Jewel Of The Nile

Chapter Four

“Let me get this straight,” Bill said. “Your grandmother - your Muggle grandmother - gave this to you? She’s had it tucked away in a book vault in England for fifty years?” He shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

He had gone quite pale under that very attractive suntan.

Fabulous, Granger, Hermione thought sourly. The one man in the world who’s seemingly angst-free - no checkered past, no homicidal relatives, no death wish - and you can’t even have him over for dinner - erm, that is, breakfast - without flipping him out. If you walked into the movies halfway through “The Little Mermaid”, the projector would probably revolt and start showing “Apocalypse Now”.

Rather than give voice to that extremely depressing thought, she opted for a nod.

“I was planning to do some research on her,” she said, taking the statue back from Bill, who didn’t seem to want to touch it any longer, “to find out who she is. Gram didn’t bother herself with the details - if you knew how much jewelry she collected over the years, you wouldn’t be surprised - but the admirer who gave her this piece said it was from an Egyptian tomb, that one of his ancestors had either stolen it or bought it from the thief who had, and that it was some sort of goddess.”

She looked at him expectantly. “Do you have more information than that?”

Bill repressed a shudder. “Some sort of goddess,” he repeated, grimacing. “Well, that’s true enough. This is a representation of the goddess Sekhmet; she was also known as the Eye of Re.”

“Sekhmet.” Hermione tried the name out speculatively. “Is she evil?” At Bill’s questioning look, she shrugged. “Well, something’s obviously wrong with her, or you wouldn’t seem so … um, squicked.”

“I have nothing against Sekhmet herself,” Bill said, a bit hastily. “It’s her cult following I take issue with.”

Hermione perked up. This was interesting. “Cult following?”

Bill sighed. “Mind if we sit down again?” he asked. “It’s been a long day.” At Hermione’s nod, he sank onto the sofa and closed his eyes.

“Where to start,” he said. “Well, okay. I was seeing this girl.”

Hermione snorted. Bill’s eyes flew open, all injured innocence.

“Hey, it was my first year out of Hogwarts,” he said defensively. “I was as green as they come - and I had a lot of money; Gringotts pays damn well. They have to, to find idiots like me who are willing to grub around in the dirt and dodge curses for a paycheck.” He looked speculative for a moment. “Anyway, I fell in with the American University crowd; not to be great friends with them, necessarily, but enough to get invited to their parties. And I met a girl there, a halfblood witch. American. Taking a year off from Stanford, on her daddy’s AmEx card, to see the world and pick up a couple of credits in Egyptology.”

He passed his hand wearily over his eyes. “Well, things moved really fast. And I … um, got to know her .. without, er, getting to know her. If you know what I mean.” He held up a long slim index finger. “Thing One I didn’t know was that she was a member of the Sekhmet temple in Luxor. Thing Two I didn’t know was that she was sort of - well -“ he hesitated, “unstable.”

Hermione’s eyebrows rose. “Unstable? How?”

Bill pondered this question for a minute. “Well, Sekhmet is the patron deity of medicine and healing, in Egyptian mythology,” he said. “And she’s also sometimes known as the Mother Lioness. The protector of the defenseless. So she tends to attract as followers those who have been victimised - or, as in my ex’s case, think they’ve been victimised - and since it’s a goddess cult, her acolytes are primarily women. Walk into a roomful of them, and you can cut the bitterness with a knife.”

“Okaaay,” Hermione said slowly. “But that’s just human nature, right? It isn’t really anything to do with Sekhmet herself - she sounds pretty benevolent.”

Bill laughed.

“Not half,” he said. “I’m getting to that. What I just told you about her - that’s her good side. In her other major incarnation, the one for which she’s actually better-known, she’s a vengeance goddess - the Sun God’s personal enforcer. And she’s got a nasty taste for human blood.”

