"Clever little fellow. It was indeed your visit that got the old gray matter moving. I will freely admit to joining the masses in the belief refining the body was a pointless endeavor for a wizard. Your visit couldn't help but make me ponder if that was genuinely true however. I immediately dived into experimenting and discovered wonderous results. As it turns out an active and strong but not over taxed body maintains it's lifeforce better than one left unexercised. The difference was small but over a longer period of time if the data holds true it would go quite far indeed in prolonging the average wizards life." he said with a pleased smile.-
"And if you were to exceed the normal level of fitness without any side effects?" I asked interested.
His brows narrowed as he thought about it for a moment "In theory I'd imagine it depended on how far exceeding the normal limit one went. At some point the returns would be diminished making further strengthening pointless but as for what that limit is, I can't say. I image if you went far enough along that route a wizard may even be able to reach my age without any real difficulty. Of course this doesn't apply to nonmagical folk as they lack our magic that is tied tightly to the state of our bodies." he said seriously.
"I see, thank you for the explanation." I said sincerely.
"Think nothing of it. Perhaps this is presumptuous of me but might I ask why your body is so much more vigorous than it should be?" he asked.
That made me pause slightly "How did you notice?" I asked curiously.
He chuckled "I have been an alchemist for over six hundred years now child. You pick up a few tricks after so long. In this case I need but a glance to ascertain an ingredients condition. Even if that refers to a person in this case." he said with a light shrug.
"Makes sense. Theres no reason to hide it. It's an openly known thing at Hogwarts but I have an extremely large appetite. What is not very well known however is that my body is much stronger than it should be. About twice as strong as the average adult in fact and growing stronger still." I said leaving both flammel and Madame Maxime stunned.
"Do you mind if I examine you? Nothing invasive but it is a slightly uncomfortable experience i'm told." he asked with that familiar twinkle in his eye.
"By all means, I'm curious to hear your take on it." I said without hesitation.
He nodded and with a slight wave of his hand my torso was uncovered as my robes were transfigured into a belt at my waist. Madame Maxime gasped as she obviously noticed the scarring around my arms that weren't fully covered by bandages. Flammel on the other hand seemed more intrigued by the clearly defined but not bulging muscles beneath my skin.-
"Fascinating." he whispered as he pressed on various muscle groups and moved my arms to observed my movement of the connecting muscles.
"So?" I asked after he turned my robe back to normal.
"I've never seen anything quite like it in a wizard before. It's not hypertrophy but somehow your body is working sort of like a muggle engine. It's using the food you consume as a sort of fuel to remodel itself. Denser, more perfect alignment. It's like your body itself is actively evolving towards a more perfect state. I'd wager that not only could you consume the elixir you bought without side effects but that it would cause a quantitative shift in your body." he said with an awed look.
I nodded not particularly surprised by this. How the one piece physique worked was fairly easy to guess. The evolution was a new bit of information but the fact it used food as fuel for this process was obvious.
"You don't see surprised by this." he pointed out.
"I'm not. Honestly you merely need to look at what's different between me and someone else to figure out roughly how it works. The only thing that was news to me was being told my body was evolving." I answered honestly.
After I said that I reached into my pocket and took out the elixir from before. Without hesitation I popped the stopper and downed it even as he went to stop me.
"Oh that's certainly troublesome." he said with a concerned expression.
Before I could ask what he meant I felt a burning pain erupt from my stomach. It felt like an inferno had appeared suddenly within my chest cavity. Even worse was it began to spread outwards and up and down my limbs. -
That heat I was feeling wasn't just mental however as sweat began to pour from me as my body literally heated up extremely high. Madame Maxime reached for me in concern as I panted in place but Flammel stopped her.
"Any outside influence right now could prove catastrophic." he warned grimly.
"I may have been a tad impulsive." I joked through the pain not even noticing I'd switched back to my native english.
"I would say more than just a tad. That elixir already causes unnatural growth in the drinker. With your unique physique the results might be truly extraordinary. The process would just prove rather violent however." he said seriously.