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Chapter Thirteen: The Demise of the Myth of Immortality
Tonks produced a small key, pressed it into Lockhart's hand, and with a brief, nauseating twist of magic, they appeared before an elegant townhouse. Several wizards stood outside smoking, chatting idly. When they saw Tonks and Lockhart, they gave curt nods but said nothing.
"My colleagues," Tonks murmured.
Inside, an elderly man with a snow-white beard looked up from his chair and smiled warmly.
"Welcome, Mr Lockhart."
"It's an honour to meet you, Mr Nicolas Flamel," Lockhart replied quickly.
He was startled. He'd expected a six-hundred-year-old alchemist to look either unspeakably shrivelled or unnaturally youthful. But Flamel looked simply… like an old man. Frail, polite, ordinary.
"Come with me," Flamel said, leading him into a modest study. "Sit."
Lockhart scanned the room. It was disappointingly plain—no towering stacks of ancient grimoires, no peculiar contraptions humming with forbidden magic. Hardly the private sanctum of a legendary alchemist.
"How does it feel," Flamel asked suddenly, settling into the seat opposite him, "to come so close to death? If my question is rude, forgive an old man's curiosity."
Lockhart considered. "Strange. Empty. As though… I was the creator of a world that didn't yet exist. Luckily, I created it quickly enough to wake up."
"An experience beyond imagination," Flamel murmured. "But I shall know it soon myself."
The words struck Lockhart. This was the man who had surrendered the Philosopher's Stone to prevent catastrophe — and now he was quietly, deliberately walking towards that vast, inevitable wall: death itself.
For the first time, Lockhart dropped his easy smile. "Everyone eventually reaches it. Everything fades. Only death has the privilege of living forever."
"Only death is immortal…" Flamel repeated, intrigued. "A curious thought. But let me tell you something — I did not give up the Philosopher's Stone willingly."
Lockhart blinked. Not willingly?
Flamel continued, ignoring his surprise. "The Stone no longer works."
"But… you know how to make one," Lockhart said.
Instead of replying, Flamel reached into his robes and placed a crimson gem on the desk. The stone pulsed with colour and radiated a deep, ancient magic.
Lockhart recognised it instantly. He had never seen a Philosopher's Stone before, nor studied one, but instinct screamed that this was it. No other object could possibly hum with such raw, unnatural power.
His instincts also screamed something far less noble:
If I struck fast enough, could I kill him and take it?
But he forced the thought away. Flamel was ancient, yes — but magically, he would be a titan. The strongest wizard alive in theory. Age had worn down his body, not his power.
Flamel's eyes twinkled knowingly. "I made two Stones from the materials I gathered. Even Dumbledore does not know. One extends life for roughly seven hundred years. And in theory, I can craft another every decade."
Lockhart sensed there was more.
"But after using the first, I realised I had taken the wrong path. The Stone cannot grant immortality." Flamel's voice softened with memory. "It sustains life by sacrificing magic. It forces the body to regenerate by draining the soul's power. As long as one's magic grows faster than the drain, one lives. But the body decays faster and faster… so the Stone consumes magic faster and faster. A vicious cycle. Like drinking poison to quench thirst."
"When I first created it, I was among the strongest wizards alive. Now?" He gave a humourless smile. "I'm a Squib. And my body is collapsing at a speed no human frame should endure."
Six centuries crushed into months — Lockhart felt sick imagining it.
"If becoming a Muggle granted immortality, plenty would accept it," Lockhart said carefully. "But you mean the magicless can't use the Stone at all? And can't rely on another's magic either?"
Flamel nodded. "I haven't renounced immortality. I simply can't extend my life any longer."
"But even so — it gave you six hundred years. Isn't that a success?"
"No. Not when the cost is this." Flamel's eyes clouded. "When I reached two hundred, something changed. Emotion began to dull."
"At first, small things — struggling to feel joy, sadness. But over decades, it worsened. By two hundred and fifty, I felt nothing. When a friend died, I couldn't grieve. When an apprentice achieved brilliance, I felt no pride." He exhaled. "That is why I stopped teaching and healing. There was no pleasure in it."
"Then taste faded. Then the illusion of emotion itself. Do you understand what that means?" Flamel said, voice flat. "It is worse than death. Yet the instinct to avoid dying persists — barely. The faintest echo of fear, perhaps nothing more than the animal desire to cling to life. I spent years seeking a cure."
And clearly, he had not found one.
"What's the point of telling me this? Does Dumbledore know?"
"He knows. If he didn't, with his temperament, he'd have forced me to make one for him long ago. Truthfully, I almost wish Voldemort had succeeded in stealing the Stone. I'm curious what he'd do when his magic began dwindling."
Lockhart glanced at the glowing gem. "So this one…?"
"Destroy it, keep it, study it — it's yours. But I need your help."
Lockhart stiffened. "And my wounds? The Killing Curse—?"
"I was teasing," Flamel said mildly. "Your body will recover." He produced three bottles of shimmering potion. "Permanent mana potions. I drank these like water for the past century. The first has the strongest effect; afterwards, diminishing returns. For me? They might as well be tap water now."
Lockhart accepted one bottle with both hands, a cocktail of awe, fear, and disbelief rising inside him. Was this how chosen heroes felt — handed relics and secrets by mystical old men?
"What do you want me to do?"
"Dumbledore says you are the finest master of memory magic alive," Flamel said. "Erase every trace of how to create and use the Philosopher's Stone — from my mind, and from those of my apprentices. They're resting in the next room. I refuse to let my successors repeat my mistake. And I refuse to let Voldemort ever lay hands on this knowledge."
"I understand," Lockhart murmured — though the revelation that Dumbledore knew of his skill made his skin crawl.
Flamel folded his hands. "Let's begin. I want to die quietly. Afterward, make the Aurors go home."
Lockhart raised his wand. A strange sensation washed over him — he had never cast this magic with the target awake, looking directly into his eyes.
"Obliviate."
It took minutes to unspool centuries of knowledge. Someone, somewhere in the world, might one day rediscover the method. But certainly not Voldemort.
Lockhart left the house with the Philosopher's Stone in his pocket, feeling dazed.
He had accidentally derailed the plot.
Accidentally slept for months.
And accidentally participated in one of the greatest events in wizarding — perhaps even human — history:
The destruction of the myth of immortality.
"…Am I still under Voldemort's Killing Curse and dreaming all this?"
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