CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE BOOK OF MERLIN

As Harry set foot inside the lavish yet simple layout of Merlin's Tomb, a feeling of trepidation mixed with accomplishment swept over him. Yes, he and Draco had successfully navigated the path of death to arrive at the Tomb, but they still had to retrieve The Book and deliver it to Lucius Malfoy in time to save Hermione's life. Harry hated those kinds of deadlines.

Along the walls was a line of the same blue and purple-colored torches that had lit the passageways leading to the Tomb. They were arranged in a pattern that switched colors with every other torch, giving the Tomb a confused source of light. The chamber reminded Harry of one of the rooms located in the dungeons of Hogwarts; a very enclosed space with no windows and walls that were moist with…something, Harry couldn't tell exactly what. The ceiling was low, just barely high enough for a full-grown person to stand up straight in. However it was what sat at the center of the Tomb that caught and held Harry's attention at the moment.

It was an ancient coffin made out of what looked to be pure black stone, its surface shiny enough to reflect the blue and purple light off of its surface. There seemed to be a kind of invisible force radiating off of it that Harry could feel as he and Draco cautiously began to approach the coffin. Both of them held their wands out before them and cast a light across the ground that was meant to reveal any hidden traps, but there were none left. So Harry and Draco were able to reach the coffin without any problems.

Once they each were standing on either side of the coffin, they started looking for ways to open it. The top cover had no jutted edges, so simply lifting it off was immediately ruled out. Not only because of that, but also because there were no carved-in places to fit a hand.

"The Book has to be inside here," Draco stated bluntly as he looked around the Tomb. He had to be right, seeing as there was no other possible hiding place.

"So how do we open it?" Harry observed the coffin more closely. As he did, he noticed that there was a thin and almost unnoticeable indentation making its way completely around the coffin. It was an indentation big enough to fit the tip of a wand and since Harry currently had his wand in his hand, it got him thinking.

Harry extinguished the light on his wand and slowly fit it into the strip, testing out his theory. As expected, it was a perfect fit. He motioned for Draco to do the same.

The next step came out of instinct. Harry, wand still embedded in the coffin, walked around the object, as did Draco. A few seconds after they started to move, an echoing sound emanated out from the coffin. To Harry, it sounded most like the crackling flames of a fire as chunks of wood were added onto it. He extracted his wand from the strip after he had completed the trek around the coffin. Upon a second glance, Harry saw that their action had released a small wave of clear acidic liquid that was quickly filling the strip. Once it had, the coffin's cover had an expulsion of smoke escape from underneath it before it literally was propelled up and off by way of a contained explosion.

Harry and Draco had to dive in opposite directions to avoid the flying lid as it crashed down onto the ground between them. This left a column of smoke rising up from the open coffin, as well as causing a noise which sounded like air being let out of an inflatable raft. The flames of the torches all rippled in an invisible wind.

"Quick thinking there," complimented Draco as he and Harry got back to their feet.

"Auror thinking," replied Harry. "It comes with the territory."

They retook their positions on either side of the coffin and looked down to see its contents.

Laying there was an elderly man, his face and skin impressively well-preserved, considering the fact that Merlin had been dead for many, many years. The body bore a robe sporting the same colors as the surrounding torches. But before they knew what was happening, Harry and Draco watched as Merlin's perfect skin disintegrated into a dried-out mass of dusty flesh.

"Never seen air act so lethal," said Draco.

"What do you expect?" remarked Harry. "He's been sealed up for hundreds of years. It's no surprise he goes from sealed up to shriveled up."

"It's strange to be standing in the presence of probably the most famous wizard of all time."

"He's dead," Harry said stiffly. "We're not in his presence; we're just beside it."

Harry let his eyes travel down to Merlin's now-decayed hands, which were folded peacefully on his chest. But what Harry was really focused on was the dark and dust-covered cloth which sat to the right of the corpse. The cloth was obviously covering something, and while Harry could make no assurances, he still had a pretty good guess what it was.

Stowing his wand away temporarily inside his pocket, Harry reached into the coffin, grabbed the cloth lump and gingerly pulled the object out.

Once it was in his grasp, Harry positioned the object against his left arm, holding it at an upward angle. He glanced at Draco with raised eyebrows and Draco gave him an excited look back. Draco shifted the focus of that expression to the object as Harry unfolded the first piece of cloth.

What lay underneath was a leathery surface that gleamed dully in the firelight. Harry threw aside the rest of the cloth to reveal what was indeed a book, medium-sized with a leather cover Harry could only guess was brown. There was no writing at all on either side, but there were engraved patterns all over with one in the dead center depicting a star in the center of a shield. That star had a shining circle in the middle of it, which to Harry looked as if it came out. The spine stuck out a bit further than an average book, and a golden lock was placed over the collection of pages, hindering anyone from opening the book. As per the rules of decomposition, the outside of the pages were pure yellow and frail to the touch.

