Chapter Two of Cursebreaker, Earthshaker

Welcome to Egypt, Gin

Sorry this is so late, guys... I should have another chapter up in a couple days, but I'm actually between classes right now and don't have time to type out the second. I don't own Harry Potter, blahblahblah yaddayadda, on with the show!

The portkey dropped her and her luggage, all a-tumble, on the edge of what appeared to be a very deserted campsite in the middle of the desert. A long dead fire (months old? Perhaps) nearly completely covered by sand was the only thing that greeted her here. Well, that, and the half buried sleeping rolls, and the quiet sound of wind shushing over sand. Her dust blue robe slapped against her legs as she looked at the forlorn-looking site. Surely, surely this was some mistake.

"Bill," she called out, uncertain. The portkey could not have been wrong... "Bill?"

A whisper of sound met her ears, and she whirled, looking. "Bill, is that you?" She called out, louder now, trying to hear herself over the beat of her racing heart.

"Ay, this one's related to you, Red. Ears like a bat." A voice, close and male, spoke near enough to her ear that she jumped. Again she looked around, her mouth clamped tightly shut so that she would not scream. She hadn't been out here long enough to be suffering from sun-sickness already, had she?

The camp shimmered before her. Oh, this was not good. She was going to die lost and alone and going quietly insane before the adventure even began.

"Ter, turn off what's left of the illusion. It's scaring her." A woman's voice spoke now, soft and deep and extremely comforting. A laugh from another invisible throat and a noise of assent. The camp again wavered and shifted before her eyes. What could have been (but she doubted were) sunshimmers caused the image to ripple.

And then, suddenly, a real camp stood embanked in the sand, like and yet unlike the previous mirage. White tents on poles stood hunched in a circle around a lively purple fire which surprisingly gave off no smoke. Wooden crates, bed rolls, boxes, and contraptions for which Ginny had no names were grounded in the sand.

Ginny's round eyes were on the people around the fire, however. "Bill?" she asked again, scanning the crowd. And a crowd it was. There were perhaps six or seven people in all, but none familiar to her eyes, no tan skin and deep brown eyes and unruly hair, no fanged earrings or leather gear. The people before her dressed in loose-fitting white robes with tied burnooses covering all but the tiniest slits of eyes and portions of forehead.

One figure tall and lanky stepped from behind the others and held his arms out to her. She could tell he was grinning from the way the fabric moved around where his mouth should be. His fingers were long, his knuckles knobby, the back of the hands freckled and covered with fine hair. More than the grin, she'd know those hands anywhere.

And then she was being lifted off her feet and swung, laughing as her feet and robes twirled out behind her.

"Welcome to Egypt, Gin."

"Had to keep the lady waiting, didn't you, big brother," she murmured when he had set her down. She spoke so that none of the other robed shapes could hear. It wasn't her way to nag in front of strangers, even if her dunderhead of an elder fraternal unit had given her quite the scare. Thinking herself lost in the desert. What a mean trick.

And he was instantly contrite, knowing a reproach from Ginny for what it was. "Aw, Gingirl, I'm sorry." He ruffled her hair fondly. She noted that she still barely came up to his collarbone. "Forgot when exactly you were coming in, that's all, and no use risking my camp till then, right? Speaking of which," he paused and turned to his companions. "Terence, Eileen, could you turn the illusion back on? It makes me nervous to be out in the open."

One of the figures pulled off its burnoose, revealing a smiling, darker-than-tan face. "Your wish is our command, oh fearless leader." the man laughed, and closed his eyes. He was the one who had called her brother Red, the first voice who had spoken. Another, slighter, figure moved behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. The air around the camp shimmered and turned a little darker before suddenly everything was as it was before, but for a slight hum in the air. Bill visibly relaxed.

"So, Gin, shall I introduce you to the rest of the squad?"

One by one, the group came up and said hello. There was a tall black man whose name was Lance Eliot, but who Terence laughingly referred to as Lancelot, a smaller man named Rob Goodfellow who was as slight as Lance was tall and built like a tree, a brownhaired man named Gary, unnoteworthy except for the resemblance he bore the last man, a man with hair as red as her own called Agrivaine ("Good Lord, just call me Van, please"), and then Terence and his deceptively softspoken counterpart, Eileen.

