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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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"Bound?" He almost does a double-take: if she was stuck here... "How long have you been Bound, if you don't mind my asking?"

He'll talk about himself afterwards, but he needs to know about his mum. He needs to know what's going on. He needs to know that he'll still be born in the future: he's not keen for that to change.

"Only for about three days," she says. "The door just disappeared on me when I was about to leave. Though, I guess I might have expected it. The door'd been showing up almost every day for a while before that."

She takes another sip of whiskey.

"Tim Hunter has been kind enough to let me stay in his room, since he's hardly ever there."

Bill nearly chokes on his firewhisky.

"Is that so?"

"Mmmm, yes," she answers, looking up at him when he starts to choke, ready to pound him on the back, if necessary. "It seemed the most practical thing, since I only had about four galleons on me, give or take a knut, when I got here. I didn't want my tab to climb so high that I couldn't pay it off when I'm able to get back."

She eyes him warily. He seems a little disturbed. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." He coughs. See, you're my mum and the idea of you staying with Tim is so very wrong. But I can't tell you that, now can I? "What about that boy you fancied back at Hogwarts? Don't you suppose he's missing you?"

Bill's good at thinking himself out of situations. This one, however, nearly has him stymied. For a moment he's tempted to tell her... but he can't. It goes against every rule he's ever learnt.

"You mean Arthur? I believe he's dating some Hufflepuff sixth year," she tells him, as though she doesn't know exactly who he's been seeing and when. "So it's not like I'm cheating on him. And time stops there while I'm here, or something like that. He couldn't miss me, even if he cared. Do you know Tim? Because it's not the same Tim, you know."

And that makes loads of sense, doesn't it?

"I know a Tim. But if it's not the same Tim, then I probably don't know him; I've not been here for some time."

Perhaps a change of topic is in order, he thinks. "Egypt has been exceedingly lovely this time of year." This time, he takes a more gentle sip of Ogden's and doesn't cough or splutter.

"I've never been to Egypt," she says amiably. "What makes it so lovely right now?"

He smiles softly. "The sunlight reflecting off the Nile."

With a definitive nod, he continues. "And the smell of the heat on the sand, and the sounds of the cities, and taste of the food, and the realness of it." Bill nods. "The realness of it is lovely."

"It sounds like you really love it," she observes, smiling at his descriptions. "I can almost see it in my head the way you describe it. I can only imagine how wonderful it must be in real life."

"I could show you." At the bottom of his pile of newspapers is the Luxor tourist magazine; he opens it to the photographic essay on the temple at Karnak.

"Look: this is at Luxor, where I live part-time. It's just a small walk away from our flat there. Fleur and I could go here every day if we chose." The columns tower over the people in the pictures.

"It's just a Muggle magazine, but it's what I've got at hand. What do you think?" He turns it so she can see it.

"It looks amazing, even if the pictures don't move," she says somewhat wistfully. "It's doubtful that I'll ever see it in person, though. I can't imagine what it would be like to see this every day."

Bill nods. "The first time I saw it, I thought it was about the most breathtakingly beautiful sight ever. And every day I'm there I remind myself what a privilege it is to be able to live and work there, and I also remind myself to appreciate its beauty. Because the day may come when I find I'm not there and I won't be back there, and if I've lived every moment there with appreciation and reverence, then I'll have nothing to feel badly about if I can't be there for some reason."

Stop, Bill. Stop.

He's never been big on foreshadowing. He won't start now: he shoves the newspapers away so he doesn't have to look at them. After all, he promised Fleur he wouldn't die.

He believes he's made that promise to her twice now.

"That sounds like an excellent philosophy. Sometimes, at school, I'll look out the window and be surprised by how beautiful the scenery is. Especially from Gryffidor Tower, where you can see everything for miles around? At times like that, I tell myself not to take all that for granted again, but I always do." she says.

"And after the end of this school year, I may never see that view again."

He could assure her she will, but he doesn't.

He could tell her she'll be sending seven children off to Hogwarts for years and years from Platform 9-3/4. He doesn't.

Instead, he simply smiles and folds the magazine closed again. "If you don't see it again, at least you'll have fond memories of it."

"That's true," she said. "And I've met someone here who's offered to take me to a place called San Francisco... maybe he could open the door to Egypt one day, as well. He does an awful lot of travelling."

"Really? And who might that be?"

He's calm and casual and sips his Ogden's and twists his wedding band round his finger and inside, he's in a state of near-panic. He really doesn't want to know about his mum's love life.

And that's the only assumption he can make, based on the signals she's giving him at the moment.

"His name is Cain," she tells him with a smile. "He's really very nice... I think you'd like him. He says that he's near a million years old, and he was in the opening chapters of the Bible. I looked it up in the Bible the Bar gave me."

Bill's eyes widen.

Oh, for fuck's sake, mum, get a hold of yourself! What in the name of Merlin do you think you're doing?

Wait. I'm not your father. If you keep up this way, you may never be my mother.

Or else you're not really Mum from my timeline. That must be it. And if that's the case...

"That sounds just lovely." His brain hurts. It's all a bit much.

"He's apparently cursed to walk the earth until the end of days, or something like that," she tells him, oblivious to any impending strokes she might be causing. "So he's been to so many places and seen so many things, I doubt he'd be able to count them all."

"Well. It certainly sounds... different. I do hope you enjoy it, if you decide to test the waters with him."

This is a hugely costly conversation for Bill, and he thinks he will definitely regret it come morning. But he can't let on that she's destined for a different life and so for now, he simply ignores reality and leans forward conspiratorially. "I'd go off with someone who could take me everywhere. I'd do it in a heartbeat."

Then, he sits back. "Of course, it would depend on my conscience. They'd have to be a decent sort. One who wouldn't take advantage. You know the type."

She smiles at him, and hopes he doesn't notice her blush at the mention of testing the waters.

"He's very nice. And decent, and smart," she says. "And I am finding him to be a very good friend."

He noticdes the blush.

Definitely.

At this point, the entire discussion has strayed so far from his concept of reality, he has no idea what to say. He simply keeps telling himself this isn't happening, this isn't happening.

"Nice and decent and smart: those are all excellent qualities. But why am I giving you counsel? You don't need my word. You'll do whatever you want to do regardless; I'm just another man in a bar."

Liar.

He's highly amused at himself. It's not every day that he feels himself flailing this way.

"Not just some man in a bar," she chides. "You are a friend. It's nice that you care. I don't think you need to worry, though. I'm being careful."

"That's so very good to know."

More than he cares to know. There are some things he simply doesn't want to imagine. "Another glass of Ogden's before I go? I hate to leave Fleur waiting for me for too long: I'm sure you know what that's like."

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