Harry turned The Book on its side to attempt to work the lock open. There was no keyhole, so he didn't have to worry about locating a key. Obviously, he tried using his wand to open the lock, but even that didn't work. Harry contemplated his options for a few moments, turning The Book around in his hands before another thought occurred to him. That and the fact that there was a thin slot in the page lock.

He slid his fingernails around the embedded circle of…whatever it was. It took a while, but after a few good tugs, Harry managed to pull what he surmised was a circular jewel from the cover. But when he held it up to the firelight, Harry could clearly tell that it was more of a colored magnifying glass. Next, he inserted the glass into the slot in the lock and twisted it upward.

There was a loud clicking sound that reverberated off the stone walls as Harry took out the glass circle and opened The Book. Harry couldn't be entirely sure, but he swore he could feel a significant change in the air. Maybe that accounted for the shiver that traveled down his spine.

Harry moved The Book so that it rested against the coffin. From this position, he could more easily turn the pages and study the contents.

"Lumos." While still balancing The Book against the coffin and on top of his legs, Harry lit his wand to gain better vision. Draco stepped closer as he did so.

The Book was opened to a random page in the middle, and yet to both Harry and Draco's surprise, the pages were blank. There weren't even notations in the upper corners to indicate page numbers.

Harry flipped through a few more pages, both forward and backward to make sure he hadn't just opened to the only blank pages. But no, the rest were blank as well.

"What the bloody hell is this?" snapped Draco. "Where's the text?"

Harry traced his fingers over the weathered page in contemplation. The action seemed to bring the solution to mind. "Invisible ink."

"You sure?"

"I just have a gut feeling."

"Okay," breathed Draco. "So how do we reveal it?"

"Most likely, there's some kind of extremely advanced spell shielding it. One that could take hours to crack."

"And that's time we don't have," Draco muttered darkly. That comment once again reminded Harry of Hermione's absence for this situation, as well as the deadline for her life.

"Fortunately, I think we have other options," said Harry, holding up the glass circle.

"How sure are you that'll work?"

"Sure enough to give it a try."

Harry pointed his wand toward one of the torches and grumbled "Accio!" The item in question flew into his grasp and he angled it toward the blank pages. Harry stuffed his wand away again and devoted his free hand to the glass. Holding it between two fingers while keeping the torch trained on the pages, Harry leaned in close to The Book.

The view through the glass gave everything a reddish hue, but just as Harry had expected, it revealed what he wanted to see. Much like the method demonstrated by Tom Riddle's diary, the inky words appeared on the page as if written by an invisible hand. While the text was writing itself, Harry temporarily removed the glass from his line of vision to see that to the naked eye, the pages were still blank.

"What do you see?" asked Draco. Harry could swear that he could smell bated breath.

Harry handed Draco the glass, which the blonde-haired wizard put up to his eye.

"Well," said Draco, "problem solved." He squinted at the page, clearly trying to make out the text. "But I can't make it out. Is that a different language?"

Harry took another look. "My guess is that it's some sort of code, to keep the secrecy." Indeed, the text was nigh impossible to read because it was made up of many letters and symbols that were different from anything Harry had seen before.

"But we don't have time to decode it."

Harry stole a glance at his watch and was surprised to see that a little over an hour had elapsed, meaning that they had less than that to rendezvous with Malfoy and trade The Book for Hermione's life. But Harry had no intention of letting Malfoy escape with The Book so easily. There had to be a way to keep the status quo in their favor, and Harry was already working on that.

"Okay, we've got what we came for," he said. "Now we need to find a way out of here." He replaced the glass in its holding place and closed The Book.

Harry and Draco turned back toward the door leading out of The Tomb and moved to walk through it. But when they were two steps away from the threshold, the door rolled shut by itself with an echoing rumble. Draco rushed forward and tried to keep it from shutting, but the door was too powerful for him.

As the door closed, it sent a ripple of air out across The Tomb that caused the blue and purple flames to flail about.

"Move out of the way," Harry ordered while, with The Book tucked under one arm, he aimed his wand at the stone door and fired off a spell. It hit the door, but ricocheted off and Harry had to duck to avoid it as the spell blasted into the far wall and created a crater.

"Looks like we're trapped," Draco stated hollowly.

"We're not," Harry replied firmly. "We can't be. There has to be another way out somewhere."

The two of them split up and started combing The Tomb for other escape routes. Halfway through their efforts, another low rumbling filled the air. This one was accompanied by a violent shaking in the walls. Particles of dust came loose, but others were pulled into shapes of humanoid form until those shapes became solid. The figures were of intimidating stature, with bodies as bulky as bodybuilders and faces like leather, none of which were expressive. They all wore the kind of armor seen in the medieval period and drew swords that glimmered in the firelight.

