Akashic Records
patreon
Harry Potter Squib Tales Chapter 39
🕑 Added 2024-05-30 17:01:01 +0000 UTCChapter 39: Mind over Matter
I stared at the Flamel’s nervously, while at my side Harry fidgeted in his seat. Sam and Delilah shot me concerned looks but I was unable to pay them much attention at the moment.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said slowly, keeping my attention squarely on the elderly couple.
“Peace,” Perenelle said as she shot her husband a disappointed look. He shrank under the chastisement, looking embarrassed and apologetic.
“My dear Nicky did not phrase that properly,” she continued. “We are not masters of Occlumency ourselves, but we do know it, and how to recognize when it is being used by others. Specifically, when it is being used… improperly, shall we say.”
“I did learn Occlumency, and I did teach it to the others,” I admitted after a moment.
“I see,” Perenelle muttered, and both she and her husband looked at Harry and I closely.
“The two of you… have killed, haven’t you?” Nicholas Flamel inquired softly, and Harry and I both tensed up.
Sam and Delilah knew what I’d done in the past to save the latter from kidnappers, and we knew about Harry having to destroy the possessed body of Quirrel, but how could the Flamels possibly know of either?!
“Mm. As I expected, you are using Occlumency to deal with it. Pushing the guilt and other emotional responses down, perhaps unconsciously,” the legendary alchemist mused. He then shook his head.
“Occlumency is a useful tool, but the both of you have been abusing it,” he scolded us. “The other two here should also stop using it as well until they’ve learned the proper method.”
“What?” the exclamation had slipped out of me without meaning it to, and the ancient man tutted softly.
“Occlumency is not meant to be maintained for days at a time. Especially not when you are so young,” Flamel explained. “Furthermore, suppressing your emotions to this extent is not healthy! They are natural, and vital to maintaining a stable mentality.”
“Is it really that bad?” Harry asked weakly, and the legendary alchemist tutted.
“Overuse of Occlumency can result in dangerous mental conditions developing, such as sociopathy and psychopathy. Thankfully, you two are still salvageable, though you, Mr. Rose, are very near the tipping point,” Nicholas Flamel revealed, and I gulped nervously. “While you are here in France, all four of you are forbidden from using Occlumency! And even when you leave, I request that you do not use Occlumency for more than an hour every day going forward! And only use it to remember things, not to suppress your emotions!”
“What about protecting ourselves from Legilimancy?” I asked hesitantly, and he shot me a sharp look.
“Why do you-? Ah. I see. You have concerns towards the conduct of my old student, Albus.”
“Yes. I am worried about Dumbledore reading my mind,” I admitted, and got a weary sigh and shake of his head at that.
“Then you are going about it all wrong. To use Occlumency to protect your mind against mental intrusions requires a vastly different set of skills to the ones you are current using to suppress emotions and sort your memories. I will teach you these, but only the theory. As I said, you will not use Occlumency at all while staying in France.”
“I- okay, I understand,” I said, accepting Nicholas Flamel’s request, though not liking it. And I was a bit annoyed to hear I’d been doing Occlumency wrong this whole time!
‘Though it does explain some things, looking back on them,’ I mused to myself. How quickly I jumped to extreme actions when it came to dealing with others, like the Vice-Principal of Woolingsby, the lack of care over the deaths of the kidnappers in the parking complex, the single-minded drive to get my potions business up and running… it was all starting to make sense in hindsight.
I’d been suppressing my emotions even without Occlumency for years due to my family’s treatment of me, and using my version of Occlumency only made it worse. I’d been bottling everything up, letting it fester instead of dealing with it properly. That had then bled into all my other actions, and I could see where I’d been far too confrontational or cold-hearted at times, when I could have diffused the situations differently.
If I’d been thinking straight, I would never have acted so quickly against the old vice-principal of Woolingsby. I should have let him hoist himself with his own petard, letting him do stupid stuff while building a proper case against him. Same with my upfront, in-your-face confrontation of the Dursleys. They could have called the cops on me, and been in the right!
