March 3rd. Cairo, Egypt.
"Kind of reminds me of Diagon Alley." Dora mused when they stepped out of the Ministry building.
Harry had to agree with the sentiment, Egypt's hidden magic district was a lot like Diagon Alley, down to the way it was nestled in between the streets of the country's mundane capital. Not suprising, since the Egyptian Ministry of Magic had also come off as being very similar to the British one. The people were more brown, the signs were in Arabic as well as English and the clothing seemed to lean more towards tan or beige in hue, but other than that, it was closer to the British/European model of magical society than North America's had been.
That was....kind of suspicious actually. He knew that the ICW had come sniffing around here about a quarter of the way through the 18th century, decades in advance of of the mundanes. Given that the local magicals of the time were neither numerous, organised or especially powerful – Egypt having been conquered by Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks and several flavors of Islam since its heyday, all of which had eventually reduced the local wizards to a few scattered remnants – they had taken over easily and established a rudimentary magical government that was meant to enforce the Statute of Secrecy.
While that would explain the place having a certain European flavor to its government, it definitely did not explain why it looked as if the surrounding culture had not seeped in over the past two-hundred and fifty years as locally born wizards and witches were trained. Even the notoriously isolationist British purebloods hadn't been able to stop that from happening.
"Let's find ourselves the local equivalent of Flourish and Blott's." He said, wanting to investigate this minor mystery.
"Actually, I'd like to take a look at what kind of plants they're selling around here." Dora admitted. "Mum asked me to get her one of the more tame ones."
"Bookstore is fine with me, but I want to go look at some of the animals too." Luna said.
"And I want to see what kind of tourist locations we can visit. Egypt is supposed to have some good ones." Fleur chimed in.
Harry pursed his lips and aimed a scowl down the street. It seemed safe enough, but he was not feeling entirely comfortable allowing them to scatter like this. Not in this place.
"How about pairing up then?" He suggested. "Fleur with Dora and Luna with me?"
Fleur and Dora looked at each other and nodded with a shrug while Luna simply beamed at him and skipper over to take his hand.
"We'll find you when we're done." Harry said firmly.
"I am going with Fleur." Etal hissed from his collar and quickly jumped ship.
"Traitor." Harry hissed back in amusement.
Etal did the snake equivalent of a raspberry and wiggled deeper into the veela's collar.
"Hah, Etal knows where the fun is." Dora said with a cocky smirk.
"And the beauty." Fleur added with the same expression.
"Yes, yes, you're both fabulous." Harry rolled his eyes and made a shooing gesture. "We'll meet up with you later."
The two women smirked once more and swaggered off with their hands around each other's waists.
"Those two are a bad influence on each other." Harry muttered, looking after his girlfriends and then around the street again with slight worry.
"Harry?" Luna said softly, looking at him questioningly. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just a bit tense." He replied.
She looked at him with that particular look of absent scrutiny that always made him – and everyone else to be fair– think that she knew something. Harry still wasn't sure if she actually did or if it was just that kind of look.
"Are you being prejudiced again?"
And there was the cause of the uncertainty. Quite a lot of the time, she really was unerringly on point.
"Yup." Harry admitted with a nod.
Egypt was an Islamic country and Harry despised Islam just like he despised Christianity – they were basically the same thing after all – but Islam had not undergone the same reformation that Christianity had and religion still had its slimy tentacles wrapped around every facet of people's lives in Islamic countries.
Because of this, he saw all Muslims as potential enemies – people that couldn't be reasoned with. Yes, it was painting them all with the same brush, but he didn't care. He didn't care to know them or speak to them, not until they renounced their idiotic delusions, at which point they would no longer be Muslims by definition, so his reasoning neatly looped upon itself and spared him from having to make exceptions. He imagined that wizards in Medieval Europe must have felt the same about Christians. Sure, the guy selling cabbages from a street stall might be pretty harmless and probably a decent person in most respects, but he would cause you a lot of trouble if he learned you were magical.
Harry had even gone so far as to insist on making a blood-linked magical tracking device for each of his girls and for Sirius, which were currently sitting on his left forearm in the form of bracelets. Aside from keeping track of them, the braceletes also pulsed in time with their hearts, acting as a crude indicator of danger. He knew that they thought he was being overly paranoid and Harry would admit that it was probably true. After all, it wasn't like they had any reason or intention of interacting with the mundane population – had gone to considerable lengths to avoid such a thing in fact – but anything that reduced his stress levels was to the good. The feeling of being surrounded by potential threats combined with his derision for the local religion and culture was not the best of combinations and everyone was better off if he avoided the spiteful temptation to curse people. The occasional passing priest or street preacher in London was one thing, but Cairo was a bit too much of a target rich environment.
"Okay." Luna said easily.
"Have I told you recently that I love you?" Harry asked fondly, pulling the petite blonde into a hug as they walked. Fleur and Dora would at the very least have been exasperated with him in this situation, but Luna was so completely unjudgemental that you really could tell her anything and receive no condemnation.
"Not verbally." She replied happily, snuggling into his side and sending a wave of affection at him with her aura. "I love you too, Harry."
Harry returned the magical pseudo-hug as well as briefly tightened his arm around her.
"Do you think Sirius will manage to seduce Nadia?" Luna asked after a few seconds of comfortable silence.
"Hard to say, she wasn't some giggly idiot but I could tell that she wasn't completely unreceptive either." Harry said after a moment's consideration and then frowned. "He'd better not forget to mention that he's only out for a shag though. I don't need him causing me diplomatic headaches." He did still need to discuss the legal particulars of extending his business to Egypt after all and having their government contact pissed at his godfather wouldn't make that any easier.
The rest of their walk down the magical shopping district only further reinforced the similarities it had to Diagon Alley. Robe shops, apothecary, quidditch store, potions paraphilia,…..the only significant difference that Harry had noted so far was that Egypt's Ministry of Magic had its visitors entrance in the alley instead of somewhere else. Even accounting for the fact that there was only so much variation a shopping district can have, there was something decidedly European about the whole thing.
The bookstore was perhaps the most blatant about it. The design was very similar to Flourish and Blott's, but it was the books themselves that were the oddity. Quite a lot of them were in English, French, German and a few other European languages. In fact, if Harry had to guess, less than half of them were in Arabic.
