Jewel Of The Nile

Chapter Thirty-Four

"Where’s your aunt, Hermione?" Samiya asked as they emerged, blinking, from the pre-med building and into the bright October sunshine. "Did she go back to England already? I thought she was going to stay longer than that."

"Mm. Last week," Hermione said, nodding cautiously. "She had planned to stay longer, but as it ended up she couldn’t take the time."

"Oh, that’s a shame."

"Mm." Hermione glanced around at the four Egyptian girls, unaccountably guilty over her half-lie – they were so quick to believe! – and anxious to change the subject. "So," she said. "Where are we going? Valley of the Queens?"

Three nods – they hadn’t all been to the hammam together in weeks, since before Trelawney’s visit – and one shake of the head. "I’m hungry," Neila objected, and Itmana rolled her eyes.

"You’re always hungry. And if you go to the hammam on a full stomach, you’ll be sick."

"If I go on an empty stomach, I’ll faint," Neila said, her pretty kewpie-doll mouth settling into the beginnings of a pout. Itmana rolled her eyes. Ivonne, ever-impatient, tossed her head in its bright paisley scarf.

"Well, let’s not stand around debating it," she said. "I’m broiling. And I want a massage. We’ll eat afterwards."

That settled, they began to walk. Hermione deliberately lagged behind with Itmana, who had been giving her meaningful looks ever since the end of class.

"What is it?" she murmured into Itmana’s ear. "Your admirer isn’t still following us, is he?"

"Hmnph." Itmana jerked her head backwards on an angle to the street. "He was outside waiting before the class – he must be crazy, to sit out there all afternoon in the sun. He’s a couple of yards behind us now. I don’t know if he knows we’ve seen him or not – there, just look, now, while he has his head turned. Do you see him?"

Hermione nodded. "I think so. He’s wearing white again, right?"

"Right." Just like before, their stalker had the end of his striped turban drawn over the lower half of his face. Hermione squinted hard against the afternoon sun, trying to see his eyes. Shadowed as they were in the folds of his headpiece, she couldn’t tell if they were light or dark.

"Has he been following you since last week?"

Itmana shook her head. "If he has, I haven’t seen him. I only notice him when we’re all together."

"Huh. That’s odd."

This was most unexpected – Hermione had rather hoped that Malfoy, if indeed it was he, would have taken a hint from Mikhail’s untimely demise and gotten himself hence. Unconsciously, her hand strayed to the lump of jade under her robes, then slid down to her pocket to touch the cool smooth wood of her wand.

Well, if what had happened to Mikhail was any indication, she didn’t need to worry too much about her own well-being. Her friends, though, were another matter entirely … and clad as all five of them were in black robes and bright silk headscarves, picking her out among them at a distance would be close to impossible. Much as she’d like to think that Malfoy wouldn’t kill innocents, Hermione was afraid she already knew otherwise.

And she’d left her packages of protective chocolates back at the Consortium this morning, in the bottom of her other bag. Damn. She glanced sideways now at Itmana, to find her friend watching her worriedly.

"What do you think we should do?" Itmana murmured. For a moment, her eyes flicked to the heavily armed policeman on the corner – then, she averted her gaze. Good, thought Hermione, relieved—the last thing they needed right now was to get one of Cairo’s finest Avada Kedavra-ed in the middle of Friday afternoon lunch hour.

"Hermione?"

"Sorry, I was thinking. Let’s just get there fast," she said, keeping her voice low so the others wouldn’t overhear. Itmana looked hopeful.

"You think that’s best?"

"Yeah." Hermione frowned over her shoulder at the distant figure in white. "If he’s waited this long, he’ll wait a little longer."

More unsettled than either of them cared to admit, they drew their scarves more tightly closed against the blowing grit of Cairo on a Friday, and hurried toward the safety of the hammam.

**

They had barely finished their massages and stepped into the depilatory room when Hermione was ambushed from all sides.

"All right," Neila said. "Tell us all about him."

"Him?" Hermione, still worrying over the Malfoy Issue, stared at her blankly. Ivonne snorted and elbowed her.

"Don’t roll those virgin’s-eyes at us," she said. "You know very well what we’re talking about, you tease."

"I do?"

"The man," Neila said with a gusty sigh, shoving Hermione unceremoniously down on a slab of heated marble and purposefully slathering a strigil with a dollop of honey-scented yellow goo. "The handsome one. The redhead. He met you after class on Wednesday, remember?"

