Jewel Of The Nile

Chapter Forty-Seven

Hermione slept late into the morning, awakening to a sun-filled bedroom, a freshly laid breakfast tray – figs, almonds, honey, bread – and a note: Snape had already gone into Alexandria for some items he hadn’t had on hand and hadn’t been able to purchase in Diagon Alley before he came. Hermione rather suspected that the true purpose of his errand was to give her time for that suggested phone call.

Well, she could do him one better than that.

She breakfasted leisurely, showered, and went looking for Farouk. He was nowhere to be found, which – as it turned out – suited her purposes very well. She scribbled a note, intentionally vague, which proclaimed her to be out for a stroll, and left it in the care of the housekeeper. It wasn’t a lie – not exactly; she did indeed leave the house, and she did indeed stroll … as far as the first bend in the driveway, that is.

After that long, tense airplane ride, Apparating felt very good indeed.

Please, please let Mum and Dad not be here, she thought, blinking abruptly into existence next to the hedge of quince in Gram’s back garden and immediately ducking her head, so as not to alarm the Winslows, Gram’s elderly next-door neighbours. A quick peek round the corner confirmed an absence of extra automobiles; relieved, she walked around to the front door and lifted the knocker.

"Darling," Gram said warmly, betraying not the least bit of surprise to see Hermione here unannounced when she’d been supposed to be in Cairo. Apparently she’d decided to forego Sunday services today; she was still in her velour dressing gown and slippers, and her famous mane of dark curls – winged with grey now, but still glorious – lay loose around her face. She held a teacup in one hand. "How delightful to see you. Come in and have some tea. You’ve not had breakfast yet, have you?"

"Um …" Hermione, about to say Well, actually, yes, caught sight of a familiar beige cardboard box on the kitchen table, its top ajar to hint at the treasures nestled within. "You went to Carbury’s?"

"Scones," Gram said succinctly, and Hermione let out a reverent sigh.

Figs and honey were all very well, but blueberry scones from Carbury’s, a long-standing Sunday morning tradition in Gram’s house, were the stuff her childhood dreams had been made of.

"I think I could manage just one," she said. Gram grinned over her shoulder, and went to get her a plate.

The house hadn’t changed noticeably since Hermione’s summer visit – in fact, it was exactly as it had been since she could remember … lovingly furnished with the antiques that had been Grandad’s passionate avocation, and a tasteful shrine of photographs and playbills to Gram’s career. There was a record on the hi-fi now; women’s voices singing in fluid German, one line rising as the other fell, then mingling as seamlessly as tight-woven cloth. Gram caught Hermione listening, and lifted the needle from the record with a wry shake of her head.

"Vanity," she said, amused with herself, and took the tea cozy off the teapot to pour Hermione a cup. "One of the acceptable vices of aging; you’re allowed to wax occasionally nostalgic. That was the Rosenkavalier I did in Vienna, at the Staatsoper, and you should have seen the dresses." Her mouth curled into a dreamy half-smile. "No one costumed Strauss like the Austrians, that was for sure. And I was stuck in pants the whole time." She cast a wicked look at Hermione. "The Mezzo Curse – remember it?"

"Witches, bitches, and britches," Hermione said automatically, and laughed; the Mezzo Curse, an old opera-house typecasting lament, had been an inside joke with the two of them when she was small, all the more amusing and memorable for its vulgarity. "I haven’t thought of that in years."

"Well." Gram topped off her teacup. "You’ve had your own life to worry about. How do you like Cairo?"

"Cairo?" Hermione repeated absently. "It’s fine." Off Gram’s quizzical look, she flushed. "I mean, it’s wonderful. Amazing. My work is really interesting, and I like my classes, and I’ve got friends, and it’s just … fine."

"There’s a but in there somewhere," Gram prompted. Hermione closed her eyes.

"I have to ask you something," she said, cradling her teacup despite its near-scalding heat. "I’ve just met an old friend of yours, you see."

"Really." Gram took a sip of tea. "How marvellous, dear. And who might that be?"

"Farouk bin al-Hussein," Hermione said, rolling the words carefully around in her mouth before letting go of them, and studying her grandmother’s face for reaction. None was forthcoming; Martina Pietrantonio Granger hadn’t spent fifteen years on the stage for nothing, after all.

"Farouk," she repeated with a little smile. "What a charming man – and so very bright, of course." Absently, she broke off a corner of her scone and took her time chewing and swallowing. "Do you know," she continued at length, "I believe he’s the very one who gave me that little jade lioness. What a wonderful coincidence."

"Gram." Hermione set her cup down with a nervous rattle. "He has a great-niece who’s about my age. We have our pre-med classes together; that’s how I met him." Plus a little facilitative kidnapping and a pesky cursed statue to top things up. But we needn’t go into that at the moment.

