Soon the sound of scraping of cutlery on plates had died down and was replaced by chattering voices. At the boys' table Professor Currymore had pushed back his empty plate and was now in deep conversation with Dumbledore about long forgotten times that they'd had, while the twins and Lee were busy chatting to each other about important things.
"Hippogriffin," stated Lee firmly.
"Troglodyte," countered Fred equally adamant.
"Hippogrif…"
"I'm sorry gentlemen," interrupted Currymore, leaning towards the boys, "I couldn't help overhearing your wonderful debate, but I'm afraid that I have to agree with young Mr Jordan, despite the Troglodyte's obvious strength, a Hippogriffin would easily come out the victor during any confrontation."
"Ha!" Lee leant back in his chair looking quite smug, "told you so."
"I'm sorry Illyia," Dumbledore said stroking his beard thoughtfully, "but I am actually going to have to disagree with you on that. I have had extensive dealings with Hippogriffins as well as Troglodytes and I honestly think that the latter would prove to be superior in any confrontation."
"Well I would be the first to admit that a Troglodyte would be a formidable opponent," conceded Currymore gracefully, "however when you take into account the Hippogiffin's razor sharp talons and beak as well as its ability to swoop down on its prey, you have to admit that the Troglodyte would be no match for it."
"There is no denying that an attacking Hippogriffin is a formidable sight, and that it is armed with extremely sharp claws and beak," nodded Dumbledore, "but as you know a Troglodyte has very tough skin on its forearms, akin to stone, so would be able to defend itself against a standard attack from a Hippogriffin."
Currymore nodded thoughtfully as he considered Dumbledore's point. He carefully weighed up his options and possible avenues to put forward his case. After musing to himself for a few moments he carefully stated his next argument.
"Hippogriffin."
"Troglodyte," replied Dumbledore simply.
"Hippogrif…"
"Ahem," McGonagall's cough startled all the occupants of the table, she politely leant forward, "sorry to interrupt a no doubt fascinating discussion but I believe it is getting close to when we have to leave for the outing."
"Ah yes," remembered Currymore, "thank you for reminding me."
He smiled at McGonagall kindly, rose to his feet, and held his hands up to get the attention of all the students.
"Hippogriffin," he mumbled quietly out of the corner of his mouth, so only those at his table could hear him, before speaking loudly to the room, "as Professor McGonagall so correctly pointed out to me, it is almost time for our little excursion. If you would kindly head out to the main entrance to the school you'll be met by a liaison from Gringotts who are currently working on the various sites. The easiest way is to go straight out of the main hall, and then keep going out into the courtyard and head towards the Astronomy Tower since that rests above the entrance to the school."
"Thank you Headmaster Currymore," said Dumbledore rising to his feet and turning to the host, "the food was exquisite, please pass our compliments onto the cooks. Okay everyone, time to get going."
The twins and Lee, along with everyone else in the room, pushed their chairs back and made their way towards the main entrance, although before leaving the table Fred swore he'd heard Dumbledore mutter 'Troglodyte' under his breath as the Headmaster passed his counterpart.
As each of the students passed through the corridor and into the courtyard, they suddenly became aware at home much they'd become used to the cooling enchantment placed on the school. The air was hot and dry, while the sun beat down mercilessly on them. Most of the students were trying to shield their eyes using their hands, while some of the more experienced ones among them had cast a variety of difference spells and enchantments of their own with varying degrees of success at blocking out the sunlight.
"Very nice," George commented to Miro, who had turned his wand into a large umbrella after his spell coaxed a patterned cover out of the end of it.
"A bit frilly though isn't it?" asked Fred.
"Well I messed it up a bit," shrugged Miro shielding himself from the sun, "but it gets the job done doesn't it?"
Despite pointing out its visual flaws, the twins were more then happy to try and avail of its sun deflecting capabilities, and stayed close to the seventh year as the students paraded across the courtyard and back into the cool climate of the school itself. They waited patiently in the large vestibule as the congested students tried to make their way through the main ornate front doors. Once outside, most people began to mill around in their usual groups, although the twins did notice that a lot of the older girls were chattering and giggling excitedly amongst themselves.
As Fred and George jostled their way through the various cliques they eventually spotted Charlie, who was standing and talking to the reason for the fluster from the girls.
"Bill?" exclaimed George breaking into a smile, "what are you doing here?"
"Alright guys," Bill greeted his younger brothers with a nod. His long hair had been tucked back behind his ears; this not only stopped it from blowing about in the slight wind, but also revealed a newly acquired dragon fang earring attached to his left ear. "I don't know why you are so surprised, I told you at Easter I was going to be here."
