What if there was an ancient dark wizard, that posed as one of the good guys for over six centuries and what if I told you that he had everyone fooled, including Dumbledore and Voldemort?
How could a seemingly benevolent wizard pull this off? What dark deeds was he involved with, and how did he conceal his true nature from the Wizarding World for so many hundreds of years? Today, we’re going to be discussing all of that and more as we dive into the true nature of famed alchemist Nicholas Flamel.
It’s no big surprise that wizards live longer than humans. In fact, according to the Ministry of Divine Health, the average Wizarding life expectancy was reported at an average of 137 and 3/4 years old, meaning they live an average of 57% longer than humans.
But when we think of really, really old Wizards, the first man that comes to people’s minds is Nicholas Flamel, a Frenchman who stuck around for seven centuries.
Much like the powerful wizard Merlin, Flamel is included in all sorts of folklore, pseudo-historical accounts, and even historical accounts. He’s all over the place, and it makes him that much more intriguing. His character and identity was fascinating enough for people to adapt into folklore, and that’s exactly the way Flamel found his way into Harry Potter.
Flamel was a French scribe born in the year 1330 in the city of Pontoise. He lived in Paris for the majority of his life and spent much time there over the course of the 14th and 15th century.
Flamel ended up being such an influential figure in Parisian history that there is even a road named after him called Rue Nicolas Flamel. Even more interesting than that, one of Flamel’s original houses still exists in Paris to this day at 51 Rue de Montmorency.
On a day-to-day basis, Flamel worked to scribe and manuscript seller and ran two shops offering these services in Paris. Flamel achieved a great deal of success in his career and, as a result, became quite wealthy. In the year 1368, Flamel would go on to marry his wife, Perenelle, a generous benefactress who had a great deal of money from her former two marriages.
But it wasn’t until Flamel achieved his two legendary feats in alchemy that he would truly immortalize himself in history. Flamel’s legendary accomplishments as an alchemist were first mentioned in L’Harmonie Mystique, an alchemical text first published in 1612.
The text outlined that Flamel had succeeded with two great achievements in alchemy: the first being that he created the Philosopher’s Stone, which was purported to have turned base metals into gold, and the second achievement was that he and his wife had succeeded in creating an Elixir of Life, which allowed them to achieve immortality.
Flamel was truly an icon in alchemy and he had reached legendary status within the circles of alchemy by the mid-17th century. He was even mentioned in Sir Isaac Newton’s journals. In an interview, Rowling discusses Flamel:
Nicholas Flamel is a historical character. Flamel lived in France in the 14th century and is supposed to have discovered how to make a Philosopher’s Stone.
There are mentions of sightings of him through the centuries because he was supposed to have gained immortality. There are still streets named after Flamel and his wife Perenelle in Paris after making his two discoveries.
It’s been expressed that Flamel, along with his wife Perenelle, were able to produce an Elixir of Life from the Stone, allowing them to live ludicrously long lives. Though Flamel could have lived forever had he continued to utilize the Philosopher’s Stone, him and his wife eventually embraced death.
Flamel knew that the Stone that he had created would ultimately bring more harm than good if it fell into the wrong hands, and that’s why he and Dumbledore made the decision to destroy it.
But here’s the thing: I think there is a lot more to Flamel than meets the eye. His magnificent, entirely unparalleled discovery and 700 years on the Earth all seem a bit suspect to me. And within the Harry Potter Universe, there is certainly more than one way to achieve immortality. I think Flamel made a Horcrux.
A Horcrux is created when a wizard takes an object and binds a piece of their soul to it. The purpose is immortality, with the logic going that as long as a piece of your soul survives within the object, then you can never truly die. It’s magic so dark, so heinous, that it was kept a secret from most of the Wizarding World.
What’s important to note here is that Nicholas Flamel, known for his reputed alchemical prowess and creation of the Philosopher’s Stone, is very much shrouded in mystery, and his legacy largely based on legend and sparse historical records, leaves much room for speculation about his true accomplishments and motivations.
And I think the first clue in unraveling this scandal is the fact that the Philosopher’s Stone was never duplicated.
The Philosopher’s Stone is depicted as a small crimson gem with a rough, unpolished surface that glows with an inner, almost otherworldly light. It radiates a subtle warmth and, despite its size, it feels dense and weighty when held. The stone surface is slightly translucent, revealing swirling patterns within, reminiscent of captured flames or flowing molten lava.
