Chapter ten: Grave robbing

"Who were those guys?" James questioned, as Harry waved his wand. A hill of dirt surged up over the body, covering it from view.

"I don't entirely know," said Harry. "Not the Death Eaters certainly, entirely different fighting style. No, they were natives, guarding the cemetery."

"And that implies that there's something here worth guarding."

Harry grinned, "Exactly."

James followed his father to a steep slop down to the lower level of the graveyard. It was a drop of about ten feet. Harry slid down the slope easily. James tried using a wooden ladder that had been left conveniently, but the old wood splintered under his weight and he tumbled to the ground, landing on his back with a grunt.

"Over here," Harry beckoned. He was standing in front of an opening in the wall, a tunnel carved into the rock. "I don't imagine you would settle for guarding the entrance."

"Not at all," said James, as he followed Harry into the darkness. The fear from the skirmish with the guards had fled, leaving him on a high of adrenaline.

"Lumos!"

As Harry lit his wand, the tunnel was bathed in a faint green light. It was small and cramped; Harry had to stoop under the stone ceiling. The place was filled with cobwebs and dust, as well as the smell of decay. The floor was littered with bones, spilling out of crevices in the walls. More importantly, there were fresh tracks in the dust. Identical boots, one set going forward, a second back. Someone had been here recently.

"It's like being back in Venice," Harry said to himself. They pushed farther into the ground. The tunnel grew smaller and more cramped as they shoved inward. James brushed against the wall, knocking loose a stream of dirt. Out of the upset, a sizable black scorpion scuttled out, and up his arm.

James muffled a scream and jerked away. The scorpion raised its stinger, prepared to plunge it into the boy's arm. As it was about to attack, James brushed it off his arm with a jet of air from his wand. He heaved a sigh of relief as the scorpion disappeared into the darkness.

"You alright there?" Harry questioned.

"Yeah, of course."

James found himself pressed up against the corpses filling the slots in the walls of the tunnel. "Their skulls!" he exclaimed, shocked. The corpses grinning skulls had been warped, their cranium elongated. "Just like Neville drew."

"We're on the right track," said Harry. "You'll love this next bit."

The tunnel receded until it was nothing more than a narrow slot itself. Harry ducked. Holding his lit wand between his teeth, he crawled into the cavern headfirst, wriggling foreward on his hands and knees. Insects retreated from his light, as sand trickled from the ceiling onto his head. Harry ignored them both.

After what felt like far too long, Harry emerged in a circular chamber. Surprisingly, it was free of insects, no cobwebs adorning the walls. James crawled out into the chamber behind Harry, grumbling something about building codes.

There were seven mummified corpses leaning against the walls of the cavern, wrapped tightly in soiled white cloth. The floor around them was scattered with bags, and chests, gold and jewels scattered across the rough floor. James picked up a dagger with a golden hilt, examining it, running it over and over in his hands. "Orellana's men. And this treasure was looted from Akator," said Harry, surprising himself even. Yet as he said it, he knew it was true. Neville had found Orellana's resting place.

Harry righted one of the larger chests. With a whispered unlatching charm, it clicked open. Inside, it was filled with coins, golden coins, printed with ancient lettering. Harry picked one of them up. "But this is Athena," he said to himself, examining the faint profile on the side of the coin.

This treasure was taken from the lost city, in South America. And these deceased men were Spanish. So what were they doing with Greek currency?

"May I," asked James. Harry looked up to see him crouched beside one of the mummified corpses, the ornamental knife in his hand. Harry stopped for a moment. Ransacking such an untouched archeological sight could be nothing sort of blatant vandalism.

"Sure, go ahead," he sighed.

James took the knife and made a neat slit across the face of the body. Harry was suddenly reminded of Natasha Lestrange, back in the warehouse, slitting open the misshapen body, almost surgically. He shook his head, clearing all thoughts of the nightmarish girl from his mind. She would be dealt with in time.

The white cloth pulled away to reveal a man's face, perfectly preserved. The Spaniard had a full beard and a thin face, his head helmed by a plain metal helmet. As James and Harry stared at it, the skin began to shrivel, dissolving into dust. Before thirty seconds had elapsed the man's body had become a leering corpse, identical to those littering the ground outside.

"It must have been a lot better sealed than I thought," said Harry. "Perfectly preserved until it came into contact with oxygen." Harry clapped James on the shoulder, absentmindedly. "Nice going."

Harry looked past the piles of treasure, and the newly decomposed body, to the far end of the chamber. There the seventh body lay in a recess in the rock, away from the others. Harry was surprised he hadn't noticed it before. The body's wrappings had already been opened. Its face was hidden behind a golden burial mask.

