Harry's heart drummed in his chest, blocking out all other sounds as he and Hermione stepped through the final doorway. They reappeared in a narrow stone room. At the end, Harry spotted an archway made of what looked like thin, brown fabric flapping in the wind. Suddenly, Harry was back at the Department of Mysteries, the day Sirius had died, watching him fall into an archway that looked just like this.
"Harry," Hermione hissed, pulling his thoughts back to reality. "There's the way out. Let's just go."
Harry looked back at the Tear in the Veil. He could hear whispers on the other side. A deep longing spread through him, causing his blood to run cold and his heart to ache. He shook his head.
"This isn't a good idea, Harry," Hermione said, still speaking in a hushed tone. "You remember the story of the Three Brothers? Remember the one with the Resurrection Stone? We can go and meet your parents and—"
Harry pulled his arm out of hers, then took his wand out of his robes. Hermione flinched and Harry's heart dropped. "I'm not going to hurt you," he murmured. "I would never do that."
Hermione nodded. "Sorry. It was a reflex."
Harry conjured a simple, wooden bench, then returned his wand to his robes and took a seat, gesturing for Hermione to sit next to him. She took a tentative seat. "We're...uh...not going up to the archway?"
"No."
"Why don't we just go along then?" She gestured toward the doorway behind her.
"My parents will wonder why we didn't spend any time here. Let's just sit for a few minutes."
Hermione's eyes were wide and questioning. Even after he turned away from her, he could feel her eyes on him. "What?" he asked after a minute passed with her saying nothing.
"I'm proud of you," she whispered. "I know how these Tears in the Veil work. They're calling to you and you— you're fighting back. You're so strong, Harry."
Tears stung his eyes as he leaned forward and dropped his head in his hands. Hermione placed a comforting hand on his back. "I'm just doing what you said," he explained, so she wouldn't go thinking he was too impressive. She was the brilliant one here.
"Oh. That's a first."
He turned and gaped at her. "What are you talking about?"
"It's always you leading."
"Are you kidding? Have you forgotten how we got here? I gave you my magic, let you drag me into a giant kaleidoscope, then blindly followed you around the world."
"Oh. I guess you're right," she said, looking down at her lap.
Harry placed a hand on her knee. "We take turns leading. That's what's so brilliant about our relationship."
Hermione's stomach turned. That line got her for some reason. It reminded her of a recent argument she'd had with Ron. She'd been complaining about how it was always her doing everything in their relationship and how if they were going to be married, they had to be partners. She'd said almost these exact words, "We need to take turns being in charge."
Ron had argued that she didn't let him take charge because she didn't respect him. It was one of those arguments that weighed on her for weeks afterward. Although it ended with a tentative truce, they had never resolved the underlying issues.
Harry was speaking again and Hermione shifted her focus back to him, glad to have something else to think about. "What you said about the Three Brothers and the resurrection stone, I tried explaining it to Ginny a few months ago. She was trying to convince me to go back to the forest and find it, so she could talk to Fred and I could see my parents again and I…"
"I understand," Hermione cut in after he was silent for several seconds. "That would have been a bad idea."
"Maybe you can explain it to her. She's still a bit sore about it. And at the end, before she stormed off she said, 'What's the use of marrying the Master of Death, then?'" Hermione winced. "I know, it was mean. She was hurting and I know I can get mean when I'm upset too, but that one—that one hurt."
Hermione laid her head on his shoulder. "Ginny just has a temper," she said. "I'm sure she apologized."
"She did."
"I'll talk to her when we're back. Try to get her to bring it up, if I can, then—I don't know—explain again. If you think it will help."
Harry hummed and dropped his head back into his hands, covering his ears to drown out the voices. Hermione leaned in and murmured, "We can go now."
Harry took a deep breath and looked over at her. "I have just one thing I want to ask you."
"Okay."
"The argument about not using the stone, it's the same as the Mirror of Erised, and how Dumbledore warned me away from it in First Year. Do you remember me telling you that?" Hermione nodded. "How is this—being in this world—different from those two?"
