"Master Flamel, hello. I am Lucy Number Seven. Master taught me to introduce myself this way."
Paris. The Flamel Estate. Lucy Number Seven stood before Nicolas Flamel with the impeccable, well-rehearsed politeness of a child who had practiced this very moment.
All the other Lucys had stayed home to handle the holiday decorations. Lucy Seven was the sole exception.
The small creature was hopelessly clumsy and had a habit of drifting off into her own world at unpredictable moments. Her sisters had been quietly terrified of what she might accidentally destroy, and Tom had made the executive decision to bring her along rather than leave her to cause architectural damage. The others could work in peace.
That was the secondary reason, of course.
The primary reason was, without question, to show off.
A living alchemical creature. What did that mean?
It meant that Tom Riddle had, in certain respects, drawn level with God. Creator. Maker of life. A being of genuinely divine significance.
He hadn't told anyone about the Lucys since completing them. Gloating to ordinary wizards would have been hollow, they wouldn't even grasp the magnitude of what he had achieved. There would be nothing in their eyes worth seeing.
But standing before the single greatest alchemist in recorded history? One Nicolas Flamel registering astonishment was worth ten thousand ordinary reactions.
Tom watched it happen in real time. The mild disinterest when they first arrived. The creeping disbelief as it dawned on him. And then the moment Nicolas crouched down to Lucy Seven's eye level, his face transformed entirely, speaking to her with complete and focused attention, his eyes lit from within like a man who had just found God.
Tom felt he could have floated.
"She's alive," Nicolas muttered, sounding distinctly unhinged. "She's actually... alive..."
He watched Lucy Seven bumble around the room, poking curiously at everything within reach, including a cabinet clock he had kept in working condition for four hundred years. She promptly broke it. He didn't even flinch. He looked at her the way a grandfather looks at his favourite grandchild.
When his gaze swung toward Tom, however, the expression was something closer to a starving man eyeing a meal.
"How did you do it? I attempted this more times than I can count. Every single creation I produced was a tool, a very sophisticated tool, but only that. Lucy Seven... she is a living being you created. Where did I fall short? Where?"
Tom gave him a general outline of spiritual essence, its nature, its properties, how it functioned. He wasn't being secretive. The problem was sheer volume, the theory and underlying knowledge involved would take weeks to cover properly. If he started now, Christmas would come and go without a single celebration.
"Spiritual essence... a concept I consistently overlooked. No, more accurately, I conflated it with the soul. They're genuinely distinct."
"But how did you attach the spiritual essence to the materials?"
"Magic uses magical power as a medium to give concrete form to abstract concepts. Isn't that exactly what magic does?"
Nicolas nodded along at each word. Tom made it sound simple. In practice, it was a sentence that most wizards would never fully understand no matter how long they thought about it. Nicolas was already mentally halfway back to his laboratory, burning to begin extracting and attaching spiritual essence immediately.
Actually, first things first. He needed source materials.
"Tom, what would you think of leaving Little Seven here with me?" Nicolas watched the endlessly energetic Lucy Number Seven bounce around his study, his expression softening with unmistakable affection. "Let me teach her alchemy personally. I guarantee that in a year or two, she'll be a genuinely formidable asset to you."
"Absolutely not." Tom shook his head. "She has six sisters, and they've been at home preparing for the holidays. You'll see when we get there."
"How many alchemical creatures have you actually made?"
"Seven so far... no, eight now. That's all I can manage. The key materials are simply too scarce."
Nicolas knew perfectly well which materials Tom meant. He offered no objection, no cautionary word on the subject.
A man who had spent the entirety of the Middle Ages researching alchemy, specifically alchemy relating to the human body and the prolongation of life, wasn't exactly in a position to lecture anyone on ethical limits. Or perhaps more accurately: outside of matters that directly affected him, Nicolas Flamel might have been a reasonably kind man with a certain warmth to him. But the moment anything touched the domain he loved, certain lines and principles became entirely negotiable.
When the old man's questions showed no sign of stopping, Tom finally surrendered. He had no intention of spending his entire holiday discussing research and theory. He went and found his reinforcement: Madame Perenelle.
The moment his wife appeared, something cleared in Nicolas's eyes. The burning hunger for knowledge was gently pushed down. He became a perfectly manageable old man, obediently directing the house-elf to start packing. Originally the plan had been to bring a few personal items. Now, apparently, the laboratory equipment and raw materials were essential as well.
...
While the Flamels packed, Tom made his way to the Delacour residence.
The door had barely opened before Fleur threw herself at him with the full enthusiasm of a half-Veela who had been waiting months. Tom caught her, and the greeting extended considerably beyond what the word "greeting" typically implied.
Gabrielle stood to one side with both hands pressed over her eyes, fingers spread apart just wide enough to see through clearly, absolutely unblinking, watching the two of them with the intense focus of a wildlife observer documenting a rare phenomenon.
When Fleur finally surfaced for air, she pushed Tom back with what little energy she had left, her beautiful eyes carrying a note of perfectly performed grievance.
"So you do still remember I exist. I was beginning to wonder."
"Gabrielle was forgotten too." The small girl stuck out her lower lip and tugged at Tom's trouser leg with a solemn expression.
Tom laughed and ruffled her head affectionately. "I've been busy. An absurd amount of things happening all at once. It's only just starting to settle down."
The news from North America hadn't made it to Paris yet. Fleur had no idea what Tom had actually been doing, and assumed it was business-related. She let out a short, dignified sound and decided not to press further.
She knew well enough that his time hadn't been wasted. In the span of a single semester, WhatsApp had fundamentally changed the way a vast number of wizards communicated. That didn't happen without considerable effort.
"You said it yourself, things are calming down," she said, with the air of someone filing away a formal commitment. "So when I get to Hogwarts, you had better be an excellent guide."
Tom blinked. "Wait, when did you decide you were coming to Hogwarts?"