"Curiuoser and curiouser." He murmured as he browsed the shelves.
"May I help you?" The voice of the shopkeeper, and perhaps owner, came from behind him, also in English.
"Yes, actually." Harry turned around and said with a small smile. "I would like to purchase all the books on the local magical history and law." He'd have taken a few spellbooks too, but there was nothing here that he hadn't already seen in Britain.
"All of them?" The old man blinked.
"All of them," Harry nodded firmly. "in both English and Arabic if possible."
The language spells that he had made such good use of back in Britain did not allow one to learn the written form of a language. Fortunately, once you knew the spoken form it was just a matter of learning the alphabet and doing some reading to get the hang of it. You wouldn't win any awards for grammar when trying to write in it, but you could read it just fine.
The old shopkeeper spent only a moment more looking surprised, then his eyes acquired an avaricious gleam.
"Right this way." He said happily.
"I'd like a good book on the local magical creatures." Luna spoke up.
"Of course, young lady."
XXXXX
Match 5th.
"Harry, you've been reading those books for ages already!" Dora's voice was not quite a whine. It was damn close though. "Let's go do something."
"I must agree with Nymmie." Fleur added her own two cents. "Those books will not be going anywhere."
"To be fair, the pyramids won't be going anywhere either." Luna pointed out reasonably. "But I would like to go see them today."
"Just one more thing…." Harry said absently, underlining a bit of text in the book of Egyptian magical law and then writing something down in a handy notebook.
"What could possibly be so fascinating about Magical Egypt's laws that you've had your nose buried in there so long?" Dora asked in utter exasperation and continued sarcastically. "Compensating for all the laws you're breaking back home?"
"Oh, the laws themselves are about as interesting as watching paint dry." Harry chuckled, closing the book. "But I did learn quite a few interesting things based on what isn't written."
"Such as?" Fleur asked with an archly raised eyebrow.
"That Egypt doesn't have any muggleborns apparently."
"That's impossible." Dora said flatly after a moment of stunned silence.
"Quite." Harry agreed. "But the fact remains that there are no provisions made in any of the laws for muggleborn children or their parents, nor are there any mentions of either purebloods or muggleborns in the history books. As far as Magical Egypt is concerned, there are only witches and wizards."
"That's…weird." The metamorph said slowly.
"Is that why you gave that boy that was being fostered with the Sayeghs such a strange look?" Luna asked shrewdly.
The dinner invitation that he hadn't been able to refuse without knowing how important Nadia Sayegh's grandfather was had been a typical high class affair; very stuffy and dull. The old man had clearly been looking to make connections, which was both tedious and predictable. Despite his irritation, Harry was prepared to say that it had been worth it, simply for the opportunity to see the six-year-old boy that Nadia's older brother was fostering.
"Yes." Harry nodded. "In fact, I might not even have noticed this if not for that."
According to the family's patriarch, the boy's parents had died as a result of some 'muggle violence' and they'd taken him in. It was a familiar ploy to Harry, take in some unfortunate kid to show how noble and virtuous you are. He would have dismissed it as the typical aristocratic feigned kindness if not for the lie he had sensed.
"The reason why they don't have any muggleborns is because they obliviate the shit out of the parents and take away any magical children as soon as they detect them. After that it's easy to just put them up for adoption."
"What?" Dora demanded, looking angry.
"I don't have any solid proof of course, but I don't think I'm wrong." Harry went on as if she hadn't spoken.
"Why would they do that?" Fleur asked pensively.
"Who cares why?" The metamorphmagus fumed. "It's barbaric."
"Actually, the why is very important." Harry argued. "There isn't much else they could do under the circumstances, aside from leaving the children untrained that is."
"Huh?" Dora blinked, caught off guard. "How could stealing children from their parents ever be the right thing to do?"
"You have to factor in where we are. The vast majority of the mundane population around these parts belongs to a backwards, belligerent, magic-hating religion. According to this" He held up the history book. "wizards here have had trouble over this before. The book only mentions a serious breach in the Statute of Secrecy in the early 18th century and doesn't say anything about the cause, but I'd bet half the gold in my vaults that it was because the government tried to adopt the same system for dealing with muggleborns as Britain currently uses."
"Only half?" Dora quipped.
"Only an idiot bets everything he has all at once, even on a sure thing." Harry quipped back. "Anyway, they probably learned quick that they had to be a lot more draconian with the secret of magic than Europe. Normally I'd say that was dumb, but in this case I can only applaud them for keeping that poison out. That must also be why Magical Egypt feels so damn European; they're taking in the bare minimum that they can get away with from the surrounding culture, which has allowed the original European influence to linger a lot longer than it should have. Come to think of it, that would also explain why Magical Britain feels like it was still trying to escape the Victorian era– they must have been doing the same thing until relatively recently. At first I thought that the muggleborn issue only became an issue in the past century or so because before then the mundane world was by and large a shithole unless you were rich. It's probably still a factor, but now I'm inclined to think that the modern muggleborn – that being a magical child raised by mundane parents in mundane culture – is actually a recent phenomenon."
"That makes a lot of sense." Luna said.
"Thank you." Harry smiled at her.
"So…I guess we're not going anything about the child snatching?" Dora sighed after a few seconds.
"Nope!" Harry answered cheerfully, putting the books aside and getting up. "Even if we wanted to, it's all perfectly legal and I don't fancy staging an ill-considered revolution. Now, you said you wanted to go see the pyramids?"
That the mundane government wouldn't see it that way went unsaid, as did Harry's disregard for the thoughts and feelings of the religious.
"It doesn't feel right, just ignoring it." The metamorph grumbled.
"Don't think about it too much. Those kids are probably better off anyway, at least they won't grow up being slaves." He said blithely.
"Slaves?" Both Fleur and Dora echoed in surprise.
"Yes, slaves. 'Muslim' literally means 'a person who submits'; ergo, slaves. I guess I can at least give Islam props for being honest about what it is; slavery. All religion is slavery really, you just can't see the chains."
Fleur and Dora both rolled their eyes mightily, nodded to each other and grabbed one arm each.
