Aftermath

In case it wasn't clear, I leave the ANs because some enjoy reading about the author's work behind the scenes so to speak, and my ANs are simply notes that I write during the planning of the chapter, reorganized so that I can check that everything I wanted to add made it on the page.

They're not needed in any way, shape, or form to understand or enjoy the story itself. So I'll keep writing those, because I figure out I can spare to some the annoyance of PM-ing me (and to myself the hassle of checking the messages).

Without further ado, here we go!

Aftermath

"Our Mind was proved better than the Mind of the one we felled, our Bodies overcame the battle while the Hydra's didn't, and our Magic clearly bested the creature's." Hagrid's voice was a cheerful rumble as he once more explained in the most concise and confusing way he could what exactly he had realized the previous day, "So of course our superiority was enough to be set in stone, so to speak, and so, the venom of the Hydra and its lesser counterparts is no longer capable of overcoming us."

The sun shone with might unknown to the Englishmen settled on the beach: the greek sea shimmered under the light like a cloth made of diamonds, and the neverending coming and going of the waves was akin to the breathe of some colossal beast. The Mediterranean breeze carried on it the salt of the water, and just a hint of the dry presence of the white sand.

All in all, it was a wonderful day, and Minerva had no reason whatsoever to be upset. Except that she was.

Sitting cross-legged in linen trousers that were cut mid-thigh, Hagrid seemed more imposing than ever, especially with his dark hair contrasting against the white of the sand. His massive frame seemed a rock under a waterfall of sunlight, and irregular, silvery scars climbed over one shoulder and reached his clavicle as if the rays of the sun crashed more violently over the wrinkled patches of skin. Hunched forward over the necessary project he had to complete, with the Black King piece that the three had been exchanging every time one achieved a notable result, his hands moved with surety over the different pieces of bleached wood: the respectable trunk that they had found washed over during the night had immediately caught his interest, and since the dawn, he had been working on it with extreme care.

Feeling her wand eagerly thrum in her hand, Minerva almost gave in to the temptation of transfiguring him in an actual rock. At least mere stone had the good manners of being silent. By Morgana, a rock would have at least made the same sound when struck in the same manner: Hagrid seemed instead to take great joy in changing his answer every time Minerva made the same question.

Worse for her mood, Tom looked like this time he had understood completely: "So it wasn't us subsuming the 'essence' of the Hydra."

Hagrid turned with an indulgent smile on his face while his hands kept working on the wood: where before there was only an irregular shape, now Minerva could recognize the much greater project she had helped design. Sadly, changing the Shape of the wood would prove disastrous when it came time for the kind of enchantments it would require, and so she was stuck trying to come to terms with the obviously extremely illegal ritual her tallest friend had dragged her into.

Her eyes lowered to the back of her left hand, where a perfectly circular scar marked what had happened the day before: it stood slightly upraised against her fair skin, and a small, insignificant and ordinary part of her lamented the blemish's presence, only for her greater self to take pride in it. She had proven the better hunter. She had survived a hunter's attack, and now her scar would show the world that she went from the hunter to the hunter herself, winning something that could hardly be measured. Immunity from any venom of equal or lesser potency.

She recalled the events of the previous day, of course, and she was aware of every detail, but that bone-deep understanding, that sky-bearing certainty that she had enjoyed during the ritual wasn't quite there. Of, course, she knew that if a form of magic capable of teaching directly to the mind of the student actually existed, she'd have heard of it by now. But as Professor Dumbledore had clarified during their very first lesson of Occlumency, not two minds were alike, and as such, no magic could be learned by memories: that was because each wizard or witch began every spell from their own perception and understanding of the reality that was about to change.

It didn't mean that with time Minerva would be unable to reach her own, personal understanding and mastery of the ritual, it simply meant what she had always known: there were no shortcuts for knowledge. It was one of the reasons why Wit-Sharpening potions were forbidden only during tests and exams, but while regulated because of the rather dangerous side effects, they could be consumed for study.

She eyed quietly the Black King that hung on a leather string from Rubeus' neck: he had deserved it trice over, there was no doubt. I'll get it soon. She vowed, her hand clenching tightly around her wand as her attention snapped back to the present.

That would require us to completely understand what an 'essence', as you mean it, is." Rubeus returned his eyes to the delicate etchings he was carving into the wood, knowing that mistakes at this stage would cost much time to be corrected, "You probably mean the 'soul'. But as you once said, the soul is a reflection of the three pillars that in their entirety make us us."

Under Tom's piercing gaze, Minerva wound herself instinctively adding: "While our souls are that which makes us ourselves."

