagne, along with a pudding made from dragon eggs and unicorn milk.
The Flamels had cooked everything from scratch, showing off the talents they’d gained after centuries of practice. And they’d certainly impressed us. It was definitely a great way to end our trip.
“Anyone care for a nightcap? Or perhaps something to calm your stomachs?” Perenelle offered.
“Sounds lovely,” I said, accepting the cup of tea she handed out.
The rest of the group also accepted. We were British, after all. How could we possibly refuse free tea?
“So, I’ve been meaning to ask, but are there other immortals?” I asked curiously as we relaxed with some nice herbal tea, the post dinner bliss fading a bit.
“A few. Every so often, somebody stumbles into a method to extend their life,” Nicholas admitted. “Though most do not last more than a century or two beyond their natural lifespan.”
“What? Why not?” Sam asked, perplexed.
“The human mind is not meant to withstand centuries worth of information,” Perenelle replied, sipping at her drink. “Unless you have a way to deal with memories, such as advanced Occlumency skills, then the mind breaks down. Or you end up distracted at a critical moment when your brain reminds you of something from decades ago.”
“Poor, dumb Lawrence,” Nicholas sighed. “He lived to the age of four-hundred and ninety-six, but died in a potion accident when the smell of the flowers he was chopping up reminded him of his wedding centuries prior. He didn’t add the ingredients in time, and the potion exploded, melting him alive.”
“Ew,” Harry winced.
“You’d think more witches and wizards would learn Occlumency, in that case,” Delilah said. I nodded. Even if you weren’t aiming to be immortal, having near-perfect memory recall was far too valuable a skill to simply ignore.
“Yes, one would assume,” Perenelle said with a shake of her head, despairing at the idiocy of the magical world.
“I still think they should teach it in schools. Or at least have it as an elective!” Nicholas grumbled.
“I’m definitely going to suggest it to my friends,” Harry claimed, and the elderly couple nodded in agreement, pleased by his idea.
“Hmph! Good! Anyways, back to your question… I think there are twenty-nine people who’ve managed to extend their life beyond what is normal,” Nicholas said, scratching his chin. “Not counting Pear and myself.”
“Actually, it’s only twenty-three, now,” Perenelle said softly.
“Oh, that’s right. Fucking Grindelwald, Nazis, and Communist bastards,” Nicholas growled. I swallowed nervously. How furious must the alchemist be if he was able to display that much emotion despite the deadening of his senses due to his own immortality?
“Does that mean there are goblin or Veela immortals?” Delilah inquired, deciding to steer things onto safer ground.
“Certainly,” Nicholas nodded, calming down a bit. “One of the best goblin artificers found a way to extend his life. And there’s a centaur who’s been around since the days of ancient Greece.”
“So, there’s no Illuminati-style secret society of immortals ruling the world from the shadows?” Sam asked, relief evident in his voice.
“HAH!” Nicholas laughed dismissively. “You can barely get regular people to work together for a common goal without there being some in-fighting. You think people who can live for centuries and remember grudges just as long would be able to work together for more than a few weeks? Even magic has its limits!”
“A few have tried,” Perenelle tittered in amusement. “But they all fail. The longest one such alliance of immortals lasted was thirteen years. The shortest was two hours. Which, incidentally, was the Illuminati. Or a group who’d taken that name for themselves, at any rate.”
“That’s good to know,” I muttered. One less thing to worry about, I supposed.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, we’ll work together at times, and even be cordial with each other, but immortals are just people who’ve lived a long time, at the end of the day. And some people rub others the wrong way. It is inevitable,” Nicholas stated.
“Not gonna tell us who they are?” Sam inquired.
“Etiquette among immortals is not to reveal the identities of other immortals to anyone,” Perenelle replied simply, and that was the end of that.
We talked about other topics, happy to discuss a few more things before they left. There was a lot we still wanted to know, and we planned on getting our money’s worth.