"You did?" asked Fred sceptically, "I guess mum was right, I don't pay attention."
"There's a surprise," said Charlie, "so where are we going?"
"I'm to take you to one of our older excavation sites," explained Bill, "basically one of the ones we know is completely safe, no curses or booby traps."
"Oh," said George looking disappointed, "where's the fun in that?"
"William, how are you?" Enoch slalomed his way through the crowd and encased his nephew in a bear like hug. Once his uncle had put him down Percy, who was also in tow, gave his brother a hearty handshake.
"Great Enoch," replied Bill, "showing you lot around the tombs is gonna be a nice break from all the curse-breaking."
"Hey, Fred," whispered Angelina from a nearby group, beckoning him over, "do you know him?"
"Know him?" asked Fred looking back at his older brother, "I'm related to him, that's Bill my older brother."
"You're related to him?" queried Alicia raising an eyebrow, "I just don't see it."
"You mean apart from the laid back manner and rugged good looks?" replied Fred trying to look cool.
"I mean apart from the hair, I would have never have guessed," admitted Alicia.
"Hey Bill," Fred called out to his brother, rather more loudly then required, "Alicia here wants to know if you are single."
At this, Alicia turned a bright shade of red and looked as though she wanted a dragon to swoop down from the sky and swallow her whole, while Bill just smiled and turned back to his conversation with Charlie.
"Ah Mr Weasley," greeted Dumbledore, since Fred, George, Percy and Charlie were standing with Bill, the Headmaster thought he'd better clarify himself a bit more, "the eldest Weasley I mean. I see you've made quite a name for yourself as a curse-breaker. Clearly, I was right to make you Head Boy. Take it away Mr Weasley."
"Okay listen up everyone," Bill called to the collected students as Dumbledore stepped back to let him address the crowd, "we'll be leaving to visit the excavation sites in a moment. Professor Currymore has kindly agreed to let us use the school's flying carpets to ferry you across. Once we are there, I'll ask you to divide yourselves into groups of between twenty and thirty. Each site is too small to have a large number of visitors in at one time but luckily for you there are numerous different ones and plenty of volunteers to show you around. We'll try and arrange it so that you all get to visit the most interesting catacombs. Oh, heads up, here come the carpets."
The students looked up to witness a very bizarre sight as a flock of flying carpets could be seen overhead, they slowly circled above the group like strange vultures. Five of the carpets broke away and landed in front of the gathered students, who immediately started to fill up the space on them. Once each one was full to capacity with passengers it would rise up and join its circling companions while another empty one would take its place on the ground.
Soon everyone was airborne and circling the ground like some peculiar carousel, most people were chatting to each other or taking the time to admire the surrounding areas, George on the other hand was waving one hand in the air whilst loudly informing others to "look at me, I'm a Dragon Rider. Woo hoo!"
Bill gave his flying carpet some unheard instructions and suddenly the flock of carpets rose higher and moved away from the school towards some hills in the distance. From their height they could see a large portion of the city down below with its bustling marketplaces.
"Hey Bill!" Fred shouted over from his carpet. "Are you worried that muggles will spot us?"
"No," Bill called back, his hair whipped across his face in the wind, "the carpets have a special enchantment on them, and any muggles looking up will think we are just a flock of birds."
There were so many sights to see as the carpets soared along their skyward path that most people hadn't realised they were close to their destination until their means of transport started to descend. The hills that had seemed quite far away initially were now rising up around them as they landed softly on the ground.
They had landed in a large open space at the foot of the hills, they could see a number of tunnel openings at various points with a whole manner of equipment stowed just outside of them. Some of them had signs erected next to the openings, denoting what was inside or, in more the one case, warnings that the catacombs hadn't been fully cleared by the curse-breakers yet.
The students began to form themselves into their tour groups while Bill went to speak to a number of people already at the site. Since Bill had already told his brothers that he would be taking their group, they collected together along with Miro, Lee and Enoch. Angelina, Alicia and a number of their friends had also tagged themselves onto the cluster, although George suspected this had more to do with Bill's expected presence than anything else. There was also one surprising guest, who added himself to the roster just before the curse-breaker returned.
"Filch?" asked Enoch in an astounded voice as the Hogwarts caretaker limped towards the group, "what are you doing here?"
"Why?" snapped Filch panting heavily. "Is…the…trip…only….for students?" he managed to mutter between gasps for air.
"No no, everyone's welcome," Enoch backtracked looking at Filch in a concerned manner, "are you ok?"