The other two wizards contemplated in silence the words of the witch that sat on a transfigured chair in a conservative linen dress, only for both to nod thoughtfully, making her smile. Hagrid's insight into the workings of the ritual was utterly alien to her mind: even now that she had lived through it, that particular memory was akin to an off-color painting of a blurred subject. She could say what the colors were, but she couldn't for the life of her describe the subject in the frame.

Riddle too was dressed in transfigured clothes, as the bandages wouldn't have allowed him his regular choices, while the heat forbade the use of the thick robes necessary for Hogwarts. Hewas laid on chaise longue transfigured from the seafoam, courtesy of Minerva, and its cool presence soothed his aching body while sustaining his back enough for him to look at his companions. Companions that had willingly stabbed themselves with a Hydra's fang to complete an experimental ritual meant to save his life.

Oh, Hagrid had explained, and what little of that experience remained in his mind agreed, that it was necessary for the other two 'hunters' to be equal before the presence of the hunted. Any imbalance in the presentation of the victors upon the won would have clashed against the geometry of the ritual, potentially setting off unpredictable effects, which included but weren't limited to, dying horribly while their hearts cracked like eggs and gave life to three separate Hydras that would instead enjoy a human-level of intelligence, bodies capable of undergoing an Animagus transformation, and venom capable of eroding wards.

Maybe the last two points were a joke, sometimes it was hard to tell with Rubeus. In any case, it seemed that he was intent on keeping up his uncanny ability to defy whatever mental model Tom could build for him. Sometimes his choices were predictable, but he could almost never guess how he'd accomplish something he set out to do.

Rubeus: the unnaturally tall student that had eyed Tom while he was dying as if he was an ingredient for a potion. The humongous wizard had coldly calculated exactly how much he stood to gain from saving him, and exactly how much he gained from the manner in which he saved him. Frankly, the excuse of not having enough time to brew an antidote, considering his discovery of the 'mirroring' method that he had applied since his first year, didn't ring true at all.

"Besides, Mind, Body, and Magic that we call our own aren't meant to take pieces of others, never mind something as different under any point of view as a Hydra." the younger Slytherin student kept talking, "Trying to take... I don't know, the regenerative ability of the Hydra for ourselves, besides requiring a completely different ritual that I can't even imagine, would dramatically change our Body: how that would affect Mind and/or Magic is unpredictable, but the human brain goes off the rails with almost nothing, so insanity in some form, while the magic would likely take some... flavor, that'd affect everything we'd attempt to do permanently."

The section of white wood that Hagrid was working on was set aside only for another to take its place: several panels in different triangular shapes were slowly being shaped by the careful work of his wand, and under the attentive supervision of Minerva, that pinned him in place with her predatory green eyes, he was content of answering any question about the current situation, and the prior's day chain of events.

With a few finishing touches, Rubeus rose to his feet and stepped back from the pile of white wood panels that he had crafted: his dark eyes scrutinizing them carefully as if seeking any imperfection. While all of them had the same thickness and were as smooth as magic could make them, there were minute ridges along some of the edges, and hair-thin channels that went in straight lines across the natural grain of the wood: "You're up, Minerva."

"How did you think of it?" satisfied of his understanding of the ritual that saved his life, Riddle pushed aside his more personal thoughts about his odd relationship with both Hagrid and McGonagall, focusing instead on the object that the two had been busy crafting since they had managed to return to the minute cottage they had built by the sea the day of their arrival in Greece.

"Uh, while reading up for those runes," the two wizards exchanged a meaningful glance while Minerva was busy, "I read about a ship, skipbladder or something along those lines, that in Norse Mythology was described as a vessel able to be folded and enter a pocket."

"Skíðblaðnir." Riddle corrected him while his mind already went in another direction: "And by any chance, did you begin planning how to make such a ship? Once we all learn how to Portkey, the return trips will be considerably easier, but to reach a new place..."

Minerva stood from her chair and rosed her wand: without any verbal incantation, the panels of wood started to rise and place themselves in a complex geometric pattern that only she was able to keep in mind. Under her guide, the matching ridges on the pieces of wood held one next to the other clicked together, seamlessly joining each other in an ever-growing three-dimensional shape that soon cast a big shadow over the two wizards.

"I toyed with the idea of other applications of your remarkable ink, but I didn't have the time to actually plan anything. As for the travels... I thought I'd be going ahead Apparating, then send you a portkey to my location." Hagrid's voice caught Riddle from his reverie, and he couldn't help but smirk.

