Chapter 9

Snape paused, twirling his wand in his fingers, clearly enjoying the moment.

"You do realise," he drawled slowly, "that your hair is going to be a problem?"

Ron scowled at the irritating bastard. "Just get on with it," he said roughly. Prick.

Snape rolled his eyes, pointed his wand at the collection of Ron's clothes on the sand at his feet, and murmured the incantation.

Ron's clothes twisted and shimmered in the orange shadows from the setting sun, slowly reforming into a plain, rough tunic, belt and sandals. Ron frowned, casting a sceptical look at the older man's long, dark robes and elaborate headdress. Compared to them, the tunic did not look very large… or impressive.

"What's this?" he asked, waving his hand towards the scraps of pale cloth before him on the sand dune and sticking his jaw out defiantly.

Snape rolled his eyes and favoured him with a thin, nasty smile. His face was hooked and pale in the shadow of the sun. "That, Mister Weasley," he intoned sarcastically, "is a Roman tunica. I told you that your hair would be a problem, and I have addressed it."

Ron opened his mouth but Snape turned away from him, sweeping their meagre coin collection up from the sands in one swift movement and shoving the money into a pocket deep in his mantle. Ron could hear Snape's breath whistling slightly through his crooked teeth, as if breathing was more of an effort than usual.

"What d'you mean… a what?" Ron insisted doggedly, still refusing to move, his hands still defensively cupping his bits through his underwear. He didn't see why Snape should have the impressive robes, while he was stuck with what looked suspiciously like a scratchy, malformed pillowcase. A sudden and horrible vision of his fourth year dress robes swam before him.

Snape turned around slowly and looked him up and down, his thin lips twisted into a sneer.

"What... do... you... mean?" Ron repeated evenly, not breaking eye contact, telling himself to stand straighter, to refuse to be intimidated. The sun was sinking rapidly and his skin was starting to prickle with the cold.

After a long pause, during which neither of the two men blinked, Snape snorted and looked away.

"Your hair and complexion is far too unusual to pass as any sort of local," the older man said grudgingly, clearly irritated at having to explain himself. "Therefore you need to adopt a disguise which enables us to travel without too many questions being asked."

Ron nodded. "Right." That seemed sensible. He knew that even Hermione hadn't been able to change his hair colour when she'd disguised him during the war... but then again... this was Snape. Ron got the feeling that there was more to be said and the bastard wasn't saying it.

He looked again at the tunica. Then back at Snape.

Snape continued to stare at him. He stared back. The cool breeze blew more insistently, sending the sands skittering at their feet. He willed himself not to shiver.

Snape made a sound somewhere between a snort and a growl. "Oh for god's sake, boy," he said irritably, his nasal voice dripping with scorn. "I thought you wanted to find your bloody girlfriend? You cannot wear Egyptian or Arabic dress with such unusual colouring and it will attract unnecessary attention, and so I have furnished you with suitable clothing... And that camel train—" he hooked his thumb and jerked it sharply in the direction of the sand dune behind them— "is the quickest way of getting closer to wherever the bloody woman has toddled off to. So don't just stand there clutching your bollocks and staring at me – put your bloody clothes on!"

A shout carried up to them from the caravan on the other side of the sand dune, and Snape was suddenly all motion and awareness, spinning away from Ron with a last, triumphal sneer and climbing nimbly upwards to the crest of the sand dune, his robes swirling impressively around him.

"Here! Hang on, you—!" Ron reached forward and snagged the tunica into his hands. The simple piece of cloth was heavy in his hands as he tugged it down over his head and torso. The cloth ended at his knees and felt uncomfortable against his skin. He picked up the thick leather belt and quickly cinched it tight. The material pulled up to his knees. Great. He bent down to push his feet into the simple sandals, fumbling to tie them tight to his ankles.

"Snape!" he hissed, fumbling with the final knot.

Snape ignored him, once again sprawled at the top of the ridge, peering down at the long line of slowly moving camels below, his dark wand gripped tightly in his fingers.

Ron scrambled up the dune slope, his feet slipping sideways in the soft sand. He slumped heavily down next to the other man.