Ginny's eyes tried to take in everything from her place close to the side and slightly behind her brother. She noticed how Eileen, and her brother also, now that he had taken off his hood, had their long hair done in complicated braids that clung close to their heads, that Terence was fond of flowering phrasing and was clearly the clown of the group, that Robin had a set of lockpicks that seemed to encircle his small waist twice over and which held a light that told her magic was involved in the making of not a few of them, that Eileen was the one that kept Terence in line more often than not, that Gary was quiet and not likely to speak even when he was completely relaxed with his surroundings, that Van kept pushing his loose red hair out of her eyes in a gesture that reminded her a lot of Ron. She smiled at that.

Terence noticed the smile. He flung himself to one knee before her. "Beautiful Ginevra, only daughter of Arthur, for your smile I would walk through a thousand miles of desert with only a lame and moody camel for company---"

"What luck, with such a desert nearby," murmured Eileen with a kind smile directed towards Ginny. Ginny found herself grinning at their antics, Terence's tomfoolery and Eileen's swift ribbing. "And Ter so like a moody camel, to boot."

"--- I would bring the moon down from where it hangs in the sky to lay at your feet if only you were to name that your desire---"

"Because that is just such a practical gift." Again, Eileen's sweet murmur.

"---And I would silence other young maids with tongues sharper than knives to my heart if only you should but say the word." And now Terence was glaring at Eileen, who smiled at him sweetly.

"Oh, Ter, just show her an illusion if you want to impress her." Eileen suggested. "Would you like that, Ginevra, only daughter of Arthur? Although perhaps I should help him. He's not as good on his own."

"Sully not the good lady's ears with such lies! What villainy!" Wailed Terence with a fake sob. "Does no one here love me?" But even as he spoke, his hands were moving fast, as though weaving something that Gin could not see.

Bill leaned down and murmured into her ear. "Watch his hands close, Gin. He's truly a wizard when it comes to illusions."

And so Gin watched, carefully, a burr to her brother's side, her eyes wide with wonder as shadowy figures began leaping from Terence's hands. Tiny people with butterfly wings, miniature horses made of flame, translucent colored rings of light.

And then Eileen was behind him, her hands on his shoulder, watching intently as though a teacher looking for mistakes in her student's weaving. His characters were suddenly far less whispy, more corporeal, dancing around the fire and leaving actual footprints behind, as though Eileen's mere notice gave them a clearer purpose. Gin could see bright light where Eileen's hands met Terence's shoulders and saw that the connection between them worked as a channel for... something, although what it was she couldn't name. This wasn't normal magic, not the way that Ginny had been taught to see it.

A small winged person flew up close to Gin's face, dragonfly wings whirring at an alarming rate. He (or she... it was kind of hard to tell) regarded her solemnly for a minute before grinning widely and making a face at her. She laughed out loud, and all the illusions disappeared.

Bill explained later that night that today had been a day off for the group in their treasure hunting, mostly to see that she got settled in and started her lessons right away. When she questioned the need for lessons and the goals of their treasure hunting, he grinned wryly at her.

"First lesson: we don't know exactly what we're looking for, but we know it's cursed and we know it's of vital importance. Other people are looking for it, and we have to find it first. That's all I'm going to say for now, so no more questions. Just take it at face value that a cursebreaker looks for curses because breaking them is what he does. Agreed?"

She'd nodded, happy that he hadn't danced around the subject any more than he had to. Gin knew that if he felt he could tell her more, he would have. There must be a reason, and she was content to wait.

"So nice to have someone in the group who doesn't talk back... Terence." Gin merely flicked her eyes to where Terence had thought he was coming up unexpected behind the duo, not knowing that both of them were aware of his presence. He laughed.

"I expected you to figure me out, Red, but I never thought... Little Sister, you really DO have ears like a bat."

And she had smiled at him and murmured, lowering her eyes to look at his feet. "Having brothers like Fred and George would make anyone constantly on guard, sir." That got a laugh from both of them, Bill who knew his younger sibs well and Terence who had obviously heard tales.

