Chapter 16 – Enclosed Spaces
The next few days were packed full of action, Hermione learned more about practical defence and such than she did all of last year. They encountered a swooping evil which John dealt with, there was a chimaera hanging about that took all of them to bring down. Bill was needed on more than one occasion with some rather horrible looking curses, as well as some weird magical effects and traps.
She was five days in as they had decided this would be the last room of the day. Bill got the door open. As they all entered, there was a feeling on the back of her neck. And the charms people had on suddenly went bright red. A few things happened at once. All the curse breakers, went into an emergency mode, Hermione was pushed to the middle, and the door slammed shut.
Hermione looked around to see if anything else was going to happen, but the charms went back to normal. Everyone started running diagnostics as they appeared to be trapped.
Bill cursed. Literally.
"We're stuck."
"What do you mean stuck?" Caleb said looking around the group.
"I mean the wards we need to access to get free are on the outside of this wall, we've got an anti-magic field on the room, we can cast spells but none are getting out. Meaning…"
"We're stuck…" the boss said.
Hermione looked at the room, it was decently sized, but not overly massive.
She was certainly worried about how much oxygen they had.
"Right, everyone, we don't know how long we're going to be stuck here. Let's start getting prepared."
It seemed that this wasn't the first time something like this has happened. The others discussed the air situation, saying that every few hours a spell would have to be cast. The first order of business was teaching Hermione how to cast it, it seemed life or death useful.
One seemed to be making a toilet area, the others getting sleeping bags out of their backpacks. Hermione grabbed hers and bill looked impressed.
"Professor Babbling gave me a few things." Bill laughed at that,
"Of course, she did."
They all got settled, as John was creating a water butt of sorts filling it up, Bill was transfiguring some old rocks into chairs and Hermione went over to help Rachel with food.
Everyone was grouping their resources as Hermione pulled out some of hers, a handful of harvest bars, and her big tin of biscuits from Vector.
Once everyone was set up, Bill pulled out a pack of cards and transfigured some rocks into poker chips. There was a groan from some of them.
"We won't play for money, not now anyway," Bill said as they all relented.
"You'll have to teach me how to play, I haven't done it before."
"It's simple," John said.
A few hours later, Hermione had learned that Bill was a poker champion, that she had a pretty good poker face, and that it got very competitive.
As they were settling in for the night, someone transfigured some pyjamas for her to wear, there wasn't enough room for privacy, as she turned her back, she got into her new clothes they were quite comfy. She turned around to see some of them staring at her.
"What?" she asked.
"Hermione, what was that on your back?" the head lady asked quietly.
"Oh…" she sighed feeling quite insecure. "I was attacked by a werewolf; it didn't bite me or anything. But it left its mark." She said not meeting their eye.
"A werewolf, you were attacked by a werewolf?" John said looking at the girl in front of her.
"Yes. I did, not by choice, it just kind of happened."
"How are you alive?" Caleb asked, "I fought werewolves as an adult, there difficult and dangerous."
"Quite a lot of luck, and I managed to stun it after a few tries."
"Stunned it, that's a newt level charm." The other one said.
"There's one way, to tell the truth, stun them," Caleb said.
"I don't want to hurt anyone." She said a little uncomfortable.
"Don't worry I'll sit down." Said, John.
Hermione raised her wand, "Stupefy!" she threw at the man, he didn't stand a chance. Knocked out cold.
There was a whistle of appreciation from Caleb who went over to revive his partner.
"All right, then. That's enough interrogation for one day, let's get to bed, Caleb and john why don't you take first watch, then bill and Hermione and then I'll take it with Rachel." They all nodded. As they went to get some much needed shut eye.
Hermione hit the pillow and immediately fell asleep.
She awoke to a gently shaking, "Hermione, it's our turn to keep watch." She groaned taking a breath before she got out of her sleeping bag.
They ended up playing snap, as the two of them waited for anything to happen, thankfully nothing did and they got to go back to sleep as the others took over.
o0o0o0o
They got into a bit of a routine. In the morning, Hermione would make breakfast, and Bill would wash up. The morning was then dedicated to training, as much as they could. They had all taught Hermione some very interesting things. Curse identification in more depth, more warding, she was fascinated by it all she was filling up her notebooks.
Caleb and John dealt with lunch.
In the afternoon, they had some recreational time, Hermione was glad she had brought a book, which had made its way around the entire group. Bill and her had started setting each other runic codes to decipher which was fun.
In the evening they had started playing poker, Hermione found it funny as when anyone ran out of chips they simply transfigure some more of the rocks.
Four days had passed, when they were starting to get worried, food was starting to run low, lunch had been scrapped from the daily routine and Hermione was starting to get a little worried, she could tell that the leader and other curse breakers were treading on eggshells around her.
