Chapter One: Treasures of Pharaohs

The endless shifting sands of Egypt flowed across like a river that meandered through a forest, appearing as nothing more than an endless flowing embrace. Yet beneath this innocuous appearance, it was well known to those with knowledge of such matters that the shifting sands of the Northeastern Sahara hid innumerable ancient and dark secrets that would have best been left undiscovered for all of eternity.

But saying that some things are best left undiscovered is like asking for them to be discovered, asking for someone to stumble upon them, and put them to them to their twisted use. Thus was the case today.

But in Egypt, such secrets could remain undisturbed and unfound for centuries … millennia even, and it was very probable that some of them would never be found. But the vast majority of them would at some point be found as the shifting sands exposed their places of hiding, and those who plumbed the ancient crags of Egyptian ruins stumbled upon them.

For today, after centuries of lying undiscovered and unnoticed, an ancient treasure with magical powers the likes of which had not been seen on this earth since the days of the Founding of Hogwarts was going to be unearthed, and its immeasurable powers were going to be unleashed on an unprepared and unsuspecting world.

But the question presents itself, who would possibly dare to meddle in such ancient and dangerous magics? The answer lay, as such matters often did, with those who had everything to gain and nothing to lose, in those who had been driven to the point of desperation by the efforts of those who opposed them. To those who, in that desperation were willing to turn to a force that could just as easily destroy them as it could save them.

The Wizards who sought this treasure were known as the Magical History Movement, who had twice since they had publically announced their existence two years before, had launched a plot that surrounded the ancient magics that were found in the immediate area of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

However, both times they had been thwarted, thwarted by the son of their sworn foe Harry Potter! Thwarted by the brat of the man who had killed the would be savior of Wizard kind, and then subjected the Wizarding World to live under his boot by filling the Senior Positions of the Ministry with his puppets!

But this time, they would not be stopped by the brats of Potter, as their new plan would not take them anywhere near Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where the children would be attending school in the fall. So as long as they could keep their actions secret from the Ministry of Magic, something that was about as difficult as hiding a rock in your pocket, they had nothing to fear.

Of course, they would first have to find the lost treasure that was the center point of their plan, but there was little doubt that they would find it in short time. They had been sent to this spot by The Master himself, and they knew that The Master always knew that of which he spoke. After all, in recent years he had found the Resurrection Stone, the Pendant of Cleopatra, and the last Heir of Slytherin, none of which were supposed to even exist!

This time, however, they were searching for something that, while it had been lost for over four millennia, most certainly existed. Even better, he knew precisely where it could be found, and so had sent this force to recover it so that it could be put to use once again by the Magical History Movement.

The timing had been perfect, somehow The Master had known that the sands of Egypt had shifted near the Nile Delta, and that their mark would be found there. How he knew these things no one dared ask, all they knew was that if they did not find it before it was once again hidden beneath the sands then they may as well throw themselves off the top of the nearest edifice.

They had been given very explicit instructions; they were to blast apart the uncovered ruins until they found what they had been sent after. Once they had found it, they were to destroy the ruins and apparate back to Cairo so that they could report back to their Master at their established Rendezvous Point.

It was simple, brilliant, and absolutely foolproof! There would be no witnesses or evidence for the Ministry to become suspicious, not even the slightest sign that anything had ever occurred there. They would be in and out in less than an hour, long before the site had time to be discovered by archeologists, Wizard and Muggle alike … if indeed it ever was.

That was the most important part, the Egyptian Ministry of Magic could not uncover anything to lead them to determine what the Magical History Movement was after! If any of the world's magical leaders uncovered their plan before they were ready, the entire operation could be compromised! In order for The Mater's plan to succeed, no one could know what the Magical History Movement had found, or even that they had been looking for something!

That was the plan anyway, but oftentimes such plans did not exactly go precisely the way that they were intended to, and right now was starting to look like one of those times. Though they had been able to find the ruins without much trouble, it was proving extremely difficult to find the item for which they had been sent in the first place.

They had blasted apart half the place, but there was not the slightest sign of what they were looking for. The men, who had been expecting an easy pick up job, were now beginning to worry that they were going to have to go digging for the subject of their search. And for those who had never tried, digging in the sand is about as easy as passing off a hippogriff as a crup.

But The Master would not accept failure, so if it came to that they would be left with no choice but to go digging for the item of their search, it was either that or an extremely unpleasant conversation with The Master once they returned. And by an 'unpleasant conversation' they knew that the slow and painful death of each and every one of them, before they were replaced with a second team, was clearly implied.

