The darkness receded as Harry came back to herself slowly. She felt like she was sleeping on a warm and fluffy cloud and couldn't bring herself to wake up fully to face reality just yet. How long had it been since she felt only comfort like this? Years, at least, and only since she started Hogwarts. She wanted to stay in this bubble of comfort for as long as she could.
Harry wasn't sure how long she lay on her little cloud. She was brought closer to waking when she heard foreign voices in the distance. She rubbed her eyes without opening them, trying to wake up as slow as possible. That was until the voices were much clearer and now in the same room as her. The memories of the strange man and the Death Eaters he killed so effortlessly rushed back to her. She jerked upright in a panic which caused intense pain to radiate from her various wounds and killed the panic before it really got started. Harry quickly flopped back down onto the incredibly soft bed with her eyes screwed shut, trying desperately to keep from crying out in frustration and pain.
"Your Majesty! Do not move so quickly!" One of the voices spoke out urgently.
"You are still hurt!" The second one said with an equal amount of surprise and urgency.
Harry would have been worried about the person that was in the room with her had they not sounded so young. She managed to slowly open her eyes and saw the face of a woman. Well, maybe woman was not the correct term. Young woman or girl would be more accurate for the person leaning over above her.
The girl was young looking with soft curves of her face. Her skin was much darker than Harry's. Lighter than the Patil twins but not by much. Her black hair came to her chin and seemed like it was braided in neat rows with golden beads at the ends.
"Who are you?" Harry nearly choked on her dry throat.
The girl above her gasped dramatically before looking up. "Clione! Water!" She spoke quickly to another person. Harry looked over and saw a second girl that looked nearly identical to the first, handling a golden cup. Her hair was also braided to her chin with golden beads at the end, but the braid style was different from the first. Harry was secretly relieved that they wore their hair differently so she, or anyone really, had a chance to tell them apart.
The second girl, Clione is what the first had called her, handed over the large and, quite frankly, ostentatious looking golden cup. It had what looked to be many small colorful gems set into an intricate design. Harry didn't have a chance to look closer before Clione climbed up on the bed with her and had begun to gently push Harry up into a sitting position. Harry was impressed by her ability to avoid aggravating any of her injuries or bruises.
"Here, Your Majesty," The first one spoke to her with a soft voice as she pressed the goblet to Harry's lips. Harry drank the cold water deeply, suddenly feeling incredibly thirsty. Harry drank from the cup for a lot longer than she should have been able to with the size of the goblet. When she was finished drinking, she gently pushed the cup away with her lips. Harry noted how the cup was still full as the girl placed it on a small table next to the bed. Must be magic, Harry thought to herself. "There you go, Your Majesty. I'll leave it right here so you can easily reach it should you get thirsty again," The girl smiled sweetly at her once she finished speaking.
"You still haven't answered my question," Harry replied, feeling a little better.
The girl tilted her head slightly in confusion before looking shocked. "Oh! Many apologies, Your Majesty! I am Zalika," Zalika bowed low before rising back up.
Harry looked her up and down, finding that she wore a cream colored dress in a strange style. The image reminded her heavily of the artistic renditions in those magazines that Bill was always sending Ron from Egypt.
"And I am Clione, Your Majesty," Clione replied, still sitting behind her with her hands on Harry's shoulders.
"What is with this 'Your Majesty' business? Please stop," Harry snapped slightly at the two girls. Both girls flinched, making Harry immediately feel bad.
"Our apologies…" Clione started to speak and nearly choked on the rest of her sentence, which Harry could guess contained the words 'Your Majesty'.
Zalika looked like she was about to cry, making Harry sigh silently. Despite just waking up, she was far too tired to be dealing with all this right now.
"Answer me this," Harry started softly, hoping not to scare the girls anymore. "Why are you calling me that?"
"He commanded it," Clione answered in a small voice, afraid to be reprimanded once again.
Harry turned her head to look at the girl still behind her as much as she could. She looked terrified.
"Who commanded it?" Harry kept her tone quiet and soft. It didn't matter if she had been abducted and taken to some new place for the third time this year. Even if these girls were somehow involved and this was all just the lead up to more torture and her murder, they didn't deserve her ire just yet. This place was already a huge upgrade from the Malfoy Dungeons.
"The Dread Lord, Imhotep," Zalika was the one that answered this time. Her voice was soft, but not as meek as Clione.
Harry thought back to the strange man that the Death Eaters had summoned by accident and how he had picked her up before she fell asleep.
"This…Dread Lord…" Harry couldn't help that her mind immediately went to Lord Voldemort and all the painful memories attached to him came flooding back to her all at once, making her chest ache. She quickly pushed those feelings down to be dealt with later. The title they spoke sounded like a title Lord Voldemort would have given himself had he had a bit more imagination. "Is he a bald man?"