"Portkeys cannot be sent: they must be made where they are meant to take off from, also, we've only moved to and through muggle or inhabited locations, magical districts aren't quite that easy to reach... You'd know it if you actually managed to learn how to make them." Riddle couldn't help but tease Hagrid now that he had found a piece of magic that was for the time beyond him: "Are you offering to Apparate ahead for each of our travels?"

The broad, scarred shoulders of the Slytherin shook as he snorted: "Not quite."

And since he was perfectly aware of what Riddle had been doing, Hagrid's face morphed into a soft expression as he raised his wand once more: "Expecto Patronum."

The incantation was spoken as softly as a whisper, and Riddle was quick to shake off the creature of starlight that had taken shape over his left knee: with an absence of sound that made it look even more ethereal than it was, the barely 8 centimeters large spider skittered on the air as if it was solid ground, moving deceptively quickly with its deceptively strong legs.

Despite being small and monochromatic, the Patronus' hairless carapace covering the front part of the spider's body managed to perfectly convey its shiny nature, while its eight eyes remained unblinking and shining just a shade lighter than the rest of the body. It had fangs that pointed straight down the body and do not towards each other, taking away some of its eerie looks.

With a boisterous voice, and while his eyes didn't leave his Patronus, Hagrid asked: "Did you manage it yet?"

Tom, knowing that the question had been coming, shrugged dismissively: "Given the low probability of being attacked by Lethifolds or Dementors, I chose to focus on learning how to make a Portkey."

Minerva turned with a smile on her features while the result of her work slowly levitated back on the soft sand of the beach: "And he's also worried that you'll make fun of the shape of his Patronus when he succeeds."

"Well, it's not like you two didn't think about making fun of it, am I wrong?" the spider dissolved in motes of light, the quiet cheer it brought dissipating under the sunlight while the witch and Riddle exchanged a guilty glance. Despite the insane difference in size, a spider was hardly a glamorous animal to represent one's brightest feelings.

"Of course we didn't!" Minerva lied so brazenly, and so badly, that the other two couldn't hold back a snort: "But I can't guarantee that we'll hold back once we manage it ourselves."

"I'm more interested in those fiery hound-heads you summoned yesterday, they proved surprisingly effective, but they were unlike any cursed flame I've ever read about." Riddle commented idly while he placed the roll of parchment he had been studying on a surreptitiously conjured low table.

"I don't know if I'd call them a curse," Hagrid answered distractedly, but his eyes were already on the result of Minerva's handiwork, and his voice absent, "Merely some sort of animation applied to tongues of flame."

Where before there had been only a pile of different-sized triangles of smooth white wood, there was now only an impressive sheet of joined parts that unfolded not unlike some odd 7-petaled flower from a single piece of white wood shaped as a lid-less, trunk-sized, rectangular box: the construct was clearly meant to be a trunk, but there was no clear line where its base ended and where its vertical panels began, nevermind the complete absence of a lid.

"Let's see if it worked out." the taller wizard spoke while the other two went over his words.

Under the guide of slow movements of his wand, the seamlessly joined panels of white woods started to fold one against the other, as if the petals of a flower were closing because of the incoming night: it was almost mesmerizing in the way the perfect, rigid geometric shapes seemed to flow counterclockwise, settling against each other until they formed a beautiful lid.

It stood atop the trunk like a flower bud, if a bit more unforgiving with its angles: instead of the promise of unfurling petals, it simply looked like the wood panels that composed the lid, the great number of pieces that couldn't have possibly managed to fold so perfectly as to stay completely within the area defined by the trunk's base, had been stuck in the box under them leaving only their edges to show.

"I'd hardly classify fire that malevolent as uncursed, Rubeus: especially given how the heads seemed to seek out the cut necks of the Hydra on their own." Riddle's voice was the first to be heard after the fantastic display that was the result of Minerva's plans, but even on his carefully blank face it was easy to spot the almost familiar, barely restrained twinge of interest.

It was as close to showing genuine respect as Tom ever got, but for Minerva and Rubeus, that faintest raising of his eyebrows was a noteworthy success.

"Truly interesting pieces of magic defy a clear-cut definition... and who are you to call those wolves malevolent? What is order to the spider is chaos for the fly: fire can be almost anything, and that it's used as the base for all Charms is hardly a coincidence. Flames devour wood and give heat, smoke, and ashes. My spell brought together the focus of a hunting wolf, its hunger, with the nature of the fire." Rubeus shrugged as he moved in a circle around the large trunk that Minerva had planned: "I'll polish the outside first then, are we sure? There is no doing over once I'm done."

"I can hardly figure out something better in the few days we have." Minerva's lips thinned minutely in annoyance, "If your brew can do what you promised, then yes, stick to the plan. So we'll be done within the day."