But after a bit, I noticed that Nicholas was observing me, a contemplative look on his face.
“Edward, might I speak with you for a bit? In private?” Nicholas Flamel asked in a low voice, and I nodded slowly after glancing at the others. They were distracted by Perenelle telling them a story about the time she and Nicholas had fought the Nazis with the French Resistance during World War Two. It sounded really interesting, but the elderly alchemist seemed to have something important to talk about.
Seeing me agree, he stood up from his seat, grunting a bit from the exertion, and I wondered how much longer he had to live without the Elixir to sustain him.
Quietly, we left the house, stepping outside the small hut that had weather the past few centuries remarkably well.
“Ah, so beautiful,” he murmured, staring up at the stars. “Did you know I once tried to find a way to get up there, to space? Didn’t work. Wrecked a lot of brooms and flying carpets trying. And when I heard about the Space Race, it took all of Perenelle’s efforts to convince me not to run off to NASA to join as an astronaut.”
“I bet it would be amazing,” I agreed, and I silently decided that would be one of my goals for the future as well. A trip to space seemed like the perfect way to prove I’d made it big.
For a few more minutes we continued to admire the night sky, chatting absently about astronomy, astrology, and how the moon affect magic.
But eventually, I grew antsy, waiting for the shoe to drop and the much older man to tell me why we were out here.
“Why did you want to talk to me?” I asked curiously, even as I stared up at the stars with the legendary alchemist by my side.
“What do you want to be in the future?” he asked me out of the blue.
“Obscenely rich, hopefully,” I joked, but he shook his head.
“Not what I meant,” Nicholas sighed. “Do you have any ambitions of leadership?”
“I don’t think I’m the right person to try and tell people what to do,” I admitted after a moment to think it over. “Well, I mean, not as a politician or whatever. I’m happy just running a business, making money, and not being an evil corporate scumbag… nothing too outrageous.”
“And what about fighting evil? Wouldn’t you desire to help people?” he asked. At that, I snorted.
“I’m not some superhero from the American comics,” I scoffed. “I’ll fight for what’s right, and I’ll do what is right, but I won’t go out of my way to find criminals to beat up. Besides, ‘evil’ can’t be solved that way. Not even if I tried to use magic on it. It’s part of human nature.”
“There will always be evil,” Nicholas Flamel agreed. “But you should not despair. For where there is evil, so too will there be good that arises to counter it. From the dark, comes the light.”
“Evil is eternal, but so is good,” I muttered thoughtfully.
“Indeed,” the alchemist confirmed. “Good and evil both spring from the actions of people. And as such, it is up to people themselves to decide what is wrong, what is right, and what to do about it.”
For a few minutes we just stood there, quietly contemplating the intricacies of life and morality. Then, a look crossed his face, and out of the corner of my eye, I could tell he’d made up his mind about something.
The famous man reached into a pocket that stretched and was deeper than it probably should have been, and took out an old and worn journal. It was bound in plain brown leather, with no markings on it, and I could feel the weight of history just by looking at the pages of yellowed parchment.
“I want you to have this,” Nicholas said.
“What is this?” I asked, taking the tome from him.
“This contains everything I know,” Nicholas revealed, and I stared at him, then down at the plain looking book.
“Everything?” I whispered.
“Everything. Every recipe, every theory, every interesting fact, even every secret I’ve accumulated over the years. All contained within,” Nicholas confirmed. “Perhaps most importantly, however, is… well, open it up to the last page, if you would.”
I did as he instructed, and flipped to the end of the book. I found some diagrams that confused me, but after a moment of study I realized it was a ritual. And a massive one at that!
“Seven magical rituals, tied together to form a singular ‘super’ ritual,” I uttered in disbelief. “And this is… elements of Transmutation… numerous Enchantments… and is that Divination I see?”
“You are correct. Those three disciplines are integral to the ritual I have spent the last two hundred years designing,” he revealed.
