Jewel Of The Nile

Chapter Six

She knew perfectly well that it didn’t matter what she wore.

Bill, after all, was bound to turn up in his invariable uniform of khaki trousers worn white at the knees and a light-coloured, casual button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show off his forearm muscles and his yummy tan. If he were any better at the Sexy Adventurer thing, Hermione reflected, he’d be making millions posing for cigarette advertisements.

Still, it never hurt to make an effort, did it?

She finished her postcards and set the ones to her parents and to Gram aside to mail. A wave of her wand later, and the crumpled bag she’d carried them home in was now a dignified-looking brown owl.

Thank goodness for Replicate, Hermione thought, waving her wand again while counting off in her head how many deliveries she needed to be made - Harry, Ron, Draco, Snape, Ginny, Sal, oh dear, that’s six right there. She hoped that newly Transfigured and Replicated owls were all right for delivering mail; she’d remembered to include the letter-harness on their legs, at least, and they did seem full of purpose as they soared, one by one, out of her open window.

Well, we’ll hope for the best.

It was two o’ clock, and she was already yawning; it’d been a long week, and her morning traipsing around in the broiling early-September sun didn’t help either. Trailing into her bedroom, she found Cleo asleep in the middle of the bed, surrounded by the remains of a mutilated bedroom slipper. Its mate lay disconsolate on the floor by the bed - no doubt awaiting its turn for execution later.

Hermione, surveying the carnage with philosophical resignation, decided that the kitten had the right idea - considering that she had a date tonight, a short nap was in order. Besides, Bill Weasley kept late hours.

She kicked off her shoes and snuggled down onto the pillows.

**

Four o’ clock. She showered leisurely, slathered on gardenia-scented body lotion, and went to sort through her closet for something appropriately casual yet suitably romantic.

You’re an idiot for even thinking about romance right now, said the Voice of Caution in her head. Remember what happened last time? Face-to-face with the Big Ugly himself, and then after that you couldn’t even get the happy ending right.

Oh, shut up.

That was the Voice of Caution’s go-for-broke alter-ego, the Daredevil. Hermione seemed to remember that the last time she’d listened to the Daredevil, she’d ended up over the Potions Master’s knee. And though the memory was, by and large, a mostly-tantalising one at this point - worth it, in her opinion, just for the glimpse of the raging inferno lurking beneath Severus Snape’s icy exterior - the Voice of Caution was quick to remind her that it had actually been sort of traumatising at the time.

Do you really need to start this up again? said the Voice, a bit petulantly. If you’d listened to me, none of that nonsense would ever have happened.

Exactly, shot back the Daredevil. Draco would be dead, the Muggle-borns in Scotland would be a sticky green puddle on the grass, and Voldemort would still be out there, plotting murder and mayhem, instead of holding down the faculty-meeting minutes on Dumbledore’s desk. Fat lot of good THAT would do us.

Hmmph, said the Voice, frostily. I still think you ought to concentrate on your studies. But obviously what I have to say doesn’t matter.

Damn straight.

Okay, Hermione thought - cut it out, ladies; it’s just dinner, after all.

And immediately felt stupid for talking to herself.

The dress she eventually chose owed little to the virtue of caution - one of Giulia’s bequests from the previous summer, it was a cornflower-blue sheath held up by spaghetti straps, gently fitted but perfectly demure. Until she turned around, that is - the back of the bodice was nothing but more of those tiny crisscrossing straps, from neckline to dimples.

Dressed to impress, she eschewed the addition of shoes to the outfit - the flat had only two kinds of flooring; deep pile carpeting and pleasantly cool granite tile, both foot-friendly in the extreme - and padded into the kitchen to check out the contents of the refrigerator.

It was a good thing she’d done her marketing, the afternoon previous - and that, failing to find the deboned chicken breasts on her list (the government-owned butcher shop she’d been in was so far a cry from the British supermarkets of her acquaintance and their neat shrink-wrapped packages of meat, that it might as well have been on the moon), she had settled instead for the entire bird, freshly gutted and plucked and still in possession of its scaly yellow feet.