The two girls giggled seemingly in a fit once the titters began with Clione. This did have the effect Harry wanted, which also made Harry feel a little better about snapping at them and hurting their feelings. "The Dread Lord, Imhotep does not have hair on the top of his head," Zalika replied while utterly failing to stifle her giggles.
"The Dread Lord, Imhotep is our Patron. A Deity made flesh," Clione added with an airy tone that reminded her of Luna. "He will usher in the New Age for all of us."
That statement chilled Harry to her bones while also making her sick to her stomach. It sounded nearly exactly like what Lord Voldemort wanted. A New Age, with himself at the top, no doubt. Harry wasn't sure if she had it in her to fight another war against yet another self-important tyrant. At least so soon and especially not without her friends and allies. She'd need to play this game very carefully if she had any hope to survive.
Harry quickly put together a game plan. First thing, learn everything she could about this 'Imhotep'. The more information she could get back to Hermione, the easier it would be to stop him. Second, she needed to know what the man wanted with her. She remembered his appearance during the Death Eaters ritual to bring back Lord Voldemort. She also remembered how he didn't start killing them until he saw her. There was a lot going on here and Harry wasn't confident that she could get to the bottom of it on her own.
Zalika climbed onto the bed with her. "What is your name, Your…uh…" Zalika paused her shifting on the mattress when she stifled her own words and blushed, having almost called her 'majesty' again. She looked very much like the young girl Harry was thinking they were.
"My name is Harriett Potter, but please call me Harry," Harry responded before Zalika tied herself into knots.
"Har-ee?" Zalika and Clione replied in unison with a strange accent. Her name said in such a way was strange, but Harry didn't hate it. It made her rather dull nickname sound new and exotic.
"Close enough," Harry spoke with a smile as she relaxed just a little against Clione's hands, making both girl's faces light up.
"Thank you…um…" Zalika started to say but her sentence petered out.
"The Dread Lord has instructed us to show you the same deference as we give him. Is there a different title you would prefer?" Clione asked from behind Harry, some concern for herself and her fellow handmaiden clear in her question.
"Is it really necessary?" Harry pleaded lightly. She hated titles and they were usually required by insecure and insignificant people. It always felt like someone was pretending to be more important than they ever would be. Zalika nodded to her. "Alright," Harry sighed, thinking about what title wouldn't make her skin crawl. "What about 'My Lady'?" Harry suggested. It was not preferred but it was one she could stomach.
"My Lady?" Zalika tested the title before nodding slightly. "I believe that we can use that one without getting in trouble with The Dread Lord, Imhotep, My Lady," Zalika bowed to Harry again. Harry had heard it used once and was already wishing she'd not hear it again.
"I refuse to allow him to say or do anything to you when you are doing what I ask," Harry replied firmly. "You will tell me if he says or does anything towards you in regards to this, am I understood?"
Zalika looked up at her with big eyes. Wonder and awe at Harry's metaphysical steel, "Truly?" Clione asked in a reverent tone.
"Of course!" Harry looked over her shoulder to the other girl with some confusion for the need to affirm. The two girls giggled again while pushing and pulling Harry gently out of the bed. "Where are we doing?" Asked Harry with some concern at the action.
"We must bathe you before you can eat!" Clione answered happily, her concern and fear of upsetting Harry burned away like a fog in the sunlight.
"We have many different kinds of food for you! You'll be sure to find something you like!" Zalika added just as happy as her counterpart.
The two girls got Harry into a standing position which did not hurt as much as Harry was expecting. Each girl grabbed an arm of Harry before gently leading and at times carrying her somewhere else.
They led her down some stairs that were right next to the bed and towards a nearly see through white fabric that shimmered in the soft light of the room and was hung across an opening in the pale beige wall. Harry glanced back and noted that the bed she was sleeping in was raised and the steps were all around it, like it was on a raised stage. And my, wasn't that a concerning thought? Once they passed through a break in the fabric, the girls led Harry through a winding hallway and passed a few other open doorways also covered by a similar fabric.
As they passed a room with large pillars and what looked to be a throne at the far end, Harry couldn't help but draw comparisons with the artist's renderings of what palaces and temples looked like in Ancient Egypt in Ron's magazines. Open airway columns leading to the inside of a complex. There were no colorful pictures or other hieroglyphics on these walls or pillars though. Everything here made Harry wonder about the situation she had found herself in this time. The girls continued to pull her into another room that had the same shimmering fabric covering a doorway.
Inside this room was a large pool that took up most of the room with an elaborate and realistic looking waterfall that reached up to the high ceiling. There were numerous tropical plants with big leaves and colorful blossoms surrounding the pool. There was a soft floral fragrance in the air that Harry assumed was from the plants. This whole room looked like an oasis.
