E Pluribus Unum

A/N - For those of you who were wondering about Cairo and David, here\'s some background for you. Thanks to Kate for making sure Bill didn\'t sound like Percy.LOL

Helen - Thank ou for the review for last chapter
ghaeth - Awwww.
Droxy - Actually, the knives are based on real blades and the mad swordmaker, Musashi, was a real person whose blades were reputed to be cursed.
deblovesdragon - Well, the pistols were for an earlier generation the Clash was 80\'s, which is my generation also, but the Pistols were the 60\'s and 70\'s. (I love them both, btw) and yes, the cake topper was apromise in lieu of a ring. He did sort of ask her to marry him at the end of Sub Rosa, but Voldie has beeen strangely silent on the subject lately, so....
Brian - Thank you
Helen - He\'ll have a hard time as a teen period.

Chapter 34 –Cairo Haunts Us All

Kathryn was sitting in the dark watching Severus sleep, she was doing that a lot lately, she found. Silvered moonlight in shafts of pure white lay across the floor. The black bulk of the bed hulked in the center of the room and the armchair that Kathryn was curled up in was deep in the shadows. At night when the light was low, the world was black and white. Color had leached out of everything and it all was just light and shadow. Kathryn held Ryan against her and watched the shadow that was Severus, his chest rising and falling as he slept. Her mind was too full of thoughts for her to sleep.

Ryan had been restless and she had ended up holding and rocking him for some hours before he fell asleep. He had turned six months old on the fifth of January and time just seemed to fly by. He grew like a weed, longer of body and more adept at wriggling and now crawling. He raced across the floor when given the chance and keeping up with him was difficult sometimes. She wasn’t sure how they were going to cope with him walking.

They had spent the weekend at the Order’s Headquarters, a working vacation as it were, and Kathryn traced the unfamiliar shapes of furniture with her eyes, feeling out of place. Even as a full-fledged member of the Order, she was uneasily aware of being an eagle among doves. Her brisk, no-nonsense manner combined with the reputation that preceded all Agents made the others more wary than friendly.

Oh sure, Kingsley, Arthur and Moody all thought she was divine, but the rest of them eyed her askance, even more so because of her obvious closeness to Severus. Tonks seemed torn; she was very much aware of the fact that she owed Severus and Kat her life, but at the same time, as one of Severus’ former pupils, she had a natural antipathy towards him and Kat’s cool demeanor was the antithesis of Tonks’ enthusiastic warmth.

It was amazing how many of those who had once had him as a professor seemed to be still utterly terrified by Severus, even years after school.

Voldemort had summoned Severus as soon as he had received word of his recovery and congratulated him on having ‘passed his test’. Severus’ loyalties hadn’t been questioned even while he was being tortured, just his ability. Severus was to be put back on guard duty outside, which relieved and frustrated him at the same time. He was relieved because he was not as likely to have to kill anyone; frustrated because his chances to save lives were significantly reduced.

Severus stirred and she popped the baby back into the little crib beside the bed. She crawled under the covers and pretended to be asleep. It would only worry him if he knew how many sleepless nights she had had since the night Hagrid had dragged his half-dead body into the Hospital Wing.

He didn’t know she had sat up all night with Hagrid, leaning on his huge shoulder and feeling like a child beside his bulk, watching Severus fight for life. She had prayed and cried and snuffled into the spotted handkerchief Hagrid had handed her and tried to ignore the calm figure standing in the shadows, watching with her. She would tell no one of the Baron’s presence; another secret to hold in her heart like all the others.
Sometimes she imagined the secrets were like birds fluttering in her chest, struggling to break out and fly away. She needed sleep. She needed a night of uninterrupted rest. She needed to not be doing this anymore.

She remembered David’s face in the forest; where was he now, what was he doing and would she end up as mad as he was from all this? She stilled the whispering voices again with a sigh.

“Kathryn? Are you awake?” He whispered and she turned to meet his gaze with a small yawn.

“Uh-huh.” She mumbled. “Is it time to get up?” She feigned waking grogginess and he kissed her, his roughened cheek grazing hers. He had the most amazing eyes, she thought with some amusement, as he dragged himself off to the bathroom. First thing in the morning they were a dark warm brown, but as the day passed and his aggravation grew, they would darken until they were near black by night. She wondered if a happy life would leave them permanently brown. Still, there were times when they went dark that weren’t from anger.

She felt a rush of desire just thinking a about that and wondered if jumping him in the shower was in order.
Ryan stirred and made a whimpering noise and Kathryn sighed again. Oh well, she thought, maybe later. She picked up the baby and went into the other room in search of a bottle.


Kathryn sat at the table in the kitchen and tried to hide her rising irritation. Was this an Order meeting or a Canasta party? Moody was watching her with an amused expression and she wondered if her mounting blood pressure was somehow visible to his magic eye.

“You cannot store dodgy goods here Mundugus! How many times do I have to tell you that?” Molly was scolding the skinny, shifty-eyed little man as he tried to hide a box of second-rate quills behind his back. In his top hat and tails, he looked like the Artful Dodger gone to seed. Molly, in a mish mash of different prints all topped off by a maroon shawl, looked harried and upset.

Arthur was involved in a discussion of Ministry actions with Kingsley, who today sported a ruby in his ear instead of his usual gold hoop. Arthur’s bright blue eyes were flashing with irritation, while Kingsley was all mahogany stillness with a steady gaze as they talked.

Severus sat beside Kathryn, leaning back in his chair with his hands folded over his stomach, looking both bored and angry. Tonks kept watching him from across the room as though she wanted to say something but she lacked the courage. She twirled a lock of neon red hair between two restless fingers and Kathryn was taking mental bets on what would break first, her hair or her nerve.

