Marriage is Murder

The safe glowed green and budged. Michael heard tumblers start to turn and then quit. "Good start, but thats not all of it," he said. He thought slowly. Then he spoke clearly, "April 4th." The tumblers started turning again and then slowly the stone began to shift away. "It was a two part password. The map code and Khaat's birthdate. It took both to make it work." There was a vault the size of a Gringotts vault. It was loaded, almost as full as it could get, with shimmering gold galleons. It was stunning, to say the least. A pure fortune. Michael wasn't impressed by it. He'd seen hoards of treasure before. What his eyes focused on was a tatty old book with a letter sticking out of the top. The book was stuck in a corner, wedged behind stacks of coins, almost unseen except by Michae's very expert eyes. He left the coins as they were and picked up the book instead. He opened the book. It was a journal--in Remus's hand.

"He wrote this in his last days, when we were doing the underground radio before the second wizarding war. I had forgotten all about this thing. He wrote in it by the hour," Michael said softly. "We were holed up in that cellar for days at a time. It was all he did when he wasn't on the air." He fingered through the pages. "Oh, God. I never knew. Every entry in here is a letter to Khaat. He left this to her. This was before he fell in love with Tonks or had Teddy. And look. Here's the code to those bloody runes." He drew out the letter. It was addressed to Khaat. He opened it and read it silently. Then he handed it to Brian. "As her husband, you're an equal heir to all those galleons. He left every single galleon he had that wasn't in Gringotts to her."

"Wait..Didn't he leave his money to Tonks and Teddy?" Brian frowned, remembering.

"Yes. What he had in Gringotts. Yes. By the time Tonks came into the picture, he either forgot about this hoard or he loved Khaat far too much to change it."

"Khaat thought he died relatively penniless."

"Clearly not," Michael said. "And dont' think the sum he left Teddy was small either by any means. My guess is that Teddy's aunt used a great portion of the Gringotts funding to raise the boy. This clearly belongs to you and Khaat. That is a legal inheritance document, willing it all to her. And now, by our laws, its yours as well." Brian shook his head, staring at the piles and piles of golden coins, overwhelmed by it all.

"Damnit," he sighed, almost talking to himself. "I know I've seen these runes before. Where the hell was it?" Michael was frustrated that he could not remember. "This rune system is very, very old and complex. Its not an original design of Remus's. He learned it or picked it up someplace. If I were him, and I feared the transfigurations as he did, I'd have taken a bag with me when I needed to run from my family, or a jacket and I would have stashed a few things to make camp with. Maybe this was what he did to keep himself occupied while he waited for the moon cycle to end. I'm not sure. Maybe he taught himself this code. I'm not entirely sure what it says because it is so complex...oh, wait a minute. Maybe...." He apparated upstairs. A moment later, he shouted to them.

"Found it!" he said. Brian went to the stairway and looked up and up and up. Michael was waving a rather large old leather book at them from the top floor of the library.

"Oh good. One book leads to another," Brian sighed. "And still no answers."

"This book is one of Remus's--misshelved on purpose. Remus obviously put it right here in plain sight--where Robert would have shelved it so that it would be overlooked for perhaps centuries and generations. Look at what it is." He showed them the spine of the book. It said, "Principes de base de Alchimie."

"This means Principles of Alchemy," Michael translated. "Its in French. French was the native language of Nicolas Flamel. Anyone connecting the dots yet?"

"Sort of," Brian said. "He made the Philosophers Stone,"

"And Khaat's necklace," Michael nodded. He opened the book. "Look here. This rune language was the very language that Flamel used for his alchemic forumulations. This will help Robert translate those pieces of paper now. If we're lucky he knows some bloody spell to make it translate itself now that he knows what he's looking at. You two take these books and the letter back to Robert. I am going to re-secure all those galleons for Khaat for later. Theyve been safe this long. Let us be sure they are not found any time in the near future."

Brian looked at Jack. "What do you think?"

Michael scowled at Jack. Michael only stole either to survive or for Robert. He had never stolen from Robert. Not ever, and he loved Khaat far too much to steal from her, not if it cost him his life. He ignored Jack and went downstairs, replacing the charms and putting everything back exactly has it had been.

Brian apparated back to the safehouse, following Jack. A few moments later Michael followed. Robert had apparently momentarily dozed off in the living room, seeing as though it was in the wee hours of the morning how there.

"Really?" He perked up now with interest that they had indeed found something. Robert opened the journal first. He started to read. It brought a smile to his face. "He surely did love her," he said, pleased that every so often there was still one more piece of validation that Remus never had ever stopped loving her. Not ever. And then he turned to the page where the code key had been somewhat started. It led him quickly to the other book. "Ah ha! Oh, well done, you lot. Excellent. Accio!" He summoned paper and pen and began to work to decipher the code. After a few moments he looked up over his glasses.

"This appears to be shaping up as a map of some sort. These are coordinates and directions of a map," Robert said, intrigued. "A bit of an adventure, it looks like."

"Oh yeah. Food," Brian said, suddenly remembering. He frowned. He couldn't remember when he ate last. " I guess I should be hungry. Has Khaat eaten?"

"Not yet," Robert said. "Go eat, you two. And then get some sleep. This will take awhile. And I won't sleep while Khaat is still in any sort of trouble."

"I won't either," Brian said.

"You will too. Your body needs the rest to heal. Jess, can you or Cassidy make up one of the spare rooms for him? And feed those two before they eat the furniture?" Robert asked.