Chapter Nineteen
Arrangements
Ginny was once more dumbstruck. After Sunset's mildly ominous behavior, everything had returned more or less to normal for the next few days. Sure, with the girls showing her not only magic but also Parkour, she hadn't exactly followed her usual routine, but it had felt like the most natural thing in the world regardless. Now, however, Ginny stood in the door leading from the Burrow's kitchen to the garden.
Her brothers and her mother stood gathered there, together with her new friends. Then Ginny noticed another familiar face. "Luna! You're here too?"
"Yes. A girl came by with a phoenix and asked if I wanted to come to your birthday party."
"That would be Sunset. She has a bit of a habit of doing that. How did she manage all this?"
"Well she didn't exactly do it alone." Ginny spun around to see Emma standing behind her, wearing a proud smile. "Hermione and Molly helped a good bit, and the twins were invaluable at making sure you didn't notice."
"Turns out we make a good distraction."
"Who could have guessed?"
More than used to her brothers' antics, Ginny simply rolled her eyes as she surveyed the gathered guests. It didn't take long before she noticed something was off. "Hey, where is Sunset?"
The gathered party guests shrugged.
"We only know that she-"
"-said something about-"
"-getting some surprise guests."
Everyone turned when there was a flash of flames at the edge of the gathering. There was Sunset, Philomena perched on her shoulder and two mildly bemused men stood behind her. It only took Ginny a second to recognize them. "Bill! Charlie!"
She rushed forward to greet her two grown-up brothers, enclosing them both in a tight hug that they gladly returned. The older and taller one of the two, wearing relatively light explorer's clothing, including a pith helmet, and small golden earrings, was the first to speak up. "It's nice to see you too sis. Happy Birthday."
The younger one of the two, a bit stockier, weather beaten and completely covered in freckles, only interrupted by several scars that marred his skin in multiple places, with long read hair, nodded as he still hugged his sister. "It's been way too long. Happy birthday sis."
Molly meanwhile was focused on Sunset, noticing the sandy brown dust in her hair. "How did you manage that?"
Sunset simply maintained her smug smirk. "I think Bill can explain it better than I can."
Seeing that he was suddenly the center of attention, Bill let go of his sister and took a seat at the large table that stood next to the house. "Alright. So I was in a pyramid, at work."
Bill stood in the underground chamber, his wand drawn to illuminate his surroundings. There, at the end of the chamber, no ten meters away, was the treasure. The treasure his employers wanted. The one he would get a cut from after completing his work. But there was a hindrance, an unseen obstacle standing between him and his prize.
A curse.
Of course there was a curse. These old tombs always held curses. They were the reason he was here in the first place. He was a curse breaker. Removing that hindrance was what they would pay him for. This particular curse was tricky. Nothing he couldn't deal with of course, but time consuming to break none the less.
He had been at work on unraveling it for two weeks now, another week, he estimated, and he would have it safely removed. There was a chance, of course, that the treasure itself might be cursed, but that would be someone else's problem. With a smirk, he got back to work removing the curse, weakening it, bit by bit. Engrossed in his work as he was he didn't notice the flash of light from the corridor he had entered through, nor did he hear the distant crackle of flame, or the footsteps slowly approaching afterward.
"William Weasley?"
He jumped. A voice had just spoken behind him. Before he could even turn around, his mind was going a hundred miles an hour. Almost absently he moved the matrix lines of the curse he was working on into a stable position and released his magical hold on them, he had been startled during his work before and it was dangerous to leave such an ancient spell unstable.
His mind quickly processed through what he knew. Both the survey team and he personally had scanned the entire tomb, cataloging every curse found, the one that was his current project was the only one left. Still it was possible that they had missed one. But how would a trap know his name? Legillimency came to mind, but that form of magic had only been invented fifteen centuries ago. This tomb was twice as old.
The voice had pronounced his name perfectly, without any discernible accent. The locals spoke Arabic, pronouncing his full name without accent was a feat beyond most of them. Not that the majority would bother to try anyway. Some of his colleagues could do it, but they would call him Bill.
Perhaps mental subversion was at work. A voice speaking in his own head. He had heard the reverberations off the walls, but those could be replicated with magic. It would explain hearing his own name. The trap might not know it, but he certainly did.
His thought process concluded just as he finished turning, his still glowing wand now pointing at a young girl. Her hair was a fiery red and blonde, her large, teal eyes were faintly glowing in the gloom of the chamber. She wore a modern leather jacket and a pale blue skirt, with leather boots and a messenger bag to round off the ensemble. There was also a phoenix perched on her shoulder.
