Albus Dumbledore and the Everlasting Flame

Disclaimer: this is a work of fan fiction based on the worlds created by JK Rowling

"Untimely death is a specter that haunts us all"

Author's Note: this is the most action-packed chapter I think I have written in the entire Albus Dumbledore series thus far. I do hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed writing it!

Chapter 21 – Six Chambers

Night had fallen and the Egyptian desert had a cold, grey look to it. The four travelers were now far enough away from the pyramids that they were just shapes on a starry horizon behind them. A majestic panorama of stars, jeweled eyes peering through holes rent in the heavens lay overhead. The first of the travelers stopped in his tracks and the others nearly collided with him.

'If I just had the Orb of Duality!' cried Albus, scratching his head and shaking his Star Pointer. He had been trying to locate the Temple of Ast using the Star Pointer his mother had given him, but with no success. Both he and Thomas had attempted to disapparate to the Temple of Ast, but it seemed to be guarded by anti-disapparation spells. Fawkes would have flown them to the Temple of Ast, but the magical phoenix had conveyed that he too, did not know where the Temple was anymore. Archaeon had obviously protected the place with complex magic that was even beyond the powers of a phoenix.

'Do you even know the astrological location of the Temple?' Thomas said. 'How do you expect to find it with a Star Pointer if you do not know what you are looking for?'

'Well, I used what clues we could derive from your Guide,' Albus said tersely, 'but still the Star Pointer is confused.'

The four travelers peered down at Albus' magical device. It was a circular, flat piece of wood with bronze arrows that rotated of their own accord. It had silver pointers that Albus was able to point in different directions, using the constellations overhead to guide him. The idea was to get the bronze arrows to stop moving and point in one direction; the direction in which one ought to go. But they would not stop spinning.

'I wish I had learned how properly to use this device!' cried Albus. He was almost despairing. They had been walking for twelve hours in a general southerly direction, but it was impossible to know whether that was the right way.

'I could try something,' Victoria volunteered. She had said nothing all evening. 'When I was in East Africa with my parents, I learned of a voodoo magic used in the finding of things.'

'The finding of things?' said Albus, 'not places? Do you think it will work in the finding of the Temple?'

'We could attempt it,' Victoria said.

'Then we shall attempt voodoo,' Thomas declared, 'seeing as all other options seem lost to us.'

Victoria smiled; her teeth lucid in the starlight. She took charge of the three boys, ordering that they sit in a circle around a blue fire that she conjured. Then, removing the contents of her small bag of African magical ornaments, she proceeded to arrange them in a certain fashion. Albus watched closely, curious but all the same skeptical about the voodoo magic. There was something primitive about the use of chicken bones, eagle feathers and ancient human teeth in incantations. A wand was far more civilized, Albus thought.

'Take one another's hands,' said Victoria. Albus felt her soft left hand take his right. He in turn held Thomas' right hand with his left, whilst Mars took Thomas' and Victoria's hands either side of him. Victoria said, 'now, close your eyes, and join in my chant. As you do, focus your thoughts on the place we wish to find. Try to see the Temple of Ast in your mind's eye.'

The four closed their eyes, and Victoria began to chant. It was a guttural, low chant. Were it written it would have looked something like, 'Heya-oohm-hragroohm-yeda-ma-leba-ma-oohm-aba-leba-ma'. Albus had to stifle a laugh, and in response Victoria clenched his hand with hers. Feeling apologetic, he joined in the repetitive chant, his eyes closed.

Strangely, Albus' mind went blank of all other thoughts. All that filled his mind was the chant turning over on his tongue, and a sheer blackness across the inside of his head. He was searching in the darkness, wading in a mire of ebony in search of a place. Where was the Temple of Ast? To Albus' surprise, he realized that Victoria, Mars and Thomas were also there in the darkness, searching. They were all in his mind! Or was he in their minds? He could hear a faint murmur escaping each of their lips … Temple of Ast. The murmur became more insistent, replacing the guttural chant. Now all four were chanting 'Temple of Ast, Temple of Ast, Temple of Ast.'

