Harry Potter: Lethal Injection

Chapter 3: Deranged Divinity (Part 2)

Meanwhile, Flamel and Dumbledore had been forced to scour the first dozen feet of the temple they were currently searching before they managed to make their next breakthrough, the time mostly taken up with the intensely complicated spells required to detect Ancient Egyptian wards. The discovery this time was centred on a large patch of carvings depicting the sun-god vanquishing various opponents, although these were the more romanticised versions the Pharaoh's had placed where their muggle subjects might see them.

"Nicolas," Dumbledore called the even more elderly man over, "what do you make of this?" As he spoke, he indicated the knot in the wards he had found centred on the carvings.

"Hmm," Nicolas murmured noncommittally as he began to weave his wand, casting a series of obscure detection, display, and diagnostic charms at the knot. In response, an increasingly complicated lattice of threads and geometric shapes began to appear in the air where the knot was located, before spreading out around the complex, particularly over the floor. After another few minutes of casting Flamel finally stopped, breathing hard at the use of so much powerful magic in such a short period of time, he was not, after all, as young as he once was. Peering at the information his magic had just made visible, Flamel commented: "This is going to take a while, Albus."

"Not what we're looking for then?" Dumbledore asked with a sigh, the ancient priests had certainly done their job well when it came to hiding the entrance to the Catacombs, and unlike with the Chamber of Secrets no one else had ever been stupid enough to record going looking for it, so there wasn't even anywhere they could eliminate as a possibility.

"Non, I believe this is the entrance, it is just that to gain entrance one must fulfil a great number of magical requirements, they must all have been elements of the priesthood. We're going to have to alter our magical signatures to the point where the locking magic recognises us as high priests of Ra and allows us entrance into the chamber below."

Dumbledore ran his eyes over the series of magical requirements Flamel's magic had revealed for the wards "This is going to be far from easy, my friend, the magical purification rituals alone would be complicated enough, but to steep ourselves in Egyptian ritual magic in a way that can then be reversed is going to be even more difficult. Especially given the latent magic from the wards the International Confederation of Wizards set up to ensure no one attempted to gain entrance to the Catacombs."

"Indeed," Flamel agreed gravely. "However, I'm afraid you missed the magical passphrase spell that has been worked into the ward-matrix, see?" He pointed with his wand to a spot where a small black sphere was almost hidden within a larger dark-blue one "The red trigger threads to the Evisceration Curses and the Reanimation Invocation give it away. We'll need to break the magical cypher in order to determine what the password is, not to mention the correct pronunciation assuming the word is something that only has meaning in this context."

"And that will take at least as long as the purification and magical inundation rituals." Dumbledore sighed again, he found himself doing that a lot in recent days. Perhaps young Mr. Potter is more like his father than I gave him credit for? Dumbledore mused idly, thinking of the dark-haired boy whose antics had prompted so many similar sighs during his tenure at Hogwarts, before shaking the thought away. "I propose that one of us focuses on altering our own magic to fool the wards while the other sets to work cracking the cypher, I would rather not have Harry down there longer than absolutely necessary. The longer he spends down there the more likely he is to encounter one of the Fallen Gods, and the less likely we are to ever see him alive again."

Flamel nodded grimly. "Oui, I will set to work on the passcode at once, you have less magic to purge than do I. Not to mention the effects of my stone, which I cannot attempt to purge."