Ch 25 Back to the Chamber
Sunday July fourth was a day of rest. The entire Weasley clan took the expanding Closet network back to Grimmauld Place very early, and from there went to the New Burrow for breakfast and a reasonably relaxing day with Molly, Arthur and the entire expanding family. Narcissa Malfoy came over, but she told anyone who asked, "No, I did not let Draco know that Scorpius and Cleo were going to be here. I understand that they have to go back to Switzerland tonight."
That evening Albus, Rose, Scorpius and Cleo returned to Switzerland, along with their Elves. Tomorrow they were going to review all that was known about the chamber, and Tuesday they were going to enter it again.
Monday Ron woke up to find Hermione snuggled up against him. She was not wearing her usual nightgown, and he could feel that she had used one of the spells that would keep him turned on.
Magi did have an abundance of spells to enhance sexual pleasure and performance.
"Good morning," Ron whispered.
"Mmmmm," Hermione cooed.
"I do not have to be at the store early today, Mrs. Granger-Weasley," Ron added.
Hermione sighed, wiggled her body up against Ron until they were face to face, and kissed him, then quickly cast a breath refreshing spell on both their mouths. They snuggled together for what seemed to Ron a long time, not saying anything. Hermione was not her usual self, eager to jump out of bed and go to work. She was not even eager for a quick shag. Eventually Ron wondered, "What is on your mind, Hermione?"
"There is always too much on my mind," Hermione sighed. "I don't know what I want right now. Just hold me. Let me think. Let me not think, just be held."
Ron laughed.
"I think Rose may be like my mother, and not work outside the home, except for helping Scorpius," Hermione reflected. "I need to accept that. Maybe I can be a little more, not a housewife, we have Elves and I don't need to be like your mum, but just …"
"You are overthinking again, Hermione," Ron sighed. "I love you just the way you are. Relax."
Hermione gave Ron a big kiss, admitting, "I'm not very good at relaxing." She lay down on her back and told Ron, "Make love to me. Let me try to relax, and let you make love to me."
Ron saw Hermione breathe deeply, trying to relax. She was not her usual self, eager to do.
Ron used every trick he could think of to turn Hermione on gently, eventuallyenteringinto her as gently as he had ever doneand working to quietly stay coupled together. It worked until it didn't, and then Hermione was very turned on indeed. Twice. The second time they came together.
After a late breakfast Ron took Hermione to work, giving her a long lover's kiss before they parted.
Hermione grinned to her staff as she went into her office. Life was good.
Monday morning July fifth Albus, Cleo, Jesus and Ginny Wang met with Thorin and a large group of Magi and High Elves to go over what information they did have on the chamber they last entered June nineteenth, two weeks ago. They met in a moderate sized room on floor Minus Two in the palace, an inside room with a wall of windows to the atrium in the middle of the palace. Two walls of the room were white, and with markers or wands you could write on the walls. There was even a computer projecting a display on one section of the white wall.
Galadriel was not there; Albus asked where she was.
Thorin explained, "There is going to be a full week of follow up after this year's ICWW and the High Elf meetings, and she is going to be in meetings most of the week. She will be available to open the doors tomorrow, but she will not be with us more than is absolutely necessary."
"There are a few Magi who want my blessing on what has come out of this year's ICWW," Albus griped. "IF, and only if, Cleo and I succeed, I guess we will have to give our input and acceptance of many of these changes, but we are too young and inexperienced right now. After talking to my father, I have absolutely refused to attend any of this week's meetings.
"This is an archaeological site, so we felt we needed a good archeologist on our team. I want to introduce you to Dr. Henry Jones IV, a Magi who comes from a long line of archeologists."
"I'm the first in my family to be a wizard, at least in the magical sense," Dr. Jones started. "I'm not sure I believed my father when he told me of some of the adventures my grandfather was involved with, but the archeological evidence supports those tall tales.
"I have spent much of the last decade collaborating with the Elves in Switzerland, trying to see if there is any connection between Elfish writing and the origins of writing among humans. The idea of writing, and very different ways of writing down language, started about five thousand five hundred years ago. If we can date the emergence of Elves and magic back that far it would hint that Elves brought at least the idea of writing to humans."
Albus thought, "The Elfish script has characters that are phonetic, but also some characters that are not phonetic, and that are hard or impossible to translate into another language."
"One of my questions," Dr. Jones noted, "is if the early Magi and Elves taught the other humans to write, or if the idea of writing escaped."
"Did the early Elves and humans try to help non-magical humans, or just use them?" Scorpius asked, tapping his pencil on the paperwork in front of him.
"That is another question, but a good one," Dr. Jones replied. "We may find some evidence pointing towards an answer when we go back into the chamber. I'm not sure there can be a simple yes or no answer to a question like that."
"How old are the oldest wands?" Scorpius wanted to know.
