Jewel Of The Nile

Chapter Nine

“The Jade Priestess?”

Sal put down his teacup and shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “Cairo wasn’t exactly the place to go when I was a young man - the Pyramids were fun, sure, but the whole country was a war zone; that nutbag, El Hakim, saw to that, when he knocked down half of Jerusalem and got the Crusaders’ knickers in a bunch. The whole region was impassable, all through the 1100s … especially El Qahira.” He leaned back in his chair. “Now, if you wanted a real vacation back then, you went to Quetzlcoatl and took in some rays.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “Or Maui. Though their facilities weren’t as modern.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” Severus said flatly, and sent the latest in his long string of useless books careening back to the shelf. Sal looked sympathetic.

“Nothing?”

“Not a word.”

“Well, then.” Sal squeezed a translucent slice of Perluceod lemon into his tea. “Maybe there’s nothing to it?”

“Hm. We should be so lucky.” Severus ran a hand through his hair, snarling irritably when he hit an unexpected tangle and had to yank through it. “No, she was just a bit too casual about it in the note - something’s up,” he said, rubbing his sore scalp. “And it can’t be good, because nothing she stumbles into ever is.”

He picked up another book and flipped impatiently through it. “No sense,” he mumbled under his breath. “None at all. Give the girl her pick of the litter, and she’ll choose the dog that bites her hand.”

Sal’s eyes gleamed.

“Well, that certainly explains a lot,” he said, with an arch sidelong look. Severus rolled his eyes.

“And we’re off the topic, yet again. That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, caught between frustration with the situation, and impatience with himself - since when did getting worked up about something change it in any way?

“It was bad enough when she was being reckless at an observable distance,” he said finally, “without getting herself mixed up in something she can’t handle, a thousand miles away.”

“Which -” Sal sipped his tea, grimaced, added sugar, sipped again - “after she single-handedly brought down Voldemort - would be what, exactly?”

“I don’t know. Can’t you see that’s the problem?”

Damn it, I could do without the bloody Socratic questioning. “Would it be too much to expect that you could contribute some useful knowledge to this conversation?” he snapped. “Or are you intending to just sit there and needle me until I go mad?”

Sal just laughed - they knew each other well enough by now that Snape’s occasional fit of pique went unremarked.

“It’s no use getting huffy with me,” he said calmly, “just because you’ve already figured out who you have to talk to, and you don’t like the idea.”

As usual, Severus thought resignedly, Sal was right. He glared at his teacup, then picked it up and drained it in a single, determined swallow, wincing at the bitterness of the dregs.

If he had to go talk to Sybil Trelawney, he was damn well going to be caffeinated first.

**

“Ha! I’ll buy it.”

Gabrielle had just landed on Park Place, thus completing her monopoly of the most coveted property block on the board. Watching her gleefully shell out hundred-dollar bills in exchange for boxy little green houses, Draco began to wonder if he wasn’t in over his head.

Had he thought her a kitten, a ball of fluff to be patronised? The more fool he - “ruthless”, if that was indeed Fleur’s word for her, didn’t begin to describe it.

Gabrielle’s family might not be keen on the idea of her going into Muggle finance - he’d heard the whole story, in bits and pieces, in between acquisitions (mostly hers) and payoffs (mostly his) - but he had no doubt whatsoever as to her talent for it. Underneath that white-and-gold china-shepherdess exterior lurked the black heart of a securities in-trader.

“Roll,” she demanded imperiously now - Little Bo-Peep with a Scottie-dog token and a stack of phony real-estate - and he obediently picked up the dice, eyeing his jaunty little roadster in its sunny yellow parking space at Marvin Gardens with a sense of real foreboding.

“Can I pass?”

She smirked. “Not a chance.”

The dice clattered on the board, rolled to a stop atop the stack of fifties in Free Parking that neither of them had yet managed to claim. “Ten,” Gabrielle crowed, and Draco groaned.

Six and four - yeah, that made ten all right. And that meant …

Boardwalk.

Sighing, he started shuffling through his stack of properties for something suitable to mortgage.

**

Severus had pegged Sybil Trelawney for a phony and a drama queen, the moment she darkened the door of the Entrance Hall. He hadn’t gone out of his way to avoid her, however, until the events of the faculty holiday party seven years ago, her second Christmas on the staff.