Hermione turned her head to look at the stone wall ahead of them. "It's not. It's dangerous, being here, which is why I wanted to limit it to just one dinner."
"Do you think fourteen days is too long? Do you think I'll be able to recover when we return?"
Hermione bit her lip as she considered his question. When she had her answer ready, she turned toward him on the bench, pulling one of her legs up in front of her. "A lot of pleasures in life are dangerous, in excess. Take drinking, for example. If you did it every day and let it take over your life, that would be bad. But one night, here or there—or even a two-week binge—isn't going to ruin your life. It's okay to indulge every once in a while."
"I think—" She stopped and furrowed her brow, as if considering whether to continue with her statement.
"Go on," Harry urged.
"I think we need to take risks in our life every so often. I'm pretty risk-averse, you know that, but at work, every time I've forced myself to take a risk, it's led to a pretty remarkable discovery."
She dropped her gaze and focused on her knee, then started pulling on a loose thread on the seam of her jeans. "I think it's okay that you're here, as long as you get something out of it. Perhaps some insight into your life back at home, or maybe just more information about your parents. But I—I don't know, Harry." She dropped her lowered her voice and said almost inaudibly, "I'm just like you, a bit lost and trying to find my way."
Hermione took a breath, then plastered a smile on her face as she looked up at him. "My point is, I think you're going to be fine. And when we return, I'll be there to help."
Harry reached out and touched her chin, then traced his fingers along the line of her jaw. He could tell in her eyes there was something else; something she was leaving out. "What aren't you telling me?"
She tried to drop her head, but he grabbed her chin and tilted her face back up.
"Since when are you so intuitive?" she whispered.
"I have my moments."
"I'll tell you later," she said, getting up from the bench. "Let's go. Our time is almost up, anyway."
"When later? Today?"
"Sure."
"I'm going to hold you to that," he warned as he rose and Vanished the bench with his wand.
"I know you will."
Harry went to the exit and held his hand out to her. "Okay. Ready?"
"Ready to see the sky again and remember that there are other things in the world besides death? Absolutely."
The tunnel, which was dimly lit by torches every few feet, twisted upward as they climbed several flights of shallow, stone stairs. They passed a few ghost cats as they walked, curled up in nooks carved into the walls. Some of the cats mewled at them, some hissed, but most of them just ignored Harry and Hermione.
Harry was trying to reconcile the amount of climbing they were doing with the number of feet they'd descended to get to the Tear in the Veil, and it wasn't matching up. He stopped to give Hermione a chance to catch her breath. "How are you feeling?" he asked, his eyes darting to her midsection.
She leaned her back against the wall and pressed on her wound. The next moment, Harry was next to her, pressing his palm against the wound as well. "Shit. I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault," she rasped, then stopped to take a few deep breaths.
Harry watched his hand rise and fall at each inhale and exhale. "I'm not sure how much farther we have," he whispered. "It seems like we've climbed much higher than we descended earlier."
Hermione nodded. "Yes, I was noticing that. I saw hills around the Sphinx. I think maybe we'll be let out at the top of one of them. And soon, too. The air is clearer and that dirt smell is almost completely gone."
Harry took a breath and let it out slowly. She was right about the air. He turned back to her and propped his free hand up on the wall behind her head, then pressed against her wound a little harder. "You're really observant, you know that? You could have been an Auror."
She let out a laugh. "You're forgetting my tendency to lose my head in a crisis."
"I don't know about that. You got us out of Godric's Hollow and had the presence of mind to cast that Stinging Jinx when the Snatchers were surrounding us. I think you outgrew that 'there's no wood!' phase."
She laughed again and Harry felt it against his hand. "Okay," she whispered. "I'm feeling better. We can keep going."
"Are you sure?" he asked, studying her eyes for signs of pain as he slowly pulled his hand away.
