A/N: Another Chapter, yes, I know it was quick! I just go so into the cuneiform translation I couldn't stop. I did actually research cuneiform for this story. I haven't been as involved with it until now because, well if you have ever seen cuneiform then you will know it is difficult to understand. I wanted to understand the basics not just type it into one of those translating programs. My little passage is as close as I could get to accurate with my limited knowledge. I didn't want to bore you too much with the translations so I tried to do it as quickly as possible without dragging it out or glossing over. Hope you enjoy this chapter it is a little heavy with the cuneiform but necessary to the story line!
To guest reviewer: thank you yes I have tried to make their relationship as natural as possible, in regards to their personalities and histories. They have a lot to over come, but I think their HEA is on the horizon.
MOHIYAT TURZOQ
Department of Magical Artefacts and Curse Breaking
Hermione Granger's Office
Hermione POV
Tuesday 11th of February 2014
The last few weeks have been wonderful and the easiness of the rhythm we found ourselves in was sublime. Ever since my gesture of offering the empty draw to Christian he has been a little more open to answering questions about his past, not that I pushed too much because I know that it is rather sensitive and there are gaps in his recollections. I am slowly unravelling the mystery of this man.
We are most often found together, our colleagues know that to find one of us you will usually find both of us, and more often than not locked in a heated debate about the interpretations of the cuneiform. I have made up with Maria after my rather less than stellar meltdown at her place. I explained the situation fully to her about my past and Harry's with Voldemort, and she reluctantly agreed that perhaps it was a little much to spring it on me. I am determined to move on and put all this drama behind me, however the situation with Ron still remains unresolved and I think that it will remain that way for a while to come. Disappointing that he cannot let go, but that boy can hold a serious grudge. As much as Ron was one of my first friends I am unwilling to let go of Christian and believe me I have had to make my position clear at the office. Too many women flirting and making rather overt propositions to Christian, sometimes even in front of me. I've had to stake my claim, multiple times, to which Christian finds my possessiveness a turn on. Those few times have ended up in him dragging me home at all times of the day just to show me how much he enjoys it. I know he would never cheat on me, at least I am fairly confident. He rebuffs all the advances and glares coldly at the woman. But even so they still return.
"Earth to Hermione?", blinking rapidly I pull back from my ruminations and to find a hand waving in front of my face. I smack the hand away and see Harry laughing at me.
"What do you want Potter?", I say glaring, but there is no malice behind the words, my face twitching as I tried to prevent a smile.
"Christian is wearing off on you"
"I just do it to annoy you. Are you here for business or a social visit?", I asked while tidying up my desk, from the chaos of paperwork piled upon it.
"Mmm both I guess. So, how's the translation going along? Still arguing like an old married couple. I've heard rumours of your screaming matches", I scowled at him he just laughed.
"They are heated academic debates, not fighting or screaming at each other. Passionate opinions that are rigorously defended. This is important Harry and I will not have you mocking mine and Christian's work", Harry placated me by raising his hands in defence.
"I'm not saying it is…you two have to be one of the only couples I know that use 'academic debates' as foreplay. Anyway, my second order of business, is too deliver a message to you and Christian, that Kingsley wants to meet with you both later today. He'll send you a memo when he is free. I assume it has something to do with the translation, seriously though how is it going?", he said plonking himself down in the chair opposite my desk.
"Ah fine, I guess I think we need to re-evaluate how we are going about doing this translation. It's taking too long, not that I am saying that it should be easy because it isn't, but I think we need to change it up. All we know is who and that it is a type of horcrux. Other than that, I can't really give too much more information, it's like nothing we have seen before. I wish I could tell you more", this translation was really beginning to grate on m y entire existence, never has something stumped me for so long. Even with Christian here, I thought we would have progressed much more than we have, but we haven't. Which makes me believe we are approaching this from the wrong direction.
"I'm sure you guys will get it. Two incredibly smart people, I'm sure you'll get down to the very essence of it sooner or later", with that he stood and there was Christian standing in the doorway lost in thought.
"You alright?", Harry asked Christian, clearly concerned by the look on his face. He has warmed up immeasurably to Christian since the portrait. But he knows not to overwhelm the older man because he will not respond well to being smothered by unnecessary emotions.
"Ah yeah sorry just had a thought is all", and he stepped out of the way to let Harry pass. The two shaking hands briefly in greeting.
"Sweetheart I have been thinking about the translation. I think we need to take a different approach-", I held up my hand indicating for him to stop speaking.
