Where's My Mummy?
Summary: Harry and Hermione are working for the goblins as compensation for having robbed Gringotts during the war. A ritual designed to restore ancient artifacts goes wrong, sending the two back in time to where Rick and Evie are fighting their own immortal monster. Will Harry and Hermione help, or will they stand back to preserve the timeline?
Crossover: Harry Potter/Mummy Movies
Pairing: Harry/Hermione; Rick/Evie
A/N: This is one of my few male Harry stories. I would have considered making it FemHarry as well, but I wanted to have symmetry between the Harry/Hermione and Rick/Evelyn relationships, especially since there are a number of similarities between Harry/Rick and Hermione/Evelyn. Also, I doubted that Rick and Evelyn would have been accepting of a lesbian couple, which would introduce unnecessary complications to a story which is intended to be more about fun and adventure than angst and drama (in other words, a typical Stephen Summers story!).
I have a bit of an outline for what I think would be a decent story, but there are details I'd need to hammer out first. There'd be more than one trip through time in the story I have in mind, and I need to make sure that those trips don't create plot holes big enough to drive a summer blockbuster through. If I can, and I assume I'll be able to, then this will probably make the transition to a full story eventually.
As always, thanks to Bonnie for not only reading this and improving on the original, but also for her help in developing the plot so far.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, JK Rowling does. I don't own The Mummy, Universal does.
Chapter 01 - Lost in Time
Cairo, Egypt. 2006.
Harry Potter grimaced as he stood up straight, and his back cracked loudly enough to echo across the mostly-empty room.
"That's really disgusting, you know," Hermione groused, not bothering to look up from where she was checking his work on the floor.
"Yeah, well, my back starts to ache if I'm bent over too long," Harry complained. He lifted the brim of his fedora and wiped the sweat from his brow before casting another cooling charm on himself, once again grumbling about having to do this work inside at night. If they'd been outside, the cool Egyptian night air would have been much more comfortable.
"Then maybe you shouldn't take so long," Hermione retorted.
Harry sighed as he squatted back down and returned to the task of drawing runes on the floor of the Cairo Museum of Antiquities. He knew she wasn't trying to be mean, but it still irked him that she was so much faster at this task than he was. Since he hadn't taken Ancient Runes at Hogwarts, he'd had to brute-force learn them in the field. Now, five years into their ten-year sentence of service to the goblins, he was good enough to draw them from memory, but not so good that he didn't need to have his work checked by an expert, which was just one of many reasons why he and Hermione continued to be partnered together.
Another reason, which was far more important to him if not to the goblins, was that after six years of school, one year on the run, a final year of school, two years of training, and now five years of work in Egypt, he didn't think he knew how to live without her anymore. Hermione Granger had become the one good thing in his life that could always be relied on. He had once told Ron that he only thought of Hermione as a sister, but at some point it had occurred to him that he'd never had siblings, so he hadn't actually known what he was talking about.
Even now, years later, he still didn't quite understand what his feelings for Hermione were — all he knew was that he didn't want to be parted from her.
"Do you think we'll get this done tonight?" she asked after a few minutes of quiet work.
"I think so," Harry answered. "If this ritual you modified works as well as you think, we'll have the statue as good as new in plenty of time to make delivery." Out of the corner of his eye he saw her stand from where she was checking his work and gaze up at the massive, ancient statue of Wadjet-Bast. "Is there a problem?" he asked.
"It still seems wrong," she said. "Ancient artifacts like this are supposed to look... ancient. It's part of their history, which is a big reason why they have value. They're not supposed to look 'brand new' — anyone who wants a brand new statue can just make one."
"I know," Harry agreed as he finished the last rune. "But for some reason, it's what the goblins want. They promised to knock two and a half years off our sentence for breaking into Gringotts and stealing the dragon if we can pull this off."