While Rubeus nodded and took some of his freakishly long strides towards one of two large cauldrons that he had left to rest on the foreshore, Minerva turned her attention towards the still bedridden Tom, who was looking at the sea from under the shade of the small transfigured pavilion that kept him from the heavy glare of the sun.

Her curiosity still not satisfied, she rose a challenging eyebrow while crossing her arms: "What about your cutting ribbon Tom? It'd hardly felt benign."

"A rather bland curse meant specifically for magically resistant creatures." he shrugged, "It'd hardly work against a dragon, but a Hydra's true strength is in its regenerative power, not its resilience."

"I notice that you didn't hesitate in classifying it as a curse." her tone turned sterner, her gut pushing her towards censuring his choice.

Tom simply smirked at her instinctive reaction: "That'd be because I've learned it from a tome that defined it so: it operates a bit leveraging hunger, a bit with the swiftness of the wind, that's what gives the ribbon its speed."

Minerva's brow creased with worry, and her lips thinned a bit further: "Do you study curses often?"

Riddle's expression didn't change, but his dark eyes seemed to shine with amusement as he glanced toward the sea for an instant before assuming a more serious tone: "Magic is magic Minerva, didn't we build the Rùnda with the exact purpose of studying what we wanted to?"

McGonagall's shoulders stiffened minutely, uncomfortable with the topic even if she felt that, given the proven usefulness of the curse, maybe her blanket ignorance on all things dark that weren't part of the Hogwarts Syllabus wasn't the best long-term strategy. She had hardly been able to wound the Hydra with her current skillset, had she? It was remarkable how Hagrid had appeared able to immediately direct her towards the role in which she'd be most effective. Most effective, or less of a hindrance?

"I haven't found notes either from you or Hagrid about curses."

"They're hardly a topic worth taking notes about." Riddle replied quietly, "You didn't find my notes on the Lumos Charm either, did you?"

"The animated flames of Rubeus seemed a complex piece of magic." she spoke with her frown deepening. Could it be that it was Hagrid the one holding back from sharing his more interesting notes? It hardly made sense, when the Rùnda had been his idea in the first place, besides, her tallest friend hardly seemed the type.

"I hardly think that Hagrid learned that piece of magic from a book." Riddle read her shifting expression with impressive ease, and his observation was given with the intent of leading her towards a very specific conclusion.

"You are trying to say that he crafted that spell on his own?" her eyebrows climbed on her forehead, "But it wouldn't explain why there's nothing about that in his notes in the Rùnda!"

"Which makes me think that he only figured it out in the heat of the moment." Riddle tilted his head as he observed Rubeus not bothering with a levitation charm and instead merely lifting the decidedly too heavy cauldron full of potion from the foreshore, only to drag it back with his shoulders tense enough that they looked like a drumskin. "Wait until Yule before confronting him, he's likely to add those notes to the Rùnda by then."

And there it was: hidden under the placid facade that Riddle always kept on when he wasn't trying to be deliberately charming, there was a flicker of something unnamed. He himself would have refused to recognize it as anything beyond idle curiosity, but it was unsettling how time and time again, Hagrid managed to achieve the unthinkable: "I wonder what else he'll come up with the next time that his life is in danger."

Minerva, catching his drift, eyed once more the silvery, jagged lines that were the scars on their nearing companion, and asked: "I didn't want to pry, but those scars..."

"Werewolves."

The dry answer made the witch choke on her own tongue while she felt molten lead settle in her gut: "What!? Of all the..." she whirled back towards Riddle, her fir wand thrumming nervously in her hand, "Is he..."

"He wasn't bitten, no." Tom immediately assured her while shifting his shoulders, adjusting the way that his weight pulled at the bandages on his arm and thigh, "If he was I'd..."

Riddle wound himself not completing that period: if Hagrid was a werewolf, he'd... what? It wasn't like he had the habit of strolling with Rubeus under the moonlight, and he'd hardly be more dangerous than he could be at the present. Maybe a bit easier to manipulate, if what was written about the wolf's instinct was true.

"What were you talking about?" Hagrid's rumbling voice took his two companions from their reverie, and both turned towards him as he settled the waist-tall cauldron beside the project realized in wood bleached by the sea.

"Minerva was curious about the dark arts." Riddle answered too fast for Minerva to object, even if he earned himself a scathing glare because of it.

With his wand held aloft, Rubeus started to funnel the crystalline liquid in an upwards arc that landed on the top of the white wood: the brew immediately seeped into the solid, almost like sand drinking the water of the waves at every passage. Second by second, the liquid reached lower upon the structure, as the material beneath it was saturated by the potion: "Strange thing for you to be curious about."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" a slight Scottish burr entered the witch's voice as she snapped towards her tallest friend.

