Jewel Of The Nile

Chapter Nineteen

Only Monday morning, and already contemplating suicide – it was going to be a long, loooong week.

It was bad enough that Trelawney had taken over the guest bedroom … just the thought of chiffon ruffles and chintz all over her painstakingly Transfigured Shaker furniture made Hermione shudder.

And they could probably smell that goddamn plumeria incense in China.

Not to mention the fiasco that had been last night’s dinner – they’d eaten at Hogwarts on Saturday evening and Apparated from the gates afterwards, and Sunday breakfast had been largely a forage-for-yourself affair … bagels and cereal and juice. But dinner she’d cooked, as a sort of pacific gesture toward her grudgingly tolerated houseguest – grilled sea bass and roasted root vegetables over Israeli couscous. And even though it was just a sap to her conscience, Hermione felt that she’d quite outdone herself.

The Fruit Bat, however, had turned up her bespectacled nose at it, and pushed away her plate with a sniff.

"Oh, I couldn’t possibly, dear," she’d explained. "Food with a soul, you know … very disruptive to the Inner Eye. Especially when it’s not absolutely the freshest." She poked fretfully at the vegetables. "And if you don’t mind my asking – what did you cook these in? Butter?"

Why, of all the –

"Olive oil," Hermione said with grim satisfaction, and narrowed her eyes murderously when Trelawney gave a delicate shudder at her words.

"Allergic," she murmured. "Oh, don’t blame yourself, dear –" this, with a faintly sorrowful, highly patronising expression that made the fingers of Hermione’s right hand clench convulsively around her table knife – "I’m sure you’ll remember next time."

Next time? Hermione thought furiously. You’ll be lucky if I peel you a carrot next time, you pretentious old flake.

But, she’d managed to control her temper – long enough, anyway, to wrap the remains of the spurned meal in aluminum foil and slip on her sneakers.

"Going out, dear?" Trelawney had inquired. "At this hour, do you really think that’s wise?"

Hermione gritted her teeth. "I’m going down the hall," she forced out with a distinctively pained smile, over her shoulder. "I’ll be back before you’ve missed me."

Trelawney, who had conjured herself a bowlful of plain brown rice and a raw rutabaga, was now placidly peeling the vegetable with mincing little sweeps of her wand. "Well, don’t be out too late, dear," she said distractedly. "Things … creep about … in the night, you know. And it’s no use having Mr. Slytherin and myself here to protect you, if you’re determined to be reckless – now, is it?"

Sal, reading in the corner chair, quirked one eyebrow but wisely stayed out of it – Hermione’s face was a study in frozen, absolute outrage. The Divination professor, however, didn’t seem to realise the maelstrom she was on the verge of unleashing – having finished peeling the rutabaga, she now quartered it with a twitch of her wand and began, calmly, to eat.

Watching Trelawney tranquilly fork in rice, her bun of wispy hair askew, her metres of necklaces glinting in the overhead kitchen light, Hermione was suddenly sympathetic to the notion of teenage violence in a way she’d never previously thought possible. "I said," she gritted out, "that I’ll be back –" and, grabbing the foil-covered plate, flounced out and slammed the door behind her.

Maxie, who had apparently heard her coming, took one look at her face and whistled through her teeth.

"Oooo-weee," she said admiringly. "If it isn’t Little Miss Storm Clouds herself. What’s eating your biscuits tonight, sugar?"

"I don’t want to talk about it," Hermione said. Maxie’s eyebrows shot up.

"That bad, huh? Well, it can’t be that nice transparent friend of yours," she said. "He came over just this afternoon for a Sunday game of checkers – I haven’t seen Lester so happy since Rolling Rock came out with a forty-ounce." She jerked her head in the direction of Hermione’s corridor. "I saw the other one last night, but she didn’t introduce herself. She’s quite the cool customer, isn’t she?"

"Trelawney? Hardly." Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Wispy, middle-aged, hair in a mess, glasses? Lots of scarves and gaudy amber jewelry?"

"No, she’s younger than that," Maxie said. "Thirtyish, maybe. Blonde. Walks like she’s got somewhere to go and wouldn’t mind company." She glanced appraisingly at her wristwatch. "She left around one a.m., came back at four-thirty or so. Had a red silk suit on, cut up to her cootchie, and a pair of shoes that were never meant to be walked in. If you catch my drift."

At Hermione’s look of bewilderment, she frowned. "What? What’s the matter?"

"That’s not Trelawney," Hermione said. "Trelawney looks like someone’s crazy aunt from Edinburgh. You must have seen someone from another apartment."

Maxie shrugged. "Could be. But I know everyone in the building. And I could have sworn it was your door she opened – you’ve got that squeaky hinge, sounds like a flat ninth on top of a major seventh chord. I hear that, I can always tell you’re on your way over."

Hermione hesitated, then shook her head. "Well, anyway." She indicated the covered plate. "She’s driving me mad – I can’t go into it right now; I’ll tell you the whole story later. I brought this over for Bill. Is he in?"

"No, honey, he sure isn’t." Maxie looked momentarily distracted. "He was real sorry you had to cancel on him yesterday – from the sound of things, he was hoping to reschedule for tonight … and then right on top of your owl he got a letter from Gringotts, asking him to be at their branch in Chichen Itza first thing in the morning. They want him to head up a training seminar for some of their new hires – he’s going to be out of town at least until Friday, maybe over the weekend too."

