Jewel Of The Nile

Chapter Three

Bill had had some close calls before, but this time he’d almost bought it, for sure. Stepping out of the shower, he towelled himself dry - gingerly, in the case of his injured thigh - then knotted the damp bath sheet around his hips and padded off to the foyer to dig his wand out of the pocket of his safari jacket.

Now that he’d gotten the worst of the grime off - finally! - he needed to close up those claw marks before they turned nasty. He wasn’t much of a mediwizard, but no curse-breaker got far in this town (or, in fact, this business), without being capable of basic self-diagnosis and first aid. He doused the gashes with peroxide, just to be on the safe side - what the Muggles couldn’t match in fast healing, they made up for in sterilization procedures - then muttered a rudimentary healing spell and watched them crust over.

There. Not exactly at Poppy Pomfrey’s level, but it would do. Dropping his wand on the bed, he headed off to his closet in search of some clean pants.

It hadn’t even been a terribly difficult assignment, that was the galling thing about it. Just a garden-variety collection, from some poor schmo of a wizard who’d been stupid enough to take out a hefty loan from Gringotts, and cocky enough not to think he had to pay it back.

Well, Collections had fixed his wagon - Bill was surprised he’d been able to give them the location of the goods, after they got through with him. Not that Bill himself had anything to do with the rough stuff; they only called him in once they had an address - in this case, Old Alexandria. The bank had given him a week to do the recovery, along with a one-way Portvault in which to deliver the gold and a fifty-Galleon advance against expenses incurred.

Well, he’d needed it - the time, at least, if not the money. The Alexandria address he’d been given had turned out to be half a mile underground, in the middle of the Kom’esh-Shoqqafa Catacombs, in a secret passageway behind an alabaster relief that depicted Ra and Jupiter having a communal Egypto-Roman beer. He deserved the Hollywood Archaeologist of the Year Award, just for finding it.

Behind the hidden door, the passage itself had been guarded by a couple of Sahara sand trolls - smaller and more clever than their big dumb mountain cousins, they were nevertheless nearsighted, with piggy, heavy-lidded little eyes that they kept shut most of the time against blowing sand. They navigated and hunted mostly by smell, which made them useful guard dogs in small dark passageways like this one; ‘human’ was an unaccustomed scent to them and therefore easy for them to track.

Hence - three days in the company of the camels. After that, Bill hadn’t even been able to smell himself.

Once the trolls were located and neutralised - Bill was justly proud of his Stunning Spells - it had been a simple matter to identify and break the wards on the sarcophagus that contained the gold, pile the money into the Portvault, and send it back to Gringotts. In fact, his injury had nothing to do with the assignment itself; it was merely his bad luck to have been sent after a sarcophagus that was hidden in the same niche as a denning caracal with a not-yet-weaned litter.

By the time the first curious kitten came sniffing around his ankles, all bright eyes and silky black ear-tufts and fuzz, he’d known he was in deep shit. Still, he’d accidentally disturbed wild animals before, and they usually backed off once he’d apologetically vacated their marked territory. This miffed mama-cat, however, had chased him all the way back to the exit, and given him a wicked little souvenir to boot, courtesy of her claws.

Shrugging, he located his pants and was about to pull them on when he heard an odd sound coming from the foyer.

It almost sounded like …

Oh, fuck.

Still in his underwear, he strode to his rucksack, yanked open the drawstring, and slapped his forehead with a groan of disbelief.

Mama Caracal had gifted him with more than an attempted vasectomy, it seemed.

Inside the rucksack, wedged securely between his pickaxe and the small waterproof bag of Filibuster fireworks he’d nicked from the twins to use as emergency flares or last-ditch weapons, a dust-coloured puffball of a stowaway was curled up, purring like a freight train.

**

“She’s adorable,” Hermione said, stroking the fuzzy baby fur. “What a sweetheart. What are you going to do with her?”

It took Bill a moment to answer, as his mouth was full. The omelette was a fluffy, delectable inch thick, stuffed with chopped fresh herbs, caramelised onions, and crumbled gibna beida, the Egyptian variant on feta cheese. His taste buds were weeping with gratitude, and from the looks of the little lynx - who’d dined on a soft-boiled egg and was presently licking canned salmon paté off Hermione’s fingers - she was similarly impressed.

“This is incredible,” he said, swigging mango juice. “You, Hermione Granger, are my hero; if you hadn’t come to rescue me, I would have gone to bed on stale pretzels. You may find me on your doorstep every night from now until you move out, salivating and begging for an encore.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Well, thanks. And you’re welcome any time - it’s just eggs, it’s nothing.” She smeared more paté on her fingers. “What are you going to do with the cat?”

“Caracal,” Bill corrected. “Desert lynx. And I haven’t a clue.” He shrugged. “Now that we’ve touched her, her mother won’t feed her any more, and might even kill her if we take her back. She’s too young to survive on her own. And I wouldn’t wish the Cairo Zoo on my worst enemy; the animals there are in terrible shape.”

