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harry potter - How is it possible that Dumbledore worked on the Philosopher's stone with Flamel?


I apologize in advance if this is a common question, I searched for "flamel" here first and couldn't find the answer.


If Nicolas Flamel is several hundreds of years old, how did Dumbledore work on the Philosopher's Stone with him? Did he use it a bit himself?


To clarify, Flamel would've died without the PS, at a reasonable age -- so it can be assumed he made it about ~500 years ago. But I seem to recall the book saying that Dumbledore helped him make it. So either Dumbledore used the stone as well (unlikely it seems) or Flamel had already artificially extended his life, or Dumbledore is somehow hundreds of years old.


Am I remembering this incorrectly?


Thank you!



Answer



The simple fact is that although Dumbledore is known to have worked with Nicholas Flamel, there's no canon mention of Dumbledore working on the Philosopher's Stone;



"Professor Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel."




Although Flamel is known to be the only contemporary possessor of a quantity of the Stone, there are no reasons to assume that Dumbledore had any hand in creating the current (or past) batches.



As to whether Dumbledore has been using the Stone/Elixir of Life, there's a quote from JKR to indicate that while he's very old, there's no indication that his age is unnatural. On top of that, his brother is very much alive (and appears to be much the same age) which wouldn't be the case if his life had been extended artifically.



"Interviewer : How old is Prof. Dumbledore...


JKR: Dumbledore's about 150 years old... Wizards have a longer life expectancy than us Muggles...



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