A Reason to Live

Chapter notes: Ahem. Once more, artistic license, folks. - Rey

Museum of Ancient History, 18th May 2004

Monday morning is even more hectic than Sunday night in this city, it turns out. Full of pushing and mouthy pedestrians, swinging suitcases and bumping backpacks, also jammed and honking vehicles. Faced with that, it’s really, really, really a relief to finally reach an interesting-looking museum and duck into it. This early in the morning, it’s still empty of visitors, too.

“Are you going to follow Miss Langford’s suggestion to pursue a study of archeology, my lord?” Sai’yo inquires as we move away from the ticket booth, deeper into the museum.

“What did I tell you about calling me that?” I complain tiredly, while my eyes roam restlessly round the entrance area, noting all the signboards – “Egyptian,” “Maian,” “Aztec”….

“You said nothing after I pointed out that I am now your sworn servant, my lord,” he smiles a little.

I slap his upper arm huffingly and move off to the doorway marked “Egyptian.” – I am beginning to love that blogue, truly I am, but moments like this make me think back to how irritated Ron was always with his brothers and sister. I wonder if this is how it feels to have a sibling….

“Whoa.”

I freeze mid-step on the entrance of the “Egyptian” room. Across from the doorway, on the opposite wall, a large, round slab of stone hangs. It has two rings of symbols along its circumference, with some sort of carving of unfurled scroll on the centre.

And the thing has a very familiar name on it, written in Goa’uld script, as Arga once showed me, although the other symbols are in another language.

It is her name.

Hermione’s “head-buddy.”

“The museum has Jaffa and Goa’uld weapons on display,” Sai’yo remarks from behind me, sounding intrigued and a little alarmed.

I jump at least a foot, hearing his voice suddenly behind me without approaching footfalls to herald it. “Be stealthier, would you?” I grumble sarcastically, whirling about.

He stares quizzically at me.

I sigh. “That was sarcasm talking, if you didn’t get it,” I grump, before stalking away towards the humongous stone coin. But, on the way, I do spy some odd staff-like things which are labelled “Staffs of Office” and quite a few other bits and bobs, lining the walls at either side of the said humongous stone coin.

“Could you copy the symbols for me to send to Mione, Sai’yo?” I ask on coming to a stop before the stone slab. “There’s Arga’s name on it.”

“It is… not a nice message, my lord,” he ventures out in reply. “I could… decipher… the gist of the writing. The message might upset both human and symbiote.”

“Oh?” I crane my neck up and frown at the name. “Do tell, then. We’ll hold on sending anything. Mione’s already upset enough for me.”

His voice sounds farther back and quite solemn when he reads, “Here lie Arga, Egeria and Pandora, traitors to the gods, in eternal torment. May they never find peace and life after death.”

I cringe. “Ow,” I mutter. “Thanks for the safe, buddy.”

“The symbiotes must have enraged the other Goa’uld very much with their actions,” he opines.

I nod. “I won’t ask, though, not till Arga tells me or we need the info.”

“The piece on the centre details three separate addresses for the Chappa’ai,” he observes.

I sigh and shake my head. “We can’t get the Chappa’ai away from… this place. And who knows what’s waiting in those addresses, anyway.”

“I believe that we are ready to protect you, my lord,” he points out.

“We?” I frown suspiciously, whirling round to stare sharply at him.

“The Jaffa that the First Prime sent you, including I,” he affirms.

My frown turns into a scowl. “No chance,” I say shortly, then move over to the line of knick-knacks to the left of the macabre rounded tablet. “Now, where are the weapons?”

“You could always ask the First Prime to send you weapons alongside more Jaffa, instead of taking the ones in this place,” he suggests. “He seems to trust you very much.”

I snort. “Maybe he did,” I acknowledge grudgingly. “There were crates. Didn’t open ’em. Didn’t mean to steal, anyway. Just have a looksie.”

“We could protect you better with weapons in hand,” he nudges. “I was armed, even in my last posting as guard of the engine room.”

“That boring, eh?” I tease him, skirting round his point.

“I was often ordered to check the engines by the Goa’uld in charge of the room,” he demurs. “It gave me much chance to study the engines in detail.”

