Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Bill Weasley is entirely JK Rowling's.
...
...
Bill slipped out of the bed, careful not to disturb Asima's sleeping form. He heard the intruder creeping around in the kitchen. Hoping for a little more time, he pulled on underwear and a pair of jeans, then slowly crept into the hall way.
The intruder's robes had given him away, Bill had heard them sweeping across the floor as he walked. Bill approached the door into the kitchen and held his position. The intruder was leaning over the map of Libya where Bill, Quirinius and Asima had left their notes the night before.
Bill didn't have his wand. Cursing himself silently, he stalked closer and closer, trying not to make a sound.
However, Bill's body was slower to transition from asleep to awake than his mind was, and the intruder heard his knee snap as he stepped forward. The only reason Bill wasn't killed instantly was because the intruder was surprised to see a shirtless redhead approaching him in the kitchen. Then, Bill sprung.
He launched himself over the table, knocking the map out of the intruder's hands and kicking the intruder in the face.
The intruder tripped over his robes and fell to the floor. Bill rolled off the table and landed on the wizard with a sickening thud.
Bill wrapped one arm around the intruder's neck and the grabbed the intruder's wand with the other.
The sound had carried throughout the rest of the house and Bill was joined by Quirinius, with his wand.
Quirinius looked from Bill to the intruder and understood immediately. "I'll go get Asima, shall I?"
Bill nodded and Quirinius ran back. Then, something clicked in Bill's mind and he only had time to scream "Q, wait!" before he heard Asima's voice screaming, "AHHH! GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!" and Quirinius's voice screaming "I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY!" He ran out of the hall with his hands clamped over his eyes and promptly ran into a wall and fell over.
"She was naked!" he hissed. Then he realized how clothed, or otherwise, Bill was. Comprehension dawned on Quirinius's face.
"Oh..."
"Yeah."
"You two?"
"Yeah."
"And he?"
"Yeah."
"So you?"
"Yeah."
"Oh..."
Bill stood up and dragged the intruder to a couch in the sitting room. He had Quirinius bind him, then said, "Stay here."
He went to his room and opened the door aggressively. Asima hurriedly pulled on the sheets to cover herself. Bill crossed to the dresser and picked up his wand, then pointed it at Asima. "Go to the sitting room."
Asima's jaw dropped and her face went red. "I'm not dressed!"
"I don't care!" Bill snarled. "Take the bed sheets if you must, just go!"
He forced her at wand point to the sitting room, then turned his wand against Quirinius. "You, too. Stand next to her."
Beyond confused, Quirinius and Asima stood there, Quirinius in a night gown and Asima holding up the sheets, her face getting redder all the time.
Bill reached into the intruder's robes and pulled out a knife. "He's an assassin," he said. "And there's only two ways he could've gotten in here. One, he forced our secret keeper at the bank to tell him or two, he murdered our secret keeper and one of you or Skeeter told him. Gringotts would never betray their assets, they're too greedy for that, so I know our secret keeper's dead and one of you led him to us or Skeeter did."
He pointed his wand at Asima. "Skeeter may think I'm rude, but she wouldn't hire an assassin and you're the only other one to leave the house."
Asima feigned surprise at the accusation. Bill could tell her surprise wasn't sincere. He was quite good at reading people.
Asima then broke, apparently realizing Bill saw through her acting. "Alright," she said. She adjusted the sheets to better cover herself. "I didn't lie to you. I am a Medjay. But I'm a double agent. I've been pretending to have my father's loyalty so I would get information on his actions. That's how I found out he was after the Golden Lotus and why I was assigned to your protection. To keep my cover. I've been feeding him information; where Zazamanhk's tomb was, where our safe house was..."
Bill's wand faltered. "Your father?"
Asima nodded. "The Dark Wizard after the Golden Lotus is Riyasat al'Misri. My mother realized what he was after I was born and fled to the Medjay Office for protection. I've made it my concern to stop him and the best way to do that is for him to think I'm loyal to my father, like the dutiful Arab daughter he thinks I am."
Bill didn't lower his wand. Quirinius was looking shocked. "You murdered our secret keeper?"
