CHAPTER 1

A Test of Time

This was a particularly ingenious, if simple, trap. In nearly four years as Curse Breaker for Gringotts, William Weasley had never encountered such a devious trap. The sand poured into the tiny room from several holes over head. In minutes he would be buried alive, the danger of which wasn't the lack of oxygen; he had already cast a Bubblehead Charm just in case. No, the danger was that soon he'd be unable to perform any wand work as the sand enveloped him.

It was careless of him to have set off the trap in the first place. He knew he should have spotted the tell-tale signs of its existence. Like a flagstone completely detached from its surrounding mortar.

There was no Disapparating out of this predicament. These ancient Egyptian tombs had many features in common. For one, they almost always had Anti-Apparition and Anti-Disapparition charms in place. One could not simply Apparate from point to point within the confines of the tombs, nor Disapparate back to the surface (let alone to his cozy sea-side bungalow in Alexandria.) And this tomb was no different.

But William, or Bill as most people called him, remained calm despite the ever-flowing sand and the alarming rate at which he was losing head room. He smiled to himself thinking about where he'd gotten this particular laid-back trait…a trait so useful for his line of work. He certainly hadn't acquired it at Hogwarts; it wasn't something to be learned from a textbook. No, it was a characteristic gained from growing up with five younger brothers and one sister, not to mention a mother who was more often frantic than not.

Bill thought about his family. They'd be arriving in Egypt to visit him in a few weeks time. Poor payment indeed if he should bury himself alive and spoil their vacation. His mother would no doubt complain about his hair...

That's it! The inspiration came to him now as he swam chest deep in sand. He reached up through the Bubble Head charm and plucked ten long hairs from his ponytail.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

He sent the first strand of hair floating into one of the holes, forced it through the current of sand. His long red hair was easy to observe as it snaked its way upward. Then with a quick flick of his wand, he cast an Enlargement Charm and the hair strand swelled to plug the hole. It seemed to work perfectly…the soft hair didn't damage the surrounding stone work, but was strong enough to hold back the weight of sand behind it. Quickly his sent the other hair strands upward in a similar fashion and plugged the remaining holes. It looked rather odd seeing ten large red hairs dangling from the ceiling, as though he were some miniscule creature near the skin's surface.

"There we are then," he said with mild relief. His voice was tight in the confined space, and he thanked God (not for the first time) that he was not claustrophobic. Still, it was a bit unnerving to be trapped in a space the size of a coffin.

That feeling soon disappeared along with the sand as he began casting Vanishing charms. Within a few minutes, the small, bathroom-sized chamber was clear. Bill eyed the loose flagstone he'd stepped on which had triggered the trap and gave it a wide berth.

Bill aimed his wand at his robes and a small jet of air blew mildly outward, knocking the sand from his clothes. He kicked off his dragon hide boots one at a time and dumped the collected sand onto the floor. Once he was sand-free, he set his mind to the next task: Opening the doorway before him and finding the White Crown of Osiris, Hedjet.

Why the Goblins wanted it, he wasn't sure. He'd asked his liaison, Grunork in the Cairo office, but was told only to do his job. No questions. Goblins were like that. Secretive. Or perhaps it was because he was relatively new to Gringotts, in Goblin terms at least.

Another common feature of Egyptian tombs, while not strictly magical in nature, proved to be highly effective against magic. Namely, the construction of the tombs themselves. One incorrectly applied destruction spell, and the whole place could collapse on top of you, or worse yet destroy the treasure you were after. Not to mention wholesale destruction of Egyptian tombs, or parts therein, was frowned upon by the Egyptian Ministry of Magic.

Bill twirled his wand in his hand (much like the drummer for the Weird Sisters would do) as he contemplated the doorway and the massive stone that had fallen to block the passage. Often in these tombs, the simplest, most obvious course of action wasn't necessarily the best. As if to prove this point to himself yet again, he tried a Levitation Charm.

Nothing.

The stone shuddered, but failed to move. Most likely a circular or spherical keystone had rolled into place above it after it fell. The ancient Egyptian Wizards really knew their stuff. It was situations like these that highlighted one serious deficit in his Hogwarts education. Namely, the vast expanse of magic from other cultures that preceded magic in his own country by millennia. The very spell he just attempted, levioso, was purported to be, according to Professor Binns, one of the earliest created spells of Ancient England. But spells very much like it existed, he himself soon learned after joining Gringott's, well before that time in Egypt (and the Far East and the Americas as well.)

The practical effect of this knowledge meant that many counter-jinxes, counter-curses, and the like had to be modified to suit the more ancient forms of the magic. This is one of the challenges he really loved about working as a Curse Breaker. The unpredictable nature of the work made it challenging. Never a dull moment. Sometimes he wondered how his father could stand a desk job all these years.

This yellowish sandstone block, so simple, and yet so formidable, made him smile.

"All right then," he said to it as if addressing a worthy foe. "Let's try this." And with a swish of his reed wand, he shouted: "Diminuendo!"

A bit of dust fell from the stone block, but it remained untouched. Bill was sure that the Shrinking Charm would work. It had not. Reducio shouldn't work, as that's a counter to Engorgio which is only used on the living. Did that mean it had some sort of protective spell on it? If that were the case, he could be stuck here a long time. Vanishing spell perhaps?

"Evanesco!"

Again, nothing. Likely the block was simply too large. He twirled his reed wand for a few more minutes, thinking.

Bill's mind wandered back (not for the first time) to the day he got his reed wand. It was a few days after losing his original wand, an elder wand. Ollivander the wandmaker had warned him the elder wand would be difficult to keep unless he was exceptionally talented. His mom had gasped at such doubts.