"Yes. I'm good, really." She gave his shoulder a gentle nudge, to push him away so she could pull herself off the wall.
After another fifty feet, they felt a cool breeze and determined they must be close, but the tunnel looked like it went on forever. Then, abruptly, they were outside, standing at the top of a sandy hill under the bright moon.
"What?" Harry asked, looking around. There was the Sphinx, off in the distance on his right and on his left—
"Alarming, I know," his mum said. She was standing in the crook of his dad's arm.
"Where's the—?" Harry looked around but there was no sign of the tunnel.
"Same happened for us," James said. "Just when we thought the tunnel would never end and we were going to have to spend the rest of our lives climbing stairs, we appeared out here."
Harry's mum stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. "How are you? How was your...visit?"
"Oh. Fine. Good. I mean, sad. Well, it's hard to explain." So please don't ask me to, he added in his mind. Harry's eyes drifted toward his dad, who was focused on a spot behind Harry's head, his eyes haunted.
"Same for us," James said, his gaze still trained on something in the distance. "Good, sad...all of it. I could have stayed there all day."
"Yeah," Lily said, hugging James's middle. "But we agreed, as we were walking out, that it's good they implemented the time limit. You could waste away in there, reliving old times, and forget to enjoy the present."
"Yeah," James sighed, forcing a smile onto his face. He took a deep breath and checked his watch. "It's only five in the morning. What are we meant to be doing for the rest of the day?"
"I thought we'd set up our tent, perhaps take a nap, then explore the magical parts of Cairo," Hermione said. "Our Portkey to the next destination, which is in South America, leaves around lunchtime tomorrow. We have another time change, five hours this time, so we don't need to leave too early."
Just then, the middle-aged African couple who had been standing behind Harry and Hermione in the queue popped into sight. They jumped slightly, then gave the group a solemn nod before Disapparating.
"Shall we go?" Lily asked.
"Yeah." Hermione reached into her bag and found the notes with the coordinates for the oasis they were meant to camp at. A few minutes later, they all appeared next to a large lake that was surrounded by palm trees and glittering in the moonlight. There were already a few tents scattered around the area. They walked until they found a private spot, next to one of the larger trees.
As they worked to set up the campsite, they were all quiet and somber, but no one more so than James. He was the first to disappear into his room, leaving Lily to work out a plan with Harry and Hermione. They'd nap no more than two hours, so as not to get too out of sync with their current time zone, then meet up at eight in the kitchen of the tent for a second breakfast before heading to Cairo.
Both Harry and Hermione slept restlessly, each plagued by their memories from the Temple of Death, as Harry had taken to calling the place in his mind. About an hour into their nap, he turned to Hermione in the dark and whispered, "Are you asleep?"
"No," she whispered back, her eyes still closed.
"Me neither."
"Yeah. I gathered that." She turned on her side to face him.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey."
"Do you think my dad's going to be okay?"
"Yes. I think he just needs a little time to recover."
"I wish I could help him. He was watching me expectantly, like, waiting for me to go talk to him or something. I think the other Harry would have seen Sirius too, and maybe they'd bond about it. But me, well, I can't comfort him."
She reached out and took his hand. "He has your mum, so it's not like he's alone."
"Yeah." Harry looked down at their hands, then back up at her. "How are you feeling? We've been focusing on me all day, but you lost friends too."
"I'm okay. I'm more worried about you."
"That's ironic because I'm lying over here worrying about you."
"I told you, the wound's fine."
"Not the wound. Everything else. What you were saying when we were next to the Veil, about feeling lost. And the thing you said you'd tell me later."
"I'm still planning to tell you, Harry. Just not now." She let go of his hand and shifted onto her back. "I'm going to try to sleep for this last hour. Is that okay? Or do you want me to stay up with you?"
"No. I'm good. Just promise me you're okay."
"I'm okay."
"Are you lying?"
"No. Now please, shut up," she whispered.
"Okay. I'm just going to lie here and watch you sleep until the wand alarm goes off," he teased.
