The sun was beating down ruthlessly as the small group of riders made their way across the desert. Already Bill was drenched in sweat, but his elation knew no bounds. He knew this day would reveal something monumental, he could feel it in his bones.
A Muggle archaeologist had discovered what looked like an underground tomb the day before and now Bill was part of a team of archaeologists sent to open it. The team included both wizards and Muggles. Down here in Egypt Muggles and wizards were working together closely when it came to excavations. The Muggle archaeologists didn’t know that their specialists for opening tombs were wizards, but they knew that they had special talents and knowledge that enabled them to open tombs that regular archaeologists could not.
The swaying movement of his mount seemed incredibly slow to Bill. He wanted to reach the tomb as soon as possible, but he knew that the camels wouldn’t react if they urged them to move faster. They were the most stubborn animals he knew and Bill had learned that they weren’t too fond of whips the hard way when he first came to Egypt, when, instead of speeding up a bit, his camel had started full out running and he had lost control over it completely. The animal had only stopped again once it had reached an oasis, where it promptly started drinking from the small stream until its owner arrived to bring it and Bill, who sat on its back helplessly, back to the rest of their group. From then on, Bill had never again used a whip with one of the camels.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to Bill, but was only a little more than two hours in reality, they reached the site of the new excavation. If it hadn’t been for the small tent and the two guards left there to guard the archaeologist’s discovery, the site would have looked like any other part of the rocky desert southwest of Gizah.
The three Muggle archaeologists joined the guards and tethered the animals. They then set up the small camp from which they would work for the next few weeks.
Professor Brian Anderson, the American Muggle archaeologist who had discovered the tomb the day before, accompanied Bill and his fellow curse-breaker Mustafa El-Orabi to the tomb’s entrance. Once again he went over what he had noticed the day before and how he had found the tomb. Bill was already a few steps further in his mind, imagining what they would find inside the tomb. It didn’t look special or particularly elaborate, but the simplicity in the tomb’s outward appearance could be deceiving, as Bill knew very well. This could as well be an extraordinary crypt full of riches and ancient relics as it could be empty and barren.
Together the three men approached a larger rock with what looked like a hole in the ground in front of it. Excitedly, Professor Anderson explained for the third time that morning, why he had decided to dig in front of this particular rock outcropping, “If you take a closer look at these rocks, you will see Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs along the bottom of the largest rock. The Ancient Egyptians didn’t just paint their hieroglyphs everywhere for the fun of it, like modern youth do with their graffiti,” at that he shot Bill a scathing look, as if he was the personification of every bad quality young people possessed, “but they left them there for a reason.”
“So you thought, maybe they were marking the place, where a tomb is buried in the desert? Just like that?” Bill asked sarcastically. He couldn’t help himself; the professor always had this effect on him. Whenever he was around, Bill felt as if he was merely a naughty schoolboy, trying to play an adult’s game. The professor didn’t take him seriously. Not once had he listened to one of Bill’s suggestions, only accepting them as good and worth a shot when Mustafa repeated them.
“Of course not,” the professor exclaimed, “I tried reading the hieroglyphs and, although most of them are faded and unreadable, I could make out a couple that made me belief I had found a tomb, so I started digging. With admirable success, as you can see!”
Bill simply nodded, hoping the professor was done now and would just leave them to do their jobs.
Mustafa, Bill’s elder by about thirty years, was more patient than his young partner, but he, too, was getting restless, drumming his fingers on the side of his leg impatiently. Bill had to hide a grin when Mustafa addressed the professor before he could tell them the specifics of how he dug the hole, “Thank you, Professor Anderson. Bill and I get the picture. Now, could you leave us to our work? The sooner we open your tomb, the better, right?”
Professor Anderson didn’t look happy about having to leave them alone, but there was no way for him to argue with Mustafa without looking ridiculous. He nodded, gave Mustafa a strained smile and Bill another derisive once over, to which Bill replied with a sardonic smirk, before turning around and heading towards the other archaeologists, muttering angrily under his breath.
When he was out of earshot Bill chuckled merrily. “He always makes it so damn easy!”
“You know you shouldn’t bait him like that, Bill,” Mustafa replied. The stern look stayed on his face for about five seconds, before he, too, started chuckling. As much as he wanted to be strict with Bill, he just couldn’t stay mad at the charming young man. His antics were as much part of his personality as his dedication to his job and his excitement whenever they were called out to a dig.