And I could have handled Delilah’s kidnapping so much smoother. I should have just had Inky pop her away to safety, and that would have been that! But being shot by a man right as he was stealing away an innocent and unwilling woman had filled me with anger and a desire for revenge, and had led to me destroying a parking structure in a shootout with criminals!
I shuddered, terrified at the realizations I was only now coming to, and glad that I’d narrowly avoided becoming a monster by having the issue pointed out before I went too far off the deep end. Losing my emotions and ability to connect with people and turning into a sociopath or psychopath was a chilling nightmare.
Without any further hesitation, I dropped my Occlumency barriers, and immediately felt the differences I’d ignored or never truly noticed. Everything felt clearer. Sharper. The things I’d kept bottled up surged through me and I let out a gasp of pain as it all flooded through me.
Hate, anger, shame, self-loathing, misery, and depression from my early days with the Hunches assaulted me all in one single, overwhelming wave, and though I tried hard not to, I began to cry.
Besides me, Harry curled up, sobs escaping him as he also let go of his Occlumency defenses. His experience had to be just as bad as my own, and I wrapped him up in a hug, even as I desperately wanted one of my own.
Sam and Delilah had less extreme reactions, having had much less time practicing the mind arts compared to myself and Harry, but they still winced and hissed a bit as they released their own Occlumency barriers.
“The tea will help,” Perenelle said softly, serving us some more of the hot drink.
It must have had some Calming Potion laced with it because it did indeed help calm our unsettled emotions, and soon our sniffles and sobs came to an end.
“That was… I had no idea I was suppressing so many things,” Sam muttered to himself in a bit of a daze.
‘All four of us are real messed up, huh?’ I thought to myself with a bitter snort. Each one of us had things we were trying desperately to forget. How ironic it was that trying to ignore them was what had brought us to the brink like this.
“I know this is for the best, but I’m going to miss being able to just ignore the discomfort from the monthly monster,” Delilah grunted in a bit of displeasure once we had all calmed down.
“Why don’t you have your boyfriend brew you a Moon Potion? Or learn to do it yourself if you wish?” Perenelle suggested.
“A what-potion?” Delilah inquired.
“A Moon Potion. Or maybe they call it something different in England these days? It’s a potion that eliminates the pain a woman goes through during her time of the month and reduces the amount expelled, so to speak. It’s completely safe and can be combined with other potions and medications,” the long-lived woman replied, and Delilah shot me a glare.
“Why didn’t you tell me there was a potion to stop cramps?!” Delilah demanded, grabbing and shaking me by the collar in frustration.
“Wh-what a-are you t-talking about?” I asked, my voice coming out weird as I was rattled around.
“There’s a potion witches can take to completely remove the pains of our monthlies!” Delilah explained, letting go of my shirt.
“Oh,” I said awkwardly. “I, uh, actually didn’t know that.”
“Men!” Delilah growled, throwing her hands into the air in a huff. She then pointed a finger into my face. “When we get back, you are going to find a way to make this potion, and we’re going to sell it.”
“Okay, yeah, I can do that,” I said slowly. “Sorry, the idea that there might be a potion for that biological issue never even crossed my mind.”
“Did you really think witches would go around living their lives with that sort of pain if they couldn’t help it?” Perenelle asked with a raised eyebrow, Delilah nodding in agreement.
“There’s no safe answer to that, so I’m just going to shut up, now,” I said, and Nicholas snorted.
“Smart. It seems you’ve learned the first rule when it comes to living with a woman,” he chortled, earning a smack on the shoulder from his wife.
“Don’t worry, dear, I’ll pass along my own personal recipe for you to use,” she told me. “It uses fairly common plants, so even a Squib like ourselves can acquire the ingredients and brew it.”
“That’s good to know,” I said with a nod.
“Was there anything else you folks wanted to ask about?” Perenelle inquired.
“I do have a few more questions,” Sam admitted, and Harry nodded eagerly in agreement.
