This story is about three separate story threads coming together. I welcome plot ideas and if your idea is used will give you credit at the beginning of the chapter.
His hands were clammy and sweaty and his flabby face was beading with sweat. He told the concerned brunette Stewardess when she stopped by his aisle row seat to inquire if he was all right that he was just nervous about the upcoming flight to San Francisco International airport because it was his first time flying. He was only partly lying to her. The first time he could remember flying was when he was eleven on a broomstick. Yes on a broomstick, passenger on a flying motorcycle as a baby and on a hippogriff when he was thirteen; but the stewardess didn't need to know that he was a wand waving, broomstick riding, potion brewing student wizard. The point was that he really wasn't nervous about the flying. He was only sort of worried about the airline and customs people discovering that he actually wasn't his cousin, who he had Polyjuiced as and that he had doctored the passport by changing the picture and confounding the personal information so that no one would notice any discrepancies between his appearance and what the card said his cousin looked like. He had applied layers of misdirection and backup plans just in case because this was a one shot deal and he and Sirius refused to fail. It was too important. He was mostly nervous because he was leaving and planning never to return to Britain. He was mostly worrying about the rather unlikely event of some nebulous magic authority figure coming and stopping him from leaving. He wasn't exactly sure who or even sure how but yeah still very nervous.
Nobody who saw him would recognize him because of a few hairs from Dudley's' hair brush and a vial of Polyjuice potion that Sirius had made; the snake sticker hidden on his shirt tag had a set of glamor charms attached just in case the Polyjuice failed them. It was amazing how long Polyjuice potion could last and how easy it was to store. He had packed several extra vials into his trunk to take along. He had a bottomless bag with an extra wide mouth that contained his trunk and a bunch of canned goods with a can-opener in a plastic baggy. Thank heavens the magic of the bag fuzzed the airport scanners to the point that they couldn't detect metal! His Dog-fathers plan was in motion. Thank Heavens for Uncle Vernon's yearly Drill conference. His relatives for once had been glad to help out.
Mentally insert favorite page brake here
She had a pile of very dusty old books piled around her at the front desk of 'Uncles Rare Antiques Shop,' a tiny place just outside of Chinatown. Shoulder length inky-black hair pulled up and back into a high-ponytail with long side bangs framing almond shaped and colored eyes. Jade Chan was a very pretty thirteen and three-quarters year old teen. More important than her looks was the dangerous fact that she was deathly bored. Hence the dusty books all around her. Jackie was in Egypt, Viper was with him either casing or advising the museum down there; it depended on who you asked. El Toro was running a wrestling camp for disadvantaged children and Paco was with him. Uncle was away at a series of lectures and meetings spread across Asia and the Middle East and Tohru was following his Sensei like a good traditional Apprentice should.
O.K so technically she wasn't Uncles apprentice and she probably shouldn't even be reading these spell books but technicalities had never really fazed her before now had they? Geeze get possessed, duplicated and a few other magical setbacks and they get all… cranky about it. It wasn't like she had promised not to read the chi-books; just not to cast the spells in them. Besides no one was around to reverse any mistakes she made; Hello! Not a dummy here. It was just… research. Interesting research but still and so what if she wasn't technically Uncles apprentice you didn't have to be an apprentice to learn things, right? Right! Plus someone had to watch the shop and Captain Black was watching her so she couldn't head to Egypt, which meant she needed something to do!
Jade pushed her bangs out of her face and scrawled a note down in her Marvin Moose notebook. She really did love her Uncles and her parents but it still three years latter bothered her how she came to live in America. She had only felt mildly depressed that her parents would be willing to send her halfway across the world at the drop of a hat, to live with a pair of relatives that she had never met at the time and judging by the way Uncle and Jackie had acted when she first arrived Jackie hadn't even known she existed let alone was coming. Jade sighed and scrawled down the properties of lotus blossoms in her notebook. Her parents spent next to no time with her when she visited Hong Kong and she had rarely seen either of them much when she was younger. It hadn't been her fault she was being bullied at school. Maybe if someone had stood up for her, she wouldn't have been on her own about what to do and broken that stupid boy's nose trying to make him let go of her backpack. In fact, Jackie had treated her more like she was his daughter than her own father had, and Viper treated her more like a daughter than her own mother ever had. It certainly hadn't been her mother she had called when she had her first 'that time of the month' no way! She was a lot better off here.
