Disclaimer: forgot it on the
last part, but everyone knows it all belongs to J. K. Rowling except for Fiona
and a few others, right?
Needle in the
Haystack III: The Hawk's Eye
Minerva could not sleep. All night she tossed and turned, dreaming of strange thorns covered with mud, spinning around compasses. Then a keen-eyed hawk was chasing after her, screaming in rage, helped by a mutilated camel. At four in the morning she gave up trying to sleep and went into Fiona's kitchen for some breakfast.
"Ridiculous." she muttered, staring at the riddle again. "Trying to decipher riddles of ancient objects."
She read the poem again.
Power lies in the
staff you seek
Years have not
weakened its strength.
Run a muddied
thorn from the hawk-eyed one
About forty desert-ship
paces.
Monthly rays will
mark the way into
Incomplete camel's
hump.
"Hawk-eyed one...I wonder what that could be." she frowned. The answer was there, so close. They needed to journey north by camel from the hawk-eyed one. But what was it? It sounded like a place, a specific landmark.
Suddenly
she got up, abandoning her toast. She ran into Fiona's study and rummaged
around for a map. It was a stretch, but maybe some Egyptian maps would help
her. There was a map of Cairo, one of the Sahara Desert, one of Africa, amongst
many others. They were all jumbled up, located in random places. Finally she
gave up. "Accio all maps!"
Minerva staggered backwards to avoid being hit from all sides. She summoned up a box and carried them back to the living room.
One by one, the patient Transfiguration teacher examined each map carefully for any clue of a hawk. Maybe a lake in the shape of a birds' head. Maybe a town named after a raven.
Juniper Sprout woke up blearily from a sound sleep. She was startled by a sudden crash from the kitchen, accompanied by a yell, then laughter.
Upon entering the area of destruction, she found an irate Minerva with coffee in her hair, surrounded on all sides by piles of maps. A broken mug lay on the floor. Fiona was laughing unrestrainedly.
"Reparo." Sprout muttered, sending the pieces of the mug flying back together. "What happened?"
"Min just spent four hours going over maps, trying to find the hawk-eyed one." Fiona was still giggling. "I just got up and told her I knew what it was. She was so surprised the coffee cup was knocked over."
"The hawk's-eye?" Flitwick had appeared in the room. "What is it?"
"There's a cliff near the desert on the flatlands. If you look at it upside-down, it looks kind-of like a bird's head. The eye is a bush growing out of the side of the cliff."
"Excellent!" Flitwick squeaked. "We know where to begin now!"
"Shouldn't we look into Jahu-A-Bled's book for more clues?" Juniper suggested. "After all, we still don't know what the 'incomplete camel's hump' is."
Fiona froze. "Er-that won't be necessary. I copied down the riddle. It's too hard to read Jahu's handwriting."
"We know that, it's what we've been reading all along." McGonagall said impatiently. "Where's the book?"
"I think I left it in the café." Fiona said in a very small voice.
"WHAT?" Minerva looked furious.
"Sorry Min. I looked for it last night after you all went to bed. It's gone."
* * *
About fifty miles away, a man fingered the black covers of a thin journal with skeletally slim fingers.
"Excellent work, Malfoy. Where did you come about this thing?"
His servant bowed respectfully. "Master, I happened to find it accidentally at a café." The sarcasm on the word 'accidentally' could not be missed.
Voldemort laughed, a sound that made Lucius cringe.
"Excellent use of the tracking spell." Suddenly his voice became crisp and cruel, and he gripped Lucius' shoulder firmly. "Lucius. I want you to figure out this riddle. You will have the answer within three days at the latest. You will."
The blond man shivered. "Yes Master."
* * *
A fierce sun hung over the flatlands, which bordered part of the Sahara Desert. Flying about 200 feet up in the air, the four friends gazed steadily at the cliff.
"It doesn't look like a hawk from here." Minerva muttered.
"Turn around." With one swift movement Fiona was upside-down, her face turning red as she studied the rock formation. "See, that triangular piece of rock jutting up is like the beak, and the green bush looks like an eye. Can you see it?"
Juniper Sprout nervously did a quick loop-de-loop. "A bit."
"Do it again."
Gunther needed no urging. Soon he became a blur, twisting around and around on his new Nimbus Two Thousand. "I can see it!" He exclaimed excitedly. "That bit of darker rock, it looks like a band around the eye."
Minerva did not attempt to hang upside-down. "Well, if you all believe so, I think it's time to go on with the riddle."
Without warning they all began to coax her. "Come on, Min. Try it. See it for yourself."
"It's okay, really, don't be afraid."
"You won't fall, I promise."
"No thank you." She said, giving Fiona a rather frosty stare.
"Are you afraid?"
