milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Head scarf tucked beneath his arm but still clad in his galabayya, Bill opens the door entirely absorbed in Al-Ahram Weekly. The letters on the newsprint would be unrecognisable to most, but he's worked in Luxor for a long time and knows the language almost too well. He doesn't really seem to register anyone at the bar or even the fact he's back at the bar: he's fixated on the paper. Stumbling into the nearest table, he curses beneath his breath but sits in the closest available chair, drawing out his wand.

He uses it as a pen; it highlights the article he's reading. He sets that paper aside and takes out another one: he's got a whole stack. Next up is Cairo Live, and after that it will be the Middle East Times. He'll finish with the Egypt Daily News and that will be enough. His face falls as he reads; he finds himself highlighting more and more news stories that by themselves might be entirely insignificant but when they're read as a series... they start to fall together like pieces of a puzzle.

Fuck. These are not random acts, he thinks. No: on 12 January in Siwa, a house was set afire and all the camels' throats slit. The family who owned the property were never found. A week later at the Dakhla Oasis near Mut, a woman was found dead but no cause of death could be established. On 3 February, three eleven-year-old children were found stoned to death on the banks of the Nile near Sohag. In mid-February a family disappeared from Mallawi and another from Minya. And on and on it went: in none of these cases was motive ever established, and no perpetrators were ever caught.

"Fuck!" Bill says it out loud this time, hand wrapping unhappily round the end of his wand. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck." He flags down a passing wait-rat. "Bring me a large glass of Ogden's. In fact, make it the whole bloody bottle. They're heading straight towards Cairo."

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Tom hasn't spoken with Bill for quite some time, and it's with some concern he walks over to his table.

"Hullo, Bill. Everything alright there?"

Glancing up, Bill shakes his head. "Here? Yes, things here appear to be in order but out there..."

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. "This feels too familiar, Tom. Look at this. Look." He hands the newspapers with their highlighted articles to Tom, the one about the murdered woman on top of the pile. "You tell me how she was murdered, if you can."

This has happened before and now it's happening again, and it smells just as rotten as it did the last time.

Tom does look, and frowns as a result. "I can hazard a guess - was she found near the wizarding area of the city?"

"There's no wizarding area near that oasis. It's in the midst of nowhere." He lets out a heavy sigh. "Women. They're killing women and children in Egypt." Bill looks at Tom sharply, and his next word comes as a demand: "Why?"

"How should I know?" he replies, an edge of annoyance in his voice. "I've been to Cairo once, and that was as a much younger man. Ten years ago, I think it was, and I didn't stay long."

Bill looks up a bit sheepishly. "I apologise. I didn't expect you to know. It's disturbing, though, and I don't like it, and it's been going on for months. It started out so subtly: one incident every six months, every three months. Nothing to notice; nobody who mattered. Muggles, mostly. With the occasional ripple through the wizarding world of someone who maybe knew something about somebody, but there's never been any evidence." Gesturing to the table as the rat comes back with the Ogden's, he invites Tom to sit. "I didn't mean to imply you knew why this was going on. I'm just distressed by it. Have a drink?"

He clenches his jaw once, but then relaxes, nods, and sits.

"Certainly. A scotch would be fine. Look, I know it's upsetting - it's alarming for me to hear of it, too. I just have been blamed for many things by the latest wave of newcomers from our world. Narcissa Malfoy, of all people, thinks I'm personally to blame for all her problems."

He sighs in exasperation and then looks at the paper again. "The incidents have been occurring for months? Hmm." He frowns again.

Summoning another glass from the bar, Bill fills it with Ogden's and hands it to Tom, then fills his own. "Look, Tom, I'm very sorry; I've not been here and I had no idea. You know I trust you."

Not that trusting him comes easy, but once Bill's given his trust, it's there for always. Or until it's proved useless, but he does trust Tom. "I've been watching this idly over time. It's just like it was before, only this time I'm paying attention. You see, the stakes are higher: I've got Fleur with me over there now and if anything happened to her because I was inattentive, I'd never be able to forgive myself. You understand, right?"

"Of course I do. I know just how you feel. Are you still taking the Daily Prophet? I haven't in nearly a year. With Nymphadora being home with the baby, I've not heard much at all about current events in England."

Tom sips the Ogden's, a taste of the world he's left behind but is haunted by no matter how he tries to distance himself.

Bill nods. "I read it when I can, not that I trust it for a moment. Also the Times and the Mirror and as many other London papers as I can get. And Fleur reads some French papers too." He gives a small helpless shrug. "And when I see patterns like this, I think who to notify about them, because it feels as if that's all I can do at the moment. But I'm a person of action, and it feels... awkward and restrictive not to be taking action."

He lets out a breath. "But how are you? How have you been? I'm sorry to be so preoccupied; I like my time here to be a bit more light-hearted than this... but it isn't."

"When you see patterns, Bill, I think it might be best to pay attention to them. I've noticed a few odd occurrences in the paper I do take - the New York Wizarding Times."

He frowns again, his eyes on the paper still. "I didn't think overly much about them - I've been busier in the last few wees than I have in a while. Door and I decided to take a leaf out of your book - we left on a whim to get married three weeks ago."