The girls stopped Harry just inside the fabric barrier and their hands were quickly on Harry, trying to take off her clothes.
"Hey! Whoa! What are you doing?" Harry asked as she shooed their hands away and stumbled away from the girls.
"You are dirty. Here, we will wash you," Zalika answered not understanding Harry's protestations.
"Is it necessary for you to help me?" The two girls nodded in unison, making Harry sigh heavily to herself. "Very well," She acquiesced, "but you keep your hands to yourselves if I tell you to."
The girls quickly resumed their motions happily nodding to her demands, nearly tearing Harry's incredibly dirty and blood encrusted clothes off her body with surprising amounts of efficiency and painlessness. They managed to take her clothes off without hurting any of her numerous wounds or seemingly without moving Harry's body hardly at all. The two girls then removed their own dresses before guiding Harry down stairs that were hidden under the rippling water. The water was incredibly warm on her feet as she stepped into it. Harry had not noticed how cold she still was from her time at Malfoy Manor.
"Carefully, My Lady," Clione nearly whispered as the two of them guided Harry into a sitting position on what felt like a stone seat under water. "You are still quite cold."
"Yeah, no kidding," Harry moaned and she slouched further under the warm water until it was up to her chin. "This feels absolutely ace," She sighed as she closed her eyes, silently reveling in the comfort this pool brought her. It had been a while since she was this warm and she was half afraid that this would turn out to be a dream.
The two girls giggled together once more. "The Dread Lord, Imhotep made it specially for you." Clione spoke through her giggles.
"He wanted to make sure it was perfect for you," Zalika spoke next, her giggles having been properly stifled in the few extra moments before she spoke. "Effort well spent?" She asked with a far to innocent smile.
Harry cracked one of her eyes open to look at the two young girls that she found in her company. They seemed to be waiting for Harry's opinion on their Patron. She still didn't know what to make of this 'Imhotep' guy or anything he was allegedly about. Her knee-jerk response was to decide now that he was evil and needed to be stopped but Hermione's voice spoke up in the back of her head. We need more information, she said quite often during the war. No use in making a new, and incredibly powerful, enemy if it wasn't strictly necessary.
"I quite enjoy the effort," Harry replied carefully. The girls broke and began tittering behind their hands as the looked from Harry to each other. With a few more giggles they seemed to gather themselves up and began to work cleaning Harry's body and hair. Harry really didn't like this kind of treatment. "You know I can do this myself, right?" Harry asked sarcastically. Despite having only just met these girls, she knew they would not be deterred from the task that was given to them by their Patron.
"I have no doubt that you can, My Lady," Zalika smirked at Harry, "However we have been instructed to serve you in every way we can."
"And you enjoy this?" Harry asked as Clione moved her head to scrub the fragrant soap through it. "Seems a little…demeaning to me."
"If we weren't being paid for our service, then perhaps you would be correct," Zalika responded with a small smile. "The Dread Lord, Imhotep pays us well to serve you. And we don't have to around a few more of the darker looking men," she shuddered and stopped speaking.
"That's good," Harry sighed realizing that she had touched on a subject that was dangerously close to volatile. She sputtered for a moment, surprised when Clione dumped warm water over her head. Inwardly, Harry was concerned that this powerful warlock was taking advantage of a couple of young girls. Harry would sooner slit her own throat before allowing the abuse she suffered through with the Dursley's to be perpetrated right in front of her. "I wouldn't stand you two not being reimbursed for your services. Is it enough?"
"More than enough," Clione reassured Harry. "Even one of our wages would be enough to support our family."
The girls pulled Harry forward to wash her back. Harry noticed while they were gently scrubbing her back that they not only managed to do so without aggravating her wounds but that the wounds were tingling and not unpleasantly.
"What are you doing to my wounds?" Harry asked while trying to crane her neck around to see.
"The water has many magical properties that The Dread Lord thought you would enjoy. He also gave us some herbal remedies to help your healing," dutifully responded the distracted Clione without taking her eyes off her work of cleaning Harry's wounds.
Harry nodded and allowed them to work in silence while she thought over her situation. While she didn't like much of what has happened to her or was currently happening, she couldn't be too angry. She deserved a vacation after all she had been through but she felt like the other shoe was going to drop soon. Like this Imhotep person was just using her for a prophecy or as a powerful underling, or even as a broodmare. There were so many questions swirling around Harry's head and she didn't have Hermione around to help her parse through it all.
The girls finished washing Harry while she was busy in her head and began helping Harry up and back out of the pool. Once Harry was out, she took in her body and noticed that she was not wet.
"What..?" Harry began to say. She looked at her hand, noting that it looked like she hadn't touched any water at all.
Clione noticed that Harry was looking at her hand and knew what she was going to ask. "Magic," She replied plainly. Harry nodded, having nothing to say in response to the silly question.
