In Egypt 2/15
Characters: Tonks, Kingsley, Fleur
first chapter
Chapter Two/15 - With Added Iron
Riiiiiiiiiiiiip. Scuffle, scuffle, scuffle…
Tonks caught the edge of her Auror robe under one of her boots, tearing a great chunk out of the hem. Her feet cycled helplessly in slow motion across the floor, leading her inexorably towards the wooden pedestal.
Thunk!
The stand clattered back and forward for a time-stretched, slow motion moment and then fell, over, over, launching the glass lotus into the air. It soared in an arc straight towards Fleur. Like a plummeting dove it glittered, white and streamlined. Fleur’s eyes were wide and her hands automatically flailed at the empty space before her.
Just as Fleur finally snatched and clutched the lotus deftly to her chest, cradling it safely in her arms, Tonks crashed into her from the side, knocking them both crunchingly onto the hard stone ground.
For a long second, there was a breath-catching silence. Everybody tried to piece together what had just happened. Kingsley was the first to recover his wits and strode over to the two women on the floor.
“I think it’s about time we locked this thing in the vault and all went home to our breakfasts,” he said firmly. Then, looking at Fleur, he seemed to falter and a more puzzled note crept into his deep voice. “Tonks, put the glass flower back in the bag, put it on the pedestal and let’s get out of here.”
Tonks scrabbled to her knees, wiping her now-filthy palms on the knees of her trousers. Fleur somehow managed to rise effortlessly, despite needing both hands to hold the lotus, and casually held it out to Tonks with a challenging look.
Tonks reached out to take it but just before her fingertips touched the opaque glass surface, she let out a gasp. Tiny jolts of magic had shot from the Object right through her body. They had triggered the old memory of a pain, the one she used to get in her bones after a long hard day of practice transformations, when her body was sick of being a metamorphagus and desperately ached to stay the same shape just for a little while.
Then a fierce metal hook seemed to stab and grab her through her belly and she realised that she had been grabbed by a primitive Portkey.
Oof!
Tonks dropped about a foot onto soft sand, still holding the lotus. Her head was spinning in a kaleidoscope of colours, but her first inward breath was enough to tell her that she wasn’t in Gringotts any more. The air was scorchingly hot and distinctively flavoured, a bit like a potions cupboard on a July afternoon with some added iron.
“Aaaiee!” Someone thudded beside her. As Tonks’s vision cleared, she saw blonde hair and the stylish grey drapery of Fleur Delacour, her arms still stretched towards the glass lotus. Fleur’s vision also seemed to be clearing and she was not best pleased.
“What did you do, you stupid, maladroit…bah, it does not matter. Magique bleu! Where is it you have taken us to?”
It was a sand-strewn, unfurnished, desert chamber. Blindingly white, baking sunlight flooded in from a rough doorspace on one side and a there was a small dark opening at the back.
Fleur got up stiffly and was brushing off her robes. Tonks sat on the ground, staring at the glass flower in her hands and thinking furiously. Here she was, hot sand under her arse, transported to Merlin knows where in the world and holding a potentially dangerous dark object firmly in both hands like she’d just been given it for Christmas. Plus she had the delightful company of this crazy French witch who had been so intent in getting a look at the lotus in the first place.
Was Fleur working for the other side? She wasn’t exactly going to say so if Tonks asked her nicely. Tonks saw the drawstring bag for the lotus on the floor - it must have transported with them. First things first. Make the object safe, get it back to Shacklebolt and the others. Then solve the mystery with Fleur. In the meantime she should rely on her own considerable powers of diplomacy. Tonks chuckled to herself at her own sarcasm.
“Fleur?” Tonks called over.
“How do you know how I am called? Aah, you saw my picture in the Prophet when I was a Triwizard champion.” Fleur preened a little more.
“I didn’t miss a single one of your interviews. Fleur, would you throw me over that bag, please?”
Fleur stopped tidying herself for long enough to comply. Tonks slipped it over the fragile leaves and petals, but just before she was about to tighten the strings, Fleur stopped her.
