Chapter 166

The phoenix flew over with a melodious trill. Harry grabbed onto her tail feathers, and said, "Let's go show the old man what I just did shall we girl?"

An affirmative chirp was the only reply he got before she grabbed hold of him and they were both engulfed in a vortex of fire.

When the fire receded from his vision, Harry was in the Flamel apartment's living room, with two wands mere centimeters in front of his face. Harry calmly stared the owners of those wands in the eyes and flatly said, "Getting paranoid in your old age are you?"

"Harry!? What are you doing here!?" Perenelle asked as the two ancients lowered their wands.

Harry grinned as he wordlessly showed them the dry feather.

Nicholas's eyes widened, "You're joking," he said to him as he grabbed the feather from his hand and started waving his wand over it.

Perenelle's eyes flashed golden for a second as she slipped into mage sight to confirm what Harry was implying. Her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline as a proud smile spread across her face.

"No he's not" she asserted, confirming what Nicholas's spells were no doubt showing as well. That the feather had a lightning spell cast on it.

Harry had passed the first test of alchemy. Absolute control over the Fulguris spell.

"Half the time," Nicholas shook his head in amazement, "It took you just above half the time to finish those spells. I gave you till December, and you bring them to me before October starts. That's faster than I mastered the spell…how?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's just the place, maybe it's my Occlumency. Something about Hogwarts just boosts my learning speed," like the Location Boost, Harry mentally added, "Or who knows," he joked, "maybe I'm just better than you old man."

Nicholas raised an eyebrow, "Whatever helps you sleep at night, you little runt. Reality is that you just had a better teacher."

"You keep feeding your ego that much and you'll end up getting a heart attack," Harry shot back before he changed the subject back to more pertinent matters, "But enough of that. Tell me. What's next? What's after this spell?"

"I…I was going to give you the next batch of books as a Christmas present of sorts, but I suppose I'll have to find a new one," he sighed, before continuing, "The Library is a bit of a mess right now, and I'll have to clean up a bit to find the books that you'll need to prepare for the next lesson of alchemy. Which, I suppose, you'll get when you come back for the Christmas break. It's all about the Healing aspect of the art."

Nicholas shook his head before he headed up the hallway towards the Library, leaving Harry with Perenelle and Hedwig, who was happily nibbling away on the apples in the living room fruit bowl.

They sat down on the duvet and started chatting about how Harry's school year had gone thus far. Perenelle, who had expressed concern about the Mrs Norris thing over the letter, was even more concerned about the entire thing after she heard a more detailed description from him verbally, even going so far as to offering to pull Harry from the school, which Harry promptly and vehemently denied.

Soon, the conversation drifted to a lull, and they both watched Hedwig as she hopped and flapped her way all around the room, curiously testing everything to see if anything had changed while she was gone.

A question, that Harry had always had, and never quite voiced brought itself to the front of his mind.

In one of the many idle moments during the summer, he'd once compared the situation of the Flamels having to keep their lives a secret with the secret of his own. And lately, being as surrounded by his friends as he was, that question had troubled him quite a bit. Stuffing down his hesitation, he decided to screw it and ask it.

"Do you ever feel alone Perenelle?" he asked, catching the attention of the ancient witch, "You have this secret that you can't tell anybody around you. Doesn't it just weigh on you like nothing else?"

Perenelle didn't say anything. Harry turned to look at her, only to see that she was staring at him with an odd look in her eyes. And then, she blinked, and her eyes turned golden.

"Join me Harry," she said gently, and Harry knew what she meant. With nary a thought, his Mage Sight activated, and he joined Perenelle in gazing at the mana that flowed all around them.

"You see it too, don't you? The one thing that connects us all…Magic…people usually like to believe that magic is a tool, but I've always had a little bit of a different belief. It's not magic that is a tool, but those of us who are magical. We are the mediums for the magic to show its presence in the world"

"That sounds almost religious," Harry pointed out.

"I suppose it does…" Perenelle mused, "It is the closest thing to religion that I've ever believed in. The belief that magic has sentience, and that it cares for me. It comforts me, that thought, in the times when the burden of the past and the loneliness of the present feel a bit too heavy on my shoulders."

She paused for a second, before she continued.

"Do I feel lonely? Yes. Sometimes. Not so much since you've joined the family," she said with a smile at him, "But do I feel alone? No. Never. How could I, with the belief that I'm a part of something so much bigger?"

Harry stared at the mana of the house, continually moving and churning all around him, and let the smooth flowing waves of mana calm his senses. He felt a bit more at peace with his own secret.

Of course, Perenelle just had to ruin the moment.

"You don't have to keep it a secret, you know," she said.

"Keep what a secret?" Harry asked, feeling a bit wary. Had the Flamels somehow uncovered his Gamer powers?

"That you're gay."

That was unexpected. Harry's eyes almost popped out of his head, before he pulled himself together and eloquently expressed his reaction to that question, "What!?"

"You do know that we will accept you no matter what your sexuality is right?" Perenelle continued, although the teasing smile on her face gave her away, "We're both pretty modern about it. Nicholas seems to have a habit of picking up gay apprentices. Did you know that his last three were all gay? It wouldn't be a stretch to imagine that you are too."

"Goddamit woman! I am not gay!" Harry cried indignantly, elbowing the woman in the arm, who then, in pursuit of retribution, found a ticklish spot near his midriff and launched an assault on him.

Their combined laughter echoed through the hallway down to the Library.

Nicholas, who was cleaning up all the mess in his lab while searching for some books, paused for a second to listen to the merry laughter of his family before he shook his head and resumed his work.

He had a small smile on his face.

The next few days passed pretty glumly, as Harry tried to evenly split his time between researching some stuff about the Game project, getting started on the massive pile of books Nicholas had handed him, and keep up with his school work.

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