In a moment of intense enlightenment, all four caught sight of a magnificent Temple shimmering in the moonlight. It was built from yellow stone, as so much of Egyptian architecture was, a grand structure composed of pillars supporting platforms supporting pillars supporting roofs. Vines and palm trees grew in enclaves, and water could be heard splashing over an artificial 'fall. Statues of dog-headed men and eagle-headed women seemed to guard the platforms. Overhead, a stream of milky-white stars ran the breadth of the vaulted purple sky.

'Open your eyes,' said Victoria. They all did, and to their utter surprise they were, in fact, standing before the Temple of Ast. Mars and Albus recognized the place at once, having spent the previous summer on one of Archaeon's digs. The water and plants from the vision were gone, and large portions of the Temple were collapsed. In real life it was not nearly as impressive as in their voodoo vision, but that was irrelevant. They had arrived at the Temple of the great Egyptian Goddess Isis!

'Congratulations, Moody,' Thomas said, winning a smile in response from Victoria.

'That was impressive,' Albus admitted, not letting go of Victoria's hand. 'I must say I think more highly of voodoo magic now than I did before.'

'Egyptians weren't the only wizards of old,' Victoria said slyly.

'I know that,' Albus said. Deep down, however, he maintained that they were the best.

'I do not wish to stand about in full sight of our enemies,' Thomas said. 'The quicker we negotiate these seven chambers and take the Everlasting Flame back to Hogwarts, the happier I will be.'

'And we the same,' Albus said. 'I have an idea that may speed the process up somewhat. Mars, do you remember that night in the holidays when I apparated us both into the innermost chamber, the one where the bracket of the Everlasting Flame was empty?'

'Yes, I do,' Mars said. 'Are you suggesting we apparate there and bypass the first six chambers?'

'It is worth an attempt,' Albus said. 'Victoria, take my arm. Thomas, you take Mars' arm and follow me.'

Albus closed his eyes and focused his intentions on arriving in the innermost chamber. But nothing happened; no swirl of light and motion of bodies. His feet were still grounded on the desert sands.

'Why aren't we moving?' Albus wondered out loud.

'I suspect it is the same reason why we were unable to apparate to the Temple,' Thomas said. 'The same reason why Fawkes could not take us here: this place is too well protected by magic. We have no choice but to negotiate the obstacles outside each of the seven chambers.'

Reluctantly Albus followed in Thomas' wake as the sixth year started taking strides up the Temple steps. Victoria and Mars followed apprehensively. Both doubted the sense of accompanying Albus on such a perilous adventure. A Triwizard Task was far beyond the trifles of a Pirate prank.

At the top of the steps they came face to face with a magnificent creature. It had the body of a lion, tawny coated and handsome even in the pale starlight, every muscle of its feline form rippling in the still desert air. Where a lion normally wore its mane, this creature sprouted silvery feathers and the head of an eagle. Most impressive were its wings, emerging from behind its forelegs and sweeping backwards and upwards.

'Oh,' said Victoria softly.

'A Gryffin!' cried Thomas, awed. The four Gryffindors were staring at the creature from whence Godric Gryffindor had taken his name a thousand years before.

The majestic creature gave a shrill, piercing cry and beat its wings so that the four students had to step backwards. Albus noticed that it was guarding the entrance to the Temple of Ast, and presumably, the first of the seven chambers. Thomas tried to approach the great beast, but each time it bounded forward, claws out and beak snapping at him. There was no way past, and Thomas dared not cast a spell at the powerfully magic creature. Albus swallowed hard and stepped forward, his mind fixed on an idea.

'Oh, great Gryffin,' he said, bowing so low that his nose nearly scraped the ground, 'I come from afar and bearing tidings from the most ancient of riders; he who was Bucephalus, rider with men and warriors. He who has outlived empires and will outlive us all is mighty indeed, but you are greater yet. We humbly beseech you to let us pass, in the name of the horse man who bears no name.'

The Gryffin tilted its proud head, contemplating Albus' words. It gave a few shrill chirps before, to Albus' complete surprise, stepping lightly to the side and letting them pass.

