"No, no," he breaks in. "It's not a metaphor itself. It was a flawed stone. It did what you were told it did: transmuted substance, was part of a potion to prolong life beyond reason. The true Philosopher's Stone..." he trails off. "Well, I don't know what it would have done, really; as far as I know it's as much a pipe dream as a universal panacea. Gotten him out of your head at the very least, most likely, even cleansed you both of any corruption of the soul, madness, malice, or hurt in you. Flamel's stone was a worldly thing, with worldly results. The true stone was only spoken of in worldly terms, and I very much doubt that the Dark Lord would have been interested in it." He lays his hand gently on the Compound. "True alchemy is a quest of the spirit, spoken fumblingly in an encoded language of chemical reactions by those who can dream a better way but not grasp it."
"One of those shops, I take it?" he asks wryly. "I don't suppose it's still there? But, yes, this man, go on."