We then chatted with the couple some more, asking about the various things they’d seen and experienced through the years. Learning they’d helped the French Resistance during World War Two had been a surprise, but on thinking about it, made perfect sense. And then there was the time they’d gone to see the launch of the Apollo 11 in Florida, or when they’d walked through the halls of the Forbidden City in China as guests of one of the Ming emperors after traveling the Silk Road.
Eventually, though, the hour grew late, and Harry was starting to yawn heavily in between questions.
“Seems like it might be time for bed,” Sam muttered, voice tired.
“Agreed,” Delilah said.
“Very well. You four will return tomorrow morning so we may go over the proper method to use when performing Occlumency,” Perenelle said in a tone that brooked no dissent.
We all nodded back automatically in response. We were being given an opportunity to learn at the feet of two of the most knowledgeable people in the world. How could we say no?
“You guys go on ahead, I have a couple more questions for Mr. and Mrs. Flamel,” I said as the others got up from their seats. “Shouldn’t take too long. Just some scheduling stuff.”
“Alright. Try not to talk their ears off,” Delilah said, before hiding a yawn of her own behind her hand.
“Let me get the floo for you,” Perenelle offered, tapping a rune on the fireplace which caused the flames to turn emerald green.
They called out the name of their hotel, and were whisked off. Once they left, Perenelle returned to her husband’s side, sitting down to face me.
“Well, your friends are gone. There are no more ears that might eavesdrop or overhear,” Nicholas noted. “Now, what did you really want to talk about?”
“What sort of price did you pay?” I asked the legendary alchemist, and there was a faint twitch of his lips at that. His wife continued to smile serenely, but there was a hardness in her gaze that hadn’t been there before.
“What do you mean?” he asked, clearly playing dumb.
“Nothing in life is free. It stands to reason that extending your life beyond what is naturally possible should have come with a rather hefty price,” I replied, folding my arms across my chest.
He stared at me for a long time. Eventually, after scrutinizing me to his satisfaction, he let out a snort of amusement.
“You are one of the few people who has ever asked me that,” Nicholas Flamel revealed. Perenelle nodded in agreement. His smile then turned dark. “Let me show you what six centuries of extended life has cost me and my wife.”
He held out his left arm, and took up a knife from the table in his right. He then, without hesitation, sliced his wrist open. I flinched back, expecting a spray of blood, yet what poured from the ancient man’s arm was not a liquid, but instead a fine, crimson powder.
“After a few decades of using the Elixir of Life to extend our lives past the norm, blood turns to ash as it leaves the body. So too does sperm, meaning I am incapable of producing life,” Nicholas idly revealed, as if it was no big deal. “My beloved was incapable of having children even before we took the Elixir, but even if she’d had the means of reproduction at the time, she too would have lost the ability to have children, just as I did.”
Nicholas twirled the knife in his hand, before putting it back down. “Pain means little, as the physical sensations have dulled over time. Food began to taste less and less delicious by the third century of extended life, and by now, even the most sumptuous feasts are like sand on our tongues. Scents have faded, too, and only sight and hearing have remained as clear as they were beforehand. And while wounds do not bleed, they also do not heal themselves naturally, so you must use magic or some other method to stop them from leaking, or to repair the damage.”
He demonstrated this by waving his right hand over the wound, and his wedding ring glowed as he did so. The light from it caused the gash in his limb to seal itself in seconds, leaving behind no trace of damage.
“If you seek to use the Elixir of Life, you best make sure you love your hairdo and the way you trimmed your nails beforehand, because those will never grow again,” Perenelle added. “And you no doubt see how pale we are, same with the red eyes. Another side effect of our method of longevity.”
“We do not age, and thus, we do not change. And without Occlumency to sort and store our thoughts, our memories and mental faculties would be just as bad,” Nicholas admitted. “Worse, perhaps, is a sense of apathy that had invaded us. For the last few decades we have found it hard to care about… anything. In time, I fear we would become little more than living statues, just repeating the motions of day-to-day activity without any meaning behind them.”