The others said nothing until they were safely inside the first chamber, when they congratulated Albus not only on his bravery, but also his brilliance. Albus, however, was too captivated by the contents of the first chamber to notice what they were saying. The vast hall, lit by flames in brackets on the walls, was filled with unimaginable treasures. It was as though the contents of Tutankhamen's Tomb had been multiplied three-fold and brought into this one place. The piles of gold and jewels were so high that they touched the ceiling in places.

Mars made a move as though he wanted to pick up one of the jewels, but Thomas hurried forward and stopped him before his hand could touch anything.

'Do not touch anything,' Thomas said, pulling Mars back. 'In Charms Professor Rolleston has been teaching us how to tell if something is enchanted. I can sense that the treasures here are enchanted such that anyone who touches them will fall into a timeless sleep. It is a trap to keep us from moving on to the second chamber.'

'So this is the second obstacle?' said Albus, 'enchanted treasure? Then let us move on to the second chamber quickly, before the temptation gets too much.'

The four hurried between the piles of gold and jewellery. Albus was correct about temptation. The treasures also seemed to be enchanted with a gravitational pull. Albus thrice felt his hand reach out to grab something, and he had to shake his head vigorously to remind himself that he was not to touch anything. Even Thomas seemed to be struggling to control his willpower. But before any of them could succumb, they had made it through a second door into the second chamber.

This was a smaller room, dimly lit, with a single object on a small dais in the very middle, lit by a stream of pale starlight coming from a small hole in the ceiling. Thomas was the first to approach, his wand out as a precaution. The object turned out to be a chalice filled with red fluid.

'I think it is poison,' Thomas said, 'but the sphinx said that every chamber would contain something to help us, so we had better take it with us.'

Thomas picked up the chalice, doing his best not to spill any of the mysterious liquid within.

'In that case, what did we get from the first chamber?' Mars asked. 'There was nothing in there to help us with our quest, was there?'

'That is a good point,' Albus said, but he was distracted by the sight of the third obstacle, guarding the way into the third chamber. It was a horde of Inferi! The ancient mummies, their white garb falling off their skeletal bodies, carried spears and shields, and started making threatening noises and steps towards them. With the chalice in his hands, Thomas was unable to use his wand, and Albus could not think of any way of jinxing things that were already dead.

'I know how we can use the first chamber!' Mars cried. 'We must lead the Inferi into the first chamber and hope that they touch the treasures.'

'It's a thought worth trying,' Thomas yelled. The Inferi were virtually upon them. The four Gryffindors turned and ran for the first chamber. Immediately their senses were overwhelmed with desire for the treasures, but they were also driven by fear of the pursuing Inferi. Fortunately, dead or not, the Inferi were also vulnerable to the charm of the treasures. They dropped their spears and shields to the floor with a clatter and reached out for the jewels. At the instant that an Inferi touched a treasure, they collapsed to the ground in a dead sleep.

'That was brilliant, Mars!' Albus cried. He saw that his friend's hand was an inch away from a bar of gold. 'Mars; leave it!' Albus grabbed Mars by the arm and pulled him back into the second chamber.

'That was a close call,' Thomas said, 'but well thought, McGonagal. We are now free to proceed into the third chamber, with this chalice of vile red potion. I do hope we are not required to drink it.'

Like the first chamber, the third was a vast and towering room. Massive statues of Isis lined the walls, a woman of immense beauty. Often the statues bore an infant in their arms, an infant with the distinctly painted black eye of Horus, her godly son. Albus glanced at Thomas, to whom he had given the Eye of Horus as a protective device. The locket had in turn been given to him by his father on his birthday. He wondered if it would come in handy again, having already saved Thomas' life from Jannes Grundelwald's Avada Kedavra.

A second chalice stood on a raised dais in the very centre of the room, just like the previous one. This chalice contained a potent blue liquid.

'I suppose we have no choice but to take it,' Thomas remarked uneasily. 'McGonagal, would you care to carry this one?'

Mars picked up the second chalice. Armed with the two mysterious potions, the Gryffindors marched on to the far end of the third chamber. There was no entrance to a fourth chamber, but no apparent obstacle either, until they were a few feet away from the wall. A ghostly apparition appeared before them. It was a child of no more than five years; a boy with black paint around his eye. It was the ghost of the child Horus.

