I would like to start my author's note off with this: I AM SO SORRY! I realize that I haven't updated in over a month, and that could be a bit of a disappointment for my readers. Let me at least explain myself. Shortly after my last update, I got a full-time summer job. After that I had a horrendous break-up. Add on to that summer school work and what I like to call "college shopping," I haven't cared that much about writing. However, I tried to make this chapter extra special for you all! I hope you like it! And oh yes- the chapter title is blatantly stolen from the Bangles.
Cariel- Oh, the banter is my favorite part to write!
Ludicity- Slow, sweet and torturous. That's my writing style this time, but Egypt may be a treat for us all!
A.M. Lehr- I can't wait to see where I take it either, lol! Generally, I have an idea for the beginning and the end; then I just make up the middle as I go along.
Ingenious- I worship making Ron squirm. When you write about characters, you get the visuals in your head of their reactions, and Ron's reactions are definitely the most amusing!
SassyChick12- I'm continuing! WOOT!
Cursed Wedlock by
MyKonstantine.
Chapter 6: Walk Like An Egyptian
Bill had been very helpful in assisting Ron and Hermione on planning their trip to Egypt. However, they had only been out of school for two years and their Gringotts vaults weren't exactly full. Ron and Hermione had to work tirelessly for two months at their respective workplaces before they could afford to search their desert destination.
Their luggage was tucked neatly in the corner of the fireplace of the Burrow. Ron rubbed his hands next to the fire before picking up the Floo Powder. Hermione was still saying her last good-byes to the Weasley family.
She gave Ginny a tight hug and a quick pat on the tummy. The baby wasn't causing Ginny's stomach to bulge just yet, but it was slightly bigger than it was months ago when they decided to get on the journey.
"So, we're going straight to the hotel then?" Ron said. He pinched a bit of floo powder between his thumb and forefinger like a cook would salt.
Hermione ripped the floo powder out of his hand. "Ron! We have to go to the International Floo Headquarters before we can get to Egypt! Haven't you traveled before?"
"Of course I have!" Ron said defiantly. "..Just not since third year."
Hermione just sighed heavily and took a bit of the white powder. She cut in front of Ron and threw at in the fire. The flames flew up in an emerald rage. She pulled him into the very cramped fireplace next to her. "International Floo Headquarters!"
Travelling in the fireplace together may not have been Hermione's smartest ideas, because they landed in Floo Headquarters covered in ashes on the floor. They shot out of the fireplace so quickly that Hermione was flipped on top of Ron on the ground.
By the time she realized their position, Ron was already chuckling to himself. "Don't you think it'd be best to take me out for dinner before we did this, 'Mione?"
"Oh, sod off!" Hermione's face had contorted into an angry grimace. She rolled herself off of him before heading back to the fireplace to retrieve her luggage. She didn't know just how she'd survive life in a foreign country with nobody but Ronald Weasley for an indefinite amount of time.
Ron quickly followed suit and claimed his luggage. He practically had to run to keep up with Hermione, who had walked off without him in a furious huff.
Hermione had traveled often with her month long public speaking tour against the thoughts and ideals of pureblood supremacy after the fall of the Dark Lord, so she was quite familiar with the premises. She ambled over to a large brown desk and handed her luggage to the man on the other side.
"Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley. Cairo, Egypt." Said told the man as Ron gave over his luggage.
The man gave a quick nod. He muttered a spell quietly, and information on Hermione Granger magically projected from his wand. There was also an image of her where she stood, twiddling her thumbs impatiently. When the man seemed satisfied, he did the spell to look up Ronald Weasley's information.
He then marked the suitcases with a small pyramid at the top. "Fireplace 32." He said with a thick accent, speaking for the first time.
Their luggage was shifted back over the counter. Ron picked his up with ease, but in her moments of frustration, Hermione was losing grip on her possessions.
"Do you need any help?" Ron was quite amused by her failure to keep hold of anything, but tried to keep a straight face.
"No, Ronald! If I wanted your help, I would have asked for it!" She grumbled back, attempting to hoist a large knapsack over her shoulder. It was too heavy for her arm to support, and thus tumbled to the ground with a loud clatter. Hermione let out a pitiful moan of defeat.
"Ron.." she whined out, pointing to the bag on the ground. His cocky grin returned once again as he threw it over his shoulder and strutted off to Fireplace 32.
