Allen took the weathered copper Knut from Mr. Weasley, turning it over in his palm. The metal was pitted and green, the oxidation so thick it felt like a second skin on the coin. He squinted, trying to see if the "pyramid energy" was already working its magic, but the rust remained stubborn. If anything, the coin looked like it had been through a war—or at least a very rough childhood.
Running his thumb over the surface, Allen felt a strange, jagged texture. It wasn't a standard mint mark. It was a crude, etched hexagram, the lines shaky but deep.
"Ah, that's Ron's handiwork!" Arthur said with a nostalgic chuckle. He reached out to pat Ron's head, but the youngest Weasley boy ducked away with the practiced grace of someone who had been patronized one too many times.
"Don't be like that, Ronnie. It's a collector's item now," George teased, leaning over Allen's shoulder to inspect the coin. "That was his first-ever bit of pocket money. He was so overwhelmed by the sudden wealth he didn't know whether to save it or try to eat it. Eventually, he settled on 'artistic vandalism.'"
"I was five!" Ron snapped, his face turning a shade of red that nearly matched his hair. "And I didn't know what a hexagram was. I thought I was drawing a star!"
Allen caught the flicker of genuine embarrassment in Ron's eyes. To the twins, it was a joke; to Ron, it was just another reminder of the hand-me-down life he led. "Actually," Allen said, pressing the coin back into Ron's hand, "it's a bit of a masterpiece. Childhood memories are worth more than the face value of the metal. You should keep it—it's a lucky charm for the vault-breaking ahead."
Ron grumbled something under his breath about lucky charms, but he tucked the Knut into his deepest pocket, looking slightly less like he wanted to jump into a pit of scorpions.
"Mr. Weasley," Allen said, steering the conversation back to the pulsing weight he felt in the stones around them. "Back to the Energy Stone... if it's as powerful as the legends say, why hasn't Gringotts or the Ministry moved it to a more 'secure' location? Surely a battery that lasts five thousand years is worth a fortune."
Arthur's expression turned uncharacteristically grave. "That's the thing about ancient magic, Allen. It's not just a battery; it's an anchor. Some believe the Stone is the only thing keeping the deeper chambers from collapsing into a different dimension entirely. Those who found it in the past? They didn't come back to write memoirs. They chose silence—either out of reverence or because they were physically unable to speak."
"The Curse," Bill added, his voice dropping an octave. "It's not just a fairy tale to scare away tomb robbers. In my line of work, we call it 'residual spiritual feedback.' The Pharaohs didn't just want to be remembered; they wanted to be protected by the very essence of death."
"If I learned a curse like that, could I use it on Malfoy?" Ron asked, his eyes lighting up with a sudden, vengeful inspiration. "Just a tiny one? Maybe a 'Pharaoh's Itch'?"
Bill let out a short, dry laugh. "I wouldn't recommend it. These curses are tied to the Stone and the specific geometry of the Pyramid. You try to cast that in the Slytherin common room, and you're more likely to turn yourself into a pile of salt. The Egyptian Ministry has an entire department—the Bureau of Occult Pathologies—just to deal with people who think they can 'borrow' ancient hexes."
They continued deeper, the walls closing in until they reached a sheer face of stone marked with jagged, ancient script. Bill held his wand high, the light catching the sharp edges of the carvings.
"Whoever disturbs the slumber of the King, the shadow of the Great Wing shall find his throat."
"Is that a literal threat or just ancient marketing?" Ron whispered, his voice trembling as he stared at the inscription.
"In a place like this? Usually literal," Bill said. He pointed to the path ahead. "We're in the surveyed zone, so the 'Wing' has been neutralized by the Bureau. But if you wander off into the side passages? You're fair game. The magic here is hungry, and it doesn't distinguish between a researcher and a robber."
The air shifted. The oppressive desert dryness vanished, replaced by a sudden, bone-chilling dampness that made Allen's skin crawl. The tunnel ended abruptly at a massive precipice. They stepped through a jagged hole in the wall onto a narrow stone platform that seemed to hang over nothingness. Below them was a void so vast and black it felt like staring into the mouth of a god.
"A cable car?" Allen asked, spotting the thick, enchanted iron ropes stretching into the darkness.
"Best way to move between the structural levels," Bill explained. "The central shaft is too deep for stairs, and Apparition is blocked by the anti-gravity wards."
A wizard wearing the deep blue robes of the local Ministry stepped out of the shadows. His face was like parchment—dry, wrinkled, and completely devoid of emotion. He held out a gnarled hand. "Ten visitors. Ten Galleons. No refunds for lost limbs or souls."
"Ten Galleons just for a lift?" Ron squeaked. "That's highway robbery! Or... tomb robbery!"
Mrs. Weasley didn't argue. She knew the value of safety in a place like this. She counted out the gold with a practiced hand, her eyes darting nervously toward the abyss. The guard took the money and waved his wand with a mechanical, jerky motion.