“This is… is this genetic code?” I asked, peering closer at part of the ritual. It was! I recognized the symbols from my biology classes, both in this life and the last!
“Good eye. Most would assume it is some kind of coded Arthimancy,” Nicholas praised.
“Genetic code on… no, that’s impossible!” I gasped in shock, looking up at the legendary alchemist. “You figured out what part of the human genome creates Squibs?!”
Because that was what it looked like! His notes were in Latin, but I knew enough of it and genetic biology to understand what he was talking about. Despite being the last page of the notebook, more kept appearing as I read on, and I realized that this journal had been enchanted with the Many Pages spell.
“I did. Only very recently, though. And I relied heavily on Muggle sciences for it. But through a combination of disciplines, magical and mundane, I found what it is that causes a person to be born a Squib.” He looked down at the page I was reading with a conflicted expression. “Just a few strands of molecules, too tiny to be seen, in the right – or wrong – place, and it results in people like you and I straddling a line. Never fully in one world or the other.”
I continued to read, flipping through the pages carefully. “You found out what makes a person a Squib… and you extrapolated from there to discover the genetic code for witches and wizards,” I said slowly, feeling numb.
“Yes. Look here, how the DNA sequence… well, you can see for yourself,” he chuckled. “A single misplaced strand of protein… truly remarkable!”
“Do you think… is it possible to use magic to alter the DNA?” I asked, feeling something akin to hope sputter to life within me.
“That is what the ritual you saw earlier is for,” Nicholas replied. “Sadly, it doesn’t work as you might think. While it does alter a Squib’s DNA to match that of a magical person’s, the issue is that unless the Squib is an infant when they undergo the ritual, they will still not be capable of magic via a wand. There is a spiritual component to magic, one that cannot be simply gained in the middle of one’s life. I do not know what the age cut-off is, exactly, but you and I are too old to benefit from the ritual, save perhaps for a minor increase in radiant magic that would make it easier to brew potions or sustain a House Elf.”
“Oh. I see,” I muttered, feeling my fledgling hope get crushed. It hurt. Even after so many years of accepting my status, it still hurt to lose that chance at magic I was denied at birth. He sent me a sympathetic look. Still, the fact he had found any of this at all was astounding!
“Wait, there’s something else here,” I muttered to myself as I glanced back down at his journal. This time I found the actual end of the notes. And I stared at what had been written down.
“Impossible…” I murmured, eyes locked onto the page.
“Nothing is impossible. Merely improbable,” Nicholas chided, though it was done fondly and with a hint of amusement. I merely looked up at him in disbelief.
“This changes… it could change everything!” I hissed out. “This says here that if a completely normal person were to undergo the Squib-to-Magical Ritual, they would become a Squib themselves!”
“The ritual would add the necessary genetic markers for being a wizard to a Muggle, but they wouldn’t be active,” Nicholas explained. “Genetically, they would be a witch or wizard, but would lack the spiritual component to perform active spells with a wand. Effectively, they would be Squibs, able to only harness or benefit from magic passively in the manner of potions, runes, and so on.”
“And this other ritual here… it would… God and Merlin, it would mean… it would mean everyone in the world could have magic!”
“Yes. Exactly,” Nicholas said, turning solemn. “Magic is dying, Edward. Bit by bit, the magic fades. And it is not because of some scarcity of magic as if it were akin to the Muggle’s fossil fuels, but due to our own isolation. We are too limited in number to expand. All we can do is huddle together as we diminish.”
“I am aware,” I said, but he shook his head sharply.
“No. Not truly. In a century, there will half as many magicals as there are now. Assuming nothing like another war occurs,” Nicholas declared. “Worse, the Statute of Secrecy won’t last that long. Twenty years at least before the Muggles’ technology is advanced enough to pierce the veil, so to speak.”