Rubeus shrugged while he kept his focus on spreading the potion over the white wood: "Well, if it isn't about the noble art of Transfiguration, you're hardly ever interested enough as to seek out answers on your own."

"In any case," Riddle cut in before the two could truly get started with their inane bickering, "I too would like to hear your opinion on the matter, Rubeus. Listening to our professors, the dark arts are anathema to every upstanding wizard or witch, but we can hardly argue against their usefulness after the debacle with the Hydra, can we?"

Hagrid snorted as he tilted back the project crafted out of bleached wood, directing his last mysterious brew in an upward swing that seeped into the bottom of his and Minerva's creation: "Well, just to be clear, there is dark and dark."

His expression turned taunting when he turned, and the Black King piece he was using as a necklace dangled mockingly on his broad chest: "Politically speaking, everything that the government cannot control is a topic... how could I say it?.. Discouraged from being discussed."

"Like Occlumency." Minerva was quick on the uptake, as she still disliked heavily the implication that such an important thing was kept quiet from the masses.

"Dissent takes its first steps in secret." Tom of course was even faster in nailing down the main reason why the Mind Arts were kept from being widely known, "Also, the more people know Occlumency, the less useful Legilimency becomes, and the less of an advantage certain families can have over the ignorant."

Hagrid nodded quickly, as he sat once more on the sand, the empty cauldron laid forgotten by his side: "Also, one of the main preoccupations for any government is to stop the shaping of elements that can grow more powerful than itself: for muggles it isn't really a problem, as it is merely a question of numbers, but with Magic thrown in the mix? Individuals can rise far beyond the point where mere numbers can hold them back: look at Grindelwald, and he also has an army believing in him."

"So the more powerful spells are simply... what, erased?" the note of censure in Minerva's voice made Tom grin for a second. It wasn't hard to believe that the Sorting Hat had been undecided between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw with this particular witch.

"I wouldn't say erased." Rubeus smiled mischievously as he hunched forward, his elbows resting on his knees: "Merely restricted. After all, you never know what can become useful later down the line, or when you have to fight fire with fire. Also, as individualism is such a fundamental part of what makes us wizards and witches, we'd hardly be the first ones to seek forbidden knowledge exactly because it is forbidden: and this is why the Department of Mysteries was created, I think."

"Also to research the kind of distasteful but necessary things to keep Magical Britain from being invaded." Tom added with a thoughtful expression, once more revealing just how intuitively he could disassemble different elements and topics to recreate a single, logic-proof picture.

Minerva walked over the trunk of white wood and touched the tip of her fir wand against the top of what looked like a closed flower, silently levitating it to the side before unfurling the lid in another mesmerizing show. Even as she acted, however, she talked, because her curiosity had hardly been sated: "You're insinuating that the Department of Mysteries should be as well called the Dark Arts Department."

"For the truly mysterious pieces of magic." Riddle corrected her with a sly smile while he adjusted once more his position on the chaise longue, a bare single foot lowering itself to touch the fine sand of the beach, "That they happen also to be unreasonably powerful in certain situations, well, that is merely a fortunate consequence, isn't it?"

"What about the other kind of dark arts?" Minerva was walking around the opened flower that was the lid of the trunk she was about to operate her magic on, her curiosity pushing her forward still, "Those that are deemed so not because of politics?"

"I'm hardly an expert..." Rubeus began, only to be interrupted by Riddle.

"But you've thought about it."

"Of course, I've thought about it!" the younger Slytherin snapped back, "It's what I do: I think!"

At Minerva's fake cough, which failed utterly at hiding her amusement, her tallest friend resumed his explanation: "Casting most curses is rather simple, once you managed to feel the requisite anger, or dread, or whatever. Occlumency helps preciously little in those cases, as you can't trick yourself into truly feeling."

"Would you say that the Patronus is a benign piece of dark arts?"

Rubeus snorted at the snide observation of Riddle, which going by his smile, had been made exactly to irk the tallest wizard, instead of being an actual doubt: "All kinds of Charms that require emotion in some form are far more complex than anything else that can be cast through a wand. That doesn't make them Dark Arts: I believe that emotion funneled into Transfiguration is the process that delivered us the memorable doors to the Rùnda, unless I've completely misunderstood Minerva's notes on the topic."

"You didn't."

After the witch's distracted confirmation, and a warning glance towards Riddle, Rubeus resumed his speculation: "If we want to be pedantic, we can label 'esoteric' all the pieces of magic that require emotion to be cast properly. When these leverage 'dark' feelings, then we're talking about the Dark Arts."