It’s an impressive object to look at, but even more impressive are its alleged capabilities: the ability to turn any base metal into gold and the ability to create an Elixir of Life. The object was also written about in numerous alchemical texts, making its existence well known throughout the Wizarding World.
Now, my question is: if the Philosopher’s Stone was truly what it had been written out to be, why wouldn’t anyone else try to recreate it? This seems especially unusual if you consider that it existed in the Wizarding World for over half a millennium.
The answer is that the Philosopher’s Stone never did any of the things it was reputed to do. It didn’t turn lead into gold nor did it produce the Elixir of Life.
Instead, it served a much darker purpose. This enigmatic artifact was in reality a Horcrux, binding Nicholas Flamel’s soul to the Mortal realm and granting him an unnatural longevity through sinister means. Its legendary abilities were mere fabrications, masking its true malevolent nature.
Alchemy, by nature, is a field filled with secrecy and cryptic knowledge. Therefore, I suspect that Flamel’s supposed success in creating the Philosopher’s Stone was instead a veil covering his actual darker pursuits. What’s also important to note is that Flamel wasn’t qualified to create an object like the Philosopher’s Stone.
His expertise lay in literature and script, not in the intricate and secretive science of alchemy. Moreover, the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone requires profound knowledge in both magical and scientific principles, knowledge that Flamel likely did not have.
There is no historical record of Flamel receiving formal alchemical training or mentorship from established Alchemists, which would have been necessary to achieve such a feat. And while Flamel lacked certain abilities, he more than made up for his shortcomings with his writing skills, allowing him to expertly craft a story about creating the Stone.
Creating an object like the Philosopher’s Stone would require a deep understanding of advanced alchemical theories, extensive experimentation, and access to rare and powerful ingredients – resources unlikely to be available to a mere scribe.
It’s also worth noting that many accounts of Flamel’s alchemical achievements surfaced long after his death, often embellished or mythologized. J.K. Rowling said it herself: “Flamel is supposed to have discovered how to make a Philosopher’s Stone.”
This tells me that there’s more to the story than meets the eye. It’s also worth noting that contemporaneous Alchemists of Flamel’s time who dedicated their lives to the practice failed to replicate the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone, and therefore it is improbable that Flamel, without the same level of dedication and knowledge, could have succeeded where others with greater expertise did not.
Given the lack of concrete evidence of his alchemical prowess, I suspect that Flamel’s supposed success was a complete fabrication and that his longevity should instead be attributed to him discovering and using his own Horcrux.
I feel that this would also explain why Voldemort sought out the Stone during Harry’s first year at Hogwarts, in an effort to better understand the existing Horcrux of a wizard that had tethered his life to the Mortal realm for so many centuries.
At this point, Voldemort already had Horcruxes, so an Elixir of Life wouldn’t be much good. By obtaining Flamel’s Horcrux, Voldemort could potentially learn about the ancient and dark magic involved in its creation, bolstering his own defenses and understanding of soul preservation.
Furthermore, the destruction or control of such a powerful Horcrux would eliminate a rival source of dark magic, thereby consolidating Voldemort’s power and ensuring that no other dark wizard could threaten his supremacy. Voldemort didn’t want the Stone for its ability to produce an Elixir of Life; he wanted it to study and then destroy the only bit.
The only thing that needs to be cleared up here is if Flamel was tethered to life via his Horcrux, how did his wife Perenelle stick around for so long? And I think the obvious answer here is that she created a Horcrux of her own.
Flamel needed to stick to the story that the Stone was capable of producing an Elixir of Life, and by doing so, he was able to properly explain his as well as his wife’s ludicrously long lifespan.
And because she already had a cover to fall back on, it meant that Perenelle didn’t need to be as imaginative in creating a cover for her own Horcrux. What object Perenelle decided to use for her own Horcrux is anyone’s guess, but what we can assume is that it too was destroyed when Flamel decided to destroy the Philosopher’s Stone.
I suppose it is possible that Flamel and Perenelle are still out there, and that the Philosopher’s Stone was never actually destroyed at all.
But I suspect that after 700 years on the Earth, the couple decided that enough was enough, and that destroying their respective Horcruxes would be the right thing to do in order to pay penance for their dark crimes of the past.
What do you think? Does this theory hold weight, or was Flamel just a benevolent old genius? Let me know down in the comment section below.