"What—?" he began, but Snape cut him off with an impatient gesture.

"Berbers," Snape hissed in his ear. "Nomadic tribesmen. Traders and merchants... among other things."

"Right. So we just walk down there and introduce ourselves?"

"Something like that," Snape bit out, gathering himself to stand. Ron caught hold of his arm.

"So, I'm a Roman, then?" he offered, shivering a bit; the sun was setting quickly now, and the breeze had really picked up, causing goosebumps to rise along his shoulders and upper arms. He flinched as a spray of fine sand brushed across his face, and Snape was able to tweak his arm free.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Snape shot a pissed-off look at him, but then his sharp features twisted into a more calculating look.

"Not exactly a Roman, Mister Weasley," he continued in a weird tone of voice that Ron couldn't quite catch, but just as Ron opened his mouth to ask what the bloody hell he meant by that stupid statement, Snape emitted something that sounded like a growl and he jabbed his ebony wand at Ron's face.

"We haven't got time for this, Weasley – Silentere!" he snarled.

Invisible hands smothered Ron's throat, strangling his sharp cry of anger and shock. He reared away from the treacherous git, hands scrabbling ineffectually at his silenced voice box, heart pounding at Snape's sudden attack – but his movement was arrested by a sharp word from Snape and another flick of his wand.

Thin cords spun away from the tip of Snape's wand and bound Ron's wrists firmly together, pulling him forward with an irresistible power until Ron was nose to nose with Snape.

"The spell will undoubtedly wear off shortly," the older man hissed, "but if you would just shut up for a moment and simply do as you are told for a change…."

Ron stared wildly into Snape's eyes. If it was possible, the man had gone even paler in the face than before. This close, Ron could see sweat beading along Snape's hairline; hear his breath rasping almost raggedly in his throat.

Ron tried to speak again, but all the noise he could make was a hoarse-sounding moan in the back of his throat. He reached for his magic – to try to summon the faintest spark of non-verbal, wandless power… but he could do nothing to resist the twin spells that held him silent and bound. Shaking with anger, he pulled back his lips in a grimace, mouthing the choicest insult he could think of directly into the smug bastard's face.

Snape simply smiled nastily back at him. "You see, not a Roman at all, Mister Weasley," he said, his deep voice laced with sarcasm. "Now, I trust you will keep quiet and come along."

oOo

A slave?

A bloody slave?

Ron cursed silently as he fought to keep up with the annoying bastard, stumbling and staggering downhill after him, his hands tied and his feet uncertain as he struggled to stay upright on the shifting sands behind his 'master'.

I'm going to fucking smash you, you smug, sanctimonious, self-satisfied, shit-featured, son of a fucking bowtruckle bastard, bastard, basta—aaaargh!

His foot suddenly slipped out from underneath him, and Ron tumbled over in a spray of soft sand, his legs spayed out and his hands trapped beneath his chest. His face stung in the hot sands as he hit the ground hard, and he rolled further down the slope, spluttering and coughing as he tried to arrest his fall and right himself.

After a few more sickening revolutions, he managed to dig his knees into the sand and slide to a stop, pushing himself upright and spitting a gobbet of bitter sludge out of his mouth, his head still spinning from the fall.

Far below, seemingly oblivious to his struggles, Snape was still making his way swiftly and confidently down the steep gradient of the dune towards the lead Berber of the camel train, his black robes flowing behind him, fluttering in the cool breeze. He was moving effortlessly, almost as if he was floating over the smooth sands.

Wanker.

Ron coughed again and tried to use his voice, but the spell was still holding; all that came out was a strangled, inarticulate moan. The thin cords around his wrists cut into his skin and refused to so much as flex when he tested them again. Frustrated, he shoved himself upwards to his feet and resumed his awkward progress down the steep slope.

Ron's teeth juddered together as he took quick, jarring steps, blood pounding painfully in his temples and throat. He flicked his gaze between the sands beneath his feet, the billowing figure of Snape, and the slowly approaching group of tribesmen.

Snape appeared to be practically flying down the slope ahead of him now, the sands hissing beneath his boots, robes billowing.

