Recap: Bill Weasley is given an assignment to get to a Golden Lotus that has magical powers to gain the allegiance of whomever it is presented to before a Dark Wizard does. However, he must do so with a teacher, a bureaucrat, an Auror, and a reporter on his tail.
A/N: I published the wrong chapter last time. I'd originally written it so that Bill was being chaperoned by Asima, Rita Skeeter, Quirrell AND a Ministry Bureaucrat named Edgecomb. However, Edgecomb's character didn't have any role other than sheer annoyance and I figured we'd have Rita for that and I couldn't kill him off as he's mentioned in Book 5, so I wrote him out. But I published the original Chapter 2 with him in it by mistake. I replaced it, but if you read the original, now you know why Edgecomb isn't even mentioned.
Disclaimer: I don't own s***.
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At 5:58 the next morning, Bill had finished his breakfast and was dressed. He wondered vaguely how many, if any, of the three people working with him would actually be there at six o'clock. Upon opening the door, he got his answer; one.
"Hey Querulous," said Bill, pulling his jacket tighter.
"Quirinius," corrected the wizard.
"Q," corrected Bill. He checked his watch. One minute. "I suppose I should wait for exactly six o'clock before we leave. Just in case they do turn up."
Quirinius said nothing. Wishing to avoid silence, Bill said, "So while we wait, what's your story?"
Quirinius spoke with clarity and dignity. He reminded Bill of his brother, Percy. "I graduated top of my class at Hogwarts. Slytherin house."
"I'm gonna hold that against you," said Bill, checking his watch again. Forty seven seconds.
"Just because I was in Slytherin house does not make me a Dark Wizard," Quirinius defended, somewhat angrily.
"No, it's just my brother played Quidditch for Gryffindor," said Bill. "I know not to be prejudiced about that. There are plenty of dark wizards who weren't in Slytherin and plenty of good wizards who were. Family friend, Andromeda Tonks. She was in Slytherin, but she's perfectly normal, compared to the rest of her family. But her murderer cousin, Sirius Black, was a Gryffindor."
He checked his watch again. Twenty two seconds.
"Almost time," he said.
Quirinius just stood waiting.
"Five... four... three... two... one. Six o'clock." He looked up, expectantly. None of the others were there.
"Well, time to go," said Bill. He held out his arm. Quirinius took it, tentatively, and they disapparated.
They appeared miles away, at the base of a stone building. The early Egyptian sun was bearing down on them, and the heat reflected off the sand and made them still hotter. A few early morning winds were blowing and Quirinius wished he were back underground. "Where are we?" asked Quirinius, letting go of Bill's arm.
"About twenty miles away from Dahshur," said Bill. He indicated the stone structure next to them. "This is Zazamankh's tomb. The lotus itself might be in here, but in this line of work, you'll discover it's never that easy. We may just find out the location of the lotus or we may just find a hint as to where the location of the lotus is."
Quirinius seemed excited. "What do you want me to do?"
"We're looking for a way in," said Bill, running his hands along the walls. "Egyptian wizards always hid the entrances to their tombs. Pretty tame compared to what we may find inside it."
They both started searching around the tomb, but Quirinius still had questions. "Why didn't the others arrive on time?"
"Because they wanted to show me that they can't be bossed around," said Bill. "I left when I said I would leave because I need them to know that I'm not joking around with this. They have to do what I tell them to do, or they miss out. Speaking of which," now Bill paused his search for the entrance. "Why did you show up on time?"
Quirinius looked stunned. "You said you were leaving at six. I didn't want to miss anything."
Bill nodded, impressed. "That was pretty gullible of you, Q, but good answer." He returned to scouring the wall of the tomb, hoping to come across the door.
"But shouldn't the others be here as well?" asked Quirinius.
"They will be," said Bill. "You forget, Skeeter's a reporter. I wouldn't be able to hide from her if I had an invisibility cloak. She'll find us."
"And the Medjay?" asked Quirinius.
"I heard her skulking around in my flat last night," Bill said. Quirinius looked up in shock, more so in the calm manner in which Bill said it than the fact itself. "She saw my research. She knows where the tomb is. Probably beat us to it."
Then, just in front of Bill, Asima lifted a disillusionment charm. "Morning," said Bill pleasantly, moving around her to inspect the next portion of the wall.
Quirinius was moving his mouth incoherently, watching Bill take being followed by this woman so... apathetically.
"How did you hear me?" Asima demanded, following Bill along the wall.
"You skipped dinner," Bill said. "I heard your stomach growl."
Quirinius would've laughed, but a sharp look from the woman quickly silenced him.
True to Bill's prediction, Skeeter appeared a few moments later, and Bill got into an argument with her (I told you I was leaving at six! Not my fault you weren't there!).
All in all, tensions were high as Bill cast several spells that he hoped may reveal the entrance. Finally, Bill discovered it on the Eastern wall.
"Lovely," said Skeeter, her annoyance with Bill vanishing as she tried to get back in his good books (as if she was ever in them). "Oh, by the way, I sent my first column to London by owl last night. It'll be in tomorrow's paper."