"The fact that it's a completely unique statue only makes it worse," Hermione continued as if he hadn't said anything. "Every other statue of Wadjet-Bast has the body of a woman, the head of a lion, and then a small cobra above the head in front of a solar disk. This is the only instance of a statue of her with the head of a lion, the torso of a woman, and the bottom of a snake. It's the only known combination anywhere in the world of feline, human, and serpent. I can't even figure out why the goblins would care, much less make it such a high priority!"
He stood and walked up behind her, grasping her shoulders in his hands. "Hey, it's not like we're destroying it or anything. I'd support you if you refused to do that. All this ritual does is reverse time on the object in the center of the ritual circle. And I'm sure the goblins have their reasons for wanting this restored rather than making a new one. Who knows, maybe this is actually one of their gods or something."
Hermione slumped slightly and leaned back against her best friend. "I know, you're right," she said. "It doesn't make me feel much better about it, though." Harry gave her a little squeeze before stepping away so she could return to her task.
After a few more minutes, she asked, "Have you told Ron about this?"
"Uh, not exactly," Harry said evasively. Ron had not taken to the work in Egypt nearly as well as Harry and Hermione had, so he'd been left under his brother Bill's supervision when his two friends were sent off to work independently. Once he had gotten good enough, though, he'd decided that he liked working with family and chose to stay with his brother's team, leaving Harry and Hermione to continue on their own.
Hermione gave him a pointed look and said, "What do you mean, 'not exactly'? Did you tell him or didn't you?"
"I did tell him we would be in Cairo for a bit, in case he had a chance to meet up," Harry said hastily. "But, uh, I might have forgotten to mention that we were working on a project that would let us out of our contracts sooner."
"Harry! You can't just not tell him something like that!"
"I know! I know! It's just that, well, I thought something like that would be best told in person. Not in a letter. So I was hoping that he would come see us so we could tell him. Together."
"So that I could tell him, you mean," Hermione said with a huff. Harry refused to meet her eyes, which was all the response she needed. "I'll agree that telling him in person is better, but you're not leaving it all on me." Harry readily agreed, remembering the last time Hermione had been the one to give Ron bad news. It had been two years ago, and they'd met up after nearly a year of separation because of Ron staying with his brother. Due to the constant time apart, Hermione had decided to break up with Ron, and the ensuing argument had been legendary, even for them.
Harry never wanted to experience a repeat of that.
It took another hour for Hermione to check and double-check all his work, but finally she was satisfied, and they still had enough time for a practice run-through before they performed the full ritual the following night. Harry pulled off his brown fedora and cast a strong cooling charm on it before returning it to his head, ignoring Hermione's eye roll. She hated his hat and for a while at the beginning never failed to criticize it as horribly cliché, which always got a laugh out of Ron.
It was only when Harry put his foot down and threatened to get a bullwhip to go with it that she managed to rein in her comments, but she still couldn't keep the annoyance off her face. Harry didn't care, though. He liked the hat, even though he agreed that it was cliché. He hadn't gotten to watch many movies while living with the Dursleys, but Raiders of the Lost Ark had been one of them and it had stuck with him, even into adulthood. Maybe it was because of how Jones always got into trouble and how the odds always seemed to be stacked against him. Or maybe it was because Jones always kept on fighting, no matter what.
Regardless, he wished he could convey to his best friend how wearing the hat symbolized his feelings about the job and his life, but for some reason he was never quite able to find the words.
He shook himself out of his reverie when he noticed that Hermione was in place and waiting for him. He moved behind her into the supporting position from which he would cast the magic necessary to reinforce hers. The ritual didn't actually call for it, but it also wasn't designed to reverse more than three millennia of time on an object, only a few days or weeks. That was why it hadn't been used before in a situation like this, and why the goblins were willing to cut their remaining sentence in half if they could pull it off.
Hermione was confident that her modifications would work, however, and that was enough for Harry.
