Chapter 76.6- Doom Days

So this was the philosopher’s stone. It was a deep blood red and looked like a crystal more than anything else. And then there were its jagged edged. Edges through which a liquid of some sort seemed to seep out. I pocketed the thing in my robe, thanking Russo for having an undetectable expansion charm included in the pockets. It was a luxury that he need not have sprung for, but it was proving its use now. I turned to the rest of the chamber, taking note of what runes remained.

The fiendfyre had burned some of it off the ground entirely so I would have to find a pensieve or something similar if I wanted to get the script in full detail. That was a concern for later, I thought, as I began to leave. I took the compass out of my pocket, and thinking of Nicholas Flamel, began to follow its directions.

While part of me just wanted to get some rest and call the day what it was— a long day, the rest of me wanted to get it all over and done with. That part was supported by the fact that I also wasn’t all that comfortable just walking about with something as valuable as the fucking philosopher’s stone in my pocket. Gret duelist or not, I had no compunctions on what would happen if word of that somehow— implausible as it seemed— got out. I wouldn’t last an hour. Bounty hunters, glory seekers, wannabe dark lords, and every idiot with a wand would portkey in here aiming for my head.

Nicholas Flamel thankfully wasn’t all that far away from the stadium. In fact, he was in the hotel closest to the stadium, not all that far from the one that Sirius and I stayed in.

“Come in” I heard the voice before I could knock on the door. A tracking charm on the compass perhaps? My enchanting skills were nowhere close to good enough for me to get even the vaguest impression of how the compass worked beyond the fact that it did.

I opened the door, taking stock of the room in no time. They didn’t occupy a penthouse suite like Sirius and I did, but theirs was no less luxurious for it. Next to a smoking fireplace sat Nicholas with a tome of some sort opened on his lap. Deeper in the suite, I could hear Perenelle mucking about.

“Julian?” He asked the second the door swung closed behind me.

“Dead” I said, walking deeper into the room and taking the seat across from him once he pointed it out to me.

“What a shame. He was a bright one, you know? Easily the brightest one I’ve had since Albus” He said next, making me freeze. I looked over at him. That wasn’t an accidental admission. He had kept it from me initially and now he was letting it slip. Not just that Julian Russo had been his apprentice, but that he had had more than one since Dumbledore. The only question was why? Why tell me now? Guess there was only one way to find out.

“Russo was your apprentice?”

“Of course. How else would he have known about the Stone. I tell all my apprentices the secret to making a philosopher’s stone. It’s one of the first things I do— might be a preliminary test if you would” He said next, and I begun to wonder if I was reading too much into things or if he was saying what I thought he was saying. But then—

“If you tell all your apprentices how to make a philosopher’s stone, then how come we don’t hear about them all that often? I assume word would have somehow gotten out of more people with stones like yours”

“Stones like mine, hmm” he said with a chuckle, before sobering up.

“Well, because after I tell them how to make a stone, I tell them that I will kill them if they ever try. Usually I don’t even have to do it myself. Oftentimes, my next apprentice proves himself by killing my previous” He said. Yup. He was saying what I thought he was.

A/N: Yes, we get Sith Lord Nicholas Flamel in this story. Wondering how everything fits together? It’s him. It’s all him.