THE MAN
WITH TWO FACES
“We must have crossed in midair. No sooner had I reached Lon-
don than it became clear to me that the place I should be was the
one I had just left. I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you —”
“It was you.”
“I feared I might be too late.”
“You nearly were, I couldn’t have kept him off the Stone much
longer —”
“Not the Stone, boy, you — the effort involved nearly killed
you. For one terrible moment there, I was afraid it had. As for the
Stone, it has been destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” said Harry blankly. “But your friend — Nicolas
Flamel —”
“Oh, you know about Nicolas?” said Dumbledore, sounding
quite delighted. “You did do the thing properly, didn’t you? Well,
Nicolas and I have had a little chat, and agreed it’s all for the
best.”
“But that means he and his wife will die, won’t they?”
“They have enough Elixir stored to set their affairs in order and
then, yes, they will die.”
Dumbledore smiled at the look of amazement on Harry’s face.
“To one as young as you, I’m sure it seems incredible, but to
Nicolas and Perenelle, it really is like going to bed after a very, very
long day. After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the
next great adventure. You know, the Stone was really not such a
wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The
two things most human beings would choose above all — the trou-
ble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things
that are worst for them.”
297