FIC: HP, "Family Plagues"
So, years ago - no, it may have been a month - it was Passover, and hyperfocused issued The Plague-ground: Ten Plagues fic/art challenge, which I found inspiring, and am only now posting because I'm un-punctual that way. If you're still in the spirit of the holiday (and you know what? Even if you're not), enjoy.
Story: "Family Plagues"
Words: 5000
Rating: PG-13 (language, mostly)
Characters: Bill Weasley & bros, some Bill/Fleur
Timeline: During the Weasley family's trip to Egypt in PoA.
Summary: When inside an ancient pyramid prone to curses being triggered, never let a Weasley twin out of immediate grabbing distance. Response to ten plague challenge
Family Plagues
Bill Weasley loved his family dearly. However, even as they loved him back with a ferociousness that really was very touching, what they didn’t seem to realize was that between ‘love’ and ‘trust inside a four thousand year old Egyptian tomb’ existed a gap as wide as the Nile.
After three years away from home (in which he’d finally discovered the significant imprint his large family had left on him - he had trouble eating meals with less than four other people in the room, otherwise he felt horribly alone), he’d been nothing less than thrilled when his father owled him the news of their impending visit. Bill had dusted his small apartment, a Sisyphean chore he usually avoided with a passion reserved for curse-breaking and women. He’d lined the front of his closet with old Christmas jumpers because he knew his mother would look, even if he only ever used them as curtains, here in the near-desert. He’d gotten a second earring for the sake of the boys. He’d even - though he would never admit to anything so terribly organized - planned a general itinerary for their stay.
But time and distance, it seemed, had dulled his memories into a watery, pastel-colored stew of fond images mingling together in the murky cauldron of recollection. Consequently, he was utterly unprepared for Ginny’s demanding energy, his parents’ overbearing enthusiasm, and the twins being such a pair of horrid little monsters.
“Don’t - touch - that,” he repeated for what felt like the hundredth time, but was probably only about the ninetieth. Bill turned to his father desperately. “I want to show Charlie the inner chamber, but I can’t take anyone else - it’s got some curses we haven’t countered yet that are too dangerous to risk.” He lowered his voice in case his mother heard the word ‘danger’ and decided to inadvertently wake Mentuhotep from his slumber.
“Don’t worry, son,” Arthur replied confidently, nose pressed to a hieroglyph-covered column with fascination. “We’ll keep the little ones in check.”
“Oi! Who’re you calling little!” came Ron’s affronted voice, just beginning to change.
“You, Wonniebun,” Fred said with glee.
Bill turned to him with a stern expression. “You will shortly become very little too, if you accidentally trigger one of the curses in here.” Ra help me, I sound like Mum.
Fred, Ron, and George’s eyes widened simultaneously. “Cool,” they whispered together.
Bill sighed. “Dad, Percy, please don’t let them touch anything. This pyramid is a celebration of booby-traps.” No, this pyramid was just a bloody mistake. “Coming, Char?”
Charlie, sporting a sympathetic smile, started to follow Bill into an ascending corridor, stopping to catch Arthur’s hand just before it contacted with a small sarcophagus by the entryway. “Bill?” he invited, making a small motion with his head.
Bill stared at his father with a pained expression. “Dad. Whoever opens that sarcophagus will be cursed-” he read the inscription, and blanched. “-really, really unpleasantly. For my sake, for Mum’s, please, don’t touch anything.” To Charlie, he urged, “come on, let’s make this quick.”
Charlie nodded, and turned to Ginny gravely. “Take care of them,” he whispered. “We’re counting on you.”
At her solemn nod, they departed down the corridor. “Unpleasant curse?” Charlie asked behind him.
“‘A donkey shall violate him, a donkey shall violate his wife’,” Bill quoted grimly.
“Gahmum! Dad! Why did you tell me that! You couldn’t have made something up?”
*
When they emerged from the same corridor a short while later, they were confronted with the sight of one anguished Weasley girl rounding up the remaining Weasley boys, who were all sporting slightly guilty expressions.
Doing a quick mental count, Bill’s breath caught. “Where’s George?”
Arthur cleared his throat. “Don’t worry Bill, he’s around here somewhere and he’s going to be severely punished.”
Bill felt his heart sink, as Ginny looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry! I wasn’t looking and he snuck away! And now we can’t find him anywhere and it’s all- my-”
“Shhh,” Charlie said, placing a strong, well-muscled arm around her shoulders. “We’re only blaming everyone over the age of thirteen.”
Bill was glad Charlie was taking the time to comfort Ginny because it was time he couldn’t spare - turning on his heels, he ran back down the corridor into the chamber he and Charlie had just visited. The scene he found inside was exactly as he dreaded - his younger brother, triumphant smirk adorning his face, doing the thing Bill hated most when he brought in visitors (which was generally why he didn’t): he was poking around.
“GEORGE WEASLEY!” he roared, advancing.
“I’m not G-”
“Don’t even try it!” Bill circled around the small pyramid that stood in the center of the room. “My brother, you don’t even want to imagine the kinds of torture I’m inventing for you right now. You had better pray nothing was triggered.”
George was slowly backing away to the door, looking only slightly less certain. “I didn’t touch anything. Almost.”
“Since some of the curses in here are so advanced we haven’t even begun to understand how to approach them, ‘almost’ isn’t the best thing you could have said just now!” Straining to collect himself, Bill took a deep breath. “Tell me just one thing: did you talk to the sphinx?”
For a second, George seemed to hesitate, looking at Bill with an expression that indicated he may have truly regretted disappointing his older brother. Then he bolted out the passageway from which they’d come.
Weasleys.
Knowing they were all safe - well, for the moment - well, relatively, anyway - Bill turned his full attention to the small statue of a sphinx that lay serenely at the foot of the pyramid, guarded by four stone sharp-angled creatures that looked a little bit like House Elves. Tentatively, he pulled out his wand and tried a few different revealing spells on the sphinx, but it gave no response. He considered encasing it in a temporary Untouchable charm, but decided against it - it was usually better not to mix this sort of old magic with new spells, especially if he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
“Right,” he said, partly to himself, and partly to the sphinx. “I just hope the little bastard really didn’t do anything. Um. If he did then- I beg pardon - er, verily - ” he tried. “O, Sphinxy One -” The sphinx was still. “Oh, bugger,” he sighed, starting to walk back to where the rest were waiting, because you never, ever apparated inside a pyramid (at least not after having studied the case of Jointless Ahmad Jackson, the great explorer who explored no more).
Ten minutes later, seven Weasleys trailed behind Arthur Weasley as he stepped outside, Bill having especially positioned himself last to prevent any stray sibling from sneaking around, above or beneath his radar. Molly was waiting for them on a bench outside a souvenir-shop-slash-restaurant, pretending to hold up a fan that, if one looked closely, was unobtrusively waving itself.