She got it she did, but right now they were all alive, that was the main thing.
Two more days passed. When while Bill and her were on watch, they heard something.
Hermione quickly woke everyone up as bill drew his wand trying to protect the group.
A few moments there was a shirting of stone, as the door, they had entered from opened.
There was a cheer, from her fellows as they waved their wands collecting all of their belongings and exiting the chamber. Hermione was surprised to see professor Babbling, waiting outside the door for them.
"Professor!" she said in shock.
"Oh, Hermione thank merlin you're all right."
The group all exiting the tomb made their way back to sunlight, it burnt her eyes, not used to it but glad to feel the warmth on her skin.
There was a large group of people, waiting for them, that let out a cheer as they emerged.
They were guided and each handed food which they ate gratefully.
"It's nice to feel the sun again," Hermione said smiling up at it.
"I know… I'm enjoying the food." There was a laugh at that.
Hermione looked at the crowd that was dispersing. And her teacher that had now rejoined them.
"We were all so worried Hermione." She spoke.
"I was fine, really, everyone looked after me, and the biscuits you gave me came in very handy."
There was a general agreement from everyone from that.
"Well, I'm glad you liked the biscuits, I didn't expect them to be so useful."
"I'm looking forward to sleeping in my bed," John said,
"I think we all deserve to go home, have the day off and start again the day after?" the leader asked.
"Everyone nodded."
"Could I have a word with you Hermione, bill and Bathsheda, a minute?" The leader asked.
"I want to ask you if you wanted to continue for the next 5 days, I don't want you to feel pressured, and I want you to be comfortable."
Hermione looked a babbling seeing if there were any objections,
"I'll stand by whatever you want Hermione, everyone would understand if you wanted to go home early."
Hermione shook her head, "I'd like to stay please, I've enjoyed most of it so far, and I've learned so much. I'd like to see a bit more, if you'll have me."
"Great, because I didn't want to lose my light buddy yet," Bill said ruffling her on the head.
They all disappeared and arrive back at their house.
Hermione and most of the others went straight to the bathrooms, showered changed into a fresh change of clothes and then came back downstairs.
Everyone just seemed to be relaxing, a few drinks were poured as Hermione got a pumpkin juice for herself, music was playing from somewhere. They enjoyed the rest of the day, Hermione especially enjoying sinking into her heavenly bed.
o0o0o0o
The next few days they made great progress on the rest of the tomb; they could tell they were getting closer as the protections were getting more intense. One of the rooms, Bill had to defuse, was a nasty fire based room, a mixture of an oven and a trap. One of the rooms contained no visible exit and they realized they had to go down through the floor. They had reached what they believed to be the last real defence, bill and the rest of the curse breakers gave her the choice if she wanted to face it. It was said to be truly horrible. But Hermione hadn't come this far to be turned around now. Bill said fire was the key, and that night taught her a decent fire based spell, as he opened the door all Hermione could see was an empty room but as someone threw a stone into it, the earth began to move.
A hand grabbed the stone, from under the earth, pulling it down. The ground however continued to rumble as more hands appeared, then an arm. They were dragging themselves out of the ground.
Corpses, the animated bodies of the dead guarding the treasure of their masters. When history said people got buried alive with the tomb of a pharos, it often meant more literally, they were turned into inferni.
As the bodies fully broke through the earth, the group began fighting them.
Hermione concentrated on the ones furthest away, firing the spell bill had taught her to slow them down so they could then be taken out more easily.
It took hours, wave after wave came up through the ground, but it finally stopped shaking and the earth went still.
They checked twice to make sure, but it did seem it was safe. Bill and her went over to the last door, and he started undoing the wards and charms on it. Hermione kept the light up and after another hour the door finally swung open.
The group all entered to find a chamber, lit with ever burning fire. In the middle, there was a beautiful sarcophagus, which confused Hermione. This was meant to be just a storage tomb, a gift to the gods not… There wasn't meant to be a…
Before she could speak, the others clocked the coffin too.
"Everyone get back." They all formed defensive positions.
Mummies were similar to inferni in that they were reanimated corpses, the difference with mummies however was that they retained some of their magic, and thus could be much more dangerous.
The top of the sarcophagus was lifted off and fell with a crash, Hermione had her wand gripped tightly in her hand.
The mummy sat up in its coffin, climbing out, the spells started flying, the sand however wrapped around it causing it to be almost impossible to hit.
The sand flew towards them, as Hermione had to close her eyes, as the sand burned them.
One of the curse breakers sent a large gust of wind in its direction, allowing a few spells to be fired at it. In retaliation the sand got worse, it was building up around them and Hermione realized it was trying to bury them alive.
Hermione started trying to deal with the sand as the rest dealt with the mummy.