"Creepy," she smiled, but it didn't keep her from closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep a few minutes later.
Harry shifted closer to her, until he could feel her warmth and smell the floral scent of her shampoo. He closed his eyes and after a few minutes, finally managed to fall asleep.
A little over an hour later, Hermione stepped into the hallway between the two bedrooms of the tent and walked over to the room with the shower. She sighed when she saw the flap tied closed. Harry must still be in there. He took a surprising amount of time to get ready, especially when you considered that he clearly never bothered to do anything with his hair. Hermione was walking back to her room when Lily peeked her head out into the hall and whispered, "Psst. Hermione."
"Oh. Hi, Lily."
Lily tied off the flap to her bedroom and went to join Hermione in the hall. "James and I are going to skip Cairo today, okay? We could use the day to recover."
"Oh, um, okay. Do you want us to stay too?"
"No. You go on and we'll stay back. Like you and Harry did yesterday."
"Yeah. Makes sense. We've been going non-stop for the past few days."
"Right." Lily reached out and ran her fingers through Hermione's hair. "That last Wonder was a lot," she whispered, keeping her eyes on Hermione's curls.
Hermione grabbed Lily's hand and squeezed it. "How are you? And how is James? I assume he saw Sirius?"
Lily nodded, her eyes focused on the hall behind Hermione. "It was...like he was really there. He was laughing and joking, just like always and—well, you'll know what it was like. I think James had this high during it, seeing his best friend after all this time, but then Sirius left and it's like we've lost him all over again." Lily looked at Hermione and her eyes were so sad, and so similar to Harry's, that Hermione's chest tightened.
"James wants to go back to the Veil," Lily continued, "but he's fighting it."
"I'm so sorry, Lily. I should have known. We should have skipped this one."
"Don't be silly. It was—really something. I'll remember it forever. James just needs the day to recover. I'm sure he'll be back to himself by tomorrow."
"I hope so."
"Hermione. Can I ask for a favor?"
"Of course."
"Can you talk to Harry about James? And maybe nudge him to talk to his dad later today? They had a unique relationship with Sirius, one I didn't share, and I know it would mean a lot to James if he could talk to Harry about how he's feeling."
Hermione stiffened. "I'll, uh, see what I can do," she forced out, struggling to keep her voice even.
"Okay, dear," Lily said, patting her arm before turning back to her room. Hermione just stood in the center of the hall, trying to figure out how much of this conversation she was going to tell Harry, when Lily said over her shoulder, "It's just Harry in there, not one of us, so you don't have to linger outside."
It took Hermione a few seconds to catch her meaning. Right. Harry was in there, finished with his shower, since she couldn't hear the water running, and was either changing or getting ready in front of the sink. As his fiancée, who lived with him, she shouldn't have any qualms about walking in and starting her shower.
"Right," Hermione said awkwardly, looking down at the towel she had draped over her arm as she felt a warm blush creep up her neck.
Lily gently kicked the side of her leg and said playfully, "I know you have sex, dear. Especially since I was the one who taught you how to brew a Contraceptive Potion."
Hermione could feel her blush deepen. Had the other Hermione really gone to Lily for that? She got the sense Lily was her magical mother in this world, sort of how Molly was in the other world, but Hermione would have never reached out to Molly about magical methods of contraception—and not just because Molly probably wasn't a very reliable source on the topic, based on the number of kids she'd ended up with.
"You're cute," Lily laughed, reaching out to pat Hermione on the head. "It could have been worse. Do you know who I had to ask? McGonagall."
Hermione winced.
"I know. They need to add books in the library about it for us Muggleborns who can't just ask their mum. But I guess that wouldn't have done much for you, since you weren't at Hogwarts. But I was happy to help. Anyway, I can tell you hate this conversation, so I'll leave you alone."
Hermione froze as the implication of Lily's statement took form in her brain. She'd had sex with someone besides Harry, because he hadn't been at Headquarters. Huh, interesting. Who was it? The only other student who she knew for sure had lived there was Neville. Had it been him? It was strange to think of. Hermione snapped back to the present, where Lily was watching her expectantly.
