I realise I'm bouncing around right now but we'll see if this one sticks or...if this is about it!
I'm sure I'd have lived longer if it weren't for Alice Sweet, the girl was a magnet for explosive and fiery balls of death. It wasn't a good look for a team that was supposed to be able to break curses, especially not for a team that had graduated with N.E.W.T Level charms. It was said to be a very dangerous and serious profession, in which a wizard or witch could be killed as a result of an old curse, jinx, or hex and the brochures did not lie.
"DUCK!" Alice's voice startled me as I basically just threw myself at the floor, the sound of waves of angry bats dove over my head. I felt her arm hit my back as she fell face first as well. We might have had a death wish, but both of us were terrified of bats. Nasty little winged creatures.
"Sweet mother of Merlin." I was huffing into the dirt floor of a tomb in India. What had I really done with my life? It didn't feel like much. An O.W.L. in Arithmancy, N.E. in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Transfiguration, and Charms were essentially all my life had been to date.
"Bombarda." I pointed my wand from the floor and elected to simply blast through this door instead of going through the four runes and trying each combination. Hopefully I'd actually blasted the door and nothing important.
CRACK! BOOM!
I shielded my head as the spell seemingly bounced off of whatever ward surrounded the door and fired back across us, leaving destruction in it's wake. Pieces of rock and goodness knows what else bounced off my back and legs. A particularly sharp one bit into my arm with some force, irking me. Why were we so risky? It was fun but I was starting to be more of a scar than an Amelia.
"I think we're good, Ames." Alice mumbled as I peeked over my arms, blinking through the dust and debris that had settled over us. Never mind, we couldn't just blast through the door.
"Now what?" I coughed, waving away some of the floating bits and pieces from my face as I sat up.
"I guess we need to figure out the password." She was mumbling again while she stood, walking over to the bright blue runes alongside the top of the door.
"Great." I sighed, following her to actually inspect the symbols with disdain. I never really enjoyed Ancient runes, spell-work was more my deal.
"Does that look like a Fwooper or Unknown to you?" She pointed at the first square containing a cylindrical figure with a curl at the bottom.
"Uh. I'm going to say Fwooper." I peered at it for a second, trying to see if there were any feet on it. Age had worn away quite a bit of the shape as whole. It'd represented the number four which I could only assume meant we needed to tap that one four times...or it was the final rune in the sequence.
"Thats got to be a Graphorn." Alice determined, I nodded. It definitely looked like one, it was supposed to represent the number two.
"And thats a...Runespoor." I was about 98% sure it was considering the line and three spikes to represent the number three.
"Then thats gotta be a Unicorn." Alice was resolute, pulling out her wand.
"Ready?" She eyed me for a moment as I nodded, pulling out mine as well. We had no idea what would happen if we messed this up. I held my breath as she tapped the Unicorn, then Graphorn, Runespoor, and finally the Fwooper. We stood for a moment, watching the bright blue behind the runes die out. Nothing happened at first, so we shared a look and waited a moment longer.
"Did we just me-" I was cut off by the sound of stone grating against itself and moved back as the door swung open with some speed. I was wary of what laid behind the door but so far, we were good. Nothing came running, there wasn't a wave of magic erupting, the door was just simply open now.
I was the first to take a step forwards, Alice followed closely in my steps. Close enough that I could feel her breathing on my arms and stopped myself from thinking it was a spider crawling on me.
"Lumos." I flicked my wand, using the light to hesitantly peek into the room we had just opened up.
"Merlin's beard." Alice mumbled into my back as the treasure we'd found glittered back at us in the light. I scanned the room seeing foreign currency in what looked to be gold and silver, along with some pieces of clothing that looked like they'd been extravagant at one time or another. This had been a simple excavation which gave me some confidence to take a step forwards,
"Ow!" I was practically shoved backwards on my arse by something. I groaned from my place on the ground, staring up at the ceiling we'd almost decimated.
"Revelio." I sat back up and began trying to understand what exactly was keeping us from our payday considering there weren't any clues outside of a cracked tomb in the center of the treasure room. A wave passed through the other room lighting the blue force that had a bit of a bite to it.
"Specialis Revelio." I continued, standing now and waving my wand to see if there was any charm or hex in particular that was keeping us out. Blueish and whiteish balls showed themselves in the corners of the doorway, making me sigh.
"So, what is it?" Alice asked quietly, waiting for me to finish my tests.
"Its just shield charms but theres four." I grumbled, deciding to not test out another bombarda in an already crumbling cavern.
"Then what now?" She's furrowed her brow as I pondered which spell would work best individually or if I should attempt to destroy all four at once.
"I'm just going to give it all I've got." I determined numbly.
"Got it." She directed her wand over her body in a fluid motion, whispering the word 'Protego' while I assumed the position and the mental state to funnel all my energy into this.