'Oh intruders four,' the child said in a whispery voice, 'drinketh not of the chalice red but of the chalice blue, if thou wish to further passeth. But drinketh of the chalice red if life eternal thou wisheth to possess, for it is the blood of Isis, our Mother eternal.'

Albus, Mars, Victoria and Thomas all exchanged worried glances. They were concerned by the sheer simplicity of Horus' instructions. If they drank from the blue chalice they would be able to pass through, but not if they drank from the red chalice.

'What is the challenge in that?' Thomas wondered.

'I think I know,' Albus said slowly. 'Our enemies are in pursuit of the Everlasting Flame because they want to obtain the eternal life that it can give them. So the red chalice is offering them that eternal life now, to save them the trouble of going onward.'

'But do you honestly think the red chalice will give them eternal life?' asked Thomas.

'No,' said Albus. 'If it is Isis' blood, then it is thousands of years old. By now it will be a stale poison, and the drinker may well die. I say we listen to Horus and drink the blue potion.'

Thomas set the chalice with Isis' blood in on the floor, and they crowded around Mars with the other cup. They took turns sipping from the strange blue potion. Thomas went first, followed by Albus, Mars and finally Victoria. Each felt a strange feeling spreading across their skin, a sense that they were somehow translucent. Albus could actually see through his hand! He looked down and realized that he had become like a ghost, as had the other three!

'Are we dead?' cried Victoria, trying to clutch her ghostly form in desperation. The chalice fell from her grasp but landed upright on the floor, none of the remaining blue potion spilling.

'Thou art not dead,' said the child-like ghost of Horus. 'Through the wall into the chamber fourth thou now can passeth.'

Albus boldly took the lead and walked straight into the wall. To his delight he came out on the other side, the fourth chamber of the Temple of Ast. As soon as he and his friends had passed through, they returned to normal physical form. Albus checked his pockets and was glad to find that his wand and the sapphire ankh were still there. Apparently they too had been affected by the blue potion's spell.

The fourth chamber was like the second; small and dimly lit. It seemed as though the chambers were of alternating size. The odd numbered chambers were vast, whereas the even numbered chambers were small. In the centre of the fourth chamber was a sarcophagus. It lay on its back, and the lid was ever so slightly off centre.

'Do you think we should look inside?' said Thomas, but he need not have asked, because his confidence was growing the closer they got to the seventh chamber. He marched up to the sarcophagus and used a spell to draw the lid completely off the sarcophagus. Victoria had to gag, covering her mouth and turning away.

'Wicked,' Mars said, peering over the edge at the wrapped up corpse of a long dead person.

'What do you suppose we are supposed to gain from this?' Albus asked.

Thomas did not answer, but began circling the open sarcophagus, using his wand to cast charms on the mummy. Here Albus witnessed why the Triwizard Tournament was better suited to someone in their sixth or seventh year than someone in their second. For all of Albus' brilliance as a young wizard, the charms Thomas was performing were well beyond him. Thomas seemed to be trying to disengage the numerous spells that someone had enchanted the mummy with. Why, Albus could not be sure. But whatever Thomas was doing, he seemed to think it was important.

After several minutes, Thomas seemed satisfied with what he had done. He cast a spell to unbind the wrapping of the mummy. A stale yellow corpse was revealed, its skin drawn tight over its skeleton. There, in its eye socket, were two jewels. One was a ruby, the other was an emerald. Both were beautifully carved, and sparkled in the faint light provided by the starlight streaming from the ceiling.

'I sensed that this mummy was guarded by magical spells,' Thomas said, 'and I realized that these spells had been cast for a reason. By undoing the spells, I was able to find these two jewels. I think we will need them later.'

Albus smiled. Thomas truly would make a worthy winner of the Triwizard Tournament. The resentment he had felt much earlier in the year, when Thomas' name had been selected before his, had evaporated. And even though Professor Rolleston maintained that Albus would have been picked if the teacher had not jinxed the Goblet of Fire to ignore his entry, Albus was certain that Thomas made a better Champion than he would have. Albus knew then that he still had an enormous amount to learn before he could think of himself as a wizard of any repute.