Harry and Draco backed up until they were beside each other.

"Guardians of The Book," Harry said, staring around evenly at them all.

"Oh yeah," spat Draco. "This just keeps getting better and better."

A sword was tossed their way, but it narrowly missed their heads and planted itself in the stone wall behind them. Harry shot a spell toward the one that had thrown the sword, but the spell just passed through the figure and caused a temporary shift in its dust-comprised form. Harry couldn't say that he was particularly surprised.

He and Draco began backing up toward the wall as the Guards started advancing upon them. As they did, another sound filled the air. Fearing more of the Guards, Harry whipped around ready to fend them off as best he could, but instead he was met with the sight of a ladder appearing as part of the stone foundation. The rungs led up to a hole that Harry assumed had come out of nowhere within the last few seconds.

"Go!" Harry barked to Draco as he leveled his wand.

Draco needed no further coaxing. He jumped toward the ladder, grabbing a rung with one hand, and hauled himself up hurriedly. "Hurry up!" he called over his shoulder to Harry.

Harry expelled a great wave of energy out at the Guards which mowed them down rather nicely, but also seemed to cause a reaction within The Tomb. This time, everything began to quake; not just the walls, but the entire area.

Pieces from the ceiling crumbled away and crashed against the ground. More and more pieces fell at a quickening rate as the shaking grew in intensity. So it was with great effort that Harry lifted himself up off the ground and onto the ladder after he had tucked The Book away in his satchel. The shaking rocked Harry back and forth as he struggled up the ladder. Stone chunks continued to rain down around him.

Harry managed to ascend three of the ladder rungs before he felt a painfully firm grip on his right ankle. He looked down to see one of the Guards attempting to pull him back down into The Tomb. The Guard's grasp was so strong that it pulled Harry down a few rungs, his fingers slipping off gradually. He could see Draco up ahead of him, gazing down in concern.

Gritting his teeth, Harry lashed out violently with his free foot, connecting it with the Guard's face multiple times until the reanimated person was forced to let go. The Guard crumbled into dust and Harry raced up the ladder just as the bigger pieces of debris filled The Tomb.

Inside the narrow tunnel, Harry and Draco lit their wands to see the way while they climbed up the ladder. It felt like it went on for a very long time, but of course, they were very deep underground. Eventually, a glimmer of light appeared before them until it got bigger and brighter.

Emerging from the tunnel, Harry and Draco found themselves in the main passageway of the Dungeons at Hogwarts. They cautiously extricated themselves from the tunnel and replaced the piece of floor that had curiously been moved out of the way for them. That got Harry thinking…did somebody else know they were there?

Harry and Draco, checking their watches as they did so, walked toward the staircase that led into the Entrance Hall. They took the stairs two at a time and when they were in the Entrance Hall, Harry received the answer to his question.

Lucius Malfoy was standing in the center of the Hall, flanked by cronies of his who wore the same monotonous black clothing that Harry always associated with Dark Wizards. Even though there was no wind inside the castle, the bottom of their cloaks rippled as if there were. It was only then that Harry noticed one of Malfoy's men holding Professor McGonagall in his grasp as well as aiming a wand at her throat.

"So pleased you could join us." Malfoy's voice echoed inside the empty hall. "Do you have The Book?"

Harry slipped the satchel off of him and removed The Book, holding it up so Malfoy could see. Malfoy stepped forward but Harry held The Book back in the same movement.

"Hermione?" he asked pointedly.

"Safe and waiting for you. She'll remain that way as long as you give me The Book."

Harry hesitated. There was still something about this whole situation that just didn't sit well with him, whether it be his general distrust for Malfoy or the fact that everything about this seemed too easy.

Malfoy tightened his grip on his cane. "You have ten seconds to hand it over…or McGonagall dies."

The henchman holding McGonagall aimed his wand at an angle as the Headmistress's eyes widened.

"One."

Harry shot Draco a desperate look, only to discover that Draco had a similar one on his own face.

"Two."

Harry looked down at The Book, considering the gravity of the situation.

"Three."

An image of Hermione flashed through his mind.

"Four."

The image was one of her laughing and smiling. Harry's heart ached when he considered the possibility of never hearing that laugh or seeing that smile ever again.

"Five."

The image became Ginny, her face pale and expressionless, her eyes shut. In that instant, Harry knew that he wouldn't let Hermione end up the same way.

Before Malfoy could finish the next number, Harry tossed The Book through the air and Malfoy caught it.

"Thank you."

Beside Harry, one of Malfoy's goons suddenly punched Draco so that he was unconscious before he even hit the floor. Harry barely had time to register what had happened before he experienced the same thing and was given a one-way ticket to darkness.