At that moment, far from Devonshire, in Surrey on the other side of the English island, Louis froze mid-performance.
He had suddenly felt the sensation of fate itself being pried into—like someone was trying to pierce through a thick curtain in search of his whereabouts.
Yet under Louis's eyes, nothing of that sort could remain hidden.
Who is it? And what do they want?
He frowned slightly, but his hands never stopped moving. An endless string of scarves poured out of his palm, tumbled to the floor, and with a puff of breath transformed into a walking stick.
A series of dazzling tricks had the entire audience enthralled—everyone except for Mr. Wilson. Unfortunately, the rest of the spectators were just ordinary Muggles, and without Wilson's sharp eye their reactions didn't bring Louis more than a hundred Trick Points in total.
As applause rang out, Louis ended the show with a shower of conjured flowers, then settled on the sofa while the audience praised him enthusiastically.
In truth, his mind had already followed the faint pull to locate whoever was spying on him.
And across the distance, he saw a familiar figure—and an unfamiliar old man.
The familiar one was Dumbledore.
"Huh?" Louis blinked, suddenly intrigued. For a moment he wondered if he was hallucinating.
Someone had tried to divine him—only to be noticed by the Eye of Fate?
And the other, that decrepit old man, who was he? Some prophet?
Suddenly, Louis felt a strange force burst out through his own eyes. Even now he couldn't control it.
The stars overhead seemed to flare brighter, and that power coursed through the constellations, surging far into the distance.
—Devonshire, Nicolas Flamel's workshop.
Dumbledore and Flamel froze as though faced with a mortal threat, staring at the indifferent eyes inside the crystal ball.
In the next instant, those eyes erupted with blinding starlight. A jagged crack marred the expensive crystal sphere, ruining it.
The light faded, and silence fell over the workshop.
"Nicolas… what was that?" Dumbledore's voice was dry, breaking the stillness after a long time.
"I don't know. I've never seen anything like it. It felt as if someone noticed our prying—and traced us directly!" Flamel exclaimed, half nervous, half exhilarated.
He did not fear death, but humans—wizards included—harbored a natural dread of the unknown. And yet Flamel's love of discovery left him both frightened and thrilled, trapped in contradiction.
"Is that even possible?" Dumbledore asked quietly.
"Impossible. The crystal shows the future. The future is always hazy, unsettled—events not yet fixed. And yet here, someone from an uncertain future saw us in the past."
Flamel's voice trembled with excitement. "It's as if… as if they were a master of fate itself."
A master of fate?
Dumbledore's heart skipped.
"Could it be… a Time-Turner?" he suggested, grasping at the explanation that made the most sense.
A so-called master of fate? He didn't believe it. If such a being truly existed, life itself would be despair.
He would much rather believe it was someone meddling with time, returning from the future to stir up trouble.
That was logical—maybe even an old acquaintance, paying a visit from tomorrow.
"It's possible," Flamel admitted after a moment. That reason sounded far more reasonable.
But who, and why? They could not guess. The future was a fog they could not pierce, no matter how clever. Too many unknowns could still unfold.
And besides, the Time-Turner idea was just speculation—not something they could treat as fact.
"In any case, this prophecy wasn't a total loss," Flamel concluded. "We know now that in the near future, this Dio Brando will come to Grindelwald… and there's something about that arrow as well."
"We can't be sure where Grindelwald stands right now," Dumbledore said. "But yes, I'll keep my eyes on him."
"I'm glad," Flamel nodded. Then, after a pause, Dumbledore asked softly:
"How much longer can you hold on?"
"Long enough to settle my affairs. In the end, Perenelle and I will return to France. We'll be buried at Beauxbatons—this time in a real grave, not an empty coffin. Hopefully no one will dig me up again." Flamel chuckled.
He spoke with such calm that Dumbledore struggled to respond.
"I respect your choice," Dumbledore said at last. "But… what of your knowledge? That astonishing trove of it?"
For over five centuries Flamel had lived, and the books he gathered surpassed even the largest wizarding libraries. It was a treasure beyond measure.
"Forgive me. Even as your friend, I plan to leave those to Beauxbatons," Flamel said regretfully. "But if you don't mind, I could teach your young savior instead."
"Better not. He has talent, but little passion for study. He prefers action to theory—combat rather than books," Dumbledore answered.
"A pity," Flamel sighed.
He himself was poor at fighting. Despite his long life, after his third century he had hardly lifted a wand in battle.
The last time had been in Paris, when he helped oppose Grindelwald's Fiendfyre. In combat, he was weak.
And perhaps because of the countless doses of Elixir of Life he had drunk—each mixed with traces of Philosopher's Stone—his soul had grown swollen, his senses sharpened.
That was a blessing for research, but a curse for fighting. Even the smallest wound left him in unbearable agony.
"Ah, but I remember you wrote that your school has a descendant of Merlin," Flamel suddenly recalled. "How is that boy's aptitude for learning?"
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