Hello, readers! I just wanted to apologize for the long wait between Chapters 15 and 16. I was on set of a feature film, and full time in my salon, and was just promoted to a managerial position so my time and brain power has been extremely limited. That said, I appreciate those of you who have waited to hear where the story is going, and I hope you've been on pins-and-needles just dying to see what happens next! Haha, so please, I hope you enjoy, and I plan on trying to do at least one chapter a week from here on out, as things are heating up, and I would hate to disappoint you guys. :)

A rolling sun started its ascent into the Egyptian sky as it had done for millions of years, dappling the overhead clouds with pinks and yellow-orange swirls, before climbing slowly higher until the warmth began to change to an ever clear and bright blue. Above the geometrical skyline of the pyramids of Giza, the famed Sphinx, the amount of rich color and density within the perception of the human eye could best be describe as a miracle—an astounding, unfortold miracle… one that they- apart from the first peoples to grace the earth- had always been able to take for granted… but one that Draco Malfoy, so very much aware of his life in the balance, and the life partially his own that was growing slightly to the left of him, was unable to ignore.

He let the wispy white curtain fall back between himself and his view of the miracles beyond, with more than a little regret. He felt a sigh fill him.

Today was most likely the first in a series of days that would lead to his death.

Hermione awoke feeling a sense of optimism. They'd arrived at the last concrete destination they could sensibly fly to, and magic would only get them so far from here, forward. They were going to need to rely now on something that Hermione had unintentionally spent her entire life building: character.

Draco himself, she realized, had also been building some as of late. No more was he the privileged wizard with no real knowledge other than that passed on by the biased elders of his family tree… he had perspective, now, and had at least once risen to a "foe" to defend her. He'd changed. She thought of last night… the sky's the limit.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and pulled her hair into her hand. She bent low and smoothed it best she could with her fingers until it was in a tight grip at the top of her head, and she spun it until it folded into a neat- or at least not catastrophic- bun. She wrapped an elastic from the hotel complimentary bin around it and stood- still naked- from the bed. She looked around the room. No Draco.

She pulled her bag out of the corner and enlarged it with her wand. She reached inside and found a pair of burgundy shorts with an oversized gray v-neck tee shirt. She pulled them on and slide her feet into a pair of hiking boots she'd had from years passed, and was glad she had remembered to bring. Today would have been sure to bring plenty of blisters to her tired feet had she forgotten them. She pointed her wand at her chest.

"Sans Soleil," she said, clearly. "No sunburn for me, thanks."

She pulled two large empty bottles from her bag and carried them into the hall toward the water fountain to fill them. As the water flooded into the empty plastic, she felt a slight spin. She leaned her shoulder against the wall. She blinked a few times to right her vision. Possibly a side effect of the potion Draco had given her, she thought… she hoped. The last thing she needed was a case of the dizzies. It passed, and she righted herself. She took a deep breath… and felt herself get slammed back against the wall.

Hermione…

She dropped the bottles. Water crashed down around her, wetting her shoes and running down the hallway floor. She could scarcely catch her breath.

"Who's there?!" She felt wind rushing around her face.

"Show yourself! I'm armed!"

She was in a muggle hotel, she tried to remind herself… she didn't want to reveal herself as a witch… but the force around her was powerful, and definitely of a magical nature.

Let me in…

"I'm warning you!" Her eyelids were tight over her eyes, teeth clamped shut. She was balling her hands into fists at her sides. And then without warning, it stopped. She looked around, half expecting some dark force to be standing right before her… but she was alone… and it was over.

Her hands shaking, she bent to retrieve the bottles. She filled them quickly, capped them, and rushed back to her room. She shut and locked the door behind her and started throwing her belongings into her backpack.

"In a rush?"

She jumped three feet in the air, wand out and pointed. Yellow sparks shot from the end and Draco dove out of the way.

"Merlin's beard—what the Hell's gotten into you?!"

He shook his hair down on of his eyes. He'd just washed his face, was clean shaven, and seemed to have been brushing his teeth in the other room. He looked Hermione over and she watched his brow harden.

"What's the matter?"

"There was… something… in the hallway."

"What kind of a—"

'"I don't know. It was all around me… in my head."

"Same as when the Mountain Kings spoke?"

"No, it was… I don't know."

She dropped onto the bed. She massaged her temples, gently. Draco moved past her, peered behind the curtain on the window, his body out of view to anyone who might be outside… he moved across the room, turned the lock on the door, and stepped into the hallway. Hermione shut her eyes, leaned back on the pillow. She took a deep breath through her nose, trying to slow her racing heart.