“Did you have a nice time?” She asked with a strained smile, obviously affected by the heat.
“It was brilliant!” Ron exclaimed, just as Percy said, “wonderfully educational.” Bill refrained from commenting, but couldn’t help feeling glad - even a bit proud - that they had, after all, enjoyed themselves.
“First, sit down - you too, Arthur,” Molly ordered. “I’ve already ordered drinks and I want everybody to finish their cups - no arguments - it’s a hot day and I’ll have no one faint and get hurt.” Her eyes clearly showed that what she’d meant to say was, and spoil my vacation.
“But Mum, I don’t like tomato juice,” Ginny complained.
“I didn’t order any - hmm, that’s odd.”
Bill looked at Ginny’s drink, at his own, at everyone but Molly’s, actually, and froze. Percy let out a startled yelp, accompanied by some of the others’ disgusted moans.
“George,” Bill said through gritted teeth. “Did the sphinx say anything to you?”
George mumbled something.
“What was that?”
“Din’ really understand him, it, er, wasn’t in English.”
“What did you do, George?” Molly asked menacingly, and in an instant her mood shifted to worry. “What’s wrong, Bill?”
“Nothing, Mum,” he said automatically. At everyone’s skeptic gazes, he forced a smile, knowing that he couldn’t bear letting a little mishap, or foolish screw-up, as it were, ruin one of the few real vacations his parents had ever managed to scrape off. “George may have set off a tiny ancient curse when he spoke to a sphinx. It’s nothing to worry about, we deal with these things every day for a living.” He let himself relax, slipping into the ease with which he spoke to his superiors when he needed extensions. “Why don’t you go to the hotel for a short rest while the sun’s high up, and I’ll nip down to the office and see what I can dig up about it?”
Blood… water turning into blood… it sounded familiar, somehow, but he couldn’t figure out where from. There were too many sources to look up.
“All right, children, up up,” Molly said, a small frown on her face.
“We haven’t eaten yet,” Fred pointed out, but Molly stressed, “up!” again in the tone Weasley men had learned never to object to.
The entire family rose, Bill already frantically going over his office mentally, deciding to start with the texts he kept locked behind the Queen of Sheba portrait, then move up to the Muggle ones that were saved on his PC. As they were leaving, he heard Ginny squeal, “look, there’s a frog!”
That’s when it clicked into place.
Blood. Frogs. Two of the ten plagues that fell on Egypt more than three thousand years ago, according to Muggle lore. He wracked his brain, trying to recall what the rest of them were - lice, hail, darkness, certainly… something with beasts… nothing too dangerous, then, he thought with relief, his family should be able to wait them out if they just stayed in the hotel - over in no time, if the curse kept progressing so fast -
Suddenly Bill fell against a wooden pole that supported a small shack, gripping it to hold himself up, as he remembered what the last Egyptian plague was.
Right, then.
*
Two men find out they’re fatally sick and have merely twenty-four hours left to live. One man spends them looking for a cure; the other decides to have one last, perfect day on Earth.
Which of those men am I? thought Bill. Now’s the time to find out.
Only if he thought about it too long, he’d become the third man, who’d spent his last day on Earth Thinking Very Hard about what he wanted to do with it.
Three frogs croaked loudly at Bill and started to hop around him in a circle. Sod perfect, he decided, stomping on one of them defiantly, ignoring its unpleasant dying squelch. He like the way he lived his life anyway- there was nothing he could do right now to make it exceptionally better that any other day, apart from making sure he was bloody well still alive at the end of it.
Energized with fresh determination, Bill apparated to his office and immediately went to his bookshelf, pulling out a copy of the Old Testament. “Tibs!” he called out. “You here?”
Tabia Al-Misri, a beautiful dark-skinned woman his age who long ago abandoned traditional robes for the sake of leg-exposing khaki shorts (which he never noticed, of course, because partners didn’t look at each other that way), poked her head through the door. “What’s up?”
Flipping through the pages, he motioned for her to come nearer and look with him. “I appear to be caught in a predicament.”
“A predicament? Nothing you haven’t gotten yourself into before, then.” She quirked an amused grin. “What is it this time? Should I be worried about being violated by a donkey?”
“I’m going to die in a few hours,” he said distractedly.
Tabia sobered up. “Well, that’s a mood killer.” She leaned in, reading the passage he had found over his shoulder. “Any particular reason we’re reading Exodus? You know it’s not very accurate, what with the Theology and all.”
Bill explained as quickly as he could about the sphinx in the pyramid and his conclusions. “It all adds up,” he said, scratching his head. “We just need to figure out a way to break the curse before I start panicking over the fact that I have no legal will.”
“On the bright side, you have no possessions either.”
“That is not help, Tibs, that is sadism.”
Tabia grinned and conjured up a hairnet. “Don’t worry. We’ve never failed yet, have we? Take this.”
Bill eyed the frilly thing suspiciously. “I don’t think this is the kind of curse that can be scared away with bad fashion. Not everything can be as simple as the Cleopatra ordeal.”
She rolled her eyes, pointed at what he was doing, and took a polite step backward.
“Oh, crap,” he said, realizing that he was scratching his head again. He transfigured the hairnet into a slightly cooler looking bandana and wrapped it tightly around his head. “That’s three now. We should start with the tomb.”
“Actually,” Tabia mused, eying Bill speculatively, “I have a contact that might suit this occasion… perfectly.”
*
Elijah was an elderly man with a wrinkled face who was garbed entirely in black, wearing black sunglasses, a wide-brimmed black hat, and dyed black leather sandals, sitting cross-legged on the sandy market ground in front of a backgammon board.
“He doesn’t look like a Seer,” Bill whispered warily, trying not to be heard by the man.
Elijah snorted. “Well, Jonah was a wooden puppet whose nose grew when he lied, and Jeremiah was a bullfrog. Don’t rely on what you see, kid. And it’s Prophet, not Seer. Sit down.” He rapped on the ground in front of him with a staff. “How’ve you been, Tabia? I hope you didn’t bring me a skeptic.”
Tabia sat down gracefully, and beckoned Bill to join her. “He’s not a skeptic,” she assured, elbow jabbing Bill painfully in the ribs when he made a face. “We’re here because we need your help.”
“’Course you are, you don’t call on a blind old man for a game of shesh-besh or a roll in the sand. Not unless your boy here’s leaving you unsatisfied.” He smirked at Bill’s general direction, but Tabia quickly put a restraining hand on his arm, murmuring, “we don’t have time, let’s make this fast.”
To Elijah, she quickly outlined the curse. By the time she was done, Bill had stunned four escaped tiger cubs that had suddenly appeared from nowhere, it seemed, prowling unobserved around the market stands in an attempt to reach him. “Is there anything you can tell us?” she finally asked Elijah.
Elijah seemed wholly unconcerned. “Interesting. Lemme see…” His hand suddenly shot forward and he grabbed Bill’s arm, pushing two dice into his palm. “Roll these, would you?”