"Unless you were listening in to mine and Harry's conversation then we must think more alike than I first thought, because I was just saying that too him when he asked how the translation was going. I agree, this is not going anywhere, and I have a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. Like the calm before the storm"
"I think we should have a look at translations other scholars have already completed from the same time period and work from there. We may not get an exact translation, but close enough that we know what we are dealing with. What do you think?"
"I think it is a good an idea as any at this point. I would like to have something for Kingsley, I feel like we are floundering a little and I don't want you to get ditched as a consultant, because we haven't made progress".
"Hermione love, I doubt that will happen. Now I have taken the liberty of finding these translations. They're in Sumerian so it is close enough to what we believe they used around that time rather than Akkadian. I am hopeful these will give us enough information that we can interpret what the tablet says", he handed me the freshly printed materials, it was an unusual sight to see typed and printed documents here at the ministry. Everything was written on bloody parchment, with quills. I gave up on quills years ago, much preferring the pen, surprisingly so did Christian. I knew how anti-muggle Voldemort was, so I wasn't sure whether he would have embraced all the modern conveniences available.
"Ok…this looks great. Did you want to split the work or should we just both work on it then come together and compare at the end?"
"Let's work separately to begin with and compare at the end. I want to see what we each come up with", Christian had a small desk off to the side that we managed to make fit in my office. I wanted him to work with me rather than where ever they were planning on putting in.
It wasn't long after we got started that the memo from Kingsley came flying through my open office door and landed on my desk.
Hermione and Christian,
Please come to my office at your earliest convenience I have a matter of some urgency to speak with you about. This is confidential, please speak with no one.
Regards,
Kingsley
Well that sounded ominous. I looked over at Christian who hadn't stopped reading the document he had in his hands. He was wearing his black reading glasses today and chewing the end of his pen, a bad habit he had recently picked up from watching me, I think. It was strangely endearing, watching him doing something so… so ordinary, but making it look beguiling.
"Christian we need to head to Kingsley's office he says it's urgent", I said standing up and walking over behind his chair placing my hands on his shoulders. I looked down at his scribbled notes, he was re looking over the word man or lu. However, I knew this one and without the accent it was incorrect and changes it to mean many men, multiple.
"Honey, you need the accent above the u- so it's lú. I would hazard a guess to say that the beginning reads 'Nebuchadnezzar II a man', and then whatever the rest says", I smiled down at him. He grunted in response and wrote down the changes.
"Thanks, sweetheart but I was getting there"
"Sure sure"
"Alright Miss smarty pants let's go see what our fearless leader wants", I smacked him playfully on the arm as we exited the office.
We walked in silence up to Kingsley's office, when out of the office we remained professional which meant no PDA. I wanted to be seen as above board, no reason for people thinking I didn't get by on my smarts. As a woman moving up in the world, vultures circled often looking for weaknesses.
Christian knocked on Kingsley's office door and we waited for any signal to be allowed to enter. A minute or so later the door opened, and his secretary stepped out, leaving it open for us the walk through.
"Ah Hermione and Christian, come in come in. Sit down where ever, we are just waiting on Harry to come up here and join us". I moved to sit over at his conference table and Christian moving to sit beside me.
"What is this all about Kingsley, if I may ask?", he certainly had piqued my interest with his memo.
"It's to do with the tablet, we have tried to keep this under wraps, but it is going to get to the point where we can't hide it for much longer", I felt my stomach drop and the blood drain from my face. I had a weird feeling where I knew where this conversation was headed. I felt Christian reach for my hand underneath the desk, he was being reassuring and I needed that.
"It isn't to do about the translation is it? We are having some real progress this morning, we have changed our strategy moving forward. However, even if we manage to translate the whole passage, I fear that it will not give us the answer we are seeking", that was my worry, it was easy to hide behind translating it without having to think about what happens after we do that. But here it was coming up rapidly.
"I know which is why haven't pushed too hard at having it translated. Because I seriously doubt that it would have how to destroy it written on it", I agree that would be rather silly, however, it may have some clue as to how or what or something.
Harry come through the door looking mildly flustered, he must have been on the other side of the ministry.
