Effervescence | h.p.

i | xxxxii. loyalties

"I told you I'd read the name somewhere before, I read it on the train coming here — listen to this: 'Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard, Gindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel'!"

The girls jumped to their feet. They hadn't looked so excited since they'd gotten their marks for their first piece of homework.

"Stay there!" Hermione and Lyra said at the same time, looking at each other before they sprinted up the stairs to the girls' dormitories. They were a bit too similar for the boys — having eerily similar reactions. Harry and Ron barely had time to exchange mystified looks before Hermione came dashing back, an enormous book in her arms.

"I never thought to look in here!" she whispered excitedly. "I got this out of the library weeks ago for a bit of light reading. Lyra and I read it together before we go to sleep."

"Light?" said Ron, but Hermione told him to be quiet until she'd looked something up, and started flicking frantically through the pages, muttering to herself.

At last she found what she was looking for.

"I knew it! I knew it!"

"Are we allowed to speak yet," said Ron grumpily. Hermione ignored him.

"Nicolas Flamel," she whispered dramatically, "is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone!"

This didn't have quite the effect she'd expected.

"The what?" said Harry and Ron.

"Oh, honestly, don't you two read? Lyra would know. Look — read that, there."

She pushed the book toward them, and Harry and Ron read:

The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. 

There have been many reports of the Philosopher's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).

"See?" said Hermione, when Harry and Ron had finished. "The dog must be guarding Flamel's Philosopher's Stone! I bet he asked Dumbledore to keep it safe for him, because they're friends and he knew someone was after it, that's why he wanted the Stone moved out of Gringotts!"

"A stone that makes gold and stops you from ever dying!" said Harry. "No wonder Snape's after it! Anyone would want it."

"And no wonder we couldn't find Flamel in that Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry," said Ron. "He's not exactly recent if he's six hundred and sixty-five, is he?"

"Where's Lyra?" asked Harry.

"She said she was going to write to her dads," Hermione answered.

The next morning in Defense Against the Dark Arts, while copying down different ways of treating werewolf bites, a lesson Lyra didn't particularly fancy sitting through, Harry and Ron were still discussing what they'd do with a Philosopher's Stone if they had one. It wasn't until Ron said he'd buy his own Quidditch team that Harry remembered about Snape and the coming match.

"Ly, I really don't think you should play," Harry told Lyra. "I could always switch with you and you can sit out for the match."

"Harry, I'm going to play, whether you think I should or not," she stated sternly. "If you don't want to play, then tell Oliver, but I'm playing."