He focused on what she was doing, making the small wand movements necessary to support her larger movements as she softly recited the ritual chant. They would be doing everything that was necessary for the ritual except for the final movement that would direct the magic into the proper alignment, instead letting it simply dissipate into the air. It was a complicated ritual, especially with two people, and they'd been practicing for much of the past two weeks to get it right.
As the magic built in the air, Harry suddenly felt a strong urge to sneeze. He quickly pinched his nose in an effort to avoid ruining everything, but the urge struck again, this time worse than before. He started to wonder what was bringing this on when he noticed a fine stream of dust falling in front of him, just barely visible in the room's flickering torchlight. Almost reluctantly, Harry raised his eyes to the ceiling, pretty sure he wasn't going to like what he found there.
The display room had been transformed by the museum into a recreation of the stone temple in which the statue of Wadjet-Bast originally stood. The columns and ceiling were only designed to look like they were made from heavy stone blocks, he knew, but the foam and plaster mock-ups were so large that they were still incredibly heavy.
And right now, they were shaking violently.
In front of him, Hermione was raising her wand in preparation for the downward slashing motion that would complete the ritual — a slashing motion that she wasn't going to make during this test-run. Directly above them both, a massive piece of fake stone separated from its wooden support structure and started to fall, almost in slow motion.
Harry didn't bother to think about his next actions — he never did when their lives were in danger. He simply leapt forward, shoving her arms down as his momentum carried them both out of the impact zone. As the fake stone crashed into the museum floor, Harry and Hermione tumbled into the ritual circle, smearing runes and ruining two days of work.
Not that they noticed any of this, however, because almost as soon as they slid to a stop there was a bright flash of light and they were gone.
Cairo, Egypt. 1926.
"Harry, what do you think you're doing!" Hermione exclaimed as she pulled away and tried to stand on wobbly legs.
"Bloody well saving you, what do you think?" Harry shot back as he tried to stand as well. It wasn't easy because he felt dizzy, and there was a ringing in his ears.
"Language," she chided him. "And what exactly did you think you were saving me from?"
"From that huge—" he started to say, pointing back behind them, but he stopped short when he saw nothing but empty space where the fake stone had fallen. "Where's that huge piece of fake stone that fell?" he asked in bewilderment.
"Sod the stone, where are all our runes?" Hermione demanded. Harry looked around and realized that everything he'd so laboriously drawn was gone. When he crouched down, he couldn't find any sign that anything had ever been there. "Two days of work, lost!" she cried. "What did you do?"
"What did I do? I was trying to save you! The piece of ceiling that came loose must have weighed several hundred pounds! Something about the magic or the ritual didn't react well with the ceiling. If I hadn't done something, we'd have both been crushed."
"Did you ever think to raise a shield?"
Harry's jaw opened and closed a couple of times before he answered, "My wand was busy supporting you in the ritual."
Hermione's face softened slightly. "Well... I guess that makes sense. Thanks." Harry nodded, relieved. She didn't have a short fuse, not like Ron, but when she did get angry, he found it hard to calm her down again. That was why he'd always thought that she and Ron wouldn't last as a couple: he was too quick to start an argument, and she was too slow to end it. It was a volatile combination.
Then of course she had to go and start getting angry again. "I just don't understand what happened to all our work!" She gestured around the room. "Everything you did! All my refinements! Gone!"
Harry was about to respond when someone else called out. "Excuse me!" They looked over to see a thin Egyptian man with a small moustache and wearing a fez standing at the entrance to the temple recreation room. "Who are you, and what do you think you're doing here so late?" he demanded.
"We're working here — who are you?" Harry responded.
The man huffed indignantly. "Why, I'm the director of this museum! And I'd know if anyone was scheduled to work in here!"
"Director? We've met Dr. Khaled Hawass a couple of times, and you're not him."
"I don't know who this Hawass person is, but I can assure you that he is not the director of this museum. I am — Dr. Terence Bey! Now if you don't get out of here immediately, I'll have to summon the police!"