She dealt summarily with that issue and, shuddering, dropped the feet into the dustbin. Eeeeurgh. Similarly eeurgh, if to a lesser extent, were the pinfeathers still remaining in the bird; plucking them out, Hermione could all too easily imagine the chicken running free in all its pre-decapitated, feathered glory, clucking and flapping and eating corn, or bugs, or … well, whatever chickens ate here … which led her to yet another mental image she could have done without, thank you very much.

At least they hadn’t left the head on. She didn’t think she could have dealt with that.

She rubbed down the bird with salt and olive oil, stuffed it with quartered lemons and minced garlic, and had just put it in the oven to roast when Bill knocked on the door.

He had a bottle tucked under one arm, a bunch of daisies in the other, and a string-wrapped brown paper parcel dangling from one finger that turned out, when opened, to be chopped raw filet of something-or-other; whatever it was, Cleo attacked it as if she hadn’t eaten in a week, then returned to rub amiably against Bill’s ankles. He reached down to scritch her behind her ears and grinned at Hermione.

“See, I’ve charmed your cat,” he said with a persuasive twinkle. “Now - if I thought you were half as easy to please, I’d go to my grave a happy man.”

Now what did you say to that? Hermione, aware that she was blushing, rolled her eyes to compensate.

“You’re certainly quite the ladies’ man, Bill Weasley,” she said, as sternly as she could manage. “I suppose you charmed some passing French girl out of this wine; I didn’t think you could get Pouilly-Fuissé in Cairo.”

He followed her into the kitchen, sniffed appreciatively at the hints of lemon and garlic beginning to waft from the oven, and went rummaging through her flatware drawer for a corkscrew without asking first. “Well, it’s easy enough to buy alcohol here if you aren’t choosy about what you get,” he said, peeling back the wrapper and prying up the dab of wax on top of the cork. “Those of us with more … discerning … tastes -“ here, he winked - “have to take our opportunities where we find them.”

“Let me guess,” Hermione said tartly, biting back a smile. “You know a guy who knows a guy.” Bill looked hurt.

“Are you accusing me of acquiring this wine in a disreputable manner?” he asked, hand splayed across his heart in an attitude of mock outrage so comical that Hermione couldn’t quite stifle a giggle. “Because I’ll have you know that the truck it fell off of was of the highest possible reputation.”

That brought her up short. “You stole it?”

Bill laughed. “No, of course not,” he said, and winked again, so she didn’t know whether or not to believe him. “Got it at the airport. Duty-free shop.”

“Oh.”

Somewhat deflated, Hermione watched him turn her salt and pepper shakers into two tall slim wine goblets, taking the glass he handed her and sipping gingerly at the contents - her parents drank wine occasionally, as did Gram, but she wasn’t in the habit of partaking herself. This wasn’t bad - quite the contrary, in fact; it started off with an appealing sparkle of fruit, then mellowed and warmed as it slid down her throat. Like butter on her tongue, that’s what it was, and the first swallow went to her head so thoroughly that she didn’t resist when he pried the glass gently out of her hand.

“Ah-ah-ah,” he said reprovingly, somehow managing to set the glass safely aside while snaking his free arm around her waist at the same time. “You’re not supposed to drink until we toast. It’s bad luck.”

“Oh,” Hermione said faintly. “Sorry.”

He smelled like soap and hot desert sunshine, a heady, foreign mix that seemed positively exotic to her, used as she was to Scotland’s rain and damp grass. She swayed a little, and he steadied her with that iron band of an arm behind her back, warm against her bare skin. “Sorry doesn’t cut it,” he said, a bit thickly - “not in this case. You’re going to have to make it up to me. That bad luck is a killer, you know.”

“How -“ How had she gotten so close to him, that was the question - but she couldn’t seem to ask it. “How am I supposed to do that?”

He edged a little closer. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

**

Bill knew he wasn’t being particularly smooth, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

Oh, good job, Indiana. Run screaming from her apartment in the dead of night, then immediately back her into a corner the next time you see her. That’s EXACTLY what James Bond would do.

Of course, the business with the Sekhmet statue had been freaky. No doubt about it. Not only because of his unpleasant experience in Luxor, but also because of that particular pendant itself. He’d seen jade Sekhmet amulets before, but this one had buzzed in his hand in a way that was most disconcerting, and not exactly what he’d call pleasant.

Strange.

