The silence that followed Ron's outburst was heavy, pressing against their eardrums like the weight of the massive limestone blocks above them. Allen scanned the platform again, but the shadows remained empty. The Weasleys, the Ministry guards, the other cable cars—all of them had vanished as if they had been erased from existence.
"Over there," Allen said, his voice low but steady. He pointed his wand toward a small, unassuming archway tucked into a corner of the vast chamber. It was the only break in the seamless stone.
Ron let out a shaky breath, his red hair damp with sweat. "Right. They're probably just through there. Keeping quiet, waiting for us to walk in so they can jump out and yell. It's got George's fingerprints all over it, doesn't it? A classic 'Lost in the Tomb' prank."
He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than Allen. They moved toward the archway, the woman in white—Nancy—shuffling along behind them. Her expensive shoes clicked rhythmically against the stone, a sharp, artificial sound in a place that had known only the shuffle of sand for millennia.
"Seriously, Bill went on and on about 'tomb safety' and 'staying within the line of sight,'" Ron grumbled, his bravado returning as they neared the door. "And then he pulls this? It's irresponsible, really. I'm going to have a word with him when we find them."
Allen didn't chime in. He wanted Ron to be right. He wanted to walk through that door and see Arthur Weasley laughing or Molly fussing over their disheveled clothes. But the air coming from the archway didn't smell like a surveyed tourist route. It smelled like stale air, ancient dust, and something metallic—the scent of magic that had been bottled up for far too long.
Ron was the first to step through. He took two paces into the darkness and then simply stopped. He didn't scream; he just stood there, his wand trembling in his hand.
Allen followed, the light from his own wand cutting a path through the gloom. Behind the archway wasn't a landing or a meeting point. It was a tunnel—long, winding, and utterly silent. The stone here wasn't smoothed by modern tools; it was rough-hewn and covered in a thick layer of undisturbed silt.
"Dad? Mum? Bill?" Ron's voice cracked. He cupped his hands around his mouth, his shout echoing down the passageway. "Is that you? Come on, the joke's over! We've got a Muggle with us and everything!"
The echo returned to them, hollow and mocking. No laughter followed. No footsteps. Just the settling of dust.
"Maybe... maybe they're just around the next bend," Ron whispered, though his eyes were wide with a growing realization. "Hiding behind a pillar. Watching to see if I cry."
Allen ignored him, moving closer to the walls. He raised his wand, the Lumos charm flaring brighter. The light revealed murals that hadn't seen a human eye in centuries. Unlike the faded, chipped paintings in the upper levels, these were vibrant, their colors deep ochre, lapis lazuli, and emerald green.
"Look, I'm telling you, it's a setup," Ron said, turning to Nancy when he realized Allen wasn't listening. "My brothers once spent three hours hiding in a trunk just to jump out at me. This is nothing."
"It's not a prank, you idiot," Nancy snapped. She had stopped crying and was now busy braiding her tangled golden hair with quick, aggressive movements. Stripped of the panic, she looked younger—perhaps in her early thirties—with sharp, aristocratic features and eyes that were far too observant. "Look at the dust on the floor. There are no footprints here but ours."
Ron stared at her, mesmerized by the way her pale fingers wove through her hair. She finished the braid and tilted her head, catching him staring. "What?"
"Nothing," Ron muttered, his ears turning pink. "I just... you said it wasn't a prank. And I didn't catch your name. I'm Ron. This is Allen."
"It's Nancy," she said, smoothing her linen dress as best she could. "And I know it's not a prank because I know when I'm being hunted by bad luck. We're lost. Properly lost."
"Nancy is right," Allen said, his voice pulling their attention back to the wall. "We're not just lost. We've crossed a threshold. This section of the tomb... it's never been opened. Not by Gringotts, not by the Ministry. Nobody has been here since the priests sealed the door."
Ron's eyes widened. "Never? You mean... we're the first?" A slow, greedy grin started to spread across his face. "Blimey, Allen! Do you know what this means? If we find our way out and report this, Gringotts will pay a fortune in finders' fees. We'll be swimming in Galleons!"
"What on earth is a 'Galleon'?" Nancy asked, looking at him like he was speaking a foreign language. "And shouldn't you be worried about, oh, I don't know, breathing? Or water?"
Ron waved her off, far too excited by the prospect of wealth to care about logistics. He mimicked Allen, raising his own wand—which Nancy stared at with intense curiosity—to inspect the murals.
"Is that some kind of high-end tactical flashlight?" she asked, leaning in close to Ron. "It's very... slender. Where's the battery pack?"
"It's not a—never mind," Ron grumbled, moving further down the tunnel.
The murals were unlike anything Allen had seen in the history books. They weren't just religious iconographies; they were snapshots of a world long gone. In one section, farmers worked fields of gold, their faces tilted toward a sun that was depicted not as a disk, but as a weeping eye. In another, hunters drew bows against creatures that didn't look like lions or gazelles—they looked like shadows with too many limbs.
