Nicolas Flamel still sat stiffly beside Perenelle Flamel's body, as dazed as he had been when Murphy left.
Only now, he had used magic to move Perenelle onto the bed, while he sat at the bedside.
He glanced at Quirrell, whom Murphy was holding beside him, and did not seem especially interested. He did not answer Murphy's question, but turned back to look at his wife. "Looking at her like this, I almost think she's still alive. Just as, for more than a hundred years, when I watched her sleeping, I sometimes thought she was already dead."
"Sometimes, I feel life amounts to no more than this—barely maintaining movement and thought. We eat very little each day, and gradually lost some of our sense of taste and smell. Our bodies could barely retain nutrition anymore. Our bones became fragile, our muscles withered, and it was only by relying on magic that we could keep moving with these mummified shells."
"Death, to us, truly has been close at hand. We've been friends with it for many years, so long that even the instinctive fear, sorrow, and regret have slowly faded away."
"We had long since prepared ourselves for death," Nicolas Flamel said. "But truly watching her leave first still brings a kind of sadness."
"There is no one left in this world who knows what kind of person she was, what she did, her beauty, her kind and gentle nature, that jewel-like brilliance of her wisdom, the happy times we spent together. All of it will be lost forever. No one will remember."
"My heart has grown far too old, just like this body, and it is difficult for anything to stir intense emotion in me. I cannot be angry, and so it is also hard for me to feel joy