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Harry and Elaine walked along slowly, cautiously, and in Harry's case, almost aimlessly as the new path was made once more. Thanks to Grindelwald's Muggle supporters, it was practically impossible to tell whether there were more traps ahead of them, or not, but Harry suspected there were. There had to be if the man had used that many thus far, and to think he and Elaine hadn't made it that far in the slightest. There was still a good bit ahead of them, he figured, and Elaine agreed as she moved along mostly in silence.
"What do you suspect?" Harry asked, the silence getting to him nearly as much as that oppressive air above ground had. It wasn't that bad, maybe, only enough so that he wasn't fond of the silence continuing as it was. "We don't really know how far ahead it goes… unless you do?"
Elaine shook her head. "I have not but a clue. Perhaps it goes along for a few dozen meters further, and perhaps it goes ahead for a kilometre, maybe more. It's of no true importance, for we have more than enough time and power between us. I have contingencies in place as needed if we're to return the next day — we'll not be later than the next evening."
"Confident in that?" Harry asked, slightly amused but also believing in her confidence. It was Elaine, after all, and if she said it, she was right.
"Completely and utterly. There's no reason for me to doubt our abilities if we've managed to come this far in such a short amount of time, now is there?" Elaine looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, extremely confident. "When we've returned, why don't we take a day for ourselves and hunt? Grindelwald's lingering soul, bothersome as it is, would make for good sport."
"Could we trap it? Prevent him from doing anything like attaching to others or what have you?" Harry asked, stopping as Elaine stopped her walking. He didn't want to run into the back of her, and in the event that wards existed ahead, he didn't want to accidentally push her into them.
"When it comes to magic involving the soul, nothing is impossible, though the same could be said about all types of magic. I do believe there's a ritual we could do that could very well end up entrapping the soul of Grindelwald, but a requirement therein would be his soul, of which will be most troublesome to find in the first place," Elaine paused, yawned, and nodded towards the satchel he had. "Would you be a dear, Harry, and withdraw two of the potions in the top-rightmost pocket? We'll need them if we wish to continue without rest."
"More of your creations, I'm guessing?" Harry asked as he rummaged through the pack, taking notice of more potions, pouches, vials and other such items as he did so. After a moment of doing that, he opened the pocket and took the items she'd wished for out, offering one to her as she motioned for him to keep the other.
"Pepper-ups of a more potent variety, shall we say," Elaine explained when he watched her sigh in contentedness. "I assured that prior to packing them that the flavour would be satisfactory for you. Do me a favour too, would you?"
He looked over at her. "What is it?"
"There's a requirement that goes along with the potion if it's too work. All we need to do is kiss after and before drinking it — I know not why the requirement specifies as much, but I don't believe it would be too both-" Elaine didn't get to finish her sentence, for before she had the chance, Harry was before her with his lips pressing against hers.
The kiss was soft as Elaine's lips felt, and tasted of the potion she'd taken but a swig of. Underlying that was the typical passion and lust that she exhibited on a constant, and her aggressiveness, at this point, was no longer surprising. It was rather pleasant. Especially when Harry did what he wished. He lifted her up, wrapped her legs around him and kissed her harder, Elaine laughed into the kiss and groaned a moment later when his hand smacked her arse.
After a few seconds more, their kiss stopped and Elaine scowled as he lowered her back to the floor. "I do believe you realise I was jesting, but it still would have been pleasant to finish my sentence," she said, shaking her head at him even as her cheeks were larger and glistening, and her pale skin was blushing prettily, almost divinely. It didn't matter if there was nothing remotely angelic about her.
"There's no fun in that. I'd much rather surprise you," Harry said with a grin before he downed the potion, savouring the sweet, fruit-like flavour; it was close, but indescribable in a manner he couldn't quite place in terms of taste. "It keeps life interesting, doesn't it?"
