The groan of a rotting corpse droned as Croaker sent another fire charm after the monstrous preserved king, resin-hardened wrappings slashing through the air like blades. He swore as the monster raised its ancient arms, a wave of mud coming up from the floor to absorb the spell.

"RUN!" a younger wizard shouted, his wand movements forming a shield to block the black-green haze that emanated from the monster, almost certainly an impossibly complex dark curse. His long red hair was covered in the same mud in which his dragonhide boots were sloshing. "It's not worth it!"

On any other day, the Unspeakable would have been inclined to agree, but the ghost he was chasing would not elude him so easily. There were dark secrets to discover, and if the pitch blackness of an ancient tomb was the last place to look, he would be none too surprised.

"Get on ahead, boy, I'll finish the job!" he shouted back, unwilling to carry two corpses out.

"Incendio!" The younger man severed an ancient wrapping as it whipped past his head. That's a good man, there.

"Bill! The thing you had before, the-" Croaker heaved himself out of the way of a dark curse, sending back one of his own. Killing curses seemed to have no effect.

The long-dead king raised his arms again, disappearing momentarily into a shadow, moving about on the floor. The sound of a skull's rotten teeth clacking rang out through the room.

"He's laughing at us." the young man muttered without any humor at all. It was the kind of conviction that came with years of experience.

Where the hell did he go?

How the hell did I get here?

It had been years since Croaker had been to Africa, and years longer since he had seen anything like what he was assigned to find.

"Bill Weasley, I'll be damned."

The red-haired wizard looked back, some kind of amulet in his hands. The Intelligence at the Department had been correct in stating that he could be found in the same cafe, every day at noon. The evening sun came in through the bottle-glass green of the mosaic in the stone wall.

"Croaker! It's been ages since you were out here for Ahura-tet." he responded, setting down whatever curio he was working out. "How are things at the Department?"

"Can't tell a soul, as always." The mood did not darken so much as he might have thought. Young man probably can't tell his own family what he's doing. If I had one, I might even feel bad for him.

In truth, he was in Egypt after a particularly busy year chasing down rumors, doing ground research, and deciding the most likely place was the Valley of Kings. The information he had out of Ebony's interrogation was highly suspect at first, but everything he had discovered since then corroborated the story. If she keeps this up, she'll be an Inspector again- even after everything that she did. The worst part about being an Unspeakable was that he knew every sordid detail of how she treated the students at Hogwarts, the children, not to mention everything she had been researching and yet there was precisely nothing he could do about it, since he was forbidden from divulging anything he learned in a secret Department interrogation.

Having gone through a list of books removed from the Restricted Section, the then Inspector had deduced the commonality about them- they all concerned a nearly permanent method of avoiding death, if one was willing to resort to the darkest of magic. There were no leads on what specifically it was, only that there were hieroglyphics in the titles of a few of them. Ancient Egyptians were obsessed with immortality- they went further and further as the Romans took over the Mediterranean. We should have expected them to use dark magic. Apart from that, the trail more or less went cold.

At the very least, Bill had an interesting lead.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked, indicating a ruby red amulet.

"No idea."

"I nicked it out of a tomb yesterday. Damn thing was cursed to keep me from summoning it, and we only just got out with our lives." Bill audibly sighed. "Thing is, I don't know what it is either. There have to be hundreds of manuscripts in the tomb, but we'll never get past the defenses, at least not without bringing the whole place down. To make things worse, that's actually what the goblins want the team to do. None of the physical wealth in there will be destroyed, if we just ...envelop-" he made an overzealous hand gesture "-the whole interior in flames, it can all be resold, but we're going to lose every strip of papyrus, and the paint's all going to be gone as well."

"I have a different idea, Weasley." A red eyebrow went up. "Even money says I know what that thing is, too."

"Don't think I don't know where you're going with this."

"One of our own, Bagnold, you might know her as Ebony-"

"She was in the papers, yes. She was also in a fair bit of my letters from home. Gave my youngest brother a spot of trouble, way I understand it."

"Never met him, but that's what I would think." Croaker continued. "She's a right nasty bitch if you ask me. Anyway, beginning of the school year she works under the librarian, helping out for credit or something, I don't know. Really she's looking for records of books removed from the Restricted Section, and why, probably to establish a precedent. Thing is, there was a whole list of them taken out in the forties, and they led me here."

"You have the books?" I have the titles.

"There's a fair chance what you're holding is a horcrux."

It was not long before the two of them were off.