Minerva stopped her examination of hers and Hagrid's handiwork in order to focus all of her attention on her tallest friend, while Riddle, who had the faintest smile on his features that screamed 'indulgence' managed to drag himself a bit higher on his chaise long, giving the impression of sitting straighter even if he was still mostly horizontal.

"Every act of magic is more or less an imposition of our will upon reality." Rubeus gesticulated animatedly as he spoke, trying to put in order the maelstrom of thoughts that like always raged inside of his uncommon mind: "Those emotions that have a 'violent' component, tend to be easier to cast: because all living beings have an instinctive 'Fight or Flight' mechanism, both as an answer to the primal fear of death. The Dark Arts are said to be 'seductive', in my opinion, because acting following something as... undeniable... as the primal push towards survival, is easier than relying upon the feelings that make up the Patronus Charm, for example, while the effects are arguably just as powerful."

Riddle snorted from his position, his eyes widening with barely restrained disbelief: "Is that your explanation? The Dark Arts are dangerous because they're easier?"

"Also, if you get used to a certain mindset, it's something difficult to abandon." Rubeus didn't miss a beat while his eyes met Tom's, "We are biologically predisposed to answer to any challenge with violence. To dominate the opposition with overbearing might, to inflict such pain as to never be threatened again, to take joy from the enemy's ruin, to hate and kill those that we see as a threat."

Unfazed by the oblique reference to the Three Unforgivable Curses, Tom narrowed his eyes in suspicion: "Discovered that on your own, did you?"

Hagrid shook his head without taking his eyes off Minerva, who seemed focused on parsing what had been told. "Merely an observation of mankind's nature: we're creatures of habit. Our circumstances shape us just as our choices shape our circumstances, but while for Muggles constant, repeated choices and mannerisms can only affect their thought patterns, we always have to deal with Mind, Body, and Magic."

"And you think that our Magic gets used to what we cast?" the witch asked with her wand held loosely in her hand, her green eyes fixed upon her tallest friend with uncommon intensity.

"Isn't easier to use a charm you've practiced a thousand times?" Rubeus asked as an answer, only to turn towards Tom, who seemed particularly thoughtful: "Isn't it odd that Minerva would rather transfigure a tongue of flame into a scarf than to cast a Warming Charm on herself?"

"An interesting concept." the Gryffindor witch nodded while she worked through the heavy words of her tallest friend: he played the fool more often than not, with dimwitted jokes and uncaring attitude, but on some occasions, it was possible to see the mind behind the outrageous notes that littered his desk in the Rùnda.

Not happy with the brief silence that stretched between the three of them, Rubeus spoke again, this time his eyes never left Tom's: "To use a select amount of spells, to stop learning new things, is to stagnate. To stagnate, is to die."

There was something incredibly upsetting about the way he smiled while he mentioned dying.

The summer sun shone cheerfully amidst the few stretches of white clouds while a cool breeze from the ocean ruffled the feathers of the owls and the long, grey fur of a Norwegian Forest Cat that moved too purposefully for it to be natural.

The French village wasn't any more picturesque than any random one present on English soil: it wasn't quite rural, the roads were covered by cobbled stones, and the two stories buildings were of the kind that hosted a shop on the ground floor, and the family owning it right above it, unlike Diagon Alley, Repose de Jeanne wasn't overtly magical.

Sure, the shops hosted magical businesses, and there was the odd goblin or hag moving about, but there was none of the thundering joy that characterized the main shopping hub of Magical Britain. The colors of the buildings rolled between white and a pale light blue, the signs weren't enchanted to sing about the greatness of the wares, and of course, there wasn't a Gringotts Bank with its distinguished marble, no Ollivander's with its mysterious, ancient air.

The big cat trotted across the streets and took a coiling road that led to the outskirts of the village, where a small chalet on two stories rested in the middle of a roughly circular courtyard surrounded by a low wall of fluvial stones piled over each other. The ground itself was covered by green, lush grass that swayed gently in the cool, oceanic breeze, and the feline jumped adroitly on top of the wall, its green eyes washing over the property with the detachment typical of the creature.

After taking a measure of the area, the cat quietly jumped off the wall and crossed the courtyard, reaching the door just as it opened, revealing the appearance of a man: he stood around one meter and 75 centimeters in height, with salt and pepper hair that fell just shy of his narrow shoulders. His lightly tanned skin and shaved jaw acted as a background for the straight, long nose and piercing hazel eyes. With his deep expression wrinkles, he could be anywhere between 40 and an extremely youthful looking 65 years old random muggle.