So as such, despite the fact that their search had led to not even the slightest trace of their goal, they were left with no choice but to continue searching. In a way it was almost a pity that they were being forced to destroy all of this history, but it could not be helped. Their mission must go forward, and if a few old ruins had to be blown up along the way then that was just collateral damage.

And there was to be lots of collateral damage, the ruins were being blasted to bits by the Dark Wizards, erasing the mark and legacy of a civilization that had thrived and flourished over four thousand years before. The civilization was one of magical origin, and ruled by those in whose blood hummed the fire and power of magic.

As the men continued with their search, leveling the cragged stone as they passed by, each of them began planning how they would blame the others for the failure. So long as they could pass the buck on to someone else the penalty would be lighter for them.

"You reckon it's even out here?" asked one of the men, gruff and bearded with a thick Scottish accent, who looked as though his face had been clawed at by some manner of dark creature. He had received this scar in a duel with one of the Magical History Movement's greatest enemies. An enemy almost as hated as Harry Potter himself!

"It must be, or He wouldn't have sent us here would he?" answered the figure beside him, the only woman on this expeditionary force. Unlike her companion, she was young, and looked as though she had never seen the rigors of combat, though in fact she had actually braved more fights than her companion.

Though she had the outward appearance of a beauty queen, she had all of the skill and ruthlessness of a battle hardened killer, and she had killed scores of her foes. She was, despite of her youth, one of the longest serving members of the Magical History Movement, and had been with the organization almost since its inception seventeen years earlier.

The bearded man shrugged with a grunt, and the two continued looking, there was not much else to say. True, there was no questioning the resources and ingenuity of The Master, but even he could make mistakes … couldn't he? Regardless as to the answer, no one was going to be the poor sorry sap to have to tell The Master that his plans were flawed: doing so would result in death … if you were lucky!

Consequentially, they were left with little recourse other than to follow through with the plan as it had been outlined to them by The Master, and continue searching until they had found that which they had been sent after.

The worst part of it was that they did not even know exactly what it was that they were searching for. Oh, they knew what it was and what it looked like to be certain; but as to what use it had, and why it was so important to The Master they had not the slightest of insights to. Of course, they had not asked, but even if they had they would not have received an answer: unless the application of the Cruciatus Curse counted as an answer, but then again there were some answers that you did not want to hear. After all, if you did not know what devastation the artifact you were searching for was going to cause, the thought of it could not keep you up at night.

Yes, in a lot of ways it was better not to know exactly what it was you were doing.

They had been told that the subject of their search would be found within a matter of hours, no more than two or three hours if they were terribly unlucky. However, they had now been out in the sweltering Egyptian sun for almost five hours, and they were still no closer to locating their objective.

Part of the problem, had lay in a lack of appreciation for the size of the area that they were to be searching. They had set out under the assumption that they would be searching through an area of ruins around the size of a dwelling … perhaps a temple if they were unlucky. However, what they had found instead was a massive complex of ruins the size of a rather large city. The site they were looking for must have once been a part of some kind of Egyptian Mecca of power and wealth.

The city had been built all those millennia ago as a place for the gathering and collaborating of the ancient Priests of Magic in Old Egypt. These Priests had wielded enormous power, the likes of which the world had not seen in some time. But aside from their magical powers, these Priests also had vast political power at their fingertips, as their powers enabled them to control the Pharaohs that they professed to serve.

It was these Priests therefore, and not the Pharaohs, who had truly controlled Egypt, and as such their City had been constructed with all of the resources and luxuries available at the time. The city was, in all likelihood, the largest of its time, and probably could have rivaled the size of modern day Cairo!

Consequentially, they had been forced to go through the city building by building, searching carefully through each one of them in search for their target. However, more than half of the city had been leveled by now, and there had not been even the slightest sign of their target.

"I bloody well told you that there's nothing out here!" snapped the gruffly bearded man some time later as he sat down with a huff on the side of one of the still standing buildings. His face was dripping with sweat, glistening beads of which still clung to the jet black hair that hung from his chin.

"You don't know that." Said the woman calmly, though like her companion, her face glistened from exertion and exhaustion. "If The Master said that it was here, then it is here, and it would be very unwise of you to let anyone hear differently."

The dozen other members of the group continued searching, none of them daring to do something as bold as request a break from their toils. These two were permitted such luxuries because they had been placed in command of this venture, due to their previous feats on behalf of the Movement. Those who toiled under them, though, were not afforded such benefits.