He rolled his eyes. “Anyway, back to the story about Lila - that was her name, Lila - well, by coincidence, her temple had taken out a loan with Gringotts, in order to procure some ancient religious texts that they regarded as holy relics. And I don’t know if attendance went down, or if the trust-fund kids who made up half of that group got yanked back home, or what … but they reneged on the loan, and Gringotts sent me to repossess the scrolls.”

Hermione winced. “Ouch.”

“’Ouch’ is right,” Bill said. “As you can imagine, they took it personally - Lila most of all. I spent a solid fortnight dodging hexes from every corner of the city. I found scorpions in my shoes and snakes in my bed; I’d open a new carton of milk and it’d turn to poison in my glass, eat right through to the tabletop. I started to grow this green fuzzy stuff on my balls -“

He broke off, shuddering. “Well, we won’t get into all of that. I applied for a Hex Deflector to the African Ministry of Magic and got turned down; they called it a domestic dispute and told me to send her bloody roses, if you can believe it. And then my boss at Gringotts - goblin named Linchpin; fabulous person to work for - found out what was happening and told me not to worry about it, that she’d put a stop to it.”

Hermione was wide-eyed. “Wow,” she said. “Did she?”

Bill nodded. “I never found out how,” he said. “But that temple closed down for good, and Lila was back with the Yanks within a week.”

“Huh,” Hermione said. “Well, good. What an awful thing to have happen to you.” She thought for a minute. “But -“

“But what?”

She frowned. “Well, I understand completely why you’ve got a grudge against the Sekhmet-worshippers. But you went dead white when you saw that statue … almost like it scared you. Surely, those people aren’t a threat to you any longer, are they?”

To her surprise, Bill went brick-red.

“Um,” he said, and bit his lip. “I know it’s a big cop-out to say this, Hermione, but it’s a long story - and I’m sort of tired. It might …” He broke off, flushing a shade deeper. “Er, well, it might actually be the sort of thing you’d want to take up with Areli, when the two of you get a moment.”

And he wouldn’t say anymore.

**

Hermione named the caracal kitten Cleopatra.

She knew it wasn’t original, or for that matter particularly auspicious, but on the other hand, it seemed to suit - and those enormous, tufted ears did definitely perk up at her soft call of “Cleo?” - especially when there was a can of tuna involved.

Even without the added bribery of food, however, Cleo trailed her through the apartment like a small, regal shadow, winding round Hermione’s ankles and - if not acknowledged soon enough or enthusiastically enough - simply scrambling up to sit on Hermione’s shoulders, heedless of resulting damage to fabric or skin. She communicated in an expressive mix of aboriginal-sounding hisses, clicks and chirps, plus that amazing, basso profundo purr; Hermione had yet to hear her meow.

That is, until she kissed the kitten good-bye on Monday morning, put a waist-high Barrier Charm on the kitchen doorway, and set off for the living-room hearth. She was halted by twin thumps - one as Cleo hit the barrier, a second as she hit the floor - a plaintive squeak, and - with no further ado - a heart-rending cry, thin and piercing as a terrified baby.

Or, Hermione thought, torn between amusement and pity, an air-raid siren.

The caterwauling continued until she dropped her bag and retraced her steps to the kitchen. Caracal and witch regarded each other, unblinking. Then, Cleo made a little sound that sounded almost like a hiccup, and made another run at the barrier.

“Oh, hell,” Hermione said, and Banished it with a wave of her wand so she could scoop up the kitten. “What am I supposed to do now? It’s not like I can take you with me, you know.”

At that, Cleo began to purr.

**

She was still purring ten minutes later - cozily esconced in Hermione’s bag, hidden completely except for those extraordinarily feathery ears - when Hermione emerged from the hearth into the Consortium’s common room. Areli raised her eyebrows, and Hermione gave her a comic look of despair.

“Sorry,” she said. “I just got her - Bill found her, you see, and my cat was left in England - and she was supposed to stay in the kitchen, but she cried …”

Areli laughed.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “We’re familiar-friendly around here - though, may I say - that’s one hell of a familiar. She’s going to need a lot of running room; it’s a good thing we gave you the penthouse suite.”