But the most bizarre were the domestic scenes. People holding bundles of cloth as if they were weapons; dancers twisting their bodies into impossible, bone-breaking angles; butchers who seemed to be carving symbols into the meat rather than preparing food.
"Look at this one," Allen whispered, stopping before a massive portrait.
A man and a woman stood facing the east. The man was stout, his chest adorned with a heavy gold pectoral, his expression one of absolute authority. The woman behind him was serene, her eyes lined with heavy kohl, her hands resting on the man's shoulders. Both of them held identical staffs—thick, hooked wooden rods inlaid with glowing blue gems.
"They look like they're posing for a photo," Ron remarked.
"They're holding wands, Ron," Allen corrected. "Or at least, the ancient Egyptian equivalent. See the way the gems are positioned? That's a focus point for channeling raw magical energy. This isn't just a tomb for a king; it's a tomb for a High Sorcerer and his consort."
The fact that the murals were so pristine was the ultimate proof. In the explored parts of the pyramid, the air and the touch of thousands of visitors had dulled the colors to grey. Here, the red was the color of fresh blood.
"This is amazing," Ron breathed, his fear finally replaced by the thrill of discovery. "Bill is going to be so jealous. He's been digging in the sand for years and never found a 'fresh' wall like this."
Nancy followed them, her pace picking up. As they rounded a sharp corner, the floor began to incline. The air grew drier, losing that damp chill from the cable car and replacing it with a dusty, musty scent that tickled the back of the throat.
"I can almost smell it," Nancy muttered, her eyes darting around.
"Smell what? More dust?" Ron asked.
"Money," she replied, her voice filled with a sudden, sharp hunger. "Sapphires the size of eggs. Rubies. Emeralds. If this is a royal tomb, there's a burial chamber somewhere filled with things that make your 'Galleons' look like pocket change. Maybe even a crown. I've always wanted to see a real princess's crown."
"I'm more interested in the mummies," Ron said. "Do you think they'll be the kind that crumble when you touch them, or the kind that get up and chase you?"
"Of course there are mummies, Ron," Allen said, his eyes scanning the ceiling for traps. "In a place like this, the mummy isn't just a body. It's the anchor for the curse. If the tomb is intact, the occupant is definitely still here."
"Ugh, men," Nancy groaned. "Your brains are just filled with rotting bandages and old bones. We are standing in a potential gold mine, and all you can talk about is a scary dried-up corpse!"
"It's a Pyramid!" Ron retorted, his voice echoing. "What did you expect? A gift shop and a soda fountain? It's a giant house for dead people!"
"It's an archaeological treasure trove!" Nancy shot back. "You wouldn't know value if it hit you in your freckled face, you little Muggle!"
"Muggle?" Ron's face went scarlet. "Who are you calling a Muggle? You're the Muggle! I'm a—"
"Quiet!" Allen snapped, his hand going to his wand.
The argument died instantly. Ron and Nancy froze, looking at Allen with twin expressions of confusion.
"Did you hear that?" Allen whispered.
"Hear what?" Ron asked, his voice barely audible. "I didn't hear anything but her screeching."
Allen tilted his head. For a moment, he thought he had heard it—a soft, wet dragging sound, like a heavy cloth being pulled over stone. It had come from somewhere deep in the tunnel ahead. But as he listened, the only sound was the thumping of his own heart.
"Maybe I misheard," Allen muttered, though he didn't lower his wand. "The air is playing tricks. Let's keep moving."
The tunnel began to constrict. The walls, once wide and decorated, seemed to press inward, the ceiling dipping low enough that Ron had to hunch his shoulders. The ground underfoot changed from soft silt to hard, polished granite.
They reached a fork in the path—two identical openings yawning like mouths in the dark.
"Great," Ron sighed. "Left or right? And don't say 'both.'"
Allen didn't hesitate. He ran into the left tunnel, swept his wand light across the murals, then dashed back out and did the same for the right.
"What are you doing?" Nancy asked, watching him with a bewildered expression. "Is this a magic trick too?"
"The murals on the left depict the lives of commoners—laborers, servants, Muggles," Allen explained, pointing to the right-hand path. "The murals on the right show the training of initiates, the brewing of potions, and the casting of spells. We're Wizards, Ron. We follow the magic."
"Strong logic," Ron nodded, looking impressed. "Direct and to the point. Right it is."
Allen stepped into the right-hand tunnel, his shadow stretching long and thin against the ancient stone. He knew that in a place like this, logic was often a trap, but in a labyrinth of a thousand tunnels, sometimes the only way forward was to trust the stories on the walls.
As they disappeared into the narrow passage, the dragging sound returned, much closer this time, echoing from the tunnel they had just left behind.