His hazel eyes were fixed on the cat sitting in front of him, studying the creature with an interest it hardly deserved. There was no threatening motion on his part, no telling bulge in his button-up shirt that might reveal the presence of a wand, and no mundane weapon strapped to his waist.

Yet the witch in a cat's shape was frozen as she tried to overcome the man's presence: he looked ordinary in every sense of the word, yet... something just beyond conscious thought was stirring in alarm. An instinct that had proved invaluable during the previous adventure of her summer was pulling Minerva by the ears, and without her conscious input, the hair on her tail flared up in warning.

Still sitting in front of the open door, with her tail puffed up, Minerva remained still for what felt like an endless second.

"Ah," the man spoke with a slightly nasal voice, sheer understanding of the situation wrapped like a heavy cloak over his narrow shoulders, "you must be Minerva."

Silently, he moved aside, inviting her into his home while his hazel eyes rose once more to scan the edge of his property.

The cat managed to cross the threshold and to take a few steps in the well-lit corridor before the door was closed behind her, and she felt for an instant like she was underwater, the wards intertwined with the house's wall passing over her and through her with a weight that she immediately disliked.

"I probably could manage a conversation with a cat, but I imagine it is hardly needed." the man's nasal voice shook Minerva out of her temporary uncertainty, and with a ripple to fast for the human eye to follow, her shape grew until the cat was once more a witch.

Standing with her back held so straight it was almost painful, the Gryffindor witch gave a brief curtsy: "Master Flamel, it is an honor."

"We will see about that." the man replied with otherworldly calm as he passed her by, and she was forced to quicken her pace to follow him in a living room where a tea set was already waiting, "Englishmen still enjoy tea beyond any reasonable limit, do they not?"

The man sat into a straight armchair and quietly invited her to do the same. "I accepted to talk with you to stop young Albus from pestering me through Perenelle." his eyes fixed themselves on her hands as she drank the jasmine tea that carried just a hint of honey, "If I was the kind of person to cater to other people wills, I'd never get anything done, and I never took a student incapable to finding me on their own, nevermind one as young as you."

Minerva hadn't managed yet to introduce herself, and this man had apparently already decided to refuse to teach her. Besides the disappointment, a burst of anger was quick to flush her cheeks: "If this is the case," she sniffed as disdainfully as she could manage despite the wonderful tea warming her mood, "I don't see why you couldn't have said so in a letter, sparing me the time to come here."

"If you think that time is an issue, then Alchemy is not suited for you." the reply was given as uncaringly as one might comment on the weather, "But you're quite lucky that Perenelle made me promise to at least meet you. She's terribly prone to cave to young Albus when he gets emotional you see."

Those words stopped Minerva, who simply gazed inquisitively at the impossibly older man. Had he just implied that upon seeing her he had changed his mind?

"Had I not met you personally, I would have missed the ritual scar on your left hand, and dismissed you as another of the countless talented and absolutely uninteresting, unoriginal students that spend years fruitlessly seeking me out." the man spoke without any discernible accent, with no particular tone, and yet each of his words carried an incredible weight.

The witch ut down her cup only to hold her left hand in her right, feeling incredibly exposed for a moment, before her quick wit came to her aid once more: "Are you saying that you only take students capable of finding you, and that are 'interesting'?"

"Albus of course doesn't know of the ritual you partook." Flamel mused out loud, completely ignoring her words, "He can be terribly opinionated when it comes to the less common pieces of magic, and given the lack of scandal surrounding you, I'd say that nobody even noticed, although it can be because of the widespread ignorance that plagues most countries nowadays."

Minerva's lips thinned in distaste at being ignored, and after a few minutes of silence, just when she was about to be fed up with that man, Flamel asked: "How would you measure eternity when time doesn't touch you?"

"The only way is to submerge yourself with mankind." he answered immediately, "This is why I live with a new name and a new face every century, or so: I got lost in my research from 1588 to 1711, and the world changed too much for my tastes, it took me the better part of the century to learn how to live in a world with a Statute of Secrecy, and another 50 years to relearn how to throw busybodies off my tail."

After another penetrating glare, the man took a deep breath, nodding to himself as he read something from Minerva's expression that confirmed an inner thought of his: "Albus did give us some particularly entertaining years, only another managed, some times before... to be frank, I had no intention of holding the hand of another student this century, my research slowed down enough, even if I wouldn't have thought to use dragon blood as Albus did."

"Is there going to be some kind of test for you to teach me?"

"I didn't want to take another student so early." Flamel sighed, his eyes never leaving her form, "And today was for me to decide if I'd be willing to teach you." he nodded amiably, "But to be a teacher is also to learn from the student, and I cannot waste both of our time with a mediocre girl, no matter how interesting her bloodwork likely is."