Elaine scoffed at him. "I suppose I'll allow you, lover. You're very enjoyable when you manage to surprise me, now, I do believe it's best to continue unless you mean to copulate in the dirt. That's below us, though I suppose there's a certain rustic appeal."
Harry blinked at her. He didn't believe what he'd just heard, and then he did. Elaine, whilst far from where she'd been, could still be very… well, there wasn't really a word to describe it. Elaine was simply Elaine, and at this point, while she was good and avoided murder and worse, he wouldn't change a thing about her. He'd allow her lust, unimaginable as it was.
"Let's continue then," Harry finally said a few seconds later, when he overcame her words and looked back at her.
Elaine huffed and folded her arms, her wand staying locked in her dominant hand as she took one step closer to the end of the transfigured path — there was still a good way to go, but the progress they'd made was very good thus far. "We'll continue until we reach the end of this transfiguration, and afterwards, we'll eat, take another series of potions I've prepared in advance, and finally, end this venture of ours. I do so believe Grindelwald has left a Horcrux here, for why else would it be so defended with Muggle contraptions? Information need not be guarded so well."
He agreed with Elaine. There was very good reason to believe that a Horcrux of Grindelwald's, or more, was present here. With all of these Muggle bombs, explosives and contraptions, Elaine's reasoning was very good.
"If we find one, why don't we take a day to ourselves when we're back home?" Harry suggested before Elaine continued. It would be his last question until she did finish because he didn't wish to waste too much of their time.
"It would be very educating to study, wouldn't it?" Elaine asked, more so to herself than to Harry. "We could figure out how best to counter those that make them in the future and perhaps it could even allow us to capture the essence of his soul that lingers, hoping to be returned to life… unless you have ulterior motives, lover?"
Harry rolled his eyes and slapped her on the arse one more time; good things came in even numbers, after all. "No ulterior motives here, my Love."
Elaine hummed at him, and slowly, tentatively, went back to her work with a grin on her face. He was certain she'd remember the kiss, his touches, and the promise of a day to themselves if they found the Horcrux. Elaine wasn't likely to forget much if anything when it came to promises of affection or the like.
Elaine continued slowly with her transfiguration of the path ahead. He shouldn't have been surprised with her caution, nor the difficulty, for it was apparent the more they went ahead that whatsoever magic was practically ambient in the place, was strong. Enough so for her to require more potions than he'd seen her drink throughout the duration of their relationship, and beyond that, for her to sweat as they continued ever forward. Her wand, by the time they reached the mark of an hour or thereabouts — he knew since he'd checked his pocketwatch — was moving moreso than was usual of it.
"I could give it a try, if you'd like," Harry suggested, only a metre or so behind her. He wasn't sure if he would be able to handle the ward-searching and other spells she was casting at intervals, but if he could handle the transfiguration at the very least, that would lighten the load for her. It wasn't much, but it was what he could manage.
"Could you handle it? I mean not to discredit you, my love, but the pressure is immense and the ancientness of the magic, however old it might be, is strangely overwhelming the further we go," Elaine huffed, appreciating the chance to pause that she took upon Harry's offer for support. "We could work together, and as we go, I'll continue checking forwards. All I ask in addition is that you transfigure and animate a statue or two to protect our rear. The occasional look in addition would be beneficial as well."
Harry grinned at her. "I could manage that. Just take a few minutes, yeah? I'll animate a few guardians and then I'll go about helping you so that we might continue."
Elaine smiled at him, her teeth showing to make a very pleasant look. One that he did so enjoy, though he did have to admit, there was seldom something about Elaine that he didn't like.
In but a few minutes, as Harry had said, the transfigured knights similar to those at Hogwarts were made, animated, and with a very simple set of orders. Elaine had taught him much and more on top of the knowledge he'd had when he came to the world, and so managing that was easy. When first he came to the world, it would not have worked in the slightest. His magic truly had come far and beyond what it used to be able to do.
