Chapter 63.4- Doom Days

“Well, be that as it may, back to the story then” he said, before pausing.

“And where were we again?”

“You had just gotten married” I said.

“Oh yes. Perenelle and I lived many years married and I won’t say those days were perfect, but they were simple, and they were happy. We had gold aplenty to keep ourselves from penury, and on the side Perenelle ran a potions shop were she sold tinctures and remedies to people from all over the city. I, on the other hand, had fully been taken in by alchemy. The ability to turn one thing to another. The art of transfiguration was yet to gain widespread popularity at the time. I think only a few people who had completed successful voyages to Africa were even aware of the art. So alchemy it was for me. And I was good at it. My brain could use compute exchanges like anything else. And then one day, decades later, Perenelle got pregnant” He stopped there, taking a breath. His wife leaned over, squeezing his shoulder. From what I could tell, this was not going to be a happy ending, considering there was no child here and the Flamels were famously childless.

“You see, Perenelle’s potion shop had exploded in popularity over the decades. She was the most gifted potions mistress in the world, and she sold her inventions rather than hoarding them in a family grimoire somewhere to never see the light of day, so during peak season, there were lines that could stretch all the way around the corner.” He looked over at his wife, pride shining in his eyes, before said eyes darkened as they turned back to me with their attentions.

“With the benefit of hindsight, the potions shop was a mistake. It was a mistake to share the gift of magic with the mundane. Their minds simply can not comprehend it, lesser creatures that they are. So when Perenelle prepared a remedy for a regular customer, a pregnant woman, and the woman lost the baby— despite the fact that the remedy Perenelle had prepared had related to the common cold and not the pregnancy at all, the blame turned to her. Perenelle had just begun to show her pregnancy, and the muggles in their infinite wisdom decided that I must have done something to the woman’s baby to get my own. It was my mistake, holding lectures on alchemy and teaching the concept of equivalent exchange. The fools thought the woman’s baby would be equivalent sacrifice for one of my own. How silly. Even a hundred mundane children would struggle to equal one healthy magical child. If I had used alchemy to get Perenelle pregnant, they would have been able to to tell. But no. They ran with their ignorance.”