"The gilded man," said Harry, crossing to the body. The mask came away, with a little more resistance than he had anticipated. It clattered to the floor. By this time James had joined him. Harry ignored the aged remains underneath the mask. He seized the body of Francisco de Orellana, by the shoulders, and handed it to James for safekeeping. Underneath the body, behind the skull was another skull. A crystal skull.

Harry had heard legends, rumors, and stories about the crystal skull. But for the first time, he believed them. Whatever the skull was, there was no way it could be manmade, or even crafted by goblin hands. The skull had been carved from a single grain of crystal. There was not a scratch or gouge anywhere on its surface.

Carving or not, it was not of any human skull. Its cranium was elongated beyond belief, its chin and jaw small and pointed, a grinning mouth of sharp needle teeth. Its staring eye sockets were huge, the size of Harry's fist, oddly slanted, and oval shaped. The skull was of a pure crystal, transparent on the surface, but at the center of the cranium it became opaque. It seemed to catch the light of his wand, whirl it around within, twist it into different shades and colors, and spit it back in a glitter of a rainbows reflecting across its surface.

Harry had seen his share of artifacts during his life, evil and benevolent, powerful and useless. From the Philosopher's Stone to the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail to the Elder wand, but none of them compared to the skull. The skull was beautiful, the skull was hideous, the skull was otherworldly. This was no hunk of stone or piece of metal infused with any kind of magic. The skull was not of this world, not of this time, not of this universe. It was said that staring into its eyes one could see the workings of the galaxy, and Harry could see where that belief originated. The skull was crystal, hard tangible unliving crystal, but there seemed to be a glimmer of intelligence in its eyes. Not animal, not human, not even godlike, but something else entirely.

Harry reached down, slowly, to pick up the skull. As his fingers brushed it's surface, a flash of images rushed past his eyes. It was as if a portion of his memory had been unlocked, as it had never been locked in the first place. Darkness, discomfort, being bundled into a cramped room. Twisted pieces of broken metal. Burnt gray flesh, warped bodies. Carving away layer after layer of dead flesh, and underneath, an inhuman skeleton of pure crystal.

"I've seen it before," Harry whispered. The ministry had sealed away that portion of his memory, but the skull had found it again, brought it to his consciousness.

"That thing is mad," James whispered in awe. "We should get out of here, before any more of those skeleton blokes show up, though."

"Right," said Harry, slowly. He picked up the skull. It was light, lighter than rock should be, but its smooth surface was slippery, difficult to grasp. And it was warm under his touch. Not a comforting warmth, though, one that almost made holding more uncomfortable. Harry quickly conjured an inconspicuous sack, and dropped the skull into it. As the crystal skull disappeared from view, Harry felt his mind clear. The skull had a nearly hypnotic effect, dampening the importance of everything around it.

"Let's get out of here," Harry said calmly. And then he did.

Harry exited the tunnel a few moments later. He couldn't imagine they had been underground for more than twenty minutes, but still the weather had changed. A wind had picked up, howling uncomfortably past, whipping at the silt and sand. And dark clouds had emerged, masking the moon from view, casting the graveyard nearly into darkness.

"Well, that wasn't so bad," said James.

"I guess not," Harry said. I only killed one person, he thought, but said nothing.

"So, we have the skull. Now what?"

Harry shrugged; he hadn't planned that far ahead. "I guess we find the Death Eaters."

As if on cue, a jet of red light flew from the darkness to collide with James. The boy's limp body was thrown a few feet into the air before crumpling against a loose gravestone.

For one horrible moment, Harry thought the natives were back. But then he saw the large man striding toward him out of the darkness, black clothing blending in with the surrounding graveyard. Dovchenko. Behind the large man, more figures in black, men and children, appeared from the darkness, surrounding him.

Harry switched the sack containing the skull to his left hand, and went for his wand. He fired off a quick stunning spell toward the foremost Death Eater, but Dovchenko batted it aside easily.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

The spell hit Harry dead on. Immediately, his legs and arms seized up, frozen to his sides. He fell to the ground, his face pressed into the dirt, unable to move. He listened as Dovchenko walked slowly toward him, glimpsing the man's boots. The Death Eater leveled his wand at Harry's back. Harry knew he was about to utter the killing curse. And this time there was no one to shield him.

"Stop," another voice, higher pitched. A second pair of very shabby boots came into view. "She wants him alive," chastised Mundungus Fletcher.

Dovchenko growled, and for a moment Harry thought he would strike down Mundungus as well, but then Dovchenko lowered his wand. He settled instead for driving the toe of his boot into Harry's side. Harry felt all the wind driven put of him, as the impact rolled him over on his side. The last thing he saw was the tip of Mundungus's wand, and then a flash of red light.