Professor Flitwick practically tumbled head over heels as he burst into the fireplace of the Three Broomsticks, flinging a handful of Floo Powder and launching himself into the flames. His small figure flashed through the emerald fire, the gust of wind he left behind sending Madam Rosmerta's ledger fluttering wildly.
A few minutes later, that whirlwind—half excitement, half soot—appeared in Devon, inside a countryside cottage perfectly concealed by powerful Muggle-Repelling and Confundus Charms.
"Nicolas! Nicolas! You absolutely won't believe this!"
Professor Flitwick didn't even wait for the dizziness of travel to fade. He waved his thin wand, pacing in frantic circles around the room.
By the fireplace sat an old man with a timeless, gentle face and eyes of startling clarity—Nicolas Flamel. He calmly stirred his steaming cup of tea, raised his gaze, and smiled faintly at his long-time friend, who hadn't looked this flustered in decades.
"Filius," said Flamel kindly, "what discovery could possibly make the foremost Charms professor forget his composure?"
"It's a theory! A theory about the underlying code of magical contracts!" Flitwick gasped, stopping abruptly before Flamel, chest heaving. "That boy—Alan Scott—he proposed an idea, one so brilliant it could shatter everything we thought we knew!"
Nicolas Flamel set down his teacup and motioned for Flitwick to sit and explain slowly.
When Flitwick recounted Alan's ingenious deduction—his bold reasoning that cut straight to the heart of magic itself—Flamel's expression remained calm. The shock Flitwick had anticipated never came.
The alchemist, who had lived for over six centuries, merely listened in silence.
When Flitwick finally finished, Flamel paused for a long moment… and then, a low, warm laugh rumbled from his chest, mellow and resonant.
"That child…" Flamel murmured softly, eyes glimmering with admiration. "He always sees what others cannot."
In his gaze was the unmistakable light of recognition—the spark that leaps between two kindred minds, unbound by age or experience. He lifted his teacup once more, his eyes seeming to pierce the cottage walls and gaze far toward Hogwarts.
"Filius," he said with quiet satisfaction, "you've brought me a true treasure."
A few days later, Perenelle Flamel herself arrived at Hogwarts. She gracefully declined Dumbledore's polite invitation to tea and went straight to the library, where Alan was absorbed in his research.
There, she conveyed Nicolas Flamel's formal invitation—
to assist him as a research assistant, helping organize and study a private manuscript titled:
"The Application of Ancient Alchemical Symbols in Modern Spellcraft."
For any wizard who devoted their life to knowledge, such an invitation was worth no less than an Order of Merlin, First Class.
Alan accepted immediately, without a second's hesitation. His blood seemed to burn with excitement—every cell in his body sang with anticipation of touching the unknown.
The fireplace roared to life once more.
Following Perenelle, Alan stepped into Nicolas Flamel's legendary alchemy laboratory, a place he'd only ever heard of in stories.
It was arranged like a comfortable guest room, yet the air betrayed its true nature—thick with a strange, complex scent: the sweetness of dragon's blood, the earthy tang of mandrake roots, and the sharp, ozone-like trace of metal tempered by raw magic.
Ancient instruments filled the corners—an intricate brass armillary sphere rotated slowly, mirroring the movements of the stars; in a crystal container, a cluster of silvery liquid shifted its form the moment Alan entered, as though responding to his presence.
At the obsidian desk sat Nicolas Flamel, who greeted him with a kindly smile. Then, turning solemnly, he unlocked a heavy metal chest engraved with dense protection runes.
The moment the chest opened, a surge of magic rippled through the room, so strong Alan felt his skin prickle with energy.
Flamel carefully lifted out a book—
a thick, weighty manuscript that looked as though it were carved from stone.
He placed it gently before Alan.
"Before we begin," said Flamel, smiling, "you may take some time to familiarize yourself with it."
Alan reached out reverently and accepted the manuscript with both hands.