Impressive bastard, he thought grudgingly.

Ron scowled, pushing the thought away, trying to speed his feet up even further. It seemed to help if he timed the staccato thud of his feet with shouting, bas-tard!, bas-tard!, bas-tard!, bas-tard!, bas-tard!, as loudly as he could in his head.

The men had clearly seen them, and their body language showed their nervousness, even as their camels plodded serenely along beneath them. Two of the men, one seated on a pale camel, the other on a darker beast, were talking animatedly to each other, gesturing towards them. Others were urging their mounts forward, moving alongside the first two into a tighter group.

Ron gritted his teeth… only a few yards to go. His thighs were burning with the added effort of keeping balanced as he careered downhill.

Snape continued to practically flow downhill towards the group of herdsmen, his robes curling and fluttering impressively around him, his hands now raised high and wide above his head showing empty palms to the oncoming men.

Ron followed behind him, taking deep gusting breaths as he started to slow down… thirty yards to go before he reached the bottom… twenty…. He slowed further, watching carefully as Snape approached the oncoming tribesmen, hands still held high above his head, calling out in a strange and guttural language.

One of the tribesmen called out a harshly nasal command, and the brightly clothed riders brought their camels to a grumbling halt, shifting their wide, soft feet uncertainly in the sand of the valley's floor.

The men sat silent and still atop their mounts, staring out at him and Snape, their faces unreadable in the failing light from the setting sun. Ron saw the hand of the lead rider slowly travel to the hilt of the large and wicked looking blade at his waist.

Snape was still talking, seemingly shifting between different languages as he waved his hands and arms expressively. For a second Ron thought he saw a glimmer of gold in Snape's palm, but it was gone too quickly for him to be sure. Ron caught something that sounded like a spell and realised that Snape actually seemed to be speaking Latin to the Berbers.

For a moment Ron forgot how angry he was at the man. He'd never really felt the need to put any effort into learning other languages, relying on translation spells to do the job if necessary; but Bill had picked up a smattering of Egyptian while he'd been working with the curse-breakers in Cairo, and Hermione had always been on at him about learning more languages, both magical and Muggle. Not for the first time, he wished he'd paid more attention to his studies.

The dark camel made a braying noise of surprise and reared slightly as Ron came to a staggering halt at the bottom of the slope behind Snape. The camel's rider pointed a thin, dark finger at Ron and barked out a question, head cocked to one side appraisingly.

Snape went very still for a moment as if he was thinking hard, and then spared Ron a brief glance over his shoulder before turning back around to face the Berbers with an elaborate shrug. This time when he spoke again, the heads of the tribesmen jerked upwards in recognition, two of them exchanging an uncertain look between each other. Ron screwed up his eyebrows as he tried to keep up with what was going on.

The man on the dark camel appeared to be considering something. His eyes flicked towards Ron again, looking him up and down, lingering slightly over his tied wrists. Ron tried to stand straight and face him down. Snape might have called him a slave, but he wasn't going to bow and scrape to anyone. He tried to speak, but the only sound that emerged was a slurred moan.

Snape flashed him a quick look of annoyance, then spoke again to the traders, his tone soothing and explanatory, even if Ron could not make out a word of whatever he was saying. He cleared his throat again, stepping forward to try to introduce himself, holding his hands up.

"Can you help me?" he tried to say, although it came out as a strangled collection of hopelessly slurred words.

He tried again. "Can't you see this bastard's tied me up?" He gestured aggressively towards Snape.

Snape snorted and said something else to the tribesmen, and Ron saw the lead man bark out a short laugh before relaxing his hand back onto the high pommel of his camel's saddle. He turned to the other men and chittered out a quick stream of words.

The tension in the small group relaxed immediately. Snape's shoulders fell forwards gracefully as he sketched a flowing bow to the lead trader. The Berber leaned back on his saddle and shouted to one of the men at the rear of the group to come forward with the camel he was leading.

"We are in luck," Snape hissed to Ron under his breath. "One of their company had an unfortunate altercation with a rival group and so his camel is available to ride. They will take us both into Siwa."

