AN: When Harry and Hermione visited the graveyard in the Godric's Hollow, they read the inscriptions on the gravestones of Dumbledore's family and Harry's parents. How is it possible that Hermione, always the geek, failed to notice that those inscriptions were actually verses from the Bible? She is so smart that she should have cited the corresponding books, chapters and verses right away - that's what any adventuring geek would do. And when you are an adventurer and receive two pairs of numbers, the options are nearly limitless...
They found the grave of Kendra and Ariana Dumbledore first. Harry was a little confused by the inscription:
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Hermione was a little confused as well but from entirely different reasons than Harry.
They continued in their search until they found the grave of Harry's parents. The inscription downright scared Harry. It read:
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
Hermione just nodded her head. Harry kept staring at the gravestone, not wanting to believe what was written on it.
"What's wrong, Harry?" asked Hermione, sensing his distress.
"What's wrong?" wailed Harry. "I just found that my parents were dabbling in dark magic! Isn't that wrong enough?"
"What?! What makes you say that?" exclaimed Hermione.
"Are you blind? It's written right here. They were searching for immortality just like Vol..." cried Harry, pointing at the inscription. He didn't get to finish though, because Hermione smacked him on his head. They were both lucky that she did, because the Death Eaters would find out their location otherwise. However, that's irrelevant.
"Are you kidding me?" Hermione chastised Harry.
"Well, you can't deny that it looks suspicious," he defended himself.
Hermione grasped his shoulders and corrected his mistake, "It's from a letter to the Corinthians! Don't you know that?"
Unfortunately for Harry, he remained confused, "A letter to Corinthians? What letter? And what's in Corinth? My parents had friends in there?"
That drained the last reserves of Hermione's patience. She tackled Harry to the ground and started to throttle him. "Are you deliberately provoking me! It's from the Bible! Bible! Do you know what that is?!"
Harry attempted to answer but found it very difficult since he was being strangled. It took him a while before he managed to wheeze out, "Yes, I know. It's a book."
Hermione, who was almost willing to release him at the time, got angry again and resumed her attack on his throat with renewed vigour.
"It's two sets of books! Each book has multiple chapters which break into verses!" she shrieked in his ear.
It took some time before the things (Hermione, to be specific) calmed down.
"I'm sorry, OK?" apologized Harry for the twelfth time.
Hermione raised her hand to silence him and said, " Don't worry, it's not your fault. After all, it's me who's the intellectual here."
Harry scratched his scalp and asked Hermione, "You know, I still don't understand what those verses are doing on these graves."
Hermione nodded in contemplation and replied, "Yes, it's peculiar indeed. I'm quite surprised that there are wizards who know the scripture. Maybe the inscriptions are here for a reason."
"What kind of reason?" asked Harry.
Hermione gave no response and just took out her notebook and a pencil. She quickly jotted the following:
Matthew 6:21, Corinthians(1) 15:26
"What's that?" asked Harry.
"The first inscription can be found in Gospel according to Matthew, sixth chapter, twenty-first verse. The second one is from the first letter to the Corinthians, fifteenth chapter, twenty-sixth verse."
"How is it going to help us?"
"Well, now we've got two pairs of numbers. What if they mean something?"
Harry thought about it and then said, "Huh. Dumbledore would want us to know whether this was a real lead. Let's look around this very graveyard first."
"You're right. Let's find the twenty-first grave in sixth row."
After a while, they found that a wizard named Matthew and his wife were buried in the designated grave. Excitement engulfed Harry. "We were right, this can't be a coincidence!"
They examined the grave closely. It was old and weathered. While the years of birth and death of the witch were still readable, the first two numbers from the year of Matthew's birth were erased.
"Interesting," murmured Hermione and jotted the dates down.
Then they continued to twenty-sixth grave in fifteenth-row.
"Huh, Paul. It's a pity, it seems that our theory is incorrect." stated Harry when he examined the grave.
Hermione gave him another light smack on his head and informed him, "It was Paul who wrote the letters to the Corinthians! We are on the right track."
As before, the first two numbers from the year of birth were erased. Hermione wrote the numbers down again.
"So, what do you make of this?" asked Harry, looking over her shoulder.