Bill hated Divination - no good had ever come out of it in Hogwarts except for a convenient noon siesta, and no good had come out of it after Hogwarts except for the happy knowledge that he’d left it all behind. Still, Tabia trusted the man. Bill found himself pressing them briefly to his lips and then rolling the dice.
“Well? What is it?”
“Two ones,” Bill replied, apprehension quite a strange new feeling when it chewed on his intestines.
“Damn!” Elijah yelled. “I knew it!”
“Knew what?” Tabia leaned closer.
“These dice! They’re rigged! Damn Moroccan merchants and their cheap bargains!”
Bill stood up aggressively. “All right, Tibs, we’re wasting our time here-”
Elijah’s staff swept into contact with his legs, abruptly knocking him to the ground. “Calm down, calm down,” he grouched irritably. “You’re a redhead, aren’t you? Can tell without seeing, you’re all the same. Look, nothing’s going to happen to you.”
For a second, Bill forgot about the madness and allowed himself some hope. “Really? The curse isn’t designed to run its full course?”
Elijah shook his head fiercely. “No, it is, it is. But you’ll do something to prevent it.”
“What?”
“Do I look like the Encyclopedia Galactica to you?”
Bill frowned, this time in honest bewilderment. “What?”
“I don’t know everything, kid. You’ll have to figure out the way, all I know is that you will.”
“But how will I-”
“You’re gonna waste time now arguing with me while your curse-clock is ticking? Seriously?”
“Thanks, Eli,” Tabia said forcefully, long legs unfolding as she rose and pulled Bill up after her. “I owe you one.”
Bill could have sworn he saw Elijah wink behind his sunglasses. The old man chuckled, “you always do,” and rolled his dice as Tabia dragged Bill away.
“Well, there you have it!” she smiled brightly when they were a way off. “Nothing to worry about, you’re going to make it.”
Bill stared at her, astounded. “You actually trust that man?”
“With my eyes closed. He has a knack for this. It’s not only favors I owe him, if you know what I mean.” Her eyes widened as she realized what that sounded like. “Money. I meant I’d lost him money, playing ExSnap. Which reminds me, now that we know you’re not snuffing it, I still expect that lunch you owe me by the end of the week. Cheers,” she grinned, and twirled as if she were about to leave.
“Wait!” Bill grabbed her hand. “You’re not helping me break this?”
She shrugged, and gently but pointedly freed her arm from his. “I’ve got work and plans today. But I trust you, partner. Remember lunch, right?” And with a cheerful wave, she Disapparated.
Thus, abandoned in the marketplace, Bill acknowledged there was one stop he had to make before resuming his search for whatever broke the damn curse, on the not-so-improbable chance that he would fail.
To compose himself, he thought of earrings, tattoos, motorbikes and sex. Once Bill was certain he felt a small but confident smile play on his lips, he went off to meet his family.
*
“So remember then, after the darkness lifts, it’ll all be over, and you can get out of the room again.” The confident smile felt more and more strained by the minute, but he struggled to maintain it as long as he could. His family had gathered in the living room of their four-room suite, compliments of the Ministry, to hear Bill speak, and did so with surprising rapture. He found himself thinking this might be what Dumbledore felt like when he spoke at the end of each year, if to an audience slightly less rattling than that of an all-redhead gang. “Meanwhile,” Bill continued, “I’m going to be off helping Tibs in a very dangerous, completely unrelated ritual, so I just want to know you’ll be careful, all right?”
“Of course we will, dear,” Molly assured him, flicking her wand and muttering a spell that made ropes shoot out from behind the couch and trap Fred and George in their seats.
Then, to their palpable bafflement, Bill went around the room and hugged his father, clapped a hand across his brothers’ shoulders in a decidedly manly fashion, and kissed his mother and Ginny on their cheeks, murmuring a parting word or two to each.
Finally, he gave them all a halting little wave, and swallowed. “See you later, then.”
“Famous last words,” Arthur joked, to Molly’s superstitious horror.
In fact, Bill and Tabia had once amused themselves by drawing up a list of witticisms to be used their own famous last words, but after using them all up in various life-threatening situations and discovering that they were always inevitably followed up with something along, “oh, crap, WATCH OUT!”, they’d decided that REAL famous last words were perhaps meant to be spur-of-the-moment inspirations. The rest were a waste of good puns, and it was much more practical to say something like “see you, then” and just hope like hell you live.
There was, of course, no time to tell his father any of this. With a last cool flick of his ponytail, he Disapparated.
A moment later, he popped back in. “Just one more thing. I think it would be better if you didn’t eat any, er, bread for the next couple of hours. Or pastas and suchlike. Leavened foodstuff of any sort. Right-o.”
And then, with a crack--
*
The damp, suffocating heat of the pyramid made Bill feel as if someone had shoved his head inside a honeycomb and then set it on fire. After nearly two hours of trying every hex, spell, counter-curse, incantation, and prayer he could ever recall learning, he collapsed tiredly against a slanted wall. The sandy rocks helped little to cool his sweating body, but at least the disgusting blisters that had popped up earlier were starting to wear off, and his skin was returning to its normal, smooth bronze tan.
Though it felt absurdly vain to care about such epidermal matters now, it was nevertheless a shallowly satisfying to know that at least the shell he left behind wouldn’t be unpleasant to look at.
For that was the gist of it, in spite of all of his efforts: Hopeless, with an upper case ‘H’. He had an hour, possibly less, to live. And what a sad state he was in, that he was spending his last glorious minutes in this small oven of a chamber, feeling sorry for himself.
At least his family wouldn’t know- yes, he had that, small comfort as it was. They’d believe he was killed working on some unrelated curse, a falsehood he’d particularly taken care to mention. He was damned if George would ever have to live with the burden of knowing what had really caused Bill’s death.
Now would be the time for those famous last words, then.
“I think I could use a drink,” he said aloud.
Well. It would have to do.
Bill took his wand, which he had absently twisted in his hair to keep it out of his face while he was resting, and conjured a big bottle of Arak, the strong liquor that constituted the ancient Arabians’ most noble contribution of them all to modern culture - alcohol. He broke it open with his teeth, though there was no one around to be impressed, and took a long swig, which made his eyes water.
And suddenly he heard the frantic muttering of a hysterical voice, coming nearer and nearer.
“Oh, merde, merde, merde, merde, merde-”
A willowy, white haired manifestation of speed crashed into Bill from the corridor, spilling the Arak all over the place.
“La porte!” she screamed. “Fermez la porte! Sauterelles! Ils sont après moi!”
Though she had knocked the breath out of him, Bill managed to point his wand and gasp, “obstruo!” and a great flat stone timely rolled in front of the doorway, blocking it completely, just as the buzzing of what sounded like a great swarm of locusts became alarmingly loud.