"Really? How nice."

"We look rather awfully alike," Hermione finished miserably, and saw her grandmother’s eyes flicker for the first time.

"Really."

"Gram, you’ve got to tell me." Hermione’s lips were trembling. "It’s really important – I can’t go into it all now, but trust me, it’s life and death, or I wouldn’t ask at all –" She gulped. "Could Farouk possibly be my grandfather?"

Gram took another sip of tea, set down her cup, and methodically dabbed at the corners of her still-lush mouth with a snowy linen napkin. Her eyes, steady on Hermione’s, gave nothing away.

"No," she said finally. Her lips were tight, but her gaze didn’t waver. "No, of course not. Whatever could have given you that idea?"

Hermione, unconvinced, opened her mouth to press the issue … then, at the hint of real distress that flashed across her grandmother’s face, closed it again and dropped her eyes to look at her plate.

"I don’t know," she said, and managed a smile of apology. "Stupid of me, really. It’s just that Itmana and I look a bit alike, that’s all. Coincidence." She ground the last corner of her scone into powder between her fingertips, her chest leaden. "I’m sorry I even brought it up."

Gram hesitated, then – recovering her equanimity – flashed her famous smile and reached across the little table to pat Hermione on the shoulder.

"No harm done, dear," she said lightly, and spooned sugar into her teacup with a steady hand. "I’ve no-one to blame but myself; I brought you up on all those old clippings, after all, and it’s only natural that you’d expect … adventures … from me. Don’t think a thing of it."

Easier said than done, Hermione thought, and wiped her sticky fingers dolorously on her napkin.

If she wanted answers, it appeared that she was going to have to get them somewhere else.

**

Sunday afternoon at Hogwarts was usually fairly quiet, it was true – but today, the corridors were positively funereal. The Halloween feast and subsequent dance was set to begin in four hours, and the whole of the student body was closeted in their respective dormitories, awash in expectant rituals of preparation.

The whole of the student body, that is, minus one.

Harry Potter moved like a wraith through the third-floor corridor, securely draped in Invisibility, his new Pensieve tucked under his arm. No place in Gryffindor Tower was safe for his intended purposes, not today – and he’d lain awake far into the night before he’d finally thought of this spot. Once off-limits and guarded by the snarling, slavering Fluffy, it was now merely deserted.

Or so Harry hoped, anyway.

It also locked from the inside, which was another point in its favour. He slipped inside, relieved to find it empty and dark, secured the door, muttered the strongest ward he knew into the keyhole, and ducked out from beneath the Cloak, squinting in the gloom.

"Lumos!"

Bare stone floor, clean-swept but scarred. No hint of the trapdoor – whether it was gone for good or merely hidden, Harry didn’t know, but he avoided the place where it had been anyway, merely on principle. The only furniture remaining in the room was a battered wooden bench next to one wall. It was here that he placed the Pensieve.

His was smaller than Dumbledore’s, and darker in colour, made of some heavily-flecked stone that looked like granite and weighed at least twice as much, if carrying the thing was any indication. Harry squinted over the directions, then slowly read out the Filling Incantation that was printed on the slip of parchment. The Pensieve trembled slightly, then emitted a gurgle as it began to fill with a smoky-grey shimmer.

Now for the memory itself. He knew how to do this part – he’d read the instructions over and over last night … but it was still a bit of a shock to see that wisp of white drift out of the side of his head, to watch it bobbing on the surface of the Pensieve like a small, sly ship. OK – it worked. Now what?

Carefully he folded the Cloak as small as it would go and laid it to one side. Palms itching, whole body tight with excitement, he bent slowly over the gleaming bowl …

… and fell.

And there he was, as if he’d never left, in that warm shadowy room so unlike what he’d expected, watching his memory-self page idly through the papers on Snape’s desk, and then spring to startled attention at the sound of the voice accosting him out of the darkness.

Boy, he thought, wincing as the Mystery Woman’s wand nudged at Pensieve-Harry’s balls. She sure knew how to handle you, didn’t she?

Let’s have some answers, Mr. Potter, she was saying now, and as his unfortunate alter ego squirmed under the bite of that electric spark from the tip of her wand and mumbled an abject Yes, ma’am, Harry moved in to examine her more closely.

She really was tiny – a head shorter than he was, and slighter even than Ginny – but the look on her face was pure power, pure concentration, and she was stronger even than he remembered, using only her voice and that incredible, ballsy, swaggering presence to back him up and tip him over onto the bed.

Not, mind you, that he’d been resisting too intently.

What is it with you, Potter? she purred now. A power trip? Is that it? You think you’re above the rules?