"Sorry Kingsley, I got caught up, but I managed to get here as quickly as I could"
"That's fine Harry take a seat and we'll be get started. So, as you all know what is said in here is confidential. This is the second meeting I have had this morning about this, the others were the appropriate department heads, but I thought that I should include you three with this information. That means you can only discuss it amongst yourselves and no one else. That includes Ron, the last thing I need is someone blabbing. So, in order to prevent that I have placed a charm on the door, as you exit you will not be able to discuss what is said in here with anyone else. It is not something I would normally do, but the gravity of the situation requires it. The tablet has been stolen from the museum, but that is not what we are discussing now" I felt nausea roll in my stomach.
"while the real one seems to have disappeared, the fake one we believe is showing signs reminiscent to the real one", what? That can't be right, but then again, they also don't know the real one is here in the ministry down in the Dark Archives.
"The magical energy in the immediate area is increasing. Once it reaches a certain level, we are unsure at this point about what will happen and we are hoping not to find out. It is unnoticeable to most witches and wizards. The only reason we know about it is because of the fluxometer in magical catastrophes, has had an increase. I am hoping with each of your skill sets we can solve this problem before it becomes a problem", fuck I couldn't believe this. The tablet must have finally eaten through that horrid box Christian placed it in. Now I know we need to get as much of this translation done as soon as possible, it's going to be a long couple of days. "Now you can all go back to your jobs and I will keep you posted if anything changes. Have a good day", we filed about in silence, I was determined to get that translation done now. It has to give us a clue, giving us a crumb of information on how to destroy or contain it. Now I've put people in danger, but as much as I hate to say it, I'm glad it is here and not at the museum. At least this way there are magical controls.
I tried not to feel guilty about anything I have done, because I did it for a reason. The muggles couldn't be exposed to this artefact, and in hindsight we would have ended up in this situation either way. That made me relax slightly.
"Hermione you're quiet", I hadn't even realised that Harry was still with us and that we were standing outside of my office.
"Sorry what?", I was confused because I wasn't even listening if the two men were talking.
"Typical Mione lost in her own head", Harry chuckled. "Don't panic we will figure this whole thing out. Now you two get working on that translation and see if you can find us a clue", he saluted and walked off. Harry often had an uncanny ability to read a situation and hit the nail on the head, without even realising he was doing it, or he just knew my thought process.
"Alright I'm ready to get some serious translating done are you ready for a long night ahead?", I asked Christian, I wasn't planning on going anywhere until we got some more important words translated.
"Sweetheart I'll stay as long as you do. But know that I will drag you home for a shower and some sleep, we need to keep our minds sharp otherwise we are useless to everyone. Ok?", he raised an eyebrow and his tone was like he was talking down to a small child. I knew I was stubborn, but he would resort to brute force to extricate me from the office if he had too.
"Fine, I know. Well let's get started...again", I sat down and picked up my trusty HB pencil and note pad. I decided to start from the bottom since Christian was starting at the top. The issue was that the cuneiform can look confusing and jumbled, and the time it takes to find a symbol in the syllabary is what takes the most time. It's slow going and I wish here was a way to speed it up…I swear sometimes I'm thick headed.
"Honey", I said loudly as an idea sparked in my mind. He turned around, that was the first time I have used an affectionate term in regard to him, but I wasn't thinking about that now.
"Yes?", he sounded unsure or confused, not knowing how he should respond.
"I am an idiot. I'm going home and you are coming with me", I stood and flicked my wand making all my notes and his, stack neatly and file them in my folders.
"Hermione, we need to get this done. We don't have time for whatever it is you are thinking", I smiled, he is still a man after all.
"No, although that would be a nice afternoon activity, that is not what I am referring too. I need my computer at home and I can't use it here", the American Ministry use email but yet we are still working in the stone ages, it conditions us to not think about the outside world and thus me stupidly forgetting about the internet.
"What do you need your computer for…?", I made a 'duh' face hoping he would catch on to what I was thinking. I watched me stare at me thinking hard about it, then I slowly saw the frown melt off his face and he rolled his eyes, laughing softly.
"Fuck! We are a useless pair, two extremely bright people and we couldn't remember to use fucking google".
"Oh I know, I have gone all this time without even thinking about it, how do you think I feel? I feel as though I have wasted all this time and for nothing. Sure I don't expect to have it solved in an afternoon but certainly a day or two with the Google's help to point us in the right direction"
"Alright lead to way sweetheart, you never know with the two of us we could probably knock this small passage over in an afternoon. I'll stop by my apartment and get my computer as well, so we can both be looking", he looped his arm around my back pulling sideways into him so he could kiss the side of my head.
