The Intelligent Potter

An: And we've made it. Chapter 100. Thank you so much to everybody who has been following this story over the past three years. Over a thousand of you have followed this story and I am truly grateful. This chapter is for, well, all of you, but I would specifically like to acknowledge the few users who follow this story ardently and review on every chapter. This is for you WhiteEagle1985, jkarr, fraewyn, alix33, geekymom, Son of Whitebeard, and everyone else who has loyally been following this story for one hundred chapters. (I'm sure there's at least a few others who deserve mention by name who I'm forgetting right now, and I'm super sorry about that).

Also thanks so much for the 1800 followers! I probably have a few more than that because this chapter will be posted in a few weeks from now,

Also, here's a completely unbidden look back on this story. Really, it has been such a long process, and I have come so far as a writer and a person that it's really weird to look back at how quickly I used to skim over things and drop plot points. Not to say that I don't at all now, I am very very very far from infallible, but I think that I have gotten quite good at tying up plot threads, and writing things plausibly and seriously. To this day, I get tons of reviews about lazy mistakes like the 'insert granger address here' gag and stuff like that, and I really wish I could change every single lazy mistake I made with this story, but that would be very very hard. I get why Fanfic authors really want to redux their old work, but I just don't think I have the patience to do something like that. It just isn't creatively rewarding, and I would much rather be working on a brand new project after I'm done with The Intelligent Potter. Still, I get it, and I thank all of you for sticking through the silliness and idiocy of some of my earlier chapters. I hope it has been worth it for all of you.

Let me just say once again that your support for over one HUNDRED chapters is amazing for me. Thank you very much. I hope you enjoy this chapter. It is a tribute to all y'all.

*** Unknown Location, Present

Nicolas Flamel stuck his head under the tap of the public washroom, running his hands through his overgrown hair to try and wash up. The man had not had a bath in several long weeks.

He would use his wand but it had been crushed by the Darkness. His thoughts wandered to his wife for a brief second before he clamped down hard on that train of thought.

Neither Nicolas nor his wife had been very afraid of death, but being separated from each other was an entirely different torment which Nicolas had not been prepared for in the slightest. Really, he supposed, he should have just let himself die at the hands of The Darkness. It would have been terribly embarrassing but life was a lot harder than being taken by the ever-fair hands of Death. He had pulled himself through the assault on his home, and escaped The Darkness (not before a short but fierce duel between the two) because he knew that he was needed by The Leaders of the Light.

'Much help I am now,' he thought bitterly, his hand coming up to scratch his unshaved chin.

At the rate he was going, he would not even be able to make his way to England, let alone help out with the war effort. Not to mention that he was ever aware of the clock ticking on his lifespan, as his advanced age rapidly caught up with him, as the effects of the Philosopher's Stone wore out over time, after he had destroyed his life's greatest creation, to prevent it from falling into the hands of The Darkness.

He pulled himself out of his reminiscing to notice an eerie silence. That was odd. He was sure that there had been the voices of plenty of Muggles all around the public toilet, as usual. Now it was quiet. It was unnaturally quiet. A silencing charm.

Just Great.

They were back.

Nicolas scrambled up, his wild hair still dripping wet from the washing he had been giving it. Just in time to escape his death, it seemed, as the sink was shattered violently into itty bitty pieces of marble which went flying in every direction.

Nicolas ducked into a toilet stall in the public toilet to avoid being impaled by shattered marble.

The alchemist quickly set up an equivalent exchange, sacrificing the wall of the toilet to create a small dagger. With the wall out of place, Nicolas sprinted out of the toilet and into the crowded streets of Paris. He had been trying to make his way out of the city for weeks, but being pursued by the most deadly group of assassins in the world kind of put a dent in that plan.

Parisians looked at Nicolas - confused - wondering why the old man dressed in rags with overgrown hair was running haphazardly through the streets.

"Monsieur," Nicolas heard a French policier say, "Qu'est-ce que vous faites?"

He didn't have time to reply and kept running down the street. The policeman followed him, much to his dismay, presumably thinking he was some kind of homeless man in some kind of trouble.

Nicolas dove into a tiny alleyway, ducking past the board of a small restaurant set up there, and scaling the small wall at the end of the pathway.