"I think I've got an idea," answered Hermione. "Let's get out of here."
A while after they left, a creepy-looking hag arrived to the graveyard.
"Where the hell are they?" she hissed in Parseltongue.
"So, what is it?" asked Harry when they were in their tent again.
Hermione pulled out an atlas, found a map of Africa and answered: "If we take the numbers we gained, we can use them as a latitude and a longitude. The two remaining numbers from the year of birth are degrees and the year of death denotes minutes and seconds. The resulting coordinates are pointing in the desert in the south-west of Egypt."
"And what's in Egypt?" asked Harry.
"Harry! Egypt is one of the oldest magical nations. If there is something ancient that can help us, it's right there."
Harry focused his sight on a wall of the tent and started to daydream. He imagined himself and Hermione exploring ancient ruins and unwittingly started to hum a certain melody.
Hermione interrupted his dreams though, "Harry! We have to take this seriously and progress with caution. This is not a movie!"
"OK, I understand that."
"Good. Now, we need to get supplies. Then we can travel to Egypt through Gibraltar or Sicily or Middle East..."
Harry and Hermione continued to make plans for several hours that night before they went to sleep.
"Nooo! Please, no more spiders! Spiders are creepy!" bawled Ron.
"Then tell me what are your friends up to!" shouted Bellatrix.
"I told you ages ago that I'll tell you everything."
"Oh, really? OK then, talk."
"They are after the Horcruxes of You-Know-Who!"
"His what?" asked Bellatrix in befuddlement.
"I'll take it from here, Bella," sounded a new voice from the entrance to the torture chamber. He strode forward and the door closed behind him with a loud thud.
After Bellatrix left, Voldemort grabbed Ron's chin in his hand and made him look in his eyes.
"So, my Horcruxes you say?" he asked.
"Yes, they want to destroy them all!"
Voldemort sighed and wanted to press the bridge of his nose when he remembered that he didn't have any. So, he just stroked his chin and said, "Hm, I'll have to post some guards to protect them. And possibly make some new ones from old boots and such..."
Then he turned back to Ron, pointed his bony finger on him and sharply asked, "Now, I've heard that Scrimgeour delivered some items to you and your friends."
"Yes! Some bequests from Dumbledore." confirmed Ron and proceeded to tell him about them.
Voldemort listened to him and them started to think aloud, "The sword is thankfully safe. The book is a bunch of nonsense supporting Dumbledore's moralistic opinions. The snitch is merely an emotional item so that leaves your lighter. What else does it do?!"
"I don't know, I swear I don't know!" pleaded Ron.
"Then you are of no more use to me. Avada Kedavra!"
The Dark Lord spent the whole night playing with Dumbledore's lighter, switching the lights in his room on and off. On, off, on, off. Yep, all night long.
Harry and Hermione appeared in the middle of the designated area. There was nothing but dunes all around them.
"OK, let's set up a camp," stated Harry. "We can start searching tomorrow."
Next day they settled into a routine they followed for next few days. They got up as soon as there was enough light, broke the camp and started to comb the desert. They made a break for lunch and some rest when the heat was the worst and then continued in their search until late night.
The fifth day something unexpected happened. They were searching like any other day, when Harry's snitch did something strange. It flew out of his pocket suddenly and began to hover above a spot in the desert.
"What is it doing?" asked Hermione.
"No idea. Let's try the spell," replied Harry. By "the spell" he meant a spell for detection of ruins buried under the sand.
Hermione said the incantation and stuck her wand in the ground at the end of the wand movement.
"There's something down there," she said slowly, as she was standing up.
"Well, let's find out what," stated Harry.
They started to remove the sand with their wands, first quickly, then more carefully as they drew near. They kept all the excavated sand on a heap next to the site in case they needed to cover their tracks. After some time they uncovered remains of a tower. Its upper parts were crumbled up but the condition of the walls steadily improved as they went deeper. Finally they reached the bottom of the tower and uncovered a door in one of the walls. Hermione brushed away the last grains of sand on the door and saw that there was an engraving.
"Look Harry! These are the same verses as at the graveyard!" she exclaimed.