"Are we ready to begin?" Elaine asked, her face clear of sweat and dirt, and with a refreshed smile in its place. All it had taken was a short break for her magic or stamina to seemingly replenish, and the short conversation they'd shared. Elaine's vitality was very impressive, and as he began to join his wand to hers, it wasn't surprising in the slightest thanks to their combined power how great the progress they made was.
Obviously, with unintelligent transfigured items in charge of their rear protection, there was a chance something could dash past them and prove problematic, but for the sake of Elaine, it was very much worth it. The rate of their progress was proof enough, and as they continued, with the progress not once slowing down upon their alternative path, Harry knew that his offer of aid instead of acting the part of a guardian, was right.
"Stop," Elaine said. It was a short simple word, and she said it quickly. There was no concern or sign of an issue, it was just something that was necessary. He figured out what it was easy enough when she began to move her wand around methodically, and in a manner that he was a bit familiar with by now.
Elaine was searching for magical wards or signs of other spells that could impede their progress or cause issues for them, perhaps some that would be life-threatening. Grindelwald was a master of magic, after all, and if any could be so powerful as to penetrate past stone and earth for a good distance, it would be him.
The man had Muggles that worked for him too, so the chance that they bore a thing hole with their technology in which he placed more wards was not entirely out of the picture. In fact, Harry would wager that there was far more that they weren't aware of or that they'd bypassed with this extra path than they'd ever be aware of. It made him feel more and more confident that there truly was something waiting for them in secret when they'd eventually reach their end destination.
There had to be.
"Nothing, lover," Elaine said with a slight curtsey, her playfulness shining through despite the severity of the moment they were in. "We're free to continue. I do so hope we find the end soon, this is becoming tedious very quickly. If it weren't for the Muggle explosives, I would suggest we blast a path ahead rather than continue with our transfiguration."
Harry snorted at the thought. It would've been quite funny, and obviously, very enjoyable. Stress-relieving too, the more that he thought about it. Maybe later they could do as much. It wouldn't be all that difficult to find somewhere they could cast bombarda after bombarda. Merlin, it was Elaine he was thinking about doing that with. She definitely already had a place they could blow away without so much as a second thought.
Harry pondered as they continued, and continue, they did. There was still plenty of their journey to go, not that he'd know as much.
"There's precious little to go," Elaine said abruptly as she put a hand on his chest, stopping him from advancing any further. "I can tell as much not out of an innate sense of the land before you think as much, but because I cast a spell earlier on that alerts me to an opening when we reach one. We've been parallel to the other path and diverging slowly from it, but it seems, one hundred metres away, we've reached an opening, finally."
"Has the magic in the area changed or is it the same as ever? I can't tell," Harry tried to reach out and feel the magic, as he knew Elaine was capable of doing when he'd finished that question.
He swore he could feel it, the tendrils and ambient energy of it, but as quickly as he thought he felt it, the sensation was gone. Elaine spoke, his concentration was spoken, and she looked at him curiously as the words exited her mouth. "It's the same, you can feel it. Nothing's changed, but I believe it might when we exit the path. It would make sense if the further towards the centre we made it, the stronger the protections grew."
"It's too bad there's not going to be anything waiting for us at the end," Harry remarked with a huff.
Elaine shrugged. "There could be hidden stashes, it's hard to tell. Mayhaps those who came before we did, cleared everything out. If they didn't, we will, for I plan to check every nook and cranny that exists."
It's not a bad idea if we could get some old artefact or something. It'd be pretty cool to snag something ancient. Still, I doubt Grindelwald left anything for us. That man was very smart and not the least bit wasteful… except towards the end when he went nuts.
Harry's thoughts turned sorrowful and annoyed as he thought of Grindelwald's insanity and how it crept up on the world at large. If he hadn't lost his mind completely and utterly, thousands upon thousands of people would still be alive, Muggles especially, for they were those who were most ravished amongst them all when it came to the disastrous, horrible war that the man had launched. When he'd truly gone off the rails and invaded the United Kingdom, it was said at this point that hundreds of thousands had been killed. He destroyed his own forces, did a good amount of damage to the British people of all types, and left the continent to be ravaged by a need for revenge.