"Oh!" Relieved, Hermione relaxed and allowed some of the honey paste to be transferred to her left calf. "You mean Bill," she said as Neila patted the first strip of linen into place, then yanked. "Ow!"

"Quit whining," Ivonne said. "You ought to be used to it by now." Hermione ignored her.

"Oh, that was Bill?" Samiya leaned in, dark eyes shining. "He’s so tall. So—so—"

"Delicious," Neila cut in with a little sigh. The others nodded vigorously.

"Those shoulders—"

"That hair—"

"The way he looks at you—"

"—so romantic." That was Samiya again, looking wistful; if Itmana was the group’s token political dissident, it was Samiya who took home the award for Culture Envy, enamoured as she was with Belgian chocolate, French lace, and Hollywood movies. "And the flowers—oh, Hermione, he brought you flowers."

"Forget the flowers. Did you get a good look at his ass?"

Shocked, delighted titters.

"Tell us everything," Neila prompted again, and Hermione gave in with a shrug and a little laugh.

"Okay," she said, wincing in expectation as Neila tacked down another strip of linen. "This is … ow! … how it happened …"

**

It had been a week and a half since that first night – a crazy-eight clutch of days filled with lunch dates and dinners-in; of club-crawling and extravagant cocktails and imported tulips out of season and blindfolded Apparition into forbidden corners: museum vaults and gilded tombs and jewel-bright mosques, all prefaced by his warm amber glances and the same words each time: Madison, you’ve got to see this. Cairo through Bill’s eyes was a treasure trove of concealed delights—the grimy, crowded streets only a convenient façade serving to hide the secret gardens he’d discovered and cherished one by one, like precious stones left glinting, magically, in a sieve.

"Everything you show me is beautiful," Hermione had murmured to him just the other afternoon. They were standing in a shadowy corner of a Byzantine-era chapel in Coptic Cairo, watching the African sun blaze through a huge stained-glass rose window dominating the space over the plain stone altar. Everything in the little room glowed with a wash of prismatic colour; even the ubiquitous Sahara dust seemed to sparkle in the air, made momentarily glorious by a simple trick of light.

Bill had shrugged, a one-shoulder gesture that reminded her suddenly of Ron. "No real trick to it," he said. "There’s a lot here that’s beautiful. Nothing to do with me."

"But you go out of your way to find it," Hermione persisted, "and remember it. That’s so rare."

"Not really." He gave her a quick glance – not his normal admiring gaze but a fleeting flicker of eye contact that looked almost … well, defensive. "I mean," he said, "you’ve seen Mum and Dad’s house, right?"

"The Burrow? Sure."

"Right. Well, it hangs together, and it holds us all on holidays if we don’t breathe too vigorously, but it’s still a heap. Like everything they have – it works well enough, but it’s all very function-over-form. Mum hasn’t had new furniture since before the twins were born. No money for it."

"Ron’s really sensitive about that," Hermione said, almost without thinking. Bill rolled his eyes.

"We’re all really sensitive about that," he said. "I mean, I admire Dad more than just about anyone else in the world. And my mum’s miraculous—you’ve met her; you know. But if you grow up like that, it’s not something you want for yourself."

"Hm." Hermione studied him curiously. "Is that why you took the job in Cairo?"

"Partly." He gazed moodily up at the window, his upturned face washed in blue and gold by the tinted light. "Look at that," he said. "I think that’s why Dad loves the Muggle culture so much – I mean, they’re so limited in their capabilities, compared to us, and look what they do with it. No wizard thought up stained-glass, that’s for sure – but on the other hand, why not? Why not have coloured light if you can manage it, instead of plain?"

This was the most self-analytical she’d ever seen him, and it was odd – like running into an old friend from primary school at an out-of-town supermarket. "I never saw it like that," Hermione said, and he grinned at her.

"You wouldn’t, would you? But it’s the Weasley Curse, all the same … we’re endlessly drawn to beautiful things for their own sake." He looked suddenly rueful. "Can’t tell you how many smart girls I passed over for bimbos at Hogwarts, just because of that. Stupid."

Hermione thought, unexpectedly, of Ron’s erstwhile crush on Fleur, and nodded slowly. "Well, you’ve obviously seen the error of your ways there," she said, flushing at her own self-deprecation. Bill rolled his eyes.

"Madison, this conversation doesn’t apply to you, and you know it," he said. "You can’t even judge yourself by ordinary standards – you’re your own category; you’re the It Girl. When I look at you …"

For a second, their eyes held, and she saw a flash of intensity there, simmering behind his easy-going mask like a second face eager to see daylight. When I look at you … and Hermione held her breath, simultaneously hoping he’d finish and wishing he wouldn’t.

