Findings, Part 1
Valley of the Kings, 21st May 2004
“Bill, aren’t you going to do anything?”
“Do what, Harry?”
“Like, teach me how to detect the wards and what are still active here?”
“Nope. You can do it yourself very well, I bet.”
“Should I remind you again that I haven’t studied much about warding and enchantments? Damn it, Bill, the most that I’ve ever done is moulding present spells together or into something!”
“Did Flidwick or McGonagall ever teach you that doing magic needs your will and concentration and visualisation? Imagination, too, on the side.”
“What does it get to do with moulding?”
“A lot, actually, I bet. Your ability is still magic, Harry; maybe even a wilder, more powerful, more basic form of magic. You never need your wand to do it, do you? – Ha. Now just concentrate, and gently will your magic to skim over the wards, after we test the perimeters, layer by layer. Use physical things first, like rocks, then representatives of spell groups – of course, the lightest and gentlest the first. Look at the results not only with your eyes, but with your magic.”
“Can’t you just put it all in a memory crystal? I got a few blank ones, here.”
“Harry….”
“It’s a good solution! We won’t get things done before the month is out, if I keep experimenting, and we’ve got places to be all this month. I want a tour of the magical pyramids, too. Daniel brought me to a completely mundane pyramid this morning. Or maybe the magics have been stripped from it decades or centuries ago….”
“Harry, no, you can’t follow my way. My way is the mundane way, and Gringotts wants the unusual way.”
“Well, yes, I’ve found out that I’m a freak, even among the magicals.”
“Harry… nobody says you’re a freak, you know.”
“The Dursleys–.”
“Do I look like your relatives to you in any way, shape or form?”
“Um, no, but–.”
“Don’t dawdle, Harry. I can’t leave your friend for too long. I must see you do your thing, first, in case of emergencies, then I’ll keep him company.”
Bill gives the distant figures of Daniel and Sai’yo a wary glance, then focuses an exasperated glare on me. “He’s nosier than Dad about Muggles and Hermione about everything, and less able to defend himself in a magical environment. What did you think anyway, bringing a pair of Muggles into this?”
I shrug. “Sai’yo’s family, by now, and Daniel…. Well, suffice to say, he probably can help us with Teal’c-related matters.” I flick a meaningful glance at the two aforementioned blokes, who are studying the foot of the neighbouring, non-magical, fully visible pyramid, presently. “’Sides, he’s like me, no family and few friends.” Daniel said as much even during our first time together, in-between chattering about his passions.
Bill sighs, and briefly embraces me sidewise by way of an arm round my neck.
“Just don’t let anybody in the magical community know, you reckless man,” he warns me, though without a bite in his fond tone. “Don’t invite trouble when you’ve got enough already. – Now, let’s begin, and if you say one more word to stall any longer, I’ll Portkey you straight back to Hermione.”
O-O-O-O
Bill moves away to join Sai’yo and Daniel, now that we have established the fact that:
a) the circumference of the warding is not unnecessarily larger than the pyramid itself;
b) the warding is more defensive than offensive in nature, not so creative at that;
c) there is only one magical signature recorded for the warding, which is somehow familiar to me;
d) the wards have been done in different times but planned meticulously to trigger each other; and
e) the said wards are unbreakable also because they are powerful, fed by multiple self-sacrifices.
I bite my lip and fidget with my own fingers and the two rings set there. – What should I do, now? Do I try peeling the warding away? But the effect will only be temporary, as the protection will snap back as soon as my concentration and magic are lifted from it, just like when one is forcing a collapsing structure up and away from themself…. Or dare I use the Song to try to break the protection altogether? But I know even less about it than the so-called Potter-family specialty!
I glance to the side for the umpteenth time, noticing that Daniel is presently grilling Bill in… Egyptology, probably.
And Sai’yo, standing forgotten beside the two of them, happens to be glancing at me.
An unspoken question enters his gaze, as he sweeps the said gaze from me to his customary place behind and to the side of me. “May I join you?” it seems to say.
I shrug. Daniel and Bill won’t miss him much, and, in any case, it may be a prudent idea to separate the Muggle-sitting duty between Bill and I. Sai’yo can help watch my back while I’m trying to think up a way inside, too.
If only I wouldn’t think twice on just tearing the wards open and obliterating them…. I just…. The self-sacrifices felt clean, somehow, fully willing, and relatively benign, and I loathe to spit on that by ruining what all those ancient people gave their lives for. There’s no telling, too, what’ll happen to the thing or things protected inside, should I just send the whole protection into the ether. It’d be even more of an insult if we got those protectee(s) damaged or broken, as well.
“Hey, you said the Egyptian pyramids are like the Goa’uld biggest spaceships,” I address my new official family member once he has joined me. “Wanna see what about this one? The first layer of the protection creates an illusion that not even the magicals can just swipe away with the wave of a wand. I can peel it off, though, for a while, like when you open a curtain. The pyramid mightn’t be a pyramid, after all.”
His affirmative sees me raising both bare hands and concentrating mentally and magically on the layer that I mentioned, which is the subtlest of the whole protection but also the most powerful.
Somebody – or a whole lot of somebodies, maybe – wanted to hide something pretty desperately, it seems.