“Oh, mon Dieu,” the girl moaned softly.
“Are you okay?” Bill asked gently, untangling his limbs from hers so he could lift himself to a sitting position. Her limbs were very soft.
“Tu n’es parle pas francais?” She looked disappointed. “My Eenglish iz not very good. I am learning.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He couldn’t help smiling. Now that he could see her clearly, he found himself breathless again, this time without the excuse of being pummeled into headfirst. The girl was exquisitely beautiful, from her delicate, fair-skinned face, to the soft, wispy silver hair that practically begged to have fingers buried in it, the slender shoulders, the round breasts hugged by loose cloth, the narrow waist-
Bill forced himself to look away. He was about to die - this wasn’t the time for lustful thoughts about a pretty tourist who stumbled upon him under such unfortunate circumstances.
He sighed. “You should get back to your family. It’s not very safe here.”
“If you ‘ave not noticed, zere iz a big puff of bugs outside. I do not need zem in my ‘air.”
“Fine. Once they’re gone, leave,” he said curtly, hoping that the less he spoke, the less she would hear his voice shaking. God, she was beautiful.
Like a moving picture, her brows smoothly rearranged themselves from a frown of annoyance to an expression of curiosity. “You are trying to get reed of me?”
He edged away. “No, no. Just keeping you safe.”
“I am sure I am safe weez you…” One of her hands mysteriously came to rest lightly on his arm. It burned. She leaned towards him, and her hair brushed his shoulder, tickled his neck, he could feel her breaths now, and oh, god, she had that damn flirtatious look her face that was too hard to ignore-
It was quite unfortunate that she chose that moment to scream, because her mouth was only centimeters away from his ear, and caused him to yelp far louder than he felt comfortable with. However, his attention quickly turned from bruised masculinity to the enormous stones of hail that had materialized all around them and were crashing about in a wet, windy storm.
“You must do sumsing!” she cried, unexpectedly throwing herself at him.
Bill pointed his wand at himself and muttered, “impervious,” first at himself and then at her, concentrating on their entire bodies and the hailstones, instead of just raindrops. The change commenced immediately, with the rain and hail bouncing away just before coming into contact with their skin or clothes, and Bill felt the girl relax, though she was still clinging to him tightly. And she was wet. And smelled slightly of Arak fumes. Oh, god…
“Why…” His voice was coarse. He cleared his throat. “Why didn’t you use your wand?”
A pink blush crept onto her perfect cheeks. “I weel be seventeen in a few mont’s.”
He closed his eyes and swallowed. She wasn’t even of age. He should just stand up, get her out of here like a responsible adult, resist the soft curves that were pressing against his chest and his calves, definitely ignore the hot lips that were working their way across his collarbone, and…
And sod it, if he was going to go down, he would at least do it with a bang, pun not intended but what the heck, if it was there.
Suddenly pushing forward, Bill fiercely caught the girl’s lips with his, and lifted one hand to the back of her head, which was still dripping, causing her to let out a small sound of surprise. But once he had given in, she returned his passion just as aggressively, running her hands all over his chest, his arms, his hair, whispering words in French, and a small twinkle of laughter, “ze atmosphere ‘ere, it is more romantique zen I imagined…”
Between hungry kisses, he managed to rumble, “it’s only going to get better,” and with impeccable timing, they were surrounded by pitch black darkness.
There was no more talking after that, no sounds at all, in fact, except for the faint dripping from the ceiling and harsh panting that echoed through Bill’s head. He glided one hand underneath the girl’s loose blouse, feeling the outline of her bra, which elicited a delighted giggle followed by her hands grazing his as she removed the shirt, tossed it somewhere, and --
--and the lights came back on.
Bill jumped back with a startled cry, which sounded roughly like: “whaagh?”
The girl’s brows furrowed into a delicate frown. “I am not ‘orrible to look at, non?”
“No-- I-- something happened just now, I can’t explain it all-- did you do something?”
“I sought it was o’vious, and not just me.”
“No, I mean-- here, take your shirt--” he lifted the piece of clothing that lay across the small statuettes that stood in front of the miniature pyramid.
Bill’s heart thudded, repeating an internal mantra, I’m not going to die, I’m not going to die, I’m not going to die…
The girl accepted the proffered blouse with affront, and somewhat defiantly didn’t turn her back as she pulled it on. “Zat iz it? You would razer stay ‘ere wiz ze ugly ‘ouse Elves?”
“I’m very sorry, frankly, I’m flummoxed myself, I’m--” he looked at her sharply. “What did you say these are?”
She looked at the small statuettes with disdain. “Zese ‘ouse Elves? Zey are Egyptian, you do not see?”
He breathed in. “How do you know that?”
“I am a natural Alvenmouse,” she huffed. “We speak ze language of all elvish beings.”
“Yes…” Bill murmured, bending down on all fours to get a close look at the statues. Was it his imagination, or had the tiny etched lines that indicated stone clothing on the miniatures not been there before…? “Can you translate this script, then?” Fascinating, a curse seemingly set by ancient House Elves and broken once they received clothes…
“Of course,” she said, insulted, peered closer, and then, to Bill’s dismay, stood up and started walking away. “It iz interesting. I sink I would like you to remain curious.”
“No! Wait!” Bill ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I’m really sorry about all this, but it’s really best we didn’t, you know… maybe if you were older--if you ever return to Egypt, remember me, all right? Just, please, I really need to know what’s written there.”
The dazzling veil of bright hair swept over her shoulder as she spun around majestically. She leaned against the wall by the stone that blocked the doorway, giving Bill a pointed look, and, reluctantly, he opened it. “Merci,” she murmured politely, and made her exit, sandal heels clicking evenly on the stony passage floor.
Well.
On the bright side, Bill supposed, he was alive. He had some unconfirmed suspicions as to why, but if ancient Egyptian House Elves didn’t kill him, curiosity wouldn’t either.
Bill returned to his family, who were waiting expectantly in the hotel room and complaining that would he please stop constantly brushing them off to have torrid trysts with that bronze goddess partner of his whom he had around all year long, unlike his dear parents, siblings and horrid monster twins of doom, who were only visiting for a short time and were in vital need of his brotherly influence and tour guiding skills.
*
Three years later, Bill reminded Fleur that she never did tell him what was written inside that pyramid. She pointed out that he had been very rude and probably didn’t deserve the answer at all, but by then he was already well-versed in all the ways of persuading her in existence. “I sink you ‘ave already figured it out, but I will ‘umor you out of ze charity of my ‘eart,” she finally replied indulgently, with a toss of her hair: “Thus saye’s ze board:
“‘Let My People Go’.”
~*~
Feedback is treasured.
A/N: Huh, I really wasn't expecting that Bill/Fleur thing. I didn't even know she was going to show up, but there you have it (by the way, she's 16 here, and he's 22.) Tabia means talented. The French is pretty self-explanatory, but sauterelles is locusts.