Harry inspected the inscription and noted, "Somebody engraved this relatively recently, it can't be older then two decades."
"Do you think that Dumbledore was here?" asked Hermione.
Harry gave no answer and started to look for a way to open the door. They found quickly that there was nothing special about it and used a simple unlocking spell to gain access. A long descending stairs were revealed by the lights from the wands of the two adventurers.
Hermione nodded her head and told Harry "OK, let's move in."
"What about the tower?" asked Harry.
"We shouldn't leave any traces in case somebody comes here."
Once the door was secured behind them, Harry apparated himself back to the surface and pushed the mound of the excavated sand back into the tower. The desert sun and breeze removed any traces of the excavation before too long.
Once Harry rejoined Hermione, they followed the stairs deeper and deeper underground. Almost two hundred meters lower, the stairs came to a stop and they entered a small antechamber. There was a strong and heavy door on the other side and a small cavity next to it. The snitch flew forward and halted next to that cavity. Next moment, the snitch fell apart and a ring fell from its insides and clattered on the floor. Harry and Hermione looked at each other in confusion and then Harry picked the ring up and examined it.
"Look," said Hermione, who inspected the small hollow in the meantime.
Harry looked at the spot Hermione was pointing at and noticed that there was a small slot sized just for the ring. He inserted the ring in the slot. A light emitted from the stone on the ring and started to take shape. Before too long, a holographic image of Dumbledore stood before them.
"Harry, if you are hearing this, then I'm probably dead." it said to them.
"No kidding," whispered Harry.
The projection continued, "I found this place before the first war with Voldemort turned to worse. After that, I couldn't spare much time here and thus never got too far. Not to mention that I'm a scholar, not an adventurer. So, I've resealed the entrance in hope that I or somebody else will return here one day. If my estimates are right, then the Ministry has already fallen and you and your friends stand alone. I believe that this is your last chance to make things right. I don't know what exactly is down there but I'm sure it will be the greatest discovery ever made. However, you need to navigate through a series of tests. The ring serves as an activation key. Good luck, Harry."
The image disappeared and the door opened. The ring was released from the slot.
"That's it? No advice, no further information?" exclaimed Hermione.
"Yeah, why are you so surprised?" retorted Harry.
Harry collected the ring and Hermione re-lit her wand. They continued down the slightly descending corridor for about twenty more meters when the wand-light revealed another door to them. Shortly afterwards, Hermione's wand flickered and then stopped emitting light altogether.
"Well, bugger," said Harry and attempted to conjure some light himself but to no avail.
"Not entirely surprising - the tests would be redundant if you could use magic to circumvent them." remarked Hermione and started to dig in her backpack. She found a flash-light and turned it on. Luckily, it worked. They returned to the antechamber. Hermione opened the magically enlarged bag and started to unpack the things stored in there.
"I guess it won't work down there." commented Harry and joined her.
"Indeed. We can't risk that it will burst open. That could be almost like an explosion." she confirmed.
Harry imagined all the furniture inside the tent reverting to its original size. Hence, they packed almost all the food and most of their lighter equipment. The most difficult choice were the books - they couldn't bring even half of them. In the end, Hermione used transfiguration to make them lighter and smaller. Once the transfiguration was done, there were no lingering magical effects which could be disrupted.
When they were done, they set forth once again. They came to the door that they saw earlier and discovered some kind of a mechanism on it. It was composed of a number of concentric rings of stone (or some stone-like material to be precise). The mechanism wasn't in a peak condition, the millennia left their mark on it. Fortunately, it seemed that Dumbledore made an effort to clean it as best as he could without being able to take it apart.
Harry inserted the ring in the slot next to the door. There was a click inside and faintly glowing markings appeared on the circles. Hermione scratched her scalp and then tried to rotate the outer circle. It didn't operate smoothly but she managed to turn it by one click in the end. One of the other rings turned as well as the result.
"What is it? Some kind of rebus?" asked Harry.
"Indeed," replied Hermione. Then she turned all the remaining circles exactly once. After that, she thought for a few seconds and then arranged the mechanism in the correct setting (in which all the markings fit to each other). The door opened and the ring was once again released from the slot.
"That was amazing!" exclaimed Harry.