"I'll try to contain my joy," said Bill, as he cast his wandlight along the walls. The entrance looked fairly unremarkable. There were no signs of any obvious threat, only tables adorned with artifacts presumably belonging to Zazamankh. There were Egyptian hieroglyphs adorning the walls, but Bill ignored these. Bill cast a spell (Specialis Revelio) but found nothing. Not trusting the tomb at all, Bill said, "Stay behind me."
One by one, they entered the room, Bill in the lead, Skeeter closely behind him, Quirinius after her, looking about the place with fascination, and Asima bringing up the rear, her wand at her side. Unnoticed by the others, she sat a spiral shaped object on the stone table.
Bill proceeded down a hallway and was halfway through before he found his first curse. What looked like stalactites were hanging from the ceiling, but they looked odd; pale and bubbly in places. Bill cast another Specialis Revelio and said, "Stay back. These things are really cursed." Bill was unsure what to do. He tried Finite Incantatem and Scourgify, but neither worked on these strang wax-like things hanging from the ceiling.
"May I?" asked Quirinius, stepping forward.
"Careful, Q," warned Bill. "I'm not even sure what they do." He stepped back, allowing Quirinius more room.
Quirinius stepped up to the pale stalactites and whispered a few inaudible incantations. After a few moments, the stalactites imploded in on themselves and left the ceiling looking distinctly waxy and pale but otherwise free of stalactites. "Come through quickly," Quirinius said. "I only got rid of them for a moment."
The others hurried through, and Bill was impressed. "Way to go, Q," he said, once they were free. He made his way ahead of the others. "You know what they did?"
"They would've petrified us," said Quirinius. "Turned us to alabaster."
"Nice one," said Bill, taking the lead again. "You'd make a fair cursebreaker."
Quirinius grinned. "Nah, I was rubbish at Ancient Runes."
Past the petrifying stalactites, they came to a stone archway. Casting a quick Specialis Revelio to make sure it wasn't booby trapped and after learning it wasn't, Bill stepped through.
"What do you see?" asked Asima.
"Cats," said Bill.
Cats just about summed up the room's contents. Lining the room, standing in rows upon rows and columns upon columns were hundreds of clay cats. It reminded Bill of pictures he'd seen of Chinese tombs. The other four were looking at the figures with odd interest.
"Be careful," said Bill. His words echoed curiously across the room. After they faded away, the room was silent, except for the annoying sounds of Skeeter's quill. She was standing near the wall, all the cats facing her, and writing down whatever came to her head. Bill wished more than anything that she'd stop. It was driving him insane. Quirinius was walking up and down the aisles of the cats, grossly intrigued. Asima was standing at the door, as if waiting for something. Bill turned his attention to the runes on the wall, digging a notepad and quill out as he did so.
Bill was always good with Ancient Runes. It was probably his best subject when he was in Hogwarts and the primary reason he elected to become a cursebreaker. The rune translation came naturally to him and he had long since lost the need to consult rune charts as he read the runes, but he did have to write down the translation for memory's sake.
There were three walls with a separate set of runes. On the first wall, the runes translated to "The Golden Lotus rests at the bottom of the river beyond the sphynx." Not much help, Bill thought. He moved on to the next wall.
"Thief! If you seek the Golden Lotus, be warned that many have sought it and many have died."
Good old fashioned warning. Cool. And the last one, "The cats hide the key to starting."
The cats hide the key to starting... Bill eyed the clay cats suspiciously. He drew his wand and performed another Specialis Revelio. Bill learned that if you touch the figures they came alive and attacked. Bill had previously guessed as much but it was still disconcerting to confirm especially now that he knew the cats "hid the key to starting." How did they, anyway? Performing another spell, Bill learned they were hollow. The key to starting was hidden inside the cats that came alive and attacked you if you touched them. Brilliant.
Suddenly, a high-pitched noise sounded from the entrance. "What the hell is that?" Bill demanded, aiming his wand there.
"My sneakoscope," Asima said, pointing her wand down the hall too. "That dark wizard I mentioned? He's here with several followers, I'm sure." Quirrell also drew his wand, but a look of sheer terror crossed his face. Only Rita remained wandless now, as she scribbled manically on her parchment.
"Ok," said Bill. "There's something hidden inside these clay cats," said Bill. "They're hollow. Break them apart one at a time, because they come alive."
He aimed his wand at the head of a cat near him and blew it (the head) completely off. Then, the eyes of every other cat glowed bright purple and each figure started to move.
Dammit.
"Blast them!" shouted, Bill, jinxing each cat as they jumped at him, their claws extended. Skeeter finally stopped taking notes on her pad, because several cats were now clawing at her legs as if attempting to climb up her robes. Asima quickly stepped forward to help the poor reported fight them off.
Quirinius was holding off well on his own, jinxing the cats to collapse into dust. The sound of the sneakoscope got louder.
After several minutes of fighting off manic cats, their numbers began to dwindle and finally, Quirinius bewitched the last one and it too collapsed into dust. Now, the whole floor was covered in a thick layer of dust. "Look around in it," Bill instructed. Asima and Quirinius both started brushing their hands through the dust. "What are we looking for?" asked Quirinius.
"Something that's a key to starting," said Bill. "A map or something."
Sure enough, Asima discovered a map in the form of an old dusty cloth. Shaking the dust off roughly, she handed it over to Bill.
Bill stuffed it into his bag and then the sound of the sneakoscope stopped.
"They've disabled it," said Asima, seriously. "They're inside."