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From Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone:

There have been many reports of the Philosopher's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).

Yet in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, he clearly lives alone.

What happened to his wife?

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    He clearly lives alone? What makes you say that? Just because we don’t see Perenelle in the two minutes Nicolas is there doesn’t mean she doesn’t live there. She may be at the market, or just upstairs resting. Nov 19, 2018 at 9:01
  • As @JanusBahsJacquet says, I don’t see that he clearly lives alone. Just because his wife isn’t on screen doesn’t mean she’s not around.
    – Notts90
    Nov 19, 2018 at 11:09
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    Also, he clearly says "we don't keep food in the house," indicating that he definitely does not live alone. Nov 19, 2018 at 20:02

2 Answers 2

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Based on what we know about Flamel (loves opera, has a residence in Devon at some point), it's certainly possible that this house in Central Paris is a pied-à-terre, a small house that he and his wife keep for the purposes of visiting the city and where Flamel can conduct his alchemical experiments without disturbing his neighbours.

FLAMEL: I’m afraid we keep no food in the house.

The Crimes of Grindelwald - Original Screenplay

That being the case, his wife is presumably still in Devon. Dumbledore told him to drop by to make the place ready to receive visitors in an emergency, hence his arrival.


On a side note, you may wish to note that she appears to be entirely absent from the entire range of tie-in factbooks, or at least those that have been scanned by Google Books.

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    If he has a residence in Devon, wouldn’t that be a more likely place not to risk disturbing the neighbours than the middle of Paris? I mean, are there actually even people in Devon? Nov 19, 2018 at 23:54
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Flamel says ‘we keep no food’, the ‘we’ possibly refers to his wife.

Those Flamel’s wife is never shown or mentioned in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, at one point Flamel tells Jacob that ‘we keep no food in the house’, which implies that there’s more that one person living in the house, otherwise it’d make more sense for him to use the pronoun ‘I’.

A figure appears behind JACOB. Six-hundred-year-old NICOLAS FLAMEL stands at the entrance to his alchemist’s studio.

FLAMEL
I’m afraid we keep no food in the house.
- Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (The Original Screenplay)

It’s possible that this means his wife does live there, but just isn’t seen there for some reason.

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