A Museum Boggart

The Petrie Museum is a small two-room museum in the University of London. Not only can one not enter through the door marked "Petrie Museum", for that door does in fact belong to the fire escape, but one has to enter through the library next door. And not only does one have to enter through the library next door, but one must go through security as well. No, the Petrie Museum of Archaeology is a small out of the way place that normally does not appear on the list of tourist sites in London.

The museum is, however the perfect place for a boggart. For our boggart loved old smelling places, and what better place to be than a museum smelling of mummies and exotic places (mummies, dear reader, smell absolutely terrible, especially when they have been in the ground for several centuries. For any that wonder, and have never smelled a mummy, the smell is worse than just about anything else in the world. Yes, our boggart is a peculiar creature.). He had found himself the perfect place, a big red pot. This was no ordinary pot; no this was a large earthenware pot with a lid. The inside was nice and cool, and best of all, there was a skeleton inside, a real bonifide skeleton. Not quite so nice a place to live as a mummy case, but this was not the British Museum after all.

Neal Hortense was a short man. Like most academics, he had glasses; nice wire rimmed ones, which one of his colleagues had once told him accentuated his grey eyes. Also like most academics, he wore a brown tweed jacket with leather patches and black slacks. He was also quite proud of the plaid shirt and matching polka dotted tie he was wearing under his jacket. Mr. Hortense you see, had never married, and as such, had no one to tell him that his outfit did not in fact match. However, Mr. Hortense quite liked his jacket, shirt, and mismatched tie. He thought they made him look quite distinguished, and maybe, a secret part of him hoped, a little like the American Indiana Jones.

On this particular day, Mr. Hortense was digitizing the collection from Amarna, and taking detailed notes. This was not an easy task, most of the collection was in darkness, and his flashlight only illuminated so much. Scowling at yet another potshard, Mr. Hortense rubbed his brow to prevent the oncoming headache; for, unless one has an undying love for pottery, dear reader, they can frequently become quite boring without a nice arthritic podial fragment, necklace, or bit of Coptic textile to break up the monotony. As he lifted his tray to return it to the display case, Mr. Hortense heard a noise from the upper room

Frowning, for he was quite sure no one had come by in the past two hours, except for that nice young American couple who wanted to see the Tarkhan dress….no, there should not have been anyone else about. Mr. Hortense grabbed his flashlight and started for the stairs. Late in the evening as it was, no one else was working in the Museum, the desk worker had already retired for the night, and the noise was quite out of place. Indeed, it almost sounded as if someone was trapped… Up the stairs and away from the pots he made his way through the rows of statuary and bones, past the mummy case, and to the pot.

Now Mr. Hortense had always liked this piece of the collection. It was quite interesting, a large pot in which a body was buried. Sometimes he even thought it quite funny, except for now. For something within the pot was making the noise, and Mr. Hortense was quite sure, as sure as anyone who had a large collection of skeletons to back up this theory, that the person who had once been the skeleton was now quite dead, many centuries dead in fact. Moreover, while normally the pot was propped open, it was now closed. Gingerly he shone the flashlight at the offending object, and pushed the top off (he did this quite gently, it was an archaeological object after all).

Expecting, as he was, to be greeted by some local kids playing a prank, Mr. Hortense was quite surprised when a skeleton stepped out, a moving articulated skeleton. In fact, it seemed to be gnashing its teeth at him. Frozen in shock and panicked thoughts flitting through his mind, Mr. Hortense soon passed beyond panic and into a cool academic contemplation. He marvelled at the olecrenon process and the way the skeleton seemed to compensate for the lack of flesh when it moved. While he was frozen in academic thought, the skeleton, or as I am sure you have realized, dear reader, the boggart stepped towards him reaching with grasping fingers devoid of flesh and eye sockets glinting maliciously.

Frozen no longer, Mr. Hortense fled back down the aisles of artifacts, thinking furiously. Now what to do, what to do…no, could not shoot it, no gun…and that would be harming the artifact. And he couldn't leave, there had to be someone there with the artifacts so vandals wouldn't get them; not surprisingly Mr. Hortense did not think that with a strange skeleton chasing him that the board of directors might be willing to let him leave the building just this once.