Working with Bill Weasley was fun and Mustafa was glad to have been appointed Bill’s partner and mentor when he had arrived in Egypt. His old partner had retired only a few weeks prior and Mustafa had been sad to see him go. Over the years they had not only become a splendid team, but also good friends. When he had been called into Gringotts’ central office and told that it was his turn to break a new recruit in and show him the ropes, he had been dismayed to say the least. At fifty, he thought he was too old to become a mentor to some hot-headed rookie, but Bill had quickly wormed his way into his heart and now Mustafa couldn’t ask for a better partner.
Still chuckling, Bill stepped to the edge of the hole. He estimated it to be roughly seven feet deep and only wide enough for one grown-up man to fit in. A thin layer of sand covered the bottom of the hole, but Bill could make out unyielding stone slabs beneath. One side of the hole, the one under the rock outcropping above ground, also consisted of stone, while the others were held by wooden beams, that the archaeologist had obviously installed the day before, to save his find from being re-buried under the desert sand and stones.
“This is big, Mustafa,” Bill said quietly, “I can feel the magic from up here already.”
One of the first things new curse-breakers learned was to detect even the smallest magical currents surrounding objects, doorways and passages. In their line of work it was important to feel the energy set free by a spell or curse, because more often than not, they had no idea what they would face when they arrived at an excavation.
“Give it a try, Bill. If it’s too much for you to handle I will take over, but for now I want you to try alone.” Mustafa nodded encouragingly at him and, when he saw Bill’s doubtful look, added, “Think of it as a test. I’ve shown you what I know, you should be able to do everything on your own now.”
A smile spread across Bill’s face. If Mustafa thought he could do it, and Mustafa had never felt the need to flatter him or sugar coat something, then he would do it.
The smile was short-lived as Bill jumped down into the hole and set about opening the tomb. He closed his eyes, a look of fierce concentration taking over his features, as he tried to map the magical currents emanating from the stone slab covering the tomb’s entrance. In his mind’s eye the different magical currents separated, each curse and protective spell had his own signature, its own colour. Sometimes the spells were interwoven, but most of them stood on their own and would be relatively easy to undo.
Time and time again Bill concentrated on one particular current, focused his own magic and sent it against the curse guarding the tomb’s entrance, slowly wearing down the ancient curses. There were no set counter curses for this kind of work, the curse-breakers used there inherent, wild magic to unravel the unknown spells and make them harmless.
Starting from the outside, Bill worked his way to the centre of the mass of curses, countering one curse after the other. When only three interwoven curses were left, he opened his eyes, took a deep breath and turned to his mentor. “I think I need a break.”
As if reading his mind, Mustafa had already brought a flask of water over. He handed it down to Bill, who drank greedily. “Don’t overestimate yourself, Bill, take more breaks and replenish your energy. You worked for nearly an hour without pause, if you keep going like that, you’ll be completely burned out by the end of the day.”
Bill waved Mustafa’s concerns away. Although his mentor insisted on it not being healthy, Bill had worked until he was completely exhausted since he started to work for Gringotts. No amount of warnings to take it slow seemed to get through to him, and everyone but Mustafa had long since stopped trying.
“I’m nearly there, just one final knot of curses is keeping us from opening this tomb.” His eyes shone brightly with excitement.
Mustafa laughed. Bill’s enthusiasm was catching, making him just as impatient to see what they would find as Bill.
Another hour passed, before Bill declared the tomb ready for opening. The Muggle archaeologists were called over quickly as Bill began to loosen the stone slab that was the only remaining barrier between them and the riches they would hopefully find inside the tomb. It took two guards, a younger archaeologist and Bill to lift the stone slab clear of the entrance.
Professor Anderson pushed through the narrow entrance hole first, Bill and Mustafa, Muggle flashlights in their hands, right behind him. The others had to wait outside until the tomb had been scouted and the professor could decide if a full excavation would produce the desired results or if it would be a waste of time and resources. Bill and Mustafa went with him to ensure that no magical objects fell into the hands of unsuspecting Muggles. Their status as ‘specialists’ allowed them to even go in alone, but with Professor Anderson that approach only led to lengthy arguments; so whenever a team worked with him, they let him accompany them on the first sighting of the find.