"Hell no. If you think we're listening to another one of your rants on religion, you've got another thing coming." Dora said snarkily.
"Oui." Fleur nodded firmly in agreement. "We are not debating ideology today. Today, we are having fun."
"I wonder if we'll see any skeletons." Luna giggled and skipped after them.
"I wasn't ranting." Harry asserted with dignity, receiving disbelieving snorts in return.
Alright, so maybe he had been ranting a little.
XXXXX
March 7th.
Harry put his arm down and watched as the skeleton collapsed, sighing in boredom.
There was no getting around it, Egypt was boring as shit.
Oh, there were plenty of tombs that were unknown to the mundane population. Not the giant pyramid types that were rather conspicuous, but smaller ones, some of them so small that they were little more than a doorway into an underground complex. Ancient Egypt's wizards had apparently gone for hidden more than ostentatious, though there were also a few smaller pyramids that the ICW had made vanish from the eyes of the mundane population centuries ago.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the goblins had already cleared out the vast majority of them. Then to add further insult to whole thing, some clever wizard had thought that turning the emptied tombs into some sort of theme park/tourist attraction would be a good idea. That was why there were now poorly animated skeletons walking around in them, some of them with extra limbs or skulls, designed to scare anyone that decided to explore the tombs. The lazy fucks could have at least put in the effort to animate a mummy, at least that would have fit the theme.
He recalled how excited Ginny had been about her trip here and felt like snorting. Either nobody had told her that all the excitement was staged or she'd still been impressed in spite of that. He wasn't sure which was worse.
"You know, this reminds me of a joke I came across a while back." Sirius said as he looked at some hieroglypgics.
"What kind of joke?" Luna asked curiously.
"About how Egypt is the same as the internet; everyone writes on walls and worships cats."
"Either you're as bored as I am, or your sense of humor took a dive." Harry snorted. "That joke is old as shit."
"I do not get it." Fleur admitted.
"You're not missing out on much." Dora said with a roll of her eyes.
"This sucks." Harry declared with a sigh after a few moments.
"But not as much as Fleur's grandmother, right?" Sirius snickered.
Then he yelped as his cousin fired a Stinging Hex at his arse.
"Don't be so crass." The metamorphmagus scolded.
"He's right though, Aurelié could suck cement through a straw." Harry said with a smirk, quickly deflecting the retaliatory hex sent at him.
"And you! Don't encourage him." She scolded some more.
"Too late, I'm already encouraged." Sirius grinned, making Dora huff in exasperation.
"Oh leave the boys alone, Nymmie." Fleur said teasingly. "My grandmother would take that as a compliment."
"Ugh, veela."
"Nymphadora, are you upset that you didn't get a blowjob from Aurelié?" Luna asked, cocking her head sideways curiously.
"No." The metamorph ground out.
"She would be glad to oblige if that is the case." Fleur assured, gleefully jumping on the opportunity provided by Luna. "A veela's sexual appetite is even greater during pregnancy."
"I do not want a blowjob from your grandmother, Fleur!" Dora shouted, her words booming through the tomb and no doubt drawing the attention of the other skeletons.
"Sounds like you guys are having fun." Sirius sighed fondly as his cousin fumed and everyone else snickered.
"We are." Luna said cheerfully. "My favorite is the buttfuck train."
"The what?" Sirius blinked.
"Luna!" Dora hissed warningly, and was ignored.
"Oh, that's when I stick a vibrating dildo up my fanny, Nymphadora grows a futa penis or uses a vibrating double-ended dildo and fucks my bum with it, then Fleur puts her own vibrating double-ended dildo in her fanny and fucks Nymphadora's bum with it and Harry dictates the pace with his penis up Fleur's bum. It's great fun and we switch things around sometimes to spice it up, although Harry is being really selfish by not letting anyone else take the conductor position."
"Damn." Sirius said, much impressed. "That does sound like fun. I'd be jealous if I wasn't such a love machine myself."
"Envious. And yes I can see what a love machine you are, clearly you can suck your own cock like a master."
"Fuck you, Harry."
"Rejected."
"I hate you all so much." Dora snarked. "If it wasn't for you, I would still be a respected auror. Instead, I'm unemployed and having my perverse sex life bandied about in this dank tomb, but that I could forgive. What I can't forgive is that you're all so immature that I have to be the responsible one."
"Look on the bright side, Nymmie." Harry smirked widely at her sour expression and prepared to cast a Ray of Nipple Hardening at his oldest girlfriend's breasts. "At least you're having fun."
Dora yelped and groped at her chest when a sudden blast of frigid air enveloped her nipples. She glared at the most likely culprit and launched herself at him, sending him running into the depths of the tomb with a laugh.
"Wait, I want to play too!" Luna called, running after them with a giggle, followed closely by Fleur.
"Ah, young love." Sirius sighed again. "Or at least young lust, which is even better really."
The sound of a blasting curse reached his ears and the dog animagus figured that they must have found another skeleton.
XXXXX
March 11th.
"Harry, I know that Egypt has been a disappointment to you and that you're bored, but how is trudging through the desert fun?" Sirius griped.
"We're not doing this for fun, we're looking for something." Harry replied.
"What would that be?" Fleur asked. While she was certainly enjoying the bright sunshine, all this sand was rather ruining it for her.
"Etal detected a big magical cat earlier."
There was a moment of stunned silence as they processed that.
"A nundu is a big magical cat." Luna said happily.
"A nundu is also a nearly unstoppable killing machine." Dora felt the need to point out, very much hoping that Harry did not have any crazy plans of seeking one out.
"Pfft, bullshit." Harry scoffed. "Sure, it's insanely magic resistant, but it can't fly, so all you'd need to do is sit on a broom or flying carpet and bombard it with conjured iron spikes or something. The diseased breath might be a problem, but nothing that can't be worked around easily enough. Nundus usually show up in eastern Africa anyway, and even that's pretty rare, so we aren't likely to run into one."
"So just to be clear, we aren't going after a nundu?" Sirius had to ask.
"No, we're looking for a sphinx. I'm hoping to figure out what the deal was with the cryptic hints the last one I met threw at me."
"Sphinxes have a nasty habit of mauling people that get their riddles wrong." Dora noted dryly.