Minerva's hold on the hand that carried the mark of the ritual tightened minutely, and the centuries-old man sitting in front of her smiled crookedly: "I know Albus showed you the basics, but something that any Alchemist-hopeful worth anything cannot teach or be taught is the needed creativity and ingenuity."

The witch stared impassibly at the oldest man alive while she began reconsidering her choice of learning Alchemy from him. Professor Dumbledore had been curiously tight-lipped about the kind of person he was, but now she started to see why: she could see Rubeus act like him if he lived that long: treating other people like useful experiments, giving some breadcrumbs of knowledge to see what unexpected direction they would take.

"You're about to complete your last year at Hogwarts, yes?" at her hesitant nod, he hummed thoughtfully before laying out the law, as it were: "First, during this year you'll take up a personal project, something original, something never done before, and present it to me the next summer."

Minerva barely held back from smirking smugly. Original projects were all that the Rùnda was about: it would be hardly impossible to figure out something. "What else?" she raised an eyebrow almost tauntingly, and Flamel was merciless in his answer.

"You will not take part in the current conflict." he steepled his fingers while he rested his weight against the back of his armchair, "I won't spend time better devoted to my research on a girl only for her to throw away her life for some nonsensical notion of glory, justice, or whatnot."

Minerva's palms smacked lightly against the good of the small table as she rose to her feet: it wasn't that she had been planning to join the war effort, but if it came to that, she would be free to make her choices, like any adult witch in the world. "You cannot possibly

"Why?" his hazel eyes had never seemed so impossibly old, "Regimes come and go, and the ICW made a choice that was untenable in the long term, either because of people like Grindelwald or because of the muggles' ingenuity in devouring every crumb of knowledge available to them in this world of ours. My studies have the priority."

AN

The Pov at the beginning hopped back and forth between Minerva and Riddle while remaining a 3rd person, how did it work? Was the transition smooth? Originally I planned for an all-Minerva chapter, but she is vocal enough to make her mental state known, while Riddle is far more cagey, and as such needs a different approach. Did you like it?

I remind everyone that Patronuses can change, and given that we're looking at a truly massive timeline, there is time for different aspects to become prominent in the MC's personality. I'm also thinking about using the change in the Patronus as a meta-confirmation of choices that have affected deeply the character in question.

Lore:

Will there be long-term consequences for the ritual? Likely unexpected and popping up in the oddest situations to justify something unexpected? No, because I hate when it happens in other fics. Will there be subtle effects that maybe will accumulate with the years? Maybe. Having said that, while Hagrid's story isn't about hunting an endless sequence of animals for minor perks (seen already, and extremely boring) You'll see what I mean as we go ahead.

A lot of loose ends to tie up here, no? I blatantly used the first part of the chapter to explain the spells used in the heat of the moment by Riddle and Hagrid, in particular, I've expanded on the ease of using 'dark magic' (canonically, I had to justify Potter's extra-easy use of Sectumsempra after only having read it once, when he took like a whole day to learn the Summoning Charm).

Also, we start to see some of the more interesting effects of the MC's habit of foregoing incantations and wand movements entirely: unmatched creativity, even if he's limited to those 'meanings' he's familiar with, and it's of course slower than the standard method.

Flamel:

Okay, the Flamel of Fantastical Beasts is such a wasted character that I don't know where to begin to insult whoever decided to make him like that. I haven't really set up the lore for Alchemy yet, but the bumbling (and useless, considering what he could have done) mess that is the Flamel of Fantastical Beasts... ugh.

For the life of mine, I can't conceive a way for any average guy to not become fucking dangerous in 600 years. Given that he's the only one to ever build a Stone, he's not average: and while he taught Dumbledore, his intervention is never mentioned anywhere else in history. So, as I maintain my line of pissing as much as I can over the horror that the Fantastical Beasts franchise is, I reworked his absence from the conflict as a conscious decision. He was around before the ICW, and he managed just fine, so he doesn't really care for Grindelwald or the ICW.

It's the only way to not have him solve every problem to ever grace the Magical World.

A few features that I feel the need to place on Flamel, given that he canonically worked with Dumbledore, but never took to the first lines of any even in History are:

-odd perception of time

-disinterest in mundane events (and for him, wars are such an event)

-interest in magical research, and acceptance 0f the occasional need to teach

-of course, passion for Alchemy (historically, the final aim of Alchemy is the Stone), so he researches its applications: I'll need to frame the lore of the subject as a road without end to justify why Flamel doesn't know everything about everything already.