Disclaimer: All canon characters, scenery and plot references are the property of J.K. Rowling. I do not own or profit from this story in any way.
Rating: M for language and eventual sexual content
Summary: Dani and Bill have been best friends for as long as anyone can remember. They've also butted heads for as long as anyone can remember. Throw in a lost king, a team of curse breakers and a good mystery, and you've got yourself a story.
Author's Note: For those of you asking (Mostly just CBC- because you're awesomeeee), this story takes place after the war. Bill and Fleur never met/got married. Though….she may or may not be making an appearance soon. One of the great/frustrating thing about Harry Potter is that JK invents all these fascinating characters with mentions of their rich backgrounds and gives them all of two chapters of book time and then kills him off.
That's probably why fanfic writers love her though. Rich, underused, love-able characters to develop and play with further…That, and magic in the world written in a way that's not fanatical. Anyway Thanks for reading!
Snake in the Grass
Chapter Three: Sticks and Stones and mummy bones
She'll lie and steal and cheat, and beg you from her knees
And make you think she means it this time
She'll tear a hole in you, the one you cant repair
But I still love her, I don't even care.
Stubborn Love – The lumineers
Bill was gone when Dani arrived at home. It shouldn't have surprised her as much as it seemed to. Bill was charming and looked dangerous, and he always seemed to have what she'd always lovingly referred to as 'a gaggle of gawking girls,' that seemed to follow him around. He'd be remiss to not occasionally go one with one of them, and Dani certainly couldn't blame him for that. But she hadn't seen him most of the night, not even to make good on their old promise to dance together at every single one of these 'ridiculous' functions. He'd never missed dancing with her before.
She hesitated in the living room, slipping out of the uncomfortable heels that she'd suffered through all night, despite the comfort charms she'd cast earlier (Another trick from Kate). She considered, briefly, whether or not she should wait up for him, or, just go to bed. She chided herself for being silly. Bill was a big boy. He could take care of himself. And so, instead, she scrubbed off her makeup, changed into shorts and a tank top, and gone to sleep.
He still wasn't in when she woke up. In fact, she didn't see her roommate at all until the next morning, when he appeared through the front door as she was sitting at the kitchen counter with a large mug of coffee cradled in her hands. He was still in last night's clothes, and she did her best to mask her surprise. Bill, her Bill, who she'd talked into being irresponsible on multiple occasions, was not one to break rules intentionally, or, stay out all night. Usually, he appeared sometime after midnight after one of his romantic trysts, and not stay the night…wherever he'd been.
Dani held back teasing and protective comments that might sound possessive, and stuck to the simple, her style. "Hey."
"Hi," Bill said, glancing to her carefully, as if to see If she was judging him for his actions. Heavens knew that Dani had done some incredibly stupid things in her life.
"Coffee?" Dani pushed off the counter, summoning a cup before he could respond.
"Er…I've had some already, thanks," Bill stopped her mid pour, shifting awkwardly.
Dani shrugged, taking a sip from the cup herself, as if it had been her design all along. She burnt her tongue. "So…" She said slowly, hopping back up on the counter, "Good night then?"
"Why don't you just come out and ask what you wanted to," Bill demanded, escalating the conversation quickly.
"Well I'd suspect that if you had something to tell me, you would have done," Dani was never one to back down from an argument, especially not from one with Bill. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks already.
"I'd assumed that maybe you'd cared that I'd gone," He replied flatly.
"I'm not your mum Bill," Dani shot back, "You can stay out as bloody late as you please, and it's got nothing to do with me."
"Oh come off it!" Bill's voice was close to shouting now. "Just last week, you were put off because I wasn't home before midnight!"
"Because we had a presentation with the Goblins at 7!" Dani found that she was shouting now too, "And I knew that you'd had too much to drink before I'd left," She shot back. "You promised to come straight home, and then what? Did you?" Her arms crossed over her chest defensively. "Of course I was bloody cross." She growled. "I had to give the talk on my own!"
"I don't understand the difference," Bill said stupidly.
"Do you want me to care if you were out with some floozy doing God knows what?" Dani shouted, "It's different when it affects our bloody job!"
Bill's face turned bright red, the way it always did when she'd struck a chord. "Our Job?" He repeated, "Our Job!" He was shouting now too. "You know better than to think that I'd ever let anything come between me and the job!" He exclaimed. "The job that I love, and, if you recall, the job that I helped you get!" He was fuming. "And she's not a floozy! What the hell kind of man do you take me for!"
"An idiot," Dani growled in response. "One who can't stop bringing up the fact that you introduced me to Kate, clearly, I was too helpless to get my dream job on my own. But you know: the fact that my best mate, who just so happened to be in a position to put in a good word, because he graduated a year before me, went through the trouble of helping me out." Her hands were shaking. "Apparently I'll be indebted to you for life at this rate." She could see that the argument wasn't going anywhere, but she couldn't seem to stop herself from shaking, so she continued to speak, lowering her voice.
"Bill…you're my best mate," She said quietly, "I don't have a say in where you've gone, or how late you're out, but you seem to forget that I've worked really hard to get where I am, and I hate that you feel like I owe you for that," She said, eyes flicking up to meet his face. "Thanks for helping me get this job, but please, please, stop using it against me," She pushed off of the counter, straightening, and grasping her wand tightly onto her wand. "I'll see you at work," And with a crack. She was gone.
Appearing in the Egyptian desert she immediately, headed towards the tent that was designated as hers, barely greeting the people that she passed on the way, other than to offer curt nods and smiles that didn't really meet her eyes. Inside her tent, she let the tears fall, settling in on a chaise and hugging a pillow to her chest. She wouldn't give Bill the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She never did, if she could help it, She was too stubborn, too engrained in her gran's superficial views: crying was a sign of weakness, and to never, ever appear weak.