"Of course he's exceptional!" Mrs. Weasley had said, to Bill's utter embarrassment as he hid behind Ollivander's counter. At that time he couldn't help but remember the stories and superstitions surrounding elder wands. "Wand of elder, never prosper." Or the horrible destruction caused by the Elder Wand of the Three Brothers fairy tale.

Surprisingly at first his elder wand worked brilliantly. Flitwick and McGonagall all remarked on the extraordinary precision of his early wand work. Yet toward the end of his first year, his skill declined dramatically as the wand became more and more difficult to control, like stirring thick molasses, until one day his elder wand simply vanished right in the middle of attempting to turn a mouse into a snuffbox. It was as though at Ollivanders the wand had initially chosen him, but then wrote him off as a bad investment. To this day Bill wondered what he'd done wrong to incur the wand's disdain. All modesty aside, he'd ended up a decent wizard by most accounts. What that elder wand could have wanted from him remained, to this day, a mystery. He was so embarrassed by the incident that he'd told his parents that it had been stolen. Mrs. Weasley certainly didn't enjoy shelling out more Galleons for a second wand.

And so his reed wand, twelve inches precisely, swishy, with a strand of Leprechaun beard at its core, spun over his knuckles as he twirled it. He liked this wand…mostly. It seemed particularly good at breaking curses where gold was involved. Though he couldn't help but nurse a longing for his old elder wand, especially in situations like these when he felt he'd chosen the correct spells to apply.

Then a brain wave came over him. Perhaps he hadn't chosen the correct spells after all. The stone was huge, so huge that he doubted several giants could lift it. What if it had been a smaller block initially and the builders had used an Enlargement spell on it after it was set in place. In that case, he might need the counter to that Enlargement spell.

"Ponderabis," he said with a spiraling wave of his wand.

The great sandstone block shuddered, and a gap on either side of it opened as it shrunk slightly.

Bill laughed to himself. God he loved his work. This was it. He was close, he just needed to modify the spell a bit. After a few more attempts, with varied inflections on the incantation and wand movement to compensate for the ancient magic, he finally reduced the block to the size of a Quaffle. He stepped lightly over it, and made his way carefully down the passage. So far so good. He must be getting close.

The light from Bill's wand spilled into a large chamber. Two rows of pillars stood to either side, disappearing into the darkness beyond. Along the walls to either side and encircling the pillars he saw hieroglyphics. The familiar dog and cat headed deities glared back at him with their leering, white-painted eyes. He recognized Osiris prominent amongst them, the deity's crook and flail crossed over his chest. Further evidence that this was indeed the correct tomb.

Bill began deciphering the hieroglyphs in his head as he moved steadily forward. A line from the Book of the Dead regarding Osiris caught his attention:

I am the first-born, the light of the sky. I breathe in the presence of a powerful god, under the belly of sky, upon the shoulder of Egypt. My breath is like a child to me. My breath hangs sweet in my nostrils. I am the blue egg of the Great Cackler. I grow. I swell. I sniff air. I live there like the wing of a goose.

Then he saw the name of the resident of this tomb in pictures: Loaf. Forearm. Rope coil. Stool. Twisted flax wick. Another Forearm. Another Loaf. A space. Mouth. Vulture. Together, the pictures spelled Teuphet-Ra. This was indeed the very tomb the Goblins had wanted him to investigate. With the number of tombs in Egypt, one could never be entirely sure.

His pulse began to race. The famed White Crown, lost to both Muggle and Wizard history, surely lay just ahead.

But then came a sound to his left and just ahead. Bill brought his wand around. Dark shadows played upon the hieroglyphs, cut by slashes of light. Was it a shuffling movement? Or was it just sand falling? Straight ahead, at the edge of his wand light, he saw a dais begin its rise, step by step, up to a gold and lapis lazuli sarcophagus in the shape of a hyena-headed man.

Its lid had been shoved aside.

"No," whispered Bill, a bit agitated. "They promised me no mummies. No mummies." He'd have a few choice words for Grunork if he was forced to deal with a mummy.

The shuffling sound came from Bill's left, where it darted between two pillars.

"Is someone there?" he asked into the shadows as he spun to his left.

It seemed rather stupid to ask the question, as mummies generally couldn't talk. Yet something about the movement was peculiar; it was too fast for a mummy. He brought his wand around to face the sarcophagus, but it was too late. The mummy was upon him.

The shambling mass of brown wrappings had snuck up on him whilst his attention had been diverted. Cloth strands shot forward like bizarre tentacles, binding his arms and body. Putrid oders of decay and old embalming chemicals nauseated him.

"Diffindo!" And with a stroke of his wand, Bill tried to cut the bandages before they became too tight. Several wrappings fell away like dead skin, but more sprang forth, entwining him. He slashed again, and again, but it was no use. Before long, he was immobilized. Quite apart from the shock of the mummy sneaking up on him, he'd never heard of mummies behaving in this manner. It was as if…

Then the source of the sound to his left became clear. A witch stepped out from behind a pillar. Raven black hair framed a look of triumph on her beautiful olive face; her lustrous dark eyes had a magic all their own. In one hand she bore what could only be the White Crown…clearly Goblin-made silver. In the other hand her wand, and a device he knew only too well. He'd used one in his third year at Hogwarts to take more classes than his schedule would normally permit.

The witch slung the Time Turner over the mummy and Bill's necks, where the little hour glass hung swaying between them.

"I'd ask for the next dance," Bill said as he smiled at her despite the trap she'd clearly set for him. "But I'm a bit tied up at the moment."

"Good bye, William Weasley," she said in a Spanish accent, a sly grin crossing her face. And with those words, she touched her wand to the Time Turner, sending the hour glass spinning madly in reverse and plunging him into darkness.