Harry was about to pull out his wand when he felt Hermione's hand on his arm. He looked at her, and she shook her head slightly before turning back to face the irate man. "We're sorry, we didn't mean to disturb you. Clearly we've been misinformed or misled. We'll leave right now." Harry felt himself pulled past the haughty man and out of the room. When they reached the lobby, he opened the front door for Hermione and waited while she grabbed what looked like a newspaper from a nearby table.
"Harry, look at this," she whispered.
Because he was watching her and her face was buried in the paper, neither of them noticed the group of people trying to get into the museum, and they all tumbled to the ground in a heap just outside the doors.
"I'm so sorry!" Hermione said as she tried to help people get disentangled and back on their feet.
"Oh, it's quite alright, my dear," a dark-haired man said as he held on to her hand and tried to kiss her knuckles. Harry felt a sudden burst of annoyance, but before he could say anything the lone woman in the group grabbed the man and pulled him inside.
"Come along, Jonathan. We don't have time for your games!"
"But Evie!" he complained as he was dragged along, two other men following close behind.
"Sorry about those two," the larger man with light brown hair and an American accent said. "And sorry for the, uh, run-in here. We're just in a bit of a hurry."
"That's alright, it was as much our fault," Harry said to the man's back as he hurried inside.
When Harry returned his attention to Hermione, she was just standing there, watching where the others had disappeared into the museum. "You didn't fall for that bloke's charming act, did you?" Harry said, feelings of annoyance bubbling up. "I mean, it was clearly just an act."
"No, it's not..." Hermione started to say, then she turned to him with an indecipherable expression on her face. "Why are you so bothered by it?"
"What? No. I'm... no, I'm not. Bothered," Harry stammered. "I just, you know. Didn't want you to fall for it. He was really smarmy."
"Right," Hermione said, though for some reason she looked unconvinced.
"What?"
"Sorry," she said, shaking her head. "There was just something familiar about them." She looked around, then pulled Harry off to the side of the building. "We've got a problem. A serious problem."
"What now?"
"Look at the date on here," Hermione said as she shoved the paper in his face. "It says 1926!"
Harry took the newspaper and looked at the English-language headline, "WAFD PARTY WINS IN LANDSLIDE." Above that was the date, with the year 1926. He looked up and slowly turned in place, looking around at the square in front of the museum as if only now really seeing it. He looked at the old cars. He looked at the old signs and posters. Then his eyes finally came back to meet Hermione's.
"Oh, bugger," he whispered.
"Oh bugger is right," Hermione agreed, not objecting to his language this time. "That ritual was supposed to reverse the effects of time, but somehow it reversed time itself!"
"Wait, you don't think this is a prank, do you? Something Ron and Bill are trying to pull on us?"
Hermione frowned in thought as she looked around them. "No... no, I don't think so. I wouldn't put it past them to try something, but nothing this elaborate. Or so muggle. Even now, Ron's pretty clueless about things like cars — too clueless to fill the square with cars and advertisements that all matched the right era."
"But then... how?" Harry asked. "And why... well, why now? Why didn't we go back three thousand years? Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but still..."
"No, that's a good question," Hermione answered as she bit her bottom lip in thought. Harry remained silent, knowing better than to interrupt her while she was working on a problem. After a long pause, she said, "As far as the date goes, I assume it's because the ritual wasn't done quite right. You pulled my arm down in a way that wasn't exactly what the ritual called for, you were moving instead of supporting me, and I'm sure we ruined some of the runes as we slid into the circle. It wasn't enough to completely atomize us in a massive magical explosion that would have destroyed Egypt, but I guess it was enough to send us a few decades back in time before the energy matrix collapsed."
"So, uh, good news, then," Harry said, his eyes wide at the realization of what they'd managed to avoid.
Hermione ignored him and continued, "As for how exactly it sent us back in time instead of simply reversing time for us like it was supposed to for the statue... I'm not sure. We need to get back in that room. I need to do some tests and research what might have happened. Only then will I be able to tell if we can get back."