The policeman followed him, "Je suis là pour vous aider!" he said earnestly, "I am here to help you!" he repeated in English.

Great. An earnest police officer thinking he would be able to help Nicolas against the best assassins in the world. He would have laughed at the hilarity of the situation under any other circ.u.mstances, but unfortunately, his life was on the line.

He had to deal with the policeman before he got himself killed, or worse, before he got Nicolas found by his assassins.

Nicolas stopped running, getting down on his haunches like he was tired from all of the running, and was panting to catch his breath.

"Monsieur," the police officer reached him, and got down on his haunches as well, "What is wrong, sir," he said, in French.

"Bad men," Nicolas gasped out with a faked shortness of breath, "Bad man chase me," he repeated.

"Come with me to the police station, and I will help you," the officer said, "My name is Emmanuel," the now-named officer smiled down at him.

Nicolas couldn't help being reminded of his old friend who he had not seen in so long now. He let the officer help him up, before subtly getting behind him. He pulled his dagger out discreetly, turning it around so that he could knock Emmanuel out with the b.u.t.t of the weapon.

Just as he drew his hand back to strike, he was blown away from the officer.

Cracks formed in the ground underneath them, and a huge jagged shard of rock pierced out of the ground. Nicolas noticed it just in time to dive out of its way.

The policeman whipped around, a baton out in his hand, his eyes bulging as he saw the destruction of the ground behind him.

Shit.

Nicolas was out of time.

A young man, muscular, walked into the alleyway. He was young but his hair had been died pure white, including the stubble on his face and his moustache.

"Oy oy oy," he said, "You are not dead yet."

"Get behind me," the police officer said to Nicolas trying to take charge of the situation, while simultaneously asking the white-haired man, "Who are you?"

"I am the Son of Whitebeard." the man smirked, before noticing that Emmanuel was reaching for his radio receiver to call for backup.

"Oho, someone's trying to play the hero. Delightful. Unfortunately, I can't have you involving any more mortals than absolutely necessary."

The white-haired man twitched his hand and the ground underneath Emmanuel the policeman ruptured, and then Emmanuel the policeman was ruptured, and then Emmanuel the policeman was stone cold dead.

Nicolas ran, but he knew that the Son of Whitebeard was not working alone. He was proven right, as an absolutely gigantic eagle lunged out of the sky, with snow-white feathers, and razor sharp talons aimed right at him.

Nicolas put his hand to the ground, sacrificing most of the cement and tarmac of the road to hastily create a metal medieval-style shield, and raised it.

The talons of the eagle embedded themselves in his shield, piercing straight through the shield, but stopping just before his c.h.e.s.t.

Nicolas pulled the shield back before throwing it right at the face of the eagle.

"White Eagle, report status," Nicolas heard a voice say.

"Subject is still alive, Fraewyn," a human voice came out of the eagle.

"Then kill it."

"That's what I'm trying to do!" the Eagle snapped before flapping its wings, creating large gusts of air which blew Nicolas into the wall.

Nicolas scrambled to his feet, only to find himself in a corner with assassins surrounding him from every angle. The White Eagle, with a flap of his wings, flew behind him, to stand above the wall which he had been backed against, just in case he tried his trick of transmuting the wall into something a lot smaller - which he had employed in the public bathroom - once again.

The two assassins who had assaulted him already were joined by four more assassins, who simply seemed to appear out of the shadows.

Nicolas got into a fighting position, holding his knife offensively.

The five assassins surrounded him.

"Nicolas Flamel," they all said together.

"Practised synchronisation, have you?" Nicolas said.

The assassins all glared, except one older lady, who responded by saying, "Yes, Actually."

"Geeky Mom," the White Eagle (who was still keeping himself floating by flapping his powerful wings) hissed, "Don't tell!"

Taking advantage of their distraction, Nicolas ran at the weakest-looking member of the squad, the so-called Geeky Mom, and with lightning quick motion, he stabbed at her.

With even faster reflexes, the assassin caught his wrist with two fingers, cracking the bones in the area and plucking the knife out of his hand faster than he could even blink.

The knife found itself embedded in Nicolas' t.h.i.g.h. The oldest man in the world gritted his teeth to avoid screaming out loud at the pain that he was feeling.