"I guess I just hope we find the reason we came here," Harry said with a shrug, realising that his silence didn't need to continue as they pushed ahead; they were towards the end, and so a relaxed conversation before Elaine's second to last check for wards could be allowed. It wasn't as if anything could spring up on them as close as they were, especially with them being as cautious as they'd proven to be.
Oh. Right.
Harry took a glance over his shoulder and spotted his transfigured and animated guards. They were walking backwards with their shields out and eyes down from whence they'd come. There was nothing. Not even an insect on the wall. It was silent, dark, and without any noise save for the walking of their group and the breathing from him and Elaine.
It was strangely eerie, especially when one realised that where they stood had once been a large and thriving community of ancient Magicals. Who knew how much knowledge had been lost when war, plague or whatever had befallen the community took them in their entirety?
Mayhaps one of those that hadn't had the chance to live could have introduced a life-changing spell for the rest of the world. It was impossible to tell now, and it forever would be. There was a reason that various magical cultures connecting as they met proved to be beneficial to both. He could only imagine how strong the Roman Empire's wizards and witches had been at the peak of their empire.
The magic they must have known… it would have been a sight to see.
"Our final pause before we break into the large path ahead, my love," Elaine said to him, that same soft, gentle hand forcing him to stop before he continued. This time, she tutted, and with that same aforementioned head, turned his attention so that he could look at her. "Grindelwald has left a present for us, my love. It's quite the powerful one too… you don't mind if I examine it before I dismantle it, do you?"
Harry rolled his eyes, transfigured a chair from the dirt, and gestured forwards. "Be my guest, I'll watch."
"You just want to look at my arse, don't you?"
He wouldn't deny it.
Harry had watched — for the most part — as Elaine dealt with the trap that Grindelwald had left for them. As he suspected, it had taken her a decent bit of time to solve, but it was solved nonetheless. It shouldn't have come as a surprise, she was already near the man in most magical abilities and the only advantage it seemed that he had… well, the only two advantages he'd had, were the Elder Wand and a larger repertoire of spells. Now, the man no longer had the Elder Wand and while he was dead, his soul lingering where ever it was, Elaine and Harry furthered their knowledge about all things magical.
This was a prime example of her expertise. Most wizards and witches would not be capable of dismantling a complex scheme set by Grindelwald, the 'greatest' Dark Lord to walk the earth in centuries. If they had noticed it, they would have turned back whence they had come and left, never seeing the end goal of their journey. Elaine did more than dismantle it with precision and expertise, she went well beyond that. He could see her concentration, her eagerness, and the sheer complexity of her wand movements alone as she dissected Grindelwald's ward. Harry would guarantee that after taking it apart, she would be very capable of creating an imitation herself. But, like all things magical where one could make modifications or changes, she would. She despised being predictable, Elaine favoured being the one inside of somebody's mind and prided herself on her Legilemency ability as well as her innate mastery at reading others. Harry was, truth be told, pants at both, but the latter he'd come to understand a bit better thanks to all the time he'd had around Elaine.
"Are you tired, love?" Elaine asked, her dark eyes indiscernible in the darkness, much like her hair.
"No, no sorry. I was zoning out a bit," Harry shook his head and huffed, moving toward Elaine when his mind was back to where it should be. "It's completely done, yeah? There's nothing else that he left in store for us… in the immediate area?"
"Very nice correction," Elaine said with a giggle as she pranced over to him and took hold of his hand. "There is nothing near us that would be cause for concern that I can discern. Perhaps we're atop more of his Muggle explosives, though I suspect not."
It'd be a bit hard for him to predict our path and place traps for us in the dirt.
