They would be crossing to Cairo later today but the morning was still young when Raine Almasy finally latched her luggage trunk.

Alexandria had been sublime. The tours themselves... not her particular highlight but she had nothing against them. She much preferred the time spent on the beach. Swimming, diving, surfing. It felt a little sad that they would be moving on to some other destination but Raine supposed that she could only take so much of sharing a room with Abby Reid. Fortunately, her roommate had stepped out long enough for her to quietly finish packing. She wasn't if she could have gotten anything done, otherwise. This had nothing to do with the girl being a squib, nope. Certainly not her issue. The problem was all that talking.

Now she didn't know if it was because most of her fifth year had been spent sulking alone at Hogwarts, but it seemed to her that Abby chattered on more than the usual adolescent. Merlin, they could fuel engines at the rate she shot out each word. Raine dragged her trunk over towards the bedroom entrance, straining her arms muscles which were already sore from swimming the day before. Then, with a heavy sigh, she walked over to her made bed and threw herself on it. The witch lay on her back and stared at the ceiling, legs dangling off the bed idly.

There was still a lot of time until noon. What now? Her suits were already packed so she couldn't run down to the beach for one final dip. She could go shopping of course... one could never have too many imitation sarcophagi figurines. Or something more tasteful, like a letter opener. Raine's fingers interlocked as she clasped them across her chest. She hadn't expected to have this much free time on the trip; but the idleness was pleasant.

Seconds later, Abby threw open the hotel room door, interrupting her roommate's few moments of peace. With a pastry in one hand and her large tote in the other, she flopped on her unmade bed and finished chewing. Even her chewing was loud.
 
"Raine!" Abby exclaimed suddenly, waving her half-eaten pastry at her. "You look all packed and ready! I am too! Mostly."
 
Her suitcases were stacked haphazardly in a corner, the seams stretched to the near-breaking point.
 
"You know what we should do? We should go exploring before we have to leave for the day. I've hardly spent any time with you! This is the last day we're going to be roomies - well, in Alexandria at least, so yup, I insist on some Raine-Abby time! Rainaby!" She combined their names and laughed.
 
"You up for it?" She sat forward and grinned at her, ignoring the possibility that Raine might want to be left alone.

Rainaby?

Raine had sat up the moment her roommate entered their room, bracing herself for what she thought was going to be another incessant ramble about what a wonderful time they were having in Alexandria. It surprised her when an outing was suggested instead, seeing as how she herself had been playing with the idea of having another go at the streets. A brand-new Arabic phrasebook was buried away in her satchel, after all, and Merlin knew when she'd get another chance to be in this particular city again.

"You up for it?" Abby asked with a grin that would have been perfectly charming if it wasn't so annoying. Living with her must be quite the accomplishment, Raine thought, and felt a tiny pang of sympathy for Professor Reid. Enthusiasm she could handle but the noise...

Trying not to seem too eager, Raine nodded her head slowly: "I suppose, if we aren't too long out, we could make it back in time for the boat ride." For some reason, she imagined Abby going out on her own if she refused the offer (which seemed more dangerous for Egypt than it did for Abby). The Gryffindor didn't know her well enough to be rude quite yet.

Slipping off her bed, she picked up her satchel and grabbed a white scarf off the dressing table: "I'd rather enjoy taking another look at the shops, if you don't mind," she looped the scarf around her neck and then pulled it up over her head like a hood, "Perhaps we'll find something interesting." Raine turned from the mirror to look at Abby with a halfhearted smile. Peace and quiet would have to wait for later rather than sooner.

Raine's cautious agreement to join her for a shopping trip only made Abby's grin grow wider. "Yay!" She hopped off the bed and slung her tote bag on her shoulder, wiping the pastry crumbs off her skirt. "I knew you would be." Blatant lie.

As they walked down the hotel hallway, they looked similar enough, with the blond hair, the short stature, and the casual muggle clothes. But there was a literal bounce in Abby's step, while Raine moved more silently. Abby preferred to take Raine's slight smile from earlier as a good sign, considering the girl only seemed to find amusement when Professor Trishna tripped over himself.

When they reached the lifts and Abby pressed the button to go down, she looked at Raine and giggled, "So I heard you got stuck with Winnie in one of these. That must have been an adventure, right? The lifts are fun, but I'm more fascinated by the mobile phones, myself. And the cars. And the camels! Well, we haven't gotten to those yet, but I can't wait for those. How 'bout you?"

Abby glanced at her expectantly as the lift took them to the first floor.

When they reached the lift and Abby Reid mentioned Raine's little adventure with Winifred, a dreaded feeling fell dead straight into her stomach. Compared to the fourth year, it would nearly be a pleasure to ride an elevator with Abby. At least she knew better than to click on all the buttons. The Gryffindor suppressed a shudder and instead glanced up to observe her roommate more carefully as they entered.

Of course, she chattered too much, but there had been nothing fundamentally disturbing about sharing a room with her. The messiness, maybe. And her laughter. Or the way she nev-- Raine stopped that train of thought quickly. Not a good way to start an outing with anyone, that.

"And the camels!" Abby was recollecting the 'fascinating' features of their trip: "Well, we haven't gotten to those yet, but I can't wait for those. How 'bout you?" The older of the girls looked to her as the elevator began to move, mechanical whirr sounding.