Legilimency, her thoughts kept telling her. That's what it had to have been. But who would be trying to enter her mind in the desert? If anyone was to go after them, wouldn't it be for Draco, who's blood already had scent on the air after his uncle had met the ancient ones, and not herself?

He entered again, locked the door. He moved toward her. His wand was in his hand.

"I didn't see anyone. Are you alright?"

She was counting seconds between her breaths. Her hand was over her navel, and the edges of her vision were fuzzy as the panic in her subsided. She would need to steel her emotions, she realized. If something was attempting to force its way into her head, occlumency was the only way she was going to be able to protect herself.

"I'm fine," she said. She sat up. She was subconsciously playing with the lip on her shirt, staring into space, deep in thought.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, at last. She faced him.

"About a million things, I guess."

"Thought so," he said. He smiled a little, looked away from her. She kept her gaze on him. "Anything stand out from the rest?"

She rose from the bed, and dropped the filled water bottles into her pack. She slung it over her shoulder.

"If we are to reach the caves before sunset, we need to get moving."

Draco's own head was buzzing as he followed the petite but powerful witch companion of his into the desert. Why would something go after Hermione?

His memory was reaching far back to his school years when he had taunted her of her non-magical roots. Every bone in his body was guessing it was because of that—that she was weaker, somehow, than him. He hated that it was still his first assumption. She would hate him too, he thought… but not for that reason, alone.

He'd barely slept the night before. He was leading a childhood enemy that was now some form of gray area in-between a lover and a bloody co-worker, into what was sure to be a dangerous situation, and he knew that she was carrying a child- not yet formed, and probably no bigger than a grain of sand… but it was in there. He was sure of it.

They'd walked a few miles into the desert. It was past noon. He was reasonably sure what he was looking for once they'd come to the footpaths of Giza: An ancient door… his uncle had spoken of it. He was glancing around now for it, though he was equally certain that it would not be out in the open for anyone to happen upon… and he was not quite willing to use magical means to find it. It would alert The Ancient Ones of his and Hermione's presence unnecessarily early.

"Do you see anything familiar?" she asked him. She sounded tired, but alert in her mind. A part of him yearned for her in that moment in a new way- a feeling of pride perhaps… ownership. He shook it off; swallowed.

"Not exactly," he said. She sighed. She reached into her pack and pulled an apple out. She sank her teeth into it and kept moving. He felt a pang of guilt.

You take a bloody pregnant woman into the desert and don't even stop to feed her? You are going straight to Hell.

He increased his pace a bit, walking past her. His eyes scanned the area. Clay walls of pyramids, walls, and trails everywhere… but of a door? He saw nothing.

His feet seemed to catch the wind and he was going faster and faster still.

"Wait up!" he heard Hermione say… but he found he couldn't stop. "Hey!" he heard her call from the distance, but he was running, full sprint now, in a different direction, entirely. "Draco, quit being an arse!" He heard her footsteps' pace increasing behind him, he was unstoppable. She'd never catch him. He was breathing hard, the heavy sun on his face and back. Beads of sweat dribbled down over him. His throat was dry, but his legs wouldn't give.

Without warning, his body suddenly gave. He stopped, as if both feet had been glued on a spot, and his upper body fell sideways. He lay in the sand panting like a dog, listening as Hermione came closer toward him. She too was struggling to catch her breath.

She reached him, hands on her knees, and heaved a few breaths.

"I'd ask you if you were alright, but falling sort of serves you right, you bloody idiot! The desert, Draco? Seriously?"

"I… didn't mean to," he managed to sputter. Her brow furrowed. She unscrewed her water bottle cap, took a swig, and poured it over his face. He sputtered and turned away, but was glad for it. "…can't move."

She moved cautiously toward him, her footprints graceful and calculating. She connected with ground, and she gasped. She shivered.

"It's here," she said. He watched as her breath stood before her... a chill. He felt it now, surprised that he hadn't before. It was if someone had turned an arctic blast upon this few square feet of space. He found his strength and stood, every muscle feeling magnetized to the surface of the sand. Hermione bent, removing a long brush from her bag, and began sweeping at the surface of the ground. Draco bent low, scooping sand to help her. Together, they worked until engravings began to meet Hermione's brush strokes. They stood. Draco peered over the head of the pyramids. The sun was beginning to go down. He pulled a compass from her bag. It was spinning like a top. Their eyes met.

Hermione hastily cleared the surface of the door with her brush while Draco dug out around it, finding its edges as she worked. They managed to clear its surface entirely before the sun went down. As darkness began to surround them, the lights designed for tourists to pad around the pyramids in clicked on, buzzing in the air. Draco looked toward them, and noticed that three similar lights had been installed near where they stood… but they would register no more than a flicker of light at a time. Hermione followed his gaze.