Once every last piece of luggage found its niche in the corner of the fireplace, Ron and Hermione stuffed themselves inside. Hermione had the floo powder in her hand, yet she was hesitant.
"I think we should stay connected." Her voice sounded a bit panicked. "Connected?" "So we don't fly out of here like last time!"
Ron laughed heartily, his blue eyes staring down at her slightly distorted face. "How exactly do you plan on 'connecting' to me, then?"
She opened her mouth to explain, but gave up trying. Instead, Hermione wrapped her arms around his middle and mumbled, "Don't even say it, you great big prat!"
A bit aghast, Ron held back his comments and snaked his arm around her shoulders, trying to hold back all innuendoes of amusement in his voice. "Fine. You know where we're going. Get us there."
A bright green flame licked at his face only seconds later and he heard a voice call out "The Nile Estates!"
When the tugging on their insides subsided, Ron and Hermione landed in a white fireplace, barely landing properly. Their luggage spurted out of the fire at a high speed, sending a man with long, red-hair ducking for cover.
"Merlin!" Bill Weasley shouted from his position, sprawled out across the floor. "I've never had a suitcase try to murder me before."
Hermione could see Ron's icy eyes warm up when he spoke to his brother who he didn't seen in the flesh for years. "There's a first time for everything, brother."
Bill, who had returned to Egypt after the defeat of Voldemort to continue his career as a curse breaker, picked himself up off of the floor and wiped the dirt of his rather tight jeans. He turned himself toward the fireplace to see Ron and Hermione still holding on to each other loosely.
"You two are together now? Excellent!" Bill said, his rusty locks shivered as he snickered. He hadn't noticed the other two practically jump away from each other and out of the fireplace at his words. They both walked over and hugged him as he continued to talk. "Well, that helps this situation, because otherwise I think you two would have hated me otherwise."
"Bill!" Hermione said, pulling away from the embrace. "Ron and I aren't together. We just didn't want to be chucked out of the fire."
The look on Bill's face suggested that someone had just threatened to cut his hair. "You two are going to hate me."
Ron didn't know what was going on, but he knew this couldn't be good. "What did you do?"
Instead of answering, Bill hurried over to the front desk. "Reservation for Ronald Weasley."
The desk clerk handed over the key without a worry in the world. Bill motioned for them to follow him as he made his way through the rather dingy hotel.
"Is this about Ron and I sharing a room?" Hermione inquired. "Because we live in the same house. The same room shouldn't be a big deal."
Bill bit his lip, as if he were trying to decide if her answer would cover it. "Well, sort of." He replied, shrugging his shoulders.
His answer only left Hermione and Ron more confused than when his stuttering and mumbling had first begun. They exchanged an unbalanced look of uncertainty, still following Bill's rapid pace.
They reached the hotel room in record time and Bill handed the key to Ron. Giving his brother another baffled glance, Ron unlocked the door and threw it open. He stepped in, quickly followed by Hermione. They both searched for the cause of Bill's anxiety. Ron thought everything was fine, until-
"Hey Bill, why is there only one bed in this room?" Hermione piped, her voice sounding a little strained.
They both pivoted around to shoot a glare at the eldest Weasley. Bill still stood in the doorway, gripping the side as if his life depended on it.
"Well, you didn't have enough funds to afford a room with two beds, so I got you a room with only one. Thing is, hotel policy doesn't allow an unmarried witch and wizard to share a bed, so I fibbed a bit and told them that you were hitched."
Bill stopped and looked back at them. He could almost see their blood boiling. "However, I have work in the morning, and I'm sure you'd both like a good night's sleep. I'll catch up with you tomorrow! Bye now!"
With that, the door was shut and a soft POP! was heard from the other side.
Ron and Hermione both stood in place, looking flabbergasted. It took a moment for either of them to move. It was Ron who did so first, sitting down on the bed before saying, "I get the right side."
"No!" Hermione shouted. "You get the floor!"
"What? Is my wife mad at me because my brother is an idiot? This isn't my fault, Hermione!" He was angry that she was trying to kick him onto the floor, but at the same time, he couldn't help but find the situation amusing.
Hermione stopped dead in her tracks. Did Ron just call her his wife? Of course he did. He'd have to for the rest of their stay in Egypt. She shouldn't have been thrown in shock by it. It was just a little act so that they didn't get thrown out of the hotel, after all.
Too thrown off by her separate train of thought to argue now. "Whatever to say, Weasley, but if you snore, I'm hexing you to oblivion."
