Chapter 6
August, 2003
Hermione was shocked. How could anyone cheat on Bill Weasley? For one thing, the man was sexy as hell (she had no problem admitting that to herself now that she knew he was single). But for another, and more importantly, Bill was one of the best people she knew. He was genuine and kind, intelligent and brave, hardworking and had been completely devoted to his wife. She remembered when she, Harry, and Ron had holed up at Shell Cottage after Malfoy Manor, her schoolgirl crush on Bill had been teetering precariously on the edge of being something more, seeing the way he treated Fleur with such love and adoration. The way he looked at her like she was the sun to his moon. Hermione wanted that for herself, for someone to look at her that way. And the other witch had just thrown that all away? She couldn't wrap her head around it.
Being back in his presence now, Hermione knew that had they lingered any longer at Shell Cottage she wouldn't have just fallen over the ledge; she would have thrown herself headfirst into the abyss. Of course Bill had always been attractive, but before his wedding she had been so wrapped up in her feelings for Ron that it was never anything more than that for her. Even when they had some of the best conversations of her life, Hermione had still thought of him only as a friend. But watching him with his wife, and the way that he had tended to Hermione herself while the Trio recovered had brought her crush back in a heartbeat. Just as she had done for him the summer before, Bill researched ways to remove her cursed scar. He had found different pain remedies for her, and on the nights where she woke up drenched in a cold sweat, certain Bellatrix was about to push her knife through her chest, he was there. He would sit and talk with her for hours, distracting her until she could fall back asleep or, on one particularly bad night, until the dawn broke. They had left Shell Cottage a day later, and Hermione had put it out of her mind, but it was all rushing back to her in this moment.
The way he was looking at her now, as if he would devour her if she gave him the chance, was lighting a fire inside her that Hermione hadn't felt in years. It had guttered out rather quickly with Ron, as things had devolved so fast, and she almost didn't know what to do with herself, with this heat that was rapidly consuming her. Bill was still watching her intently, and Hermione couldn't help squirming ever so slightly in her seat, trying to relieve some of the tension that was building between both them and her thighs. She had hoped she was being subtle, but she caught the way his eyes lit up and the flare of his nostrils at what was undoubtedly the scent of her arousal. But this was a very, very, bad idea, she reminded herself. Bill appearing at her job site could only mean one thing: they were going to be coworkers. The goblins were incredibly secretive with the locations of job sites, so it wasn't possible that he had just innocently stumbled across her while working on a project nearby. He would have needed permission, not to mention access keys to the wards they had placed around the site to keep muggles and unwanted intruders away.
So when Bill simply nodded in response to her question and then opened his mouth as if to speak, Hermione quickly cut him off. "I'm so sorry Bill, that's terrible. So, how did you end up on this project here?" she winced inwardly at the glaringly awkward subject change, but she had invited him here believing that this meant much more to her than it did to him. She had never thought there was a chance he would feel an attraction towards her as well, but he clearly did, and she couldn't risk any more flirtation lest this thing between them go too far.
At her last assignment, what was meant to be a brief fling with between two of her coworkers, Richie and Sandra, had seen them both quickly removed from the site and shuffled back into desk jobs upon their relationship being discovered. The goblins were strict about fraternization between curse breakers; all employees needed to be focused completely on the job, not one another. And to be taken off an assignment like her associates had been meant an end to any future field work. Last she had heard, the pair had gotten married, had a baby, and were satisfied with the turn their lives had taken, but whatever this was with Bill was not that. Hermione had worked too hard and come too far to give it all up for one night with a man who, while he was clearly attracted to her, simply couldn't have feelings for her.
Bill seemed slightly irked by her sudden refusal to continue talking about their personal lives, but he knew the goblins as well as anyone. They wouldn't bend their policies, even for their favorite employee, and he seemed to realize what she was thinking because he suddenly sat back, no longer leaning over the table towards her and invading her space in a way that was all too intoxicating.
"Well, I was told that a member of the wizarding community here had stumbled upon what the Egyptian government believes could be an entrance to the Great Wizarding Library of Alexandria," he said. "And then I was informed that the curse breakers that were already assigned to the project were having terrible trouble with it," Bill shot her a cheeky grin when he said that, and Hermione gasped in mock indignation and leaned forward to swat him, but he dodged easily. "So here I came!" he finished, looking far too pleased with himself that he had managed to rile her up.
"Well before you go and get all high and mighty on me, O ancient one, just wait until you try to crack that wall tomorrow." Hermione said smugly.