No he could not throw any objects at the thing, he might destroy something. Debating this quandary, Mr. Hortense ran around one of the display cases (maybe pottery shards were good for something after all) and ended up facing the front desk.

Remembering last month's impulse purchase, he vaulted over the counter to his cupboard; well actually, he crawled under it, as he was not terribly athletic. Tearing it open, he grabbed the top bag and tore open the wrapping, ah yes, it was still there! He was saved! Tears in his eyes he gathered himself, and when he heard the click of the skeleton draw near he leapt up.

The boggart stared, for despite his empty sockets he could still see quite well, though a little farsighted, and stopped his advance.

For Mr. Hortense had in his trembling grip, a whip. As I told you earlier, Mr. Hortense, like many students of archaeology, wished he were more like Indiana Jones (minus the nineteenth century trend towards grave robbing). Not entirely sure how to use his whip, Mr. Hortense stood there, trying desperately to appear menacing, I might add, not very successfully.

The boggart looked at the man menacing him with a…a whip? Surprised, the boggart stopped. He was confused. People usually pointed wands at him, not whips. So, he did the only thing he could think to do in such a situation, he fled. Fled far away from the small man in his mismatched suit, far away from his nice pot smelling of decay, back to the wizarding world where wizards acted in nice, predictable ways.

Unknowingly, Mr. Hortense had used the best weapon against the boggart he possibly could, confusion.

Mr. Hortense watched his adversary flee, himself very confused. Nevertheless, he shrugged, being after all a nice, solid dependable type, and placed his whip back in the wrappings (never know when one of the things might come in handy again), and locked up the museum. The board of directors could yell at him this once, he decided. So out he went to find the nearest pub where a very full pint, maybe two, awaited him.

Sources:

Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. http/www.petrie.ucl.ac.uk/index2.html (13 February 2006).

Rowling, JK. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Arthur A. Levine Books, 2001.

Notes:

Thank you to all who reviewed and read my last chapter. I was so pleased at the lovely comments made. They boosted my confidence immensely. I am usually quite terrible at writing something that actually has an ending. Oh well.

A special thanks to MarauderinglyMagical for the first review ever for me (except for something that I wrote back in highschool which should never have seen the light of day).

Ely-Baby: I corrected the spelling of Voldemort. At least the first time through I misspelled it consistently (grins sheepishly).

Jzeylyn: I put in the dastardly wear partly because I love alliteration, and also because it seemed so ssibilant. (Who wouldn't shop at Dashing Duds for Dastardly Dudes? If Dudley weren't such a muggle and an ape, that might be a good place for him to shop simply for further alliteration.)

Mortalus: Somewhere deep inside I knew Voldemort's boggart wouldn't be Harry, but I couldn't resist. Thank you for that bit of information, where'd ya come across it?

And for the rest: Thank you!

This story came to me when I wondered at the meeting of a muggle and our boggart. This past January I visited London and the Petrie Museum as well. I adored the museum, but found it a bit odd. Upon reflection it struck me as the perfect place for a boggart (and the possibilities for scarage endless). Unfortunately, the only mummy case I recall from the museum display was an open one with all the layers on display and as such no respectable boggart would try to hide in it. However, I took a picture of a lovely pot that housed a skeleton, yes, the pot that the boggart finds so homey does actually exist. My friends find it a bit morbid. The museum curator is a figment of my imagination, please forgive me if any of my readers work or study at the museum, no offense is intended.

The curator is based upon many archaeologists and curators who I have met in my scholastic life. One archaeologist, who I shall not name, comes to mind, especially the clothes. Every morning on our dig he would come out dressed in horrid mismatched clothing, and several of us were tempted to take him back to his room for some clothing advice. Although this archaeologist only wore the tweed jacket for an archaeological conference, out in the field it was a field safari type vest with oodles of pockets.

And if any of you dwell in London, the museum is great, though a little quirky. You really do need a flashlight to view some of the collection. It is on Mallet street I think which abuts the British Museum. Though, if you have to choose between the two, the BM is infinitely better organized and more impressive. The Petrie Museum does however have the coolest bits of woven cloth anywhere. In the collection they have the Tarkhan dress which is around 5.000 years old and is the oldest bit of woven cloth ever discovered.