"And until then, we have to be very careful. We can't risk doing something that changes the future, otherwise who knows what will happen once we do return."
Hermione nodded as she looked at the museum's front doors. "I suspect that the director now has several guests. If we're quiet, we should be able to avoid notice."
Harry cast silencing and muggle notice-me-not charms on them both before they slipped into the building and made for the temple re-creation room. Along the way, they passed close by what was the director's office in their own time and heard a loud argument coming from inside.
"You think that makes killing innocent people acceptable?" they heard the woman exclaim. They both stopped dead in their tracks, unable to ignore what was being said.
"Let me see, Miss Carnahan," the director responded, "to prevent this creature from becoming immortal and destroying the world? Yes!"
Harry's eyes widened as he looked at Hermione. "That doesn't sound unfamiliar, does it?" he whispered. Hermione didn't respond, though. Instead, she seemed to be intently focused on the conversation coming through the partially-closed door. The expression on her face was one that Harry normally only saw when she was working on an especially difficult and important problem.
"He That Shall Not Be Named will fear cats until he is fully regenerated," the director said. Harry's and Hermione's eyes widened as they looked at each other.
"Who?" an American asked.
"We do not speak the creature's name, not if we can help it," a young, Egyptian-accented voice answered.
"His name... is Imhotep," the director said, and it was clear that he was more than a bit disturbed at having to voice that name aloud. "After he has fully regenerated himself, he will seek to resurrect the woman he loved and died for."
"Anck-su-namun," the woman said.
"Where did you hear that name?" someone asked, sounding surprised.
"He called me by that name in Hamunaptra," the woman answered. "And earlier in my bedroom, he... he tried to kiss me."
"It sounds like he has chosen you to be his human sacrifice to resurrect his love," the director said.
"Over my dead body!" came an American voice. "I won't let him touch you again, Evie."
"Thank you, Rick," the woman responded coolly, "but I'm quite capable of taking care of myself. And don't look at me like that, Jonathan Carnahan. Just because you're my brother doesn't mean I'm going to let you treat me like a delicate little flower, either." Harry couldn't help but smile at how much that sounded like Hermione when she berated him and Ron for being overly protective of her.
"It's not so simple, Mr. O'Connell," came another voice. "Tonight is the full moon, and..."
Harry didn't get a chance to hear the rest because Hermione started pulling him away. "What's going on?" he whispered once they were back in the room where they had started out.
In an apparent non sequitur, she asked, "I never explained to you why I accepted this job, did I?"
"Because it was better than goblin prison? Shorter hours than cleaning the dragon pens under Gringotts?"
She shook her head. "No, I mean why I accepted it so readily instead of complaining?"
"Oh, well, no, actually," Harry answered. Thinking back, he realized that she had seemed quite happy about the judgment of the goblin council. He hadn't given it much thought at the time because the offer of doing work like this was so unprecedented, and he himself had been so relieved.
"It was actually my suggestion that they offer us this alternative," Hermione explained.
"Really?" he said, shocked. "Why?"
"Aside from it being better than goblin prison?" Hermione asked pointedly. "Because before going to Hogwarts, one of my dreams was to become an archaeologist. Or to be more specific, an Egyptologist."
"That is kind of specific," he observed. "And it seems like an odd dream for a little kid."
"Well, before that I had wanted to be a dentist," she admitted, and Harry had to smile. "Anyway, it all began about a year before I got my Hogwarts letter, which was almost a year before I actually started. That was when my grandmother Helen died. I didn't know her because she lived in Australia, but apparently she knew all about me because I was the primary beneficiary of her will."
"And she was an Egyptologist?"
Hermione shook her head. "No, she was independently wealthy. According to the stories I heard from my mother (and this was much later), Helen's own father — my great-grandfather — was a bit of a ladies man who had several children with several different women."
"What a berk!"