"Well then we'd better not get any riddles wrong."
It was another twenty minutes of walking later that Etal spoke up.
"Over there!" He hissed, pointing at what could have just as easily been another patch of sand.
"Alright, let's go say hello." Harry said cheerfully, genuinely glad that this otherwise crappy vacation was finally yielding results.
The sphinx had appeared asleep when seen from a distance, but she became aware of them quickly and awaited their arrival with perfect calm.
"Good day." Harry greeted casually.
"Greetings, Spellweaver." She replied in the gravely tone of her species.
Harry's brows furrowed at the way she addressed him. "You aren't the same sphinx I met in Scotland." He stated. The face wasn't the same as he remembered and the chances of such a thing happening were remote in the extreme anyway. That meant that the first one had either been telling tales or that 'spellweaver' was a title that any sphinx would give him.
"Do you seek to be ordained?" She asked, ignoring his statement.
"Ordained as what?" Harry blinked, baffled.
"A priest of Ra. That is your purpose in seeking me out, is it not?"
Harry blinked again, wondering if he should point out that the Ancient Egyptian pantheon was nothing but a dusty memory.
Sirius seemed like he was about to say something and Harry waved at him to stay quiet, thinking.
There was simply no way that the sphinx could be oblivious to the knowledge that Ra's priesthood had been defunct for ages, which meant that something fishy was going on.
"Yes, let's go with that." He said cautiously.
The sphinx nodded her massive head. "Very well. I will await your arrival south-west of Pharaoh Djoser's pyramid."
"When?" Harry asked.
"I will await your arrival." The sphinx repeated, got up and ran off without another word.
"That's one dedicated girl." Sirius said, amused. "I hope you realise that this is probably a trap."
"It does seem that way, doesn't it?" Harry agreed. "The only problem is that I can't figure out any kind of motive that a bunch of sphinxes might have to set a trap for me. More to the point, they couldn't have planned for when or even if I'd seek one of them out. No, this has the feel of opportunism."
"I don't like it." Dora said with a frown. "We have no idea what we'd be walking into if we go along with this."
"She didn't insist on Harry going alone." Fleur pointed out. "With the five of us all there, we should be able to handle anything."
She didn't say that she was just as curious as Harry. She had considered going into the curse-breaking profession at one point after all and this sounded like it would be interesting.
"That could just mean that the trouble is too much even for all five of us." Dora argued, deliberately channeling her mentor's paranoia.
"I don't think she meant us any harm." Luna weighed in.
"It's the first piece of Ancient Egypt we've been able to find that hasn't already been looted by someone else." Harry said. "I want to see what the deal is."
"An adventure, eh?" Sirius grinned. "I'm game."
Dora looked at everyone's faces and sighed. She was clearly the only one that thought it might be better to leave well enough alone. That being said, she couldn't deny being curious herself.
"Fine, but we go in there loaded for bear." She said.
"I don't think we're going to find any bears." Luna said doubtfully.
"That's not…." Dora began in exasperation, only to trail off into a sigh at the snickering coming from Harry, Sirius and Fleur.
"You guys suck."
XXXXX
March 12th.
The area that Etal's forked tongue led them to was barren desert of a slightly more rocky persuasion than what people imagined when they thought of the Sahara, though there was no shortage of sand either. The sphinx hadn't been very specific about the meeting location, particularly not about how far south-west of Djoser's pyramid they were supposed to go. Quite far as it turned out, far enough that walking was out of the question, not that anyone really fancied a walk through the desert anyway. Fortunately, they were prepared and had brooms.
Their quarry was waiting for them with a look of endless patience and merely bid them to follow once they arrived.
The walk to their destination was short, the destination itself being a small and utterly unremarkable pile of sand and rocks the likes of which was ubiquitous around here.
Well, unremarkable for most.
"What's this supposed to be?" Dora asked, looking around in bewilderment.
Harry looked at her oddly. "You mean you can't see the door?" It was a rather big door.
"What door?" Sirius and Fleur said in unison.
"I don't see it either." Luna said.
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to explain why I'm the only one that can see it?" Harry asked of the sphinx. He did have a few guesses, but they were just guesses.
"Ra illuminates the path for his chosen." The sphinx said simply.
"Huh." Harry said. That was impressively straightforward for a sphinx. The doorway was clearly hidden by some contrivance of magic that only the Sun's Light could pierce, but a more concentrated version than what could be found in regular sunlight. That Fleur couldn't see the door was a bit odd….or it could be that Harry was the oddity. He did have two Sol runes carved into his temples after all.
With a minor exertion of will, he concentrated the Sun's blazing magic into a globe in his hand and used it like a flashlight.
"Ah, that door." Sirius said as it became visible and the heavy stone plate blocking the entrance sank into the ground.
"Shall we?" Harry said with a grin, eager to see what was down there.
That got him a murmur of agreement from all except one member of their party.
"I am not going down there." Etal hissed a tad petulantly, staring suspiciously into the darkness.
"Are you certain?" Harry hissed back, trying not to sound too amused. The quetzalcoatl hated being underground with a passion.
"Yes." Etal sniffed. "I will go take a look at the jungles to the south and meet you later."
"Alright, good hunting."
The entrance was big enough even for the sphinx to pass without issue and was positively roomy for the rest of them.
"So, this wouldn't happen to be Imhotep's tomb, would it?" Harry asked casually, knowing that the Ancient Egyptian's tomb had never been found by either magicals or mundanes. "I was told that it was Pharaoh Djoser who commanded the creation of the sphinxes and Imhotep was his chief advisor, the High Priest of Ra and a bunch of other things, including a sorcerer."
"Yes, Imhotep rests here." The sphinx answered, showing no surprise at his guess.
"Like in that film we watched last month?" Luna asked with a smile.
"Not exactly." Harry replied absently, peering at the walls for anything of interest. "Aside from the name, the Imhotep in the film didn't really have much of anything in common with the real one. Timeline was all wrong too."
"As long as this tomb isn't crawling with scarabs." Fleur shuddered.
"Scarabs would be pretty cliché." Harry quipped, amused.
"I don't think we have anything to worry about where bugs are concerned, not when Fleur is such a pyro." Dora said wryly.