So while the pair settled into the shade created by one of the buildings that still stood the other members of the MHM, whom they had brought with them, continued at their work; though they were on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion after hours of tedious labor they pressed on. In fact, one man had literally collapsed from exhaustion a while back, but the young woman with the hardened eyes had made sure that he would never wake again.

"If there were anything to find," the man insisted in a hoarse voice as he emptied a canteen over his glistening face, "We would have found it long before now. The Egyptians always hid their treasures in either the Palace, or the Temple, and we've searched both of those already! I'm telling you, there's nothing here!"

The man was on the verge of hysterics now, shouting as loudly as he could in his frustrated rage. He knew that failure to comply with the wished of The Master, whether through any fault of his own or not, would result in death. If he returned back to The Master empty handed, the reasons behind his failure would not matter … he would die all the same.

His companion by contrast, spoke in measured and even tones as she looked at him coldly, "That, is the kind of talk that will lead you to failure. Do you think that we would have uncovered the Pendant of Cleopatra if we had given up after looking in those places?" In her time in the organization she had been sent on far too many expeditions similar to this one to not know that looking in the 'usual places' was not going to lead to much success.

The year before, she had been in charge of the Magical History Movement's search for the Pendant of Cleopatra, a magical artifact which she had eventually found buried in the foundations of the Tower of London. The Tower of London! Imagine the surprise of the Dark Witches and Wizards of the Magical History Movement when they had learned that the old Egyptian artifact had been found thousands of miles away from its home … in England of all places!

Of course, once The Master had traced the Pendant through the years to Salazar Slytherin, it had been no more than a simple deduction that the Pendant must have followed Slytherin back to his home. Of course, they had not immediately suspected London, initially viewing Hogwarts as a more likely hiding place, but they had found the Pendant readily enough.

"Yea, and look where all of that effort got us?" the man snapped back impatiently. "All of our work and toil to find the thing, and those buffoons at the Ministry of Magic, rather than preserve it for future generations to see like they should have, bowed to Harry Potter's tyranny and had it destroyed! Two Thousand Years of history gone!"

However, the woman ignored him and merely murmured pensively, "Ah yes, I had heard about that; I wonder how exactly they did it. It would not be an easy artifact to destroy I'd imagine." Like most of the magical instruments created by the ancient Magical Priests of Egypt, the Pendant of Cleopatra was a highly magical artifact that would be immensely difficult to destroy. It was resistant to most kinds of magic, and even hacking at it with a blade would not be enough to destroy the Pendant.

"Fiendfyre!" The bearded man spat, "A bit of a departure from standards for them isn't it? I hear that Minister Shacklebolt himself signed off on the order; which of course means that it was Potter behind the decision."

This was of little surprise to the woman, there was little going on at the Ministry these days that did not happen under the direct instruction of the famous 'Boy Who Lived', the traitor who had undermined the stability that the Dark Lord had struggled to bring to the Wizarding World.

Still, Fiendfyre was a surprising change of pace for the Ministry of Magic, which had as of late expressed extreme disapproval of the use of the cursed fire. In fact, word in the back alleys of London had it that the International Confederation of Wizards, at the behest of Harry Potter as usual, was considering adding Fiendfyre to the list of 'Unforgivable Curses' marking the first attempt to add a Curse to the list since it had been made in 1717.

If the rumors were true, then this was just the latest in a series of actions taken by the 'Boy Who Lived' as they called him, to ensure that no one was ever able to question his power. The alarming thing, though, was that very few people seemed to even want to challenge his power! Most people still seemed to believe the lies that Harry Potter was a hero who had saved the Wizarding World from the 'evil Dark Lord' rather than the other way around.

Needless to say, it was extremely frustrating to the Magical History Movement, for how in Merlin's name were you to fight a dictator when the oppressed seemed all too content to live beneath his boot? In order to truly liberate the Wizarding World from the oppressive rule of Harry Potter, they would first need to make them see that Potter was not the glowing hero that they all thought that he was.

The man gazed off into the distance, staring towards the endless stretch of sand that made up the surrounding desert of the Sahara without actually seeing it. Not that there would have been much to see had he actually been looking. No matter which direction one would choose to look from where the gruff bearded man was sitting, they would see nothing but the same identical horizon, unbroken by anything but the occasional sand dune, and the light flow of trickling sand as it blew across the desert floor.

