Episode Seventy-Four

"Mystery of the World Beyond"

Naomi slides out of the fireplace and tumbles across the stony floor. She coughs and hacks as she tries to get the remaining floo powder and the added soot out of her lungs.

"Ally?" She pushes up to her feet and looks around the room. It is remarkably dark as she seems to be in a room without actual windows. But which room it might be and where it actually is located remain a mystery to her. More importantly, Naomi seems to be alone.

"Ally, where are you?" Naomi does a steady examination of the room around her and it becomes quite clear that Ally is nowhere inside it. In fact not much of anything seems to be inside the room. Naomi sighs to herself and moves quickly over to what appears to be the door.

Which of course leads her to her next issue of importance: reaching the door knob. Naomi sighs and puts her hands on her hips as she looks up at the out of reach brass object. But then she wonders; this is the Harry Potter Universe after all, why not?

"Excuse me," She says, addressing the door. "But I am not tall enough to reach the door knob and have urgent business regarding Dumbledore, so do you think that maybe you could just open?" She looks up hopefully. Nothing happens. She sighs and leans against the door. It had been worth a try.

She tumbles over as the door creaks open. She looks up in surprise. "Thank you!" She cries out and scurries back onto her feet and out through the crack.

"Oh my." Naomi looks up and down the torch lit corridor in awe. She can hear the laughter of children approaching. Naomi is in awe. Ally got them to Hogwarts. Now where is Ally?

Meanwhile, in the Temple of Ma'at and Thoth

Ashlee looks at the Man with shock written across her features. "You've been here for 5 years?" She repeats. "How did you survive?"

"Well, off and on," The Asian man clarifies. "A few other archaeologists and I take turns guarding. Until we can get another grant."

"Doesn't your family worry about you?" Reese asks. He moves towards the Man, who lowers his gun down.

"I send them letters every chance I get," The Man replies. He frowns. "But I have no way of knowing if they're actually receiving them."

Reese exchanges looks with his friends. "What makes you think they wouldn't?"

"Bad people want what's inside this temple," The Man says as an explanation.

"The Archive," Taylor realizes. The Man looks over at him in surprise. "Have you seen it?"

The Man looks around at the walls. "The walls are filled with writing," He says. "But it only mentions that it is here, not where or how to find it."

"I wouldn't worry about that too much longer," Taylor tells him with a grin.

The Man continues to look at him in a state of bewildered confusion. "Why is that?"

Taylor turns back towards the doorway. "Call it a hunch."

The door begins to open again. "They're here," Reese says with a grin.

"Put the gun down," Ashlee pushes the Man's arms down. He looks at her with concern.

He is quite stunned when a tall blonde girl ducks her way into the temple, followed soon after by a dark haired girl. And it seems to him that still others come after.

"Any troubles?" Taylor asks Jilan as she walks towards him.

"Mason on a sand bar," Jilan says and doesn't say. Taylor and Reese exchange looks.

"Alia on a Dune," Ashlee counters. Jilan looks suitably disturbed.

Neah looks to Taylor, but he cuts off her questions before she can ask. "Did you find him?"

His answer walks in the door at that moment. "Has it really been so long?" Thoth wipes sand from the walls and looks at the layers on his fingers. Ma'at looks around at the darkness.

But it is the quiet stunned voice of Pizoku that garners the attention of the Man more than anything else that has been said. "Dad?"

To Be Continued...