The morning air in Paris was crisp and clean, carrying the scent of fresh bread from the boulangeries that lined the cobblestone streets. Alister stood on the front steps of the Flamel residence, breathing deeply for what felt like the first time in days.
The sky was a pale blue, streaked with wisps of cloud. Somewhere in the distance, church bells rang out the hour.
"It's bright," Alister muttered, squinting against the sunlight.
"That's called the sun," Flamel said dryly, stepping out beside him. The old alchemist had cleaned up considerably—his hair was combed, his robes pressed, and he no longer smelled like ozone and desperation. "Common feature of the outdoors. Fourteen billion years old, give or take. Fascinating fusion reactor. You may have forgotten about it."
Alister rubbed his eyes, still adjusting to the daylight. His body felt fine—his enhanced physique had kept him functional through three days of non-stop work—but his mind felt like it had been put through a meat grinder.
Astra emerged next, wrapped in a new cloak that Perenelle had conjured for her—deep blue wool with silver embroidery along the hem. Her eyes were wide as she took in the street.
"It's so... different from London," she said quietly.
She was right. The magical quarter of Paris was unlike Diagon Alley or even the hidden streets of London. The buildings here were tall and elegant, their facades painted in soft creams and whites.
Window boxes overflowed with enchanted flowers that bloomed in impossible colors—violets that shimmered gold, roses that cycled through the rainbow. Street lamps lined the roads, their glass housings containing not flames but softly glowing crystals that would activate at dusk.
"The French have always had a flair for aesthetics," Flamel said, gesturing down the street with his walking stick—a elegant piece of carved rowan that hummed faintly with protective enchantments. "They believe magic should be beautiful, not just functional. A philosophy I happen to agree with, though it took me about two centuries to appreciate it properly."
He started walking, his pace leisurely but steady for a man who was over six hundred years old.
"When I was young—and by young, I mean in the 1300s—Paris was a filthy, disease-ridden cesspool. The Seine was an open sewer. People threw their chamber pots out the window. Absolutely barbaric." He gestured grandly at the clean, sunlit street before them. "This? This is much better. Progress is real, children. Never let anyone tell you otherwise."
Perenelle appeared last, locking the door behind her with a wave of her wand. She had changed into traveling robes of deep burgundy, and she carried a small wicker basket over one arm.
"Come along then," she said briskly. "If we are going to play tourists, we will do it properly. And Nicolas, please don't lecture them about medieval sanitation before we've even had second breakfast."
"I was providing historical context!" Flamel protested.
"You were being morbid."
"Historical context is never morbid, my dear. It's educational."
They walked through the winding streets of magical Paris, Flamel playing the role of tour guide with surprising enthusiasm. Despite his age—or perhaps because of it—he moved with an energy that seemed infectious.
"That building there," he pointed to an ornate structure with stained glass windows depicting various alchemical symbols, "is the Académie des Arts Arcaniques. Founded in 1287, actually, two years before I enrolled. They teach proper wandwork, potion brewing, combat magic, and theoretical thaumaturgy. Very prestigious institution. I was expelled in my third year - 1290, if memory serves."
"For what?" Alister asked, genuinely curious.
"Transmuting the headmaster's desk into a very aggressive goose during final examinations." Flamel smiled at the memory, his eyes twinkling. "In my defense, he was a pompous ass who claimed transmutation was a 'lesser art' compared to transfiguration. I proved him wrong. The goose chased him around the examination hall for twenty minutes. Still one of my prouder moments."
Astra giggled—a sound so rare that Alister found himself smiling too.
They passed shops selling enchanted perfumes that changed scent based on your mood, bookstores with tomes that whispered their titles as you walked by, and a café where the chairs floated lazily above the ground, allowing patrons to dine while suspended in midair, newspapers held aloft as they sipped their coffee.
A witch in modern muggle clothing—jeans and a colorful jacket—hurried past them, a briefcase in one hand and a wand in the other, muttering about being late for a meeting at Gringotts Paris branch.
"The 1980s," Flamel mused, watching the witch disappear around a corner. "Such a strange decade. The muggles have their cold war, their nuclear weapons, their computers getting smaller by the year. Meanwhile, we wizards argue about whether or not we should allow enchanted calculators in Arithmancy class. The International Confederation of Wizards spent six months debating it last year."
"What did they decide?" Alister asked.