"Fine," wheezed Filch holding his hands on his hips and trying to take deep breathes, "carpets are for walking on, not for flying. Damn foreigners."
"You do know that since we are in their country, that makes us the foreigners," Charlie quickly pointed out.
"Damn students," muttered Filch finally getting his breath back.
"Okay guys," said Bill returning to the group, he did a double take when he saw the caretaker, "and Mr Filch. No Mrs Norris with you?" he asked looking around on the ground.
"No," growled Filch, "she doesn't like to travel."
"Shame," admitted Bill pretending to look disappointed, "I have some great memories of her from Hogwarts. Like the time she caught me out of Gryffindor House when I wasn't supposed to be and you put me in detention, or that other time she caught me out of Gryffindor House when I wasn't supposed to be and you, again, put me in detention. Good times."
"Yes, yes they were," agreed Filch looking decidedly wistful.
"Anyway," Bill carried on, while the caretaker continued to be lost in his daydream of putting students in detention, "the guides are about to join the groups, so if we go now we can get ahead of the pack and get to the good sites."
Bill led the ensemble away from the rest of the student body and headed towards the largest of the tunnel openings. This particular one dwarfed all the others and could have easily housed a dragon inside if it had been required. Stepping inside the huge chasm they could see that it had been lit with a number of lamps and torches that provided enough flickering light to be able to see properly, there were no additional tunnels inside, just the vast chamber they were now in with an occasional red cross painted over a spot on the wall.
"This is the largest set of tombs we've found so far," said Bill, his voice echoing off of the vaulted ceiling.
"Er… Bill?" George butted in, "what tombs? It's just a large empty room."
Bill leant down and picked up a fist sized stone from the ground, he turned to where the nearest red cross was plastered on the wall and threw the stone towards it. Instead of the stone careening off of the side of the chamber, it passed right through the wall and they could hear it bounce off the ground on the other side.
"Wicked," muttered a suitably impressed George.
"As you saw," Bill waved his hand towards where the stone had been thrown, "the people buried here wanted to keep their tombs secret so tended to hide them several ways; they also liked to protect them. Each of the tombs here had a number of traps, curses, hexes and even creatures guarding them when we first came. Now, although each of them has been extensively searched and checked by our teams, it is still possible that we may have missed something, so I ask," and at this point he looked directly at Fred and George, "that you don't wander off or touch anything unless I tell you it is okay to do so."
"Okay," nodded George, "but what if…"
"Don't touch it," countered Bill quickly.
"Even if…" started Fred.
"Just don't touch it."
"How about…" George began after a few moments pause.
"Look," sighed Bill looking serious, "unless you see something that has a sign on it, that says, in very big red letters, 'Bill has said it is ok to touch this' then leave it alone and don't even think about going near it."
"Fair enough," shrugged Fred.
"And I'm sure Bill meant to add, that includes poking anything with your wand, or throwing a stone at it, or casting a spell on it just to see what will happen," Charlie added.
"Exactly," nodded Bill, he looked across at Charlie, "thanks, I'm out of touch with dealing with those two, and I forgot that they tend to look for any loopholes."
Bill led them through one of the hidden doorways, which led out into a long winding tunnel that led downwards, Fred and George followed behind him swiftly, trying to look over his shoulder at anything interesting they could spot. The rest of the group fell into line behind them with Enoch staying at the back to make sure they had everyone.
As the eldest Weasley led the way he talked loudly so everyone could hear him. He told them about the history of this particular tomb as well as the initial discovery of the overall site. Eventually the passageway led out into another catacomb, not as large as the first one but still pretty big nonetheless. Unlike the previous cavern this one not only had writing etched onto the wall but also had a huge ugly stone head, with its mouth wide open, buried into one of the walls. There was a small hole in the top of the ceiling that let in a tiny beam of sunlight from outside, clearly not enough to illuminate the room so various torches and lamps had been added to the wall by the excavators.
"When we first came into this room," Bill explained after everyone had filtered out of the tunnel, "there were a number of rare and valuable artefacts, or at least what we thought were rare and valuable artefacts. They actually turned out to not only be fake, but they carried a curse on them that affected anyone who touched them. Luckily we had a healer on site or things could have turned very nasty for the first wizards down here."
"What does that say then?" asked Percy interestedly, pointing at the strange writing on the wall.
"It just says 'this is the final resting place of so and so'," explained Bill, taking his wand out of his pocket, "but to be honest that's just a lie in case any muggles wandered in and weren't killed by the cursed treasure. Here is the real message."