His goofy "just married" grin returns for a moment before fading somewhat.

Bill's smile is huge and genuine, and he reaches over to clap Tom on the shoulder. "Congratulations! Oh, goodness, congratulations. I'm very happy for you. Where did you go? Was it as spur-of-the-moment as ours? I..."

His eyes soften. "I'm so pleased for the both of you." Faced with that news, discussion of unsolved incidents in the wizarding world could simply wait. There was nothing he could do about them, anyway.

"It was. We'd planned on having a wedding - a ritual made us Lord and Lady, but we'd not had the celebration. Then one day, we decided to go to our cottage in Brittany and say our vows - the Underside is not big on officiants, you see."

He's still smiling, as much at the grin on Tom's face as at his story. "This is... fabulous. I count you as a friend, Tom, and I'm always glad when my friends are happy. And the ceremony was beautiful and perfect, I trust, and Lady Door is as happy as you are?"

"She is. It was her idea, as I was following her lead on the whole dress-party-wedding thing." He ducks his head slightly and takes another drink. "Thank you for your wishes, Bill. I trust you and Fleur are doing well?"

At the mention of Fleur, Bill's face softens measurably. "Yes, we're doing very well."

His fingers twist his wedding band once, twice, three times: all habit, all for good luck, pure pattern and instinct. "She's the absolute love of my life."

"We are lucky men. Incredibly lucky."

Tom truly feels this. Despite the insanity of the bar, the chaos of the Underside, the lingering troubles in the Wizarding world, to know love like he does... it's quite a thing.

A quick shadow crosses over Bill's face. "Wait... did you say something about happenings in wizarding New York?"

He hates to break the mood, but he needs to know what Tom knows. "If there's a similar pattern..."

The rest of that sentence will remain happily unspoken, at least for the moment. Both of them know exactly what that would indicate.

And there it is, the intrusion of reality.

"I did, actually. I can't say Ive noticed a rise in killings - New York City seems to be a rather violent place at the best of times - but there have been a rash of burglaries amongst the rare bookstores and specialized apothecaries. Also, a manticore and its spawn has gone missing from its wildlife refuge in some state that starts with a M - Minneasota, Missouri? The warding charms were altered, but it was never determined how."

He stops, thinking a moment. "Come to think of it, though, the murders I've seen reported lately have been amongst the population with Muggle connections."

His eyes meet Bill's. "It's spreading beyond England, isn't it?"

He could just weep. But he's Bill and he doesn't. Instead, he simply nods, then finishes his glass of Ogden's and pours another.

"It already has."

"I suppose it has."

He stares at the table.

"They tried to get into London Below last year. I sealed off the Knockturn Alley entrance into the Underside. Pity we can't seal off the world."

Bill looks at Tom sadly: how can they seal off what's everywhere?

"If only it were that simplistic." He lets out a sigh. "If all the world were as small as Diagon Alley. There's not a chance we could station people at every entrance to our world." He's thinking about the vortices the Death Eaters used before: he was able to figure out where some of the Egyptian ones were and where they led, but it begs the larger question: why would those only be in place in Egypt? Why not worldwide? Egypt is special, but it's not an epicentre of magical activity.

And then Bill's face falls even more with something he'd not before considered: why stop with those on one small and seemingly insignificant planet? Why not spread them throughout the universe? He glances over at Tom, solemn and sombre, trying to read invisible words on the table's surface. The Voldemort he knows will stop at nothing to achieve his ends.

But this man isn't Voldemort. He's Tom. He's not Voldemort.

Fuck. Bill's eyes close; his voice is tight.

"I'm glad you were able to protect London Below."

He hopes he can do the same, or some approximation thereof, for his family and loved ones when it's necessary.

"That was just the one entrance," he said. "There are many ways to get there through Muggle London, but so far, so good. I don't think he knows there's another world to access there, though there were always rumours about the strange world of the sewers and tunnels."

Bill nods. He knows the stories, they all do. He has a fleeting image of a rat in a sewer, but he doesn't say a word: that's not part of this Tom's story, or at least it isn't part of it yet. "It seems that every wizarding... place, for lack of a clearer term, has an underside. Hogwarts and its chambers. London and London Below. I hesitate to think what might be under the sands of Luxor now."

He imagines New York with its subways and sewers and... the possibilities are so overwhelming he can hardly make sense of it. It would take a brilliant mastermind to coordinate all of that.

The seed of that brilliant mastermind is sitting at this table with him, drinking Ogden's, talking about protecting his loved ones. Bill trusts this Tom.

Clearly, though, there's room to wonder.

"Every major city has an Underside. The older the city, the larger the Underside. I don't know about Luxor - I'm not certain if Undersides continue to exist once the cities they existed beneath cease. It's something to think about."

And it is, actually. It makes Tom want to travel, to delve, to find out what's there under the sands and ruins of ancient places. There must be magic and knowledge undreamed of.

In this way, Tom's not changed. Voldemort is a very curious monster.

"I think he's more focused on the Topside right now, though. Perhaps you ought to owl Dumbledore. Let him know what you've found."