(Nicolas Flamel POV)

Things had been quiet for the last few months after I faked my wife Perenelle and I's deaths once again. It never ceased to amaze me how easily the vast majority of people accepted our deaths despite our record of faking it. I had contemplated actually dying several times over my long life but honestly speaking I couldn't accept leaving with so much left that I didn't understand. I was one of the few people aware of the being called Death after having seen it personally. Yes I had met Death before and what I learned from it confused me.-

Despite it's dementor esque visage it couldn't be further from the foul creatures in what it was. The Death that visited me so long ago was nothing more than the spiritual projection of some other being made manifest. I didn't know this at the time of course since I hadn't yet reached the astral realm in alchemy yet and as such was quite unfamiliar with spiritual magics. The astral realm was a strange place that didn't exist in the physical plane exactly but rather sat just outside it. Curiously though it could only be accessed via crafting skill for some reason.-

While it was possible the physically enter the astral realm with ones body it was very stressful as the place was highly spiritual in nature and as such rejected living things. It was the very same spiritual nature that had allowed me to gain enough understanding of souls to identify the false nature of Death. It was frighteningly powerful for starters and old , so very old it was like all of history rested upon it's shoulders. And that was just what I observed of the mere projection sent by that being which was chilling to say the least.

I had looked for whoever it was that accessed the astral realm last year but had failed to discover any trace of them this entire time. In the end I simply chalked it up to some accidental occurrence on a random craftsman's part and stopped looking. Albus was still search for the fellow though since he hoped to ally with them since they were apparently within England somewhere. The fake stone destroyed in that school last year was merely a magical energy storage gem that I had made to imitate the real thing on Albus's behalf.-

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I was also not very concerned about that misguided man running around causing trouble all over the place either. Truthfully speaking the only reason I had even gotten involved in the previous conflict with him was that he threatened my home in Paris. While it was regrettable that he was taking so many lives I had seen a single muggle war take multiple times more before many times in my long life and as such ignored it. That said I did investigate the reason for why he even needed so many sacrifices and was quite shocked at what I learned.-

Unlike Albus and most others who weren't skilled enough to recreate the temporal remnant of an event , I was. Once I replayed the event of the sacrifice I discovered that in fact each town sacrificed was nothing more than fuel for a grand array ritual all over the globe. The goal of that ritual was none other than to increase the ambient magic levels globally to an unheard of level that had even my heart beating in excitement. It was a clever loophole in the agreement he had made over fifty years ago as his plan had nothing to do with muggles in truth but was using them purely as a means to his end goal.-

I could easily predict how the world would change following this grand ritual being completed and had to applaud how he accomplished his previous goal indirectly using this method. Magical energy interferes with more complex forms of technology than simple machines and as such all the weapons capable of truly threatening wizarding society such as those atomic bombs will cease to function entirely. In fact the muggles very way of life with get forcefully sent back to nearly six centuries or so technology wise.-

I had no reason to stop this change either as both Perenelle and I had long since found the way to elevate our power to the next level but couldn't take that step due to insufficient magical energy. Simply being so close to taking that step had left our bodies weak and frail as we struggled to sustain ourselves much less grow stronger. Today was especially interesting for me however as curiously enough I received a letter. It was a simple thing really with no hidden enchantments or even fancy packaging. The fascinating part however was that it was delivered by the phoenix that accompanied Albus most of the time and yet wasn't from him.