Ron threw himself onto his side of the bed. "I'm hungry." He reached over to the bedside table and pulled the room service menu out of the drawer.
"Look, Hermione! They even labeled it for us. Mr. & Mrs. Ronald Weasley." He turned the menu around to show her the large black print on the corner of the menu.
Hermione sat down and put her head in her hands. "Just order me a martini, will you?"
"Okay, Mrs. Weasley." Ron continued to nag. "Hermione Weasley, or would that be Hermione Granger-Weasley?"
"What are you rambling about?" Hermione said, lying down on the left side of the bed. She was careful to make sure that she wasn't touching Ron.
"Say if you married Harry, would you hyphenate your name? Hermione Granger-Potter?" They both stared at the snow white ceiling as they conversed.
"That's highly improbable, as Harry's marrying your sister."
"Fine then. What if you were to marry one of my brothers? Would you be Hermione Granger-Weasley?"
"I wouldn't marry one of your brothers, Ron." Hermione said, shaking her head against the pillow.
Ron propped himself up on one shoulder and stared down at her. "Hey! It's hypothetical! Would you rather hypothetically marry Malfoy?"
"One of your brothers it is, then!" Hermione laughed, her eyes widening at the mere thought of being close to Draco Malfoy. "And no, I wouldn't keep my last name or hyphenate it. Your family doesn't have an embarrassing last name, so I could handle it."
Ron snorted. How could say his last name wasn't embarrassing. It practically had the word 'weasel' built right in.
"Oh and Ron, order our food now. It's getting late." It was just like Hermione to mother her best friend.
It took only seconds for the food to arrive after it was ordered. The room service at the Nile Estates was quite similar to the presentation of meals at Hogwarts. They ate in silence, as the day had been quite exhausting. Soon the plates were cleared and an awkward silence loomed over them.
Hermione sat, reading in her pajamas next to the small table in the corner of the room. Ron was attempting to do a folding charm on his dirty clothes, but it didn't want to work for him.
Finally giving up, he sat down and asked a question that he was wondering about all day. "Hey Hermione, how did they get that image of us where we stood down at the Floo Headquarters?"
"It's actually a really simple spell!" Hermione said excitedly, throwing down her book and fishing in her luggage for her wand. Finally she pulled it out.
"Tempus Ronald Weasley!" Hermione called out, and the same type of bubble appeared it the tip of her wand as it had out of the custom officer's wand earlier that evening.
Inside the bubble, Ron could see himself moving around on the bed. He waved at the bubble and it waved back at the same time. He ran across the room, and the picture in the bubble kept a frontal view as he did it.
"That's wicked!' He muttered to Hermione as she ended the spell. She looked rather smug, having known that she'd impressed Ron.
"All you do is say 'Tempus' and then the person's name." Hermione said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. "You could check up on everyone at home that way, too."
Ron nodded. It was like she'd read his mind. That was exactly why he wanted to know in the first place.
Raising his wand into the air, Ron sucked in a deep breath and called out "Tempus Harry Potter!"
They watched the bubble as it showed Harry climb into bed next to Ginny Weasley, whom was already fast asleep. Harry lay down, draping one hand over her with a look of mixed hope and sadness filling his features. Idly, he rubbed his hand over Ginny's stomach. She stirred but did not awaken. After several moments, Harry put his head into the pillow and began attempting sleep.
Ron ended the spell with a depressed look dawned on his face. It was bittersweet to see Harry and Ginny together, because they couldn't be married like they wanted to be unless Ron did something about it.
Without Hermione's permission, Ron shut off all the lights in the hotel room and began shuffling into his nighttime clothes.
"Let's go to bed. We have to get up early tomorrow." He put his wand on his bedside and crawled under the covers. He felt the sheets blow up as Hermione made her way into bed and sunk down beside him.
"Goodnight, Mr. Weasley." Hermione giggled in an adorable whisper.
"Goodnight, Mrs. Weasley."
The Egyptian sun hit Hermione in the eye the next morning, reluctantly waking her from slumber. Her mind was a serene ocean as she lay in bed, enjoying the cool morning. All she could feel was the soft bed, the fluffy pillow, and the muscular arm draped over her body. Wait! Why was there an arm on her?
She forced her eyes open to see nothing but red hair and freckles. The memories of the night before flooded through her brain, and soon she regained her mental composure.