Said pyro shot a brief glare at the metamorphmagus before turning her nose up with a snooty huff.
"I just remembered something." Sirius said grimly, making everyone look a bit concerned at his tone.
"What?"
"The first people to open the ancient tomb always die." The dog animagus snickered at their flat looks.
"Well I'm sure Brendan Fraser will show up to save the day in case we release some ancient evil." Harry snarked, mildly pissed at the fact that his godfather had gotten one over on him.
"Hate to break it to you, Harry, but Brendan Fraser had a run in with a soul-sucking demon a few years ago and isn't in any shape to be saving anything." Dora said gravely.
"Dementor?" Harry asked, deeply skeptical that one of those would be anywhere near Hollywood.
"Worse, ex-wife."
"Ah."
The conversation petered out then and they focused on staying alert. The walls were featureless and did not branch to the sides. For all intents and purposes, it was a perfectly straight tunnel. Still, they continued scanning for possible traps or curses, even though it was beginning to seem like there wouldn't be any. The sphinx accommodated their slow pace without comment.
The slight downward incline eventually leveled out and a minute after that they entered what had to be the burial chamber. It was a considerably large, but mostly featureless, room that had four large columns supporting it. The only thing of real note in it were the hierogylphics inscribed on the columns and the sarcophagus sitting on a raised dais between them.
"Huh, for some reason I was expecting piles of gold." Dora said, scratching at her cheek as she looked around the dusty room.
Harry wasn't going to admit it, but so had he. The only thing piled around the corners was sand and dust.
"Imhotep's wealth was not in gold." The sphinx said, plopping herself into the typical catlike resting position nearby.
"What do these say?" Sirius asked, peering at the hieroglyphics as if they would yield their secrets simply due to his stare.
"It's a biography, I think." Harry said, frowning as he looked over the symbols. He might have magically cheated his way into being able to speak Ancient Egyptian, but reading it was another story.
For one thing, the language was old and had gone through a great deal of change. For another, it had hundreds of symbols and combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements. Even if his memory was very close to eidetic when really applying Occlumency to enhance recall, that was a tough proposition when working purely from memory. If the rather dull vacation so far had been good for anything though, it had been good practice for reading the hieroglyphics.
"What does it say?" Luna asked curiously.
"This part in particular seems to be talking about his job as the 'Maker of Vases in Chief'." Harry said, bemused.
"Really?" Sirius snickered before abruptly sobering up. "Wait, you know what this means, don't you?"
"What?" Harry asked, certain that it was going to be stupid.
"Imhotep...was a potter!" Sirius declared triumphantly.
There was dead silence for a minute before Harry, Fleur and Dora jeered at him for the terrible joke. Luna just giggled.
"Hey, there's writing on the sarcophagus too." Dora said once they were done haranguing Sirius for his atrocious sense of humor, using her hands to wipe the dust from the lid.
"Let me see." Harry said, moving over eagerly.
"It's an epitath of some kind, like you'd find on a tombstone." He said absently, wiping off the remaining dust.
"Anything interesting?" Fleur asked.
"Well it's written in first person, so he must have made it himself." Harry said, not taking his eyes off the writing. "His name, a long list of titles, including Maker of Vases in Chief of course, and…..huh."
"What?" Everyone asked, leaning closer.
Instead of trying to explain, Harry began reading out loud, his pace halting and slow as he stumbled through the translation. "'Long have I served the Pharaohs and protected Egypt from the vampire in the shadow and the succubus under the sky. I was ready to pass on my duty when the Assyrian demon-sorceress, Sar-Sarat, daughter of Li-Lit, attacked with her army of bewitched slaves.'"
"Sounds like one of your great aunts was causing a ruckus, Fleur." Dora noted with amusement.
"Yes, quite." Fleur agreed in a droll tone.
"There's more." Harry said, cutting off the banter as he continued to read. "'The war was long and the price of victory steep. My sons and students were no match for Sar-Sarat's fell magics and were turned against me. I could not save them and now I am left with no one to take my place. I am old and tired, I wish to rest, but I will not allow Egypt to fall to invaders, demons or monsters. Not now, not ever.'"
As soon as he read the last word, Harry felt a pulse of magic ripple from the sarcophagus. Judging by the wide-eyed looks Dora, Fleur and Luna were sporting, they'd felt it too. It was strong.
"Uh-oh." He said and slowly backed away from the stone casket.
"What do you mean 'uh-oh'?" Sirius demanded, looking between the four of them. He was the only one not sufficiently attuned to sense it.
"The inscription was like that stupid poem Gringott's has on their front door." Harry said with a scowl as he continued backing off. "It triggered a spell of some kind as soon as I read it."
It was a crafty bit of magic that duped the reader into powering whichever spell was worked into the text, which made it damn near undetectable unless you were specifically looking for it.
"Is this why you brought me here?" He demanded of the sphinx.
"The high priest of the temple inducts new priests." The sphinx replied in the evasive language of someone dancing around a magical compulsion.
Harry wanted ask something else, but a grind of stone on stone drew his attention to the sarcophagus.
The lid shifted and skeletal fingers covered in dry, leathery skin gripped the edge.
"You have got to be kidding me." Harry stated in flat disbelief.
The others said nothing as they watched the mummy push the heavy stone lid aside and climb out of the sarcophagus.
It was fairly typical in appearance as far as mummies went; skeletal, bandaged, leathery skin that crinkled like parchment with every motion.
Four things set it apart from other mummies, except for the obvious ability to move. First was the tall staff topped with a faceted crystal that it carried. The second was a thick book that hung from its waist on a chain. Third were the eldritch blue fires that burned in its empty eye sockets. The last and most important was the sense of powerful magic around it. Very powerful, and filled with a terrible sense of relentless purpose.
Under different circumstances, Harry would actually be rather excited to encounter a genuine lich.
As it was, he had only a moment to wonder at the extreme unlikeliness that this wasn't going to devolve into violence before the lich opened its tongueless mouth in a sepulchral scream that was more magic than sound and slammed the butt of its staff against the ground, letting out another pulse of magic.
Something shifted with the grind of stone on stone. Above them, sunlight broke through the roof of the burial chamber to shine on the undead wizard and to the sides, a secret door opened, from which rows of stone golems started marching out with clear violence in their purpose.