Hermione took a breath and wrapped her hand around the edge of the flap covering the shower room, then turned to give Lily a nod over her shoulder. She let out a sigh of relief when Lily disappeared back into her room. Once Lily was out of sight, Hermione pulled her hand away from the tent flap.
The next moment, Harry opened the flap, wearing nothing but a towel, and poked his head into the hall. "What's up? I saw you reaching in here."
"No, I wasn't reaching," she hissed.
Hermione looked over at Lily and James's room, then back at Harry. He was shirtless—naked, actually, under the towel. His green eyes were especially startling, probably because he wasn't wearing his glasses, his hair was damp and messier than usual, standing up in all different directions, and he was only wearing a towel. You already said that one.
"It was nothing," she whispered. "I'll be back in the room."
Harry grabbed her arm. "Are you okay? What's going on?"
"Harry, we shouldn't do this out here," she whispered back. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head to see the flap to James and Lily's room flutter. Hermione put her hand on Harry's chest and pushed him back into the small shower room, then tied the flap closed behind her.
As she stood before Harry, taking in his appearance, a warmth spread through her, unrelated to the steam in the room leftover from his shower.
Her eyes automatically landed on his chest, which was lean and muscular, with a thin layer of black hair across the top. She forced her gaze upward and focused on his face, half of which was clean-shaven, while the rest was darkened with a shadow of stubble.
"Sorry to interrupt your shaving," she said, speaking higher than normal and hating herself for it. Calm down, Hermione.
"What's going on?" he asked, leaning against the sink behind him as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Her eyes drifted down, but she pulled them back to his face. "It was your mum. She, uh, was telling me that she and your dad were going to stay here while we go to Cairo."
"Oh. Are they okay?"
"Yes. Just a little shaken from their meeting with Sirius. She confirmed that's who they saw." Hermione was about to mention Lily's request that Harry speak with James, but decided to save that for later, when Harry was wearing clothes.
"And then you decided to burst in here to give me this urgent piece of information?" he asked, his green eyes shining with amusement.
Hermione sighed and explained the awkward conversation with Lily that had led her here.
"Oh," he said, looking horrified.
Lovely. The thought of having sex with you disgusts him.
Why do you care?!
He narrowed his eyes at her. "You slept with someone at Headquarters? Who?"
"It wasn't me!" she said defensively. "It was the other Hermione. And I have no idea who it was, but this does add some color to the story. The other Harry would have been especially resentful to his parents for keeping him away from Headquarters if it led to the other Hermione shagging someone else."
"The plot thickens..." he said, looking distantly at the wall behind her. "Anyway," he continued with a shrug, "my mum's certainly more progressive than Molly, who still thinks Ginny lives with you."
"You don't have to tell me where Molly falls on the progressive scale," Hermione grumbled, recalling a recent conversation with the older witch about her plans to continue working after she had kids. Hermione cocked her head as she looked at Harry, trying to figure out why he looked so different. The halfshaven face was part of it, the lack of glasses another part, but there was something more. His face wasn't as thin and oval as it had been when he was younger. His cheekbones were jutting out slightly and there was a nice angle to his jawline. Somewhere along the way, he'd grown from the too-thin teenager into a rather handsome man, and she hadn't noticed. Probably because her gaze always went straight to his captivating eyes and never stopped to study the rest of his face. Her eyes met his now, and she saw him watching her curiously. "What's going on?" he whispered. She blushed and looked down, her gaze landing on his towel, where his penis was. What is wrong with you?! "Your hair looks ridiculous right now," she said quickly, turning to peek out into the hall through the crack in the tent flap. "Okay, the coast is clear. I'll, uh, see you later. I mean, when you're done in here, come get me. You know where I'll be. Um, bye."
