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Holly strode through the museum with a frown on her face.
The paperwork had been clear; for years, something magical had been occurring in the museum, and someone was supposed to look into it. At least fifty years ago, someone should have visited to learn if they needed to obliviate, remove, or just replace a magical item lost to the Muggle museum. But due to Voldemort, corruption in the ministry, and plain old human failure, no one had until Holly. Until Hermione found the report for this particular oddity and sent it off to Holly to look into.
The problem was, Holly didn't see anything magical in the museum. The whole place was calm. It was positively Muggle as she strode through the halls and looked at the exhibits with care. There were no blatant magical creatures, no runes being found and set up, no untrained wizards hidden within the staff. The museum was perfectly normal, and yet Holly knew it couldn't be. Something had been setting off their sensors every night for decades. So what was happening?
Holly smiled kindly at one of the guards to the exhibit as a closing announcement came over the system. She pretended to leave the area; clearly she'd have to take a closer look after hours if she was going to get to the bottom of this. Unfortunately, that meant she'd be late for dinner and would have to send a message to Andromeda and Teddy, so they didn't wait up.
Heaving a sigh, she slipped away from the crowds and cameras and disillusioned herself. Then, hidden and silenced in the building, Holly awaited the building's closure. It took some time annoyingly, but eventually, the Night-guards - three of them - started, and Holly started moving once more. The night-guards, as Holly had seen them, were a set of elderly guards. Avoiding them with a touch of magic was plaintively simple; they were three old Muggles, for goodness sake. However, that single benefit didn't help when Holly, after another hour, still couldn't discover the source of the magic.
And she couldn't… until; the sun set behind the horizon and darkness fell over the museum.
Holly was debating messaging Bill in the Egyptology section when a cacophony of noise exploded around her. It was like a football field worth of people had suddenly appeared all within the museum, and Holly found it quietly startling. With a soft gasp, Holly ducked behind a wall, despite being disillusioned, as the two jackal guards in the room with her sprung to life.
"Bloody hell!" Holly gaped up at the set of beasts as the unmistakable sign of magic became blatantly obvious.
Well, her reports clearly hadn't been wrong, but this was beyond what she expected. Eyes-wide, she approached the nearest jackal as her spell dropped, allowing it to see her. Its eyes narrowed on Holly as she inspected it. "Oh, this is… wow, you're amazing." The jackal paused, its head tilting like an overly large canine.
Hermione would love this. It was powerful runework mixed with countless charms. From what she was observing, this was only a byproduct of something else in the museum. Merlin, if this was only the byproduct Holly could only imagine the genuine artifact causing this to work.
"Animation charms, and oh wow, what is that. You are… wow."
But what was the source?
A bang sounded behind her, and Holly jumped a near foot in the air. Her love for runes had distracted her from her actual job and environment. In that regard, the bang was useful even if it startled her. It brought her attention to the sarcophagus and the glittering object behind it.
Holly's eyes glowed as she noticed it. In an instant, she knew the truth; it was the source of the animation. "You!"
Holly strode toward it hurriedly, went around the sarcophagus and was reaching for the golden artifact- when an ear-splitting wail escaped the sarcophagus. Holly stopped dead, heart instantly slamming into her chest, her hands stopped in mid-air, and she looked back at the coffin behind her. As her heart started to ache with the pain of that scream.
-And a voice echoed behind her.
Holly let her knees unlocked, and she instantly dropped on all fours to the floor. Her training kicked in as she snatched hold of her wand and strained her ears for the elderly voice that had sounded at the entrance of the room. She knew it must have been one of the night-guards checking the exhibit, but had he seen her? Holly hoped not as a set of footsteps echoed in the room with her. She pressed close to the shaking sarcophagus as the jackets shifted back into their spots, and the guard paused steps away from Holly's position.
"Come now, Pharaoh, you don't need to scream."
The banging grew in volume and strength, but the Pharaoh remained trapped as the Night-guard suddenly started to taunt the ancient king trapped with it. His words were harsh and filled with human cruelty, with pure mockery. Holly huffed as the night-guard eventually left without ever noticing her crouched behind the sarcophagus. As the man locked the room down to keep, likely, the jackal's in. Then- the lights shut off, and she made a face.