And right here is an illustration of Bill in Egypt by fiendling which was by no means done for me or this story, but is darn cool, and therefore must be linked to. Here's another one, by nutnatz.
Story: "Family Plagues"
Words: 5000
Rating: PG-13 (language, mostly)
Characters: Bill Weasley & bros, some Bill/Fleur
Timeline: During the Weasley family's trip to Egypt in PoA.
Summary: When inside an ancient pyramid prone to curses being triggered, never let a Weasley twin out of immediate grabbing distance. Response to ten plague challenge
Family Plagues
Bill Weasley loved his family dearly. However, even as they loved him back with a ferociousness that really was very touching, what they didn’t seem to realize was that between ‘love’ and ‘trust inside a four thousand year old Egyptian tomb’ existed a gap as wide as the Nile.
After three years away from home (in which he’d finally discovered the significant imprint his large family had left on him - he had trouble eating meals with less than four other people in the room, otherwise he felt horribly alone), he’d been nothing less than thrilled when his father owled him the news of their impending visit. Bill had dusted his small apartment, a Sisyphean chore he usually avoided with a passion reserved for curse-breaking and women. He’d lined the front of his closet with old Christmas jumpers because he knew his mother would look, even if he only ever used them as curtains, here in the near-desert. He’d gotten a second earring for the sake of the boys. He’d even - though he would never admit to anything so terribly organized - planned a general itinerary for their stay.
But time and distance, it seemed, had dulled his memories into a watery, pastel-colored stew of fond images mingling together in the murky cauldron of recollection. Consequently, he was utterly unprepared for Ginny’s demanding energy, his parents’ overbearing enthusiasm, and the twins being such a pair of horrid little monsters.
“Don’t - touch - that,” he repeated for what felt like the hundredth time, but was probably only about the ninetieth. Bill turned to his father desperately. “I want to show Charlie the inner chamber, but I can’t take anyone else - it’s got some curses we haven’t countered yet that are too dangerous to risk.” He lowered his voice in case his mother heard the word ‘danger’ and decided to inadvertently wake Mentuhotep from his slumber.
“Don’t worry, son,” Arthur replied confidently, nose pressed to a hieroglyph-covered column with fascination. “We’ll keep the little ones in check.”
“Oi! Who’re you calling little!” came Ron’s affronted voice, just beginning to change.
“You, Wonniebun,” Fred said with glee.
Bill turned to him with a stern expression. “You will shortly become very little too, if you accidentally trigger one of the curses in here.” Ra help me, I sound like Mum.
Fred, Ron, and George’s eyes widened simultaneously. “Cool,” they whispered together.
Bill sighed. “Dad, Percy, please don’t let them touch anything. This pyramid is a celebration of booby-traps.” No, this pyramid was just a bloody mistake. “Coming, Char?”
Charlie, sporting a sympathetic smile, started to follow Bill into an ascending corridor, stopping to catch Arthur’s hand just before it contacted with a small sarcophagus by the entryway. “Bill?” he invited, making a small motion with his head.
Bill stared at his father with a pained expression. “Dad. Whoever opens that sarcophagus will be cursed-” he read the inscription, and blanched. “-really, really unpleasantly. For my sake, for Mum’s, please, don’t touch anything.” To Charlie, he urged, “come on, let’s make this quick.”
Charlie nodded, and turned to Ginny gravely. “Take care of them,” he whispered. “We’re counting on you.”
At her solemn nod, they departed down the corridor. “Unpleasant curse?” Charlie asked behind him.
“‘A donkey shall violate him, a donkey shall violate his wife’,” Bill quoted grimly.
“Gahmum! Dad! Why did you tell me that! You couldn’t have made something up?”
*
When they emerged from the same corridor a short while later, they were confronted with the sight of one anguished Weasley girl rounding up the remaining Weasley boys, who were all sporting slightly guilty expressions.
Doing a quick mental count, Bill’s breath caught. “Where’s George?”
Arthur cleared his throat. “Don’t worry Bill, he’s around here somewhere and he’s going to be severely punished.”
Bill felt his heart sink, as Ginny looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry! I wasn’t looking and he snuck away! And now we can’t find him anywhere and it’s all- my-”
“Shhh,” Charlie said, placing a strong, well-muscled arm around her shoulders. “We’re only blaming everyone over the age of thirteen.”
Bill was glad Charlie was taking the time to comfort Ginny because it was time he couldn’t spare - turning on his heels, he ran back down the corridor into the chamber he and Charlie had just visited. The scene he found inside was exactly as he dreaded - his younger brother, triumphant smirk adorning his face, doing the thing Bill hated most when he brought in visitors (which was generally why he didn’t): he was poking around.
“GEORGE WEASLEY!” he roared, advancing.
“I’m not G-”
“Don’t even try it!” Bill circled around the small pyramid that stood in the center of the room. “My brother, you don’t even want to imagine the kinds of torture I’m inventing for you right now. You had better pray nothing was triggered.”
George was slowly backing away to the door, looking only slightly less certain. “I didn’t touch anything. Almost.”
“Since some of the curses in here are so advanced we haven’t even begun to understand how to approach them, ‘almost’ isn’t the best thing you could have said just now!” Straining to collect himself, Bill took a deep breath. “Tell me just one thing: did you talk to the sphinx?”
For a second, George seemed to hesitate, looking at Bill with an expression that indicated he may have truly regretted disappointing his older brother. Then he bolted out the passageway from which they’d come.
Weasleys.
Knowing they were all safe - well, for the moment - well, relatively, anyway - Bill turned his full attention to the small statue of a sphinx that lay serenely at the foot of the pyramid, guarded by four stone sharp-angled creatures that looked a little bit like House Elves. Tentatively, he pulled out his wand and tried a few different revealing spells on the sphinx, but it gave no response. He considered encasing it in a temporary Untouchable charm, but decided against it - it was usually better not to mix this sort of old magic with new spells, especially if he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
“Right,” he said, partly to himself, and partly to the sphinx. “I just hope the little bastard really didn’t do anything. Um. If he did then- I beg pardon - er, verily - ” he tried. “O, Sphinxy One -” The sphinx was still. “Oh, bugger,” he sighed, starting to walk back to where the rest were waiting, because you never, ever apparated inside a pyramid (at least not after having studied the case of Jointless Ahmad Jackson, the great explorer who explored no more).
Ten minutes later, seven Weasleys trailed behind Arthur Weasley as he stepped outside, Bill having especially positioned himself last to prevent any stray sibling from sneaking around, above or beneath his radar. Molly was waiting for them on a bench outside a souvenir-shop-slash-restaurant, pretending to hold up a fan that, if one looked closely, was unobtrusively waving itself.
“Did you have a nice time?” She asked with a strained smile, obviously affected by the heat.