Bill got them through most of the defenses the team had set up to keep the unwary out, as well as a few curses they had not quite broken. Croaker kept his hands to himself, for the time being at least, keeping the better parts of the other man's mind occupied by telling him about the horcrux, its known magical properties, and the most likely way it was created.

"Amazing it still works after all this time." the young wizard muttered, going ahead of them and waving away the final enchantments before getting into the main room, the dusty corridor around them smelling of death. "Bab- hȝ" he continued with a wave of his wand. Some invisible barrier must have fallen away before them, though to the Unspeakable it was invisible. "It's like a password. We got it from old Ramses before my time."

The tomb appeared to be mostly left as it always had been, though his trained eyes could pick out a few footprints. The team was careful; not a thing had been knocked out of place. In the center there was the sarcophagus, as expected, though breaking from character it had been opened.

"That's where you nicked the amulet?"

Bill nodded. "They don't lay around teaching you to observe down there, do they?"

"No, sir, they don't." Croaker muttered back as they approached the final resting place of Sehkmethis I, the skeletal, black fingers creeping out from below the high sides of the extravagant container.

In the present things seemed infinitely more complicated.

As the monstrous mummy continued to refuse to reappear, Bill was applying enchantments to himself, mostly in tongues Croaker did not recognize. Instead he cast shield charms of various descriptions as he scanned the room, looking for anything resembling papyrus, long since yellowed, though there would be enchantments to keep it from decaying to illegibility. Somehow they never figured out how to get them to work on their bodies. Either that or it's a lot more complex. A disembodied, skeletal leg stood a few feet away from them, having apparently come from nowhere. The incantation for the Weasley's fire charm might have come out as a bit of a scream, but Croaker would not tell his coworkers. Yeah, it's probably the second one.

As a pair of seemingly unrelated bones fell from the ceiling, his shielding was enough to inform him, though the other wizard was not so lucky. Two hands had already found their way to his throat.

"Relashio!" the Unspeakable shouted, freeing his windpipe, though it appeared the linen wrappings meant to silence him. "Bill! It's the bloody amulet!"

"I'm not going to give it back!" the red-haired man shouted angrily, casting more blasting curses than is generally recommended while underground.

"Destroy it!"

The skull appeared in the distance as if to respond to the threat, ancient white hair hanging off the desiccated black head. Dark red light from the eyes seemed to control a spine, slithering on the floor. With conjured ropes Croaker bound the targets, finding the fire charms only made the cadavers more dangerous.

"I can't! It's the key to understanding everything they were trying to do in the New Kingdom!" There was a hardness to his voice, an unwillingness to entertain the notion. "I shouldn't destroy it- the knowledge will put us above the goblins, above every work and craft-"

"Bill, it's not worth it!" The ribcage seized his leg like a madman's vice, even as he fought ever faster and harder against the hardened linens coming after him from what seemed like every direction.

"I'm one man, Croaker- together we're two. This is immortality itself!" the younger man shouted back, not at all assailed by cadavers or ancient magic.

"Merlin, look at yourself! Incendio! They're not attacking you because you're not a threat!"

As if finally convinced the other wizard dropped the amulet, all hellish horrors moving to seize it at once.

"Bombarda!"

The bright red horcrux exploded into what had to be thousands of pieces as everything in the room froze. All around them the monstrous remains of the king were no longer animated, the floating head falling to the ground, its eyes at last darkening.

"Goblins are never going to forgive me for that." Bill spat, kicking an arm to the side. "Just stay there and die, we don't pay you to live!" he joked in some high, creaky voice. "The pharaohs haven't been alive for five thousand years and they're still making us money!"

Croaker laughed uneasily, deciding it was possible that the curse-breaker's words had been more than the ramblings of a bit of dark magic trying to keep itself alive. Man's mad about his job, I'd say.

"Have a vacation in mind?"

"I'm on one." Bill responded, seeming to have recovered a mite. "My family's here to visit."

"Sure dear old mum's happy her big boy can handle himself." the Unspeakable joked. "Tell you what, visit them for a change." He spotted a chest that seemed to be worth the effort of opening, and he levitated the lid wordlessly.

"I came here for a change. My old home's going to be the same to the end of time, whenever the muggles find out about us, whenever dark wizards destroy everything, or whenever the goblins find out they've been cheated by three percent in the government funds rate- whichever comes first." As he went on about it, Croaker found the chest contained scrolls, but not the manner he needed or wanted. Anything related to horcruxes- would have called them Ankh Amulets or something of that nature.

"Well, what I'm trying to say is you need to get out more. Take a real vacation somewhere, doesn't have to be long."