Actually, Hermione discovered, she’d gotten the top floor because no one else had wanted to climb the stairs. Fine with her; the rooms were amazing; high-ceilinged, charmingly slope-walled, with white-draped windows and grape-eating cherubim cavorting in the plaster moldings. The front room - the smaller of the two - housed a state-of-the-art laboratory; the second, a roomy window seat flanked by bookshelves, a fireplace she could have stood up in without bumping her head, and an inviting-looking couple of armchairs. Through a partially closed door she could see a lavatory; behind a Chinese screen gleamed a desk laden with enough technology to lift the Starship Enterprise.

“Wow,” she said, her throat dry. “Wow. Just … wow. If you had any idea how I longed for Internet access at Hogwarts …” She gestured helplessly at the room. “This is amazing, Areli. I mean - amazing.”

“I consider it an investment,” Areli said lightly. “In your future, and in mine as well.” She waved her wand at the empty expanse of wall next to one of the bookshelves and said something Hermione didn’t catch; what appeared there could only be described as a cat-castle, all carpeted battlements and snug niches. Another wave, and a swarm of white butterflies began to flutter in lazy circles in the center of the room, two feet off the ground. “Watch,” she said softly - and indeed, it wasn’t long before the telescopic ears in Hermione’s bag twitched and the entire kitten propelled herself out onto the floor.

“Ever hear the saying, ‘to set a cat amongst the pigeons’?” she asked. “That’s a caracal saying - the ancient Persians used to imprison a flock of birds, loose a caracal into the pen, and take bets on how long it would take the cat to kill them all.”

Hermione shivered. “That’s pleasant,” she said dryly. Areli laughed.

“Barbaric, of course. But it’s what the cat’s built for - even now, look at your baby; she’s a slave to her genes.”

Sure enough, Cleo was leaping into the swarm of white, her fuzzy pink-padded paws surprisingly agile and quick to pin the hapless butterflies to the ground. Hermione was relieved to see that each captured flutterby dissolved from beneath the kitten’s claws like a curl of fog and rose into the air again to continue its flight.

“See?” Areli said quietly, not looking at her. “We are what we are, and as much as we try to change ourselves, we still keep circling round; the display may change, but not the window.”

Hermione sent her a sharp glance.

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded, a bit unsettled, and Areli looked her straight in the eyes.

“That you don’t have to make yourself worthy of this place,” she said. “Because you already are.”

**

Hermione spent a pleasant hour or so immersed in the delights of the computer, then retired to the windowseat with a book on twentieth-century potions - Areli had stocked the bookshelves with supplementary topic-related reading and suggested Hermione spend her first few weeks acquainting herself with the contents, as much of the recent work done in the field hadn’t yet been Ministry-approved for inclusion in the Hogwarts curriculum.

It was interesting reading - and immensely satisfying, to skim along through the book; her every mutter recorded by the Dictoquill at her side, her left shoulder growing slightly numb under the purring weight of a sleepy kitten. Research was its own sort of trance, after all - and so when Areli poked her head in with a covered tray aromatic with the smell of roasted chicken and spices, Hermione jumped; she’d lost track of time.

They were halfway through lunch when she remembered to ask about the jade statue of Sekhmet. At its mention, Areli looked puzzled.

“Sekhmet?” She tore off another piece of flat, round bread - a’aish in Arabic, the same word they used for life - and chewed it thoughtfully. “One of the goddess cults - it’s a legitimate religion, though certain of its adherents occasionally turn militant. Why?”

Hermione explained about Gram and about the pendant, finishing up with Bill’s odd reaction to it. “He said I should ask you,” she said. “He seemed very uncomfortable with the whole thing.”

Areli, unpredictably, laughed. “It’s because your pendant’s made of jade,” she said. “And because Molly Weasley raised him to be a good boy, and he still is one, despite all his attempts to be a badass.”

