Chapter 219: Chapter 219: Giza, Barbecue and Nubia at the Night Market (Part 2) (Edited)
"I don't advise you to go for a camel ride." Suddenly, a soft voice came from behind them. A very cool young man spoke. Yes, the first thing that struck Tom was that he was cool.
The young man was slim and tall, handsome, with long red hair pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He was dressed in a rock and roll style suit, with fang earrings and a pair of boots on his feet.
When Tom saw the boots, he raised his eyebrows: they were actually made of dragon skin. Hogwarts' teaching materials were full of dragon parts: dragon liver, dragon dung, dragon skin... Professor Sprout's herbology class required students to have dragon-skin gloves. After seeing a lot, you will know the products naturally.
As soon as Tom saw the material on the young man's boots, he realized that the man had to be connected to the magical world.
Red hair, British English and a connection to wizards, Tom had a rough idea.
He extended his hand toward the young man, "Thanks for the heads up, Tom Yodel."
The young man touched his hand, "Bill Weasley."
Indeed, he was a Weasley.
"Are you Ron's brother?"
Bill made a surprised face when he heard that, he had only warned the boys in passing so they wouldn't be fooled, but he hadn't expected them to know his brother.
If they knew Ron, they had to be Hogwarts students as well.
A few more questions confirmed what Bill had thought: the two in front of him were Ravenclaw juniors.
It was nice to meet younger students in a foreign country and, after a few words, Bill took the initiative to show Tom and Hermione around the outskirts of the Pyramid of Khufu. Coincidentally, Bill is a Gringotts Curse Breaker, a profession similar to that of a treasure hunter, who travels the world in search of treasure for Gringotts. Bill works in Egypt and knows the sites like the back of his hand.
Bill pointed out the perforated Pyramid of Khufu: "In fact, this thing was very beautiful in ancient times, and there are no signs of wear or flaws on the outside."
From Bill, Tom learned that thousands of years ago these pyramids were actually made of snow-white blocks of stone stacked regularly, with no gaps between them. Only thousands of years of sand and wind had given them this shape.
"There was a predecessor who found a hidden chamber under the Sphinx's legs and discovered a great treasure," Bill said, recalling his predecessors' experiences, "Inspired by Muggle rumors."
Here, Bill became serious: "If you find any relics in the wild, you'd better not venture into them, or you're likely to meet with misfortune: traps, remnants of magic, ancient curses... the ancient Egyptian wizards left a great deal of sorcery to defend these treasures. To unveil the treasures beneath the Sphinx, one of the Curse Breakers lost forever his sense of hearing, smell and sight, and another was admitted forever to St. Mungo's."
St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Wounds and Injuries is the largest general hospital for the wizarding community in the United Kingdom. If St. Mungo's couldn't cure the Curse Breaker, there was no chance of curing him anywhere else.
After visiting the pyramids, the sun was high and Bill drove them back to the city. The city was a little livelier at noon than it had been in the morning, with the faint sound of car horns coming from a distance replacing the chanting of prayer as Cairo's accompaniment.
Bill turned around and came to a street a little more ramshackle than downtown, a little more inhabited and a little less modern. As Tom walked down the street, he came in sight of a donkey cart with a load of goods running in front of it.
They followed Bill to a small, modest restaurant.
The restaurant was already full of diners and the ceiling fan was whirring.
As soon as they entered the restaurant, they were greeted by a waiter in a blue uniform, who led them to a table inside,
Bill greeted Tom and the two as they sat down and expertly ordered a few plates.
"Here, learning to eat in a Muggle restaurant can be a bit tricky at first; when I first arrived in Egypt I didn't know a pound from an Egyptian pound, and used to get the denominations mixed up, much to the chagrin of my team leader, but I got used to it after a while."
At that point the various meals were served.
A large skewer of roast lamb, a roast chicken cut in two, fried bean balls, fried eggplant, scrambled eggs with onions and parsley, and a plate of cucumber sticks sprinkled with a thick layer of cheese. There were also two slices of white bread on a plate, which Hermione took a bite of before realizing they were slices of fried blue cheese, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Of course, nothing was missing without the Egyptian pancakes.
Tom shook the greasy lamb off the skewer, put it on his plate and had some of the Egyptian version of tomato scrambled eggs.
Bill set two glasses of orange juice in front of them.
"Kids don't drink." He said.
As they ate, the conversation naturally turned to why Tom and the others were here. So Tom shared Dr. Hunter's findings with Bill.
"Is that so? Well, good luck with that, and if Mom and Dad don't come soon, I'll look for the city with you." Bill was very excited about the city, which he considered a great treasure in itself, even though there wasn't a single gold coin in it.
Many people have the misconception that gold, silver, jewels and antiques are treasure, but the mere fact that the mechanism that holds the treasure is treasure to the wizards is great treasure.
But Bill was also struck by the picture of the square Tom was talking about.
"Does it look like this?" Bill tapped the table gently with the wand and a picture appeared: the same twelve squares as always, only in this case they were arranged in a 3 x 4 format, with the rest of the picture almost identical, though this time the cat with the left eye appeared in the upper left corner.
Tom frowned, fully aware that the pattern was not a simple "customs declaration".
"Where did you see that?"
"Gringotts gives lots of clues to incomplete treasures, I saw this on one of the clues once, it was carved into a slab," Bill shrugged, "But the clue has been around for hundreds of years and no one has deciphered it."
Tom looked at the roast on the table and two verses echoed in his ears.
[Museum, Giza, kebab, Nubia at the night market]
["Knowledge, friends, legacies and secrets in cats"].
He felt he understood.