The lack of light didn't bother her, not really, but it certainly bothered the Pharaoh from the guards taunting. No doubt because the man had likely been trapped for centuries, in the dark, unable to move… eternally trapped- Holly's skin crawled as she stood and flicked her wand. The room lit up once more and the Pharaoh, who had not stopped screaming, paused for a second. It was long enough for Holly to tap on the sarcophagus.
"Screw him; if he won't let you out, then I will." Dead silence echoed within.
Holly's saving people thing had taken over her in quick order; she was absolutely not leaving the Pharaoh trapped a moment longer. Not even to focus on the delicious piece of magic behind her. Instead, she rounded the sarcophagus and hastily unlocked the bloody thing. Finally, with one quick shove, the lid was sent crashing to the ground revealing the mummy trapped within as the signs of his endless struggles. There were large claw marks carved into the bottom side of the lid that made her stomach twist unpleasantly.
It was more the marks that made her feel sick, rather than the actual mummy sitting up and achingly slowly turning toward her. That didn't make her nervous, not when she'd faced an army of infiri without fear.
"Do you understand me?" Holly asked with a steady voice born of experience as an Auror and a Gryffindor.
"Yes…" the mummy coughed, gasping for breath and Holly's frown deepened. That had to be from the screaming, but could air get into the sarcophagus while it was closed? She doubted it heavily.
Holly allowed the mummy some time to cough as she debated just transfiguring him a glass and handing him some water. And then he was pulling the bandages from his face, and she… she was expecting something a bit horrifying, honestly.
Horrifying wasn't what she got.
"Bloody hell, you're hot." She blurted out and immediately blushed. A blush that echoed on his- gorgeous- face. He ducked his head a bit sheepish while Holly floundered and stared. She couldn't help but stare; Holly was instantly attracted, and oh, Hermione was going to be terribly upset with her, she just knew it.
The mummy gave a broken little smile and winced as if she'd spoken too loud, or the amount of light in the room from her spell was too much to handle. Holly shot a look at the sarcophagus and added 'no light' to her list that the mummy might have suffered. "My…-" he coughed again, his whole body shaking "-thanks, my lady." And bowed to the best of his ability.
"It's no problem," Holly allowed herself to move forward; she wanted to comfort, to soothe him. Still, each sound seemed to make him flinch, and he shot her an apologetic look when she stopped.
"My apologies."
"For what?" she instantly asked.
"The- the light- and the air-" he winced again, a hand making an aborted motion toward his head, "it's a bit much… I am not myself; I should have received you properly, as my saviour so deserves."
"How about we both sit," Holly offered as she stopped at his side, "I'll get us some water, and maybe you can explain a bit about how you're… alive?"
"A simple request, I will gladly grant." As long as she didn't lock him up again, anything but that- please- he couldn't handle it anymore- please-please-please.
Holly handed him some water in a conjured cup, and he accepted it gently. He thanked her again and slowly started to explain. He spoke of a stone granted to him by his parents that it brought everything within the museum alive, and he left out little details. Like the people at Cambridge that had abused him, locked him up, and made his eternal rest hell when he dared attempt to resist. That the night guards at the museum had been the exact same. That she was the first he'd met since his death that had actually helped-
"I guess we'll have to move the stone and sarcophagus out," Holly reasoned after the tale, "then perhaps find a way to keep you properly alive during the day. The runes might need to be tweaked." She looked at the display, "if that's alright with you? I hope so because… well- you've dragged Muggles into this so, I'm going to need to do a fair bit of obliviating before we bring you back to the magical world."
"I… do not understand, Muggles? What is this term?" He'd already realized she was a sorceress, but much of what she spoke of was confusing, a shift in the times, perhaps?
Holly laughed lightly, "let's start small. Do you mind if I move you during the day? Just to somewhere a bit more secure for tomorrow night? I swear you won't be locked up again."
He instantly relaxed, and Holly knew she'd said the right thing: "yes, yes,… that sounds quite agreeable."