He could remember that night as if he’d just plucked the memory out of a Pensieve: up in the staff room - decorated garishly, as usual, Albus-style, for the occasion - sipping with dour appreciation at his eggnog while the chatter flowed around him and Poppy swung Filius around the dance floor by his stubby little arms, child-size feet dangling a meter above the floor. He’d been thirty-one or thirty-two that year, he remembered, still a young man; even so, the other teachers had long since given up trying to coax him out of his chair, or flatter him into conversation.

He sat, and watched, as if encased within a Barrier Charm. That was his role, and he rather liked it that way - it was familiar, it was safe, it expected nothing of him.

And then she’d come over, the other junior faculty member - all flowing misty robes and watery bug eyes, scotch and peppermint heavy and cloying on her breath - and pulled up a chair.

Go away, he’d wanted to say, I don’t want you here - but she wasn’t a student, after all, to be ordered about, and protesting would only cause a scene and put that look on Albus’s face again, that pitying, detested poor dear Severus look. So he’d gritted his teeth and half-listened to her ramble on about omens and tarot decks, watching the others rhumba merrily by over her shoulder, his head full of some smooth-voiced Muggle singer crooning about a white Christmas.

It had hardly registered when her conversation took that subtle turn into suggestion, into intimacy - even now, he could only recall certain bits of it: dark stars, and fates intertwined, and don’t you think - don’t you agree, Severus?

And then - had it been the scotch talking? her own desire to escape from the crowded, happy room and Minerva’s studied disapproval? - she’d suddenly leaned toward him and whispered an improbably risqué suggestion; her hand on his knee, sliding inexorably toward his thigh. He still remembered her words - it’ll be good, I promise; she’d murmured, I’ve already Seen it happen, after all - and his reaction; a flash of horrified, embarrassed understanding that made him nearly overturn his chair, in his hurry to excuse himself.

He’d been jumpy around her ever since.

Now, he eschewed the long climb up to her tower in favour of Flooing - the quicker he got there, the quicker he’d be done. As always, the room was hot and stifling and smelt strongly of incense. Severus picked up a crystal ball someone had forgotten to put away and tossed it idly from hand to hand.

“Sybil?” he called. “Are you here?”

That brought her out of hiding; she pulled her trademark quasi-Apparation out of the shadows, that parlour trick that had Miss Patil and Miss Brown and a few of the more gullible Ravenclaws so impressed. Severus, who happened to know that she’d treated several of the room’s darker corners with Concealment Charms, had to fight not to roll his eyes.

“Severus.” She glided toward her favoured chair, spread her layers of chiffon around her as she sat. “I Saw you coming.”

Right. Mm-hmm. “Yes, well.”

Certain niceties had to be observed, he knew, or she’d cloak herself ever more firmly in that vague mumbo-jumbo she called an academic discipline, and he wouldn’t get a single helpful word out of her. He crossed to the window, where a breath of breeze was still struggling to live, and perched on the windowsill. “How have you been, Sybil?”

A tremulous sigh, a misty smile. “Well enough, Severus - well enough. One who Sees -“ here, a gusty, fatalistic exhalation - “knows in advance one’s fate, and can only accept what comes. You understand.”

“Er. Of course.” His eyebrows, given half the chance, would have shot off his forehead; he kept them resolutely schooled into a semblance of concern. “I hope my intrusion’s not an inconvenience. I was rather hoping to pick your brain a bit.”

Her eyes gleamed wetly through their bejeweled spectacles. “But of course,” she said, sounding so surprised and pleased that he groaned inwardly. “What method do you prefer? Cards? Tea leaves? The Crystal Orb?”

“It’s not a reading I need,” Severus said hastily, and stared into the ball of glass he was holding so that he wouldn’t see her face fall. “I’ve come across the mention of an Egyptian myth in my readings and can’t seem to find any more information about it. I thought perhaps you’d know more than I, since you’re the castle expert on goddess worship.”

Sybil was still looking a bit disappointed - Divination was her first love; she only taught Beginning and Advanced Mythology because it was part of the gig … and, Severus suspected, because the subjects tended to attract the same friendly core group of students. “Egyptian myths?” she said slowly. Her voice, much to his relief, had lost much of its manufactured ‘faraway’ quality. “As a general rule, they’re quite well-documented; since the translation of the Rosetta Stone, even the Muggles have fairly good editions. Though I can lend you one of the sixth-form texts if you -“

“I’ve read that book, and a hundred others,” Severus interrupted, “and it’s not there. It may not even be one of the canonical myths at all - it has to do with an amulet called the Jade Priestess.”

That got her attention; she jerked violently in her chair, then subsided back into its upholstery with a shiver.