I chuckle. “Your version of paradise?”

“Almost,” he agrees, as we come up to the weird staves on display. “These are staff weapons, my lord, not ‘staffs of office’. The one beside them are weapons that are wrapped around the hand when used, exclusively wielded by the Goa’uld, not ‘gold woven ornamental braces’.”

“Do you think there’ll be many more like these elsewhere?” I wonder worriedly.

“We could check, if you wish so.”

“Well, all right, then.”

O-O-O-O

It is… disturbing, to find that Goa’uld and Jaffa items of various kinds have been slipped among even the Maian, Incan and Aztec artefacts, though not among the Nordic ones.

Did the Goa’uld dominate ancient human cultures, then? Did they live side by side, more or less, or were the humans their slaves? – I wouldn’t ask these questions, normally, nor would I wonder about such subject… but, his half a year, I have been living with one of the Goa’uld, sharing one headspace with my school-time best friend. The horcrux living in the Black signet ring used to be a slave warrior mage who helped incite a human rebellion against their Goa’uld masters, too.

I need to know if Arga – and Hermione, dragged into it willingly or unwillingly, as her host – will try to dominate the human population, especially with so many Jaffa around, equipped with whatever stored in the crates in the first trunk that might as well be weapons.

Damn. I’ve just remembered: The trunks have no specialised locks, and any magical person can free the Jaffa from their stasis.

Including Hermione.

Who is in the same body as Arga.

Arga could have her own personal army, by now, fully armed and certainly skilled, most likely quite experienced.

Well, I guess, if she means ill, I’ll just… do something to her. She’s still a snake, after all, and I killed a monstrous, humongous snake when I was a tiny, scrawny, ignorant, desperate twelve-year-old.

Still, to appease myself, since I would rather not return to my homeland just to confront her, I fish out my communication journal as Sai’yo and I take a respite at the little café attached to the museum, and write on the page that is dedicated to the “blended” madwoman that is half Hermione Granger and half Arga the Goa’uld:

HARRY POTTER
Mione, have you unearthed the Jaffa already or looked into the crates from the trunk?

Aaand, just a moment after, as if she has been waiting for my message all day, Hermione writes back in an unusual chicken-scratch penmanship:

HERMIONE GRANGER
No. Waiting for you of course. Can I free them now? Or should I send the trunks to you? The elves of Black Lodge want to come and stay with you. I can send the trunks and more with them to you. Promise I shan’t pry about where you are! I think the crates just contain their personal items or something like that. Haven’t checked them. Haven’t checked whatever in the second and third trunks too. So busy with the fourth and all. Where are you? Did you sign the contract yet? I want to meet this old woman! She sounded smart and sharp. What did you talk about? The group is working on a lie detector that will work for mundanes and magicals alike. George is with Bill working on a tiny portable version of the Vanishing Cabinets for delivery of items among us all. Dennis Creevey came to Justin asking for job but Justin said he should ask you but wait till you come home so when are you back? Justin thought Dennis could actually keep you company in your trip to take photos and videos of you and Sai’yo. Neville and Luna and Zabini are off in their explorations and I am alone here just with Arga and the elves and the Residents. Susan is visiting other Pureblood ladies. Can I join you if you don’t want to go home soon?

The message goes on and on and on.

I sigh, but smile nonetheless.

I can’t be quite sure if it’s really Hermione speaking or is Arga controlling her to gain my trust before stabbing me on the back later on, but this does sound like my childhood best friend, and it’s ironically a balm to all the uncertainties and worries.

HARRY POTTER
Talk to you later, Mione. We are exploring museums right now. Bought you and the rest a few things. Good luck in your experiments. Stay safe.

New York National Museum, 18th May 2004

Museum-hopping is a new experience that I can’t decide if I wish to repeat or not. I do experience so many ambiences and receive so much information, though, as Sai’yo steers me – in his subtle, sneaky, silent way – away from just focusing on what Goa’uld or Jaffa items that I might find among the remnants of previous human lives. And that translates into visiting diverse museums, not only those probably holding ancient artefacts.