"Not really, this one was simple."
The tunnel continued downwards and started to wind to the right as well. The two friends followed it, barely registering that the door closed shut behind them. As they descended, Harry started to hum that certain melody again, "Tadadada, tadadaa. Tadadada, tadadadadada..."
Hermione wanted to admonish him but her anxiety got the better from her and she joined him instead. So they walked down the ancient tunnel side by side, illuminating their path by the flash light and humming the catchy melody. Their humming got gradually louder and more defined and soon, they started to stagger left and right to the tune. It would be quite a stylish way to explore the remnants of an ancient civilization if it weren't for the fact that their hummings diverged after a short while. They ceased their pathetic attempt at a musical production and started to bicker about how the song was supposed to continue. To be honest, neither of them was right because neither of them actually saw the films. Hermione had always been a geek and preferred to study rather than watch TV. As for Harry - well, let's say that he heard the song only once through the open window when he was weeding the garden and the Dursleys watched TV with their son.
After that, they continued in silence until they arrived at the second test. There was another mechanism, similar to the one they already encountered. Hermione insisted that Harry should solve that one. Harry was reluctant but Hermione was convinced that the following tests would require both of their intellectual power and that it would do no good for Harry to slack in the beginning. Harry finally surrendered with a sight and started tinkering with the rings. It took him a considerable longer time because the riddle was more complicated and since he had never been encouraged to develop his intelligence (unlike Hermione). Fortunately, his companion gave him a few hints to figure the system out.
All the following doors had the same unlocking mechanism but the riddle was getting more and more complicated. The fifth one had a nasty surprise for them - the behaviour of the rings wasn't constant, it periodically changed every few moves. When Hermione realized that, she wanted to smack herself on her forehead. After that, it wasn't difficult for her to figure the pattern out and solve the riddle. The next time, they took out a notepad and a pencil to make notes and calculations right from the start. And the next time, they came to a door that had remnants of notes written by chalk on it. More notes were on the walls around.
"It seems that this is as far as Dumbledore ever came. He couldn't solve the riddle." said Hermione after she looked them over.
Harry looked at the markings and remarked, "How did the chalk last for all those years? He was here at least two decades ago."
"That's magical chalk - used by curse-breakers in ancient tombs for example."
Harry remained silent for a few seconds and then said, "You know, that's just pathetic. Every time there's a logical hole, somebody comes with an explanation leaning on magic."
"No comment," snapped Hermione and took out a notepad.
It was a tough one but the path was opened to them before too much time passed. Hermione wondered why the two of them were able to solve something that stumped Dumbledore himself but Harry reminded her that he had been quite old and, like his projection said, he had not had much time.
"Now when I think about it, he probably spent a large part of his life just searching for this place," concluded Harry.
They continued deeper and deeper underground, solving more and more sophisticated rebuses. Their flash-lights also stopped working and they had to use fluorescent sticks. In the end they arrived at a door that was decorated more richly than the previous ones. Hermione took a deep breath and her brain almost started to quiver in the expectation of the intellectual stimulation. They opened a fresh notebook and started to work.
About a half an hour later Harry said, "You know, I've been wondering."
"Yes?" replied Hermione in an absent tone.
"I mean, this is it? You prove you are smart and then you gain access to something so... Well, I don't know what but it's surely something big."
"I doubt that these ring-puzzles are anything more than a warming round. The basic idea is, that the builders of this place wanted to allow passage only to those who would share their main qualities. And one of those qualities was obviously intellect."
Harry made no comment to that and they continued to work in silence. That lasted only for a quarter of an hour. After that, Hermione let out an exasperated sigh and put the notebook down. She knew nothing about the lock, except for the change in the behaviour of the rings which happened after every move and showed no signs of an apparent pattern.
"You can't figure it out," stated Harry.
"WE can't figure it out," retorted Hermione. "I don't see you coming with any bright ideas either."
Harry leaned his head back so it rested on the stone wall. He watched Hermione's struggle for a moment and then snickered. The girl turned to him, her face showing clear signs of anger.
"I've got an idea!" shouted Harry quickly.
Hermione narrowed her eyes.