As Bill had predicted, the tomb was filled with jewellery, clothes, pottery and several weapons, colourful drawings of the Ancient Egyptian Gods covered the tomb’s walls. While the professor took a closer look at the various burial objects, Bill and Mustafa continued on into the next, slightly bigger chamber. A huge sarcophagus covered with intricate drawings and hieroglyphs dominated the room. But what caught the duo’s attention wasn’t the mummy’s resting place. Behind it, tugged away in a dark corner, was an object with a strong magical aura. They approached the corner cautiously, reaching out with their wild magic to get an idea of what they had found.
“Can you get a clear image?” Bill’s voice was a mere whisper. He felt like an intruder, opening and walking through another man’s tomb, but he knew someone had to do it.
Mustafa shook his head. He shone the beam of his flashlight over the area. An ancient looking stone basin became visible; strange hieroglyphs were carved all along its side. Mustafa and Bill exchanged a questioning look; gifts of food and drink for the dead were usually kept in the first chamber, not in the chamber with the sarcophagus. Inching closer, they saw that the basin wasn’t empty, as they had anticipated. Instead, a milky substance filled it to the brim, emitting a silvery glow.
“Do you think …” Bill let his question hang in the air between them, too awed to finish his thought.
“A pensieve?” Mustafa breathed.
“Wow.” Bill stretched his hand towards the basin but stopped just short of touching it. “What do we do now? We can’t let Anderson see it.”
Mustafa nodded. They would have to smuggle the stone basin outside, without letting anyone see it, and then transport it back to the Gringotts bank in Cairo to examine it. No easy feat, but it would be more than worth it. His body tingled all over just imagining what they would see in the memories stored in the pensieve.
Footsteps jolted them out of their thoughts. It wouldn’t be long before the professor had assessed the first chamber and would join them in the second. Mustafa cast a shrinking spell on the stone basin, followed by an invisibility spell. He hadn’t brought his cloak down into the tomb, so he had to carry it in his hands until they reached their camels again.
When the professor entered the second chamber he found Bill and Mustafa staring at the drawings on the sarcophagus, completely transfixed by what they were seeing. Ten strenuous minutes later the professor declared their task finished and the trio left the tomb again.
When they stepped out of the hole and back onto the desert sands, Mustafa spoke, “Our job is done here. It was lovely working with you, Professor Anderson, but we really have to get back to Cairo now.”
The professor wasn’t sad to see them go and it didn’t take long until their goodbyes were said and the two wizards, accompanied by one of the guards, sat on their camels again, ready for the ride back to Cairo.
**
Upon reaching the Gringotts bank in Cairo, Bill and Mustafa had to fill out a bunch of paperwork, before they could finally begin their examination of the ancient pensieve. Bill was nearly bursting with anticipation. He had never found anything magical at any of the excavation sites he had worked at, and this wasn’t just a lousy amulet or talisman, it was a real pensieve, far older than the oldest previously known pensieve at that.
Mustafa watched his young partner with a smile on his face. Bill had worked really hard to open the tomb and he was glad the young man was being rewarded for his efforts. When Bill made no move to touch the pensieve, which was placed on the table in front of him, but only stared at it reverently, Mustafa gave him an encouraging nod. “Go ahead, see if the memories are still accessible.”
“But … don’t you want to? I mean, you’ve been here longer and …”
“It’s your find, Bill, you did all the work. I think you should be the first to examine what you found.”
Bill nodded dumbly, a giant grin taking over his features. His fingers curled around the stone basin’s edges as he leaned downwards, closing the distance between his face and the silver mist inside it. His nose broke through the surface and Bill felt himself tumbling down, head first into the unknown past.
**
Bill found himself standing in a small oasis, somewhere in the middle of the desert. The sun’s hot glare was softened by the shade of a few palm trees. In the centre of the oasis, at the edge of a small lake, a young woman sat and watched the sky intently. Her face was obscured by her dark hair, but the set of her shoulders belied her anxiety.
Soon enough Bill could make out a tiny bird, rapidly approaching the oasis, in the otherwise clear blue sky. The woman, too, had seen it and sprang to her feet. A brilliant smile lit up her face as the bird reached her. In front of Bill’s disbelieving eyes, the bird transformed into a woman of immense beauty. Before he had time to realise what this meant, the two women embraced tightly.
She’s a witch and an animagus, Bill thought excitedly, just as the second woman broke down in tears.
“Oh Nephthys, it’s terrible,” she wailed.
Nephthys, her arms still around the distraught woman, rubbed her back soothingly. “Shh, sister. Everything will work out. You have found your husband’s body and brought it back, Thoth will do the rest. It’s out of your hands now.”