She gave him a lame wave before disappearing into the hall and practically diving into their bedroom. Once she was safely inside with the flap closed, she tossed her towel on the bed and leaned back against the canvas walls. "Jesus Christ," she breathed, letting out a shaky breath. What just happened? One look at Harry without a shirt and she'd turned into one of those giggly girls who completely lost their heads around the wonderful Harry Potter. She'd seen Harry without a shirt before. Loads of times. But this—this was different. She'd never seen him wrapped in a towel, fresh out of the shower. Clearly, her theory about this Hermione's body longing for her fiancé was correct. She was sure if she was in her world, she wouldn't have reacted like that. She wasn't attracted to Harry.
Really? How about all those times you thought him fanciable in school?
And in the tent, when it was just the two of you, you thought about it—turning to him for comfort—and not just once.
Every time he dresses up in his Auror robes and fixes you with that fierce look, your heart flutters. Same effect when he wears dress robes. And sometimes, it even happens when he's in normal clothes and smiles in that way that brightens his whole face.
When you saw James for the first time you thought he was handsome, which is pretty much the same as thinking Harry is handsome.
"Okay, that's enough," she said aloud. She went to the bed and plopped back onto it, raising her hands to her warm cheeks. She was a mess. The stress of this trip was getting to her.
"Just nine more days," she said to the ceiling. Inappropriate thoughts were fine. Not great, but fine. As long as she didn't act on them, which she would never, ever do. Especially since she had made a pact with herself at the start of the trip to tell Ron everything that happened between her and Harry. So far, it was just two kisses. One at the flat and one in the Enchanted Forest. She was determined not to let anything else get added to that list.
As she thought the words, "anything else," she saw a flash of Harry standing before her in just a towel, his hair tousled and his lips turned up in a half-grin as his eyes sparkled with mirth. A familiar shock of desire hit her, landing between her legs. She grabbed the pillow and groaned into it.
At least you're getting a shower soon.
Shut up!
Harry was subdued as they made their way to Cairo after their second breakfast that morning. It was hard to imagine they'd started their day hours earlier in China, with only a hint of what they were going to experience at the next Wonder.
Harry was trying to pull himself out of his low mood. He didn't want to waste any time on this trip being depressed, but he'd never been able to actually snap out of them. He usually just plastered a smile on his face, pretended he was okay, and waited for the darkness to pass.
As they explored the Muggle parts of Cairo, and Hermione pointed out various sights, Harry thought about all the reasons he was sad. It wasn't a great way to make himself feel better, but Hermione told him once it was better to face bad emotions, so he was trying that now.
There was the typical grief from all the people he'd lost back in his world, which he'd been forced to face earlier in the Temple of Death. But that was an ever-present companion for him, always weighing on his heart, and wasn't behind much of his current melancholy.
Harry was worried about his dad and was especially tormented by the fact that there was nothing he could do to help him. He was worried about Hermione too, and he should be able to help her, but he felt almost as out of his depth with her as he felt with James, which was distressing.
His mum seemed okay, he wasn't especially worried about her. Then again, he didn't know her well enough to know if she was really okay or just faking, and he hated that. And most of all, he was jealous of the other Harry. An utter, complete, all-consuming jealousy was threatening to drag him down into a dark place he feared he'd never be able to claw his way out of.
That idiot, the other Harry, who was so fortunate, but too stupid to see it. He'd taken the witch he loved for granted until she was almost killed. Then he had the gall to blame his parents for the incident, when all they'd been trying to do was win a war. And finally, he'd proceeded to cut them out of his life for almost two years. Wanker.
What Harry wouldn't give for two years with his parents. Look what he'd done for just two weeks with them. Why was it fair that the other Harry got this life, while Harry was stuck in the other one, all alone?
"Hey." Hermione's voice cut into his thoughts. Her brown eyes, tinged with concern, were searching his face. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Okay. That's fair. I'll be here if you change your mind." She gestured toward a small, elaborate archway at the top of a narrow stairwell between two inconspicuous buildings. "That's where we're going."