"None of this 'sir' stuff. Just Terence."

"Or Ter if you're Eileen." Gin corrected him, meeting his eyes with a quick glance up and a quick glance away.

"Or Ter if you're Eileen." Was it her imagination, or did he look a little... embarrassed? "Yes, she's quick. Lessons will be much fun with her along, I can already tell." If it had indeed been embarrassment, it was gone in a second. Terence turned to Bill, his eyes narrowing as though Bill had been withholding something from him. "Why didn't you bring her sooner, oh fearless leader? Think of all the fun we've been missing!"

Eileen walked into the tent where the three were talking. "Loud mouth, I can hear you leagues away. I don't care how good my protection is, you're pushing it."

At Gin's confused look, Bill supplied, "Eileen and Terence protect the camp. Terence makes the illusion you saw, the one of the abandoned camp site, because we can't pretend that nothing was here; other wizards who know the signs would be suspicious. Eileen solidifies it, replaces the sound within the camp with wind outside."

"And the wind is screaming right now, all because of YOU, Ter." Eileen had her hands on her hips, and was glaring through the dark brown strands of hair that had come loose from her braids.

"Aaaaw, don't be mad, Eileen. I'll make you a pony." He offered, his voice much softer now, all while giving her the puppy dog eyes.

She glared at him a moment longer, but the smile that cracked her face would not be denied. "Why do I put up with you?" Eileen laughed, throwing up her hands before sitting down with a plunk next to Terence on a crate.

Gin turned to Bill, not wanting to intrude on what could possibly turn into a private conversation (it was beginning to have that feel to it, like many of Hermione's and Ron's had, too, back at the Burrow). "And what does everybody else here do?"

Van and Lance were particularly good at codebreaking, it turned out, and skilled with all types of countercurses. Rob was the lock pick ("he likes to call himself a locksmith, but we all know better"). Terence was their linguist, and in addition to having general skills as a cursebreaker, Bill was their Finder (he often saw or heard what other people missed).

"But it's Eileen who will be teaching you your first lessons," Bill explained.

Instinctively, Ginny turned to Eileen for confirmation. Thankfully, whatever she'd had to say to Terence had already been said, and they sat next to each other companionly, and if Terence did have the majority of his weight and one arm slightly behind his back so that Eileen sat right next to his side, well, Gin certainly wasn't going to mention it.

Eileen flashed her a grin. "Hand to hand combat, dearie. You won't always have your wand, and besides, it's just downright handy to know. Keeps the troublesome in their place." She chose that moment to elbow Terence in the side, because indeed his other hand had been moving, although for what purpose, Gin could not guess.

"Such suspicion... you wound me!" Terence cried, but the light in his eyes suggested that perhaps such suspicion was rightly placed.

Hand to hand combat... Gin liked the sound of that. And maybe she'd learn a few good hexes along the way... that would show the world that Ginny Weasely was no one to mess with.

"Your first lesson starts now, if you're ready." Eileen stood and offered her hand to Gin. Gin looked at it. It was a long fingered hand, calloused, with strange hairline scars in some places. Gin looked up into Eileen's face and smiled before placing her hand in Eileen's and allowing her to pull her up.

"Oh, I'm ready, believe me."

As she got up to follow Eileen out, Gin would have sworn she heard Terence say, "Beware of messing with that one, Bill old boy. In a week, unless I'm mistaken, she'll be a force to be reckoned with."

Bill laughed. "She already is, Terence. She just doesn't know it yet."

Author's note: So, what do you think? It wasn't worth the wait (if you were indeed waiting) and I'm sorry for that. No chaos or bloodshed or fire, more's the pity, just yet. Buuuuut! I've got the ending all plotted out ( I've just got to GET there). So. Draco bit next chapter, but also a continuation of adventures in Egypt. Who's ready for mummies and dervishes and really bad puns? Oh, I am, I am! Katrinka

P.S. Does anyone else find it amusing that Ginevra really is the only daughter of Arthur? Who else here is really in love with Arthurian legend? A cookie to anyone who can pick out which names from those at the camp site can be traced back to the days of the Round Table :)