Findings, Part 2
Kairo Base Camp of Gringotts Curse-Breakers, 21st May 2004
I feel… lost, and dumbfounded, which is pretty much the same at present.
Bill immediately spirited Sai’yo away, quite under protest and struggle, to see George in another room, right after we touched down on the floor of his conveniently empty base camp. Black set up Daniel with a rune puzzle in another room and locked the latter in it, with the last rune in the array that, if puzzled out and hit by a sentient regardless of magic or humanness, would unlock the door.
Afterwards, with the ambient noise of Daniel pounding the door and trying the handle and pounding the door again, demanding us to let him out, and Sai’yo doing the same in the neighbouring room, Black and I just… look at each other. For what feels like an eternity. Without speaking. Without moving. Although I was bursting with angry and hurt accusations and wild plans even while the possible collateral damages were spirited away – or spirited himself away, in Bill’s case.
And then, as two small, invisible hands gently grasp my own respective hands and a pair of equally small arms wind themselves round my legs from behind, and the Black family magic settles like a soft blanket over the four of us right after, something finally stirs in me, and I manage to let out, “Why?”
Black respects me enough by not denying that he has omitted something from his earlier reasoning; something that I subconsciously noticed but did not internalise until we arrived here; something that the Black family magic – Black’s own escence, essentially – notified me in a sense. In a soft voice, he admits that his corporeal being has been changed, all so subtly, given my not-so-human escence that powers his incarnation each time; something that he did not experience before as the original non-human part infusing their own blood to the line was not the then Lord Black. His feelings, desires and reactions are now just as human as when he was actually alive, including a desire to be fully human.
And he fears that, with that desire propelling him, he would seek to drain me or possess me, to achieve it.
“Hear me, child,” he continues before I can interject whether in word or gesture. “With me dispersed into the wards, the influence of your escence in me would also disperse, and with that I hope I can manage myself better. I will be able to rematerialise after you have passed the lordship to one of your children, and you know that passing the lordship does not mean you are on the cusp of death, if you so choose it. Until then, I shall exist only in the wards… including those that you might draw on your person, which naturally follow you everywhere.”
“Bribing me won’t work,” I argue for the sake of arguing, unwilling to admit that this explanation has mollified me some.
“Arguing for the sake of argument is terribly childish, too, my little lord, and it does not suit a person of any age to indulge in it for too long, irrespective of any reason. Be a child as you wish, when the situation is safe enough for you to revel in it, but never be childish.” He cups my cheek, then steps forward to gather me into a warm embrace that lingers comfortably long. “I remain your family and present in your life, Harry, whether I am corporeal or not. With me releasing the ha’tak into your care, you would even gain more family members and another secure home to live in as you choose, also a secure means of transportation for your whole family if need be.”
“Damn you, Black,” I whisper, as my body erupts in shakes, given that I fail to manage my emotions internally. “Damn you.” I put my arms round him and clutch him close, digging my fingers into his skin and flesh – very, very, very tangible skin and flesh – as my breaths grow ragged. “Damn you.” Because I cannot avoid the logic, the advantages, the plea in his voice. “Tomorrow. Not today. Don’t push me. Don’t push. Just… be here. Until tomorrow.” Because tomorrow he will be gone, never like this again, even if I pour most of my lifeforce into him to materialise him after I have passed the damned lordship to somebody else – anybody else.
My tears pour down, at last, when he whispers into my mop of hair, “Your will be done, my little lord.”
O-O-O-O
There is another reason why I would like to postpone uncovering the spaceship until tomorrow… or maybe after – well, preferably after, actually.
And the reason is before me, now, laid on the marble-top tea table, surrounded by not only myself and Black but also the three Black Lodge house-elves who came here as summoned by my distress, an intrigued Bill, an exasperated George, an astonishingly hard and prickly Sai’yo, a bemused and put-out Daniel plus his ever-present writing kit, and Hermione-Arga who took off here the moment I told her I am in Kairo… and promptly hugged Black to the point of suffocation.
The reason looks so simple, uncomplicated: just three matchbox-shaped blocks of wood, each larger than the neighbouring one. But I have been avoiding this particular reason for months and months.
Only, now, I cannot avoid dealing with it any longer, as Black hinted in his words that, soon enough, I will acquire more Jaffa in my figurative payroll.
These Jaffa that Teal’c sent me deserve to get to breathe the free air first, as they came first, and didn’t get that privelege only because I procrastinated.
Luna was right. I neglected these people, and they might not look charitably on it.
And Sai’yo could be in danger, because of that. Especially after I so impulsively offered him a place in my family.
I give Sai’yo – who is seated across from me, bracketed by Bill and George – a last glance, then pick up the smallest block of wood, from which he came.
“Thanks for being here, and thanks for offering to help me with the other Jaffa,” I begin, at length. “Please don’t undo the stasis, or read the notes if there are any.” The miniaturised trunk is clutched spasmodically in my sweaty hand, now. “Feel free to help me catalogue the crates, but I’d prefer you leave the people to me. And I’d like to see the contents of the crates intact, too.” I take a deep breath, then add, “I’ll revive just one, for now. If he’s doing fine, I’ll–.”
“There are people in those blocks of wood?” Daniel cuts in, aghast.
I give him a look. He glares back at me. “I will not be accessory to–,” he begins.