Ron shot him a filthy look and grunted in reply, shaking his bound wrists at him. "Get me out of this, you wanker!" he tried to say, although what emerged from his mouth was a garbled jumble of aggressive noise.

Snape smiled thinly. "Charming as ever, Mister Weasley." He leaned forward. "Perhaps I should renew the incantation?" he whispered in Ron's ear.

At Ron's growl, Snape swept away from him, smiling winningly at the young tribesman who had by this time dismounted his camel and was, through clicks of his tongue and light taps on the forelegs of the other beast, encouraging the animal to collapse slowly at first onto its front legs, and then to settle back onto its haunches.

Ron regarded it with suspicion and dislike. He remembered the first time he had ridden a camel all those years ago. The sickening, undulating motion of the animal, the uncomfortable seat, the way his legs had flapped uselessly, unable to get any grip on the animal's sides – all of those factors had combined to make it one of the most uncomfortable physical experiences of his life.

In contrast to Ron's reluctance, Snape seemed to be entirely eager to scramble up onto the thing's back. Ron watched as Snape took hold of the rope offered to him by the young tribesman and climbed nimbly up and onto the rug-covered saddle, settling himself into place at the front of the long, hard seat. The Potions Master arranged his black robes fastidiously about him and hooked his right leg around the front of the saddle just like an experienced rider, before looking down his nose at Ron and quirking an insolent eyebrow.

The young tribesman looked uncertainly at Ron, but Snape nodded and gestured quickly with his hand for Ron to come closer and mount the camel behind him, waving away the Berber's disbelieving questions with an imperious air.

As he approached the flanks of the camel, wondering how on earth he was going to get up on top of the stinking great thing with his hands still tied together, Ron hoped fervently that, wherever she was, Hermione was having an easier time of it than him.

oOo

Pain.

Thumping pain in her forehead and temples.

Aftershocks, she thought numbly.

A smell of cloves and cardamom, and the heat of warm breath on her cheek.

The man, she thought. The man in the tent—

"Wake up, Lady."

Hermione lay perfectly still, her head still pounding.

She was lying face down, her face squished into a cushion that smelled of musk and spices, her legs awkwardly tucked up underneath her. The sheet wrapped around her had fallen away from her shoulders.

"Take me to the city," she remembered. The glow of his ring… the harsh sound of the spell, the caress of his magic, then the blackness….

Hermione tried to martial her thoughts. She reached out, trying to get a sense of the space around her, but her senses felt dulled and vague. She wasn't tied up – her arms lay by her sides – but there were now two tight bands around her upper arms that pinched her skin. She could hear the occasional, harsh cries of seagulls and smell the sharp scent of sea air—

"Isn't she awake yet, Cassien?" Another man's voice interrupted her thoughts, impatient and haughty.

"Soon, your grace, soon…."

Hermione heard a light foot tread, then felt another short breath on her cheek.

"Aistayqaz!"

It was like an electric shock. Her eyes flew open and her body jerked backwards, unable to resist the Ennervate Charm. She flopped onto her back recoiling from the bright sunlight that blinded her, blinking hastily to adjust her vision.

The man from the tent stood before her, his left hand extended towards her, the jeweled crucifix and bloodstone ring blazing in the shaft of sunlight that slanted through the room. Behind him, partially obscured by the richly clothed wizard, stood an older man, bearded and white-haired, dressed in finely embroidered, flowing robes. Like the dark-skinned man, this one wore a large jewelled crucifix about his neck on a long chain. Hermione narrowed her eyes, fighting back the thumping pain from the headache, cudgelling her brain into action.

The older man looked nervous, his pink tongue flicking out from between his lips to lick at the underside of his moustache; his long, thin fingers tightly clasping grasped the dark man's upper arm as if he needed support.

For a long moment they stared at each other and Hermione's mind raced. Nothing about this situation had been in her plans. She had envisioned a quiet entry into the city, a secret search… now it seemed that everything was in chaos. Her stomach clenched hard as she tried to reach for her magic, but instead felt the twin bands around her upper arms throb painfully.