There was the sound of the front door closing and then footsteps. Kathryn turned her head towards the door, hand on her wand as they weren’t expecting anyone else tonight. The figure that appeared in the door was one she hadn’t seen in over five years and a grin spread across her features as the lanky redhead came in.

“Well, if it ain’t Billy the Kid!” She watched his face go through several different expressions: shock, calculation, amusement and welcome, in rapid succession.

“What on Merlin’s green orb is the Ice Queen doing in London?” He shot back with a lop-sided smile.

“Bill Weasley! That is no way to talk to Professor Leblanc!” Molly stood and embraced her son and Kathryn had to laugh. “It’s so good to have you home, dear.”

“Weasley!” She howled, for she had never known his last name. “I should have guessed by now!” She rose and gave him a hug as well, still laughing.

“Professor? I wouldn’t let this deranged lunatic near children!” Bill chuckled as he returned the hug and gave her a peck on the cheek.

“Let me guess, Cairo?” Severus growled from the table and she looked at him in surprise. He was glaring daggers at poor Bill and Kathryn wished she had something in hand to throw at him.

“You still seeing that dancer, Billy?” She asked to lessen Severus’ glower.

“Naw, she left me for a sitar player.” He shrugged and she shook her head.

“More likely she found out about the fruit seller.” Kathryn waggled a finger at him and they settled around the table.

“Something you want to tell us, Bill?” Arthur asked with a small smile. The eldest Weasley son just shrugged again and then shot a glance at Kathryn.

“What happened to that partner of yours, the one who went starkers?” Bill leaned forward on his elbows with his tanned forearms crossed. He looked much the same as the last time she had seen him, though in his Arab garb he had looked a little wild and dangerous.

“Still starkers.” She retorted sharply and he shook his head. The room had gone silent and all eyes were on the two of them. It occurred to Kathryn that outside of presentations she didn’t talk much in meetings.

“Stop blaming yourself about that. It took a team of Arithmancers six months to recreate your work and six more months to figure out what went wrong. You had two hours while sand was pouring in to kill us all.” Bill waved off her snort of disgust.

“We shouldn’t have been in there in the first place. I knew better than to tomb dive without doing the research first.” She could still remember the moment of horror when she realized what they had triggered. That instant of frozen inaction had haunted her for years.

“There was no way to know that the curses on that tomb would be so sophisticated; for the period it was, they were incredibly advanced.” Bill argued back and she scrubbed her face with her hands. “You saved our lives with that curse break.” He pointed out.

“I unleashed the angry dead, Bill, and drove two people crazy.” She almost whispered that last and Severus gripped her hand under the table. Their audience was riveted by the story; she looked around at the staring faces, a mixture of wonderment and fear on every face.

“Why did you call her the Ice Queen?” Moody asked into the sudden silence.

“Because even when they were coming at us, she just kept firing off hexes. I have never seen her show fear in the face of danger or falter when there were lives at stake.” Bill smiled at her, his teeth white and gleaming in his deeply tanned face. The flaming red hair of his parents and siblings was bleached orange by the desert sun, but looking at him she could see the family resemblance. That calm surety that Arthur carried with him everywhere was there also in his son.

“Might I point out that it was a certain Billy the Kid who stole us the carpets that saved our bacon?” Molly made a noise that was half disapproval and half pride and Arthur just snorted. The rest of the Order was watching them both with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. Tonks raised her hand, as though in a classroom.

“Um, what were you doing in Cairo?” She asked when Kathryn’s head turned to her.

“Killing Aizul De Babi.” She answered with chill tones. The silence that settled this time was heavy and almost frightened. Aizul had been the Dark Wizard whose power had held sway over the Arabic wizarding world for eighty years. His murder five years ago had led to amazing new freedoms and opportunities for the Arab wizards and witches, but it had been the kind of nightmare assignment that Agents cringe at.

“Um, you killed the Dark Vizier?” Tonks broke the silence with a squeak.

“Bill, were you involved in that?” Arthur’s quiet voice was devoid of all emotion as he asked his son that question.

“No Arthur, we literally ran into your son while we were escaping De Babi’s rather irate body guards.” She put Arthur’s mind to rest. It was once thing to kill in battle, she knew; it was another thing to assassinate a sleeping man in his mistress’ bed. At least it was to someone like Arthur. Severus and Kat knew that killing was killing and that the best killing was where you did all the attacking and they did all the dying.

Still, from the looks on the faces of the Order, she could tell there would be some mental adjustments that needed to be made for those who divided their killing into neat categories.

“Dad, you didn’t have to live in a country with De Babi, so you don’t understand. He was pure, unadulterated evil and if I had been asked to help them kill that bastard, I would have leapt at the chance.” Bill stared them all down, the whole Order, as he spoke. “It was the right thing to do.”

“Well, what about this Cairo thing, was that the right thing to do?” Molly was starat hat her eldest as though he were a stranger and Kathryn winced at the question for she had asked herself that same thing a thousand times. If she hadn’t been so elated by her success, if she hadn’t almost enjoyed running from De Babi’s dogs, would she have been so careless as to where they were running?

Bill’s face changed and his eyes met Kathryn’s and she knew what he was seeing. She remembered the dark shambling forms chasing after them as they dodged through the Souk. She remembered the screams; she remembered the terror and the blood as she tried any spell she could think of to halt the horrifying progress of the angry dead. Their eyes were shadowed as they shared the memories that had tormented them both. She could see his own nightmares in his face and the way his shoulders hunched.

“What happened in Cairo afterwards was no one’s fault, but it haunts us, Mum. Cairo haunts us all.”