The four Gryffindors cautiously approached the entrance to the fifth chamber. There, sitting patiently on the floor, its tail moving slowly from side to side; was a one-eyed cat. It was of the white variety, and its bad eye was white like Grindelwald's. The good eye was yellow, and regarded them with vague interest.

'I see four where only one may pass,' hissed the tiny cat.

'I am not going forth alone,' Thomas said to the second years. 'You have come this far with me; you deserve to see the inside of the seventh chamber. Besides, I suspect you will be of great use in there, Albus.' Thomas turned to the cat and presented the two jewels. 'Oh great cat, will you accept these offerings in payment for our passage?'

'No,' hissed the cat. 'I am not susceptible to bribery.'

'What of the great Bucephalus?' Thomas said. 'We come bearing tidings from the horse man who rode with warriors and saw empires rise and fall. We bow to you in his name, and ask your passage.'

'No,' the cat hissed once more. 'I care not for the horse man. In this country I am worshipped as a God, and as a God my decrees are final. I see four, and only one may pass.'

Thomas turned to the three second years, his face resigned to the fact that he would go on alone. But Albus had been turning the cat's words over in his head.

'It is a riddle, not an instruction!' said Albus. 'The cat sees four, where only one may pass! I have an idea; come close to me, and let me perform a concealment spell on the three of you. If three of us are hidden, then the cat will see only one, and only one will pass as far as the cat can see!'

Mars and Victoria wore blank faces, not understanding Albus' logic, but Thomas' blue eyes glittered at the prospect of Albus' idea working. Albus raised his wand.

'Amon-hen,' he said, concealing his three companions. Although they vanished from sight, he could sense their presence around him. He turned to the cat, who looked bored. 'Oh cat, may I pass?'

'I see one, where only one may pass,' said the cat. It nimbly leapt to the side. Albus walked through the entrance to the fifth chamber, conscious that Thomas, Mars and Victoria were coming with him.

Only once they were all four in the fifth chamber did Albus perform the Amon-nu, revealing them again.

'You are a genius,' Mars said effusively, 'quite mad, yet quite brilliant.'

They looked around the fifth chamber, a vast, vaulted room with hieroglyphics covering every wall. Thomas wasted no time in bringing out his Guide and revealing his portion of the Map. The vast chamber filled with the golden yellow light of his Map, peppered with hieroglyphics of its own.

'Albus; help me to read the Map and the walls,' Thomas said. 'I think the purpose of this fifth chamber is to give us some clue as to what awaits us, or how we are to find the Everlasting Flame in the seventh chamber.'

Albus did as he was told, walking around the room with his neck craning upwards. His grasp of hieroglyphics was not particularly advanced, but he was able to understand some parts of the seemingly endless array of text overhead. It was Thomas, however, who discovered the clue that he was looking for.

'Here it is,' he cried. 'Here it is!'

Thomas was leaping up and down in delight. Albus and the other two ran over to where he stood against a far wall. A part of the hieroglyphics on the wall and a part of his Map merged to create a single sentence. Albus could decipher part of it, but Thomas read it all out loud, his voice shaking with excitement.

'Inside the Eye the Flame Eternal Lies!' Thomas exclaimed. 'Albus, you concealed the Eye of Horus in my pocket! Please uncover it, and let us find the Everlasting Flame! I am going to win the Tournament!'

'No,' Albus said, shaking his head firmly. 'The Flame is in the seventh chamber, I saw it in my dream this morning. Perhaps this is another riddle, and perhaps the Eye of Horus will reveal it once we are in the seventh chamber. But first we must get to the seventh chamber.'

Thomas stared hard at the wall for several moments, biting on his lower lip to curb his excitement.

'You are most probably correct,' Thomas admitted. 'Come then, I am so close to eternal glory! We go on to the sixth chamber!'

Thomas pocketed his Guide and the Gryffindors marched to the end of the fifth chamber. Again there was no exit, only a wall covered in hieroglyphics. After several moments searching for a way out, Victoria was the one to jump to the obvious conclusion.

'The wall is the obstacle,' Victoria said. 'Thomas, use your magic and try to find a way through.'