“It was brilliant!” Ron exclaimed, just as Percy said, “wonderfully educational.” Bill refrained from commenting, but couldn’t help feeling glad - even a bit proud - that they had, after all, enjoyed themselves.
“First, sit down - you too, Arthur,” Molly ordered. “I’ve already ordered drinks and I want everybody to finish their cups - no arguments - it’s a hot day and I’ll have no one faint and get hurt.” Her eyes clearly showed that what she’d meant to say was, and spoil my vacation.
“But Mum, I don’t like tomato juice,” Ginny complained.
“I didn’t order any - hmm, that’s odd.”
Bill looked at Ginny’s drink, at his own, at everyone but Molly’s, actually, and froze. Percy let out a startled yelp, accompanied by some of the others’ disgusted moans.
“George,” Bill said through gritted teeth. “Did the sphinx say anything to you?”
George mumbled something.
“What was that?”
“Din’ really understand him, it, er, wasn’t in English.”
“What did you do, George?” Molly asked menacingly, and in an instant her mood shifted to worry. “What’s wrong, Bill?”
“Nothing, Mum,” he said automatically. At everyone’s skeptic gazes, he forced a smile, knowing that he couldn’t bear letting a little mishap, or foolish screw-up, as it were, ruin one of the few real vacations his parents had ever managed to scrape off. “George may have set off a tiny ancient curse when he spoke to a sphinx. It’s nothing to worry about, we deal with these things every day for a living.” He let himself relax, slipping into the ease with which he spoke to his superiors when he needed extensions. “Why don’t you go to the hotel for a short rest while the sun’s high up, and I’ll nip down to the office and see what I can dig up about it?”
Blood… water turning into blood… it sounded familiar, somehow, but he couldn’t figure out where from. There were too many sources to look up.
“All right, children, up up,” Molly said, a small frown on her face.
“We haven’t eaten yet,” Fred pointed out, but Molly stressed, “up!” again in the tone Weasley men had learned never to object to.
The entire family rose, Bill already frantically going over his office mentally, deciding to start with the texts he kept locked behind the Queen of Sheba portrait, then move up to the Muggle ones that were saved on his PC. As they were leaving, he heard Ginny squeal, “look, there’s a frog!”
That’s when it clicked into place.
Blood. Frogs. Two of the ten plagues that fell on Egypt more than three thousand years ago, according to Muggle lore. He wracked his brain, trying to recall what the rest of them were - lice, hail, darkness, certainly… something with beasts… nothing too dangerous, then, he thought with relief, his family should be able to wait them out if they just stayed in the hotel - over in no time, if the curse kept progressing so fast -
Suddenly Bill fell against a wooden pole that supported a small shack, gripping it to hold himself up, as he remembered what the last Egyptian plague was.
Right, then.
*
Two men find out they’re fatally sick and have merely twenty-four hours left to live. One man spends them looking for a cure; the other decides to have one last, perfect day on Earth.
Which of those men am I? thought Bill. Now’s the time to find out.
Only if he thought about it too long, he’d become the third man, who’d spent his last day on Earth Thinking Very Hard about what he wanted to do with it.
Three frogs croaked loudly at Bill and started to hop around him in a circle. Sod perfect, he decided, stomping on one of them defiantly, ignoring its unpleasant dying squelch. He like the way he lived his life anyway- there was nothing he could do right now to make it exceptionally better that any other day, apart from making sure he was bloody well still alive at the end of it.
Energized with fresh determination, Bill apparated to his office and immediately went to his bookshelf, pulling out a copy of the Old Testament. “Tibs!” he called out. “You here?”
Tabia Al-Misri, a beautiful dark-skinned woman his age who long ago abandoned traditional robes for the sake of leg-exposing khaki shorts (which he never noticed, of course, because partners didn’t look at each other that way), poked her head through the door. “What’s up?”
Flipping through the pages, he motioned for her to come nearer and look with him. “I appear to be caught in a predicament.”
“A predicament? Nothing you haven’t gotten yourself into before, then.” She quirked an amused grin. “What is it this time? Should I be worried about being violated by a donkey?”
“I’m going to die in a few hours,” he said distractedly.
Tabia sobered up. “Well, that’s a mood killer.” She leaned in, reading the passage he had found over his shoulder. “Any particular reason we’re reading Exodus? You know it’s not very accurate, what with the Theology and all.”
Bill explained as quickly as he could about the sphinx in the pyramid and his conclusions. “It all adds up,” he said, scratching his head. “We just need to figure out a way to break the curse before I start panicking over the fact that I have no legal will.”
“On the bright side, you have no possessions either.”
“That is not help, Tibs, that is sadism.”
Tabia grinned and conjured up a hairnet. “Don’t worry. We’ve never failed yet, have we? Take this.”
Bill eyed the frilly thing suspiciously. “I don’t think this is the kind of curse that can be scared away with bad fashion. Not everything can be as simple as the Cleopatra ordeal.”
She rolled her eyes, pointed at what he was doing, and took a polite step backward.
“Oh, crap,” he said, realizing that he was scratching his head again. He transfigured the hairnet into a slightly cooler looking bandana and wrapped it tightly around his head. “That’s three now. We should start with the tomb.”
“Actually,” Tabia mused, eying Bill speculatively, “I have a contact that might suit this occasion… perfectly.”
*
Elijah was an elderly man with a wrinkled face who was garbed entirely in black, wearing black sunglasses, a wide-brimmed black hat, and dyed black leather sandals, sitting cross-legged on the sandy market ground in front of a backgammon board.
“He doesn’t look like a Seer,” Bill whispered warily, trying not to be heard by the man.
Elijah snorted. “Well, Jonah was a wooden puppet whose nose grew when he lied, and Jeremiah was a bullfrog. Don’t rely on what you see, kid. And it’s Prophet, not Seer. Sit down.” He rapped on the ground in front of him with a staff. “How’ve you been, Tabia? I hope you didn’t bring me a skeptic.”
Tabia sat down gracefully, and beckoned Bill to join her. “He’s not a skeptic,” she assured, elbow jabbing Bill painfully in the ribs when he made a face. “We’re here because we need your help.”
“’Course you are, you don’t call on a blind old man for a game of shesh-besh or a roll in the sand. Not unless your boy here’s leaving you unsatisfied.” He smirked at Bill’s general direction, but Tabia quickly put a restraining hand on his arm, murmuring, “we don’t have time, let’s make this fast.”
To Elijah, she quickly outlined the curse. By the time she was done, Bill had stunned four escaped tiger cubs that had suddenly appeared from nowhere, it seemed, prowling unobserved around the market stands in an attempt to reach him. “Is there anything you can tell us?” she finally asked Elijah.
Elijah seemed wholly unconcerned. “Interesting. Lemme see…” His hand suddenly shot forward and he grabbed Bill’s arm, pushing two dice into his palm. “Roll these, would you?”
