Chapter Text
Eight days. They had studied the archway for eight days and had not made any progress to speak of other than drawing the conclusion that it was a ruse. They had found the main treasure behind an unassuming part of a blank wall and the hieroglyphs pronouncing the arch as highest reward were simple drawings, there were no wards on the arch, no magic could be found by any of the known methods. But there was still a room behind the arch and the goblins were pressuring them into moving on.
So Harry Potter, Master Curse Breaker and language specialist, and his team decided to just give it a shot. Curse breaking was not known for its safe working conditions or predictability after all.
"Ok, teams of two?" Harry asked as he eyed the wide arch, at least four of them could have stepped through it comfortably but Luna's words still rang in his ears and he had the distinct feeling, this was going to be the prank the Nargels had in store for him.
The last time she had said something similar just as he left for his next job, he had smiled indulgent at her, said he wouldn't hold it against them and dismissed her warning. It got him trapped into an underground room with nothing but transfigured toilet paper to eat and conjured water for a week.
Never again had he went close to any kind of magical tomb without his extensive emergency kit, which he now patted again as his team grumbled in agreement. They had teased him mercilessly for his paranoia of Nargel pranks but as he had told them of Luna's more or less overly heartfelt good bye, they had shut up for once and discreetly extended their own emergency bags. In addition, none of them were overly keen on finding out just what the mysterious reward was; ancient Egyptians had their very own view of a good life.
With practiced ease the duos prepared their entrance, one of them building up a multi-purpose shield that, while not the strongest possible, had its value in being able to deflect just about everything thrown at them, magical, ethereal or substantial. The other part stored a banishing charm into their channels that would fire as soon as the caster let it loose or was incapacitated to hold onto it any longer, thus potentially buying the rest of the team enough time to retaliate whatever threat had taken out the offensive part of the two.
Harry's teammate Adam, the shielder, grumbled "All set. On three." He received a nod in reply and counted.
On three, both he and Harry stepped under the arch – and immediately froze, unable to move as overwhelming amounts of magic washed over them. It didn't feel threatening per se but it wasn't very comforting to be unable to do anything against the probing of the magic. They felt they were being measured, searched and stripped to the core of their very being.
Harry, after a lifetime of having his thoughts and actions influenced and being kept impotent and helpless, reacted rather violently. As the foreign magic touched his mind his every cell reared in protest and lashed out.
Adam on the other hand had given in to the magic, taking the cautious approach and submit to the obviously greater force.
Behind them, the other four team members had immediately begun casting detection charms and a flurry of counter spells as they saw the veil of magic encompass their colleagues. Only years of professional curse breaking stopped them from panicking when they saw Harry's magic flare and fight whatever the arch was doing to him.
Suddenly, Adam was flung back into his colleagues, unconscious and with another clash of opposing powers, Harry, along with every trace of magic, vanished from sight, leaving nothing behind.
_-_
Harry stumbled and landed gracelessly in a heap on the other side of the arch. He whirled around to check on Adam but had only a moment to register he was missing, along with the rest of his team before he felt first recognition, closely followed by an enormous amount of joy and even tentative hope – feelings that were definitely not his own. It reminded him eerily of the times when his connection to Voldemort had still been strong, the Horcrux inside him leaving an open pathway between their minds and sometimes emotions.
While this was different - he didn't just feel it in his head and it didn't feel as intrusive - he nevertheless recoiled instinctively and poured everything he had into his Occlumency, closing his mind and emotions off. Going so far as to bring him to the edge of a catatonic state. To no avail.
With his own feelings shut down, he had an even greater grasp on the foreign ones and right now they were confused with his (over)reaction. He felt the presence retreat but not before it send a last jab of exasperation at him.
Harry had crumbled to the floor again and lay there unmoving until his near panic attack of being possessed abated as he scouted his mind for signs of outside influence and finding none. He came out of his shell slowly, thorough examining his surrounding with all of his senses looking for a possible threat or return of who- or whatever had invaded his mind.
Even before his state was reverted back to normal, he knew he was most definitely not in the same tomb he had been half an hour ago. He had a mixed feeling about his suspicion of not even being in the right dimension anymore. His guess stemmed from the very different readings his magical senses gave him of the magic surrounding him. It was erratic and felt kind of strained as if overloaded.