Harry didn’t have to watch to remember where her hands had gone at that last bit, sending his cock into instant orbit and catapulting him abruptly into the scary wonderland of Dangerous Sex Games. No, he’d squeaked. No, ma’am. Not at all, I swear.

Another spark from the wand, strong enough to make him yelp, to make his toes curl. Are you sure?

I’m sure! panted Pensieve-Harry, and Harry flushed at the way his voice had cracked on the last word, at the smug look on the Mystery Woman’s face.

Hmm. I wonder what it is, then. Smile in her voice. Maybe it’s that you like to … watch.

Horror at this insinuation. Breathless denials from his shadow-self on the bed. More cruelty in her smile.

No? You don’t like to watch? A finger trailed down his spine, making him shudder. Well, I do.

A prod from the wand, sending him scrambling away from her to the far side of the bed. Put your hands on your cock, Mr. Potter; let’s see you get a nice easy rhythm going. Until I tell you to stop, if you please. She paused meaningfully. And it’s the Cruciatus if you come without permission.

Harry’s mouth went dry.

He’d seen Ginny naked dozens of times, but he’d never thought about how he looked without his clothes, and the sight was riveting – a slim pale wand of a boy with light, tight Quidditch muscles, squatting back on his heels on the bed with his knees spread and yanking feverishly at his erection with both hands. The hectic flush in his cheeks could have been from embarrassment or from desire, and probably owed a bit to both; as the Mystery Woman leaned forward to twist his nipples or fondle his dangling scrotum, he hissed through his teeth.

It sounded like Parseltongue. Listening now, dry-mouthed and unspeakably aroused, Harry half-expected the decorative serpents on the cornices of Snape’s bedroom door to come alive and wriggle over for a closer look. And then Pensieve-Harry regained temporary use of the Queen’s English, long enough to gasp—

…I’m going to—I’m going to—

Don’t.

I can’t help it— this, so high-pitched and tight of throat that it sounded almost like a whine. Her answer, icy as Greenland in February.

You’d better. If you know what’s good for you. Her mouth was sneering, but Harry could see her eyes now as he hadn’t been able to then, and they were hot as coals. Take your hands away. Now.

Panting. Streaming sweat. His hands, feverishly pistoning one moment and the next, wrenched away from his pulsing, weeping member like forcibly separated magnets. A moment of connection, as their eyes met … his in entreaty, hers implacable.

Good, she said softly … then one hand flashed out without warning, connecting with his penis in a vicious slap that made him howl. Another sharp order—hold still!—and another smack. Harry watched as his alter-ego’s erection faltered, then righted itself more aggressively. The Mystery Woman laughed.

Ah. So that’s what it is. She moved in close and began to stroke him – delicate little featherings of her fingertips across his most intimate flesh, eye-to-eye, hypnotic as snowfall. Under her touch, he shuddered and sighed. You really are a Gryffindor, aren’t you?

I don’t … I don’t know what you … aaaahhhhhhhh …

More laughter. Power – that’s a Slytherin motivation. And voyeurism’s for Ravenclaws, really. But you … She circled the head of his penis with thumb and forefinger, began to ease him up and down with a barely-perceptible tugging motion. Pensieve-Harry’s head lolled back against Snape’s bedpost. Harry could see the telltale silver track of moisture trailing from the corner of one eye back to his hairline. You’re a danger addict, Mr. Potter. I should have guessed straight off.

I don’t … I’m not …

No? Deny it if you can, then.

And with that, one more casually vicious smack, perfectly placed and exquisitely timed … pain like a body blow, but along with it an explosion he couldn’t stop and wouldn’t have wanted to, decorum and shyness and shame blasted to bits with the power of it as he shuddered and mewled and cursed in languages he didn’t even know … all the while shooting harder than he ever had in his life, harder than he knew he could.

And afterwards, shame crawling back up to the surface like the scummy floating stuff it was, his face red and downcast as she leaned in and kissed him playfully on the cheek.

See? she breathed into his ear. I told you so.

There wasn’t much more. Red in the face, cock hard and throbbing against the fly buttons of his dungarees despite himself, Harry turned away.

Glad this is in the Pensieve. Now I’ll be able to stop thinking about it. He was about to start toward the surface when something caught his eye.

Over there – yes, there, on the chair, at the far side of the bed – was that …?

Yes. It was.

Trembling as if he’d just run for miles, icy sweat pooling in the small of his back, Harry walked over to the chair and knelt down for a better look.

He couldn’t fold back the plain black robe on the top of the pile, but there was nothing stopping him from drawing his own conclusions about what was peeping out from underneath it: a drift of floaty floral-patterned fabric he knew all too well, and a shining loop of amber beads.

Oh, this was worse than he’d thought.

**