For his sixteenth birthday, Rafael's favourite uncle took him to the Quidditch World Cup in England, even though the Colombian national team had long since been knocked out in the quarterfinal. Rafael cheered for Viktor Krum, while secretly wishing he could fly half as well, and carried a banner for Diego Rodriguez in his pocket, dreaming of the day when he would see his own country play for the Cup.

It was the first time Rafael had ever been out of his home country. It was also the last.

So when Zacharias Smith -- on rare occasions, and usually only while drinking -- happened to mention the war, Rafael knew exactly what he was talking about.

"I've had it for the day," said Zacharias, wiping the sweat off his forehead and taking a seat on a large, square stone. "I haven't worked this hard since the Wiltshire tunnels at the end of the war."

Rafael nodded and took a seat on the same rock, back to back with Zacharias. It wasn't warm, this high in the Andes, but they had both been working hard; the overgrowth around the Inca temple was resistant to magic, so clearing the way was an exercise in physical labour. It was decidedly not what either of them had been hired for, but what had to be done, had to be done.

"Mi madre tells me I should have you over so she can feed you," Rafael told him after a moment. "You English wizards, she's convinced you do not eat."

"She's not entirely wrong," admitted Zacharias, and Rafael could hear him swallowing something that may or may not have been water. "Next week, though? I'm thinking of staying up here at the site this weekend, working the door at sunrise."

"I will tell her. Do you want some help?"

"No, that's all right," said Zacharias. "I wouldn't want to keep you from your family; last time I did that I found a very angry cockatoo named Pedro pecking at my shoulder at about one in the morning."

"They've promised not to do that again," said Rafael apologetically. "Julietta worries when I forget to tell her where I'll be. Even when I turn out to be at a rooming house just up the street."

"And I suppose the eight shots of rum didn't help your memory any," said Zacharias. Rafael could almost hear the mischievous grin, and his stomach roiled at the thought of a repeat of that night. "I'll promise I'll not let you do that again. At least, not without sending word."

"Do you think you might get into the south door this weekend?" Rafael asked, instead of pursuing that somewhat treacherous road. "If it doesn't overgrow again."

"I think we've got that bit licked," said Zacharias, though he didn't sound completely confident, the way he sometimes did. "If that door's ever going to open, it's going to be at dawn on Sunday, first light of the sun and all. I'll send the macaw if I get in, how about?"

"I will not forgive you if you forget," said Rafael. Zacharias was right, though, that Rafael would be missed if he were not home for Mass on Sunday. "I think we are almost finished here."

"Unless we find something wholly unexpected behind that door," said Zacharias, "I expect you're right. And I'm guessing all that's behind that door is the gold and jewels the goblins are after."

Rafael stood up and watched Zacharias pull a small package from his pocket, enlarging it moments later into a one-man tent. He'd often thought about spending a night up here, alone in this wilderness, admiring the Inca ingenuity and architecture before him. But in the end he'd always gone home to his family when the day's work was done.

"I'm off, then," he said, as Zacharias fussed with his tent. "If you see Marco, tell him I've got his copy of Charms of the Peruvian Highlands and I am not returning it until he returns my Hair-Right Mirror."

"What, have you got another wedding to go to?"

"Does it have to be a special occasion for me to want my hair to be neat?" Zacharias just grinned and shrugged. "I'm through with weddings, after that last one. It was a Muggle ceremony, you know; Mama never knows what to wear to those."

"We've got the same problem in my family. My second cousin's a squib and Mum wore this terrible orange... I'm not even sure I should call it a dress... to her wedding. Grace just told her husband that her family was a bit eccentric."