The sudden stab of panic might have registered in her eyes because she saw the first man smile in response, a twist of his ringed forefinger causing another flare of pain from the metal bands.

"What is she, Cassien?" he muttered, his voice high-pitched and nasal. "Is she pure, or spoiled by the taint of apostasy?"

The taller man smiled at her, lips pulled away from startlingly white teeth. "It is hard to tell, your grace," he purred in response. "She appears to be magical, however..."

The older man sucked in his breath sharply. "Perhaps she is something to the Greek witch?" he offered. Hermione watched as his thin fingers crept up his robes to grasp the jewelled crucifix. "The resemblance is quite... astonishing… a sister, perhaps? Can she speak? Will she join us?"

The wizard Cassien shrugged slightly. "She is awake, my Lord. She hears us."

The old man leaned forward. "Can you speak, witch?" he asked, enunciating his words carefully as if speaking to a child. "Why were you wandering alone in the Black Sands?"

Hermione took a deep breath.

"W-where am I?' she asked.

"Where you wished to be, Lady. In the home of our Lord Kyril, Bishop of Alexandria, servant of the one true God." The man called Cassien smiled slowly, showing his bright white teeth.

She could feel the magical energy roiling about him.

Hermione shivered slightly, despite the heat in the room.

oOo

The camel plodded onwards, placing its feet carefully in the tracks of the one ahead of it. It had taken some time for Severus to adjust to the pitch and roll of the hardwood saddle beneath him – it was nothing like riding a horse or a thestral, and the initial few steps that the animal had taken had threatened to tip him humiliatingly into the sands – but now Snape rolled his pelvis and relaxed into the beast's gait with more practiced confidence.

Weasley was still sitting stiffly behind him. His hands untied, the sullen youth had scrambled up behind the Potions Master with surprising dexterity, disdaining Snape's reluctant offer of a hand up – and was now sitting as far back as possible on their shared saddle, arms folded, radiating self-righteous indignation.

Severus was doing his best to ignore him.

He needed to think and plan, of course. Granger's notebook was tucked deep within the folds of his robes next to his skin. He wished that he could take it out and study it, but it was probably too dark to read Granger's dense scribble, and he was reluctant to expose such a treasure to other, prying eyes. He wished for more than that, of course (the feel of Granger's neck under his fingers, for example), but for now he had to settle for trying to imagine how he was going to locate the bloody woman in the middle of the desert.

What was she after? He had barely had any time to absorb the exhaustive notes and scribbled diagrams in her notebook. Granger had never been the gung-ho element of the tiresome threesome at school. He pictured her young, flushed face and horrified expression in one of his classes. He had dismissed her as the worst kind of buttoned-up swot, so risk-averse as to be hysterical at the thought of rule breaking, preferring pedantic research and know-it-all theorising to actual action...

...And yet... He shifted his seat uneasily on the hard saddle. Although by no means as intense as the pain had been back in London, tendrils of it still clutched at his stomach. He scowled fiercely as he dug the heel of his hand into his belly to try to ease the cramps.

Wasn't it Granger who had beaten one of his own challenges to gain the Philosopher's Stone? Hadn't she been the brains behind the unthinkable raid at Gringotts? What of her ... peculiar... reaction to the Redemption Charm those few months previously at New Year? Or the maddeningly elliptical conversation he'd had with her in that café more recently?

Severus massaged his stomach again. As he did so, his fingers rubbed at the underside of the illicit Time Turner that hung around his neck. He clasped it lightly in his hand, feeling the indentations of the engraved metal edges against his sensitive finger pads, then the bulbous smooth glass at its heart.

What had his other self meant when he'd pressed the magical thing into his hands? Why hadn't he asked his other self more bloody questions? What on earth was he doing, haring off into the unknown after a foolish girl with no more sense than a jarvey?

His fingertips released the Time Turner and brushed the spine of Granger's notebook before he withdrew them back out from his robes. He took another deep breath and rested his hands together again on the front of the saddle.