Later that day
Well we certainly have made progress with Google, I am still kicking myself that I didn't think about it earlier.
To begin with we started translating the symbols into the syllables of the sounds the symbols represent, then with the help of Google finding an online cuneiform dictionary we are able to roughly interpret the translations into English words. Just like our language Sumerian also has multiple meanings based on the other words in a sentence, such as verbs and adjectives. This has been a real crash course into this language.
Currently I am looking at the transliterated syllables of lugal-šà-lá-sù, now I know from previous experiences and noticing from earlier that lu means man or men so it has something to do with that. Gal with no inflections of any kind can mean the eldest or as an adjective can be interpreted as mighty. Interesting mighty man, but they are combined. I looked for common cuneiform words and lugal means…king! Now for šà, individually they mean various things, but type it in the lexicon search and it means merciful, so the whole translation is merciful king.
"Christian do you have anything? I just translated the last line, it means merciful king"
"Ah yeah, I also managed to translate 'Lord', and 'universe'. It doesn't take much interpretation to work out that it reads as 'Nebuchadnezzar II a man, Lord of the Universe'" I snort, in laughter.
"He sure thinks highly of himself then". And we silently went back to thinking and looking.
I looked at the clock and it was now six at night, man the time did fly. Once you've been staring at the list of symbols for a few hours it became quicker to pick them out for other words in the translation. I instead gave up translating all in one go and just focused on the transliteration. That was the painstaking process and this was my part of the translation completed.
Ug téšbigu níĝ-kal-la
Alad níĝ-ki-sè zur á-sikil-la
Ulul e-ne ki-ùr
I looked over to Christian and he was still working hard on whatever it was that he was up too. Truth be told I didn't think I would have completed it today, but I guess having both of us doing this it does make it a little easier.
"I've finished my part. I'm about to work on the translation into to English. Do you need any help?", He looked slightly startled by me speaking. We haven't spoken in a few hours just the clicking on the mice and the clacking of keys for noise.
"No. We will work on the translation into English together. I feel that it will be easier as this is essentially one long sentence. Why don't we take a quick break? Dinner?", God I hadn't even thought about food, now that I am thinking about it, I am rather hungry.
"Sure. Would you like me to cook something? Or we could just have leftovers. Either way I am fine with it"
"I am not going to make you cook sweetheart after we have been doing this all day. Leftovers is fine, I'll make the tea and you can heat up the dinner", it was nice being in a partnership, not where your relationship is tipped more to one side than the other.
I walked over to the freezer and pulled two nondescript looking takeaway containers that I had filled with something. At this point I didn't care what I ate just as long as it was tasty and edible.
20 minutes later and we both had relocated to the sofa, the fire was roaring and I really just wanted to snuggle up to Christian and fall asleep on him. He was comfy and warm, but my curiosity over the translation was over powering the cuddling urge.
"Do you want to continue it tomorrow and call it a night? Or do you want to press on?", I looked at the clock and it was twenty to seven. I really wanted to know the translation but an extra day couldn't hurt?
"Sweetheart, we don't have to do it all in one go. No one will begrudge you an extra day. I know you feel as though you have to make up for all the lost time, believe me I do, but one day won't matter. We can have a fresh start bright and early. We can even go in late to work since we can't use the internet there. What do you say? And Indulging night of cuddling on the couch…eating ice cream…?" I giggled as he tickled myside.
"How can I say no to that?"
The next day
12th of February 2014
Hermione's Apartment
I woke up earlier than I had anticipated, Christian was correct as usual a good night sleep at I felt refreshed ready to finish off the translation. I looked at the calendar, Valentine's Day was fast approaching, and Christian hadn't mentioned anything so I wasn't sure if we were doing anything. I knew how he felt about the word love and so I wasn't expecting some grand gesture, neither of us were like that. The day I felt was commercialised and clunky. I had been to his apartment a few times and it felt devoid of emotion and hardly anything was personalised. You could tell someone lived there but there was warmth missing to it, it wasn't homely. I had a photo of us framed that Ginny had taken one Sunday at dinner time outside while watching the others play quidditch in the back yard. It was a nice photo, he was smiling and I was laughing, but it was the way he was looking at me that made it special and I hoped that he would think so too. Nothing fancy just personal.
I wrapped my dressing gown around and headed to the bathroom before I will make breakfast for the both of us. I brushed my teeth and combed my hair back and plaited it over my shoulder.