“Where did you hear about that?” she demanded, all trace of mistiness fled. Her normal speaking voice was harsh and a little flat.

Well, there’s a reaction for you. Severus turned the crystal ball over and over in his hands. “I told you,” he said; “it was mentioned in a book I -“

“Rubbish,” Sybil said firmly, and pushed her spectacles up to her forehead with a shaking hand. “That particular myth’s not written down anywhere, and for good reason. Where did you hear about it?”

If he didn’t know better, Severus speculated, he’d say that Sybil Trelawney was … well … excited.

“Former student,” he admitted evenly, shrugging. “Mentioned it in a letter. Seemed a bit agitated - asked if I would look into it for her.” He studied Sybil closely, curiously. “What do you know?”

“There’s a prophecy,” she said, “and like the myth, it’s only passed down orally.” She sent Severus an uncharacteristically incisive look. “Usually to witches,” she said. “Sekhmet’s not the friendliest of goddesses toward the male of the species. But - since you asked -“

She shrugged. “It’s a long story. Perhaps you’d better sit down.”

**

By the time she’d finished, he’d forgotten his customary unease - forgotten about the ill-fated Christmas party - forgotten that the air in the room was even closer and more choking than when he’d come in.

When she dropped her clairvoyant act, Sybil Trelawney could tell a hell of a story.

“So the rightful wearer of the Jade Priestess,” he said slowly, “is supposed to emerge as a sort of champion? A superhero?”

Sybil nodded.

“The amulet is supposed to grant to its wearer certain powers,” she said. “It isn’t entirely clear what they are … nor is it clear what form her vengeance will take. What we do know -“ she grimaced - “is that there’s a choice involved; whether it’s the choice to accept the mantle of responsibility that the Jade Priestess embodies, or the choice to use the resulting power for good or ill, isn’t so clear.” She swept a tendril of hair behind her ear. “There’s an implied warning in the prophecy, not only for the victims of the Jade Priestess, but also for the Priestess herself. It talks about ‘blood and glory’, but it doesn’t say whose.”

Severus felt a cold stone slide into his gut. “Do you know the prophecy word for word?” he asked, and Sybil nodded.

“You mustn’t write it down, though,” she said. “I shan’t tell you unless you promise you’ll keep it in your head, never put it on parchment.”

“Fine.”

She eyed him suspiciously, but nodded. “All right - here it is.”

Her voice in the ancient rhythms was low and harsh and surprisingly lovely:

**

Wrought by queen’s entreaty, dark of night,
Rose the goddess, river-streaming, cold.
Fashioned of grief, she spoke: ‘O Hatshepsut,
Fear not: for thee the lion opes its mouth,

And roars. Dost thou not hear the rush of winds?
For thee they pour, for thee the tempest rages,
For thee I rise, the muddy Nile forsaking,
And live, a human princess to avenge.

Take me in hand, O Queen, and for my throat,
Fashion a collar, harness me in silver,
Lay me upon thy daughter’s breast, a token.
I’ll sleep, yet slumb’ring hear, and waking, rise,

Cast off my silver shackles. Stretching, roaring -
Shall find a maiden worthy of my glory,
With heart of lion, pure and fair and fearless,
To vengeance bring on murd’ring sons of Egypt.

The blood they shed shall shrieking turn upon them,
The hearts they still shall haunt their waking moments,
And stalk their dreams. And thus, O noble Monarch,
Shall I avenge thy daughter Neferure.

Tell the tale, and watch - grow you not weary,
My time’s my own. I neither sleep nor dream.
Should she choose true, my priestess shall repay thee,
In blood and glory. I, Sekhmet, have spoken.

**

The last words fell into the silence of the North Tower, and seemed to remain - borne up, perhaps, by the heavily perfumed air. Severus suppressed a shudder.

“Well,” he said heavily. “That’s what I needed to know, I suppose. I’m in your debt, Sybil.”

She blinked, startled; possibly, he thought, that was the nicest thing he’d ever said to her. “Any time.” As he turned to leave, she caught at the sleeve of his robe. “Severus?”

He turned back. “Yes?”

“The former student - the one who mentioned the Priestess to you -“ Her gaze was troubled. “It’s not Hermione Granger, is it?”

Surprised, he nodded. “As a matter of fact, it is. Why?”

Sybil grimaced. “I was just thinking,” she said, “that of all the students I’ve ever seen in a class, she’s the most likely to get saddled with something like this … and the least likely to know what to do with it.”

That, Severus thought grimly, was the most insightful thing he’d ever heard her say.

**