A/N: I don't own anything you recognize.
This is for the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum
Are you crazy enough to do it Challenge
207. (feeling) Lost
Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges
If you dare challenge.
207. Death Valley
"Are you sure this is way?"
"Yes," Bill answered looking at the map again. Death Valley, California was not his idea of a good expedition. It wasn't exotic, it wasn't interesting, it was hot! He knew it would be freezing at night, he'd read all the guidebooks Hermione had given him when he'd found out where he was going.
Being a curse breaker had its benefits. Travel was the main one, go to exotic places, break curses, find treasure for the goblins. What the brochures never mentioned was the fact there was almost always sand. Sand in places where it did not belong, sand in places where you would be finding it for months later.
Hermione had filled a sandbox with all the sand he'd managed to bring home by accident. He wished she was here. Maybe she could take his mind off the heat. He looked at the map again. Nothing seemed to match.
"Let me see that," one of his team said taking it from his hands. The man turned it this way and that.
"Weasley, tell me the red X we've been following towards all day isn't strawberry jelly." Bill felt his face flush. He'd left his map on the table last night...had one of the kids...
"We're lost, aren't we?" someone asked. Bill bit his lip. If they messed up this expedtion because of him, because of his kids.
"No, maybe, let's see, if we turn it this way...I think that rock over there might be this one on the map. Yes, I think so, this way." Bill let out a sigh of relief. They walked across more sand, Bill wondering if Hermione would make another sand box. Maybe his next expedition could be somewhere without sand?
"Now what?" He heard a voice ask. They'd stopped again.
"Now, we're lost. This is the rock, but I have no idea how to find the cavern?" Bill stepped forward studying the large rock face of what appeared to be a small cliff. There was no obvious opening, no runes carved into the stone. If there had been at some point, they had been eroded away.
"I don't see anything either, maybe it needs magic," Bill waved his wand over the cliff face. Nothing happened. He had never been so lost as to how to crack a treasure vault.
"It's getting dark, let's head back to the hotel. Do some more research." Bill felt his heart sink. This would be the first expedition that might actually fail.