Nicolas Flamel (again)

[dorband at uwp.edu]

No: HPFGUIDX 22255

Neil writes:

> I've had another thought, one that may have been raised before:  Can 
we be sure that Nicolas Flamel was a wizard?  If he was just a Muggle 
alchemist who worked with Dumbledore that might explain the fact that 
Dumbledore has the reputation as the greatest wizard of modern times 
and that Flamel sat on his hands while Dumbledore tackled Grindelwald. 
 It would also explain why
> Harry and the others could not find Flamel in any of the books on 
wizardry in recent history; they assumed this was because he was 600+ 
years old, but it *may* have been because he wasn't a wizard.  
Hermione finds a reference to the alchemist in a dusty old book, but 
we know that alchemists existed in the Muggle world.  Perhaps the book 
failed to note that he was a Muggle?
> 
> Am I going astray here?
> **


Neil,

Gosh, that's a great idea!  That *would* explain many things about 
Flamel's apparent lack of concern with the wizarding world and the 
wizarding world's apparent lack of sentiment for Flamel.  I like that 
one alot.

In a similar vein...

Glenda and Danny Millgate wrote:
OK, so I'm going to take this Dumbledore/Phoenix thing and put it 
togehter with Flamel to really stretch. Actually I could well be 
taking this into the realms of fanfic plot.

   Quick run down in case there is one person left who doesnt get the 
life cycle of the phoenix...in standard mythology, a phoenix is born, 
grows old, and instead of dying, spontaneously combusts (more or 
less), and then is reborn from the ashes. In a sense immortal.       
                     
                 Lets say that Dumbledore is an Animagus, and he's a 
phoenix. What if he is able to harness the power of the phoenix, and 
as he gets very old in his human form, he transforms into an animagus 
and goes through the transformation of the phoenix...and hence is 
reborn young, but with his powers and knowledge intact?
                 That would mean he could have been doing all sorts of 
things for years. Of course, the hole in this story is that I guess 
the wizarding world might have noticed if he suddenly turned up a 
couple of hundred years younger...but I just really liked the idea. 
Gives him lots of extra time to muck around with Flamel...anyone want 
to bend this to fit? 
                 Glenda

This dovetails nicely with the question of What alchemy project could 
Dumbledore assist Flamel with since Flamel already possessed the Stone 
for 400 years before Dumbledore.  As Neil points out above, if Flamel 
were a muggle, perhaps he recognized that a wizard (Dumbledore) would 
see things with a different "eye" - a magical eye.  Dumbledore 
"improved" the Stone by adding the element of perpetual rebirth - to 
avoid what Margaret Dean, in a related post, calls "stasis."  Her 
relevant point:


"Perhaps this tells us something about the practical effects of
immortality?  At least of the type available by the use of the
Philosopher's Stone.  What if it creates a kind of stasis . . .
you don't grow old, but you don't "grow" in any other way,
either?  Perhaps Flamel isn't cited along with Dumbledore for the
achievements in Alchemy because they weren't his.  He may have
provided Dumbledore with the background from his own researches,
but Dumbledore was the one who had to forge ahead and come up
with =new= ways to use this lore, because Flamel was incapable of
new discoveries.
Thoughts?
--Margaret Dean"

Yes Margaret, I have thoughts.  The "stasis" that sets in during an 
immortal lifetime (I'm thinking more of the physical wear-and-tear on 
a physical body over an extended period of time - like forever) could 
not be overcome by Flamel because he is a muggle and this is simply 
the best that can be done - hey, no one else is immortal, so he did a 
pretty darn good job.  But along comes Dumbledore to put a wizard's 
twist on immortality - and avoid the problems of stasis.  Glenda hits 
the nail on the head: "...he is able to harness the power of the 
phoenix, and as he gets very old in his human form, he transforms into 
an animagus and goes through the transformation of the phoenix...and 
hence is reborn young, but with his powers and knowledge intact[.]"

This is what cements the relationship between Dumbledore and Flamel.  
It also explains why Dumbledore seems to be "the better" of the two. I 
like this whole scenario.

Neil, Margaret, Glenda and others, thanks for your wild and crazy 
thoughts.  I love this stuff...


 I need to think about this alot more (but right now I *really* have 
to get some work done here at work <G>)


Brian