The instant it touched his palms, his arms sank under its immense weight. The book was far heavier than stone—as if every page compressed an entire miniature world within it.
Its cover was made of dark red leather with a fine, scale-like pattern—warm to the touch. With a single stroke of his fingers, Alan recognized it immediately: the hide from the spine of an adult dragon, one of the toughest materials known to wizardkind.
He opened it. The pages were of aged yellow parchment, but far sturdier than any he'd seen—edges shimmering faintly with enchantment.
Most curious of all, when Alan's fingertips brushed the page, he felt a faint, rhythmic pulse—
the book was breathing.
A subtle, indescribable sense of life seeped from the pages, flowing through his fingertips and into his mind.
Alan nodded, suppressing his excitement.
Driven by a researcher's instinct, he withdrew his wand. Before handling something so priceless, backup copies were essential.
"Gemino!"
A soft white light streamed from his wand, striking the manuscript's first page with precision.
But then—something strange happened.
The light vanished on contact. It was as though the spell had fallen into a burning desert—instantly evaporated, leaving not the faintest ripple.
The page remained completely unchanged.
Alan froze.
He blinked, making sure he hadn't imagined it, and tried again—this time pouring in even more magic.
The result was the same.
The spell sank into nothingness, like a stone thrown into a bottomless sea.
Alan refused to give up so easily.
If magic didn't work—then he'd try physics.
From the pocket of his wizard's robe, he pulled out a small, sleek object: a modified Muggle digital camera, the most advanced portable model in existence, further enhanced by Alan's own enchantments.
He raised the camera, pointed the lens toward a densely inscribed page of alchemical symbols, and pressed the shutter without hesitation.
"Click!"
The flash lit up, brilliant and abrupt in the dim, ancient room—so bright it briefly painted the air in silver.
Alan lowered the camera, eyes immediately shifting to the LCD display.
And then—his pupils shrank sharply.
On the screen, there was nothing.
No symbols. No lines. No texture of parchment.
Only a field of blinding, absolute white.
It was as though the page he had photographed did not exist in this dimension at all—
as though he had pointed his camera not at a book of wisdom, but at a void,
a bottomless black hole that devoured every trace of light and information.
That book's contents did not exist in any known realm of reality.
It rejected all known methods of replication.
"Don't bother, my boy."
Nicolas Flamel's voice drifted gently through the quiet, laced with amusement.
He had been standing beside Alan the entire time, watching with a knowing expression, as if he had already anticipated this moment.
"This book," Flamel began, his tone patient and almost reverent, "is itself a complete piece of alchemical creation. Every single page was steeped in the waters of the Fountain of Truth, and the ink used to write it was mixed with powdered Memory Crystals."
He rested a hand upon the heavy tome.
"This means that every single symbol written upon these pages bears a unique magical imprint—what I call the Mark of Informational Singularity."
Flamel's voice, calm yet resonant, carried the weight of immutable truth.
"This mark ensures that the knowledge recorded within cannot be stolen or copied in any form. It is one of the oldest safeguards of wisdom—
a law older than the Statute of Secrecy itself.
It guarantees that knowledge can only be passed on through the purest and most personal of means."
He paused, his gaze sharpening as it met Alan's directly.
"Through your mind—to understand it word by word, symbol by symbol—
and through your hands, to rewrite it yourself.
Only by enduring that process," Flamel said softly, "does the knowledge truly become yours."
Alan ran his fingers along the rough, warm parchment, and under his touch, he felt it again—
that faint, rhythmic heartbeat, alive beneath his fingertips, pulsing in perfect harmony with Flamel's words.
A wave of awe crashed through him.
And in that instant, he finally understood.
What Nicolas Flamel had given him was not merely a manuscript.
Not even just a task.
It was a lesson.
A philosophy.
In an age where information could be copied endlessly with a spell, a quill, or a byte of data—
Flamel had preserved something sacred:
the purest and most ancient respect for knowledge itself.
~~----------------------
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