He thought of the grand plans that the Magical History Movement had in store for the world, a world where Wizards were supreme and were served by Muggles, much like the world that had existed when these ruins were still a thriving city. A world where Wizardkind was free to live and flourish without being forced to live in secrecy by the extremely outdated International Statute of Secrecy.

Yes, the International Statute of Secrecy, the ace in the hole of the corrupted and self-serving Ministry of Magic. To hear them talk about it, one would think that the International Statute of Secrecy had been established for the safety and protection of Wizardkind, but these were nothing but lies!

The safety and protection of Wizardkind, is that really what they would have people believe? What protection did the world of Wizards need from Muggles, who could no more harm them than they could grow an extra set of limbs? It would be easy, simple even, to come out of hiding and assert their rightful place at the pinnacle of the world. Secrecy was not necessary for safety, for they could easily defeat and subjugate the Muggles of the world.

So why then were they really being forced to remain hidden by the Ministry and the International Confederation of Wizards? It was simple really, so simple in fact that the old man was surprised that no one had ever realized it before! The real reason that the Wizards of the world were forced to keep themselves hidden from Muggles was …

"Sir! Sir! Over here, we've found something!" Came the excited cries from between two buildings to the left of the pair, interrupting the old man's musings. The two glanced upwards in surprise, as though scarcely able to believe what they had just heard. After all of their efforts, was the end finally in sight? As the gruff old man allowed himself a premature sigh of relief, a smug grin crossed the face of the young woman besides him.

"See," she jested, sounding even more confident and self-assured than she had just moments before "What did I tell you? I told you that we'd find it soon enough." Her face was alight with an unhindered joy and pride, as though she was accomplishing some task of the upmost honor and sophistication.

The man could not help but grin at the enthusiasm of his young partner, though she had seen off many battles and duels, and though she had killed without hesitation in the past, and would surely continue to do so, she still did not fully understand the horrors and sorrows of the world in which she lived. He had shared her enthusiasm when he was younger, but the tragedies that he had been forced to bear had eventually tempered his early enthusiasm. Some day, when she had seen more of the world, her enthusiasm would fade as well.

The two rose in unison and strode over to where the shouts had come from. Amidst the rubble surrounding what had once been a building of some sort were gathered the twelve members of the Voldemort Revisionist Movement, all of whom stared into the ditch that had been carved in the ground with equal amounts of awe and fear.

Sticking up out of the sand, just barely visible to the eyes of the onward gazing Wizards was a large parchment scroll … pockmarked from the wear and tear of ages. Though the scroll looked like it had been battered and torn up during the time that it had remained in its stone prison, it was amazing that they had found it in as whole a state as it was.

After all, the scroll had been hidden away, unseen by human eyes, for over four thousand years! And over the course of four thousand years there were a million and one things that could happen to destroy a piece of old parchment, aside from the ravages that the mere passage of time would exert of its own.

As it would happen, only magic and luck had kept the scroll intact for all of those years, but even then it was still a long shot that it had survived long enough to be found forty centuries later. The odds had to have been one in a million, one in a billion even, but there it was before them, having defied the odds long enough to be found, and put back to the evil use for which it had been designed.

Of course, there was nothing evil about the scroll itself. The scroll was just that, a scroll, it had no magical properties of its own: other than the enchantments that had been placed on it that allowed it to (to some extent) survive the ravaging hands of time long enough to have been found by the Magical History Movement … or whoever it was that would have come along to collect it … four millennia later.

No, the evil lay not in the scroll itself, but in that which was written on the scroll. For, though it looked like nothing more than an ancient scrap of parchment, this scroll contained information with which one could accomplish unheard of feats of magic, and wreck untold destruction and devastation on the world … in the wrong hands that is.

Then again, in the right hands, the scroll contained the knowledge of how to do equally incredible things that would benefit Wizardkind, and indeed the world itself. Regardless of the morality of he who uncovered the scroll, it would still hold knowledge that they could use to change the shape of the world in which they lived. But how would the Magical History Movement use the scroll's knowledge?

They could, of course use it for purposes towards the benefit of Wizardkind; but at the same time they could use it to unleash a power on the world the likes of which had not been seen in all of recorded history!

The man stooped to one knee and plucked the scroll from the ground. As the last grains of sand trickled down from the scroll, the man's twisted face stared downwards without any outward displays of emotion. Not yet, not now, they were far too close to allow themselves to slip up now! They had to be certain, absolutely unquestionably certain, before they did anything else! If they went back to The Master with the wrong scroll, their fate would be even worse than if they had returned with nothing at all.