"The magic around the door must be too strong," she said, swallowing. "Muggle electricity can't form a steady connection."

"Nor can we get a steady reading on the direction we're going," he told her, tossing her her own compass. She caught it.

"That's really something," she said. "Magic so old and undiluted that it refuses to coexist with modern technology…" He smirked. The way information coursed through her was almost sensual. He could almost watch as it entered her senses, found its way into her brain and shivered down her body, giving her life. He'd never met someone as in love with knowledge as Hermione Granger.

Excuse me while I vomit in my own mouth, you sap.

"Right," he said. He moved toward the door. "So… how do we… you know. Open it?"

Hermione was staring at the ornate surface of the ancient door… so old it was, she couldn't rightly identify what it was even carved from—if it had even been carved by human hands, which she strongly doubted. A door like this, the secrets it held, it was definitely devised of something stronger—carved by magical fingers out of some ancient magical stone. She could feel it tingling in her fingertips. She could feel it reaching up her legs. It was trying to pull her into itself. It felt, she realized, the magical energy within her—and Draco, too.

The picture on the surface was no more marred than the tombs of the muggle kings scientists had found ages ago, she thought. Grains missing here and there to reveal its age, perhaps, but otherwise, it was more beautiful and fully realized than she would have anticipated. She stood, backing away, and took in the pictures it revealed.

A lion was roaring in the lower right corner, she saw… a glorious sun was blazing, lines flaring out to touch all four corners. An eagle was flying in the upper left corner—she thought. Glyphs could be tricky—more likely that it was a crane, given the location. In the upper right, a God was peeling back the sky, she saw… a human God—unlikely in Egypt was well. Most of the Gods in this region, she recalled, were human-animal hybrids. But then, she thought, perhaps this door outdated even the ancient muggle beliefs. The thought sent a shiver of anticipation over her body. The lower left corner, she walked toward and bent low over. The shapes were a bit obscure. It looked as though more humans sat, hand in hand, cross-legged, on the land. The sun, she realized, looking back to the center of the door, was large—large enough for two to sit inside of… and not completely round, which was also different than most Egyptian artwork, she remembered. Their suns were generally round, but this work was spiky, uneven, and unpredictable in shape. She reached for Draco's hand.

"I have an idea."

She pulled him to the center. His hand in hers, she sat, cross-legged, and looked down. She was within the walls of the shape.

"What are we doing?"

"Sit with me."

He mirrored her, sitting down, and she placed her open hands on her knees, palms up. He placed his hands in hers.

Lions, she thought… the image of pride. For Egypt, they would mean swift justice—a symbol of the circle of life within the animal kingdom- perhaps even just in life, period. Strength. Pride. She was familiar with the idea of the lion… she was a Gryffindor, afterall. But Eagles, well they represented pride as well… or was it a crane? The crane, she thought would have to represent grace, cunning, fragility… and the God? All knowing power, perhaps… letting go of control over your own life, maybe… and then, gasping, she had it.

"It's a riddle," she whispered. Draco's brow furrowed.

"There are no words," he said to her uncertainly, but even as he spoke, the wind picked up around them.

What has the pride of a lion… the grace of the crane… and the all-knowing power, and justice, of the Gods— she thought of the people in the circle…. which can be summoned by magic?

It was as if a light, tinkling laughter and a roaring growl mixed together on the wind, and it swirled around them carrying sand and debris- but not disrupting their work in the slightest.

"Close your eyes," she said to him, closing her own, and she squeezed his hands.

What are we? echoed over the two of them. She felt Draco jump.

The roaring, laughing, and wind grew ever louder. They were in the eye of a full-blown sand storm. She swallowed, hard, and focused all her will on her thoughts. Her eyelids were shaking with the force of her efforts. She prayed she was right.

The laughter erupted into a graceful, long, beautiful howl. Like bells on the wind, so deep, so light, it was a musical score of integrity, and her hands clasped Draco's tightly as a weightless feeling caught her in her chest.

Suddenly, the wind fell away. The darkness ebbed, and a moist, cool feeling kissed his cheeks. He heard dripping in the shadows. Hermione's and his eyes opened. They had been taken inside the door without it ever opening. He felt her fingers leaving his as she rose to stand and he moved to follow her.

He looked around the moist walls of a glimmering cave, blues, purples, and mauves were all around them. It was a structure of the ancient magical world, all entirely formed of a stone that had been lost to their modern knowledge. Hermione touched it, and he watched as the intention shimmered out of its walls and into her hands. It was strengthening… energizing. A yellow sparkle remained on the walls for just a moment in the shape of her fingertips before it faded away.

"We're inside?" he asked. She was already walking toward a hollowed entrance. He watched as she took in the designs carved into its borders. Scales… the hanging man… death… love… she took in all the ancient archetypes of the world, plus a few more that he imagined only those that dwelled inside these caves could define.