And, judging from the sharp intake of breath Sai’yo lets out when I manage to make a smallish opening on the thing, level with my torso, my vague guess is correct.
Not to mention, I myself see that, instead of the weathered sandstone bricks of the usual pyramids, the wall revealed by the opening is more like the outer hull of an aeroplane. Just… shinier, and sturdier-seeming.
“Want me to make it bigger?” I offer, my voice strained alongside my concentration. The illusion really doesn’t like being lifted off.
“Unless you wish us to come in, my lord, this is enough,” Sai’yo replies, rather dazedly, after a beat. “And you might wish to release your hold on the opening. It seems to tax you greatly.”
I comply with his request, admitting that, yes, the illusion really doesn’t want to go away. “But what was it?” I implore, next. “You were shocked.”
“It… could be a great advantage for you, my lord, should it be operational and unoccupied,” is the Jaffa’s very uncomposed response, and my eyes widen at both the emotions he so rarely shows and the gist of his words.
“You mean… it’s a spaceship?” I hiss, after sucking in my own sharp inhale of breath.
“A ha’tak, yes, my lord, a grounded one without a landing pad,” he nods, still looking rather shaken. “An intact one from the outside, and from the little that I saw.”
My mind churns. – Why was the spaceship grounded not on its landing pad? Who did the grounding? Why? Why is it intact from the outside, if it’s a forceful grounding? Is this an ancient trap? But for what or whom? The wards didn’t – don’t – feel like a trap, but a good trap is unnoticeable, isn’t it? Who warded this thing, anyway? Why? Were they the same as the ones grounding the ship? Was the ship so valuable that they protected it literally with their lives? What’s inside of it? Can I risk trying to find out? There’s some space between the first layer and the second one of the warding arrays….
I rub my rings nervously as my thoughts continue to whirl round and round and round.
And then Sai’yo suddenly yanks me to the side, before deliberately positioning himself in front of me.
“Hey! Sai’yo?” I squawk, protesting, but in a slurred voice, as my legs threaten to buckle under me, and dizziness and weakness swamp me. I grab a tight hold on the back of his T-shirt, then switch it to his shoulders.
The one who responds isn’t the paranoid Jaffa, though, but….
That deep, booming, rumbling laughter….
“Black?”
Bill and Daniel are running towards us, judging from the sound of shushing sand that seems to be created by hasty footfalls on the sandy ground, but my concentration is riveted on the owner of the previous sound.
“Black? Why are you here?”
I can’t really see beyond Sai’yo’s shoulder, so I lever myself on my tiptoes to give myself a better view.
Yep. Black: huge and nearly naked frame, black skin glistening under the beating afternoon sun, rough features now stretched in a sharp, approving grin, watchful black eyes now trained half on me and half on Sai’yo.
“Hello again, child,” comes the greeting, with a trace of gentle rebuke in it. “Congratulations, you have found what else I helped do in my lifetime. And, apparently, now you have both a new bodyguard and family member all in one.” He raises an eyebrow. “Why did you not bring him with you to the island yet? You liked being there, last time.”
Well, yes. But I haven’t liked being anywhere much in particular, lately, have I? Except for the company….
Oh. Oh oh oh.
When was the last time I visited Black or communicated with him? No wonder he rebuked me!
But still, why is he in person, here, now? He sapped my strength and concentration just as I needed it for a very important undertaking!
I complain to him, just so, even as I return the ball of my feet back to the reasonably firm earth and lean my forehead against the reassuring back of the newest Potter-Black, all without releasing my death-grip on his shoulders.
And Black says to that: “I noticed where you were, and judged that my corporeal state would help you and your companions more than if I stayed incorporeal.”
I give him just a snort and a brief, vague wave at the direction of the illusioned spaceship, in response.
But then, as he approaches the first layer of the warding, his words register fully in my mind, including the knowledge that he is a magical construct, himself.
“Wait!” I squawk, before he can touch the layer. “Wait! Wait! Wait!”
I move away from Sai’yo, just as Bill and Daniel arrive, and yank Black by his nearest arm, away from the wards. “Wait! What’ll happen to you when you touch that ward? You’re a construct, yourself!”
The huge man regards me deeply, silently, then proclaims in an implacable tone with his eyes never leaving mine, “I know you wish to preserve the wards as they are, and I greatly appreciate the consideration, child. However, you cannot do so without me, however skillful you are with your special abilities. The arrays were set to be destroyed along with everything they protect without the presence of the key, and I am the key, Harry. The people held in this place hold personal value and importance to me. Others sacrificed themselves for them, so did I.”
“So will you,” I finish for him, with bitterness pooling in my mouth.
He kisses my forehead on the damned scar, in response.
“No,” I whisper, then, much louder, “No!”
“I am not going to abandon you, child. I just will no longer be corporeal, or intrude into your affairs. I will just be a presence in the wards, here and in other places where Black-blood wards are set. You can even invite me to dwell in new wards that you set up, if we arrange it now.”
I respond to that nonsense by slapping the pre-prepared Portkey back to Bill’s base camp – a large, battered frisbee – into his hand, then Achioing Sai’yo, Daniel and Bill to join us.
I will just tell Gringotts to find another project for me to do.