There was silence, as all those gathered waited with bated breath to hear whether they had uncovered the scroll for which they had been searching for all those hours, or if they had simply stumbled upon another of the millions of old documents that lay buried in the sands in the Land of the Nile.

The man unrolled the scroll with the utmost of care and delicacy, as though he was afraid that the parchment might crumble into dust in his hands if he were not extremely cautious. As he unfurled the parchment to its fullest extent, his eyes scanned over the roll intently, a bead of sweat that had nothing to do with the heat rolling down his forehead.

"Well?" demanded the woman, shocking everyone as her voice shattered the silence that had hunkered down over the area like a giant beast waiting to pounce upon its prey. No one else would have dared speak until the man had announced his findings, but she was no ordinary Witch … she was far too important to the Magical History Movement to be subject to the same restrictions and punishments as the average member.

"Well?" she repeated impatiently, when her only answer were shocked stares, and a few jumps as some of the more easily frightened members of the MHM leapt in shock at the shattering of the silence, "Is that it or not? We don't have all day; we should have left hours ago!"

She was right, of course, but the man was still angered by her nerve, despite her stature within the Magical History Movement, he was still her superior, and she needed to learn to treat him with the respect that he deserved. He would need to speak with The Master about putting the girl in her rightful place; she was growing far too independent and forceful.

His eyes dancing in anger, the man glowered "Aye," his voice sounding neither relieved nor jubilant, but cross and bitter … this was a man who was unaccustomed to having his leadership questioned.

"Aye," he repeated, "This is it! We've found what we're looking for men!" he said, allowing the scroll to crunch back into its tight roll and holding it skyward in his hand for all to see. This was a historic moment in the history of Wizardkind, for today would mark the beginning of a new dawn for the Magical History Movement, and for the world! From this day forward, they would have the power and respect that they needed in order to accomplish their goals.

Well, perhaps not the respect that they needed … not yet anyway, but this scroll would allow them to earn that respect. For with the scroll they would have power, and with power they would instill fear in the hearts of their enemies, and with the fear of traitors would come the love and respect of the populace!

A series of cries sounded from the circle as the Dark Wizards rejoiced in their success, leaping and hooting and hollering at their accomplishment, the day was theirs and so too was the future! Some of the more boisterous men and women shot sparks from their wands, blasting apart what little remained of the ancient city.

The woman, for her part, did not speak again, but merely smiled in satisfaction that their job in the desert was done. Her smile was a cold and twisted one, especially for one so beautiful, and as she smiled she looked as though she was in pain.

Then again, perhaps her smile looked so tortured and painful because it was caused by the thought of other people being in pain themselves … namely the enemies of the Magical History Movement. For the woman was a fanatic, who thought of nothing else day and night but the aims of the Movement, and how they were to be accomplished.

The Dark Wizards were blasting apart what remained of the ruins, doing so with a single minded determination and quickness that they had not been able to achieve before. Because they no longer had to worry about destroying the scroll that they had been looking for, they were now able to blast the buildings to dust with much greater nonchalance.

As such, it took only a matter of minutes before the rest of the ruins had been blasted to bits, leaving nothing behind but a few odd pieces of rock and rubble that pockmarked the sandy floor on which they stood. If anyone were to stumble upon this site, they would think it a dumping place for rock excavated from old tombs, many of which littered the surrounding area. All traces of the old lost city that had been exposed by the shifting winds were gone!

None of them pitied the loss though, as the Wizard City had already revealed its lone secret of value, what more use could it possibly provide for anyone? History? There were hundreds, if not thousands of sites just like this scattered across Egypt, no one would miss this one. In fact, they could not have missed it even if there were not thousands of others to occupy their attention, as no record of this cities existence survived … save for the one in the possession of The Master.

The Dark Wizards appraised the remains of what had once been a surviving monument to human craftsmanship and ingenuity, but was now just a collection of rocks and debris. There was nothing more to see, and no time to waste crying like little girls over that which had been lost. No one else was going to miss the city, so why should they concern themselves with it? As far as anyone was concerned, the city had never even existed to be destroyed in the first place.

With a series of loud cracks, the Dark Wizards vanished one by one, leaving nothing but endless dunes of sand behind as the sands of Egypt began to hide the remains of their conquest.

And so it begins! Hopefully you're all still with me after two long books as we set course for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for a third time! Thanks to everyone who has been following me, and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW! It means so much to me when people leave their thoughts and comments, good or bad. Thanks again for all of the support guys! I hope you notice a visible improvement in my quality from here on out, oh what a difference a year makes. :)