Ian suspected as much. Flamel had likely seen these writings as a final, unfinished chapter in his life's work, something he desperately wanted to resolve before his time ran out.
The old master smiled faintly, but didn't comment further.
"Do you know what era these come from?" Ian leaned forward, his renewed energy now fuelling his curiosity, as Flamel placed the pages beneath a small, hovering orb of magical light.
Flamel nodded, considering.
"They predate Merlin. Some of these scripts were still circulating during his lifetime, but they originate from long before. In fact, the fragment I have came directly from Merlin's own manuscripts."
His answer didn't disappoint. Flamel could indeed date the material with remarkable precision. But even so, Ian still couldn't use that to determine the true age of the tower he'd seen.
Truth be told,
Since returning to the present, Ian had pored through magical history texts, some so obscure they were more footnote than fact.
But,
The cataclysmic destruction he'd witnessed, whole nations swallowed by calamity, appeared nowhere. Not even in the most ancient volumes of recorded wizarding history. As though it had been scrubbed from time itself.
"Hmm… It must've been around Merlin's era," Ian mused, recalling the tower's carvings. They depicted in vivid magical detail the series of events sparked by his… unorthodox senior sister.
Yet,
Without knowing precisely how long Professor Morgan had lived, Ian couldn't connect the dots between the tower's age and her lifetime.
Perhaps, next time he entered the Twilight Zone, he could press Professor Morgan for more details. But as things stood, he'd only managed one trip there, and the cooldown between entries remained unchanged. His hope that a surge of Magic power might bypass the delay had proved false.
"There wasn't any inscription or name on the tomb you discovered?" Flamel asked, a touch perplexed. "Anyone capable of burying that many Philosopher's Stones in a single grave must've left some mark on history."
His voice held genuine confusion, how could someone so powerful remain nameless?
He didn't ask Ian where the tomb was, nor did he attempt to persuade Ian to take him there. Nicolas Flamel understood the unspoken etiquette of the magical world, there were boundaries in such matters, and he knew better than to overstep.
In wizarding society, it's considered highly improper, even offensive, to intrude upon another's magical fortune or discoveries.
"Perhaps there is," Ian murmured, recalling the image of the hooded skeleton he'd encountered in the tower. But he was fairly certain that skeletal figure wasn't the tower's original master; it had seemed more like a being bound or imprisoned there.
Yes, a being, more creature than spectre.
It wasn't some vengeful spirit, that much Ian had quickly realised after bringing it back from the Twilight Realm. The hooded skeleton possessed an eerie vitality, one even stronger than that of many living beings.
"Why the word 'perhaps'?" Nicolas Flamel raised an eyebrow, puzzled by Ian's uncertainty.
"I found someone down there, chained up, but he claimed to have no memory of who he was, so I doubt I'll uncover much from him," Ian replied honestly.
His answer left Nicolas Flamel thoroughly stunned.
"Still alive? After thousands of years?" Flamel's gaze instinctively returned to the pile of Philosopher's Stones. He must have assumed the figure Ian encountered had survived through the power of those ancient stones.
"Well... alive might be the right word? I left him in the Room of Requirement. Perhaps you could have a look when you've time? I didn't dare keep him with me, nor could I bring him back here."
Ian retrieved his pouch to demonstrate, the enchanted bag clearly showing signs of frayed seams that had been hastily repaired with Spellotape and patchwork enchantments.
He had, somewhat foolishly, attempted to stuff the hooded figure into the pouch. But the moment he pressed the skeleton's head in, the bag split down the middle. Had he not pulled it out in time, the pouch, which had taken months of careful enchantment to expand to over half the size of Hogwarts, would've been ruined entirely.
"You brought that kind of ancient thing back to school..." Nicolas Flamel's throat went dry. The sensation was not unlike what many Hogwarts professors must feel on a daily basis when dealing with Ian.
How is this boy not in Gryffindor?
"This is actually one of the reasons I sought you out." Ian seized the opportunity, rolled up his sleeve, and revealed the peculiar magical inscription etched into the skin of his forearm, part of the oath that bound him within the Twilight Realm.
"This…"
Nicolas Flamel leaned forward for a better look. The moment his eyes landed on the markings, his expression shifted. These weren't just any magical texts. The inscription differed entirely from the ancient scripts Ian had brought him before, and Flamel instinctively shielded his eyes with one hand while grasping Ian's arm with the other.
Though his grip was firm, it lacked strength, age had sapped his physical prowess long ago. Still, his reaction betrayed the depth of his concern.
"It seems to be a kind of magical oath, similar to an Unbreakable Vow," he said at last, voice raspy with awe. "But it's more intricate… far more potent, binding, and woven with a magic older than even most of our recorded rites."
He continued to examine the glowing script. "I've seen something like this… in ancient accounts of forgotten priesthoods, whose members bore such markings. But yours is, "
Nicolas Flamel abruptly stopped, his mouth hanging open slightly. His eyes flickered with a troubled light. Both his withered hands remained clamped on Ian's arm, unmoving.
"A kind of what?" Ian prompted, glancing at the clock as the silence stretched past ten minutes.
Nick gave no answer.
Instead, he gently ran a bony finger along the edge of the inscription. Eventually, he sighed, released Ian's arm, and gave a sheepish smile, scratching his head in a surprisingly youthful gesture.
"Nothing. I suppose I don't really know either," He admitted.
"Eh?"
Ian blinked in disbelief. After all that, this was the best Nicolas Flamel could offer?
He cast a suspicious glance at Flamel's head, half-expecting it to taper into a cone shape. Had the great alchemist suddenly turned senile?
"Don't look at me like that," Flamel said with a helpless shrug. "I'm only human, you know, just one who's lived a very long time. I dare say Albus would've figured it out in a moment, but me? I'm not quite so clever."
That much, at least, was fair.
"Well, could you still help me study it?" Ian asked, producing a separate piece of parchment with a copied version of the inscription.
"Of course, though I don't need that." Flamel waved the parchment away, a faint trace of offence in his voice.
"Are you doubting the memory of an alchemist?" HHe teased, clearly meaning to say he'd already memorised the marking down to its final rune.
"No, no, never!" Ian hastily tucked the parchment back into his robes, though a flicker of doubt may have lingered in his expression. After all, Flamel was over six centuries old…
"Don't worry, I understand your concern. From what I've seen, this oath doesn't harm you. Quite the opposite, in fact, it recognises you as the dominant party."
Nicolas Flamel looked at him meaningfully, his faded eyes glinting. Then, with a sideways glance at the enchanted clock on the wall, something seemed to occur to him, something that would, in turn, jog Ian's own memory.
"I also found this."
To help Nicholas Flamel better determine the era of the tower, Ian retrieved the enormous enchanted clock he had brought back with him.
The massive timepiece, larger than several Ians put together, looked positively ancient. When he set it on the floor, it gave a dull, echoing thud. The dial, conspicuously missing its hands, bore the marks of time and tempest alike, its surface weathered and worn.
"Merlin's beard…" Nicholas Flamel was, once again, completely dumbfounded.
'What was going on lately? Why did this student keep dragging bizarre, broken time-related contraptions to him? And not just any, they were all ancient magical constructs! Hadn't the Department of Mysteries supposedly destroyed every last original Time-Turner centuries ago?
Where in Merlin's name had this colossal artifact come from?! Flamel leaned in, running his fingers over the faded runes inscribed on its surface. The alchemical symbols were unmistakably of the same structure as the magical glyphs Ian had brought from the tower earlier. He exhaled heavily.
(To Be Continued…)
You can read ahead up to 110 chapters on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395