"Start blasting them." Harry ordered, throwing a blasting curse at the golems, but never taking his eyes off the lich.
Good thing too, as it pointed a finger at him with a clear command and the thus far eerily motionless sphinx launched itself at him without hesitation.
Fortunately, Harry had accounted for the possibility that the sphinx would become hostile during this little adventure, so he did not panic and did not attempt to use a spell to break through its magic resistance. Instead, he drew Blackrazor from where it sat on his belt and hurled it towards the charging sphinx in the same motion.
It was a terrible throw all things considered, hasty and poorly aimed. It would have probably done no more than minor damage, if it did any at all, had it been a normal knife.
Seeing as Blackrazor was cursed up the wazoo, it almost seemed to seek out its target and the hatred imbued into it made it lethal far beyond its unassuming size. The sphinx was hit in the directly chest as it leaped towards him and began convulsing immediately.
That didn't do anything for its momentum unfortunately, and Harry found himself the victim of physics as just shy of half a ton of dying pseudo-lion hurtled towards him. He didn't quite manage to dodge it.
I'm so happy that I put about three dozen cushioning charms on my clothes. Harry thought inanely as the heavy corpse clipped him and sent him stumbling to the ground from the force of it. It made him feel like he had a whole department store worth of pillows stuffed under his coat, minus the actual volume, but he hadn't wanted a repeat of Ahiga dislocating his shoulder with a glancing blow. It had no doubt saved his life just now.
"Harry!" Sirius yelled over the sound of stone being blasted apart. "Are you alright?"
Harry nodded and quickly climbed back on his feet, taking a moment to glance at the girls as he did so. They seemed to be handling the golems easily. Dora and Fleur were destroying them with carefully aimed blasting curses while Luna kept up a shield to defend against shrapnel. Clearly the things hadn't been made to fight this kind of battle and weren't doing well.
"What the….?" He trailed off as he saw what the lich was doing.
It was holding its staff in the air and somehow sucking in the sunlight streaming from the roof as if the crystal topping it was a black hole.
"Oh shit." He said softly and rushed over so that he was standing between the lich and the girls. "Sirius, watch my back!"
"You got it!" The dog animagus shouted back and positioned himself so that none of the golems could get him in the back.
Harry turned all his focus inward and started weaving a shielding spell that would, hopefully, protect them all from what was coming. He didn't know exactly what it would be, but he knew Light magic when he saw it. With that in mind, he crafted his shielding spell out of the same element, banking on like repelling like.
He cast the spell as soon as he was sure that he had it done just right and a nearly opaque golden shield appeared in front of him.
Less than two seconds later, a radiant beam of concentrated sunlight blazed from Imhotep's staff. It struck the shield at an angle and was deflected sideways, creating a trench of melted rock in the wall.
"What the fuck?!" Sirius squawked in shock.
Harry knew that he couldn't let the lich get off any more crazy ass spells. That beam had nearly busted through his shield and he might not recognise the next trick. It was a good thing that there was one surefire way of messing up a wizard's spellcasting ability. He would definitely be getting an earful for it later, but he'd take that over death.
With a thought, he called up the now fully controlled wolf spirit and felt his body ripple with animalistic power. He couldn't go too far into the change due to his clothes and boots, but it would be enough to more than double his strength.
The rush of animal savagery in his mind was familiar and Harry threw himself at the lich with a roar.
"Harry, no!" Several voices shouted, but he ignored them. He had to get in close.
That part at least was easy. The lich's spells might be powerful, but they weren't fast. Harry was upon him in moments and grabbed at the staff, wrenching it furiously from the bony fingers and throwing it across the room.
That threat dealt with, he grabbed at the skeletally thin wrists, noting with distant shock that the lich was actually much, much stronger than it looked, nearly as strong as him.
The ontological pressure of the undead wizard's mind, soul and magic was immense and terrible in its sheer otherness. Millenia of lichdom had robbed Imhotep of all humanity, leaving only the relentless will of the undead.
Imhotep's magic swirled with purpose and Harry rammed his own will into the unfinished mental construct with a snarl, disrupting the unfinished spell.
A distant sense of frustration rippled through the opposing aura and Harry's snarl twisted into a grin. He had the advantage now. Magic was no good at this range, but there was more than one way to skin a cat, as the rather morbid saying went.
With a jerk, he pulled Imhotep's right arm forward and prepared to shatter it. He had no idea what it would take to kill a lich, but pulverizing his skeleton into tiny bits sounded like a good start.
His arm came down on the elbow with shattering force...and stopped as if he'd struck a steel rod, the shock traveling painfully up his own arm as the impetus was abruptly halted.
His surprise cost him dearly as the lich pulled its arm out of his hold with even more strength than it had showed before, unbalancing him. In the same motion, the other arm slashed upwards with sharp, bony fingers.
He grunted in pain and reared back as the skeletal digits raked the left side of his face like claws. It hurt more than it should. Malice lingered in the newly made cuts as if it had been a spell that had made them. That thought was all he had time for before the lich shoved him in the chest with a strength more commonly found in trolls.
The multitude of cushioning charms once again absorbed the force, but he was still sent flying. The back-first impact against one of the pillars was likewise absorbed harmlessly, but there was no Cushioning Charm protecting his head when it snapped back and crashed into the stone.
It took Harry a precious few seconds to overcome the fierce ringing in his ears so that he could see what was going on.
Imhotep was preparing another spell, this one looking like some kind of contained windstorm if the howling sound was any indication, and Sirius was standing between the lich and Harry himself, throwing out spells and insults in equal measure, both of which were ignored.
"Sirius, no!" Harry shouted as he struggled back to his feet, knowing that his godfather didn't stand a ghost of a chance. Aside from the raw power disparity, there was something else going on here. There was simply no way that the lich should be that durable.
"Get him out of here!" Sirius bellowed back without turning around.
"Come on, Harry, time to go." Dora said grimly a moment later, already pulling him away.
Harry might have ignored her and gone to re-engage the lich despite the concussion currently fogging his brain, but it was a moot point. Imhotep had had enough time to complete his spell and release it.