The girls pulled their own dresses on before pulling out a similar dress for Harry. Whereas their dresses were more plain and utilitarian, Harry's dress seemed to be made from a similar fabric as the curtains she saw all over the place. It simmered subtly with every color Harry could think of and was thankfully not see through like the curtain barriers were. The yoke of the dress had many snakes sewn on it with a thread that looked like spun gold and many emeralds set into their eyes. They slipped the dress over her head and sat her down on a white stone seat so they could braid her unruly hair on the top of her head. The two girls pulled her back to her feet just as she was beginning to doze off. Harry was then led back out of the room, but turned this time and was walked down some more stone steps into a large courtyard.
The courtyard was full of even larger plants than the pool and even quite a few palm floor of the courtyard was covered in some sort of plant that felt like moss on her feet and the whole area was bathed in a soft light that looked like sunlight, but was coming from an unidentifiable source. The girls led Harry to a small table that looked like it was made for royalty and covered in a canopy that looked to be made of spun gold.
"Sit here, My Lady," Zalika requested as she gently pushed Harry into a large chair that Harry would describe as 'throne-like'. A throne with numerous snakes carved into the thick, reddish wood and soft velvet cushion that matched the wood to sit on.
"This is all a bit much, don't you think?" Harry asked while rubbing her eyes. The bath really sapped whatever energy she gained from sleeping and she was quickly becoming tired again.
"On the contrary," Clione spoke softly as she sat in a less extravagant chair to Harry's left. "It was made very clear to us that you are incredibly important to The Dread Lord. You deserve the best he can give you."
"Good thing for you, he can get you practically anything you wish for," Zalika said with a smile as she placed a bowl of steaming soup down in front of Harry before sitting down on Harry's right. Harry had no idea where the meal came from since there was nothing near them that looked like it could be used for food preparation or storage. The soup smelled like a well seasoned potato soup with pieces of meat inside it. The smell of it made her stomach growl but Harry was unsure if she should actually eat it.
"I don't need anything to be this extravagant. I don't want everything I can wish for. I don't deserve any of this," Harry muttered with a frown. She felt like all this was just setting her up for the other shoe to drop. Was she a hostage? A pawn? A trophy? Nothing was adding up or even making sense and she hated this feeling of foreboding trepidation.
"Eat, My Lady," Clione placed a gentle hand on Harry's shoulder, "you do need to regain your strength."
"The Dread Lord, Imhotep will answer any questions you have, in time. Now is the time to heal," Zalika placed a hand on Harry's other shoulder, silently imploring her to eat the delicious smelling soup.
Harry nodded to them and began to eat the soup. It was just as delicious as it smelled which only made her stomach curl harder around the warm sustenance. As she ate, her eyelids grew heavier and her movements slowed. Harry continued eating until her stomach finally began to protest any more food. Harry began to fall asleep before one of the girls moved the dish away.
They must have gotten her into bed somehow since that is where Harry woke up next. The room was dark and it seemed like she was alone this time. She was just thinking about how much better she felt when she heard something that sounded like quiet footsteps on the other side of the room. Harry assumed it was either Zalika or Clione moving around while they waited for her to wake up. She cracked her eyes open to look in the direction of the steps.
Just in time to see what looked like the back of a bald man walking out of the room.
Harry shot up in the bed before her mind could tell her to be quiet. The bed was soft enough that it didn't really transfer much noise. She got out of bed as quietly as she could, which was pretty easy since the bed seemed to make no noise as she moved off.
Harry ran as quietly as she could while keeping the slap of her bare feet to a minimum. Her time spent sneaking around during the war had paid off since she was able to keep very quiet while following after who she thought was Imhotep.
He walked the same path that the girls took when they took her to the bath but turned in the large room with the throne to the courtyard. There was no way that she could follow him through the open space of the courtyard, so she hid around a corner and peaked around the corner to watch him walk away from her. She noted that he walked in a very self assured way that she had come to associate with Purebloods and Lord Voldemort. He turned a corner and disappeared out of her sight, allowing her to continue following him. She ran still as quietly as she could, half expecting to see him standing there right around the corner. Thankfully, he was not there like she feared but he was nowhere to be seen.
There was a wall at the far end of the hallway that had the same simmering fabric as everywhere else here, but as Harry came closer, she realized it was much different. It shimmered in a way that looked both fake and very real at the same time as it appeared to be moving on its own. Harry touched the fabric and felt an intense magical energy not too dissimilar as when she handled Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes. It wasn't overwhelmingly evil like those artifacts and felt far more powerful. She pressed against the simmering fabric, trying to see if she could push through it, but it only flexed under the pressure without yielding.
Harry was disheartened that she hit a literal dead end, but it had only been one day. Maybe she could make some actual progress tomorrow.