At the mention of the word 'afraid' McGonagall gave a sigh, then promptly turned over.
"Happy now?"
Back in Fiona's house, they continued to decipher the rhyme.
"So we travel by camel, forty paces, north from the bush on the cliff. Then what?"
"Find the monthly rays."
"Rays? Rays of what?"
"Isn't a ray a kind of line?"
"Yes, but where are you going to find lines in the desert--in the sky?" Fiona laughed.
"Er--maybe sunlight." Flitwick suggested.
"That's it! Sunlight!"
"Monthly rays of sunlight?" Minerva said doubtfully. "I didn't know the sun changed from month to month."
"The moon does." Sprout said quietly.
Everyone stared at her for a moment, then Fiona swept her in a huge hug. "That's it! The moon! All we have to do is to follow its light and...and..."
"Monthly though...would that be full moon, half, or a quarter?" McGonagall wondered.
"We'll have to find out, won't we?"
Hours later, Sprout shivered in the coolness of the desert night. It all seemed so eerie. The shining three-quarter moon, McGonagall's quiet counting of her camel's footsteps, and their white robes all gave hints to a strange ceremony.
"Forty." Minerva stopped and jumped off. They were on top of a large sand dune, and the moonlight rays had apparently ended.
"This is it?"
"It's forty steps."
"Well then, let's begin!" Fiona said cheerfully.
They dug around the dune.
They tried charms.
They stomped around, trying to find any secret openings. All that happened was the camel got annoyed, and began spitting indiscriminately.
They recounted their steps and used a compass.
They even tried using a Muggle metal detector.
They did everything short of draining away the desert.
"So close!" Fiona mumbled disappointedly. "What did we do wrong?"
Minerva stared hard at Flitwick, "Do you have anything to contribute?"
"Why me?"
"You are the Charms teacher."
He looked down at his shoes, suddenly interested in the smudge of jam leftover from breakfast. With a scholarly attitude, he made a great show of exactly how much he was straining his brain. Examining each and every grain of sand, he noticed how each was different in color, size, and texture.
He smiled to himself. If each grain of sand was a crystal, he would be rich.
One granule seemed to wink at him. In the soft moonlight, it looked almost transparent, like a diamond, cut with flawless perfection.
He gazed up to the expectant faces of his friends. Feeling that he should present his analysis, he rambled hastily, "Er...We could shift the sand, no, that's dumb. What if we make it gone, I mean, go away, no..." The little crystalline bit of sand smiled at him, flashing in an array of colors. "Clear!"
Minerva stared. Juniper shook her head, confused. But Fiona fell down the sand dune. "Make the sand clear? Do you know how many of us it would take to do that? At least a hundred, maybe even two--"
"We don't need to do the whole desert. Just this area around the dune. A little bit at a time."
Sighing, McGonagall rolled up her sleeves. "Claritis, isn't it?"
Guther nodded. "If we all spread out and say the spell at the same time, the sand should become transparent for...half a minute."
They made a ring around the dune. "Claritis."
The transformation was amazing. At first, only the edge of the sand became transparent. Then it spread, until the whole dune was like a dome.
Everyone scrutinized the ground for any trace of old objects. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope.
"What's that?" Minerva squinted her eyes, pointing with her free hand at a round shadow embedded within the dome of clear sand.
"That's it...something that isn't just part of the sand." Flitwick explained. "We need to--" His voice faded in alarm, as they watched the sand becoming opaque again.
"It's been thirty seconds." Sprout said, disappointed. "We need to try again."
"Claritis." They murmured. The shadow had not moved. Sprout noted its position: directly under the center of the dune.
"If we do a major sand-shifting spell, we should be able get it out."
"Sieveta." Flitwick yelled, blocking his face as sand swirled all around them. It felt like a sandstorm.
When the grit had subsided, Minerva bent, trying to pick up the object. It wouldn't budge.
"What is it?" Fiona wiped the sand away from her eyes.
"A large mirror." Juniper peered down at it, noting the smaller circle at the center of the object, marked in red.
Minerva gasped. The moonlight fit perfectly into the red circle. She turned her head to follow its course. The angle of rebound hit a structure off in the distance.
Fiona grinned like a Cheshire cat, and then disappeared. The others followed, leaving a bewildered camel behind. It snorted in alarm as a shadow appeared over the horizon. Frightened, it ran off.
* * *
In the distance, Avery cursed. That annoying camel had almost given him away. He wondered if he'd ever get an invisibility cloak.
Author's note: We hate to admit it, but WE ARE GETTING
VERY SAD THAT NO ONE HAS REVIEWED. Are we honestly that bad?(Okay, Jeli, enough
self-pity, now) The next part will be loaded with action, as our heroes
encounter enraged mummies.
--Jeli