[Third Person POV]
None were more pleased for the holidays to be over than the Ghosts of Hogwarts, for the end of winter break meant that their favorite student had finally returned. The grand castle once again hummed with life as the second term began. Portraits gossiped, enchanted suits of armor clanked about, and the hallways were filled with the chatter of students comparing their holiday adventures.
Arthur and his friends slipped easily back into routine. Lessons resumed, essays piled high, and professors wasted no time reminding everyone how much work awaited them. In the library that afternoon, a quiet buzz of quills scratching against parchment filled the air. Students from different houses huddled around tables, trading stories about family trips and snowy escapades.
At one corner table, Arthur, Merlin, Lance, Gwenth, Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat together surrounded by stacks of books and rolls of parchment. Lance and Gwenth were trying—with varying levels of success—to focus on their homework, while Arthur's attention was elsewhere entirely. His eyes remained fixed on the ancient tome he had brought back from the Pendragon Vault, the heavy volume spread open in front of him like a secret waiting to be unraveled.
Ron, however, had reached his breaking point. With a dramatic groan, he shoved a book away and slumped forward. "I'm so tired of having my nose buried in dusty pages, looking for a bloke who might not even exist."
"Of course he exists," Hermione said sharply, though her quill never stopped moving. "Hagrid wouldn't have mentioned him otherwise."
Ron scowled, his voice rising in frustration. "We've searched everywhere! There's no mention of Nicholas Flamel in any of these books. I'm telling you, he's a ghost—a myth. He doesn't exist!"
"Of course Nicholas Flamel is real," Arthur said absently, his tone casual as he continued writing notes beside the tome. "What an odd thing to say."
The trio froze. Hermione's quill stopped mid-stroke. Harry blinked. Ron slowly lifted his head from the table, staring at Arthur as if he had just announced he was best friends with Merlin himself.
"Um… Arthur," Hermione began cautiously, "do you seriously know who Nicholas Flamel is?"
Arthur didn't even look up. "I'd be more concerned if I didn't," he replied evenly, flipping a page. "I did spend my entire holiday break with him after all."
The words dropped like a thunderclap in the quiet library. Merlin, seated nearby with her own book half-raised, pressed it to her face to hide a widening smile.
Hermione's jaw went slack. Harry blinked in disbelief. Ron, meanwhile, looked moments away from exploding.
"You're joking," he said, voice trembling between disbelief and outrage. "You're pulling our leg, right?"
"He's not," Lance chimed in, flexing his cramped fingers before returning to his parchment. "I met him too. He came to pick Arthur and Mer-lynn up at King's Cross before break. Gwyneth met him as well."
"Oh yeah!" Gwyneth piped up cheerfully. "That grandpa-looking guy with the fancy hat and the twinkly eyes. He seemed really nice." She swung her feet idly beneath the table.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchanged helpless looks before burying their faces in their hands.
"So," Ron said slowly, his voice trembling with fury, "after we spent weeks—weeks!—digging through every book in existence trying to find out who Nicholas Flamel is… all we had to do was ask you?"
Arthur finally looked up, blinking as though just realizing they were talking to him. "Oh… were you looking for him? I could've told you ages ago."
Ron let out a strangled noise that might have been a groan or a scream. Hermione simply slumped back in her chair, muttering something about irony, while Harry looked at Arthur as if questioning the laws of the universe.
Arthur, however, only turned back to his tome, quill in hand.
Harry looked bewildered as he asked, "How do you even know him?" His voice carried a mix of confusion and fatigue. After all the late nights, the endless pages turned, and the hours of fruitless searching, the realization that Arthur had casually known Nicholas Flamel all along made him feel both ashamed and utterly drained. All their hard work had been for nothing — a wild goose chase when the answer had been sitting right beside them the entire time.
"Arthur introduced him as his Alchemy instructor," Lance replied with a shrug, glancing at Arthur for confirmation.
Arthur nodded, flipping to the next page of his tome without much thought. "He's more than just my Alchemy instructor," he said in an offhand tone. "He's Mer-lynn's and my adoptive guardian. Kind of like our grandfather, really."
Ron slowly let his forehead fall against the table with a soft thunk. Then again. And again. "Of. course. he. is," he muttered between each impact, voice muffled by the wood.
Hermione blinked, her brain momentarily stuck between disbelief and curiosity. "You… you study Alchemy?" she asked, as though the word itself carried a kind of sacred weight. Her eyes flicked between Arthur and the tome in front of him. "Alchemy…" she repeated under her breath, the gears already turning in her head. Without another word, she spun on her heel and darted toward the nearest bookshelf.
"Here we go again," Ron groaned, rubbing his temple as Hermione scanned through the shelves, muttering things like "Nicholas Flamel… Notable Alchemist…"
Then suddenly — "Aha!" she exclaimed triumphantly, clutching a large, weathered volume to her chest as she marched back to the table. She slammed it down, flipping through the pages until she found what she was looking for.
"There," she said dramatically, pointing to a passage as though unveiling a great secret. "Nicholas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone!"
She waited, expecting gasps, stunned faces, something. Instead, she was met with a collection of blank, unimpressed stares.
"Yeah, I know," Arthur said flatly, not even glancing up. "I live with the guy, remember?"
Hermione's jaw fell open slightly, her triumphant expression dissolving into one of exasperation.
"The what?" Harry, Ron, and even Gwyneth asked simultaneously, leaning forward.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh, honestly! Don't you people read?" she scolded, shoving the open book toward them. "Here — just read this!"
The text: The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with the making of the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone can transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which grants immortality to the drinker. There have been many reports of the Philosopher's Stone throughout the centuries, but the only known Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicholas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, lives quietly in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).
When she finished, Hermione looked up expectantly, clearly waiting for someone — anyone — to share in her revelation.
"See?" she said, tapping the page for emphasis. "The dog must be guarding Flamel's Philosopher's Stone! I bet he asked Dumbledore to keep it safe because someone's after it. That's why it was moved out of Gringotts!"
The Golden Trio stared at each other, the theory settling in like a revelation.
Meanwhile, Gwyneth blinked and turned toward Arthur. "Wait… so your adopted grandfather is six hundred and sixty-five years old?" she asked, sounding more amazed than anything. "Wow."
"That's what you're focusing on?" Lance said incredulously. "Not the fact that he has a stone that can literally make gold and grant immortality?"
Gwyneth shrugged. "My family's already well off, and immortality sounds… long and boring."
There was a brief pause before Lance snorted, and even Arthur let out a faint chuckle.
Across the table, however, Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchanged looks that wavered somewhere between awe and disbelief. Their lips twitched faintly as if unsure whether to laugh, cry, or scream at the sheer absurdity of it all.
Arthur, for his part, simply turned another page, his expression serene. Although inwardly he was cackling with delight at their expressions.
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