"Mama is a bit eccentric anyway, I think," said Rafael. "And she is probably expecting me home soon. I will see you Monday." Zacharias was still waving good-bye when Rafael Apparated home.

~~~

The scent of incense clung to Rafael like a skin, on his hair, his face, his clothing. Sometimes he found it comforting, the scent of childhood, the scent of family, but today it smothered him. Too thick, too heavy, too much like something binding him to a time and a place.

"Stop fussing," said his mother, straightening his collar like he was a misbehaved schoolboy. "Your Tía María is coming for lunch, she's just back from Rio de Janeiro."

Rafael's aunt went to Rio de Janeiro once every other month, for the freshest dragon scales, or so she always told everyone. The wizarding district of Rio was legendary; Rafael had dreamed of going since he'd been old enough to begin to hear stories of it. He had no doubt his aunt visited for far more than the dragon scales.

"Though why she needs to go there so often, I'll never know," his mother went on. "That place is nothing but trouble. Did I ever tell you what happened to my brother Luis there, God rest his soul?"

"Sí, Mama."

"Then you know," she said, taking the sleeve of his robe as they rounded a corner and started up the stairs to their home, above the family shop. "You're such a good boy, Rafael, not like Luis. You should tell your tía about your work, she would be so proud of you, too."

Rafael's Tía María had been the one to encourage him to go into cursebreaking in the first place, so he had no doubt she was already proud. She probably hadn't imagined at the time that he'd be working so very close to home, though; he'd always had the idea that she'd suggested the profession to him because she knew how he sometimes dreamed of other places, and of the many things he might see.

"I'll tell her," he promised anyway. "I'm expecting word from the site today, in fact."

"Oh, but not to work!" his mother said quickly. "It's been waiting for hundreds of years, it can certainly wait another day for you."

"No, I will not have to work," he promised her. "Today is a day for family."

"Such a good boy," she said again, leading him into the kitchen where she quickly put on an apron over her Sunday robes. "Your sister invented a new charm, just last week. Those empty pots vanish straightaway now, with no fuss. She had an idea to put a reorder charm on them as well, but the Ministerio has a restriction."

"They need to mind their own business," said Rafael, to his mother's approving nod.

He imagined his sister had invented the charm to make things other than empty pots of their handy kitchen burn balm vanish, but he knew better than to say so. His mother might have already known as well, but she was always happier when nothing of it was said aloud.

"You could invent charms as well," she encouraged him as she started the lunch, levitating her rosary onto the table to keep it from becoming covered in flour--an ordinary one, not the Self-Praying Prayer Beads they sold in the shop. "You're such a clever boy, you would be very good at it."

"I could never be so good as Julietta, though," he said casually, stepping back to allow his mother to work. "I'm better at the job I have."

"Yes, the goblins are very pleased with you, you say. But when are you going to bring that skinny little English wizard for another meal? That poor boy, so far from home."

"Soon," Rafael promised her. "He's working this weekend."

"Working on a Sunday? Poor boy, poor boy, they work him far too hard up there on the mountain. And then all he comes home to is a lonely room in Sofía's Boarding House, where he cannot even hope for a decent meal."

Though she might have that situation entirely wrong, it was nice at least that his mother had taken a liking to Zacharias. Often enough, she would be reminding him how wizards in other places were different, that it was good he stayed with his own kind.

After these past months hearing about the war in Britain, that sentiment was more than a bit uncomfortable for him to hear.

"He doesn't mind," Rafael told her. "He likes the solitude. But I am sure he would be glad for a good meal this week."

"That poor boy, without his family nearby." She grabbed Rafael's face and kissed him on both cheeks. "It is good, that you don't need to leave us. What could you ever want that we do not have?"

"Of course, Mama," he said quietly, and began to prepare for their guest.

~~~

"Did you get my message?" said Zacharias, the moment Rafael arrived on site. "The goblins are even coming today to check things out themselves."

"Only once my aunt had left," admitted Rafael. "My mother would not let me read my message until we were no longer entertaining guests. By then it was far too late to Apparate here to see."

"That's all right, you didn't miss anything," said Zacharias. "It's exactly the same today as it was yesterday. I was right about the door opening at dawn, though it did take a bit of encouragement. But that's what we're here for, after all. Who knew that actually reading those scrolls that Marco found would be so useful?"

"I did," said Rafael, giving him a playful nudge. "I'm the one who told you to read them. Was it everything we hoped it would be?"

"Come see," said Zacharias, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him up the narrow path to the south door. "You'll not believe it, Rafe. Gold everywhere, piled high and on every wall."

It wasn't just gold of course, Rafael could see once they arrived at the now-open doorway. Gold and emeralds, and textiles that had lost none of their brightness, being carefully sealed inside this chamber for centuries.

"Ass-end of the Inca empire, and the last hiding place from the Spanish for some of their greatest treasures," said Zacharias, with obvious satisfaction. "It took us a few months, but we finally beat it. Sharpened my shielding charms, that's for sure."

"Almost a shame the goblins will take it all away," Rafael said. This may not have been his direct cultural heritage, but someone had put these things here thinking to protect them.

"Better that, than having this discovered by some unscrupulous treasure hunters," said Zacharias. "Or worse yet, Muggles. Have you seen what they've done to some of the other great magical places of the world? The goblins will hoard it like it's been hoarded here, only in a vault somewhere underground. It'll stay just as it is."

"I suppose," said Rafael, and was forced to admit to his own urges, to take some of these things to his home, to have them for his very own. Better with the goblins than with him, even. "If the Ministerio ever got their hands on it... la Ministra does love her jewels."

Zacharias shuddered alongside him, having been in the country long enough to know precisely what the Colombian Ministry would have done with it, had they known what treasures this site held.