"They're still debating it," Flamel said with a snort. "Bureaucracy is the same whether you're muggle or wizard. Possibly slower when you're wizard, actually. No sense of urgency."
They turned a corner and emerged into a wider boulevard. Here, the magical and mundane worlds seemed to blend more seamlessly. Alister could see ordinary Parisians walking past on the opposite side of a shimmering barrier—invisible to them—while on the magical side, wizards went about their business.
"The Eiffel Tower is in the mundane quarter," Perenelle explained as they walked. "But there is a viewing platform—disguised, of course—that wizards can access. The view is spectacular, and it's one of Nicolas's favorite spots in the city."
"I helped with the enchantments when they built it," Flamel said proudly. "1889. I was only five hundred and fifty-three at the time. Still spry."
"You consulted on the Eiffel Tower?" Alister asked, impressed despite himself.
"Consulted? Boy, I funded half the magical infrastructure!" Flamel laughed. "Gustave Eiffel was a squib, you know. Brilliant engineer, but no magic. His wife, however, was a witch. She came to me with the plans, asking if we could weave protective enchantments into the iron during construction. Took us three years and four hundred thousand galleons, but we did it."
"What kind of enchantments?" Alister's curiosity was fully engaged now.
"Ley line anchors, primarily. The tower acts as a massive stabilizer for the magical field over Paris. Before it was built, we had wild magic surges every few months—unpredictable, dangerous. Since 1889? Stable as a rock. The tower also serves as a navigation beacon for international portkey travel and a backup ward anchor in case of magical attack." Flamel tapped his walking stick on the cobblestones. "The muggles think it's just a pretty monument. We know better."
They made their way to the Metro entrance—a newspaper kiosk that stood on the corner of a busy intersection. Flamel tapped a sequence on the wooden frame with his wand, and the back wall swung open, revealing a spiral staircase descending into warm, golden light.
"After you, my dear," Flamel said, gesturing for Perenelle to go first.
The station below was nothing like the grimy tunnels Alister had expected. The walls were tiled in intricate mosaics depicting scenes from magical history—Merlin at Camelot, Flamel himself at his laboratory (looking considerably younger), the signing of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689, and more recent events like the founding of the French Ministry of Magic.
The platform was bustling with witches and wizards going about their daily business. A witch in business robes read Le Prophète de Paris—the French equivalent of the Daily Prophet. A wizard in paint-stained overalls argued with a moving portrait about artistic technique. A group of students from Beauxbatons, identifiable by their powder-blue uniforms, chatted excitedly about their upcoming holiday.
A street musician played a violin that produced visible notes—shimmering blue symbols that danced in the air before fading, each one representing a different pitch and harmony.
"The Metro was expanded in 1955," Flamel explained as they waited on the platform. "Before that, we relied on broom travel and apparition. But with the city growing and international traffic increasing, we needed something more efficient. The French Ministry hired a team of curse-breakers from Gringotts to excavate the tunnels without disturbing the muggle infrastructure above."
"Train's coming," Perenelle said, nodding toward the tunnel.
A sleek silver carriage emerged, moving silently along tracks that glowed faintly with runic script. The doors opened with a soft hiss, and they boarded.
Inside, the seats were plush velvet in deep red, and the windows showed not darkness but an enchanted projection of the city above—Parisians walking along the Seine, artists painting by the river, couples strolling through gardens, a mime performing for tourists near Notre-Dame.
Astra pressed her face to the glass, mesmerized.
"It's like a moving painting," she whispered.
"Better than a painting," Perenelle said warmly. "It's real. Just... viewed from below. The enchantment uses a network of crystal scrying points installed throughout the city. What you're seeing is happening right now, this very moment."
The train glided smoothly through the tunnels, stopping occasionally to let passengers on and off. At one station, a wizard boarded carrying a cage with what appeared to be a miniature dragon—legal in France, Alister noted, unlike in Britain.
Flamel pointed out various landmarks as they passed beneath them—the Louvre, the Palais-Royal, the Jardin des Tuileries.
"Paris has always been a city of magic," he said quietly, his voice taking on a nostalgic tone. "Long before there were wizards and muggles, there was just... power. The Romans felt it when they built Lutetia here. The Druids knew about it centuries before that. There's something about this place—the convergence of ley lines, perhaps, or just the accumulated weight of human belief and creativity—that makes magic stronger here. More vibrant."