Harry nodded and followed her up the stairs, deciding not to voice his concern that the archway, which was at the edge of one of the city's walls, appeared to go nowhere. This was confirmed when they reached the top of the stairs and Harry peered through the archway to a Muggle freeway below.
"Great view," Harry said flatly. "Would you like me to snap a photo of it for you?"
Hermione had pulled out her wand and was tapping each of the stones that made up the archway. "I know you're in a bad mood," she said as she focused on her task, "but I can do without the snarkiness."
Harry sighed and pulled out his wand, then started tapping the higher-up stones she couldn't reach. Once they'd tapped every stone twice, they gave up. Hermione cast several spells Harry had never seen before into the arch.
"Are you sure this is magical?" Harry asked doubtfully. He couldn't feel an ounce of magic in the air and wondered if she'd got the wrong archway.
"Yes," she said simply, frowning at the result of the most recent spell. "This is one of the entrances into the magical part of Cairo."
"And there was nothing in your research about how to get inside?"
"Oh, no. I know exactly how to get in. There were step-by-step instructions with diagrams and everything. I just thought it would be fun to stand out here in the heat for an hour and imagine what it would be like if I didn't know." She rolled her eyes and focused back on the complicated Runes hovering in the air above her wand.
"Who's the snarky one now?" he grumbled, leaning against the frame.
Her lips curled up slightly as she tried her next spell. Before she had the incantation out of her mouth, a strange chanting sound filled the air. Harry jumped and looked around for the source of the sound.
"What the—?"
"It's the call to prayer," Hermione explained, answering his unfinished question.
"I don't know what that means," he admitted.
"This is a Muslim city and it's part of their religion to stop and pray five times a day. These calls are put out by the mosques as a reminder to stop and pray." She looked around and pointed toward the nearest mosque, with a domed top and thin minarets setting it apart from the surrounding city. "I think the call is coming from there."
Harry looked around, expecting to see people stopping to pray, but there were no Muggles in this part of the city, which seemed mostly abandoned. He looked down at the cars that were zooming past on the freeway below. "Are they supposed to be stopping, then?" Maybe they couldn't hear the call from inside the cars.
"I don't know," Hermione said. "I don't know the rules. We do a terrible job in our world of educating children about the various cultures of the world—and that's just magical cultures I'm talking about. Expand that to Muggles and—"
"Hush," Harry hissed. "Do you hear that?"
"I just told you, it's the call to pray—"
"Not that. Listen."
Harry closed his eyes and focused on the sounds around them. He tried to block out the chanting coming from the mosque and the whooshing of the cars on the freeway below. He could hear faint sounds of voices, laughter, carts rolling across stone cobbled roads, the meowing of cats and the hooting of owls, and hawkers selling their wares. It was the sounds he'd expect from a magical street in Cairo, but where were they coming from?
Harry opened his eyes and looked back through the archway, which still appeared to go nowhere, but he was sure the sounds were coming from in there. He reached a tentative foot through and this time, unlike the other times when he and Hermione had tried this, it met solid ground, instead of air.
"Wha—?" Hermione said, her eyes wide as she watched him tap his foot on the ground.
"I can hear the street on the other side. I think that call to prayer must have opened it up. Come on."
Hermione reached a tentative foot through and gave a frustrated sigh when it touched something solid. "How much walking on air are we going to have to do on this trip?" she grumbled.
"Do you want me to carry you again?"
"No." Hermione clutched his arm tightly, squeezed her eyes shut, and rushed through the archway, pulling him along with her. As soon as their bodies made it through the entryway, the scene around them changed. They were in the middle of a lively bazaar.
Harry nudged Hermione in the side. "Open your eyes."
She took a deep breath before doing so, and he watched her face fill with wonder as she took in the sight around them. "Wow."
Harry knew exactly how she felt. It was really something. Like Diagon Alley, if it were ten times larger, exotic, and nestled amongst beautiful architecture. There were stalls everywhere selling all sorts of things from magic carpets, to colorful sweets, to elaborate clothes and jewelry, to rare creatures. It was hard to decide where to look first.