"I wouldn't mind going to France at some point." Bill stated, visibly thinking about it. He seemed to have a better idea of where to find the documents. I'll need some way of getting them off him- his dig, of course, just need a copy. "There are some interesting things to research out there." he thought aloud, staring at a sheet of illegible papyrus.

"What are you going to do with what you have now?"

"Officially, the goblins keep it a few years. They might decide to sell it, but the thing to know about that is they don't see property the same way as everyone else."

Croaker was more or less familiar, but decided to let him explain it.

"How so?"

"Well, when they sell something to you, what they mean is they're willing to take what you're giving them as long as you give it back eventually." he approximated. "They're willing to do business on a lot, but they're not willing to sell anyone anything on a permanent basis, at least not if it's goblin-made."

"They can stipulate that kind of thing in contracts." the Unspeakable suggested, trying to get a look over Bill's shoulder. There were a thousand and one decryption charms in the Department of Mysteries, so the language was really no issue, but he had to have some way of knowing the document was what he needed. "Is that about the amulet?" he asked.

"Mostly that's what they do, in official deals and that sort of thing, the concern is when it was an informal trade, mostly a long time ago. No idea what this is, I'll have to look over it." He shook his head in momentary disappointment. "Now that there's no threat here, someone tells the goblins, then they get all this."

"Yeah, but you don't want that, do you?" Croaker asked. "Why let them have it all to themselves?"

"We agreed to this. They don't give a damn about what I do as long as it gets them gold. I get paid well enough myself."

"Yeah, but that's not why you took the job." I have to press while I have the footing.

"No, not really. I get to look into things, but I get the idea you want a copy. I'm afraid that can't happen. If I make copies, the copies get out and then they can't sell the information to publishers." Bill explained.

"They sell information? How are you meant to return it?"

"If it's not goblin-made, they don't care. I don't know, maybe you have to give them a memory."

"A memory, eh?" the Unspeakable wondered aloud, leading the younger man to the mutually beneficial conclusion. That's another reason the boy needs to get out. I'm running circles around him.

"You work in the Department most of the time, right?" he asked, uncertainty evident. "Nothing ever gets out of the basement?"

"Not a word."

"Owls can find you?"

"We have a box upstairs." Croaker answered, pretending to put it together. "I'm beginning to think you and I can have a long and productive exchange, Bill Weasley." He extended a hand and the other man took it. The pair of them started back toward the entrance. He's going to have all the time in the world to go through it and look for something relevant to horcurxes. "You'll be getting some of the more interesting things we learned from the Old Kingdom, and because I like you and you need it, a primer in French. On the subject, you wouldn't believe some of the things Napoleon found when he was here."

The conversation drifted to various subjects as the wizards apparated into the city and made their way to what looked like a townhouse, reasonable for a young bachelor in the area. The building was of a more modern design, which he should have expected, even in the magical bit of Giza, but the exterior was the same sandy color the buildings there had always been, the windows a deep blue reminding him of lapis lazuli.

"This is where you've holed up the family?" the Unspeakable asked as though he did not believe it. In truth, he was perfectly familiar with charming the insides of buildings, it seemed a staple in architecture for longer than he cared to find out.

"We've been in tighter quarters."

"Haven't blown up the inside of the old homestead?" Bill shook his head.

"There are laws against it now, protecting the damn builders or the realtors or someone." he muttered, annoyed. "The older buildings are grandfathered in, which makes sense, they can't just change it back, but we have to extend the interior of our home the old fashioned way."

"Extending the exterior?"

Bill nodded darkly.

"Another reason I'm not going home any time soon- I've only been away just long enough to realize that the place looks ghastly."

Croaker turned to go, having no intent to follow the man into his crowded home.

"No need to rush with the mail, just pick out anything that looks like it might explain how the amulet worked." Didn't seem to have any special protections on it, now that I think about it. You'd think there'd be enchantments keeping it from being destroyed by anything except fiendfyre.

"I'll be looking for the explanation myself." he said to the turned back of the Department of Mysteries employee. "Don't try to tell me that's the only reason you're in Africa, though." the younger wizard gambled.

Ah, what the hell.

"I might be in the area looking into reports of unusual Erumpet activity down south of here."

"Unusual activity? I haven't heard of an Erumpet in months."

"Right on the money, Mr. Weasley. There are none left in Egypt, upper or lower. They've all gone and beaten a path southwest."

"No one noticed?" he asked, before realizing the answer was obvious. "Any idea why?"

"If I ever find out, I'll tell you."

Croaker disapparated, concealing his grin.