There'd been on girl that had helped me during Hogwarts, she had a talent for spell creation even though she'd been a bit of a perfectionist, Pandora something or other. I hadn't seen her in ages, she'd graduated my first year in.
"Fulgur Amnis." I spread my legs wide apart and forced everything into the snap of my wrist, a large jet of lightning erupted from out of my wand. I gritted my teeth as I forced it in the direction of each corner, being pushed back from the strength of it. My wand could take this in stride, I'd even dare to say it'd grow stronger thanks to a core of dragon heart-string and cherry wood.
"PROTEGO!" I practically screamed the charm as the walls began crumbling from the explosion. I had to assume this was the entire point of having four shields in a such a small area, it was meant to collapse the entire tomb and trap/or kill the inhabitants. I fell to the floor as a particularly large piece of debris fell over my shield, shoving me down against the dirt floor once again.
It took a good minute or two before it seemed that all the damage that it could do was over but I don't think I could actually move my wand right now. If I did, the piece of ceiling would surely crush me which meant that either I'd need a trip to St Mungos next or Alice could help me...if she wasn't trapped as well.
"Ali?" My voice was muffled, but I was hoping she heard me. I could hear another feminine mumble but I couldn't understand what she'd said.
"I'm stuck." I yelled into the dirt with the idea that if I spoke louder, she could hear me. I could hear some movement but I was starting to sweat from the pressure of being stuck between a large piece of rock and the hard floor.
I laid here for a moment longer, pondering how painful it would be to die via being crushed. Would it be quick? Doubtful. Maybe my mother would bring me back just to yell at me for picking this gig, I mean it wasn't just me. Alice and I fell in love with the idea when a guy in the year above us left England to go do this. He seemed to have so much fun and it was just so exciting. Idiots. We were both id-
"Ames?" I peeked up when I felt the weight being lifted off and grinned at the sight of Alice's boots.
"Oh good, I was wondering if I'd die here." I chatted away with some excitement as I sat up. She laughed lightly despite the fact that we both knew it was true, I pondered my death almost monthly in this profession. We both did. That wasn't bad by any means, it was quite stressful, but we'd often accepted it which made this process much easier.
I stood awkwardly with my hands hanging by my side as the Goblins of Grigotts Wizarding Bank categorized and weighed our findings. It'd been a bit of a headache trying to get it all here from India, quite a few trips of apparating back and forth with armloads of it. Eventually we'd get a bag for this.
"Well, its not agreeable that you and Miss Sweet work together but...your results do not lie." A particularly unpleasant Goblin peered down at us from his desk as Alice got distracted by a painting she hadn't seen before in the lobby.
"Thank you." I bobbed my head up and down, beginning to get a bit restless. I wanted to visit my mum and possibly check out some shops for new boots. Mine were beginning to fall apart at the base thanks to a rather determined snake that didn't enjoy me trying to steal his master's treasure. The little bugger had dug it's way almost through the heel before Alice had shot him off.
"You'll be paid in full." I gave the Goblin a bit of a smile as he seemed to grumble about that, getting up and walking down his desk's length of stairs. He moved to go behind the large doors at the end of the office, and I started behind him.
"Alice!" I turned around, calling for my partner in crime who had gotten caught up in discussing something interesting with said painting. Both of us had a unique interest in historical artifacts which is why this profession made sense to us but it did leave something to be desired when most manner of artifacts were trying to maim us.
"Whoop, sorry." I felt my back bounce off of something else with hands that steadied me. It was a he and I had no idea why he was apologising to me when I was the one that stumbled into him.
"My bad. I wasn't looking where I was going." I turned back around, feeling a bit embarrassed as I apologised into a clothed chest. Right, might actually help if you looked up, Amelia.
"It's alright." The chest shrugged. I glanced up to see a red haired man with a shiny looking fang hanging from one ear. I didn't recognise him but I almost stopped to get to know him a little better.
"Amelia? Whose your friend?" Alice's voice was curious, I glanced over my shoulder at her to see she was trying not to grin. I narrowed my eyes at her in some attempt to warn her against whatever she was thinking of doing right now.
"Bill Weasley." The bloke didn't seem to get the message, not that he was supposed to but either way he'd introduced himself.
"Lovely, I'm Alice. This is Amelia Prince." Alice was more than happy to introduce the two of us, much to my chagrin.
"Alice, we've kinda got Ragnok waiting on us." I mentioned heatedly, turning back to see the Goblin looking rather irritated with us as he stood near the door.
"Ah. Hes testy. Try telling him you hope his riches will grow and he'll warm right up to you." Bill declared, making me eye him for a moment. He was more friendly than I imagined him to be from the black t-shirt and piecing. I couldn't tell if that was a good idea or not honestly, and right now I was just going to take it and run.
"Right, well thanks!" I bobbed my head up and down as I grabbed Alice's arm and pulled her along to the impatient Goblin.