"I don't understand," he called to her. "What are they?"

She turned to face him, her features stilled into a determined picture of anxiety and defiance. He walked to meet her. He stood beside her in the archway and took in the magnificent sight of what appeared to be an ancient castle carved in the same sort of stone they were all around. Not a castle, perhaps, he thought… but… a church? He eyed her.

"I suggest you steel yourself," she said. He heard no trace of a waver in her voice, but he knew she must be nervous.

"What's in there?" he asked.

"The Ancient Ones," she said to him, "are not here to point the way, alone," she said. "They're here to judge us… to see that we are fit to learn their carefully guarded knowledge... and if we're not… I seriously doubt that we'll be leaving."

The tinkling laughter filled the room again. Draco felt his stomach knot.

"What are they?" he heard himself repeat.

"They are… the first, true Sphinx."

Harry Potter's hands shook as he fumbled with the key to his locked box. He swallowed, shoving them both back under his bed. The fire crackled in the hearth. Beads of sweat were beginning to form on his brow. The door entered and he kicked the box as far underneath as he could, as his glowing wife became framed in the doorway.

"There you are," she said, smiling. He smiled back at her. "How's your headache?" she asked. He shrugged.

"Been better," he said, his voice husky. She walked toward him and kissed him on the forehead.

"Want some soup?" she asked. He shook his head.

"No, I think I'll lie down a few minutes longer before I get back to work," he said. She nodded, giving the back of his neck a squeeze.

"Kiss your daughter before you go," she said to him. "She's been asking about you all night. Helped me brew your Pain-Away Potion. Ginny was smirking. Harry meant to laugh for her, to please her, to ease her worry, but no sound came out. Her brow furrowed at him and he burned with guilt.

"Well, you know where to find me," she said to him, kissing his cheek and rising away from him. "Get some rest. This family needs you in one piece."

"I know," he said. She smiled at him and slowly shut the door. Harry sighed, looking down between his feet. He glanced at the door and heard the lock turn as he willed it to. He approached the fireplace against the west wall and walked toward it.

"Still there?" he asked.

"Yeah," Neville answered, the outlines of his face coming into view in the flames, worry written all over it. "Not going to tell her?" he asked. Harry shook his head, taking his glasses off and crinkling his brow.

"There's no sense in worrying her until I know what's going on… especially if I can stop it. You swear to me that you didn't?" Harry asked. Neville nodded.

"I checked Lorenzo's office out… the rumor's true. They were definitely here longer than they pretended. And no one knows where she's gone. McGonagall's cousin was supposed to have tabs on her—on the both of them—during this project. She's lost all magical trace of them, as of tonight. "

"I couldn't reach her," Harry said. "I almost did this morning... she blocked me out. And then just now... I couldn't even touch her. She's never been that strong, before. It was like she didn't even know it was me; like she didn't know my voice."

"I don't like this," Neville answered. Harry met his gaze, then looked away. "You're sure?" he repeated for the millionth time.

"I'm telling you," Harry said, impatiently, "I must have mixed hundreds of those potions for Ginny, myself. There's nothing else that color, that potency, or that size. That's the only thing it's made for. I thought maybe, she- with you... Unless she's off her rocker, and I'm telling you, she didn't seem to know what it was—"

"Could be somebody else," Neville cut in. "It doesn't mean that Malfoy—"

"He stabbed you, Neville."

"Yeah, but, he's Malfoy. I got him in the jewels. It's not like we've never fought before."

"My mind is made up," Harry answered, revealing a sealed envelope from his pocket. "I've got the time from work. They just confirmed by owl. I'm going after the two of them. I need you to do your best to keep an eye on Gin and Lilly. I've told Arthur I'm on a case, so he knows I won't be home. Just… be there for her if she needs you, Neville. I have to do this. I owe her this much."

Neville sighed. "You don't want me to go with you? Ron?"

"I tell Ron, Malfoy's dead before I can even find him… plus, he's still in the damn States. I'll track them better on my own," he said. "It's when I get my hands on him that I'm worried. Gonna take every ounce, you know?"

"I know," Neville said.

Harry nodded. "I'll talk to you soon, Neville," he said. Neville nodded again. Harry let the fire burn down. He walked away from it. He approached his dresser and opened the first drawer. He pushed aside his socks and beneath them, inside, a map was glowing golden trails across the world. "Malfoy," he muttered, wand pointed against the map. All but one trail faded away. He knew it. They were flying. He scribbled down coordinates and grabbed his coat from the wall.

"You best hope she's unharmed when I find you, you bugger… or you'll never even live to see that cell in Azkaban."