He looked at the moon. “Will magic still survive without witches and wizards? Perhaps. The goblins and Veela and other, long sidelined creatures will continue to exist, but even they will dwindle as mankind pushes them further and further away. Eventually, there will be nothing left. Merely stories.”
“I know,” I replied softly, and he turned to look at me. And this time, he stared into my eyes for a long while before nodding.
“How odd… it seems you really do,” he muttered, before shaking his head. “You see why I created that ritual, then.”
“I do,” I whispered, and looked down at what was likely Nicholas Flamel’s Magnum Opus.
Because alongside his Squib-to-Magical Ritual was a second ritual. And not just any ritual, but one so great and powerful, it was on the same scale as the Memory Modification Ritual that had been created to hide the magical world during the Statute of Secrecy’s implementation.
A truly global ritual that would impose Flamel’s Squib-to-Wizard Ritual onto every living human being in the world.
In an instant, every single mundane human would become magical. They would become aware of magic, but lack the ability to use it. Yet their children! Their children would be able to wield magic! And their children’s children!
Magic was a dominant trait. If a wizard married a witch, they would have a magical child. And yes, Squibs counted as magical. Even if just barely. Squibs who married magicals would produce magical children, and while I didn’t know the exact odds, from my own research there was generally a one in ten chance of a Squib and Muggle producing a magical child. And if a wizard married a Muggle woman, their children would be magical as well, nine times out of ten. Same as if it were a witch and Muggle man.
Within a single generation after the ritual, everyone would be fully magical to some degree, and there would be no hiding it, as accidental magic would occur without warning among the young. The Statute of Secrecy would break apart under the strain. It already struggled to contain its own population. How the hell could it handle six-going-on-seven billion people?!
It wouldn’t, that’s what. Magic would be out in the open again, and with the ritual Flamel had devised, there was no longer any danger of people being born without magic.
And thus, magic would never die out. Humanity would be able to tame nature, and banish pollution. They’d cheat Death itself and solve the food, energy, and housing crises. Global warming? Bah! Space travel, here we come! Magic would save humanity, and the Earth itself!
Or maybe humanity would be unable to handle such power, and utterly destroy everything, leaving a charred, cursed husk of a planet in their wake. But I was willing to take the chance. If not for myself, then for every future child of the world.
I closed the journal reverently, and looked at Nicholas Flamel with respect.
“I will do it,” I told him. He nodded, not needing me to explain what ‘it’ was.
“It won’t be easy,” he replied. “It’ll take at least a decade to set up everything.”
“It will be worth it,” I vowed.
“So be it. Pear and I have made our mark on this world. We could have done more. Perhaps we should have. But hopefully, this ritual will be able to help you change the world in a way we never imagined,” Nicholas declared. He then handed me a ring. It was made of pure gold, and set with a small red gemstone.
“Keep the journal, and use it for good. And take this ring as well. It is capable of creating a single dose of Elixir of Life. If you are ever dying or near death, it will activate and heal you completely.”
“Thank you,” I uttered gratefully, accepting both items.
“I am glad to have met you, Edward Rose. You’re an interesting man. It almost makes me want to stick around for a few more years just to see what will happen,” Nicholas chortled. “Now, we best go back inside before the wonder about where we are.”
I nodded silently, clutching the book and ring to my chest.
As we walked back into the hut, I vowed to make the Flamels’ dream a reality.
‘Let there be light? HA! More like let there be magic!’ I thought to myself, trying not to cackle. It was hard.
Comments
Catherine Colin
Holy fuck that is a game changer, he will have to approuch like the un so massive riots don’t happen and figure out some basic wands to make and some wandless exercises so people can do magic without wands
Alatoic
Quite a game changer that ritual can be. in the long run will be intersting but he will need to prepare some groups firsts so when /if the change happen will not destroy it in fear. Also the ritual can help him to get more magical strength for rituals, runes, make high end potions and maybe keep the house elf? (his brother I am sure is a creep). by the way, once Harry learn that Flinch is a squib could he be able to help him?