"I suppose, but it worked out fine in the end, I guess," Hermione said with a shrug. "That's how Helen's mother ended up with so much money: my great-grandfather paid her a substantial amount to quietly go away."
"He was still a berk! I'd never do something like that!"
Hermione smiled slightly and got that indecipherable look on her face again before continuing, "Anyway, he may have paid her off to go away, but he never officially disinherited any of his kids, and when he died Helen was the only one of them left, so she got more. When she died, I was her only grandchild, so I got some family mementos and a large trust fund while the rest went to various charities."
"OK, and what does this have to do with Egypt?"
"I'm getting to that," Hermione said. "Among the mementos was a set of journals — journals written by my great-aunt, my great-grandfather's sister. She was a half-British, half-Egyptian archaeologist who, with her American husband, spent most of her life making incredible discoveries all around Egypt. When I read her journals, I grew enthralled with her stories, and she became a hero to me. I was inspired by her adventures and achievements, especially since I knew that at that time it wasn't easy for women to do much outside the home. I kind of gave up on my dream of following in her footsteps when I learned that I was a witch, but during the inquiry at Gringotts, I realized that not only might I be able to resurrect that dream, but I might be able to do so in a way that helped the three of us, too."
"Oh," Harry said as he processed what he'd just heard. "Well, uh, that's pretty cool. I mean, it would have been a shame if you'd have had to give up on that dream entirely, and I guess I should thank you for letting me tag along. As annoying as the job can be at times, I do enjoy it. And not just because it's better than goblin prison. In fact, once I discovered that Egypt is where horcruxes first originated, I rather liked the idea that I might be able to learn more about them and maybe have an easier time destroying them if I ever encounter them again in the future." Hermione smiled brightly at him. "But, uh, why are you telling me this now?"
"Because," Hermione said, her voice lowering to a whisper. "My great-grandfather and great-aunt were Jonathan and Evelyn Carnahan." Harry simply looked at her and blinked. "Carnahan became O'Connell when Evelyn, known to her friends as Evie, married an American named Rick. Rick O'Connell." Harry frowned, looked back in the direction of the director's office, then looked at Hermione.
"That is a curious coincidence, I'll admit, but... wait, you don't think—"
Hermione nodded energetically. "It all fits! The names, the date, the location, everything! And there was a gap in her journal of several days in 1926 during which she didn't write anything. The next entry mentions some awful experiences involving the lost city of Hamunaptra, but she said she didn't want to write it down because it was too awful to think about. The one thing she did say, though, was that it caused her to meet a dashing American adventurer named Rick O'Connell."
"Wow," Harry said as he thought about how unlikely it was that they'd manage to cross paths with these people in the past. He was about to say as much when he noticed the glint in Hermione's eyes. "No," he said firmly. "We can't risk doing anything to mess with the timeline."
"But I'd just like to maybe say hello? Or something?" Hermione pleaded. Harry sighed, never quite having figured out how to say no to her. "What if it were your grandparents or great-grandparents?" Hermione continued. "Wouldn't you want to see them? Maybe just meet them briefly?"
That brought Harry up short. He couldn't deny that exchanging greetings with his grandparents or great-grandparents would be interesting, but he'd never had enough of a personal connection to them to be really excited at the prospect, not like Hermione currently was. His parents, on the other hand — the idea of speaking to them, perhaps even touching them... he'd give almost anything for that.
And if Hermione's desire to say hello to O'Connell and the Carnahans was anything like that, then there was no way that he'd refuse her.
"If we pass by them again, fine," he finally said. "I suppose saying hello in such a case wouldn't be any worse than what we've already done. Just don't go seek them out and interrupt what they are doing — you don't know what sort of effect it will have on the future."
"Alright, I promise," Hermione said, and while he wanted to believe her, he knew enough to not entirely trust the glint she still had in her eyes. "And we may not have time anyway," she continued as she pulled out her wand and began to cast detection spells around the room. "Who knows how long this investigation will take."