A boy of about eleven or twelve ran past them, saying what sounded like, "Got your face!" as he bumped into Hermione. Harry was sure he'd misunderstood him but then, the boy turned around and was literally wearing Hermione's face. Harry pulled out his wand and turned to Hermione, who looked like her normal self, but now, he couldn't be sure. "Who has a doe Patronus?" he asked under his breath.
"Snape and your mum. It's me, Harry. That was just a silly trick."
"Maybe," he muttered, but didn't let go of her arm and kept his wand brandished the whole time they walked down the busy street, on high alert for any other face-stealers.
When an elderly woman tried to wrap a scarf around Hermione's neck a few stalls down, Harry pulled Hermione roughly against his side and waved the woman away.
It was the same at the next shop when a small girl held out a tray of sweets and encouraged Hermione to try one. "Absolutely not," he hissed in her ear.
"I can run a quick spell to check for poisons if you're so worried."
"Or you can keep walking," he countered.
"You're no fun," she grumbled as she gave the girl an appreciative wave and continued walking down the street.
Hermione pointed out several cats hiding in little nooks and crannies and tried to make a game out of spotting them as they made their way through the bazaar. "There's one," she said, pointing to a white cat curled up in a gold vase in the window of one of the shops.
Harry let out a small laugh. "That's a good hiding spot. Not as impressive as that one, however." He pointed toward a man wearing a turban ahead of them. If you looked closely, a black kitten was peering out of one of the folds.
Hermione laughed. "Okay. That one wins." She smiled up at Harry and gave him a playful nudge. "Are you finally managing to relax a bit?"
"I'm just being vigilant," he said defensively. "We're in a strange place surrounded by strange magic. Who knows what could happen if we let our guards down?"
Hermione rolled her eyes but when they reached the next shop, Harry's paranoia was proven to be warranted. A small man with dark beady eyes, who wrapped in a cloak and hunched over, held out a tray of glittering jewels to Hermione. She raised her hand to wave him away but when her eyes caught the emerald on the necklace at the center, she forgot why her hand was in the air and slowly lowered it to her side.
"Come in?" the man said in a scratchy voice.
Hermione nodded slowly, lifted her leg to take a step closer to the necklace. She was violently pulled back by Harry. "Get away!" Harry snapped at the man.
The man disappeared into the shadows as Harry pulled Hermione to the side of the road, taking her face in his hands. He could still see the reflection of the emerald necklace in the depths of her eyes, which made his hairs stand on edge. After a few seconds, the image disappeared and her eyes went back to normal.
"Are you okay?" Harry muttered urgently, his eyes roving over every familiar curve of her face, looking for anything out of place. "Please, tell me you're okay."
Hermione placed her hands on top of his and pulled them down from her face. "I'm fine. It was just—I don't know what that was, but I'm fine."
Harry pulled Hermione further off the road into a deserted alley and pointed his wand at her. "I'm going to run a series of diagnostics spells to check for remnants of Dark Magic. Don't even bother protesting."
Hermione rolled her eyes but stood still as Harry checked her over. "And you were making fun of me for not relaxing," he scoffed once he confirmed there was nothing wrong with her.
"I had it in hand," she countered. "I would have managed to snap out of that strange trance."
Harry let it slide, since he could tell she was still shaken from the encounter. Sure enough, when they returned to the road, she was clutching him a little tighter.
Harry wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. "I'm going to need you to not die today, okay? That would be too many dead people for one day."
She looked up and gave him a shy smile, and he could tell she had recognized his quip for what it was. A truce. They'd been at each other's throats all day, but they both knew it had nothing to do with the other.
"Okay," she said flippantly. "I can postpone the dying I was planning to do until tomorrow."
He pulled her closer to his side. "Dark joke."
"You loved it," she retorted as she snaked an arm around his middle.