"To maintain my cover," she said, not appearing ashamed at all (despite not wearing any clothes). "It was just collateral damage."
Bill's anger mounted. "Just collateral damage? You didn't know him! He was probably like me! He might've had a wife, a family! People who loved him!"
"I'm sure he did!" Asima countered, "But his death may help thousands of other families from not being destroyed if this Dark Wizard takes power."
Quirinius never said a word. He sat down in an armchair, clearly hurt by Asima's betrayal.
Bill's mind worked fast. "You're just like some of the Aurors I've heard about back home. Using unforgivable curses against Death Eaters 'for the greater good.'" He'd never been angrier at anyone. "You're going to stay with us." Quirinius looked up in shock. "We'll help you maintain your cover, but we're not letting you out of our sight and we're not gonna let you murder anyone else."
The Medjay nodded. "Agreed."
"And," said Bill, "after this is all over, I'm going to report you to the Medjay Office."
This time Asima shouted, "No! They'll suspend me or worse I will lose my job! My career in law enforcement will be over!"
"It's no more than you deserve," said Bill, lowering his wand. "Now go back to the room and put some clothes on."
Asima hung her head as she left the room. She paused at the door. "I am sorry he had to die," she admitted, "but otherwise, my father wouldn't trust me and I wouldn't be able to defeat him."
"There is no excuse for murder," Bill said, not looking at her.
She opened her mouth to say something else, then closed it and turned back down the hallway.
Bill looked up at Quirinius. "We're gonna have to keep an eye on her."
Quirinius nodded, still shaken.
"She may not be honest," Bill said. "You can never tell with double agents. She could be with the Medjay Office or she could be with her father. I'm not gonna make the mistake of trusting her again."
The rest of the night passed uneventfully; in the morning, Quirinius wiped the assassin's memory and they left him unconscious in an alley.
Then, they apparated to a point outside of Awbari, the town they figured the Purple Tribe would be close to. Asima cast several helpful locating spells but to no avail.
"You don't think they could be concealing themselves with magic, do you?" asked Quirinius.
"They certainly could," Asima answered, "but they probably wouldn't. Tribes like these aren't into creeping around. They are more direct. Less secretive."
Bill didn't like it. The information they were working off of came from Asima; it could be a trap. He kept his wand in his hand at all times.
"Maybe we should try westward, more," he said. "Maybe they're moving slower than they usually do."
So they apparated aways west and after several more hours of searching the sand dunes, Quirinius called out, "I think I've found them."
He was standing on top of a particularly high dune, and Bill and Asima had to struggle against falling sand to get to his position. When the reached the top, the saw what he was speaking of; a campsite with people milling around inside. Asima pulled out a pair of magically enhanced binoculars and took a closer look.
"Not very nomadic, Q" Bill said, indicating the semi-permanent looking structures around the campsite.
"But I think that flag has the emblem of the Purple Tribe on it," said Quirinius.
"He's right," said Asima. "Check it out." She tried to hand him the binoculars. Bill cast a quick meaningful look at Quirinius (keep your eye on her while mine aren't) and Quirinius nodded. Then, Bill took the binoculars and put them to his eyes. He found the flag and saw that it was indeed the same symbol as was on the cloth they'd found in Zazamanhk's tomb.
"But if that's them," Bill said, "why aren't they moving around? Aren't they a nomadic tribe?"
"Could be anything," Asima said. "Let's go investigate."
They apparated just outside the campsite and approached visibly; Bill didn't want the tribe to think they were sneaking up on them.
"Something you didn't think of," Asima hissed as they approached. "They're not going to just hand over the map to the Golden Lotus. What will they expect in payment?"
Bill had thought of that, but hadn't quite come to a conclusion. "I figured I'd just trade you for it. You know, as a slave."
Asima did not laugh.
The African wizards allowed Bill, Asima, and Quirinius to enter the campsite, but they kept casting them dark, mistrustful looks.
"You speak... whatever they speak?" Bill asked the Medjay.
She did. She asked one of the tougher looking wizards where she may find the Tribe's prince. He told her.
"This way," she said, and they walked deeper into the camp.