And probably a good indication that he should give little Hermione Granger a wide berth, just in case - after all, you didn’t get to be Gringotts’ top cursebreaker in the North Africa-Middle East region, without developing a healthy respect for the local superstitions along the way.

The problem was, he didn’t think he was going to be able to do that. The lady was far too intriguing.

He’d even broken one of his cardinal rules, earlier that week - never mix family and romance - and owled Ginny for information: exactly how hung up on Draco Malfoy was Hermione, anyway? As it turned out, he needn’t have bothered; his owl came back with this terse note scribbled beneath his own - Ask her yourself, if you want to know so badly. And if you break her heart, I’m telling Mum.

It figured.

Well, if she was really still mooning over Malfoy, they wouldn’t be on separate continents - now, would they? And he most certainly wouldn’t be standing in her kitchen right now, inhaling the intoxicating aroma of roasting chicken and wondering exactly what she was wearing underneath that cobweb of a dress.

Whatever it was, it couldn’t be much.

Now, she was so close that he could hear her quick shallow breathing, feel the silky brush of curls on the underside of his jaw. Had he moved in too fast? was she scared of him? But no, even as he started to back off again, she tipped her head up to look him in the eyes, and laughed - the lowest, huskiest thread of pure sex he’d ever heard.

“I’ll think of something, huh?” she said. “Sounds like a challenge to me.”

And then she kissed him.

**

It had been so goddamn long.

September - it was September! - and she hadn’t done this since that fateful trip into Hogsmeade last winter, when she’d followed Lucius Malfoy unwittingly into the snow and emerged again a different person than she’d left. Afterwards, there’d been Draco - who she couldn’t bear to touch. And Snape, who withdrew from her embrace like a child from forbidden sweets: reluctant, but steadfast.

The more she pursued him, the more he drew back. Perhaps that was the nature of things, Hermione thought, to stalk like prey the Reluctant Beloved - it would certainly explain why she’d kept running after him, despite all admonishments to the contrary, and away from Draco, who’d been all too eager to follow.

Weird. But hardly worth thinking about right now, in this ecstatic moment when for once the magnets were turned round the right way and their lips seemed destined to collide, as if they’d been on this set course since birth.

Heat pooled inside her, a slow sweet drip like sunwarmed honey. She reached up and took what she wanted - and oh God, the taste, the feel, the skittering sensation of half-forgotten nerve endings flaring once again into Red Alert as their mouths met and melded and ooooohhh, there was that hookup of electric current that raced from lips to cunt to nipples and resounded even in her toes, in the pads of her fingers: Hermione Granger, Switchboard Girl.

Ready for liftoff. All systems go. No problem, Houston.

He made some small indeterminate sound into her mouth - changed the angle of the kiss to something deeper and more demanding, one hand threading into her hair, the fingers of the other weaving themselves into the straps of her dress to splay across her bare back. Ohhhh, Hermione thought, and felt her whole body shudder under the force of that swamping sensation, the need inside her a crouching, growling cat all claws and teeth and sheer awakened urge. She pressed herself more firmly against him and felt the cat inside ready itself to spring.

Merlin in knickers, he felt good.

She hiked herself up against him, using her hands on his shoulders to shimmy up his body and hold on - ah, that was better, that was good; that was everything most sensitive about her pressed against everything most complementary about him, and he was no stranger to the game, oh no, he’d immediately lifted her and turned with her so she was supported against the cabinets, so she could lean back and he could nuzzle his way into that sensitive crease below her jaw and ….

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Christ, were the Martians invading?

Befuddled, annoyed, she lifted her head woozily and peered around her through glazed eyes.

No Martians. Just the oven timer.

Oh. Dinner. Right.

Suddenly a bit embarrassed, she gave Bill a tentative shove and felt relieved and bereft in equal parts, as he obligingly stepped back to let her down. “Excuse me,” she muttered, not looking at him. “Have to check on the chicken.”

“Right,” he said. To his benefit, he sounded as shocked as Hermione felt. “Um - I’ll just … well, I’ll just go wash up then, shall I?”

The minute he’d disappeared around the corner, Hermione slapped irritably at the still-beeping timer, to shut it off, and slumped into the nearest chair, shaking her head.

The Voice of Caution had fled.

And the Daredevil was taking over.

No telling what was going to happen next.

**