He looked at Alister directly.
"That's why I stayed, all these centuries. I could have gone anywhere—lived in the mountains, hidden in some remote castle like Dumbledore. But Paris... Paris reminds me that magic isn't just about power or knowledge or transmuting lead into gold. It's about beauty. Creation. Life."
The train began to slow.
"And here we are," Flamel announced. "Champ de Mars."
They disembarked and climbed back to street level. The moment they emerged from the disguised exit—a maintenance shed that no muggle ever seemed to notice—the Eiffel Tower loomed before them, massive and magnificent.
Even in the mundane world, it was impressive. But Alister could see more than that. Activating his Mana Perception, he saw the shimmer in the air around the structure, the massive flows of magical energy running through the iron lattice like luminous rivers.
The tower wasn't just standing there—it was actively pulling ambient mana from the atmosphere and channeling it into the earth, stabilizing the entire magical field of Paris.
"Magnificent, isn't it?" Flamel said quietly, standing beside him. "I've watched that tower for nearly a century now. Never gets old."
They approached the base, where tourists milled about—muggles with cameras, couples taking photographs, families with children pointing excitedly at the top.
Flamel led them to what appeared to be a maintenance door marked "Défense d'Entrer" in faded paint. He rapped his knuckles against it in a specific rhythm, and it swung open silently.
The elevator inside was nothing like the cramped muggle lifts. It was ornate, wrought iron and polished brass, with a gate that clanged shut behind them and walls covered in art nouveau designs. As it began to rise, Alister felt the shift—the subtle transition from mundane to magical space.
The elevator didn't just go up—it phased slightly sideways, slipping into a version of the tower that existed in a parallel space.
When the doors opened, they stepped out onto a platform that didn't exist in the muggle world.
It was a wide, circular deck suspended in midair, supported by nothing but conjured force and ancient charms woven into the tower's structure. The floor was transparent crystal, offering a dizzying view straight down to the ground far below.
Around the perimeter, comfortable benches materialized from thin air as they approached, and a small refreshment stand in the corner sold enchanted drinks.
Astra gasped, instinctively gripping Alister's arm.
"It's okay," he said gently. "It's solid. I can feel the magic. It won't break. The enchantments are... incredibly well-crafted, actually."
She nodded slowly, releasing her grip and stepping forward cautiously.
The view was breathtaking.
Paris stretched out in every direction—the Seine winding through the city like a silver ribbon, the white dome of Sacré-Cœur glowing in the late morning sun, the gardens of the Tuileries laid out in geometric perfection. In the distance, Alister could see the shimmer of magical districts overlaid on the mundane city, visible only from this enchanted vantage point.
"This is beautiful," Astra breathed, all fear forgotten as she pressed her hands against the protective barrier at the edge.
Perenelle smiled warmly, resting a hand on the girl's shoulder. "It is. And it will still be here tomorrow, and the day after. Remember that, child. Beauty doesn't demand urgency. It simply exists, patiently waiting for us to notice it."
Alister heard the message clearly. He exhaled slowly, letting the tension bleed out of his shoulders.
She was right.
The Memory Metal could wait another day.
He walked to the edge and stood beside his sister, looking out over Paris, spread out before him like a promise.
"Thank you," Alister said quietly, glancing at Flamel and Perenelle. "For this. I needed it."
Flamel chuckled, leaning on his walking stick. "Six hundred years teaches you a few things, boy. One of them is that if you don't occasionally stop working, you'll drive yourself mad. I know. I've done it. Several times. Perenelle has had to physically drag me away from experiments more times than I can count."
"Literally drag," Perenelle confirmed. "He once barricaded himself in the laboratory for two months trying to perfect a life-extension elixir. I had to blast the door off its hinges."
"It worked, though," Flamel pointed out.
"You nearly poisoned yourself three times."
"But it worked."
They stayed on the platform for another hour, watching the city move beneath them, and for the first time since arriving in Paris, Alister felt truly at peace.
(END OF CHAPTER)
"Can't wait to see what Alister does next?
You don't have to wait! I am currently 10 chapters ahead on Patreon.
Link: patreon.com/xxSUPxx
Or you can buy me a coffee at:
buymeacoffee.com/xxSUPxx
special thanks to all my EPIC members and,
MYTH: Dutchviking