As they approached the indicated tent, Bill noticed two graves dug into the sand. Could the nomad's decision to remain in one place be because of a death?
Bill was close. They entered the tent to meet the Prince and Bill realized it was a Healer's tent. There were several magical remedies that Bill recognized as products being sold around Basik Alley cheap. Sort of outdated magic, but quite effective.
Not effective enough as Bill saw the answer to the mystery of the stationary nomads; one of the tribe was seriously injured. It looked as if the entire right side of his body had had a bad run-in with a werewolf wielding a double-edged sword. He was bleeding profusely and Asima immediately bent down to help the resident healer.
Bill heard her speaking in the tribe's language as she helped patch up the young man, and when he distinctly heard "Bill Weasley" and "Quirinius Quirrell," he figured she was also handling introductions and, presumably, the reason for their visit.
After the boy was patched up, but looking all the worse, Asima stood back up. "The tribe can't relocate for the boy's injuries," she said. "He's been like this for a week. He was attacked by an Inferius. They managed to fend it off, but not to destroy it completely, and get him away and they've been patching and repatching his wounds every hour since." She indicated the bandages, only recently applied, but appeared to be aging before their eyes. "They're cursed wounds, they won't heal properly without modern magical care or until the Inferius that caused it is slaughtered."
Bill nodded. "Why isn't the Inferius in the village right now, finishing them all off?"
"Protective charms," Asima said simply. "I did mention the map from Zazamanhk's tomb, and the Healer did say the Prince had it, but they will want payment."
"Payment like getting rid of an troublesome Inferius?" asked Quirinius.
Bill and Asima both picked up their heads. "You can do that?" Bill asked.
Quirinius shrugged. "Sure. I know how to defeat an Inferius without taking out the Dark Wizard that made it first."
"Do we even know who made it?" Bill inquired of Asima.
Asima shrugged. "Any member of a dozen different African tribes, and that's just in this region alone."
"So whatever knowledge you possess, Q, we'd love for you to share."
"Alright," said Quirinius. "Give me some time to think of a plan."
...
...
It was nearing the end of the day when Quirinius revealed his completed plan to Bill and Asima. He had them meet in the center of the camp, close enough to the entrance to be seen.
"We're putting a lot at risk," Asima said. "Not just our lives, but the lives of the nomads in this tribe as well. They may be less willing to help us if some of them are killed by our plan."
"They'll get over it," said Bill. "It's all just collateral damage, after all."
Seeing the disfigured and distorted figure of the Inferius-attack-survivor had momentarily driven Asima's true identity from their minds, but Bill wasn't so quick to forget entirely.
"I'm honestly more worried about you two," said Quirinius. "As close as you would have to be to it, if I do something wrong, my spell could hit one of you or it could easily attack you."
"We'll take the risk," said Bill. "We need that map, and we need it before her daddy figures out where the Purple Tripe is, that's even if she hasn't already told them."
"They have their own connections, they'll figure out anyway," Asima said, angrily. "He'll find the Purple Tribe eventually, which is why we should put some protective enchantments on them as we leave, but also important that we get the map out of here."
"Oh, she does have a heart," Bill said, sarcastically.
Finally, Quirinius put his foot down. "Would you two cool it for two seconds? For this plan to work, we'll need teamwork. If you can't trust each other, we're gonna have to figure out how to get rid of the zombie somehow else."
"No time," Bill agreed. "We're ready. We know the plan."
"Ok," said Quirinius. "Let's dig that hole then." The two wizards and one witch waved their wands and, just off to the left of where they were standing, a small pit appeared.
"Shall I grab and drag, or shall I bury?" asked Bill.
"Clearly you don't trust me, so I'll bury," Asima answered.
They stood on the opposite side of the hole and crouched down.
"When I remove that charm," said Quirinius, "we're completely defenseless. Are you sure you're ready?"
Asima nodded. Bill gave Quirinius an encouraging, "Go for it, Q."
"Alright," said Quirinius. "Hold on to your wands."
He flicked his own and the charm surrounding the entrance to the campsite lifted. It was a straight-shot from the entrance to where Quirinius stood. He cast a spell that caused a racketing and irritating sound. Then, they waited.
They didn't have to wait long.