Chapter 113. Adrian Wesson Has Been Marked
Adrian spent the next while telling Dumbledore about running into Nicolas Flamel in Paris.
"So you used the Felix Felicis I gave you to find Nicolas Flamel?" Dumbledore said in surprise. "Luck can't simply deposit one person at the side of a complete stranger."
"I said the same at the time," Nicolas said with a smile. "There must be some kind of bond between me and this child."
Adrian still didn't know why Dumbledore had given him that dose of Felix Felicis.
But whatever the reason, it had helped tremendously.
As Adrian reached for the scones on the table, his forearm accidentally knocked into the crystal ball.
The crystal ball rolled free of its stand and began to trundle across the tabletop.
"Ah—sorry."
Adrian hurried to stop it, then set it back upon its base.
Nicolas Flamel was a very powerful and accomplished wizard.
He had achieved more than most in many fields, including but not limited to alchemy, charms, potions, and Divination.
The crystal ball before Adrian was the very tool Nicolas used for Divination.
A gifted Seer could read from a crystal ball the things that were yet to occur.
Of course, Adrian knew he lacked that gift. From a crystal ball, he could only ever make out…
Wait!
Adrian froze where he was, staring hard at the orb.
The silver mist inside the crystal suddenly heaved and roiled, condensing into the clear face of a woman.
Adrian didn't know how to describe the witch's looks. She seemed both beautiful and severe, with long black hair and black eyes that inspired an involuntary wariness.
What's more, the scene behind the woman appeared to be a forest.
Adrian felt his breath catch.
The face was inexplicably familiar, yet he could not recall where he had seen it.
By now, Dumbledore and Nicolas had also noticed what was happening.
They had realised the crystal ball was reacting, but by the time they looked, the woman's face had vanished, leaving only a churn of silvery fog.
"Are you a Seer?" Nicolas's voice brought Adrian back to himself.
"No. I've never shown any gift for Divination," Adrian said, shaking his head, a frown creasing his brow. "In fact, this is the first time I've ever seen an image so clear in a crystal ball."
Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"Most curious," he said to Nicolas. "Nicolas, does your crystal ball usually respond to non-Seers?"
"It does not," Nicolas said, his expression turning grave. He asked Adrian, "What did you see in there?"
Seeing how serious Nicolas had become, Adrian straightened in his chair.
"A woman's face. Black eyes and black hair," Adrian replied. "But I don't think I know her."
"You don't?" Nicolas looked puzzled. "If you've no prophetic talent, you shouldn't have seen any image at all."
"But I did," Adrian said.
"Then the issue lies with the person you saw in the crystal," Nicolas said with a nod, explaining, "That woman is without a doubt a master at manipulating a Divination crystal. There must be some connection between you and her, so she used the crystal to trace your location back to you."
Adrian was all the more at sea. He truly didn't know the woman in the crystal.
And—
A connection?
What connection?
He was utterly baffled.
Adrian looked back into the crystal ball, but this time nothing surfaced within.
It was as if the woman's face he had just seen had been a mere illusion.
"Then… why would that woman do such a thing?" Adrian couldn't help looking from Dumbledore to Nicolas.
However, Dumbledore and Nicolas both shook their heads.
"That's for you to find out," Dumbledore said. "No one can say."
Adrian tried to recall the scene he had just glimpsed.
There had seemed to be a forest behind the woman.
A forest…
Adrian suddenly thought of the prophecy Professor Trelawney had made for him earlier: in that prophecy, he would go to the forests of Albania.
Could there be some connection between the two?
To Adrian, Nicolas Flamel was a font of wisdom with a ready sense of humour.
And he was kind-hearted besides.
He answered all sorts of Adrian's miscellaneous questions.
Alchemy, potions, Divination, recipes…
He seemed to know nearly everything.
Before answering, though, Nicolas would often take a moment to rummage through the vastness of his memory—which was only natural, given that his mind held more than six centuries of recollections.
Although it was possible to extract some useless memories from the mind and store them elsewhere, Nicolas rarely did so.
When Adrian asked why,
"It would be a shame to put memories away," Nicolas said with a smile. "Whether sorrowful or joyful, memory is a precious thing."
"I quite agree," Dumbledore said softly.
"By the way," Adrian said suddenly, "Mr Flamel, now that you no longer have the Philosopher's Stone, what will you do? The Elixir of Life requires the Stone to brew, doesn't it?"
At this, Nicolas Flamel's silvery brows unknitted, and he smiled with relief. "Ah, Perenelle and I have discussed that question many times. Though we have long prolonged our lives with the Elixir of Life, our bodies are already terribly fragile. I can scarcely manage to walk for long now—that would leave me with serious fractures."
Adrian looked over at Nicolas. It seemed Nicolas's condition was worse than he had imagined.
Nicolas lifted his teacup and took a sip, then said slowly, "Six hundred years is already long enough. Death is but the next great adventure…"
Just when Adrian thought Nicolas was ready for that "great adventure",
Nicolas's lips quirked and he changed tack. "We've prepared a very large store of the Elixir of Life. Once we've witnessed the interesting things that are to come, then it will be time for us to set out."
So that was it, Adrian thought, nodding to himself.
He remembered that in the original sequence of events, Nicolas Flamel was supposed to have died in 1992.
It seemed that was not to be trusted.
Even so, the "interesting things" Nicolas mentioned piqued Adrian's curiosity.
"Interesting things?" he asked, intrigued. "What are they?"
Nicolas set down his cup with an easy air and said off-handedly, "The world is about to undergo a tremendous change—perhaps in twenty years, perhaps thirty."
A childlike curiosity sparkled in his eyes. "We shall all witness the beginning of that revolution."
"I know nothing of this. You've never said a word to me," Dumbledore said.
"Ah, yes." Nicolas nodded, glancing at his old friend. "I only wish you might live to see it."
Yet Dumbledore only shook his head slowly.
Twenty or thirty years, to him…
Was simply too long.
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