"We do not know," Dr. Jones replied. "We have a reasonably good idea that the genealogies of wands beyond three thousand years is very suspect. There are at least hints that anything older than three thousand years ago is, maybe not made up out of whole cloth, but not totally accurate either."
"Are we sure the chamber was sealed about four thousand years ago?" Albus wondered, shuffling some parchment. "At one time I thought the valley was settled about three-thousand five-hundred years ago, but is sounds like the history of this valley is more complex than that."
Dr. Jones sighed a big frustrated sigh. "We are not sure of anything. I have spent the last two weeks trying to find anything Non-Maj or magical to better date the chamber and the artifacts in it. When we go back into the chamber I am going to be looking for artifacts that may help me date the chamber or what is in it. Certain No-Maj dating techniques are not always accurate when dating magical objects. I was in the chamber two weeks ago, and everywhere I went there was evidence of magic that I could not identify or understand."
"What do the Elfish archeologists say?" Albus wondered, turning to Thorin.
"Elves and Goblins have tried to avoid learning about their history until the last few years," Thorin answered. "Ever since Harry Potter became the Regent the Elves have been trying to learn about their history, but documents are scarce and do not always agree. Goblin's histories are not so much facts as propaganda. Magi histories are also not always facts. It looks like Elves tried to avoid writing anything that might be considered history. And Dwarves seem to be only interested in how to make things. It is not easy to figure out what stories are true and which are not."
"I saw many documents in the chamber," Albus reflected. "Should that help?"
"The victors write history, and they put their own slant on the stories they tell," Dr. Jones added. "Any additional stories, any additional interpretation of the facts, will help."
Dr. Jones and Thorin went over what artifacts they had recovered, and what they were sure they wanted to recover. The Goblins and Magi took plenty of photographs, and these were displayed with notations of specific areas to examine more closely.
Tuesday morning the doors were opened again, the same way they were two weeks before. As before, the order of beings was on the outside Jesus, then Ginny, then Thorin and Galadriel. On the other door on the outside you had Beren the Goblin, then Luthien, then Albus, and Cleopatra next to Galadriel.
Galadriel left for more meetings, taking Thorin with her. A moderately sized contingent of Magi and Elves of all sorts went into the chamber, and according to prearranged orders started to examine certain areas and collect artifacts.
"Wherever the Elves came from, they apparently did not bind books," Dr. Jones remarked as he directed several Magi to boxes stored on a wall in one part of the chamber. Scorpius and Rose were with Dr. Jones, Rose copying script that seemed to defy the ability to be photographed. Scorpius was, as was usual for him, taking copious notes.
Scorpius noticed that Dr. Jones was carefully logging where certain boxes were, and then opening them. Some of the boxes had parchment in them, others papyrus, still other boxes with what might have been an early form of paper.
Dr. Jones was showing the contents of certain boxes to the Elves, so Scorpius asked, "What is in the boxes?"
"Some of the boxes contain financial records, we think," Dr. Jones replied, "but at least a couple of them seem to be stories or collections of stories."
"Like a book?" Scorpius wondered.
"It looks like whoever wrote these did not have book binding," Dr. Jones replied. "That is one of the things we are looking for, any evidence of binding of books.
"You asked yesterday about history. If these are histories, or stories, they may give us more insight into the early years of Magi and Elves on Earth than anything else we have found."
"Can you translate them?" Scorpius asked.
One of the Elves looked uncertainly at Scorpius. "Translation more than knowing what a word means today. It is not easy to understand what someone is saying without understanding the society they are writing in. Reading and making sense of this material will take much time."
"Scorpius, could you stand here, please," Rose told Scorpius. "The writing on this wall changes if a Magi or if an Elf is near. I need to record both versions."
"That is not unheard of, the writing on a wall responding to who or what is near it," Dr. Jones. "Writing like that is impossible to photograph."
"Like the maps and some other magic." Scorpius confirmed. "What you have is a spell that allows Elves and Magi to see writing or other things, but Muggles and Muggle technology cannot see it."
Wednesday morning, they tried to see if anyone else could open the chamber doors. They could not.
Friday at noon they called a halt to examining the chamber. Dr. Jones told the others assembled, "There are plenty of things we do not want to move or disturb in the chamber, and we will want to go back into it sometime, but we have more than enough to work on right now."
"Who is going to translate all the documents?" Scorpius wondered.
"Elves and Goblins first," Mary Rivendell, one of the head Elves of Switzerland, insisted. "There are already enough arguments about what these documents mean. It is the responsibility of the High Elves, all our branches, to try and understand them before conferring with the Magi."
"What are we going to do?" Albus wondered.
"Enjoy a summer vacation," Mary advised. "If I understand the prophesies, you may not have many summers left where you are going to be able to relax." Albus, Cleo, Rose and Scorpius grinned at each other; they had the rest of summer to themselves!
2021