And, because she couldn’t help it, because it was inevitable, she’d thought of Snape, and bitten her lip to keep it from trembling like a toddler’s. And that had broken the spell; he’d stepped back, said something light and funny and even though she’d known she shouldn’t, she’d laughed and let him.

Christ, what a mess – and for someone so supposedly together, so on top of it, she felt all weak and trembly inside, as if cold hands were twisting in her guts. It was a relief to leave the Priestess in the folds of her robes and step into a steamy haven with laughing, playfully sniping friends. To spin them the tale, to leave out the magic and leave out the angst and give them the fairy-tale version they wanted to hear … girl plus boy equals love and happiness, no worries, no impediments.

A relief to forget. For a moment, Hermione thought longingly of Obliviate – how easy would it be? how satisfying? Like falling through the floor of the cabana dressing room and finding yourself floating, that’s how.

Careful, Granger. That way lies madness.

Madness? Madness is what you’re in the middle of right now.

Shhhh.

She lay back, let the heat seep into her bones, and tried not to think.

**

As it turned out, Neila didn’t stay to eat with them afterwards, after all – like Samiya and Ivonne, her college-girl freedom was only skin-deep; there was a family at home, a house to keep and dinner to get, and so they said their goodbyes at the door of the hammam, leaving Hermione and Itmana alone together. This wasn’t unusual – as a matter of fact, it was the norm; Neila always wanted to eat first, Ivonne always talked her out of it with the promise of a snack later, and then by the time they emerged, scrubbed and polished and gardenia-fragrant, it was time to go. By this time, the exchange had passed into the realm of comforting ritual.

When Hermione paused to think about it, it was rather odd that Itmana didn’t seem to have the same kind of familial obligations. "My mother pays my aunt for my keep," she’d said, the only time Hermione had asked about it; "even though we’re related, I’m considered a lodger, not a member of the family. It’s nice – means that my time’s my own, as long as I’m home before dark and don’t bring disgrace on my uncle’s house by talking to strange men in the street."

Apparently, Itmana’s paying-guest status also made her reluctant or unable to entertain at home – Hermione had by now been for tea at Neila’s and Ivonne’s, and met Samiya’s mother a handful of times at the hammam, but she had yet to figure out exactly where it was that Itmana lived. Not that she had room to talk, since she’d never had them over to her place either … but that was different, wasn’t it?

After all, anti-Muggle security only went so far.

Or maybe she was just reluctant to mix the Muggle part of her existence with the magical. In any case, she and Itmana had fallen into the custom of getting a quick post-hammam bite, just the two of them, mint tea and crisp-yet-gooey squares of baqlava at one of the little corner cafés that seemed to dominate Cairo’s downtown district. Today was no different, but they both kept glancing over their shoulders, even after they’d lingered over their second cups of tea and re-emerged into the red-streaked late afternoon.

"Is he there?"

"Don’t see him." Hermione lifted the front of her hijab away from her sticky body and thought longingly of her scheduled pool-date with Bill, an hour from now. "Let me walk you home, just in case."

Itmana hesitated, then – casting another fearful look behind her – reluctantly acquiesced. "Okay."

They set off in the direction of the University, walking fast and sticking with the crowd. A couple of times Hermione thought she saw a familiar flash of white, but dismissed it as the work of an overactive imagination. She kept a tight grip on her wand and tried to look nonchalant.

"Weekend plans?" she asked, and Itmana shrugged.

"Nothing special." She gave Hermione a sly look. "Bet you do, though."

"Yeah." Her Saturday was promised to Bill, and he’d been most mysterious about their destination. Thinking about it cheered her. "He won’t tell me where we’re going."

"Lucky girl, to be going anywhere at all."

Hermione made a sympathetic moué. "Yeah. I know."

It was nearly dusk by the time Itmana stopped at the entrance to a small side street. "I can go from here," she said. "Thanks for walking me home."

"Are you sure?" Hermione peered suspiciously down the winding, narrow street. "I can walk you all the way to your door; it’s no trouble."

"No – that’s okay. Thanks."

"All right." Hermione turned back toward the main thoroughfare and the bridge to Downtown. "See you Monday," she called over her shoulder, and saw Itmana wave back at her.

"See you."

She hadn’t gotten fifty feet when she heard Itmana scream.

**