Chapter 36. The End of First Year 1/?
What does it take to interest hyperactive children with a hero complex? As practice shows — and partly the canon as well — you just need to tell them a bit of the truth. Once they learned that Voldemort was after something hidden in the trapdoor guarded by Fluffy, the boys, eager to prove themselves as detectives, were immediately brimming with enthusiasm. And the intoxicating aura of mysterious chosenness went so much to their heads that Harry was sure: we are exactly the ones who can stop the Dark Lord. But first they had to find out what, exactly, the dog was guarding. That, we chose not to reveal so as to give them a chance to play at it. It was obvious that even Hermione was curious about solving this puzzle; she'd even been distracted from revising for exams.
"We need to go to Hagrid," Harry declared. "That day he took me to Diagon Alley, I remember he had to pick up something important from the bank—maybe it's connected?"
"Did you see what he took?" Hermione asked.
"No, that time McGonagall stopped Hagrid, because we ran into her then, so he went to the vault alone. But it's a good thought," Andromeda answered in Harry's place.
In the end we did go to Hagrid, who was currently upset because he'd had to give up the egg, which the headmaster had sent on to a preserve.
"What if they don't take good care of him and he can't hatch?!" the giant all but sobbed as he shared his worries. "I'd even picked out a name for him already, such a sweet one—Norbert."
"Don't worry, Hagrid. You'll see—one day you'll be able to officially get your wand back, and with magic nothing's impossible. Then you'll be able to raise a dragon too," we tried to comfort him through Andromeda.
"That won't help me," the giant shook his head, dejected. "I've been expelled. Who's going to teach me?"
"Hagrid, you're wrong. You work at Hogwarts, and you have constant access to the library. Once you regain the right to use magic officially, you'll be able to study magic on your own, and from there it'll all depend on your perseverance and desire to understand it."
"I… You're right!" the giant brightened. "I'll definitely fulfill my dream."
And then he remembered something and immediately deflated again.
"No one's going to overturn a sentence that old, and hardly anyone even remembers you-know-who's real name anymore."
"How come?" Hermione asked with interest.
"I heard he tried to get the Defence Against the Dark Arts job, but Dumbledore saw right through him and refused. After that, no one heard anything about Tom Riddle, and when, a long time later, Voldemort appeared, no one could connect him to that successful and charming half‑blood. So almost everyone forgot about him."
"Then where was he all that time?" Harry asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" we asked through Regulus, raising a brow. "He was studying the magic of other peoples. And I'm more than sure that, given his talent for reading minds, he didn't always obtain information in honest ways."
"Most likely," Hagrid nodded in confirmation. "He turned out far too powerful when he came back, and it's not for nothing that no one was his equal except Professor Dumbledore."
"By the way, why did he need to show up at Hogwarts now at all?"
"It's all because of the Stone… Forget I said that," Hagrid began, then suddenly snapped to attention in a panic.
"What Stone?" Harry decided to grab the bull by the horns.
"That secret is between Albus Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel only, and you lot should stay out of it!" Hagrid cut him off.
"Who's Nicolas Flamel?" Ron hurried to ask.
"…Shouldn't've said that," the giant stumbled over the boy's question, and his face twisted as he realized how badly he'd slipped. "All of you, back to the castle now, you still have homework to do."
Obviously worried he might let something else slip, Hagrid started actively shooing us out of his hut.
"Only… he's already said everything we need," we sighed inwardly at how quickly everything was progressing. "Let them look up who Flamel is on their own for now; no need to lay everything out all at once."
"All right, we've got our hint, and for now we should get back to our studies."
"Uh…" Harry hesitated; judging by the look of him, he'd wanted to say something before we did, but we'd successfully reminded them all about their homework.
"Oh, come on, there's not that much to do! I'm more interested in who Flamel is right now," Ron found something to say, clearly tempted by the idea of putting off the homework. And, surprisingly, even Hermione was more interested in this than in our usual magical studies. Truly, children craving adventure.
"As you wish, but we still have extra lessons with the headmaster, so we're going to go train."
Thus we successfully parted ways with the Nicolas Flamel search squad and headed to the Room of Requirement, which greeted us with a spacious hall filled with dummies and a small area with a comfortable sofa and a couple of copies of the book the headmaster had given us.
You'd think, with the entire contents of the book in our memory, why read it again? Well, aside from the fact that it's simply pleasant to rest curled up in each other's arms. When the information is right in front of your eyes, it becomes easier to think about it. And given how complex the spells were, we had plenty to mull over. Including topics not as immediate as Fiendfyre.
We still remember how the headmaster showed us the modified version of Fiendfyre invented by his former friend, Gellert Grindelwald. And also how, during one of the lessons, we'd asked what its essence was and why the flame was so obedient.
It turned out to be both simple and difficult at once. Simple, because when the flame is a part of you, of course you can control it however you like, even doing such absurd things as checking the intentions of those it touches, burning those who mean you harm and, conversely, leaving alone those who stand with you.
Naturally, we've always been skeptical about this sort of "intention check." Human thoughts are far too changeable, and petty grievances that would never actually grow into anything serious are entirely possible—yet because of such thoughts, the flame might react incorrectly. Still, that's not the important part. What matters is how this flame was made one's own.
"After all, when the spell is cast, that flame is summoned straight from Hell, which is why it can't be controlled by wizards; you can only constrain it, directing its destructive area where you want. For the same reason it's also relatively easy to fight it. But to make it yours… That is no longer just fire magic. That's where artefact‑crafting comes into play alongside soul magic. You have to create an artefact out of specific materials, such as goblin steel, which has the property of greed, so it will absorb the flame and temper itself in it, claiming it as its own. Then you must manage to bind that artefact to your very essence, and only then will Fiendfyre become an obedient little beast, with its source being its bearer."
"He really is a brilliant wizard," we sighed, settling more comfortably into each other's embrace. "What's left is to figure out whether it's possible to do the same with an icy analogue without freezing our own soul."