She kept pushing it away but it was a losing battle. As the mummy opened its mouth to pour even more sand bill took his shot, firing a spell right for its middle. The mummy, exploding into dust.
The sand died down as Hermione brushed herself down. Sand coming out of every orifice.
The rest of them quickly started casting more spells, all of them lighting up green.
"we've made it to the middle folks, let's start checking for individual curses, and get the others in here to start taking things back up top."
Hermione nodded, "I'll send the message." Summoning her Patronus and sending it flying out of the room.
Bill came over to her, "If you want you can use the spell, I thought you to help sort through some of these things."
Hermione was thrilled that she would be able to help. "Of course, where do we start."
Each curse breaker took a bit of the treasure chamber, she along with the rest of them started sorting. Much of the treasure was simply treasure. Not cursed but a few pieces lit up red and were quickly put in a containment bubble.
Bill and her chatted as they did their work, sorting through the knickknacks. Hermione was working on a giant ruby, and Bill on an encrusted chalice, it was going well though. And by the end of the day, they had managed to clear the room of all the artefacts and send the cursed ones to the static curse breakers back at the bank.
Hermione and the rest of the team were marvelling at everything they had found. Hermione was quite proud of herself for dealing with everything that had happened and contributing as much as she did.
As they marvelled at the ancient treasures they had discovered there were some quite nice gems the goblins would be excited about. Bill said that this counted as a good hoard.
"Once this is valued by the goblins, we'll get our paychecks and then a bit of time off. I think my next assignment is up in the mountains, there have been rumours that a rare artefact may be up there."
"That sounds interesting, you'll have to tell me all about it when we see each other again."
"You should be proud Hermione, not many people your age could have got as far as you did."
"Thanks, Bill, you did all right too."
Hermione said her goodbyes to the rest of the team who all wished her well, as she went back to the house, accompanied by Bill. She packed up her things, wishing slightly she had had time to look at some of the sights in Egypt, but she had had a great time.
They walked back to the Gringotts bank and bill wished her good luck in the year ahead. Hoping to see her next summer, she agreed eagerly and before she knew it, she was whisked off back to cold rainy England.
Her placement had gone over buy three days so instead of babbling being there to pick her up as expected, a rather disgruntled professor Snape was waiting.
She paused for a moment, "Come along Miss Granger, I will not wait all day." As he turned around and headed out of the bank. Hermione followed him, jogging to keep up with him.
"I understand that you know how to operate the floo system." He said at her.
"Yes sir." She said still smiling.
"The location is professor Snapes office." And with that, they were gone.
Hermione tumbled out at the other end, into his office. She had been there once before when she gave him the basilisk parts.
"At the moment miss Granger, I take your time clock will be off, but it is noon and time for lunch, here."
Hermione nodded, as Snape sat down at a small table.
"Miss Granger, I understand you were working for Gringotts for a couple of weeks." He said pouring them both drinks.
"Yes sir, I was working in Egypt, in the curse breaking department, it was rather interesting sir."
"Fascinating I am sure, anything of note?" he asked.
"Well, I battled a leithfold in the daytime, which was peculiar, it turned out there was a curse in the room that made them think we were all asleep. Then I meant a sphinx, which was curious, a swooping evil and a chimaera. There were quite a lot of curses as well, and we got trapped in for a few days which wasn't too bad, but the food was getting low."
"Miss Granger cease the verbal tsunami. You said you got trapped?"
"Well yes, we did, there was a curse on the room that was only activated once everyone had entered, that could only be undone from the outside. It was theoretically clever but did mean we were stuck for a while."
Snape sighed. "Do go on." Hermione continued to tell her professor all of the useful things she had learnt and done, including some new spells.
"And then we were at the last room, that was filled with inferni, and then a mummy."
Snape by this point had seemed to either not want to question or was too afraid.
"Inferni?" he asked,
"yes, did you know in history books when it says their servants are buried alive with them, usually it means they were turned into inferni to protect them?"
"And did you battle these inferni?" he asked sipping his drink.
"Not really, I mostly watched, but I did get a spell or two in."
Snape nodded at that, "What have you been doing in the summer sir?"
He grunted a little, "Nothing as exciting as tomb raiding Miss Granger, and I doubt the next two weeks will live up to your exciting standards, you are going to be brewing some potions for the hospital wing, seeing that last year you used quite a few, I only think it's fair."
"That sounds a very good idea, good revision for y newts as well sir."
"you'll have the rest of the afternoon off, but tomorrow morning I expect you up bright and early and ready to brew." He said as he magicked the plates away.
Hermione bid him goodbye as she got an early night, she was thrilled to find Crookshanks in her room, who at first tried to sulk with her, but after she got into bed, returned to his usual spot and too curled up for bed.
o0o0o0o