Bill hated Divination - no good had ever come out of it in Hogwarts except for a convenient noon siesta, and no good had come out of it after Hogwarts except for the happy knowledge that he’d left it all behind. Still, Tabia trusted the man. Bill found himself pressing them briefly to his lips and then rolling the dice.
“Well? What is it?”
“Two ones,” Bill replied, apprehension quite a strange new feeling when it chewed on his intestines.
“Damn!” Elijah yelled. “I knew it!”
“Knew what?” Tabia leaned closer.
“These dice! They’re rigged! Damn Moroccan merchants and their cheap bargains!”
Bill stood up aggressively. “All right, Tibs, we’re wasting our time here-”
Elijah’s staff swept into contact with his legs, abruptly knocking him to the ground. “Calm down, calm down,” he grouched irritably. “You’re a redhead, aren’t you? Can tell without seeing, you’re all the same. Look, nothing’s going to happen to you.”
For a second, Bill forgot about the madness and allowed himself some hope. “Really? The curse isn’t designed to run its full course?”
Elijah shook his head fiercely. “No, it is, it is. But you’ll do something to prevent it.”
“What?”
“Do I look like the Encyclopedia Galactica to you?”
Bill frowned, this time in honest bewilderment. “What?”
“I don’t know everything, kid. You’ll have to figure out the way, all I know is that you will.”
“But how will I-”
“You’re gonna waste time now arguing with me while your curse-clock is ticking? Seriously?”
“Thanks, Eli,” Tabia said forcefully, long legs unfolding as she rose and pulled Bill up after her. “I owe you one.”
Bill could have sworn he saw Elijah wink behind his sunglasses. The old man chuckled, “you always do,” and rolled his dice as Tabia dragged Bill away.
“Well, there you have it!” she smiled brightly when they were a way off. “Nothing to worry about, you’re going to make it.”
Bill stared at her, astounded. “You actually trust that man?”
“With my eyes closed. He has a knack for this. It’s not only favors I owe him, if you know what I mean.” Her eyes widened as she realized what that sounded like. “Money. I meant I’d lost him money, playing ExSnap. Which reminds me, now that we know you’re not snuffing it, I still expect that lunch you owe me by the end of the week. Cheers,” she grinned, and twirled as if she were about to leave.
“Wait!” Bill grabbed her hand. “You’re not helping me break this?”
She shrugged, and gently but pointedly freed her arm from his. “I’ve got work and plans today. But I trust you, partner. Remember lunch, right?” And with a cheerful wave, she Disapparated.
Thus, abandoned in the marketplace, Bill acknowledged there was one stop he had to make before resuming his search for whatever broke the damn curse, on the not-so-improbable chance that he would fail.
To compose himself, he thought of earrings, tattoos, motorbikes and sex. Once Bill was certain he felt a small but confident smile play on his lips, he went off to meet his family.
*
“So remember then, after the darkness lifts, it’ll all be over, and you can get out of the room again.” The confident smile felt more and more strained by the minute, but he struggled to maintain it as long as he could. His family had gathered in the living room of their four-room suite, compliments of the Ministry, to hear Bill speak, and did so with surprising rapture. He found himself thinking this might be what Dumbledore felt like when he spoke at the end of each year, if to an audience slightly less rattling than that of an all-redhead gang. “Meanwhile,” Bill continued, “I’m going to be off helping Tibs in a very dangerous, completely unrelated ritual, so I just want to know you’ll be careful, all right?”
“Of course we will, dear,” Molly assured him, flicking her wand and muttering a spell that made ropes shoot out from behind the couch and trap Fred and George in their seats.
Then, to their palpable bafflement, Bill went around the room and hugged his father, clapped a hand across his brothers’ shoulders in a decidedly manly fashion, and kissed his mother and Ginny on their cheeks, murmuring a parting word or two to each.
Finally, he gave them all a halting little wave, and swallowed. “See you later, then.”
“Famous last words,” Arthur joked, to Molly’s superstitious horror.
In fact, Bill and Tabia had once amused themselves by drawing up a list of witticisms to be used their own famous last words, but after using them all up in various life-threatening situations and discovering that they were always inevitably followed up with something along, “oh, crap, WATCH OUT!”, they’d decided that REAL famous last words were perhaps meant to be spur-of-the-moment inspirations. The rest were a waste of good puns, and it was much more practical to say something like “see you, then” and just hope like hell you live.
There was, of course, no time to tell his father any of this. With a last cool flick of his ponytail, he Disapparated.
A moment later, he popped back in. “Just one more thing. I think it would be better if you didn’t eat any, er, bread for the next couple of hours. Or pastas and suchlike. Leavened foodstuff of any sort. Right-o.”
And then, with a crack--
*
The damp, suffocating heat of the pyramid made Bill feel as if someone had shoved his head inside a honeycomb and then set it on fire. After nearly two hours of trying every hex, spell, counter-curse, incantation, and prayer he could ever recall learning, he collapsed tiredly against a slanted wall. The sandy rocks helped little to cool his sweating body, but at least the disgusting blisters that had popped up earlier were starting to wear off, and his skin was returning to its normal, smooth bronze tan.
Though it felt absurdly vain to care about such epidermal matters now, it was nevertheless a shallowly satisfying to know that at least the shell he left behind wouldn’t be unpleasant to look at.
For that was the gist of it, in spite of all of his efforts: Hopeless, with an upper case ‘H’. He had an hour, possibly less, to live. And what a sad state he was in, that he was spending his last glorious minutes in this small oven of a chamber, feeling sorry for himself.
At least his family wouldn’t know- yes, he had that, small comfort as it was. They’d believe he was killed working on some unrelated curse, a falsehood he’d particularly taken care to mention. He was damned if George would ever have to live with the burden of knowing what had really caused Bill’s death.
Now would be the time for those famous last words, then.
“I think I could use a drink,” he said aloud.
Well. It would have to do.
Bill took his wand, which he had absently twisted in his hair to keep it out of his face while he was resting, and conjured a big bottle of Arak, the strong liquor that constituted the ancient Arabians’ most noble contribution of them all to modern culture - alcohol. He broke it open with his teeth, though there was no one around to be impressed, and took a long swig, which made his eyes water.
And suddenly he heard the frantic muttering of a hysterical voice, coming nearer and nearer.
“Oh, merde, merde, merde, merde, merde-”
A willowy, white haired manifestation of speed crashed into Bill from the corridor, spilling the Arak all over the place.
“La porte!” she screamed. “Fermez la porte! Sauterelles! Ils sont après moi!”
Though she had knocked the breath out of him, Bill managed to point his wand and gasp, “obstruo!” and a great flat stone timely rolled in front of the doorway, blocking it completely, just as the buzzing of what sounded like a great swarm of locusts became alarmingly loud.
“Oh, mon Dieu,” the girl moaned softly.
“Are you okay?” Bill asked gently, untangling his limbs from hers so he could lift himself to a sitting position. Her limbs were very soft.