"Off we go to the end then," Harry said, tightening his hand around hers and revelling in the softness and contact. Elaine did much the same, though she seemed to shiver as she always did when they touched for a prolonged period of time; he still didn't know why that was, save for how she would claim to feel 'whole' or 'beyond whole.'
Elaine was Elaine, as he often told himself, and so many things didn't really need an explanation. Not where he was concerned, or rather, not where she was concerned. In every sort of way from beauty to power, mind to affection, Elaine was an outlier in how she expressed or went about her actions.
"If you're feeling up to it, animate another two or three knights. I trust your eyes, lover, but I would like to have the stone statues go before us. I'm acutely aware of the destructive capabilities the Muggles and their weapons have and wish not to find out how a cave-in this deep would feel," Elaine's face took on a quality of annoyance, anger, and loathing. She seldom spoke of her childhood, and from what little he knew, it had been very poor, much like his own.
As she said, we are equal. Maybe she meant that more literally than I first thought.
Harry did as she wished while Elaine watched, her eyes on his wand movement and a small, sly smile on her face as she watched him go about his work silently. It was a testament to his ability that he could transfigure and animate such large, intricate creations without so much as a word. Now, of course, his proficiency with magic was still less than hers, as seen by her complex ward removal and the six spells she had essentially kept casting at a constant rate; four of them he hadn't even heard of before seeing her do as she did. He knew for a fact that a few weren't Latin-based, they sounded foreign in a way that his ears couldn't place.
Merlin, they could have been any Eastern European language. He wouldn't know what from what. Elaine definitely knew more than just the alphabet as she claimed, that was probably just about the only thing he knew as a fact. Whatever she said, he could multiply by three or four, for when it came time to discuss her abilities when it was not but the two of them, she would be humble or downplay what she could do while raising his prowess to a level that was very near to her own. He appreciated her support, but he didn't need her to say that they were truly equal.
"Done," Harry said as his thoughts finished within seconds of his spells finishing. He had three new transfigured and animated knights made of stone before them, adding to the total of two that they'd had. His were, of course, not quite as beautiful or masterfully made as those from Hogwarts, they were rudimentary, but that would do the job.
If they had brought along others, they would only have been problematic, for their security would not and couldn't be guaranteed, and the last thing they needed was to lose one of those brand new Aurors that answered explicitly to Elaine. Aster probably wouldn't have been all that happy either, considering the bloke was the leader of that group now.
"Remind me to reward you when we've returned. You've truly come a long way, and to see it with my own two eyes is as enjoyable as it is tantalising," Elaine said, her thumb rubbing the back of their conjoined hands softly as if it had the touch of a feather.
"I'll remind you the moment we're back and Laddey or Momsey are checking us over incessantly."
Elaine made a noise when he mentioned the latter house elf, and immediately, Harry knew what for. The little elf, Momsey, wished very badly for children that she could nurture and smother. Harry and Elaine, as her masters, would be the source of those children and she spoke often about how badly she wished for him to reproduce; a family wasn't a family until every single bedroom in the home was filled with a child.
He didn't have any clue as to where she got that idea, but whoever it was, the bloke or bird was a monster.
"You're very adorable," Elaine remarked off-handedly, as they once again pressed forward, the ending only some dozen or so metres away now. "While we walk toward the soon-to-be ending of this journey, why don't we discuss the children we'll someday have? I find myself quite drawn to the name Delphine, and yet, I mind not other similar names such as Zoe, Lucretia, Astoria, Laelia, Aquilia…"
"No names for a young little wizard?" Harry pondered, amused more so than scared at the thought of their future children's names; there was no real harm in discussing them. Future children could mean a decade away, or at the least, another few years for them to get everything sorted.
They wouldn't be left wanting a family, money, clothes or food. No, his children, whenever he had them, would have the childhood that every kid deserved. He imagined Elaine was thinking much the same, only in a way that was more unique and Elaine-like.