A powerful kick pushed Nicolas back into the corner he had been backed into earlier.

He coughed up a wad of blood, and fell over.

"He's done," the Son of Whitebeard said, "He isn't going anywhere."

"Ooh, does that mean we can have an evil monologue!" Geeky Mom said, delighted, "I've wanted to do one of those ever since I became an assassin, but all our victims just die too quickly to hold a conversation with."

The Son of Whitebeard pinched the bridge of his nose, but nodded, accepting the request.

"Fine," he said to Geeky Mom, "But make it quick."

Geeky Mom walked up to Nicolas, "Do you know who we are, dead man?"

The Alchemist looked up at her incredulously, but didn't answer. A vicious kick to his stomach soon changed that.

"Yes," he gasped out, "You are members of The Followers, the greatest group of assassins in the world."

"You know, you're a lot alike, you and I!" Geeky Mom said dramatically.

The rest of the assassins g.r.o.a.n.e.d at the cliche.

There was an awkward silence.

"Do you want to know how?" Geeky Mom prompted.

Silence.

Geeky Mom raised a fist and Nicolas answered quickly, "Yes, of course I do."

"We're all alchemists here," she said, spreading her arms to gesture to the rest of her group, "In fact, our power, the power of our entire organisation, is based on research that you conducted, Mr Flamel, so you have to imagine how surreal it is to kill you. To kill the man that made us."

Nicolas' eyes widened, this was news to him.

Another member of the posse of assassins grinned, "You never finished your research into the transmutation of magic itself, did you? You seemed it a danger to society, and shelved it, didn't you?"

Nicolas nodded slowly, a cold dread building in his stomach.

"Jkarr, don't steal my monologue," Geeky Mom said crossly.

"You don't own the monologue!" the now-identified Jkarr protested, "You're spouting cliches that are pretty much public domain, I can participate too! Tell her I can participate, Son," he said, referring to the Son of Whitebeard, and not a biological son of his own.

The Son of Whitebeard simply stared at Jkarr.

"Okay fine, be like that," Jkarr grumbled, before turning to another member of the group, "Tell her, Alix!"

Alix shrugged, and Jkarr huffed.

Geeky Mom looked back at Nicolas, "Sorry about that," she said, "Now, where were we? Oh yes, I was telling you about how your research was taken by our master, and made the basis for the creation of our powers."

"You have a master?" Nicolas asked, unable to resist his curiosity, despite knowing that he was going to take this information to the grave with him.

"We're called The Followers, of course we have a master," Alix said, reasonably.

"Anyway, your research created us. If you sacrifice your magic, this is what you can do," Geeky Mom grinned, before all her veins started glowing red, and she picked up the shield Nicolas had been using and crushed it between her hands.

"That's one of the possibilities," Alix explained, "Essentially, with all of the magic that you donate, you can transmute that supernatural energy into most any kind of power you wish."

"Fascinating," Nicolas murmured.

Geeky Mom frowned, "Where's the look of horror? I wanted to see your look of horror at what you have created."

Rather than give a look of horror, Nicolas grinned.

"Thanks for that," he said.

"Kill him," the Son of Whitebeard said immediately, "He's planning something, just-"

He flew into the wall, and collapsed to the ground. Unconscious but not dead.

Nicolas sprinted, grinning at the rest of the assassins, despite the pain in his side. His hand was glowing with power.

"Au Revoir, Assholes."

*** End of Chapter

An: Sorry I slipped into French a little in the thing. I really felt like writing all the French dialogue in French, but then I'd be one of the few people to understand what was going on, so I just kind of added lil French bits for fun. Yah.

Also, I did not start this chapter thinking Nicolas would survive. I thought this would be a fun way to kill him off, but it seems not. Nicolas lives to fight another day! And also fight in a cool, not-just-wands-magic, way! Usually, I'm a believer in dead-is-dead, but I think that Nicolas is a pretty cool character to keep around. What do you guys think of me keeping Nicolas around?

More importantly, I hope you guys enjoyed! I didn't mean to offend any of you with your representations or anything, these are just fun characters I made up off your usernames, and have nothing to do with any individual or what I think of them. Just a disclaimer. Thanks again for the follows and favourites and fancy schmancy powerstones, and most of all, thanks for the reviews.