Her clothing made no sense for this environment. Nor was there any reason she should be here. She had to be an illusion. His mind made up, he gripped his wand tighter. "Revelio!" A bolt of pale blue light erupted from the glowing tip of his wand, striking her square in the chest. Nothing happened. The girl raised an eyebrow, the phoenix tilted it's head.
No illusion then. A golem, perhaps? Tomb guardians were not unheard of. "Reducto!" A second bolt, a darker blue this time, shot forth from his wand, once more aiming for her chest. This time, she moved, twisting her upper body to the side. The long chamber gave the spell quite a way to fly, granting her more than enough time to dodge the spell.
She returned to her previous position, her eyes now narrowed, her hands glowed a faint teal and a glowing barrier sprung up between them. "That's about enough. You are William Weasley? Eldest son of Arthur Weasley and Molly Weasley nee Prewett? Brother of Charles, Percival, Frederic, Georgius, Ronald and Ginnevra Weasley?"
Hesitantly he nodded.
"Good. My name is Sunset Shimmer. You are the one I came here for." Once more he grabbed his wand tightly. A silently cast charm revealed the shield that not only separated them, but also sealed him in the chamber, to be of significant strength, he could break it, but it would take him a moment. "Tell me, Bill, what day is it?"
"Monday, why?"
Both girl and bird rolled their eyes. "I mean the date."
"August eleventh. Again, why?"
"Tell me, Bill, what happened at your home, ten years ago to the day?"
Bill was confused for a moment. Ten years ago? At his home? His home here in Egypt hadn't been built ten years ago. She had to be talking about the Burrow. Suddenly he remembered. "August eleventh! Ginny's birthday!"
Sunset broke into a warm smile. "Exactly. I've come to get you and your brother for her birthday party."
"Isn't this a bit late?"
"Normally yes, but when you can travel the distance in seconds, there really isn't such a thing as too late, is there?"
"Right, phoenix. Still. I'd love to come, but I have work to do."
"You're a curse breaker, correct?"
"Yes."
"Then I presume you need that curse-" She pointed at the area behind him, where the curse was anchored. "-broken?"
"Yes."
"One moment." With that she drew her own wand. "Luminis Salvatis." A pulse of golden light erupted from the tip of her wand, passing trough the entire chamber. The moment it passed through him, he felt a pleasant tingle, it felt similar to touching a patronus. The golden light coated the walls in a faint glow.
He looked back at the area that held the curse. All across the walls, in a deep purple, ancient runes were written on the old stone.
The girl seemed pleased. "There we go. I see. Interesting. Ah well, I can study it in more detail later. For now, tell me. Does this help?"
Bill took several moments to look at the intricacies of the curse he was dealing with. He could see several things that had been giving him trouble before. Laid bare as they were now, he could see how he could easily circumvent them. Even layers of the curse he hadn't even touched yet suddenly seemed trivially easy to break. Normally he would need to do more prep-work, but as it was, what he had already done was more than enough. "It does, one moment."
He once more pointed his wand, focusing on one rune in particular. "Acribeus." A bolt of silvery, blue light shot out from his wand, striking the arcane symbol and lighting it up the same color. "Torquis." A second bolt of light shot out at another rune, lighting it up as well and forming a fine, silvery chain between them.
The process repeated several times, leaving silvery chains criss-crossing a good portion of the chamber. "Now, for my favorite part." He snapped his fingers and all the chains went taught. A moment later, the glowing symbols ripped from the walls and shattered, disappearing along with the chains.
With crucial parts of it missing, the other runes of the curse quickly began to loose their purple shimmer, turning a dull black. After barely a minute, they dissolved into a black mist. He watched as the girl lit her wand again, a golden glow appearing at the tip. With a twirl of the wand, she summoned a shimmering light, picking up the air of the chamber in a golden glow and dispersing the mist.
Bill drew his wand to check and found that, indeed, the remnants of the curse were gone. "Convenient. Normally I have to wait hours for this stuff to clear. Could you teach me that spell?"
"Which one?"
"Both, actually."
"Sure. But first we need to go get your brother. Philomena, if you would."
With an amused trill, the phoenix spread its wings and the three of them disappeared in a flash of flame.
"Uhh, how?"
Sunset shrugged. "Light magic, I can explain later. But tomorrow, okay? Today's about Ginny, not me. I think it's about time you knew my story anyways."
"That's alright dear," Mrs. Weasley assured her. "Would you mind if I invited some of your teachers at Hogwarts over? They'll probably want to know anyway."
"Sure thing. Anyway, Bill? Would you like to continue?"