It was indeed a contained windstorm just as Harry had guessed, but as soon as it was released it also sucked in a large amount of sand from nearby. Sirius had put up a shield, but he might as well have not bothered for all the good it did. The miniature sandstorm howled through it and hit Sirius dead on, it turned red and then bloodstained sand was thrown all across the burial chamber. Of Sirius there was no sign, not even bones. Around his left forearm, Harry felt the bracelet linked to his godfather's life break.
Imhotep's aura radiated a brief sense of grim satisfaction before it settled back into deadness. The lich extended a hand and his staff sailed back into it.
"Come on!" Dora repeated with a growl and roughly pulled him towards the entrance. "Transfigure the floor and put up walls!" She bellowed at Fleur and Luna as they retreated.
Harry forced himself to focus and helped turn the floor in a thick and deep mud pit as they ran back through the tunnel.
"Stop here." Harry said once they reached the incline that led outside.
"That thing is still after us." Dora barked, sounding very much like the auror she used to be. Her hair was very short and her figure distinctly unfeminine, all the better for combat.
"I know, but he's having trouble with the transfigurations, I can sense it." Harry replied.
"Fine, let me take a look at your face then." She said after a moment.
Harry nodded and let her examine him.
"It got you pretty good, you're lucky you didn't lose an eye." The metamorph commented in a forced light tone as she cast a few charms to clean his face of blood and sand. Harry absently noted that Dora was probably trained to push aside shock until the danger was over. Luna and Fleur looked much more rattled, each in their own way. "We'll need to put some Essence of Murtlap on that."
"Here." Luna said quietly, holding up the item in question.
"Thanks. Close your eyes and hold still, Harry."
He did so, feeling the cuts burn as the cold, slimy substance was applied, but the pain soon passed.
"Looks like you'll be a bit prettier from now on, lover." Dora said with a wince just as he opened his eyes.
Harry ran his fingers over the left side of his face, feeling the four parallel scars running across it. They went all the way from his jawline, up his cheeks and terminating at the level of his eyebrow. Dora was right, he was lucky that he still had his left eye. That was probably due to the fact that Imhotep was fairly short more than anything else.
He wasn't surprised that the scars hadn't healed, not when he could still feel traces of Imhotep's magic on his face. They were faint and getting fainter, but they were still there.
Harry shook his head to indicate that it wasn't important, wincing when his skull reminded him that he had a concussion. He rooted around his potions satchel for a healing potion that was designed specifically for head wounds and chugged it as soon as he found it, sighing in relief when his mind cleared.
His thoughts drifted back to the lich that he could even now sense was working to overcome the obstacles they'd put in his path. Imhotep's magic was powerful and tightly controlled, much like Harry's own.
He's like me, a spellweaver according to the sphinxes. Was that meant to be a hint? Why would they bring me here to wake him up? He made them, so they could be compelled to do it, but why only now? Imhotep lived in the 27th century BC, there had to have been other wizards capable of opening the door before me. I'm missing something.
"Why is he so slow?" Luna asked quietly, staring into the dark tunnel that led back to the burial chamber.
"I think the modern spells have him a bit stumped." Harry theorised. "Those golems were no match for you, but they would have been the death of any wizard that couldn't cast as quickly, and I know that transfiguration was only really developed as a true magical discipline around the time that Hogwarts was built. Imhotep's time was millennia before that."
"It didn't seem to be too stumped by Sirius' spells." Fleur said, grimacing immediately at her own tactlessness. "Sorry."
Sirius was dead. Harry wondered at how little he felt over it. All things must die.
He decided to consider that later and simply nodded at her, pushing forward. "I think we're dealing with something very much like a Horcrux here."
"What?!" Dora gaped.
"It's a mummy." Harry said. "There is no way that it should be capable of hosting a wizard's soul and magic. There is no way that it should be able to move without any muscles or organs. There is no way that it should be completely impervious to damage. The only way any of that is possible is if the soul is shackled to the bones, which would allow Imhotep to move through force of will alone, as well as conferring the indestructible nature of the soul to the bones."
It was also supported by his observations on Voldemort's Horcruxes. The diary had been able to act when written in it, as was its purpose. The locket had been able to act when opened, as was its purpose. Imhotep's body functioned as a vessel for the soul, as was its purpose.
"Well that's just fucking great." Dora snarled, throwing her hands into the air. "So you're telling me that we woke up an invincible super wizard, is that what you're saying?"
"Fiendfyre." Harry said simply.
"Fiendfyre?" Dora repeated slowly a few seconds later.
"It's the only spell I know that will destroy the magic holding him together." Oh, he desperately wanted Imhotep's staff and the book hanging from his waist, which he suspected to be the ancient sorcerer's grimoire, but he wanted to live even more.
"Can you control it?"
"Yes." Provided his attention didn't stray.
"….alright, let's go outside then."
"I'm afraid we can't do that." Harry sighed.
"Why the hell not?" Dora demanded.
"Fiendfyre is a spell of Dark, Imhotep is a Sun-sorcerer. You saw what he was able to do with just a little bit of sunlight. I'd rather not find out what he can do in the full light of day."
"But casting Fiendfyre in an enclosed space is as good as suicide!"
That was true. Fiendfyre did not behave like normal fire. It required no fuel and let off no smoke. It also had a ravenous appetite for magic and would pursue it like a living thing. This meant that the caster was most often its first victim. A sufficiently strong-willed wizard could keep it at bay, but truly controlling it was impossible, which was why casting it indoors was tantamount to suicide. Unfortunately, their other options weren't much better.
"Not if we-" Harry cut himself off, head snapping back down the tunnel. "He's breaking through. Move it, and spam more transfigurations."
They hurried to do just that, turning the ground into a deep, muddy swamp and putting up more walls as they retreated further towards the entrance.
"Right, as I was saying, it should be fine if we do a Spell Meld." Harry continued.
"Are you absolutely sure?" Dora pressed.
"No, but our only alternatives are to either risk fighting him outside where he will doubtlessly be even more powerful or running away altogether and letting a nearly invulnerable undead wizard with no idea how much the world has changed in the last four and a half thousand or so years run loose in Egypt." Not that he really cared much if Imhotep went on a rampage, but the girls would and someone might connect their sudden flight from the country to it. Then there was the Statute of Secrecy and how it was sure to be destroyed beyond repair if a lich were to take a stroll down the streets of Cairo and begin obliterating what it would probably see as invaders….