Bill waved his wand towards the letters and muttered an incantation under his breath. The letters lit up in a faint red glow and slowly began to swirl and float around until an entirely new message hung in the air.
"It says," Bill read the words out to the gathered group, "'greetings fellow wizard. Proceed further at your own peril. Only the most loyal of my followers may pass through.'"
"Pass through where?" asked Lee looking around the room which only had one visible way in or out.
"Behind the head," replied Bill pointing over to the ugly stone face, "you have to put your hand into its mouth and grab hold of a lever at the back, say the correct password and then pull it forward."
"What happens if you get the password wrong?" Angelina wondered out loud.
"Then that head bites your hand off," clarified Bill, causing some of the group to laugh, "no seriously, that's what will happen. One of our curse-breakers had to be rushed to the healer centre in the city; there was an additional curse on it that meant we couldn't stop the blood." With this news the laughter dropped off and was replaced by hushed silence.
"Luckily for me," Bill carried on, oblivious to the now pale expressions on the face of the majority of the group, "we managed to work out the correct password before I had a go."
Bill pulled up the sleeve of his robe and pushed his arm deep into the mouth of the face until he was practically shoulder deep in it, after a few unsure flailing he managed to get his hand around the lever. He muttered some strange unknown phrase and grunting as he pulled back on it.
There was a loud clunking sound from within the stone head, followed by the sound of stone creaking and cracking together. A low rumble emitted from the wall behind the figurehead. Dust shook down from the ceiling as a thin line appeared on the wall above the statue, it ran the entire height of the wall and it soon became apparent that the wall was splitting in two down the middle.
Bill let go of the lever, removed his arm from inside the mouth and stepped back as the opening began to increase. When it had become large enough for two people to walk through it abreast, the rumbling stopped and the walls gradually ceased moving apart. Bill sidestepped passed the stone head and walked down through the newly made corridor beckoning the rest to follow him.
"So this is the main tomb," explained Bill walking out into a new chamber, there were shelves running around the sides of the room and a large stone sarcophagus in the centre of the room, "along the walls we found a fair amount of treasure, which has now been sent back to Gringotts, and in the centre here we found the body of an old Egyptian wizard. If you want, just take a quick wander around the room."
Bill moved over towards the twins and lowered his voice, "since you asked about him when I was back for Easter, this tomb was supposed to be where Shadeesh Kai was buried. Technically these whole catacombs are referred to as the tomb of Kai."
"Really?" asked Fred, suddenly looking very interested, "how do they know he wasn't the old wizard you found?"
"Because we know who that guy was," admitted Bill nodding over at the tomb, "that was Hakim Tarakka, powerful enough wizard, but mainly noted for having a claw on his right arm instead of a hand. Trust me, when you see a skeletal claw on a body you definitely can't mistake it. So sorry to disappoint you boys, but like I said Kai's body being in these parts was only a rumour at best, despite the name they have given it. I guess they wanted it to sound more impressive."
"It has to be around here somewhere," muttered George in a low voice to his brother and Lee.
"How do you know?" asked Lee sceptically. "Especially if your brother and the other experts can't find it."
"Look at Enoch," George whispered, nodding over at his uncle. To most people it would look like Enoch was just taking an interest in the room much like anyone else, but when Lee and Fred looked more closely they noticed that Enoch was subtly checking out every aspect of the room. He even seemed to be holding his wand hidden under his long sleeve, muttering incantations under his breath. "He's looking for something in here, he knows we're in the right place, and by tomorrow we'll know."
"Why tomorrow?" wondered Lee.
"Of course," exclaimed Fred before being shushed by his twin, "the instructions that Enoch got on that scroll said that they needed a spell to locate the entranceway and that it could only be revealed during a full moon."
"So?"
"Currymore said he had a treat for us tomorrow," explained Fred excitedly, "we were going up to the Astronomy Tower to watch the passing comet during…"
"The full moon." Lee finished the sentence for him. "So whatever is going to happen it's going to be tomorrow night?"
"Exactly," nodded George, "and even better, everyone will be busy watching the comet so they won't notice us slipping out and following Enoch where ever he goes."
There was a sudden clang from the far end of the room as Angelina accidentally nudged one of the shelves loose. The startling noise caused the three boys to look up quickly, and they were shocked to see Filch standing very close to them, as though he had crept up on them unexpectedly. The moment he realised they were looking in his direction, Filch turned his gaze upward as though he'd been inspecting the patterned ceiling all the time.
"You don't think he heard us do you?" asked Lee uncertainly.