“Look, there is a marking on the base of the fleur!”
It was a circle with two curved prongs, one on either side.
“An astrological sign? Maybe a rune?”
“No, I think it is something more simpler. Look at the walls around you.”
As her eyes became adjusted to the gloom, Tonks could finally take in their surroundings. They were worth looking at.
All four walls were embellished with magnificent wall carvings in an Egyptian style. Figures wearing precariously towering head-dresses paraded in stiff lines, holding mysterious items out to each other for inspection. There was a mass of wavy lines that she supposed stood for a river, because above it there were people on boats, motionless in their ancient activities.
“Do you see that which is floating in the river?” asked Fleur.
Tonks saw it - floating in the river, being carried by the people, growing on the bank - everywhere there were flowers, all just like the glass lotus she was carrying. What was it all about?
“And look at this cow by the river. Look at the horns! There is a disc between the horns!” Fleur was dashing from frieze to frieze with a surprising amount of enthusiasm.
“The horns?” thought Tonks, confusedly. Then she saw. It was the same symbol that had been on the base of the glass lotus - a circle with a curving horn on either side.
“Bill told me about this,” continued Fleur excitedly, moving nearer to the entrance of the chamber where the light was brightest, “It is the symbol of the goddess Hathor - and she is also over here.”
Tonks just had time to notice that Fleur was pointing to a slender woman in a Hathor headdress tenderly cradling a smaller figure to her chest. Suckling it?
Then Fleur’s finger wavered and fell. She crumpled into a limp bundle on the floor. Translucent filaments of mist from the chamber entrance snaked around her motionless body. Tonks caught sight of Fleur’s face as she toppled. Horror and incomprehension screamed from her eyes.
Relentlessly, the furnace-like heat in the chamber started to leak away. Tonks’s quickening breaths now made frosty clouds in front of her. The sunlight flickered and dimmed as an insubstantial shadow crept across the entrance, and then began to move in closer.
Tonks gripped her wand in a cold sweaty palm and prepared for the attack.
next chapter
first chapter
Chapter Two/15 - With Added Iron
Riiiiiiiiiiiiip. Scuffle, scuffle, scuffle…
Tonks caught the edge of her Auror robe under one of her boots, tearing a great chunk out of the hem. Her feet cycled helplessly in slow motion across the floor, leading her inexorably towards the wooden pedestal.
Thunk!
The stand clattered back and forward for a time-stretched, slow motion moment and then fell, over, over, launching the glass lotus into the air. It soared in an arc straight towards Fleur. Like a plummeting dove it glittered, white and streamlined. Fleur’s eyes were wide and her hands automatically flailed at the empty space before her.
Just as Fleur finally snatched and clutched the lotus deftly to her chest, cradling it safely in her arms, Tonks crashed into her from the side, knocking them both crunchingly onto the hard stone ground.
For a long second, there was a breath-catching silence. Everybody tried to piece together what had just happened. Kingsley was the first to recover his wits and strode over to the two women on the floor.
“I think it’s about time we locked this thing in the vault and all went home to our breakfasts,” he said firmly. Then, looking at Fleur, he seemed to falter and a more puzzled note crept into his deep voice. “Tonks, put the glass flower back in the bag, put it on the pedestal and let’s get out of here.”
Tonks scrabbled to her knees, wiping her now-filthy palms on the knees of her trousers. Fleur somehow managed to rise effortlessly, despite needing both hands to hold the lotus, and casually held it out to Tonks with a challenging look.
Tonks reached out to take it but just before her fingertips touched the opaque glass surface, she let out a gasp. Tiny jolts of magic had shot from the Object right through her body. They had triggered the old memory of a pain, the one she used to get in her bones after a long hard day of practice transformations, when her body was sick of being a metamorphagus and desperately ached to stay the same shape just for a little while.
Then a fierce metal hook seemed to stab and grab her through her belly and she realised that she had been grabbed by a primitive Portkey.
Oof!