He supressed further investigation into the make-up of magic for now and concentrated on his more worldly senses, looking around in the room behind the arch. As he and his team had dreaded, it was mostly empty. It was simply a small room with bare walls, a medium sized chest in one corner and only a miniscule opening for fresh air, probably only to support the air enchantments of the room. Utterly unspectacular and absolutely not worth their days of investigation. Not to mention that he had somehow lost his team.
For once actually being the dutiful employee he had always claimed to be, he meticulously scanned, measured, and documented the room and its content before sealing the chest to prevent possible enchantments from messing with him or his gear and storing it away in his magically expanded booty bag.
It was a stalling tactic and Harry knew it but he very much wanted to avoid the arch. But he also knew he didn't have an alternative as it was the only way to enter or leave the room. So he steeled himself, feeling a little ridiculous as he squared his shoulders before facing the archway again. The master curse breaker cast every detection charm he knew and wound up with exactly the same results they had gained from casting them on the other side. None. This side didn't even have hieroglyphs.
"Well, let's hope it's still working." Harry murmured to himself. While time and dimensional travel was somewhat known to the wizarding world - they did give out devices for time travel to thirteen-year-olds after all - he was not all that fond of the idea of being trapped in a small extra-dimensional pocket of space. Which had been recorded by curse breakers as safety features employed by different ancient cultures with magic. Unfortunately in the past there were few who managed to get a report or even themselves back out of there.
Having run fresh out of stalling tactics, he braced it and stepped under the arch, only to step without hindrance through it and into the room on the other side.
Well, that was unexpected. Somehow he felt like he was being laughed at.
"What on earth…" he mumbled to himself before looking for his team while running possible reasons why they weren't there anymore through his head as his extra-dimensional pocket theory had just met an untimely end.
It could be that they had been trapped in one of those pockets… Harry dismissed that immediately, it was him that had wrestled with the foreign magic, so whatever happened, happened to him and not the rest of his team.
Maybe he had been sent into a different time? Or this could just be some sort of hallucination and he was actually still with his team and unconscious.
He retraced the way to the exit of the site while pondering this, lost deep in his thoughts until he ran into someone. Someone who definitely shouldn't be here, someone decidedly muggle.
Lucky for him he simply looked like a dishevelled hobby archaeologist. Gringotts had dragged all of his employees though a very unforgiving crash course of all things modern muggles used, from clothing to myths and technology - especially cameras - after one too many teams of breakers had been spotted and filmed by an amateur film crew. The Ministry of Magic had, for unknown reasons (Harry strongly suspected incompetence), dismissed Gringotts call for Obliviators and the goblins had been forced to hire squibs of all things to track the physical evidence of the team down and destroy it as well as paying a hefty sum to get some retired Obliviators to get all the muggles who'd seen the footage.
Having to spend so much money again on the clean-up didn't sit well with the goblins at all and they drilled all employees but especially the field teams in spotting, avoiding, manipulating and in emergencies destroying surveillance and anything else threatening to expose their secret.
So he smiled at the tourist, who should not be inside a tomb which had layered muggle-repelling wards as well as a whole set of anti-detection wards. This didn't bode well for him but he casually went on before he subtly flickered his wand to apply a small glamour on his appearance.
Harry ran into many more tourists before he stepped out of the site and was certainly panicking a little by now. All of them had worn the same style of clothing the muggles in his time had been wearing so his theory of being in the past or future was ripped apart by the minute.
At least there was a standard procedure for 'lost' curse breakers. Apparate to the nearest Gringotts Bank and let them sort it out. So Harry observed his surroundings closely, spotting a lot of surveillance cameras that had not been installed on 'his' tomb, and looked for an unsuspicious place to disapparate from.
Having found one, he leisurely wandered over as if leaving the site on foot. As he reached his chosen spot, he double checked for CCTV and disapparated to the Cairo branch of Gringotts.
At least he tried to. But no squeezing sensation came over him, even as he concentrated harder on the side entrance of the Bank. Nothing happened. Now being very close to freaking out, he tried apparating to the London branch. While that seemed to work, it wasn't that good of an idea. Transcontinental apparition had been labelled impossible simply for the safety of the travellers, it was highly probable to drain your core and life force dry even before you reach your destination. As Potter-Luck went, Harry didn't drain his life force too, but was unconscious by the time he dropped out of the apparational sphere and fell down in the middle of Diagon Alley. Where no one would find or see him during the next 3 days and no one witnessed when his grumbling stomach finally woke him.