"Our first two children will be witches, but our third and fifth would be wizards," Elaine said in a fashion that was strangely knowing despite the randomness and inability to control — so far as he knew — what your children would come out as.
"Uhuh. I see… well, not really, I don't have a clue as to how you know that or why, but I got it. I like Aquilia and Laelia, those other names feel a bit too familiar for my liking, strange maybe. I don't know why," Harry shrugged, a tingling sensation running down his spine, and then he nodded over at Elaine. "Yeah, Aquilia and Laelia, we'll go with those until you come up with other names you like and I choose to go with to keep you happy and get a snog every now and then."
"Amusing," Elaine remarked, her free, deft hand coming over to flick him on the nose.
And then, it happened. The end of the cave they'd created opened up, and when it did, it revealed the path that they'd been headed toward since first they started their own off-shoot. Elaine had no look of fear or concern, which meant it was likely safe from magical means of protection, and so Harry did what he was meant to. He sent ahead one of the five statues, and two of the remaining four would be kept on their sentry duty.
Now that the end felt so close, the last thing they needed was to be snuck upon from the rear.
"Feels like a bit of a let-down, doesn't it?" Harry asked. his eyes squinted together as he looked all over the gaff. There was nothing, a lot of the doorways were caved in or just painted with chalk on a wall. Goodness, there weren't even any cool artefacts or inscriptions.
Everything felt so… bland.
"You didn't think it would be some mystifying tunnel filled with wonders, did you?" Elaine inquired, amused at the prospect as she took a few ginger steps forward, her nose wrinkling.
Harry recognised her discomfort and cast two charms, the first being to clean the area, and the second, to aid with the musky, stale smell that still managed to feel as if dust was in the air. Upon doing so, Elaine smiled at him, her face awash with a seemingly endless torch near them; there were dozens more like it that stretched to the end of the cave some one hundred or so metres away.
Finally, though, the caves didn't descend steeply. There was only a casual decline that would likely mean they truly were close to the end.
"Harry," Elaine said, getting his attention as she turned on the balls of her feet. "I request but one favour from you — take nothing until I check it, and even after I do so, only take it if it's truly important. It's not wise to take from an ancient crypt on a whim. I believe everything down here has a purpose, mayhaps not to us, but to the original owners. It would be best if we left them undisturbed."
Harry nodded. "I'm not going to take anything. Not really. If we could, one day, it might add to the collection back at home nicely but I don't want to put us in harm's way. Not for some little bauble."
"Wonderful," Elaine said as she once again pranced over to him, her hand taking one of his and coiling around it as if she were a snake-given flesh. "Send two ahead, space them by twenty-five metres, and keep another before us. I'll transfigure a shield and attach it so that if there are more traps ahead, none will harm us."
Harry blinked. Elaine must really be on edge if she was being this cautious. It was unusual of her, and so as he did as she wished, he issued a new order and made a few modifications to the two that would stay on guard behind them while she fiddled around with the one that would be directly in front of them. While she added a shield to it, Harry made those behind them wider and went so far as to transfigure an arm of theirs into a crude, but affective-looking stone sword. It wasn't great, but it would do. He liked them being a tad bit bigger too since it meant that they'd take up more space and make it harder to get past them if something tried to attack from their rear.
Now that he thought about it, as troublesome as a third person would be, perhaps they could have been useful. One person to look at the path ahead, another to look behind, and a third to act as an additional pair of eyes to look wherever the other two thought necessary. It could have been helpful, had they thought to bring along Corene or Aster, but each was not without their own drawbacks. Corene favoured avoiding a fight, relying on her utility knowledge and general wits, while Aster enjoyed strategising and coordinating all aspects of something; he also wasn't fond of a fight, but he was better with curses and the like than he was with any sort of utility.
"Reinhard," Elaine said suddenly, the name and the memories that it brought forth nearly causing Harry to trip.