“Well, it’s another humongous stone coin,” I remark as we enter the hall in the current museum that purportedly holds Ancient Egypt artefacts.

“I do not recognise the name written on the stone,” Sai’yo, walking in behind me, observes. “It most likely belongs to an underling, whether human or otherwise.”

“Or otherwise?” a male voice pipes in from farther into the hall, sounding curious and interested.

I wince. Sai’yo inhales sharply.

Damn. Neither of us thought to filter what we have been saying, in all our visits. Damn. Damn. Damn. We put so much caution on Ms. Langford but then flaunted it ourselves!

“Can we ask you to forget it?” I rejoin hopefully.

“Nope. Too interesting.” A man ambles towards us from the far wall, brown-haired and blue-eyed and grinning… thankfully in a humorous, friendly way. His eyes, framed by spectacles, are laughing, but it doesn’t do much to temper the keen curiosity stabbing through.

I give a false cough. “What about… something? Something in exchange?”

“What?” His humorous grin fades into a wary smile. “Bribe? A beating? Nope. Nope. What about just telling me? Y’know, if you think ‘alien’, then you’re not the first.” He looks round to check that the hall is still empty, then continues in a lower but more excited tone, “I’ll be presenting my findings and extrapolations in a symposium next week. Don’t tell anybody yet, but my hypothesis is the great pyramids weren’t built by the pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty. There’s no hieroglyphs there! The Ancient Egyptians loved their hieroglyphs and their decorations, but there’s nothing in those pyramids! They’re older than that dynasty, too, and there’s also writings in some other places nearby that didn’t look like hieroglyphs.”

I raise my eyebrows. – What a leap of deduction! And a leap of faith, too, if this man – not that much older than I am – dares present what he just said in what sounds like a very big, very official event.

“You visit the pyramids much?” I venture out.

“I research them, personally, for a few years already.” His grin is back, now proud… and rather wolfish. “I’m an archeologist, and a linguist. Um, uh, Daniel Jackson. Ever heard of me?” He looks rather sheepish, now, and fidgetty. “Not that you should. I just thought you looked and sounded pretty into archeology, yourselves.” He thrusts out a hand, then, awkwardly.

I shake the offered hand, then motion Sai’yo to do the same. “Harry Black and Sai’yo. Pleasure to meet you,” I smile wryly.

“Pleasure, pleasure.” Daniel Jackson gets antsier, more excited. “So, wanna come to the symposium? I could get the both of you an invitation as my personal guests. I can show you my evidence, then! And we can discuss things in the presentation, or after that is okay too.” He looks so hopeful, like a Crup puppy seeking some playful attention.

“Umm.” I fidget, myself. “Umm, we don’t know where we’ll be, next week,” I hedge. “We’re just… sort of… floating by.”

“Float by the symposium, then!” he laughs, then peters out, perhaps seeing our indifferent, uncertain reaction.

“Oh, come on,” he whinges – partly hopeful, partly playful, mostly nervous – in his own reaction to our reaction. After a beat, still jittering, he beckons us to the hanging stone slab, chattering, “Not too close, not too close, but see, here’s some stone cover, there’s a pair of ‘em, always, and they depict the person entombed in a particular place. This one belongs to a pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty….”

My mind blanks out, soon enough. I return to the here-and-now only when my ears hear no more sound.

I blink.

“I bored you, didn’t I?” The man – Daniel Jackson – looks genuinely disappointed, even a little hurt. “Sorry. I just thought you’d like it, given your interest.”

I shake my head. “Sorry, Mister Jackson. I am… interested, but my interests are… more specific.” Then, because my stomach is up in a fervent protest presently, I add as an apology, “Would you like to join us for dinner? Might be some late dinner, but we haven’t eaten since… some time ago.” Most likely this morning, as we have been busy museum-hopping, but I shan’t tell him that, or he’ll natter about his knowledge again!

Well, but that knowledge seems pretty thorough, nevertheless. I should recruit him, if I wish to find out more about the presence of the Goa’uld and their servants in ancient Earth civilisation without involving Arga and Black.

Damn. I’m acquiring a third Hermione.