She sniffed the air. "Whatever you got under that foil sure smells good, though – you got no other home for it, the boys and me’ll take it off your hands." She jerked a thumb toward the bass. "Ol’ No-Name back there – he might not talk, but he can eat all right. Beginning to think the man’s got a hollow leg."

"Sure," Hermione said, and passed over the plate. "Nice talking to you, Maxie. I’ll see you later."

"You know it, sugar."

**

Well, she thought on her way back to her own apartment, she wouldn’t call that good news, entirely – she’d been counting on Bill’s easy charm towards All Beings Feminine to defuse Trelawney to a certain degree – but on the other hand, it made matters momentarily less complicated in the sexual sense. When she and Bill had last parted ways, they’d been on the verge of hitherto-unaccomplished intimacy … had it not been for the barrier of their respective fins, up in the pool, and the knowledge that they’d be seeing each other the next night to finish what they’d started, Professor McGonagall might have gotten more of an eyeful than she cared to, that evening.

And as it stood now, she wasn’t altogether sure she wanted to take that step anymore.

Oh, he was still good-looking. Still sexy. Still warm and friendly and … well, um, Warm And Friendly. Problem was, she was beginning to think she’d been permanently hardwired to react to Scathing And Sarcastic.

And that pretty much left Bill out in the cold.

Which was a great pity – especially because the object of her affections (oh, who was she kidding? she was bloody obsessed with the man) seemed to want nothing to do with her … in broad daylight, at least.

Damn it, what was a girl supposed to do, when faced with a moral quandary like this one? Was it unfair to keep Indiana Jones on your second-string, just because Heathcliff didn’t want you?

Or rather, wanted you … but then wanted you to go away?

Somehow it seemed a betrayal of the feminine gender as a whole to give Bill Weasley the "let’s-just-be-friends" talk. And yet –

Things to ponder.

And it was a good thing that she had a week to do it; even after a night of uneasy sleep, interspersed with long periods of wakefulness (that, for once, had nothing to do whatsoever with that bloody Sekhmet statue), she hadn’t come any closer to reaching a conclusion.

She just had a headache. And a job to do, before she went to class.

**

"Sal," she said over her shoulder, "could you float that beaker over here, please? Thanks."

They were in her lab at the Consortium, and she was rummaging in the cupboard underneath the counter. One of the Bunsen burners was lit, and the beaker suspended over it was emitting the most-appetising aroma of melting milk chocolate.

The beaker glided to a halt by her elbow just as she straightened up, clutching in one hand what looked like a clear plastic muffin tin. "Easy," Sal remonstrated, righting the beaker just in time and glancing curiously at the tin. "What are you doing, anyway?"

Hermione took the beaker from him, swirled it slowly a few times from side to side, and began to drizzle its clear, slightly pink-tinged contents into the beaker of chocolate.

"Hedging my bets," she said. "You know what this stuff is, right?"

"It’s your Protection Potion," Sal said – "that much I know; I’ve seen you and Severus make enough of it, Merlin knows." He drifted over to inspect the bubbling mixture from the opposite side of the countertop. "But why add the chocolate, that’s my question?"

"Camouflage," Hermione said. Using a pot holder, she grasped the beakerful of Armoured chocolate and began to painstakingly pour its contents into the indentations in the plastic mold. "Medi-chocolate for the carrier. Illuminata for taste. And the Armouring Fluid for function."

She shot a narrow look at the clock – half an hour to class. Damn it – I wanted to get a bit more studying in.. "Conglacio!" she murmured, and tapped the mold with her wand; a moment later, two dozen perfectly innocuous-looking chocolates were sitting on the countertop.

"No innocent bystanders are taking a curse that’s meant for me, if I can help it.," she said shortly, encasing a short stack of the chocolates in foil and a bright commercial wrapper with a wave of her wand. Hah – I wondered if that would work. Cool. "And until Malfoy’s contained, Sal, I’m thinking that it’s probably sort of risky to be my friend. Especially if you’re a Muggle."

"Ah," Sal said, and looked suddenly, unaccountably amused. "I take it, then, that your intention to honourably drug your friends means that you’re not calling off your afternoon outing to the baths today?"

"Hole in one," Hermione said drily. "And since you’re so determined to pepper me with questions this morning, here’s one for you: why haven’t you talked some sense into Trelawney by now? You’ve had all weekend to do it, and here we are on Monday morning, with her still convinced she’s coming with me this afternoon."

"Well, one of us has to," Sal said. "And I did offer."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "We’ve discussed this, Sal."

"I could be invisible, you know," he added hopefully. "You wouldn’t even know I was there –"

"No." She gave him a pointed look. "Believe me, I’d know."

Sal drifted petulantly toward the window, inadvertently passing through the napping Cleo and causing the caracal’s hair to stand abruptly on end. "Sorry," he told her, then turned back toward Hermione. "Well, then," he said, "it’s Sybil. Because it’s got to be one or the other of us – Albus’s orders."

"Since when do you take orders from him?" Hermione demanded. "Damn it, Sal, you’re supposed to be underhanded and slippery. You’ve a reputation to maintain!"

"Sorry, girlie." He looked genuinely regretful. "Most things I can afford to be lax about. You’re not one of them."

Oh, Sal. "Fine," she said – rather less than graciously. "Fine. Only … can you try to get her to put on a plain black robe? No chiffon." She thought for a moment. "And make her lose the jewelry. She looks like a refugee from the Home Shopping Network."

Sal stifled a laugh. "I’ll see what I can do."

**