"The Ministry back home isn't much better," Zacharias told him. "Bunch of greedy, ignorant bastards. I've got my reasons for not wanting to work there, believe me. Good thing for me there are loads of other places in the world I can go."

"We haven't got much work remaining here," said Rafael, surveying the chamber once more. It was small, certainly, but intricately constructed and stuffed as full as it could be. Someone, once, had gone to great pains with this temple and sanctuary. "A week, at most, I think."

"Shame, isn't it?" agreed Zacharias. "But there are always other things to move on to. What do you think you'll be doing next?"

"I do not know," said Rafael. "Back to the shop with my family, perhaps. Spending my days stacking broomstick polish next to statues of la Virgen María, charmed to stay stuck to a broom in flight."

"Sounds... exciting," said Zacharias. "Are you sure that's what you want to do?

"No," said Rafael, "but it is most likely what will happen. They would still like you to dinner, by the way. Mi madre asked me again, yesterday."

"Is tomorrow all right?" said Zacharias. "I've just about burnt myself out this weekend. I could use a good home-cooked meal."

"Mama's empanadas are second to none," Rafael told him. "And my sister has been asking after you."

"Your sister," said Zacharias, "has more blokes after her than she knows what to do with."

"No, she knows exactly what to do with them," said Rafael. "That, I think, is the problem. So what will you do, Zach, when we finish here?"

"I don't know," he admitted, sitting down on the ground near the doorway, and very carefully on none of the treasure. "I've got some experience under my belt now, I could probably go just about anywhere. There's some work being done in China, and Peru, of course. You know you'll probably end up going on another assignment too, Rafe. It gets in your blood."

"Peru would be nice," agreed Rafael, allowing himself to dream about it for a moment. Peru was where a most of the work on Inca treasure was being done, on sites ten times the size of this one, or a hundred times, even, and just as many times the number of people. This small temple was only a beginning.

If he didn't have his family -- his whole life -- keeping him where he was, could he go? Would he?

"And of course there's Egypt," Zacharias went on. "I've always thought about Egypt."

Egypt, Rafael thought, was a very long way from home. And also where a lot of the most exciting and challenging cursebreaking work was being done.

"Well, I suppose I haven't got to decide right this second. We've still got a few things to finish up here, right?"

"Right," agreed Rafael, with some small bit of relief, and began to prepare for the arrival of the goblins.

~~~

"These are delicious," said Zacharias, to Rafael's beaming mother. "I was surprised to see you didn't use any magic to prepare them. It seems like so much more work."

"Tch, use magic to prepare a meal? It would not be the same, it would not be right." Except, Rafael thought, when his mother prepared lunches for him and his sister when they were younger, when a wave of her wand was all she had time for. Apparently this English wizard was someone to impress.

"My family always did," admitted Zacharias. "I'm not sure my mum knows how to cook a meal without her wand."

"Well, you English wizards, you're different," said his mother, brushing the comparison aside. "Would you like some more?"

Zacharias nodded, as Rafael's grandmother leaned forward and asked him, "¿Usted conoce Harry Potter?"

"She asked--" began Rafael, but Zacharias just shook his head and laughed.

"No, it's all right, I understood," he interrupted him. "I went to school with Potter, actually, but we didn't get on. He was a bit of a prat, to be honest. But he did all right in the end, didn't he?"

Rafael translated for his grandmother -- all of it, even the bit about Potter being a prat -- who then smiled and said, "Sí," and sat back in her seat again.

"Potter's a bit of a legend here as well," Rafael told him. Maybe he should have said something before, but then Zacharias probably already knew that. "No one really knows what happened, just that he has great power and defeated a great wizard."

"More that he had great luck," said Zacharias, "but I'm not sorry for it. The wizarding world would be a very different place without him." He finished off his seconds as quickly as he had his first helping, giving much credence to Rafael's mother's speculation that he never ate. "So have you thought about where you might go next, Rafe? I hear Marco put in a glowing report for you, to the goblins. You could probably have your pick of assignments."

"Go?" said his mother. "Rafael, are you leaving us?"

Rafael stared at his plate for a moment, but the question didn't magically vanish. And when he thought about it, he realised he already knew what his answer had to be. "We've almost finished here, Mama," he said finally. "I can be assigned somewhere else, once we do. It may not be far..."

"Why do you want to leave us, Rafael? Why do you want to leave your poor mother, your family? What have we done to make you not wish to be with us? Your father never thought he was too good to work with his family."

Rafael did not wait for his sister or his grandmother or his uncle to interrupt, to deflect her attention from him. This, he had to face.

"Mama, you know I love you. But you've got more than enough help in the shop now, and I'm very good at my job. There are sites all over Peru that I could work at, there will always be work for me."

"Peru is not so far--" started Julietta, only to be silenced by their mother.

"There could be work for you here, as well," she said. "If only you wanted to take it."

Zacharias chose that moment to cough politely and rise to his feet. "Thank you for a delightful meal, Mrs. Vallejo, but I really must be going. Rafael, I'll see you at the site tomorrow?"

Rafael couldn't blame him for wanting to flee the current discussion, one which he was sure would go on long after Zacharias left. "Of course," he said. "I still have a job to do."