Harry continued, "Look. Till now, all the previous locks were sort of building up to the next one. The principle of each rebus was always an extension of the principles of all the previous ones. Also, the builders of this place wanted us to prove whether we were able to use our brains for something other than magic - I believe we've proven it by now."
"Is there some kind of point in this?" asked Hermione.
"Of course there is. Like I've said, our ability to think was already tested. What if this lock is supposed to test our ability to think out of the box?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I think we need a new approach to this. I bet it's something different, something simple that we wouldn't think about."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Show me your notes."
Hermione handed him her notebook and Harry started to leaf through it, penning their findings on a piece of paper in a more condensed form.
"It's not periodic, that's for sure," he stated.
"It must be - it's a mechanism."
"Sure, we would get to the initial state - in a few months. Plus, there could always be some kind of irrational explanation based on magic." Harry smirked at Hermione as he said that. The girl just shook her head dismissively.
Harry finished rewriting the notes after some time and examined the result. However, even his simplified version was too complicated for him so he started to chart it into various graphical representations. Hermione voiced her doubts but Harry just handed her the notes back and asked her to look over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't making any mistakes. The witch rolled her eyes but obliged him.
When Harry finished his work, he began to study his charts, looking for any sign of a pattern. Hermione sat on the floor and rested her back against a wall. She closed her eyes and tried to relax. About five minutes later, she was roused from her relaxation by a soft humming. She opened her eyes and looked at Harry. He was still holding his notes but his eyes were closed. He was silently humming.
"What are you doing? I've told you that this is not a movie!" reprimanded him Hermione.
Harry opened his eyes and dryly answered, "I think I know what kind of pattern we need to look for. I'm just not sure whether I'm able to figure it out, since I know nothing about music."
"What are you talking about?"
"I've been looking at one of my graphs and something nudged me about it. And then I remembered my music class back at the elementary school. You see, the guy who taught it taught math as well..."
He didn't get to finish because Hermione snagged the papers from his hands.
"I have no expertise in this area though. What about you?" added Harry.
"Well, my parents made me take piano lessons when I was small."
"So you know how to write notes?"
"That's a moot point - ancient Egyptians did not notate their music."
Harry contemplated something for a moment and then asked, "You know, what about if it weren't the ancient Egyptians who built this place?"
"Well, so far we haven't seen anything that would indicate otherwise. And who would build this if not them?"
"True," agreed Harry.
Hermione examined Harry's notes. After a while, she saw a possible pattern. She had no way of knowing for sure whether it was any good but the data they had got fitted in. However, they still had a problem with the fact that they had no starting point(s). Hermione concluded that it meant that such a point wasn't needed and focused on the mathematical aspect. In a half an hour, she expressed the behaviour of each ring and relationships of every ring with all the others as a set of differential equations. Those proved to be unsolvable however.
Hermione wanted to use numerical integration to help them in their search for a solution but Harry stopped her, claiming that they didn't have enough food to survive that long. Hence, they returned to the idea that the solution should be simple and attempted to solve the equations from the other side - instead of integrating the input, they tried to "guess" possible results and derive them instead. After ten minutes, Harry had an idea about the inner rings being derived from the outer ones. Hermione checked it and it was true. Then it took her another fifteen minutes to solve the equations.
In the end, they were looking on a mathematical description of the behaviour of the rings - all of it fitted on a single page. Hermione took it in her left hand and started to turn the circles by her right hand, using the paper as a reference. With the advantage of being able to predict the behaviour of the rings, the door was opened finally and they could proceed. They made sure that everything about the final solution was properly recorded - Harry had a feeling that they might need those data in the future (considering that the previous rebuses were based on those before them).
As they walked, they discussed whether they should continue or stop and rest. However, before they could decide whether they had energy to solve one more door, it became apparent that the last circle-rebus was truly the last. They arrived in a circular room which was positioned, according to their rough map, right underneath the ruin of the tower. In the middle of the room was a small column with a slot for the ring on top of it.
Harry nodded towards it and asked, "Shall we?"
Hermione thought about for a few moments. She was curious about what lied ahead so she agreed to explore further. They walked forward and Harry inserted the ring. Nothing happened at first but then there was a tremor that almost sent the two teens sprawling on the floor. The entire floor moved and when Harry and Hermione looked around, they saw that the walls were moving upwards. They glanced back at the corridor they arrived from and saw it disappearing into the ceiling.
