Disclaimer: the characters belong to J.K.Rowling, except my lovable self-insertion, Madeleine.
Chapter XVIII –Treasure Hunting We Will Go!
Gizeh…
A swarm of Muggles seemed to be all over the place. Hermione and Oliver apparated discreetly in Madeleine's tent. The mess of papers, clothes and electrical appliances was part of her well organised cover story. Madeleine was supposed to be an air-headed Egyptian scholar. She was quite far from that, but people will believe anything as long as you play your part right. Her magic suggestions had something to do with that, but mostly, it was her natural talent for camouflage.
"Where is she?" Oliver asked.
"She's around. I'm pretty sure she's not simply wasting her time over here"
As soon as Hermione said that, Madeleine came in. She looked quite different than the last time. Maybe it was her Muggle disguise. Oliver's instincts were usually serving him right, so he prepared for the worst.
"Welcome! My tent is your tent!" she greeted them.
"Why are you living in a tent anyway?" Hermione asked after a brief hug.
"It's part of the uniform" came the answer. "We're doing everything we can to encourage the idea of impermanence. It's not like the Muggles should harbour any illusions that they could stick around indefinitely"
"You're uncharacteristically forthcoming" Hermione noticed. "That's one thing I learned about your defence mechanisms. When you're trying to hide something you give huge amounts of information about everything else"
"Sometimes, it really doesn't pay to have close friends" she admitted the accusation. "That's gotta be great for a researcher, having so much intuition, such finely tuned bullshit detector"
"You're doing it again" Hermione warned her.
"Allow me to prove some insight: you told Mr. Wood my story, didn't you!"
"Come on, Madeleine! You know you can trust him"
"That's an assumption I have never made. About anybody. But there are ways of ensuring his cooperation in keeping my secret"
Madeleine's hand jerked a little, apparently reaching for the wand. Hermione promptly grabbed her wand and was ready to act.
"No Obliviate!" she snapped at the other witch.
"There are other ways, you know?" Madeleine smiled at her reaction. "Let me show you something" she reached for the wand again.
"Slowly" Hermione advised.
"It's not a hostage situation! Chill!" she reached inside her pocket carefully and took the wand out with two fingers. It was nothing more than a burnt stick. "It's not like it's working, anyway. I should pay a visit to Mr. Ollivander. This is the fourth wand that explodes in my hand. Makers of Fine Wands since 382B.C. like hell! Crooks!"
"I hate to interrupt this charming tea and biscuits conversation, but we nearly died trying to get in and out of that damn maze for nothing. You said you know where the bloody thing is now. You think you can tell us that before the 3,000 Quidditch World Cup?"
"Gryffindors" Madeleine gave them a thin smile. "Not the most patient persons, are you? Yeah, I know. But be sure I'm not going to just give it to you. I didn't break in and got into a small war with the African warlocks just to hand over the prize!"
"Then why did you tell me that? It's just another attempt to get us off course?"
"You know me better than that! I will offer you some explanations. But first, do you have any questions?"
"Several" Hermione had that teacher's pet look about her.
"Do you know where it is now?" Oliver stepped in.
"To my knowledge, the manuscript doesn't exist anymore. After I removed it from the maze… I took it to one of the wisest men who ever lived. I told him the story of the book and he agreed with me, mankind was not ready to receive such a gift. And in the thousands of years it needed to reach that level, the danger of unscrupulous men misusing it was too great. So, he promised to destroy it. Since I haven't heard anything about it all this long, I'm certain it is destroyed"
"Who was this wise man?" Hermione was positively glittering with enthusiasm.
Madeleine cleared her throat, displaying a slight embarrassment. Hermione knew this was a bad sign.
"His name was Nestor. He was respected throughout the Ancient World. That was the only decent thing I did that millennium"
"So? What's the catch?"
"Yes! Where is it? Where did you take the manuscript?!?"
"Toatlantis" she muttered.
"What did you say?"
"I hate it when people need it spelled out for them. I took it to Atlantis"
"The Atlantis? The sunken, never proved to be real Atlantis?"