“No, Nephthys, we have nothing! Set has found him and torn his body to shreds, there’s nothing left for Thoth to perform his ritual on.”
The words tore a pained gasp from Nephthys’s throat. She stumbled and both women fell to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs. Their anguish was palpable. Bill felt dirty, intruding on such a personal moment, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the scene in front of him.
“What can we do?” Nephthys whispered. “There has to be something we can do, Isis.”
“Find all the pieces,” Isis answered brokenly.
“Then let us not waste another minute!” Nephthys’s voice was steady as she helped her sister to her feet. Her mind was made up and Bill thought she didn’t look as if she would stop before she finished what she set out to do.
Isis ragged breathing clamed slowly. Her sister’s readiness to drop everything in order to help her seemed to have reawakened her own determination.
**
The scene shifted. Bill was now standing in a dimly lit passage. A short way ahead he could see Isis and Nephthys hurrying along, looking back over their shoulders worriedly every few seconds. Intrigued, Bill followed them down the passage and into a low-ceilinged chamber bathed in the flickering light of several torches and oil lamps.
A huge stone altar stood at the centre of the chamber, covered by a large white linen cloth and a number of earthen bowls. Behind the altar an old man in a pristine, white linen robe and a younger man wearing only a loin-cloth stood and waited. When they saw Isis and Nephthys enter, the old man stepped forward and asked, “Do you have it?”
The two women nodded solemnly. Bill thought both of them looked rather tired and worn out, their white clothes were soiled and their hair had been blown askew by the wind, but their faces looked brighter than before, almost happy.
“Then let us begin the ceremony,” the old man said.
Isis stepped forward and put a reddish object, shaped oddly like a human hand, into on of the bowls. Upon closer inspection Bill could see various body parts in every bowl on the altar. Were those really the parts of Osiris’s body and was he just about to witness the Ritual of Life, he had heard so much about? Shivers ran down his spine just thinking about it. In that moment, he wished Mustafa was with him and not waiting for him back in Cairo. This appeared to be even bigger than he had thought it would be, monumental even.
“Anubis,” the old man turned to his silent companion and gestured towards the altar.
Giving him a curt nod, Anubis stepped up to the altar and, starting with Osiris’s head, sowed one piece after the other back together. Isis and Nephthys were standing to one side of the room, holding onto each other’s hands and nervously following every one of his moves. Tears glistened in Isis’s eyes as her husband took shape in front of her again. Anubis worked silently, seemingly unaware of anyone around him. Once his job was done, the young man stepped back into one of the shadowy corners of the chamber.
“Isis, Nephthys, if you could join me, please?” The two sisters took their places, one to each side of the old man, in front of the altar.
“Do you really think it will work, Thoth?” Nepythys whispered low enough for only the old man to hear her.
“Have faith, Nepythys,” he replied, before starting to chant in a language that Bill had never heard before. Bill could feel magic coming to life all around him, his body hummed with the power unleashed by the old man’s spell. Isis and Nephthys joined Thoth in his chanting, their voices rose and fell in time with the beat of an imaginary drum.
Later Bill wouldn’t be able to say how long the chanting continued. He was caught up in the incredible power surge and totally unaware of time and space. When they finally fell silent, it took him a moment to realise that the chanting had stopped, he could still hear it loud and clear in his mind.
All eyes turned towards the altar expectantly. Nothing happened at first, but then he detected movement. Osiris slowly lifted his head and looked around drowsily. With a shriek of joy Isis launched herself at her husband and embraced him fiercely, while Nephthys threw her arms around Thoth’s neck.
The ritual had been successful. Bill could hardly believe what he had seen, how a lifeless corpse had been infused with life once again. His mind was still spinning with the possibilities the discovery of this ritual would open up, when he was once again falling through space and time. When he arrived back in the Gringotts bank in Cairo, his legs gave way beneath him and it was only thanks to Mustafa’s surprisingly good reflexes that he didn’t hit the stone floor.
“We need to contact the Ministry, this has to go straight to the Department of Mysteries,” Bill said, before everything went dark and he passed out.
The Ritual of Life by LadyAlesha
Chapter Notes: This story is based in parts on the Osiris's myth, an integral part of the Ancient Egyptian mythology. The myth isn't explained in full, because it would take too long and shift the focus of the story from where I wanted it to be. I hope the parts of the myth I included are still understandable.