“Tu n’es parle pas francais?” She looked disappointed. “My Eenglish iz not very good. I am learning.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He couldn’t help smiling. Now that he could see her clearly, he found himself breathless again, this time without the excuse of being pummeled into headfirst. The girl was exquisitely beautiful, from her delicate, fair-skinned face, to the soft, wispy silver hair that practically begged to have fingers buried in it, the slender shoulders, the round breasts hugged by loose cloth, the narrow waist-
Bill forced himself to look away. He was about to die - this wasn’t the time for lustful thoughts about a pretty tourist who stumbled upon him under such unfortunate circumstances.
He sighed. “You should get back to your family. It’s not very safe here.”
“If you ‘ave not noticed, zere iz a big puff of bugs outside. I do not need zem in my ‘air.”
“Fine. Once they’re gone, leave,” he said curtly, hoping that the less he spoke, the less she would hear his voice shaking. God, she was beautiful.
Like a moving picture, her brows smoothly rearranged themselves from a frown of annoyance to an expression of curiosity. “You are trying to get reed of me?”
He edged away. “No, no. Just keeping you safe.”
“I am sure I am safe weez you…” One of her hands mysteriously came to rest lightly on his arm. It burned. She leaned towards him, and her hair brushed his shoulder, tickled his neck, he could feel her breaths now, and oh, god, she had that damn flirtatious look her face that was too hard to ignore-
It was quite unfortunate that she chose that moment to scream, because her mouth was only centimeters away from his ear, and caused him to yelp far louder than he felt comfortable with. However, his attention quickly turned from bruised masculinity to the enormous stones of hail that had materialized all around them and were crashing about in a wet, windy storm.
“You must do sumsing!” she cried, unexpectedly throwing herself at him.
Bill pointed his wand at himself and muttered, “impervious,” first at himself and then at her, concentrating on their entire bodies and the hailstones, instead of just raindrops. The change commenced immediately, with the rain and hail bouncing away just before coming into contact with their skin or clothes, and Bill felt the girl relax, though she was still clinging to him tightly. And she was wet. And smelled slightly of Arak fumes. Oh, god…
“Why…” His voice was coarse. He cleared his throat. “Why didn’t you use your wand?”
A pink blush crept onto her perfect cheeks. “I weel be seventeen in a few mont’s.”
He closed his eyes and swallowed. She wasn’t even of age. He should just stand up, get her out of here like a responsible adult, resist the soft curves that were pressing against his chest and his calves, definitely ignore the hot lips that were working their way across his collarbone, and…
And sod it, if he was going to go down, he would at least do it with a bang, pun not intended but what the heck, if it was there.
Suddenly pushing forward, Bill fiercely caught the girl’s lips with his, and lifted one hand to the back of her head, which was still dripping, causing her to let out a small sound of surprise. But once he had given in, she returned his passion just as aggressively, running her hands all over his chest, his arms, his hair, whispering words in French, and a small twinkle of laughter, “ze atmosphere ‘ere, it is more romantique zen I imagined…”
Between hungry kisses, he managed to rumble, “it’s only going to get better,” and with impeccable timing, they were surrounded by pitch black darkness.
There was no more talking after that, no sounds at all, in fact, except for the faint dripping from the ceiling and harsh panting that echoed through Bill’s head. He glided one hand underneath the girl’s loose blouse, feeling the outline of her bra, which elicited a delighted giggle followed by her hands grazing his as she removed the shirt, tossed it somewhere, and --
--and the lights came back on.
Bill jumped back with a startled cry, which sounded roughly like: “whaagh?”
The girl’s brows furrowed into a delicate frown. “I am not ‘orrible to look at, non?”
“No-- I-- something happened just now, I can’t explain it all-- did you do something?”
“I sought it was o’vious, and not just me.”
“No, I mean-- here, take your shirt--” he lifted the piece of clothing that lay across the small statuettes that stood in front of the miniature pyramid.
Bill’s heart thudded, repeating an internal mantra, I’m not going to die, I’m not going to die, I’m not going to die…
The girl accepted the proffered blouse with affront, and somewhat defiantly didn’t turn her back as she pulled it on. “Zat iz it? You would razer stay ‘ere wiz ze ugly ‘ouse Elves?”
“I’m very sorry, frankly, I’m flummoxed myself, I’m--” he looked at her sharply. “What did you say these are?”
She looked at the small statuettes with disdain. “Zese ‘ouse Elves? Zey are Egyptian, you do not see?”
He breathed in. “How do you know that?”
“I am a natural Alvenmouse,” she huffed. “We speak ze language of all elvish beings.”
“Yes…” Bill murmured, bending down on all fours to get a close look at the statues. Was it his imagination, or had the tiny etched lines that indicated stone clothing on the miniatures not been there before…? “Can you translate this script, then?” Fascinating, a curse seemingly set by ancient House Elves and broken once they received clothes…
“Of course,” she said, insulted, peered closer, and then, to Bill’s dismay, stood up and started walking away. “It iz interesting. I sink I would like you to remain curious.”
“No! Wait!” Bill ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I’m really sorry about all this, but it’s really best we didn’t, you know… maybe if you were older--if you ever return to Egypt, remember me, all right? Just, please, I really need to know what’s written there.”
The dazzling veil of bright hair swept over her shoulder as she spun around majestically. She leaned against the wall by the stone that blocked the doorway, giving Bill a pointed look, and, reluctantly, he opened it. “Merci,” she murmured politely, and made her exit, sandal heels clicking evenly on the stony passage floor.
Well.
On the bright side, Bill supposed, he was alive. He had some unconfirmed suspicions as to why, but if ancient Egyptian House Elves didn’t kill him, curiosity wouldn’t either.
Bill returned to his family, who were waiting expectantly in the hotel room and complaining that would he please stop constantly brushing them off to have torrid trysts with that bronze goddess partner of his whom he had around all year long, unlike his dear parents, siblings and horrid monster twins of doom, who were only visiting for a short time and were in vital need of his brotherly influence and tour guiding skills.
*
Three years later, Bill reminded Fleur that she never did tell him what was written inside that pyramid. She pointed out that he had been very rude and probably didn’t deserve the answer at all, but by then he was already well-versed in all the ways of persuading her in existence. “I sink you ‘ave already figured it out, but I will ‘umor you out of ze charity of my ‘eart,” she finally replied indulgently, with a toss of her hair: “Thus saye’s ze board:
“‘Let My People Go’.”
~*~
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A/N: Huh, I really wasn't expecting that Bill/Fleur thing. I didn't even know she was going to show up, but there you have it (by the way, she's 16 here, and he's 22.) Tabia means talented. The French is pretty self-explanatory, but sauterelles is locusts.
And right here is an illustration of Bill in Egypt by fiendling which was by no means done for me or this story, but is darn cool, and therefore must be linked to. Here's another one, by nutnatz.