Five narrow, open-topped iron baskets slid out of the gloom, hanging precariously from the cables. They looked less like "cars" and more like cages for transporting livestock. Allen and Ron climbed into the last one, the metal groaning under their weight.
"Please keep all extremities inside the vessel," the guard droned. "If you fall, do not scream too loudly; it wakes the guardians."
Before Ron could ask what 'the guardians' were, the car lurched forward. The sensation was sickening—a mix of freefall and a jerky, magnetic pull. As they shot into the darkness, Ron leaned over the side, his curiosity momentarily winning over his fear.
"Allen, do you think there are actually gold-plated mummies down there? Or maybe just bones?"
Allen didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the approaching wall. They weren't just descending; the cable was pulling them toward a narrow fissure in the granite that looked barely wide enough for a person, let alone an iron car.
"Ron, get back!" Allen shouted, lunging across the seat.
He grabbed Ron by the collar of his robes and yanked him down just as the car entered the 'squeeze.' The sound was deafening—the metal car scraped against the ancient stone with a shower of sparks. If Ron's head had been six inches further out, he would have been part of the masonry.
"Blimey!" Ron gasped, his face as white as a ghost as he stared at the wall passing inches from his nose. "I... I thought it was an open shaft!"
"In a pyramid?" Allen panted, handing Ron a bottle of water. "Nothing is open. Everything is a trap or a test. Drink some water. Stay in the center of the car."
The tunnel was miles long, a claustrophobic nightmare of flickering shadows. Engraved along the walls, repeating like a mantra, were more warnings.
"I shall wring the neck of the intruder like a common bird."
"The heart of the impure shall be fed to the Ammit."
"Another one about hearts," Ron muttered, trying to distract himself. "Who has an 'impure heart' anyway? We're just here for a look-around."
Allen rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the phantom weight of the System's notifications. Me, he thought grimly. I'm here to scavenge your energy stone and 'liberate' a soul I don't know. If that doesn't count as an impure motive, I don't know what does.
Suddenly, the car accelerated. The gentle hum of the cable turned into a high-pitched scream as they plummeted at a forty-five-degree angle.
"The cable snapped! We're dead! I'm too young to be a mummy!" Ron wailed, gripping the handrail so hard his knuckles turned white.
"It hasn't snapped!" Allen yelled over the wind. "The cable is still taut! It's a gravity-assist slide! We're dropping into the Lower Chamber!"
The narrow tunnel burst open into an amphitheater of stone so large it could have housed the entire Hogwarts Great Hall ten times over. The darkness was absolute, save for the faint glow-in-the-dark moss that clung to the distant ceiling like dying stars.
"We're almost at the landing," Allen said, his eyes scanning the gloom. "I can see the—"
A piercing, inhuman shriek cut through the air. From the shadows above, a white shape came hurtling down, arms flailing, robes snapping in the wind like a broken sail. It wasn't a guardian. It was a person.
Allen's Seeker reflexes took over. He stood up in the swaying car, braced his knees against the cold iron, and reached out. The figure slammed into him with the force of a falling anvil. He caught a frantic, silk-clad arm and hauled the person into the cramped space of the car.
The newcomer didn't say thank you. Instead, she let out a muffled sob and wrapped herself around Ron like a terrified octopus.
"Get off! Who are you? Allen, help!" Ron yelled, pinned against the metal floor by a tangle of limbs and expensive linen.
The car, now dangerously overloaded and off-balance, began to spin. The acceleration charms, sensing the shifting weight, kicked into overdrive. They were no longer sliding; they were a projectile. The car spiraled around the cable, the world becoming a blur of black stone and white robes.
"Hang on!" Allen roared, grabbing the center pole with one hand and Ron's belt with the other.
The car slammed into the docking springs at the platform with a bone-shattering jolt. The momentum sent all three of them sprawling onto the stone floor. Allen was the first to scramble up, his head spinning and his stomach doing somersaults.
"Miss, you're safe now," Allen said, trying to find his breath. He looked down at the woman who was still clutching Ron's waist as if he were a life raft in a hurricane.
She looked up, her hair a bird's nest of dust and sweat, her expensive makeup smeared across her face. It was the woman from the entrance—the one who had been scoffing at the "pile of stones."
"I'm alive..." she whimpered, her voice cracking. "The floor... the floor just opened up... I was just looking at a vase and then... oh gods, the eyes! The eyes in the dark!"
"Safe? We're not safe!" Ron screamed, finally prying himself loose and looking around the empty, shadowy platform. "Allen, where's Bill? Where's Mum? We're in the middle of a cursed tomb with a crazy Muggle and no way out!"
The silence of the pyramid rushed back in, heavy and suffocating, as they realized they were entirely alone in the dark.