"It's some kind of a lift," said Hermione, trying to stabilize herself.
They descended for about five minutes but their speed wasn't very great by their estimation. Still, it was noticeably colder when they came to a stop and they had to put on the additional clothing they had packed. As they were doing so, an exit opened in the wall. Harry raised a glowing stick towards it and peered into the dark tunnel. He felt a light draft coming from there. The air also felt moister.
"Let's see where it leads," he said and they carefully walked forward.
The tunnel proceeded for about twenty meters before it opened to a large and dark space. Harry gave Hermione a quick glance and then threw his glowing stick into the darkness. They watched as the stick sailed through the empty space until it clattered on the floor. The bottom line was, it didn't illuminate anything else than that floor.
"This place is large," whispered Hermione.
Harry clicked his tongue against his palate. There was no echo. He took a breath but a glare from the girl next to him stopped him.
"I hope you weren't about to shout," she said.
Harry ignored her comment and told her to cover her fluorescent stick. Then he turned away from the stick in the distance and gazed into the darkness.
"Is it just me or is there some ambient light above us?" he asked after a while.
"Are you sure that your eyes aren't deceiving you?"
"Huh. Let's explore this place."
Hermione broke another stick and left it at the mouth of the tunnel. Then they followed the wall of the cavern clockwise but found no other exits. They estimated that the cavern had over forty meters in diameter. The floor was made of some kind of a strong black material they had not encountered in the upper levels. It wasn't stone but it wasn't metal either - rather something in between. On the other hand, the walls looked like natural rock and their shape was irregular.
When they reached their original entry point, they lit a few more sticks and threw them around. It appeared that the cavern was empty - they found nothing but a smooth floor around them. The only exception was a pillar located near the entrance to the cavern. The pillar was similar to the one in the lift.
"Shall we?" asked Harry, nodding towards the cavity on the top of it.
"Go on," agreed Hermione after a moment.
Harry put the ring in there. There was a mechanical click and the ring was locked in place. Then it briefly glowed. Nothing happened at first but after a while, the darkness around them started to be replaced by a dim gloom. The two teens covered any glow-sticks around then and started to gaze above them once again. Soon, their eyes got used to the low level of the light.
They saw that while the walls around were of natural origin and irregular on a small scale, the whole cavern was perfectly circular on the large one. The ceiling formed a dome above them. The ceiling was also where the source of the light was located - or sources to be more precise. There were several dozens of faintly glowing crystals embedded in the rock above their heads. It was obvious that they were organized to form some kind of a structure but Harry and Hermione were unable to figure it out at the moment. (They would need the crystals to glow more strongly for that.) The crystals seemed to be similar or even identical in their shape but varied in size.
As they gazed above them, they missed a moment when the cavity where the ring was placed closed itself and the whole pillar started to slide down. Harry tried to grab it but couldn't do anything to prevent it from disappearing into the floor. Hermione remarked that maybe they no longer needed the ring. Harry just nodded and they set out to explore the room once again.
They noticed that there was another set of crystals which formed a circle around the whole dome. They were different in shape than those on the ceiling and were about two meters above the floor. Harry and Hermione weren't sure whether the crystals were in place while they were exploring before. The crystals were also darker - there was almost no light coming from them. Harry touched one and it brightened under his hand. Hermione noticed that some of the crystals on the ceiling also glowed brighter at that moment.
"OK, I'd say that we can call it a day. I need to rest before facing more riddles," she said.
They opened two cans of soup and started to eat them cold.
"Are you still convinced that it was the ancient Egyptians who built this?" asked Harry between the mouthfuls.
"Well, I've got to admit that what I see is less and less resembling what I know about that culture. But as I said: who else would have built this?" answered Hermione.
"I don't know. Somebody who was here before them."
"And who might have that been, huh? The first advanced civilization in this area were the Egyptians and there are no signs of any other culture that was here before that."
"No signs? And what about this place, isn't that enough for you? Look, what if the civilization that built this was really, really, really old. So old, that they were a matter of myths even for the ancient Egyptians. And Dumbledore probably followed those myths when he was tracking this place down."
