"Vampires now, Harry!?" yelled the reddish-brown-haired witch who tackle-hugged me the moment I stepped back up to the surface. A couple-dozen folks that were apparently prevented from going running into a potential vampire/zombie outbreak were waiting anxiously around the entryway down to the tomb complex.
"Just crossing off the whole defense against the dark arts curriculum one at a time to get that NEWT review in," I joked to my girlfriend. "Seriously, I'm fine. Just a bump on the head. How was the creature preserve? See any nundu? Nundus? Nundi?" I wasn't sure about the plural.
"No, but they had streelers and erumpents! We got you some potion ingredients. It was lucky, since they'd been sold out until recently but they got a fresh batch!" That was great. I'd been wishing I'd had more erumpent potion on hand when I found myself without my blasting rod and facing down two Voldemorts, a Death Eater, and a basilisk. "But don't change the subject! Why does this always happen to you?"
"This time? I shouldn't have been in that picture for the paper. Bounty hunters know where I am," I explained.
"A good point," said Mr. Longbottom, the balding auror, who'd been listening from a few feet away. "Perhaps we should go ahead and move to the second leg of our vacation."
"I don't want to make everyone leave…" I demurred.
"Nonsense," he said. "While I'm sure the Weasleys have been happy to spend time with Bill, a week at a campsite in the desert is more than enough for me. And, I'm sure, especially for those that don't consider it a holiday to try to translate hieroglyphics."
"Cairo, next?" Mathilda grinned. My girlfriend was very smart, but had almost zero interest in runes and magical theory. "They have shopping! And restaurants!"
"You just left him there!" I heard yelling, and looked over to see Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom accosting Draco. The two didn't have their whole posse, since Seamus Finnegan hadn't been able to afford the trip and Hermione Granger wasn't going to meet us until later. Her family had already planned to go to France for part of the summer. But Draco hadn't brought any of his normal backup.
"And I'm going to do more than just be in the way?" Draco spat back, not giving ground. "Maybe you two think you would have stayed and helped? Or would you just have been a liability? And nobody up here would have known anything because bloody Gryffindors all think they have to fight every battle!"
It wasn't entirely a fair assessment, since Ron and Neville were extremely competent in a fight for 13-year-olds. They'd had to be. Neither had been in nearly as many scrapes as I had, but they'd each been in at least three life-or-death battles I could think of off the top of my head. And, ever since they realized Voldemort was a threat, they'd been taking their training very seriously.
Of course, Draco was also probably getting a lot of the same training I had from my godmother, his aunt. Not that I'd recommend the Bellatrix Lestrange course in magical combat to anyone. This had been the first time I'd seen him in any kind of real fight, and he'd at least attacked rather than fleeing when he first saw the skeletons coming at us.
Though he was holding his own, I moved over, arm still wrapped around Mathilda, who didn't seem inclined to let me wander off any time soon. "It's okay, guys," I told them. "I would have told Draco to go. I tried to get Penny and Percy to take off, too."
Mathilda jammed a knuckle in my rib, making me wince, and growled, "Did they help? Would you have died if they hadn't stayed?" I thought about objecting, then shrugged. Having them watching my back had let me focus on Mavra, for all the good that did. Without them, I might have gotten overwhelmed before Michael showed up. "Then stop it. We get to decide if we have your back or not." Draco's face fell a little, so she added, "But it's also fine if having your back means getting more help!"
Speaking of Michael, he was leaving the tomb with an oversized duffle bag hung over his shoulder and a toolbox in his hand. It probably really was an effective way to get around with a giant sword. Maybe I should consider something similar for my staff? Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, and little Julia Longbottom, late to the commotion, wandered up, but Luna only had eyes for the sword-wielding carpenter, "Who is that?" the little blond seer asked.
"Some kind of American battle mage, I think," I told her. "He has a giant sword that he fought off the vampire with. Says he solves dark magic problems."
"I don't think he's a wizard," she shook her head. "I've never seen anyone like him before. It's like the golden ribbons at school…" Luna had seemed to see it when our school's fortune magic wards bent probability to make sure the students and teachers wouldn't get killed while on campus. "...only he's tied to the whole world. Or at least as far as I can see. They're pulling him north."
"Huh," I said. "It's kind of exhausting getting manipulated into being in the right place to save someone just at Hogwarts. Must be tiring if he's doing that for all of planet Earth. I guess he did say something about being surprised about an invitation to come out here. Maybe he meant it was fate intervening rather than someone in particular hiring him."
"Maybe not fate. Maybe not exactly," Luna said mysteriously, then added, "I'll figure it out."
"Cor," Ron breathed. I didn't think he'd really bought into Luna's gifts until just then, but he suddenly realized, "Luna, think you can help me with my divination homework this year?" He saw my eyes widen as I was about to object, then insisted, "I'm taking muggle studies and care of magical creatures, too! I know it's wooly, but three extracurriculars look better than two, and I'm not going to make it in the brainy ones like the rest of you!"
Neville and Draco looked like they were about to call him on not taking arithmancy or runes, but then shrugged in agreement. Luna simply smiled, "I'll see what I can do, Ronald. I don't really know much about the formal tools. I'm excited to find out next year, though."
"So did I hear we're going to Cairo?" Ginny asked. The youngest Weasley had been enjoying spending time with her two eldest brothers, but seemed to have exhausted her interests in the camp's limited amenities. Especially since nobody would let her play adventurer all by herself in the tombs at her age. "Because Oliver said they're supposed to have an indoor quidditch pitch and camp, and maybe we can rent the same kind of broom and have a real race, Draco?"
As everyone was surprised that the aloof Slytherin shrugged and nodded his assent to his rival seeker, I asked Mathilda, "Where is Oliver, anyway? Didn't he come back with you from the preserve?" I hadn't seen my other roommate loitering about.
"He and Lexi went straight to the tent," my girlfriend explained. And she looked over and noticed all of the adult chaperones having an animated conversation, probably about what had just happened and moving on. "And, you know… You got a bump on the head? I should help you take care of that! In private."
"Wouldn't want it to get infected or anything," I grinned, and the two of us waved goodbye to the younger kids and sneaked off.
To be fair, I noticed that Percy and Penny had made themselves scarce, too. Something about the adrenaline spike of a life-or-death battle…
We actually had a whole hour to ourselves in one of the palatial rooms of the wizard-spaced tent Draco had provided for our group. Technically, the girls were in one tent and this one was just Oliver, Percy, Draco, and me. But the kid was an excellent landlord, and, well, the chaperones weren't paying that much attention.
"Put your shirts on," the Slytherin in question drawled from the main room of the tent. "More problems."
Six older teenagers spilled out, clothing in various levels of disarray, and I asked Draco, "What's up."
"It's a good thing we're moving, because I've just had a letter from my father," he waved the parchment in question, Lucius Malfoy's handwriting visible. "It seems someone else saw the picture in the paper.
"My cousin, Sirius Black, has escaped from Azkaban."