I hate sneaking around. It's one of the worst parts of the job, but it's not as though this blasted muggle gave me much of a choice. It was an hour past way-too-late, and I had found myself attempting to break in to the Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History. I'd say my intentions were honorable, but then, that would be entirely a matter of perspective, wouldn't it? See, I work for the Ministry of Magic's Department of Magical Artifact Retrieval. When any kind of enchanted item falls into the hands of some poor muggle who might hurt himself or others with it, we get called out to rectify the situation.

I quickly put out the lights nearby with my Deluminator and approached the staff entrance door. I waved my wand in a reverse "S" shape with a little curve at the end. "Alohomora", I chanted, as I pictured the tumblers of the lock clicking into place, and with a sharp "Clack!", the latch sprung open and I hurried inside, releasing the stored lights. Didn't want to attract any undue attention, after all.

The museum is labyrinthine enough if you're simply a tourist coming to look at a wooly mammoth skeleton or the Hope Diamond (funny story about the Hope Diamond, by the way.. the real one is locked safely away in the ministry's vaults. The one on display is just some pretty blue glass. There's a good reason, I promise.), but the hallways and maze of offices for staff researchers and other personnel are simply mind-boggling. Thankfully I had come prepared, having memorized the layout and location of my target on the plane flight over. Office A-113, belonging, ironically, to a Dr. Henry Jones. I'm sure he never hears the end of it from his colleagues. Another quick Unlocking Charm and I slipped inside the small office. Thankfully, muggle locks are tremendously simple creations. 

I was immediately struck by the sheer number and variety of strange objects scattered around the office. I had to double-check to make sure I was in the right office, because it looked like a storage closet for centuries-old historical artifacts. The guy even had a full-size Egyptian sarcophagus in the corner - I'd bet even money that it might still have had an occupant, but I wasn't about to check. This was clearly the right place - Dr. Jones was well-known for being able to come by some very rare and priceless items in the past, for which the Smithsonian was extremely grateful. The catch is that he took forever to study them, so more often than not he would have objects in his possession for months or even years before he was even able to find out what he had - a fact which I was keen to use to my advantage.

I looked around for the target of my search - a small stone tablet, about the size of an encyclopedia. With so much other clutter lying about the office, it was no small task. It was made especially difficult by the full-size suit of armor he had placed in the walkway to the back storage area. How did this guy get to the other side of his desk? I then noticed a few scuff marks on the edge of the desk that gave me the answer - he would just climb over the bloody thing. I wasn't about to do the same, so I waved my wand in a full circle, flipping it upward towards the suit as I said "Locomotor Armor". The heavy display of plate metal rose a few inches into the air, and with a flick of my wand I was able to swing it out of the way.

Near the back of the office, he kept some smaller knick-nacks - there were ancient daggers, small idols and statuary from the early Roman empire, and... A-Ha! There was the tablet I was looking for, partially wrapped in a velvet cloth. He picked this up a few days prior from an estate sale that was held after the muggle widow of a wizard passed away, and had neglected to make out a will. I don't even need to tell you how frustrating this was - we had to send out two different teams of agents all over the globe trying to track down all the mystical junk that got sold off that day. This little tablet was a doozy, too - centuries ago, a wizard named Arrister Cremlock created it as a horcrux to try and cheat death after he was sentenced to execution for killing the inhabitants of a small village in the name of "magical research". Only, it was something of a failure, as instead of locking a portion of his soul away, he only managed to lock away a small piece of his personality. Specifically, whoever read aloud the latin inscription on the tablet, whether they were wizard or muggle, would instantly become a sociopath as Cremlock's personality began to override their own.

I reached into a pocket in my duster and pulled out an identical tablet, one created to exacting specifications by the lads back at the home office, but which was 100% mundane in nature. While the incantation found on it would be a touch confusing to Dr. Jones when he finally got around to studying it, it wouldn't make him want to kill anyone, which was a definite plus. I swapped out the tablets and began to make my way out of the office. I swished my wand back to direct the suit of armor back to its original position, but I must have done it with a touch more effort than was entirely necessary, as it crashed into a tall ming-dynasty vase that sat behind it. I took a quick glance out the door to make sure the noise hadn't alerted anyone, and hurriedly performed the mending charm, making an inward triangular spiral with my wand as I muttered "Reparo". I pictured the vase in its original, pre-smashed state, and the fragments of pottery lifted up off the ground and reassembled themselves back into a complete vase, as though nothing had ever happened. As far as they needed to know, nothing had - though I pity the lab tech that wound up doing the carbon dating on the thing. Magical fixes have a habit of doing a number on sensitive muggle equipment.

My task complete, I apparated away, rather than have to sit through a lengthy plane flight home. I had a feeling I'd be back there eventually, though - these muggle archaeologists have a tendency to find the strangest things.