The bed seemed to have sunk into the middle, because Hermione and Ron were only inches apart. Hermione examined his pale, freckled face as he slept. She moved back a little to get a better glimpse as his messy red hair and broad that led down to his naked chest. Wait! What happened to his shirt?
She swiftly lifted to covers and jumped up. "Ron!"
Ron leapt in bed, protectively grabbing Hermione in one arm and taking his wand with his other hand. "What is it?" he said, eyes darting around the room.
"Why are you sleeping in your underwear?!"
Ron gave Hermione a look of disbelief. He couldn't believe she'd woken him up just for that.
"They're boxer shorts, Hermione." He told her. Still, she came back with the same rigid reply. "They're underwear!"
"This is what I sleep in!" Ron grunted. Feeling daring, he threw the covers off him and jumped out of the bed to show off his boxer shorts. Hermione quickly hid her head under the covers, but giggled loud enough that Ron knew she wasn't offended.
"C'mon! Let's get up and get ready then!" Ron said, yanking at the sheets.
Hermione kept the blankets firmly over her head. "I'll get ready as soon as you put some more clothes on!"
About an hour later, the two found themselves faced with a rather nervous looking Bill Weasley once again. They announced that they wouldn't kill him because of the dire circumstances, but they still gave him glares that could turn most to stone.
The Gringotts bank in Cairo was a bit larger than the one in London. Instead of underground passages, the bank was built with maze-like hallways. However, they still had the infamous carts that led to each destination.
Bill ambled into a cart, whispering to the goblin in front before motioning for Ron and Hermione to join them. "Brace yourself!" he warned before the cart went off into the maze at a lightning fast speed. Neither Ron nor Hermione could keep track of the cart's erratic pattern.
It came to a sharp halt in front of a large, golden door. With a flick of his wand, Bill opened the door and shoved the other two inside.
Hermione let out an audible gasp at the sight. The high-ceiling room was filled with mountains of gold and gems and jewels. Strange symbols covered the ancient stone floor and ceiling.
"This room contains all the unidentified treasures we've found in the tombs that contain a magical aura. If your crystal has been discovered already, it's in here."
"But this place is gigantic!" Ron groaned with a bit of a whimper audible in his voice. "This will take weeks! Maybe more!"
"Then you better get started." Bill said, his tone a little bit more serious than before. The whole Weasley family was worried about the well being of both Ron and Ginny, and Bill was no exception.
He bid them goodbye once again and hopped back into the Gringotts cart. After all, he still had to work.
Ron looked quite intimidated when he turned toward the piles upon piles of crystals alone. "How exactly are we going to figure out which crystal is the Lucidare?"
"Well, you're the cursed. So, if you touch the right crystal, there should be some kind of magical reaction." Hermione said in a calm, cool, and collected voice even though she didn't know if her hypothesis was correct.
"I have to touch every crystal in this abomination?" "Yes, Ronald." He let out another sound of discontentment. "Let's get to it."
Ron and Hermione spent several hours searching. Hermione had the grueling task of crawling up the mountains of crystal to flatten it down. It was like hiking for ages. Ron's hands were blistered from digging through the sharp, rough crystal.
Disgruntled and thoroughly tired, Ron and Hermione stood outside the doorway until their cart came.
Entering the hotel once again, Ron's disposition had changed.
"At least we don't have to search for the crystal ourselves." His voice was surprisingly light and optimistic.
As if Ron's smile was infectious, Hermione flashed a grin at him. "That may have been easier."
She opened the door to their hotel before Ron had a chance to answer. At the sight in front of them, they stopped dead in their tracks.
A silvery mist floated just above the bed. Even in an average wizarding hotel, this was not normal. The mist slithered around the room eerily slow.
Carefully, Hermione raised her wand. The mist seemed to notice their presence and came to a rapid halt. All was still for a moment. Then a sharp red light jet through the steely mist. When it reached the end, a violent crimson light exploded throughout the room.
When it was safe to open his eyes, Ron found himself safe in the doorway with Hermione clinging to his torso. He ran a shaking hand through her bushy brown hair and averted his eyes to the room.
The mist was gone. Ron and Hermione were fine, but that much couldn't be said for the rest of the hotel room. Chairs and tables were flipped over. Luggage burst and clothes were spurted across the floor.
Hermione pushed herself out of Ron's grip and entered the room to observe the damage more thoroughly.
"All I know is that something really doesn't want us to be here."