Tonks dropped about a foot onto soft sand, still holding the lotus. Her head was spinning in a kaleidoscope of colours, but her first inward breath was enough to tell her that she wasn’t in Gringotts any more. The air was scorchingly hot and distinctively flavoured, a bit like a potions cupboard on a July afternoon with some added iron.
“Aaaiee!” Someone thudded beside her. As Tonks’s vision cleared, she saw blonde hair and the stylish grey drapery of Fleur Delacour, her arms still stretched towards the glass lotus. Fleur’s vision also seemed to be clearing and she was not best pleased.
“What did you do, you stupid, maladroit…bah, it does not matter. Magique bleu! Where is it you have taken us to?”
It was a sand-strewn, unfurnished, desert chamber. Blindingly white, baking sunlight flooded in from a rough doorspace on one side and a there was a small dark opening at the back.
Fleur got up stiffly and was brushing off her robes. Tonks sat on the ground, staring at the glass flower in her hands and thinking furiously. Here she was, hot sand under her arse, transported to Merlin knows where in the world and holding a potentially dangerous dark object firmly in both hands like she’d just been given it for Christmas. Plus she had the delightful company of this crazy French witch who had been so intent in getting a look at the lotus in the first place.
Was Fleur working for the other side? She wasn’t exactly going to say so if Tonks asked her nicely. Tonks saw the drawstring bag for the lotus on the floor - it must have transported with them. First things first. Make the object safe, get it back to Shacklebolt and the others. Then solve the mystery with Fleur. In the meantime she should rely on her own considerable powers of diplomacy. Tonks chuckled to herself at her own sarcasm.
“Fleur?” Tonks called over.
“How do you know how I am called? Aah, you saw my picture in the Prophet when I was a Triwizard champion.” Fleur preened a little more.
“I didn’t miss a single one of your interviews. Fleur, would you throw me over that bag, please?”
Fleur stopped tidying herself for long enough to comply. Tonks slipped it over the fragile leaves and petals, but just before she was about to tighten the strings, Fleur stopped her.
“Look, there is a marking on the base of the fleur!”
It was a circle with two curved prongs, one on either side.
“An astrological sign? Maybe a rune?”
“No, I think it is something more simpler. Look at the walls around you.”
As her eyes became adjusted to the gloom, Tonks could finally take in their surroundings. They were worth looking at.
All four walls were embellished with magnificent wall carvings in an Egyptian style. Figures wearing precariously towering head-dresses paraded in stiff lines, holding mysterious items out to each other for inspection. There was a mass of wavy lines that she supposed stood for a river, because above it there were people on boats, motionless in their ancient activities.
“Do you see that which is floating in the river?” asked Fleur.
Tonks saw it - floating in the river, being carried by the people, growing on the bank - everywhere there were flowers, all just like the glass lotus she was carrying. What was it all about?
“And look at this cow by the river. Look at the horns! There is a disc between the horns!” Fleur was dashing from frieze to frieze with a surprising amount of enthusiasm.
“The horns?” thought Tonks, confusedly. Then she saw. It was the same symbol that had been on the base of the glass lotus - a circle with a curving horn on either side.
“Bill told me about this,” continued Fleur excitedly, moving nearer to the entrance of the chamber where the light was brightest, “It is the symbol of the goddess Hathor - and she is also over here.”
Tonks just had time to notice that Fleur was pointing to a slender woman in a Hathor headdress tenderly cradling a smaller figure to her chest. Suckling it?
Then Fleur’s finger wavered and fell. She crumpled into a limp bundle on the floor. Translucent filaments of mist from the chamber entrance snaked around her motionless body. Tonks caught sight of Fleur’s face as she toppled. Horror and incomprehension screamed from her eyes.
Relentlessly, the furnace-like heat in the chamber started to leak away. Tonks’s quickening breaths now made frosty clouds in front of her. The sunlight flickered and dimmed as an insubstantial shadow crept across the entrance, and then began to move in closer.
Tonks gripped her wand in a cold sweaty palm and prepared for the attack.
next chapter