The orphan in question flattened her tufted ears and yawned, displaying a row of tiny milk teeth and a bluish-pink tongue. Hermione obligingly rubbed her under her fuzzy chin and melted as the kitten - warm, full-bellied, and the centre of attention for the first time in her young life - began to purr.

“So you’ll keep her, then?” she asked, her voice carefully neutral. “Or do you have a familiar already?”

“Owl,” Bill said. “Name’s Satchmo. I’m away a lot; if I had a cat, it’d just be pissed off at me all the time.” He frowned in recollection. “Where’s your cat, anyway? The big ginger tom with the squashy face?”

“Crookshanks? Retired,” Hermione said, not without a touch of bitterness. “Mum’s really attached to him; she didn’t want me to bring him - and he is getting on a bit, I suppose. I’m not sure how old he was when I bought him in Diagon Alley, but he’s really slowed down in the past year or so.”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth, a gesture Bill found unspeakably sexy.

Actually, there wasn’t much he wasn’t finding sexy about her - Ron’s bookish little chum had grown up and filled out in a most satisfactory fashion, and the fact that she could cook like Julia Child just put the coconut icing on the German chocolate cake. Once she’d realised how hopeless her two older sons were in the kitchen, his mum had made Ron and the twins learn basic culinary arts - boiling water, making toast - but it was too late for Bill, and Charlie wasn’t much better off.

Of course, Bill liked good food, appreciated it. Whereas Charlie was more apt to put a chunk of raw meat on a stick and hold it in the nearest stream of dragon breath, when he got hungry.

The nut.

Back to Hermione - well, it was clear that she and the caracal were in love, and that suited Bill down to the ground. As the kitten’s foster father, after all, he’d have an excuse to drop in a few times a week - bring a catnip mouse, a bottle of wine, settle down for dinner … and maybe, just maybe, convince Hermione to put those pretty white hands all over him, too.

After all, the kitten seemed to be enjoying it.

“Looks like the two of you suit pretty well,” he remarked. “And a caracal would be a kick-ass familiar, come to think of it - she’s just a fluffy little baby right now, but she’s going to grow up into one big, scary mofo of a cat: fifteen kilograms, give or take, and two meters long. Great hunters, caracals - the Iranians keep them tame for that very purpose. I’ve seen one leap six times its height to take down a bird in flight; they can change direction in midair. A full-grown male can kill an antelope, if it’s small.”

He grinned at her. “Think you’re up to it?”

“There’s a basket on the kitchen counter,” Hermione said. “If we put a pillow in it, it’ll make a pretty decent cat bed.”

Well, Bill thought, that settled that.

**

“I’ll get it,” he said, and unfolded himself from her far-too-comfortable sofa. “No sense waking her up.”

Hermione wasn’t quite unpacked yet, he noticed on his way into the kitchen; there were still boxes in the corners, piles of linens in neat plastic zipper-bags in the living room. Her furniture was good - she’d obviously gotten top marks in Transfiguration - but it didn’t look as if she’d figured out where she wanted it, yet.

Well, one good turn deserved another.

“Do you know the Relocation Charm?” he called over his shoulder.

“Relocation?” Hermione shook her head. “No, but it sounds useful. Do tell.”

“Oh, it is.” Bill handed her the basket and watched it sprout a gold velveteen cushion as she tapped it with her wand. “Especially for moves, or for spring cleaning. It hasn’t been around for very long; somebody got the idea from that old Muggle movie about the singing governess.”

Hermione frowned, stroking the sleeping caracal one last time before transferring her carefully to the basket. “The Sound of Music?”

“No, the other one.” Bill thought for a moment. “It’s a name. Marty - Marcy -“

“Mary Poppins?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Piece of cake - here, I’ll show you.” He pointed to a series of boxes marked ‘Books’. “You want those on the shelf?”

Hermione nodded.

“Okay. So it’s like Summoning, except that instead of calling the thing, you’re sending it.” He pointed his wand at the boxes.

“Emigro bookshelf!”

“That,” Hermione said fervently, blinking in astonishment at the suddenly-empty boxes, at the books flickering obediently into position on the shelves, one by one, “is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Bill grinned. “Well, we can’t all save the world,” he said, with a hint of an admiring glance in her direction. “But that is a pretty useful little trick. Gringotts uses it all the time to transport money - I can just send the treasure off to the vault, without having to carry it all over the place and risk getting robbed.”

He closed his fist, to indicate the locked vault. “Emigro,” he said, “and it’s there. Voilà.”

Then his triumphant magician-pulling-out-the-rabbit smile faded, and he opened his hand slowly.

Hermione groaned inwardly.

He’d inadvertently Transported Gram’s lion-goddess from her velvet bag in Hermione’s underwear drawer, to the centre of his palm. Not only that, but he was staring at it as if it was about to leap for his throat.

“This is yours?” he asked quietly, all trace of his earlier bonhomie vanished. Hermione nodded, her throat dry.

Two in the morning. And the night wasn’t over yet.

**