But, his words had really gotten to her, and for as often they did it, she really hated fighting seriously with Bill. It brought back memories that she'd sooner forget.
She shook away the tears, tying her curls back with a scarf and slashing clean water on her face from the sink in her water closet. She laced up her spare pair of boots, before pushing out of her tent again, and blinking against the light. She'd forgotten her work bag at home, so she'd have to pop home and grab it at some point after the morning meeting. For now, Jake and Ted were waiting at the conference table in the main tent.
"Morning Dani," Ted greeted with a yawn, "Bill close?" His eyes scanned the closed tent flap behind her, Dani and Bill usually appeared together, or at least, within a few minutes of each other in the mornings. Today, this didn't seem to be the case.
"He'll be along in a bit," Dani said nonchalantly, sitting down at the round table that her team favored in the mornings. She reached over and pulled the arithmancy equation she'd abandoned yesterday over to her.
Jake and Ted both knew better. "Ah, fighting again?" Jake asked, not missing a beat.
"Something like that," Dani said dryly, with a grimace, fingers worrying the edge of her parchment. "How'd it go with Trisha last night, Teddy?" She turned her attention to her friend, trusting that he'd have a good, and distracting story that would shift the attention from the argument that she may or may not have had with Bill.
"Eh, fair enough," Ted shrugged, "She's a little dull."
"Everyone's too dull for you Teddy," Dani said with a light laugh.
"Well….you aren't," Ted flashed her a smirk and a grin, "And yeah, that was an invitation."
"Speaking of," Jake glanced between them, ignoring Ted's shameless flirting completely, "You've got dinner with Shawn Alistair tonight, right?" He asked, even though he knew perfectly well that she did.
"What?" Ted explained, "And you let me go on, why didn't you say so?!"
"Eh," Dani shrugged, "I don't kiss and tell," Dani winked, scratching out a figure in her equation and correcting it with her quill.
"Ask her again after several drinks," Jake said tactfully, "Then she might."
They fell into easy camaraderie after that. The boys teased her after her dinner with Shawn, and she teased them back in kind about Ted and Trisha and Jake's attempt to flirt with one of the server. They talked and laughed and joked, and made plans for the weekend, and Dani was struck by just how much these boys had become her family over the years.
They were mid conversation when the tent flap pushed open and Bill ducked inside, he looked between them, before dropping down next to Dani and passing her the leather knapsack that she'd left at their flat.
"You forgot your bag," He greeted, handing it over with a nod of greeting to the others. He looked a lot calmer now, and he'd showered and put on a new set of clothes.
"Thanks," She nodded to him, giving him a small smile too, reassuring him that everything was okay between them. He smiled warmly back at her, setting an arm on the back of her chair, before seamlessly joining their conversation.
The rest of the day, they kept themselves busy, categorizing artifacts, translating hieroglyphs, and showing Kate and some select investors their recent findings. Dani finally got a chance to talk to Bill again when the popped home at the end of the day.
"Listen…" She began, this hadn't been their first fight, and it probably wouldn't be their last. They were both incredibly stubborn when they wanted to be, "I'm sorry if I…"
"No, I'm sorry," Bill cut her off, "I was sort of an arse this morning."
"Well…" Dani smirked.
"Oi!" Bill tossed a pillow at her, plopping down on the couch, "You weren't supposed to agree!"
Dani giggled, "So we're alright then?" She asked, growing serious again, and sitting down gingerly next to her friend.
"Yeah," He slung an arm around her, "always," He pulled her indo his side, she relaxed against him with a sigh. "Speaking of," He said with a smile, "Weasley family dinner on Sunday, Mum says to make sure you come, because, and I quote, "She's too skinny and going to waste away to dust out there in the desert,"" He rolled his eyes, squeezing her shoulder.
"I know," She smirked, leaning her head against his chest, "She owled me asking if I'd come."
"Merlin," Bill shook his head, "I swear you talk to my family more than I do." He shook his head.
"I do, actually," She assured him mischievously, "Charlie, Ginny and the Twins anyway," She added.
"I should be surprised," Bill laughed, "But I'm really not."
"I need to go in and see the twins in the shop this weekend, now that I think about it," She considered, "Thanks for the reminder."
Bill's eyes raised in suspicion, "You can't just see them at the house?" He tugged at one of the curls that had escaped from her pony tail .
"Nope, this is about business," She told him with a shrug.
"Again, I'm not entirely sure that I want to know," Bill shook his head, "Anyway, did you want to grab dinner…. Or…"
"Oh Christ," Dani sprung to her feet. "Oh shit," She said again, glancing down to her watch, "I've got to meet that-one-guy in an hour," She sprung towards her bedroom, cursing under her breath.
"Who's that-one-guy?" Bill stood too, following her to open door of her bedroom, where she was already stripping down to her sports bra and shorts. It was nothing that he hadn't seen before, of course, but she could feel his eyes linger for just a few seconds too long.
"Shawn Alistair," She told him, pulling her hair down from its scarf and barrette and running her fingers through her tangled curls.
"What?" Bill blinked several times, forcing his eyes to her face.
"We've got a date tonight," She scanned the room for a towel, and found one hanging over her door, grasping onto it and slinging it over her shoulders.
"You've got a date with Shawn Alastair? Bill repeated, stepping aside so that he didn't get run over when she barreled towards the bathroom to shower.
"I'm trying to get him to invest in our team," she shrugged, and peaked through the door, "Dinner tomorrow?"
"Sure," Bill backed off, shaking his head, a smile forming on his lips. "Good luck?"
"Oh Bill darling," She laughed, "It's cute that you think I need luck." She clicked the bathroom door closed with a snap.