"….I hate it when you're right."
Harry quickly ditched his coat and shirt and waited. The girls each made a cut on their palms and his back and pressed the wounds together to initiate a Blood Linking. With practiced ease, he took it further until it was a full Spell Meld.
With their strength added to his own, Harry reached for the Dark and wreathed it in flame, creating Fiendfyre.
Fiendfyre was a surprisingly easy spell to cast, the Dark being more than happy to be coaxed into such a destructive form. Trying to contain it was the hard part, as once it was set loose it would just consume and consume until there was nothing left.
So far so good. Harry thought as he held the spell. It was struggling to break free of his grasp, but the four of them controlled it easily. It would become harder once it was released of course, but it was an encouraging sign.
A foreign presence made itself known to their senses. It 'looked' at their spell with recognition and an odd sense of outrage.
Harry decided to throw out the Fiendfyre before Imhotep had any more time to examine it.
Everything went well at first, the spell roared through the transfigured obstacles with little to no impediment and the four of them were able to keep it from burning the walls for the moment.
The problems began when it got close to Imhotep, as the ancient lich had no intention of going quietly. Harry felt the mental presence challenge them for control of the spell, trying to turn it back on them.
For several excruciating minutes, the spell was stuck between them, trying to escape control all the while and burn all five of them. In the end, Harry's superior understanding of Dark as well as the fact that there were four of them against one of him prevailed.
Unfortunately, the sudden loss of opposition as Imhotep (and his magic) was consumed, caused the Fiendfyre to nearly exploder out of control and it took another couple of minutes for them to rein it back in and eventually snuff it out.
"Fucking hell, that was close." Dora gasped, sweating profusely and panting for breath.
"You can say that again." Fleur agreed, somehow still looking gorgeous despite being just as sweaty as the metamorph.
"I don't like that spell." Luna added with the tiniest of frowns. Coming from her, that was quite a severe statement.
"Come on, let's go back to the burial chamber." Harry said quietly.
XXXXX
Harry stared silently at the bloodstain that was the largest remaining sign of his godfather, holding hands with Luna and Dora and wondering if the loss of Sirius was going to hit him later like he'd heard happened sometimes or if he was really so dead inside.
A minute later he quietly sighed and turned away. Goodbye, Sirius. We weren't as close as we probably should have been…. I know I'm crap at opening up to people and I know I've kept you out of the loop, but I was sure you'd see that I was up to something and confront me about it. Looking back, I wonder if you didn't want to see what I've been doing, what I've become. I think a large part of you died with my parents, so I have a feeling that dying to save my life was something you would have wanted. I don't know if I'll be able to mourn you, but I will miss you.
Harry walked over to the sarcophagus curious to see if there was anything else in there or if this entire venture had been completely pointless.
As it turned out, there was something else in the sarcophagus. A single papyrus scroll lay inside, neatly rolled up and glowing to his sight with a strong, but very old, preservation spell.
"What is that?" Fleur asked as he unrolled it.
Harry skimmed over the contents and grimaced slightly.
"Instructions on how to turn yourself into a lich." He answered, rolling the scroll back up.
Imhotep had apparently ingested a large quantity of unicorn blood, after which a ritual had been performed to shackle his soul to his own bones as he had suspected. After that, he had been mummified by his acolytes, organ removal and all.
Harry could see how that might work. Unicorn blood was not a healing substance, but it would keep you alive through damn near anything by virtue of preventing the soul from escaping its fleshy prison. That would make a fine basis for a ritual to bind body and soul together in a permanent fashion. The problem with unicorn blood was that unicorns were one of the rare few magical species that had evolved on their own instead of being the result of wizards experimenting or accidentally screwing something up. Their magic in its raw form was wholly incompatible with humans and caused some progressively more horrible side effects over time if ingested through the blood. Mummification would certainly get around those side effects though….if you didn't mind being exsanguinated and having your organs pulled out of your still living body.
Not his cup of tea.
"You'll be keeping that locked in Ravenhead, never to see the light of day?" Dora asked pointedly.
"Exactly." Harry confirmed. He didn't even have any aspirations for immortality, much less undeath. "Let's go home."
XXXXX
March 13th.
"So, how did you get them to do it?" Bjomolf asked curiously.
"I didn't get them to do anything." Neferu scoffed. "I certainly tried, but they were avoiding human contact like the plague and I couldn't get any of my agents close without arousing at least Potter's suspicion. They blundered into Imhotep's tomb on their own, all I did was keep my people out of the way."
"All the better, now we can honestly say we had nothing to do with it." Bjomolf grinned. "Shame that none of the women died, but at least we are rid of that ancient menace."
"Quite, and it will certainly free up some manpower for me." Neferu agreed.
"Might I suggest that you use it to cast your web wider?"
"Why?" The Egyptian vampire asked suspiciously.
"I may have….accelerated events a little bit."
XXXXX
Albania.
Draco started a little as a rather disreputable looking man sat down at his table without an invitation. He had hair cut very close to his skull, looked to be in need of a shave and had a rather large nose.
He was also dressed like a muggle, which would have immediately sent Draco into an insulting tirade had the circumstances been different. That it only annoyed him was a result of the fact that he had needed to learn how to blend in with muggles recently since there were no proper magical communities around there parts. Well, that and the fact that the man's grey eyes were rather intimidating, but Draco wasn't going to admit that.
"Can I help you?" He asked in English, not knowing a word of the local language.
"No, but I can help you." The man said in accented but otherwise very good English. "I'm Goran and someone paid me a lot of money to help you out with whatever you're here to do."
Draco smiled. The others had sent him help!
"In that case, it's a pleasure to meet you, Goran." He replied, not noticing the slight tick of the other man's eyebrow as he butchered the pronunciation of the name. "I'm Draco Malfoy."
He said the name as if it was supposed to mean something and Goran privately thought that the little blonde fucker was lucky that it really was a lot of money, or else he'd be tempted to bury him out in the woods somewhere, possibly still alive.