More than anything else, what had compelled the notoriously risk-averse Miss Granger to set off on an extraordinarily dangerous and unprecedented adventure through space and time? One without (as far as Severus could see, anyway) any clear method of return?

"So many questions," he murmured to himself, quietly.

Severus squinted into the distance ahead. The camel train was moving in a single line, so, he presumed, to disguise the numbers in the party. The nearest camel was some thirty feet in front of him, his own beast seemingly content to plod along steadily behind without any need for direction. The tribesmen had showed no interest in interacting with him since they had resumed their journey, and Severus was grateful; negotiating safe passage to Siwa had been a challenge in his rusty Arabic – attempting conversation was entirely beyond him. Just thinking was hard enough. Tiredness broke over him in waves, exacerbated by the rolling motion of the camel's gait.

The sun had set a while ago now, and accompanying the chill of the desert night, had come the most extraordinary display of starlight he had ever seen. The night sky was brightly lit by an astonishing array of stars, the rocky outcrops and dunes bleak and stark against the backdrop of light in the sky. Even astronomy lessons at Hogwarts, isolated in the Scottish highlands and so removed from those Muggle light sources that reduced the impact of any celestial display, could not hold a candle to the riot of stellar illumination above him now.

As a child, Severus had loved stargazing. He had happy memories of his mother teaching him the rudimentary constellations, and he'd enjoyed his Astronomy lessons as a boy; the stars seemed to offer the chance to escape into the infinite sky. As he grew into a sullen and unhappy teenager, the stars had reminded him of the uncaring universe – each sharp glitter coldly disinterested in him and his miserable life. In later years, his despicable choices and the consequently humiliating rehabilitation under Dumbledore having trapped him in his role as House Master (a position that was practically as inescapable as a Life Debt), stargazing had provided him with a sense of perspective that was impossible to achieve in any other way.

Even though he had been obliged to keep rooms in the dungeons near to his Slytherins, he had always taken every opportunity to escape to the Astronomy Tower to stare upwards and outwards at the stars.

And now... the sky was alive with dancing light. Stars of every colour and hue twinkled and glimmered in a glorious sea of velvet darkness. He stared greedily about him, taking in the complexity and beauty of it all, seeking out the order within the chaos of tumbling luminescence.

Despite everything that had happened in the last few hours – the confrontation in the pub, the firefight in the Department of Mysteries, the giant Time-Turner... even the deeply confusing encounter with his other self – here, in this moment, Severus was lost to wonder.

He was not particularly well travelled, having visited only a few places in Europe and none far beyond those shores, but the stars had given him access to a huge realm of mythology and imagination. As he squinted at the stars wheeling above him, his unconscious mind began to identify constellations: Vela and Leo, Cassiopeia... the Heavenly Twins. He twisted in his seat, ignoring the grumpy protest of the younger man behind him, and his eyes began to trace the sinuous form of Draco, curling between the Little and Great Bears.

Draco. The last time Severus had seen him, he'd been shocked at the pale young man's wasted appearance. Draco's face had still held some of the arrogance he'd inherited from his sire, but his clothes hung loose on his slim frame and his eyes had held the desperate, haunted look of someone who had stared too long and too young into horrors. Snape knew the expression well, and the sight of it had made him terribly uncomfortable. It was also one of the reasons why he avoided mirrors.

His eyes slid slowly from Rastaban and Etamin, the brightest stars at the dragon's head, to Tyl on the dragon's shoulder... to Draco Major itself, shining brightly in the belly of the constellation. Lucius had been so proud of his son. Onwards to Draco minor... to Edasich, the orange giant, also termed "Left Pivot" by Chinese astronomers. Pivoting around what? he had always asked himself. On again to Thuban, and finally to Lamda Draconis, or Gianfar as it was otherwise known, which formed the final curving segment of the constellation, the dragon's tail...

Severus frowned.

He ran his eyes backwards over the stars, and then stared at the constellation again.

He shifted a little on his seat and focused on the pattern of stars again, his heart starting the thump uncomfortably in his chest.

Something was wrong.