Hermione folded her arms and said with a sarcastic tone, "Harry, that's a great theory - a pre-ancient civilization that was far more advanced then we are today, reached its peak and then mysteriously vanished, leaving only a few Egyptian myths. There is one great problem with your theory however."
"Is that so? Well, let's hear it."
"The thing is, the humankind isn't as old as one might think. As a species, I mean. Our kind was around only for fifty thousand years - that might seem as a long time but not when you compare it to our known history."
"I don't understand."
"Look, fifty thousand years ago, there was a certain small number of people similar to us, but not entirely like us. Their genes were still optimized for strength and resiliency, not intelligence. Now, archaeology and history teaches us that it took humanity about ten thousand years to get from primitive tribes to modern society and there aren't any signs of civilized life before that. That leaves us with forty thousand years of unfocused development ridden by pure luck to get from what I've said earlier to the beginning of that ten-thousand-year path. Are you getting it? There simply wasn't enough space for any pre-ancient civilizations to rise and crumble again without leaving any traces of their existence. Everything we know about the history of this planet tells us that we are the first people to ever reach this level of technological advancement!"
Harry stared at her for a while and then said, "So what? Maybe it simply wasn't a human civilization."
Hermione stared back at him dubiously for a while and then dead-panned, "OK, I'm sort of surprised that it took you so long to come up with this ridiculous idea. Yeah, an ancient alien race came to Earth, uplifted the humanity, taught us magic and then vanished without a trace, leaving only ruins and artifacts behind them. You know, that's just old. I'm not even going to reply to that."
"But you just did," snipped Harry. The flash in Hermione's eyes kept him from saying anything else.
They rolled out the two blankets they brought and used them as mattresses. It wasn't exactly comfortable but it was better than lying on a bare floor. They had no additional blankets to cover themselves so they just put their bags over their bellies and pressed their backs to each other. A complete silence reigned the dome once more and before the kids fell asleep, they had a feeling that they heard some kind of a humming coming from above.
Harry and Hermione woke up after several hours of sleep, all sore and stiff from their uncomfortable sleep. They moved around to get warm for a while and then had some breakfast.
"OK, time to solve this," said Hermione afterwards.
Harry nodded and added, "I guess those crystals on the walls are some kind of control elements and we need to set them in a right configuration to get further."
Hermione walked to the nearest control crystal and touched it. A row of crystals on the ceiling lit up, just like the previous day. Harry proposed to remain silent for a while and listen. Once again, they managed to hear the silent humming coming from the crystals on the ceiling but touching the control crystal didn't make it any louder. In fact, there was no visible way to operate it.
They pondered this problem for some time. Hermione tried to touch the crystal with her wand but nothing happened. Still, Harry was convinced that they weren't supposed to operate the crystal physically. He touched the crystal with both hands and focussed his will on it. Nothing happened and Harry realized that he actually didn't know what he was supposed to make happen.
And so a long and tedious process of attempt and error began. After several hours, they realized that they weren't going to solve this puzzle quickly. They tried to touch two crystals at the same time but that only caused everything go dark until one of them released the crystal. Harry then attempted to push some magic into the crystal (like when he had performed accidental magic when he was small). Hermione reasoned that it probably wasn't going to work since it was logical that it wasn't required to be a wizard to pass the tests. Still, Harry kept trying since Hermione had no better ideas.
It wasn't until the end of the day that Harry managed to push the right kind of magic into his crystal. For a moment, the crystals that were highlighted at the time started to hum louder and at a higher tone. Harry was startled and lost contact with the control mechanism which caused the volume to drop again. However, he was sure that if he listened intently, he would hear that the crystals retained the tone. The event got Hermione on her feet as well and the two teens began to discuss the implications.
After a few more hours, they figured the controls out. They weren't sure whether there was actually any flow of magical energy at all (since it was impossible in that place) or whether the crystals reacted on their thoughts alone but it was obvious that they needed to focus as if they actually wanted to perform magic. Fortunately for them, it appeared that the controlling mechanism was quite simple: up or down. All they had to do was to touch a crystal and then push their intent on it, as if it was a wand. Intentions connected with chaos and fire made the corresponding sound-crystals to tune up, while order and frost tuned them in the opposite direction.