Sitting down with a nice mug of English breakfast tea and toasted muffins, I waited for Christian to come out I could hear him having a shower. He usually doesn't sleep long after I have gotten up, he has like a sixth sense for my presence. I started looking up the first word in my transliteration.
Ug dead, lion, anger or fury
téšbigu to consume
níĝ-kal-la precious
Alad a life force
níĝ-ki-sè offerings
zur tap, pour, receive, offer
á-sikil-la pure strength
Ulul binding, leash, harness
e-ne he, him
ki-ùr territory
lugal-šà-lá-sù merciful king
Interesting, it will all come together when I add in Christian's notes. I felt him come up behind me and look over my shoulder.
"I believe we have something to work with now. Here are my transliterations, thank you for breakfast", he turned my head so he could kiss me and it was the kind of kiss that made me want to drag him back to bed and tie him up so I could have my way with him. But, alas that is not on the cards for this morning.
I looked over his notes and picked up my pencil and entered them into to the computer.
Iú man
En lord
Anki the universe
Nú to lie down
Ulul binding, leash, harness
Šag prep. In; at
Dub tablet
e-ne he him
Alad life force
Èd rise up from
Ten to fifteen minutes later and I had finished writing out what he had translated and this a puzzle we were about to solve. I felt giddy at the anticipation of it.
"Oh, honey I am so excited about this, are you ready?" I literally threw myself at him, I was just so excited and then I happened to notice that I accidently called him honey again. It wasn't something that I consciously chose to do, normally I hate pet names, but I found I rather liked when he called me sweetheart.
"I…I didn't mean to call you that it just sort of slipped out"
"It's ok, I don't mind. Now let's look over these interpretations. I think we can definitely chalk Ug, up to being dead or deceased and not the others as it makes sense with my last one 'rise up from'".
"How about I start writing it out in order, rather than looking back and forth up the page. The we can discuss the words that need clarification and add in any conjunctions that didn't exist then", I ripped out a page from my notebook and quickly jotted down what we knew where correct.
Nebuchadnezzar II a man, lord of the universe
"ok well nu and ulul, need adjusting. 'To lie down', what about lies here?", I asked Christian for his input, lies did make the most sense.
"I agree sweetheart, however I think we need a different synonym for ulul, if sag is in and dub is definitely tablet, then maybe it could be imprisoned or contained?"
Nebuchadnezzar II a man, lord of the universe, lies here imprisoned within this tablet
I turned the paper around so Christian could see what I had written. He nodded his head thoughtfully, with a small smile twitching on his kissable lips.
"E-ne we will adjust to his, then life force will rise up from the dead… to consume the precious life force offerings. What about zur as giving rather than receive?", I was writing furiously as he was talking. I looked up at his question.
"Ahh…yes I think receiving could work as well. Receiving pure strength…binding him to his territory, merciful King".
Nebuchadnezzar II a man, lord of the universe, lies here imprisoned within this tablet. His life force will rise up from the dead to consume the precious life force offerings, receiving pure strength binding him to his territory. O' merciful king
"O' merciful?"
"What? I like the o' bit, it makes it sound like a tragic Shakespearean play", he shook his head and laughed.
"In summary pretty much the soul or essence of this man is sucking out everybody else's so he can get enough energy to perform a prison break?", I noticed Christian go stock still at my summary. I wasn't sure if he had thought of something or if he was uncomfortable with all the talk about soul sucking.
"I… think we have to go Mongolia"
"Mongolia, why on earth would we have to go all the way there?"
"I thought of something yesterday, but it wasn't exactly clear and now it seems to be shaking loose from the confines of my memory. It's a past memory of Voldemort's when he went to Mongolia and came across the spell that is the reason I am here right now. I…vaguely remember something called a Mohiyat Turzoq, it's a soul trap ritual. Now I don't know how much it could help with this, but it seems that it may shed a little light on how he ended up in that tablet", I slumped back in my chair thinking about what he said. It was really our only option. This ritual was so old that we would never be able to find any existing written documents on it, this other ritual may not be as old, however as an adapted version we could understand how the spell worked somewhat.
"Ok, we have no other option. It's a clue, a lead to understand how this infernal tablet works. We will propose this to Kingsley tomorrow. For the rest of today, we will finish typing everything up and write a proposal at the end of it about this Mongolia lead. I will also do some house work and laundry if we are going to be going away for a few days"
"Sounds like a plan boss"
"What was the name of the ritual again?"
"Mohiyat Turzoq"