"Come again?" he asked, the pain forcefully pushed down as he looked over at Elaine in hopes of understanding why she'd said the boy's name. It was strange, and not needed at the present time.
"We discussed Aquilia and Laelia for names of our daughters, and so I thought for our first son, the name Reinhard would suffice," Elaine turned for a scant few seconds to look at Harry, and when she did, he could see it, just barely, a fleeting flash of anguish cross her features.
In his time, her counterpart would never have allowed such a thing to happen. Harry doubted old Tommy-boy was capable of sadness, remorse or anything of the like by the time he'd come to know him.
He swallowed and blinked a few times, hoping to remove the growing wetness that came to be felt as they pushed on. It had to be allergies or the like. "Reinhard would make for a great name."
Elaine nodded once, her lips raising slightly, and then she leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek. It was an action sans lust or desire, a rarity from Elaine, and as he felt it, his shoulders sagged. She was unaware of how special she was to him, he had no doubt about that. He could only hope their connection, whatever the cause was after all the time they'd had it, could manage to show her a fraction at the very least of his love for her.
They'd come a very long way. It was truly unimaginable in every sense of the word.
Nothing happened as Harry's constructs moved along the thin walls of the labyrinth. There was no explosion, no sign of additional security, and finally, no true sign that Grindelwald or his goons had come with him. It was strange considering the man had left a fairly powerful ward previously, and only that one singular protection. Grindelwald was supposed to be exceedingly powerful, and so it would make sense if anything he protected would be essentially unreachable.
Elaine had not only surpassed that easily given enough time, but she'd gone beyond by moving around what was likely a plethora of traps the man had laid previously. It was pretty wicked, but it wasn't all that important, not when there seemed to be a huge lack of actual traps in the first place. Maybe that hope that one of Grindelwald's Horcruxes was waiting for them at the end was misplaced, and they'd gotten a bit eager when they'd noticed a sign of his presence.
"Strange," Elaine commented, unhappy by the result of her peek around the corner. "The hall is a dead end. There's nothing beyond it by the look of the stonework — we've missed something, or the path is different than I expected."
"Did we know it was on the left?"
"From what little I knew of this place via second and third-hand sources, the heart was supposed to be on the left, down a corridor that would break into a large, wide-open centre with a druidic-style circle of flowers in the midst of it all," Elaine said, her brow furrowed and an expression on her face that was a mixture of disgruntlement and confusion. "Stay at the entrance of the passage we created. Leave two of the knights with me and take the others with you. I'm going to give this a cursory glance to see if there are any openings we've missed."
Harry moved a few feet forward and kissed Elaine once on the lips. It was a soft, very brief exchange that lasted a second at the most. "Be safe," he said, and then he did as she said all the while his thoughts ran amuck.
Grindelwald had been here, they knew that as a fact. He had brought Muggles, or somebody that was intimately familiar with Muggle-type weapons and machines, they knew that to be a fact. It wasn't hard to think that the man had messed with the entire layout if the two of them combined could do something similar. In truth, they probably should have assumed he had mucked around with everything.
"Three seals were created," Elaine said suddenly, her voice echoing through the cavernous hall. "Unless he meant for them to be found with ease, his charms were sloppy. How disappointing."
"I wonder if this was towards the end, you know when he was starting to get crazy… er. It'd make sense, right?" Harry looked around before his eyes returned to Elaine and where she had paused before a seemingly flawless part of the wall. He clearly hadn't seen anything about it that would make it stick out as wrong or what have you, but whatever spell she was using certainly had.
He'd have to get her to teach it to him. It would have come in handy a few dozen times that he could think of off the top of his head when he'd been doing work as an Auror. It could still probably help the office a lot, and more importantly, save lives. Ambushes had become all too common a problem for the Aurors. It was practically doctrinal when it came to fighting Grindelwald, well, when he had an army or even remnants of it. Now it was just the man, and maybe a few dozen scattered followers throughout the world. Most were dead or locked up, and the majority were of the former instead of the latter.