Chapter 220: Chapter 220: Going Through the Back Door (Edited)
At that moment, amidst the aroma of roasting meat, Tom seemed to understand the meaning of the two verses: it was a hint of something crucial! It seems that following these two verses leads to the "key" to the ruins of the city, and Guiza, the kebab and the friend seem to have come true. Tom meets his friend's brother in Guiza, and then he himself gets a new clue at the kebab store.
The rest of the keywords were museum, knowledge, cats, ruins, and Nubia at the night market, and with Aswan at the beginning of the verse, Tom thought a trip to the city of Aswan seemed necessary.
Aswan is an important city in southern Egypt, located on a major transportation route, gateway to Black Africa and the only access to the interior of Africa by sea. Aswan is also considered the cradle of the Egyptian nation and was an important trading city between Egypt and Nubia; it is said that the ancient Egyptian word for "trade" was "Aswan".
This city is worth visiting with or without a clue; indeed, there is much to see in Egypt, which has inherited the cultural heritage of ancient Egypt.
Tom was quick to decide on his next stop.
"Thanks, Bill."
Bill yawned and waved his hand, unconcerned.
"It's just a clue that hasn't been deciphered in a hundred years, but if you follow it and find the City, send me a letter so I won't have to worry about my performance for years to come!"
At that point the waiter also brought three glasses of an Egyptian dessert. The drink is said to have originated in the Fatimid dynasty of the 10th century AD. The Egyptians had a sweet tooth and liked to add lots of honey, icing and dried fruit to their desserts, and the dessert was no exception.
It is a dried fruit preserved in apricot juice, which also looks a bit like a fruit salad. It is filled with "yarmulkes," dried fruits, such as dried dates, dried apricots, prunes, etc. It is also topped with a mysterious local Egyptian condiment: kama'edin, a kind of apricot jam.
Egyptians enjoyed it during Ramadan, when it was the perfect refreshment after a full day of fasting.
Hermione picked up the cup, shook it gently, let the nuts sink to the bottom and took a sip, noticing the aroma of other nuts mixed with the apricot jam. The nuts in the cup had been soaked, cooked and cooled, and had become soft and juicy.
The sweet and sour combination took away the greasy taste of the roasted meat and anything fried.
Watching Hermione's eyes narrow into a crescent shape, Tom tried the drink as well, and it was so good he decided to take some nuts in the package with him.
After saying goodbye to Bill, Tom and Hermione headed for the National Egyptian Museum.
When Tom arrived at the ticket booth with a glass of cold juice in his hand, he found it empty. He found the ticket agent in the shade, who was eating lunch, and was told that tickets were sold out.
"At the National Museum of Egypt you have to book in advance, and today's tickets are already sold out." The slim ticket-taker was sitting in the shade, waving his hand impatiently at Tom, who had a small, rapidly spinning fan in front of him, trying to dissipate the heat from his body.
"We're tourists from England...", Tom thought, as there were probably tickets reserved for foreigners at these types of attractions.
The ticket agent frowned and said impatiently, "The British have had no privileges since His Excellency Nasser came to power!".
Tom was making an empirical error, the local Egyptian population did not have the same spending potential, the vast majority of museum visitors were foreigners and there were no special privileges for foreign visitors.
The ticket agent no longer wanted to talk to Tom and the two got into an argument. Hermione, however, tugged on Tom's coat, indicating that he should leave. Sure enough, a few steps behind him was a man in a white turban.
He had a thin face, a lip mustache, bright eyes, and a megaphone on his belt.
"Museum guide, 350 Egyptian pounds a day, do you want one?" 350 Egyptian pounds is a lot of money, the freshly squeezed juice in Tom's hand weighed only 2 pounds - it was the juice of three large oranges, and Bill's meal had just cost less than 200 pounds.
"But the museum doesn't have tickets." said Hermione with a smirk.
"There are always tickets," she said looking up at the sky, "It's noon, I can give you both a £300 discount and I can take your picture, look how pretty this lady is, in ancient times she would have been an old lady. It would be a shame if we couldn't get some pictures together."
Hermione smiled.
"Okay," since you can spend money to solve the problem, let's pay with money. Tom pulled out two ten pound bills and handed them to him. The turbaned man waved them twice and happily put them in his wallet, giving Tom 120 Egyptian pounds in change.
He then led Tom and Hermione across the street and around the circle to the parking lot at the back of the museum, where there was a small gate for staff entrance and exit, and where a young security guard, who looked like the man, was smoking a cigarette.
The hooded man approached the young man, smiled at him, the young man looked around, saw that no one was looking, and gently opened the door a crack, dislodging the barrier inside.
"Come straight in." He whispered.
Both Tom and Hermione were stunned, they actually entered through the back door this time.
The hooded man led the pair in a straight line.
"Actually, there's no other way. It's because you were too late. All the tickets we got here sold out in the morning. He spread his hands, helpless, "But in my hands, there's no business that can't be done!".
Not that a guy who would think of saying something like that is bragging.
Tom entered the museum in the most magical way possible.
They traversed the long corridors, the bustling halls, and came to a secluded side room.
"Follow me, and I'll make sure you get through the museum before it closes for the afternoon, without missing a single room." Abdullah was a true professional, always skillfully avoiding crowds and assigning Tom and his team to the less crowded galleries, often leaving before a large tour group entered, or leaving after a large tour group had entered one of the galleries.
Not only was he very well organized, but Abdullah was very eloquent and explained the origins of the various objects and the interesting historical facts they contained as fast as a machine gun.
He seemed to know everything, but Tom could tell that he had only memorized the most famous objects in the gallery and the ones with stories: he used them to draw the two's attention away from the rest of the collection.
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