Night had fallen before Hermione and Harry were done with their magical scans of the room, and she was looking through one of the books that had been in her beaded bag when Harry went to the window to investigate noises coming from outside the museum.
"Uh, Hermione?"
"What is it, Harry? You know I'm busy."
"You should come look at this."
"I told you not to bother me unless there's a disaster, like the world catching on fire," Hermione said as she reluctantly joined him at the window.
"How about a zombie apocalypse?" he replied, pointing to the masses of shambling, disease-ridden people that were slowly advancing on the building. "Personally, I think that qualifies. Can you tell what they're saying?"
"Imhotep," she whispered.
Both of them jumped slightly when they heard crashes outside the room, and they ran to the doorway to see what was going on.
"The Book of the Living is located beneath the statue of Anubis!" they heard Evie exclaim.
"Do we have to go back out there?" Rick asked.
"That's my great-aunt and uncle," Hermione whispered.
"To destroy the creature and save the world, yes," the museum director responded. Before anyone else could say anything, there was a loud crash that sounded like it came from downstairs. "They've broken in!" the director said. "We must flee — hurry, there's a private entrance at the back we can use."
"We need to get out, too," Harry said, grabbing her hand.
"Do we go with them?" Hermione asked.
Harry shook his head. "We can't interfere in what they're doing. We'll find a different exit." Much to Hermione's dismay, Harry's idea of an exit was to go to the roof and pull out two shrunken brooms.
"Harry..." she said pleadingly.
"It's the only way out that they can't follow," Harry insisted as he renewed the notice-me-not spells on them, then added them to the brooms as well. "Just stick close to me. We won't go too high or too fast."
True to his word, he only floated a few feet off the roof, then slowly drifted away. Hermione stayed within touching distance because she still wasn't comfortable with flying on a broom, despite how often it had to be done in their jobs. They'd only been drifting for a few seconds when Hermione gasped and pointed towards the ground. "My great-grandfather Jonathan! Those... those zombie things are going to spot him."
"No, Hermione," Harry said, grabbing her broom. "You can't interfere. He must get away or you wouldn't have been born!"
"Unless we've already changed things and messed up the timeline," Hermione muttered.
They watched as Jonathan went stiff and started chanting "Im-ho-tep! Im-ho-tep!" Almost immediately, the crowd turned away and started going in another direction, allowing Jonathan to get to a car.
Harry gave Hermione a pointed look. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just... it's hard to stand by and watch something like that happen, especially when it's family."
"I know it is," Harry agreed. "But it feels really weird to be the responsible one in this relationship."
"Relationship?" Hermione asked, quirking one eyebrow.
"Uh, yeah," Harry replied, shifting uncomfortably on his broom. "You know, uh, partnership."
"Sure," Hermione said, though Harry didn't think she sounded convinced. "Look, there they go! Let's at least follow their car to make sure they get away."
"What?" Harry asked as Hermione started to move off — and at a much faster speed than she normally liked to fly. "Of course they get away," he insisted once he'd caught up with her. "Like I said, you wouldn't have been born otherwise."
"I don't care!" Hermione retorted, most of her attention on the car below. "I need to see what happens. I need to see it and know for sure."
Harry grimaced at the fact that she'd picked now of all times to get brave on a broom, but he didn't try to stop her. Even if he could have done it safely, he knew she wouldn't forgive him if he denied her this, so he resigned himself to tagging along in the hope that he could prevent any serious harm if it came to that.
By the time they landed on the roof of a building above and behind where the car had crashed, Hermione was out of her mind with worry, and Harry was at his wit's end. The car had been under constant attack for several blocks, and one of the occupants had been dragged out and killed halfway through the trip. Now the survivors were surrounded, outnumbered by at least a hundred to one, and it was all Harry could do to keep Hermione from going down there to help.
"I'm telling you, they'll make it," he hissed.
"How?" she asked. "There's no way they can handle that many!"