“That… those are quite hefty prices to pay,” I admit, not having expected such drawbacks to the Elixir of Life.
“Perhaps the greatest cost though is loneliness,” Nicholas admitted, a tired sigh leaving him. “Had we had children, I have no doubt that their loss would have crushed us. And I do not doubt for a second that I wouldn’t have been able to endure half as long without my beloved Pear by my side.”
“A long life is meaningless if spent alone,” Perenelle said, leaning in to her husband’s shoulder when he used the pet name for her.
“Even so, we have spent long enough among the living. We’ve grown weary of seeing friends die and the world change while we do neither. That is why, when we gave Albus the stone, it was already worthless in our eyes. We had been planning on departing this world for many years beforehand. We just couldn’t decide on ‘when.’ In a way, my old student’s request was the perfect excuse to let go,” Nicholas revealed, and I gawked a bit.
“Hang on, then was the Philosopher’s Stone in the mirror real and not a fake?” I asked in disbelief.
“It was the real thing, simply inert. It had just enough magical charge to make one last dose of Elixir or approximately ten kilograms of gold, but no more. That magical energy would be enough to fool anyone into believing it could do more, but in truth we used the last of its power beforehand,” the alchemist revealed.
“That does not change the fact that we meant every word we said to young Harry,” Perenelle assured me. “To have the stone in his grasp, yet not have any desire at all to use it? Even we could not do that, and we were the ones to willingly give up on it.”
“He is a strong young man. He will do great things in the future,” Nicholas declared solemnly, though there was a twinkle of fondness in his eyes at the thought of the Boy-Who-Lived.
“I see… are you not worried somebody else might try and find a way to copy it? Make a new stone?” I asked hesitantly.
“Somebody like you?” Nicholas asked, and I chuckled, unsurprised he’d seen through me.
“Yes. I won’t deny that the desire to do so is very strong,” I admitted.
“Then you’d best start improving your skills in Alchemy,” the legendary man stated, not at all concerned by my ambition.
“I will,” I promised.
“Hmm. Tell me, young Edward. The Philosopher’s Stone is lauded as the greatest achievement in Alchemy, but do you know why?” Nicholas asked, and I frowned.
“It can create the Elixir of Life and turn ordinary metals into gold, correct?” I replied.
“Indeed. But did you know that creating the Elixir of Life as well as the transmutation of gold are both possible without the stone?” the old man asked, and I blinked in surprise.
“The Elixir of Life has many names, and in fact there are many variants, though the one I created using the stone was first invented by Asclepius, and is known as the Cure of Death, a potion that mimics the potent healing power of phoenixes, while also extending the life of the imbiber. The recipe for creating it is ancient and scant few know of it today. It also requires phoenix tears as a main ingredient,” Nicholas explained. “And gold? It can be done using the art of Transmutation. In fact, the closer the base material is on the Periodic Table of Elements, the easier it is.”
“The Philosopher’s Stone is so incredible because it is a catalyst to allow one to perform Transmutation, Enchantments, and other spells without needing to know the first thing about them,” Nicholas continued, a wide grin on his face as he explained and watched my wide-eyed expression. “The stone itself is an impressive bit of Alchemy, but it is my greatest work for a different reason than most believe.”
“You cannot Transfigure lead into gold, but you can Transmute one into the other. And there are a dozen ways to enhance your lifespan using the complex healing arts, though without an Enchantment to anchor them to oneself, they are temporary stopgaps at best. The Philosopher’s Stone on the other hand lets a person do these advanced forms of magic as easily as performing a First-Year spell, to use the parlance of the modern day,” Nicholas explained. “How? Quite simple, actually. The stone has two functions; storing spells, and storing magic. That’s it.”
“Then, that means the Philosopher’s Stone is more of a battery than anything else! Or perhaps closer to a crystalline grimoire that can store specific spell formula! Like a magical computer and printer!” I exclaimed, instantly understanding what he was talking about. “You somehow ‘inscribe’ the stone with a spell or two, perhaps through a ritual, and then channel magic into it, which is stored until needed. Then, you can cast the spells whenever you want!”