Thomas tried casting a range of spells on the wall, but nothing seemed to take effect. Albus pounded his brain for an answer, and even tried reading the hieroglyphics in the hope that they would yield a clue.

'What about the jewels you took from the sarcophagus,' Mars said after a while of silent thought. 'Perhaps they slot into a key or something like that.'

'Genius, McGonagal!' cried Thomas. 'Help me to search for a place to put these jewels.'

The four Gryffindors pored over every part of the wall, looking for indentations that looked like they might be receptive to a stone. It was only when Victoria had the sense to look at her feet that she noticed them.

'Look, they're on the floor,' Victoria said, pointing to two jewel-shaped receptacles on the ground. Both were partially filled with dust and cobwebs. Thomas jinxed the holes clean and placed the two jewels inside. A great rumbling of stone on stone followed and a doorway opened before them.

'I do not know what I would do without you three,' Thomas remarked, hands on hips and grinning broadly.

'As I said before,' Victoria said modestly, 'four heads are better than one.'

Thomas, Albus, Mars and Victoria entered into the sixth and final chamber, in which was sure to be the seventh and final obstacle standing between them and the Chamber of the Everlasting Flame.

Like the second and the fourth chambers before it, the sixth was a small one. It had a low ceiling and torch brackets on every wall. It had an aura about it, like a place where much had happened before of a magical nature. Albus' searched the room for some sign of an object that would help them further their quest, but could only see a doorway at the far end of the chamber, gilded with gold.

And standing in front of the doorway, as tall as the ceiling itself, was an eagle-headed man with the distinct black Eye of Horus. It was Horus himself, the mighty Egyptian God.

'Approach him,' Albus said softly to Thomas. 'I think he is the seventh and final obstacle.'

'How am I to get past an Egyptian God?' Thomas asked, but did not dispute the fact that he had to approach Horus. He walked slowly across the chamber floor, the other three walking alongside him but a pace behind his stride. This was Thomas' Task to complete.

Albus kept his eyes fixed on Horus as they walked across the chamber. He wore the handsome white tunic of the ancient Egyptian, lined with golden decorations at the edges. He wore sandals on his feet, and golden bangles on his wrists. He looked like a Pharaoh, with the exception that his head was that of an eagle, and his eye had that distinctive black paint around it. One stripe of paint curled away from his eye, two sharp lines curved down his cheek, one ending in a spiraled ball, and his eyebrow was also painted. It looked precisely like the Eye of Horus locket currently in Thomas' possession.

The four Gryffindors were ten feet away from the Egyptian God and the golden entrance to the seventh chamber when they heardthe sound of feetbehind them.

Albus turned by instinct. The moment that followed lasted only a few seconds, but felt like hours to Albus. Over his shoulder he caught sight of Jannes Grundelwald, his brother Grindelwald, Phineas Nigellus and Admiral Scholtz. All four had come through the open entrance in the wall, their wands out. Albus barely had time to utter a sound when he heard all four raise their wands and cry, 'Avada Kedavra!'

Four streams of green light arced across the room towards them. In that slow, painful moment, Albus saw Jannes Grundelwald's curse slam straight into Victoria's chest. Victoria's unprotected form fell to the ground in the same moment that Phineas' curse hit Mars, Admiral Scholtz's curse hit Thomas and Grindelwald's curse came at Albus, only to slide away as if deflected by an invisible shield. Albus was the only one who did not drop to ground. Thomas and Mars looked up at the ceiling, apparently dead, but Albus knew that this was the effect of their protective devices. Yet he remained standing, and able to use his wand. What extra protection did he have?

There was no time for thinking, however. Almost as an instinctive reaction, Albus cried, 'Accio Eye of Horus!'

The concealed object flew from Thomas' pocket into Albus hand, even though he could not see it or feel it. He turned at once to the Egyptian God. Somehow, with the Eye of Horus in his hand, he believed he had the power to command the great eagle-headed man.

'Avada Kedavra!' cried an insistent Grindelwald from the far end of the room. Albus expected death to be upon him, but for the second time he felt as though a shield had flicked the spell away from him. Three times had Albus seen off an Avada Kedavra, and he had not actually survived any of them! Something was preventing the spell from hitting his body, something other than the sapphire ankh that was only able to protect him once!