He squinted again at the pattern of stars, mentally overlaying his memory of the constellation. The asterism seemed twisted, somehow… morphed out of shape – but he couldn't be sure. He turned about slightly, searching for a constellation whose form would be even clearer to him: Orion the Hunter, the first he had ever identified. Given the time of year, he knew it would be most likely visible right on the horizon…

His eyes searched the horizon, the black dunes stark against the rainbow colours in the sky until… Got it!

He breathed out slowly through his teeth, his heart still beating hard against his ribs.

It was clearly Orion. No other constellation could boast such a particular shape and form. His eyes flickered between the mighty Betelgeuse and Bellatrix, and then lower, past the three stars which made up the Hunter's belt to Rigel and Saiph in the southern corners of the constellation. The sensation in his stomach gave a further lurch. He could feel sweat beginning to break out, cool on his forehead.

What is this...?

He was so used to seeing Orion standing full-square, his shoulders parallel to the three stars in his belt. It's hourglass pattern and the picture it represented – a hunter holding his mighty sword in one hand and the pelt of a slaughtered lion in the other – had made it both instantly memorable and comfortably familiar to Severus as a young child.

—but here, that comfortably familiar form was changed. Here, Betelgeuse, Orion's 'shoulder' presented significantly higher than the position of Bellatrix... his belt was not aligned in the way Severus remembered, and those stars which comprised the hunter's sword or club were misaligned...

… and yet... somehow still maddeningly recognizable...

Suddenly he remembered where he had seen these patterns before. Treasure, be damned – that bloody woman! He fumbled in his robes, his elbow jabbing backwards in his haste and meeting soft flesh.

"Ooof! What'choo doin'?" Weasley's voice was scratchy, high-pitched but comprehensible. Strong fingers grabbed him about the waist as the boy sought to correct his imbalance.

Distracted by his attempts to wrest the notebook free from the wrappings around his chest, Severus forgot to ignore his younger passenger. "Look at the stars!" he hissed over his shoulder.

His fingers closed about Granger's notebook and tugged it free.

"What's the matter with them?" Weasley asked in his ear, uncomfortably close.

Snape fumbled to unsnap the elastic that bound the notebook and leafed through its pages, tilting the book so that the ambient light from the sky illuminated Granger's diagrams and notes.

He scrabbled through the notebook, a half-remembered image in his mind. Where was it? Granger had kept a meticulous record of her research, and that had included references to celestial bodies, hadn't it?

"There!" His finger jabbed at a page of scribbled ink. Weasley craned around his shoulder to get a better look.

"What's 'asterism'?" the boy asked, straining to see in the poor light.

"It means 'star pattern'," Snape replied shortly, his mind still racing as he tried to take in more of Granger's looping handwriting. "Granger was searching for a particular text – see?" He pointed to the page.

Weasley clutched at him more tightly. "Do you know where she is?" the younger man asked, clearly unable to suppress the eagerness in his voice.

"No," Snape answered, fixing Weasley with another sharp glare over his shoulder. "But I think I know where she is going."

"'Hypatia'?" Weasley read out loud. "Where's that?"

Snape let out a sharp exhale. "Not 'where' – who. Hypatia of Alexandria, a prominent mathematician and philosopher from the Fourth century AD. Suspected of necromancy and persecuted for that by the early Christian church. Known for her work on, among other things, the formation of stars, and the development of the astrolabe..."

He paused, staring at the image of Orion sketched out before him on the page, one 'shoulder' clearly far higher than the other, the stars oddly twisted and misaligned.

"Most of Hypatia's work was destroyed by fire when the remnants of the great Library burned," he added. His mind was racing. Beneath them, the camel snorted and shook its heavy head.

"Siwa be damned," Snape said. "We have to get to Alexandria, now."

oooOOOooo

I don't own them, JKR does. I can only offer my grateful thanks and admiration (*bows low*).

I am indebted to nagandsev for her wonderful beta skills, and beaweasley2 for her support and advice. I also want to thank Favreau, who has translated The Redemption Charm (Time's Arrow's sister story) into Russian and is beginning the epic task of doing the same for Anima Mea. The thought that these stories are reaching a wider audience is mind boggling to say the least.