They'd caused far too much damage for most people to have any sort of pity for them.
"It could be, or it could be his arrogance. Since we've fought him, I find that he relied far too heavily on having a better wand. We handled him thrice over, did we not?" Elaine rolled her head to look at Harry, and while she gave him a smug, satisfied look, she flicked her wand and the wall began to crumble.
Not more than a few seconds later, it gave way to reveal a door that had been transfigured over by stone.
"And here we are, lover," Elaine said, her smile growing before a frown flashed across her face. "Won't you open the door for me?"
He snorted, genuinely amused, and then he did as she asked. It opened to reveal quite a large chamber, but that was it. Wait. In the far corner, there seemed to be a couple of crude objects made out of stone. He relayed as much to Elaine, who looked uninterested and motioned for him to exit.
"We'll see what was hidden behind door number two," Elaine said, and as before, the stone melted away.
Harry made the toward the door, rolling his eyes and yawning, and then he tripped and fell as his eyes caught sight of something. He had been careless with the previous door and nearly careless again. There, at the very bottom and only visible thanks to the torchlight, was a wire. It only just seemed to reflect a smidgen of light, enough for him to recognise what it was and stop before he triggered whatever was waiting for them on the other side of the archway.
"We should send a knight in unless you know about a shield that can stop Muggle explosives. It'd probably be smart to reinforce the cave's ceiling too, just in case it's powerful enough to bring it down on us," Harry's eyes went to the aforementioned ceiling with a look that lacked confidence.
Elaine, on the other hand, created two stone pillars near where they stood and two more further away, before she transfigured a short half-wall and afterwards, a charm that took the form of a jello-like bubble. "Knight."
He sent the Knight forward. He saw a flash. The Knight was gone, and the door was… not.
Harry blinked and looked over at Elaine. There hadn't been a loud, horribly deafening noise, nor had any metal or whatever else reached them. Truth be told he hadn't even seen much of anything after that initial blast and a bit of stone flying around. One moment, the Knight he'd transfigured was there and the next, it was gone, lost to whatever had been laid in store for the unfortunate person who would try and track down one of Grindelwald's creations or a clue that could lead to it.
"For Muggles, it's quite impressive," Elaine said, her voice sounding anything but as she huffed, folded her arms and looked at Harry; her meaning was clear.
He sighed, and then he sent the next Knight in. This time, there was no explosion and so the two followed shortly thereafter… shortly meaning after another Knight went in and no explosion came after nearly three minutes of waiting.
When they entered the second room, the one in which the explosion of some kind had gone off, what they first noticed, was what Elaine had described earlier in the day. It hadn't even been an hour since she'd brought it up. There was a circle, it was made of vines, brush, weeds and flowers of a kind that Harry could not begin to recite the species; all of his years in herbology did little to help him.
Beyond it, there was a table made from some sort of blackish-purplish stone that was extraordinarily shiny. There were various chips from it fallen on the ground, and it looked like in the centre, a person had carved out something that vaguely resembled the shape of a bowl.
One look at it and he felt a squirm of discomfort work its way from the top of his neck down his spine. Elaine, meanwhile, had her brows raised and her head cocked to the side in a manner that was very Corene-like. Rather than bother her, it seemed to do nought but fill her with intrigue.
"Is this promising?"
In an instant, Elaine shook her head and turned away from the vision before them to look at Harry. "If there are clues, they would be located in here. I sincerely doubt Grindelwald had the time to disarm the many dozens of wards that are tickling us whilst we speak — touch nothing, do not enter the circle, and should a smell reach your nose that hasn't already done so, say it. This place was never meant for those like us, which makes it all the better to scour."
That doesn't sound very promising. This whole place feels dodgy like the people were sacrificing things.
"Look," Harry said, when his eyes scanning the room took notice of tracks that led to the circle, around it, and to the table itself.
Elaine only smiled.