Since her parents had given Jackie guardianship of her and she had gained joint American Chinese citizenship this summer she had hoped she would learn some cool new things and do some one on one bonding with him. Unfortunately for her Jackie was very busy lately and couldn't teach her anything now, which really wasn't his fault, he tried really hard and always called everyday but practicing what she already knew got a little boring. That left magic. Uncle had been willing to pass her over as a Chi user in favor of Tohru despite the fact that the man had tried to nearly kill both herself and Jackie multiple times! Don't get her wrong, she adored Tohru now, but Uncle needing an apprentice had happened only a few months after Tohru had come to live with them. Uncle still wouldn't teach her anything even now that she was older and it sucked demon chi big time.
Mentally insert favorite page brake here
The Sphinx of San Francisco; it had been built nearly four years ago as part of the ever changing Egyptian exhibit, and had become a minor tourist attraction since. It was made of sandstone in the shape of a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head. It stood more than three times smaller than the actual Sphinx in Giza, Egypt, and was only partially accessible to the public. Children seemed to be especially fond of it. The upper floors were completely sealed off and not even the original builders would have been able to open the doors leading up into the upper-spaces anymore without doing costly damages to the surrounding walls because somehow all of the staircases seemed to have been built over. Even though nobody seemed to know how that had happened. That said; nobody really seemed to question it or minded the attic being inaccessible since it was only empty storage space.
Presley was vaguely wishing that he was normal and that the upper floor of the Sphinx really was a non-accessible attic right now as he carefully worked on creating the hieroglyphics for a magical warding scheme against pests. Presley's shoulders drooped a little more as he smudged his work with his hand, 'Man, its summer there's supposed to be no school," he moaned to himself as he washed the ink off with a damp cloth. Silently of course, knowing his scholarly protector would only double his work load if he complained as Rath presided over a stone desk with a stack of tomes and scrolls spread around him. The constantly quarrelling serpent and ox guardians had begun yet another round of their 'Brawn vs. Brains' battle as soon as he had walked into the Sphinx at ten this morning after having spent the early morning lugging boxes around for his mother at the new exhibit in the downtown museum. Rath had won until two and then Armon got to watch him while he practiced his Egyp-tsu against the animated dummies. As soon as they had worked that out Rath had given an attention seeking cough. "Ahem! My prince, since you are free this week, mostly anyway, I believe we can use that time to catch up on your studies on the mystic arts, yes?" he stated more than asked, a roll of frayed parchment tapping into his free hand and his green eyes glowing at the prospect of teaching. He loved knowledge; it was his ultimate passion next to serving the Pharaoh.
Presley sighed and took out another piece of paper to start over on the warding hieroglyphics. Elaine Sutter was in Europe with her parents and she wouldn't be back until the day before school started. She was sending him about three postcards with teeny tiny writing and a long letter with pictures a week. It looked like she was having an awesome time. Walter (and his sister) had gone to visit extended family in China. Walter was going to be gone only a week les then Elaine. Walter had only sent 3 post cards in the almost month he had been in china, and they mainly mentioned video games and the different kinds of food he was trying. He wasn't interested in hearing from Cynthia anymore. It had taken some time, but Presley had finally managed to see the lost cause that was Walter's older sister, to finally see that the girl was shallow, and had a short enough attention span (or large enough mean streak)that she couldn't seem to remember his name after years of knowing him.
He was supposed to have gone to Memphis to spend all three months of summer vacation with his father. Then his dad had bailed on him. Again. Mom had planned to devote her entire summer to a new exhibit in a nearby museum since he was going to be gone and had already made her commitments. Unlike his dad his mom always tried to keep her commitments. That meant that she couldn't spend as much as time as she wanted to spend keeping an eye on him. His mom and he had devised a call schedule and he had a cellphone so she wouldn't worry about him when he wasn't with her at either of the museums she was working at. He was spending almost eight hours per day learning from his mummy protectors when he just couldn't take any more of the overly pompous museum people. Most of them couldn't even decipher some of the basic hieroglyphics. Rath had made sure he could both read and write hieroglyphics with ease and that was just the tip of what he had learned over the four years since the mummies had come into his life.
"Deep in thought my Prince?' Rath said with humor in his voice and a smirk from his place near one of several bookshelves of ancient scrolls and tomes he procured from various sources. He had been adding to it over the years with the museums copy machines help and now he had enough written knowledge on sorcery, history, astrology, myths and legends, math, and modern science to fill a school library. All of which Rath was passing on to him as fast as possible to him.
"Just a bit of the summer blahs Rath," Presley told him. Rath gave him a sympathetic glance and looked back at his books again while Presley one again smudged the stupid page.