"Oh, it was real, believe me! I could make an educated guess where it should be now. But I am sure it was destroyed. If for whatever reason Nestor didn't do it, I'm sure the explosion did the trick. Or the sea. C'mon, it's been beneath the bottom of the Mediterranean for thousands of years. Face it! It's gone"
"You know we can't abandon the search"
Madeleine looked at her friend. She knew there was no way to get the idea out of Hermione's head.
"You'll be the death of me" she sighed and she handed her some papers. "Just don't tell anyone in the Institute how you got your hands on them. Use your imagination, but please, keep my secret"
Oliver looked over Hermione's shoulder as she unfolded an old map and a couple of pages from a medieval manuscript. Madeleine talked while they were looking over the documents. She had that tone of long past memories.
"I wrote that in one of the following lives and hid the book in the Vatican. The things I had to do during the first world war… to sneak in and get it back… Some nosy clerics had noticed it and they were about to figure out what it meant…"
"But this is…" Hermione interrupted the trip on memory lane. "The defences listed here are… I never heard of anything like this before. You have to come with us and unlock them!"
"Thanks, but no, thanks! Three's a crowd. Besides, I bet they're not working anymore. Don't forget, they were mechanical. No match for your special powers"
Just as she was desperately looking for arguments to get out of it, a man entered. Oliver recognised him from the pictures in "The Daily Prophet", but Hermione was personally acquainted with the character.
"Not to mention she's otherwise engaged"
This made the surprise twice as powerful. Before Hermione could express her wonder, Madeleine straightened things out.
"An unfortunate choice of words. What can you expect from a man who spent his adult life in prison!" she glared at Sirius Black. "He hired me" she explained the others.
"Could I talk to you for a moment? In private?" Hermione demanded.
~~~~
Oliver found himself in the weird situation of chatting with one of the most intriguing living wizards. The man who had escaped from Azkeban, cleared his name of the accusations of murdering his best friends and being a Death Eater, a popular Gryffindor and Harry Potter's godfather. He pondered the opportunity of asking what was his business in Egypt, how was the inquest about the survivors of Voldemort's organisation coming along, but neither felt right. So he picked a neutral subject.
"How about those Cannons?"
Sirius smiled and let himself dragged in a discussion about the Chudley Cannons and modern Quidditch.
~~~~
Three years Madeleine's junior, Hermione had a way of acting like her older sister.
"Hired?" she asked as soon as they were alone. "Hired for what?"
"For my special skills. Harry told Sirius about me and they came up with the brilliant idea of using my expertise to track Pettigrew. Of course I didn't consent to give them the spells, but I couldn't just let him-them keep running around clueless"
"How nice of you" Hermione noticed her little him-them hesitation. "Why did you agree? What do you have to gain out of this?"
"I'm hurt! Wasn't it you the one who lectured me about not doing anything for the noble causes? Trust me, there's nothing more noble than revenge."
"Are you sure you have no ulterior motive? I thought I smelled something between the two of you" Hermione looked her straight in the eye.
"It's you I'm worried about, girlfriend" Madeleine adopted an amused tone. "Running all over the place with that boy. You better behave, young lady!"
"It's not funny! I could kill you for the waste of time and energy with that damn labytinth!"
"Actually, it was quite funny, as far as I can remember going through it myself"
*She's never going to change* thought Hermione as they were leaving. *I just hope she's right about Atlantis*
~~~~
*I hope I did the right thing showing them the way*
Madeleine/Isis had more pressing problems to take care of and put her trust in Hermione's common sense and intelligence.
~~~~
In the Morgana Library, Oliver and Hermione were frantically trying to find anything that could verify Madeleine's information.
"Nothing!" she exclaimed in an undertone. "I didn't find anything!"
"I found some stories, but no one ever put any stock in them. It's just Muggle literature"
"Are we going only with this?" she pointed to Madeleine's map.
"Didn't you say we're Gryffindors? What else do we need?"
Oliver displayed optimism exaggerating his actual feelings, but the idea that Hermione would go back to the University and he'd have to go back to his boring PR duties was not appealing. This way, she wasn't going to be bored with him.
*Maybe that's all that matters to him* the insecurity demon was at his job, pouring doubt in her soul.
"Let's go to Atlantis then!"