~~~

"Why do you need to do this, Rafael Vallejo?"

Rafael could see the stars from where they sat, on a rocky ledge just outside the city, in patterns and configurations that he would never know all the names for. It was a place his uncle used to take him and his sister often, to show them a larger world than the one they could see from their home in Pasto's tiny wizarding district.

"Because it is something I want to do," he said after a moment. "Because I believe I have found the thing I want to do with my life. The thing I was meant to do."

"Are you sure it is not because you wish to rebel against your family?" he asked. "You do not need to rebel to find your happiness, Rafael."

"I'm not rebelling!" he said, perhaps more forcefully than necessary. "Why is it so hard for everyone, that I do not want the same things?"

"Because our family has always done those things," his uncle said. "Because you would be the first, to go off into the world, to pursue your own destiny."

"I'll bet I'm not the first who wanted to," said Rafael. "Look at Tía María. And my father's sister, she lives in Chile now, with her husband's family."

"Your Tía Maria likes a short time away," he agreed, "but she always comes home again. And I never knew your father's family well, perhaps they are different, perhaps they do not value family as we do."

"I love my family, Tío," said Rafael. "Why do you all believe that if I go away, I will never return? Peru is not so far away that I would not come home often. There is nowhere in the world that is far enough away to keep me from coming home again."

His uncle was silent for a long while, staring up at the night sky. Long enough that Rafael wondered if the conversation was over, wondered if they would return home with this issue still unresolved. But finally he took a deep breath and spoke again.

"Your mother fears that you will choose this new life over your family. She believes this is a choice you need to make."

"But this is not a choice," Rafael insisted. "I do not have to give up one to have the other. I don't have to abandon them, abandon all of you, to pursue this. Is that so hard to see?"

"It is unknown, to her, and so she fears it."

And that, that was something that Rafael did not know how to change. He could stay home with her, and always wonder what else he might have done, or he could go off into the world and break his mother's heart. What kind of choice was that to have to make?

"But I will speak to her, Rafael. You are a clever and a strong boy, and I know that you will do as you say. I will make her see that."

"Thank you, Tío," said Rafael, giving his uncle a kiss of pure gratitude on the cheek. Perhaps the decision might not be such a torturous one after all.

~~~

"You've been quiet," said Zacharias, sealing the door to the temple. The moment he did, the plant life overgrew it again, clinging to every crevice and covering every niche. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes, everything is all right," he said, smiling to himself. "Have you decided, where you will go? Have the goblins made you an offer?"

"There's a site in Egypt, looking for a few fresh cursebreakers," Zacharias told him after a moment. "What about you? Are you going to stay here, then, after all?"

"I... no," said Rafael, and his smile became a grin. "Egypt? I think I would like Egypt. It will be very different."

That, for once, seemed to catch Zacharias by surprise. "You're thinking about Egypt? I thought your family--"

"We have come to an understanding," Rafael told him. "I will write them each week, and come home for each holiday, and go to Mass each Sunday, and they will not continue to ask me to stay at home."

Zacharias smiled back at him. "That sounds fair."

"And if I do not got to Mass," Rafael added after a moment, "they will not know, will they?"

"I solemnly swear to never tell them."

"I did not want to explain to mi madre that in Egypt, it might be more difficult."

"And they're okay with you going to Egypt? That's great, Rafe. Marco will be so proud of you, he says you're one of the best he's come across in ages."

"They would rather I go to Peru, I think, but they will be happy if I am with you. They know you, at least. And they will be happy, as well, that you are with me. I will make sure that you are fed."

Zacharias laughed. "Well, we're finished here, why don't we go check it out?"

"What, right now?" said Rafael. "Go to Egypt right now?"

"If we Apparate part of the way and Floo the rest, it won't take too long. It's not as though we're going to fly the whole way."

"Yes, but--" began Rafael, before realising that he had no real objections, and nothing to stop him. "Do you know the way?"

"I know the way," Zacharias assured him. "I got the paperwork this morning. You ready?"

"I... yes, I am."

"After all," said Zacharias, "we can always come back."

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