Harry and Hermione went to sleep afterwards, not having sufficient presence of mind to actually start solving the actual riddle. Hermione hoped that they were going to be able to go further the next day since she had no desire to camp in the cavern any longer than necessary. They started to play with the control crystals, attempting to make the crystals to play a sound that would hopefully do something. They discovered that they couldn't tune the crystals impossibly low, there was a minimal frequency and the crystals couldn't go any lower. At that minimal frequency, the crystals played a tone that was quite deep, but well enough in the spectrum of human hearing. Also, this deepest tone was reachable only by a half of the control crystal - every second crystal had a minimal frequency twice as high (that is an octave higher). Furthermore, the tuning wasn't continuous but happened in steps. An octave was divided in sixteen degrees. They found nothing else after those discoveries and quite soon, Hermione saw the fruitlessness of their doing.
"OK, we need to think about this. We need some kind of a clue or a reference point." she said.
Harry sat on the floor and started to think. Hermione didn't wish to admit it but she hoped that he would come up with something. Finally, he spoke, "You know, I believe we already have it."
"What are you talking about?"
"Just think about it. The jamming field in this place is impressive and the last door was pretty tricky but in the end, any old Pharaoh with a hundred of slaves equipped with pickaxes could have reached this place. But it would have been of no use to him! Why? Because the doors weren't puzzles, they were clues. Especially the last one!"
Hermione agreed that it was kind of obvious in retrospective. They picked a crystal right next to the entrance and turned it on the deepest tone. Harry's logic was that it didn't matter which crystals played which tones, only the resulting sound was important. Hermione went to another crystal and started to tune it based on the solution of the last door-rebus.
During the next few hours, their greatest problem was their lack of musical talent. Fortunately, they weren't required to do anything difficult - they tuned always one set of crystals at a time, using the previous set as a reference. Presuming that they could tell that two tones were identical, all they had to do was to count out the appropriate amount of degrees carefully.
Slowly but surely, the two teens worked through the crystals until Hermione came to the last one. "How are we going to know whether its working?" she mused. Harry stopped touching the previous crystal and Hermione began to work on hers. "And here we go." she said and pushed the last impulse.
Immediately, volume of all the crystals went up and the control ones went dark. Hermione pulled her hand away from her crystal and true enough, the sound remained strong - the puzzle was solved. The final chord played by all the crystals at once was quite nice but Harry and Hermione had little time to admire it. A deep rumbling started somewhere high above them and they began to feel slight shaking.
"I believe we should get going," said Hermione.
"Where?!" asked Harry.
"I don't know. Start packing!"
They rushed to their things and started to pack the most necessary things (like food). When the shaking increased, Harry looked up from his backpack. Then he nudged Hermione. A circular portion of the floor in the middle of the dome started to glow and it seemed that it changed its consistency. At that moment, they heard a loud cracking coming from the elevator shaft and then crashing of tons of rock. A gust of dust came from the tunnel.
They closed their backpacks and stepped towards the circle on the floor. A stone came loose from the ceiling and dropped on the circle, disappearing through it, leaving small ripples in its wake. Harry and Hermione leaned forward and saw some kind of a room under the floor.
"I guess we need to go through," shouted Harry.
"Is it safe?" yelled Hermione.
The dome itself started to quake then and Harry tossed his backpack forward. It didn't fall through immediately - the glowing surface was rather jelly like. The backpack partially sank in the floor, then some jelly started to creep over it until it was completely enveloped by the substance. Then it sank completely, disappearing momentarily from their sights until they saw it reappear in the room bellow.
Hermione shook her head hesitatingly and pondered, "I don't think that this is an actual gate. It's more likely a portal."
"Even cooler," snapped Harry and jumped in.
Hermione looked around and saw that the cavern was going to collapse. Having no other choice, she followed Harry. A large pieces of the ceiling started to fall down along with the playing crystals. Then the floor solidified again and everything came crashing down. Nothing but a slight depression in the desert above marked the remnants of the greatest discovery in human history.