"Fair enough. Well, we quickly popped over to Romania ..."
Bill took a moment to adjust. He had never traveled by Phoenix before. Sure, apparition was unpleasant, and portkeys and floo-travel were adventures all of their own, but in some way or another, they all provided a feeling that something was happening. Something he could interpret as motion.
Phoenix travel on the other hand, was jarringly seamless. One moment he was many meters underground in Egypt, the next he stood at the edge of a forest clearing somewhere in rural Romania. And nothing but a faint heat washing over him and a flash of light indicated to him that anything had happened at all.
By the time he got his bearings, Sunset had already surveyed their surroundings. It didn't take him long to follow her gaze and spot the scene a hundred meters ahead. Twelve wizards trying to subdue a massive dragon.
By the time he had spotted the wizards, Sunset was already pointing at one of them. "Is that Charlie?"
Looking at the wizard she had pointed out, it only took him a moment to verify her suspicion. "Yup. He looks kinda occupied right now."
"True enough. Let me think." She fell silent for a few moments, studying both the wizards and the dragon in more detail. "Tell me, the scales of dragons are resistant to magic, correct?"
"Yes." Bill was intrigued what this mysterious little witch was up to now.
"But their eyes are not?"
"No."
"Are their bones?"
"Not as far as I know, why?"
"And Charlie knows that?"
"After how long he's been working with dragons, I certainly hope so."
"Good."
"What are you doing?"
"You'll see.
Bill watched as she pulled out her wand once more and began following the handlers with its tip. It didn't take him long to realize she was aiming for Charlie.
"Accelro!"
Bill watched as a fine beam of teal sprang from her wand and hit right between Charlie's shoulder blades, just as he had stopped a good distance from the dragon to take a breath.
Charlie couldn't understand why, but suddenly, it was as though the world was hardly moving at all. He could see faint traces of motion in the flames the dragon was breathing against one of his friends, as well as in the hastily conjured shield that deflected them. But everything else was so slow it might as well not have been moving at all.
He didn't understand what was happening, but the dragon needed to be subdued. This was a chance he couldn't afford to miss. Normally a dragon's hide resisted magic so well that it would take dozens of stunning spells to drop one of this size, more than their small group could fire at once. But whatever was going on afforded him more options.
He knew that a wizard hit in the head with a stunning spell was usually out for several hours, while hitting a foot might not even completely stun them in the first place, going by that logic it was clear what he had to do. Seeing how there really was no hurry, he calmly strolled over until he was looking straight into one of the dragon's eyes. With great care, he pointed his wand, so the spell would hit the eye and, if he was lucky, perhaps even pass through into the brain. That was sure to keep even a dragon down and out for a good while.
"Stupefy."
A bolt of red shot from his wand and hit the dragon's eye. Seeing no change, he shot another one through the other eye, just to be sure. Then he calmly walked around the clearing, waiting to see if the mysterious effect would end.
After a moment, he spotted the two people standing a good hundred yards away. He saw, to his great astonishment, his own brother, Bill, standing next to a girl with fiery red and blonde hair with a phoenix on her shoulder.
As he walked closer, he could see the teal light at the tip of her wand. A wand that was pointed exactly where he had been standing when the mysterious effect had started.
Understanding dawned on him and a quick aura sight charm confirmed his suspicions, clearly showing the magic flowing from the wand to him. With a smirk, he drew his wand again, pointing it at hers. "Finite."
Bill was quite startled, to say the least, to see his brother suddenly standing next to him. "Gah! When did you get here."
Sunset simply giggled. "That was a speed spell. So I'd say, for him, some time in ... eh, the last ten minutes or so. For us, half a second ago."
Charlie turned to his brother, who was currently watching the dragon collapse behind him. "Who's that."
Bill recovered his wits and turned back to Charlie. "That's Sunset Shimmer, she's apparently a friend of Ginny's. She's here to pick us up for her birthday party. "
"She is?" The younger brother turned to Sunset. "You are?"
She simply smirked. "I am."
"Well, that one-" He pointed at the sleeping beast behind him. "-is gonna stay out for a while, so I think I should have time. Lemme just tell the blokes right quick"
When the two nodded, Charlie hurried over to his confused friends. He only took a minute or two to to talk to them. Then he returned. "So. We're going by phoenix then?"
"We are. Come let's walk for a bit. Professor McGonnagall told me not to let too many people know about her." As soon as they were out of sight from the other handlers, Sunset turned to the bird on her shoulder. "Philomena, if you would."
With a trill, the bird spread its wings. In a flash of fire, the group was gone.