"Just give them a chance," Harry insisted as they watched a tall, bald man approach and exchange some words with the survivors. They couldn't hear what was said, but the bald man looked remarkably smug. After a few seconds, they watched him lead Evelyn away and disappear into the mob, which almost immediately began moving in on the others.
"No!" Hermione screamed, and before Harry could do anything she disappeared with a crack, only to reappear a second later in the middle of the group, her wand out and spraying fire.
"Aw, hell!" Harry exclaimed before he apparated down beside her, spraying fire in the other direction.
"Where did you two come from?" Rick asked, using his pistols to take out two attackers that had gotten close.
"Not that we're complaining, mind you!" Jonathan added.
"You wouldn't believe us if we told you," Harry said, sending a wave of fire in a new direction, driving off some of the attackers and setting others on fire. "Hermione, grab the two nearest you and get back to the roof. Once you're gone, I'll get these two."
"Right," he heard her say, followed quickly by the crack of her apparition.
"Hey, where'd they go?" Rick demanded.
"Same place we're going," Harry said as he grabbed Rick's and Jonathan's arms before apparating himself. When he arrived back on the roof, his two passengers joined the museum director and a young man in desert robes on their hands and knees as they threw up everything they'd eaten for the past week.
"What the hell?" Harry demanded as he stepped around the retching men to face Hermione.
"That was my first time... being squeezed through a straw," said the younger Egyptian man as he clutched at his stomach, and now Harry could see that he had a curious series of tattoos on his face.
"Sorry!" Hermione responded. "I just couldn't stand by and do nothing!"
"We shouldn't interfere! Who knows how badly we've screwed up the timeline!"
"Uh, excuse me," Rick said as he wiped his mouth. "What the hell is going on?"
"Hush," Harry said. "You won't remember any of this after we obliviate you anyway."
"Do we need to take away their memories?" Hermione asked.
"I vote no," Jonathan said weakly from the ground, still looking awfully green.
"How can we not?" Harry said. "It's the only way to minimize damage!"
"Well, since the damage has already been caused, maybe we should just help?" Hermione suggested. "I mean, that guy did just kidnap my great-aunt."
"Great-aunt?" Rick asked, then he turned to Jonathan. "How old is your sister, anyway?"
"From what I've seen so far, I would welcome your help," the young Egyptian man said as he rose unsteadily to his feet. "My name is Ardeth Bay. I am a Medjai chieftain and warrior. We must travel to Hamunaptra to kill that foul creature before it unleashes an apocalypse that destroys the world!"
"No pressure or anything," Jonathan muttered, still sitting on the ground.
Hermione crossed her arms and smiled triumphantly at Harry.
"And not take our memories?" Rick added. "I'd really like to keep my memories, by the way."
Harry slumped a little before saying, "Alright, alright. We'll help."
"Thank you!" Hermione exclaimed as she leapt forward and pulled him into a tight hug.
"Ouch," Jonathan said with a wince. "Tough luck, old chap. Looks like her hugs are as painful as my sister's."
"Speaking of which," Rick said, "What's this about her being your great-aunt?"
Hermione pulled back and looked at Harry. "If we're going to help them, we'll have to tell them the truth."
Harry nodded and said softly, "In for a knut, in for a galleon." He then turned to the four men staring at them and said, "You might as well sit down and relax, this is quite a story."
"Our time is too short — the creature is already on his way to Hamunaptra!" Ardeth objected.
Hermione shook her head. "If you can clearly visualize the location, we'll have no trouble getting there. We can travel from here to Hamunaptra and back again just as fast as we traveled from the street to the roof."
"Truly?" Dr. Bey asked while Jonathan started looking green again.
"I know, it's not a very pleasant way of traveling, but you do you get used to it, and there's nothing faster," Harry said. "Now, as for our story. A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."
"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, smacking him on the back of his head and knocking off his hat before turning to the others. "Ignore him. The truth is..."