“Yes! Exactly!” Nicholas said excitedly. “The Philosopher’s Stone can create the Elixir of Life and transmute gold because those are the magical processes I embedded into the stone itself during its creation! A sample of the Elixir of Life was imbued into the stone, and it uses the massive amount of stored magical energy to Transmute raw materials into a perfect copy of said sample. I only had to brew the Elixir once, and never again! Same deal for making gold via a Transmutation spell. I imbued it into the stone alongside the sample of Elixir, and have never wanted for wealth since. The stone is merely a medium that stores both information and power, in the end. Just like a book, or for a more modern comparison, a computer program!”
“And you can simply cast the ‘spells’ stored in the stone over and over again, until it runs out of magical power!” I realized. “And since you claim you only brewed the Elixir of Life once, that means materials that are created by the Philosopher’s Stone can be copied as well, with no apparent degradation!”
“Precisely!” Nicholas laughed. “I accidentally created the first Philosopher’s Stone when I was attempting to create a method to allow Squibs like myself and Perenelle to use magic. Having a magical tool with a pre-stored spell, like a wand that can cast a limited number of magical effects or a multi-use Talisman, was always my ultimate goal. I succeeded, somewhat. I created a crystalline substance that could ‘absorb’ a small number of spells, rituals, magical substances, or magical instructions into it, as well absorb magical energy to cast said stored spells at a later date. Once the stockpile of magical power is used up, the stone will crumble to dust, so you have to make a new one every so often, and then ‘program’ and charge it all over again.”
“I see, I see, that’s ingenious!” I murmured in praise. “Does the size of the stone matter for the number of spells it can store, as well as the amount of magical energy it can hold?”
“Yes. That amount is set at the stone’s creation. A stone the size of one I gave Albus could hold a single spell of NEWT level or greater, and enough magical energy to make half a dozen doses of Elixir of Life or transmute three hundred kilograms of base matter like lead or iron into gold,” Nicholas replied, pleased by my curiosity.
“Hmm… does the stone have to be red?” I asked after a moment, going off on a bit of a tangent. “Or is the color a result of the spell imbued into it? Perhaps it is related to the Rubedo stage of Alchemy?”
“The color of the stone relates to its purity. The darker the better. A perfect one will always be red,” Nicholas stated. “I am unsure why it is, but perhaps it does have to do with the Rubedo stage itself. Though no other alchemical substances turn red out of the blue.”
“That implies I could create ‘impure’ or lesser version to hold weaker spells. And is it possible to recharge the stone? Or put a new spell into it after creation?” I wondered.
“I never figured either of those things out, but I believe it is possible. I do know that creating the stone draws magical energy from the surroundings, so unless you do so near a Leyline or other potent source of magical power, the stone will be rather weak.”
“What about other sources for power?” I asked. “I’ve been thinking about experimenting on a way to come up with a method to turn electricity into magical energy, and vice-versa. Could I potentially create a stone using non-traditional forms of energy?”
“Hmm, now that is an idea,” Nicholas mused. “I know of a way to draw power out of a volcano to keep it from erupting, and it does so by turning the build-up of pressure and heat into raw magical energy, but the ritual simply diffuses it into the air instead of collecting it.”
“That sounds amazing! I would love to see your notes on that,” I said eagerly.
I went back and forth with Nicholas Flamel all night, discussing magic like the pair of fevered inventors we were. Even Perenelle joined in as well, as she was just as brilliant as her husband, though her focus lay more in the arts of healing and herbology than the runes, arithmancy, potions and of course Alchemy her husband focused on.
I learned a ton from both of them, and regretted that we couldn’t continue on longer. But as soon as dawn began to creep in through the windows, Perenelle shuffled us off to bed to catch a little bit of rest.
As I staggered back into the hotel room, I snuggled up next to Delilah, a smile on my face. I could only hope that the next few days would be just as wonderful as this one had been.