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Hermione let out a string of quiet expletives under her breath when, at 10am, Bill cracked the wall she had been working on for days. It took him all of two hours. The look he shot her as the stones began to part in front of them was so self-satisfied that she nearly repeated the curses from a moment ago, but this time aloud and directed at him. But that smugness lasted for only a few moments as they stepped forward into the tunnel and were met almost immediately with another wall. This time, Hermione recognized the pattern of the characters on it, a series of ancient Egyptian wizarding runes, but Bill looked rather stumped, so she decided to let him struggle for a bit. Certainly it was petty revenge, but she enjoyed it nonetheless. Finally, after several minutes Hermione took pity on him and cast a charm to reorder the runes into a command for 'open'. It was her turn to gloat, but once again the victorious party was almost immediately humbled, this time by a wall of flames that appeared so suddenly that, had Bill not been paying attention, would have burned Hermione to a crisp. It was a stark reminder of why there was no flirting or fraternizing on jobs; her guard was completely down and her reflexes were slow, focused as she was on her companion.
They shared a look before they carried on for several more hours, and before Hermione knew it they were several hundred meters underground. The various challenges they met became more and more dangerous, and finally Bill called for a halt when they undid an enchantment that caused the bridge spanning a deep chasm of indeterminable depth to disintegrate before them. Had an unfortunate adventurer attempted to cross, it would have fallen out from beneath them, and the image gave Hermione a chill that ran down her spine and made her shudder. She despised heights, and although she had learned to deal with them fairly well during her career they were still something she avoided like the plague when possible. Bill caught sight of her shiver and instantly whipped off his jacket, placing it around her shoulders.
"Alright?" he asked, panting slightly. Hermione looked up into his bright blue eyes and only just managed to catch herself before she got lost in them. The chant of coworker, coworker, coworker certainly felt more hopeful than reminding herself that he was a married man, after all a coworker could become something to her that a married man could not. But not here and not now, she reminded herself sharply before she spoke again.
"Fine, yeah. I just don't particularly care for heights," she explained, stiffening slightly when, just as the words came out of her mouth, Bill idly kicked at a rock on the ground, sending it skittering over the edge. The clattering of it against the canyon walls as it fell instantly made her think, in that morbid way that phobias do, about what might happen to her if she fell. Would her bones make a clattering sound like that as she bounced between the walls?
"Hermione? Hermione!" she realized suddenly that Bill was shaking her shoulders, trying to get her attention. Unbeknownst to her, whatever magic the chasm possessed had been slowly dragging her forward, closer and closer to the edge. Terror flowed through her as she came to, and Hermione suddenly realized she was shivering, violently. Something about the void was affecting her, and with her magic in a weakened state after a very full day she was unable to protect herself from whatever darkness was crawling out of it. She could see it in Bill too now, as she focused. His panting from before had not slowed down, but instead was getting faster, shallower.
"I'm alright, but we need to get out of here. Now!" she exclaimed sharply when Bill made no move to leave. Thinking of nothing but getting away from that ledge, Hermione grabbed his hand and began to tug, pulling him behind her as she walked away determinedly. She had survived Bellatrix Lestrange, she told herself. If she could survive one of the most evil witches ever to walk the earth, then she could walk away from a stupid magical pit. For the first minute or so of their walk, she felt as if she was dragging herself through quicksand, Bill's hand in hers seemingly weighing her down. But finally as they managed to put some distance between themselves and the cavern, she found the darkness retreating, and they paused once more to rest in a room they had cleared of any danger on the way down. Hermione realized that despite being underground in a room lit only by torches, it felt as if she were seeing the sun for the first time in years.
"Well, that was..." Bill trailed off, not seeming to have a word for what they had just experienced. Hermione, in much the same boat, simply breathed back a quiet "yeah" before they both suddenly, with no prior communication, sank to the ground and sat, catching their breath. Eventually, as oxygen began to flow a little more easily after several minutes, Hermione suddenly realized that she was still holding his hand, and she instantly let go as if she had been burned and sprung to her feet.
"We should get going, if you're able," she explained when Bill looked up at her, surprised at her sudden movement. "I think we ought to do some research before we come back down here. I don't know about you, but I've never experienced anything like that, and I'm feeling rather desperate to know what it was," Hermione forced a shaky laugh, as though what had just occurred wasn't horrifying and she was just being the bookish swot most people knew her as. Bill was eyeing her in a way that told her he didn't buy it for a second, but instead of arguing or calling her out he simply rose to his feet, dusted himself off, and gestured for her to lead the way.
"After you," he said calmly, bowing and pretending to hold open a door for her. She still felt too shaken to actually laugh, so instead she played along, lifting her chin and nodding her thanks as she walked past him, as if he really were a gallant gentleman who was taking her out on a date. But despite their attempt at humor, Hermione spent the entire march up to the surface fighting the urge to break into a sprint and never come down the tunnel again.