“They are all perfectly safe,” I cut in in turn, rather more heatedly than I intended. “Sai’yo was one of them.”
“Was?” Hermione pipes in, curious. I shake my head and wave a dismissive hand at her.
“Black will do his thing tomorrow, and we’ll be inundated by more people and things to do,” I hasten to say. “So we’ll have to maximalise the time that we’ve got today and tomorrow morning.” I send a glare Black’s way, then declare that we all shall approach his project only when the sun is up high, when even the Cooling Charm cannot negate the heat for magical folks, making the time a good one for being undetectable. I would have pushed the time further back to the evening or night, to maximalise my remaining time with that self-sacrificing sod, but many people are out that time, or sleeping and easily roused, so midday is best.
“I’d rather we got the people who came with Sai’yo out, first, before we meet anybody in that ship,” I add, explaining my sudden decision to ask for the trunks from my house-elf friends, just now. “I hope you could help them acclimatise to Earth, before tomorrow comes.”
And then, without further ado, on receiving various affirmations from my growing circle of friends and family, I swipe the two other trunks into my second, personalised mokeskin pouch, then put the mini trunk I’ve been clutching on the centre of the table. I tap it smartly with the tip of a magically charged finger, afterwards, and dive into the darkness of the portable flat as soon as the trunk is back to normal size and the lid pops open.
Portable Flat at Kairo Base Camp of Gringotts Curse-Breakers, 21st May 2004
I make a beeline to the dorms after reactivating the ward that prevents people from crossing over from the entry room to the rest of the flat. Behind me, I can hear people thudding into the nearly total darkness and bumping against each other, but I ignore them, drowned in my own anxious thoughts.
Therefore, it takes me an embarrassingly long time to realise that someone has somehow actually managed to follow me through the previously unassailable ward.
And I realise who the infiltrator is only when he roughly grabs me from behind, spins me round and presses me flush against his shaking body in a tight embrace.
Sai’yo.
No other individual in the living room outside was as jittery and prickly as he has been, which started right after Bil finally unlocked the room and let him join me.
“Miss me that much?” I am startled into complaining, my voice muffled by his chest. Despite the tone, though, I put my arms round him in turn and squeeze him once. – Well, I should have remembered that my blood is also coursing through his body, now, so my family wards won’t affect him.
I should have remembered that he is my family, too, now, and we share a rather clingy, sappy view on family.
Plus, he may have come to the same conclusion as I have subconsciously derived: that our lives won’t be the same again after this, and our holiday ends right now, even if we don’t immediately return to England, as many other people will come between us.
He says nothing to my words, but I needn’t hear anything from him about that.
He releases me, after a long moment, but I linger a little bit more before continuing my way to the dorm – the first dorm to the left from the entrance – where I found him.
He notices the empty bottom bunk on the farthest corner where Teal’c must have left him, when I send a large, gently glowing ball of Lumos up to the ceiling. He moves there, in fact, and starts to look round and up and down from that vantage point.
He gives me an idea, just by doing that.
“Anybody you’d like to chat with, Sai’yo?” I call softly from the door, whence I can see everything inside, only half obstructed by the three rows of three-tiered bunk beds and the two sets of three-tiered hammocks hanging in the spaces between the bunk beds.
He regards me silently and unreadably for a long while, his eyes gleaming darkly and strangely under the illumination of the magical light, like a deep, deep ocean view kissed by sunrise that I saw once from the deck of the Queen Mary 2. Thenn, just as silently, he approaches the set of bunk beds sitting against the opposite wall and touches the shoulder of the Jaffa laid out on the bottom bunk.
I bow my head and flick my wand up to levitate his chosen Jaffa away from the bed and towards me, refraining from using my not-so-developed wandless magic so as to secure the said Jaffa better. “Let’s go,” I murmur, then, and pad out of the room with the stiff, inert form of our potential new friend floating in front.
O-O-O-O
The entry room of the portable flat is a scene of… controlled chaos, so to say. All the crates are open and away from the walls in not-so-neat arrangement, with their respective lids propped up on one side, and my friends figuratively hovering beside a few of them. It’s like… an informal inspection of some sort, and I’m made strangely uncomfortable by it.
I approach Hermione-Arga first, figuring that Arga might know what many of these crates might hold, after lowering my new acquisition to lie by the mouth of the hallway that leads to the vestibule.
And, before I can ask, she is already picking up something from inside the crate.
Well, two somethings. And they turn out to be some of the staff weapons that Sai’yo showed me in a museum, just slimmer and somehow looking deadlier for it.
It doesn’t help that, when she floats one of the weapons to Sai’yo, he immediately handles it in what looks like a resting position, as if he had been doing so for all his life.
Well, he has, I suppose. I just… don’t want to think about it; not too much.
And, again before I can ask, the young woman already speaks, with Arga taking control of the body or so it sounds, listing the contents of not only “her” crate but also the other ones.
Weapons. Power packs for the weapons. Armour sets. Communication devises. Explosives. Uniforms. Packages of rations. Sets of what looks like some thorough personal survival kit. Medical equipment – whose number and variety are totally dwarfed by the weapons. Even a small but well-equipped tank of small water-snake-like animals – “For just in case,” the note says.
Damn. Teal’c was sending me a well-equipped army, instead of in-need Jaffa for me to care for.