Albus had no time to waste.

'O Horus, please, I beseech you, protect me from these people!' he cried.

The Egyptian God suddenly bounded forward at a surprising speed. Albus turned to see the God make straight for the four attackers. In a move that was unsurprising, Phineas Nigellus and Admiral Scholtz made a bolt for it, disappearing back through the exit. Jannes Grundelwald stepped forward to stand in front of his little brother. The scab-faced, white-eyed boy looked assured behind his brother's wide-shouldered stance, but Albus knew that Grundelwald could be no match for Horus.

'Avada Kedavra!' cried Grundelwald, but the spell had no effect. Horus was a God. The eagle-head opened its savage beak and attacked, biting down on Grundelwald's neck. Grindelwald's white eyes went wide and Albus knew what had happened. Blood gushed out from the God's bite, showering his feathered neck. Grundelwald's knees buckled and his face went white. Death was upon him.

Grindelwald paused long enough to give Albus a look of intense hatred, one that shook Albus to his very core, before fleeing through the open doorway in the wall before Horus could kill him as well.

Horus released Jannes Grundelwald's neck, and the dark wizard that had killed Victoria dropped to the floor, dead. Albus was at once relieved but in a fraction of an instant later his heart was on the floor again when reality hit home. He hurried to Victoria's side.

'Victoria!' he cried, grabbing her by the shoulders and trying to shake her awake, 'Victoria, no! Fawkes could not have meant you! The Orb must have been lying!'

Albus was recalling two predictions made earlier in the year. The first had been from Fawkes, telling him that Professor Cassandra Trelawney, the celebrated Seer, had foreseen that someone significant would die that year. The second had been by the Orb of Duality. When Albus had asked about his and Victoria's future, it had said two things: boundless the love shall be and death shall part. It could not be true.

Albus slumped forward over Victoria, sobbing into her neck. It could not be. How could she have died? It was his fault, he realized! He should never have let her accompany them to Egypt! She had died because of him!

'Albus; get up!' cried Thomas. Albus felt Thomas' hand grab him by the shoulder. 'There is no time to grieve. You must get up! We have to get into the seventh chamber before they come back!'

Thomas pulled Albus away from Victoria. Tears streamed down his face and he could barely focus on the forms of Mars and Thomas, both of whom had recovered thanks to the protection of the devices on their persons. Mars had an emerald ankh, and Thomas had been carrying the Eye of Horus.

'Albus; give me back the Eye of Horus, or else I am without protection,' Thomas said. Still sobbing, and barely able to stand for grief, Albus returned the locket to Thomas. Mars had to support his weight, while Thomas approached the Egyptian God, who was wiping its feathers clean of Grundelwald's blood.

'O great Egyptian God,' Thomas said, 'I come bearing the Eye of Horus. I beg you grant us entry to the seventh chamber.'

'Your wish is granted, o bearer of the Eye,' said Horus. The golden doors to the seventh chamber creaked open.

'I cannot leave Victoria's body!' Albus screamed. 'I cannot leave her!'

'O Horus,' Thomas said swiftly, 'do nothing but guard the body of this girl!'

'Your wish is granted, o bearer of the Eye,' said Horus. The Egyptian God came to stand over Victoria's body, looking like he would tear out the throat of anyone who ventured near her.

'Albus, her body is safe with Horus,' Thomas said desperately. 'Come on, we have to go into the seventh chamber now.'

Thomas and Mars grabbed Albus by the arms and dragged him, wailing and yelling, into the Chamber of the Everlasting Flame.

Author's Note: thus ends the longest and most action-filled chapter of the series thus far. Albus Dumbledore and the Everlasting Flame is now longer by word-count than Albus Dumbledore and the Phoenix Feather was, and it is yet unfinished. I think the climactic chapter may have to wait until next weekend, because I am hoping for maximum exposure by publishing it on the weekend when more people tend to read my story. So you will have to bite your nails for a week for the conclusive events in this story. There are two chapters left. I hope nobody gets too distraught by the deaths of two major characters … your loyal Grandson of Dumbledore.