She sipped her juice. “There’s a legend,” she said - “a very ancient legend, that’s odd by Egyptian standards because it’s not found anywhere in writing; it’s been passed down for centuries upon centuries by oral tradition, generally from mother to daughter. You know of the female pharoah Hatshepsut?”

“Vaguely,” Hermione said. Areli nodded.

“Well, she had a daughter, the princess Neferure, who according to legend was much beloved, and who Hatshepsut intended to succeed her. From what we know now, both Hatshepsut and Neferure died under mysterious circumstances - the legend has it that they were murdered by the next-in-line to the throne, Tuthmosis III - Neferure first, and then the queen herself.”

She tucked a strand of thick black hair behind her ear. “As the story goes, Hatshepsut had been a healer, and therefore a follower of Sekhmet. The night her daughter was killed, she called on the goddess in a frenzy born out of her grief, and plunged her hands into the Nile - and from the water, grasped a likeness of the goddess herself, fashioned in jade.” Her voice was deep and hypnotic, lost in the story she was telling. “Through the statue, Sekhmet the Avenger spoke to the queen, and promised her justice for her daughter, and, by extension, for all the daughters of Egypt.”

“Interesting,” Hermione said. “What happened then?”

Areli shrugged.

“The statue was given a collar, and placed in Neferure’s tomb as an amulet of protection - however, it was whispered, and is still whispered, that whenever Egyptian women are in mortal peril, the jade pendant will find its chosen handmaiden, like Sekhmet a healer and a warrior both, known as the Jade Priestess - and that she will exact Sekhmet’s vengeance on earth.”

She looked pensive for a moment. “Of course, Neferure’s tomb was looted long ago, so we’ll never know if she actually wore a jade amulet or not. In the centuries since, there have been more than a few women proclaiming themselves to be the Jade Priestess, and more than a few jade Sekhmets - but there’s not yet been an amulet discovered that’s widely accepted as the genuine original. Jade wasn’t common in ancient Egypt, after all.”

Hermione felt a chill run down her spine, but shook it off impatiently.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” she said, absently petting Cleo behind the ears. “What about that story makes Bill so uncomfortable?”

“Oh. Well.” Areli bit back a smile. “He didn’t want to say anything that could be later construed as being offensive, that’s all.”

“What do you mean?”

Areli spent a moment carefully choosing a grape. “Well, the cult of Sekhmet, and the tale of the Jade Priestess - apart from the sector of the expatriate community that has embraced it in the name of feminism - has always flourished more or less in secret, among those women who have the most to gain from it. The poor, the oppressed, the abused.” She hesitated. “Those women,” she said finally, “believe utterly in its existence, because it gives them hope - even the many of them who are forbidden by religion to participate in goddess worship do so, alone or among themselves, keeping utter secrecy from their fathers and husbands. The Jade Priestess is very real to them, and it’s real to those men who forbid it, as well; more than one woman has died by her husband’s hands, for daring to worship Sekhmet, or Bast, or Ma’at.”

She rolled the grape around in her fingers. “But the literati,” she said - “the middle class, the educated, the cynical - though they’re aware of the legend, it has no meaning for them. So among moneyed and literate Egyptians, a Jade Priestess is nothing more than derogatory slang for a strong-willed woman … a woman who might, in another culture, be referred to as a ‘ballbreaker’.”

“That,” she said, “is why Bill Weasley didn’t want to mention it to you - because news of your power, and your accomplishments, are already spreading throughout the wizarding world, and because there are those who - should you keep going at your current rate - might someday refer to you in those terms.” She shrugged. “He wanted to make sure he wasn’t one of them, even accidentally. Quite sweet, really.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Hermione said, her brain whirling.

But long after Areli had gone, she sat pensively with Cleo in her lap, feeling cold despite the warm sun through the window. And it was nearly three o’ clock before she could refocus on her book.

**