She considered the question briefly, "Camels, certainly. The pyramids as well, though I don't intend on entering..." she trailed off thoughtfully and then continued: "Not so much the elevators and cars, I'm used to those. My mother is a muggleborn." Both of her parents drove when they travelled into town and Raine herself was partial to vintage models. A thought occurred to her just then and she frowned.

Being a squib, she had assumed that Abby was accustomed to muggle things. So much for that theory. She cleared her throat and was trying to think of something else to say when the lift went DING. Raine turned as the doors open: "Where shall we go first? The shops, or should we just wander for a while?" They exited the elevators on to the busy first floor lobby. The air felt warmer down here and she could feel an ocean breeze drifting in from the general direction of the beach. She was actually quite excited about her last look at Alexandria.

Abby gave her a funny look when Raine said she didn't plan on entering the pyramids. But luckily, there were a lot of students on this trip, and Abby felt sure that at least Naomi would be up for causing trouble while Raine observed (or pretended not to see) from afar.
 
She was just wondering what sorts of things made Raine smile, or look excited, or anything other than her normally stoic expression, when the girl told her that her mother was muggleborn. That explained some of her jaded behavior!
 
"Ooo," she breathed with a look of vague interest, about to pepper her with questions about her upbringing, but losing track of her thoughts at Raine's question.
 
"Oh, I dunno," Abby shrugged, glancing in all directions as the wind ruffled her hair. "We could wander, and then wander by shops!"
 
Abby pointed to their right, with an exagerrated tourist gesture. "That way!"
 
They passed by several cafes where men smoked hookahs outside, pharmacies and grocery stories, and a few large department stores. Abby paused every so often to peer in windows, but she was most looking forward to the open market.
 
"I keep thinking I should buy gifts for people back home, but everyone I'm friends with is pretty much here," Abby remarked casually, breaking the silence as she was prone to do.
 
"Naomi, Veronica, Sasha, Neely, Professor Trishna." She glanced at her. Maybe even Raine in a few weeks. "Oh, but I do know an Auror from back home! Two of them. Both very, very cute. One's a redhead and the other's just plain hunky. Hunky has an accent," she nodded, then grinned. "So I'll have to find stuff that screams bad-arse, Auror-ish, not too girly, blah blah."

Voices sounded ahead up the street, and Abby spotted the brightly covered food stands, and souvenirs beyond.
 
"Are you getting anything for your parents or anyone? Mine would turn up their noses at all the kitschy souvenirs. Too bad, 'cause I'm not spending my money on anything nice for them," she shook her head and giggled, finally pausing long enough to give Raine a chance to talk.
 

There had been, for a few good minutes, some silence between the two girls as they began their wandering past rows of teeming shops and fragrant cafes. Strawberry and vanilla tobacco smoke, drifting from elaborately construed hookahs. Raine breathed these scents in with a kind of relish, her lips pulled into a tranquil smile.

And then, unsurprisingly, Abby began to talk. It astonished Raine to hear that most of her friends were on the trip with them and it was beginning to dawn on the Gryffindor that the one squib she knew in Oxfordshire, Roger, was in no way a good representation of how wizarding families dealt with the... condition. She had presumed that most squibs were assimilated with muggle culture; that most of them had lives outside of magic circles. Mention of the aurors was slightly more startling; she tried to imagine Abby chatting away with two 'bad-arse' aurors and failed.

Raine tried not to show her surprise. The murmuring buzz of a crowd grew louder and louder as they approached the open bazaar, a mass of stalls and people concentrated on the bartering of goods.

She followed Abby's glance to the market interestedly and then looked back to her roommate: "I bought a lot of things for my parents earlier. They probably won't like it either but it's sort of expected," Raine's smiled wryly as she said in her mother's much higher voice: "My daughter went to Egypt and all I got was this lousy sarcophagus."

The morning heat beat down on them mercilessly and as she spoke, Raine pulled her scarf slightly over her eyes: "You know what I mean," she amended: "I would rather get something for myself today."

They were at the bazaar entrance now, where it was much noisier than before. Foreign tongues mingled in a mess of what she could only assume were merchants yelling out prices. The witch avoided bumping into a rowdy group of children running by them and, holding a hand to block out one ear, asked Abby: "Have you bought anything interesting so far?"

Abby let out a surprised giggle at Raine's imitation of her mother, thinking it sounded pretty typical. Parents were so unappreciative like that. They could at least pretend to love it and then hide it in the back of a shelf on their curio cabinet.
 
She sidestepped the kids running past, enjoying the hubbub and the noise, the mix of languages and people. Abby nodded when Raine said she was going to look for herself today, completely understanding that mindset.
 
"I've been collecting scarves," she pointed at the rows of hanging, vibrant fabric blowing in the breeze. "My plan is to hang them up from my ceiling and create a... circus tent kind of look. But pretty!" Abby clarified with a grin. "They'll be all these different colors, and I reckon I can get Aileen to enchant it so the stars on the ceiling shine through at night. Or maybe Professor Trishna could do it! He's the expert on constellations. I just know he'd be thrilled to spend a day decorating a teenage girl's room," she joked.
 
Abby swore she wasn't five. Still, it would be an excuse to invite him over and then mysteriously vanish, leaving Aileen with him.
 
"Trust me though, it's better than my idea to buy a surfboard and hang it on my wall. Aileen was like," Abby made a face mimicking her older sister, with the raised eyebrows and the pursed lips. Plus, she was terrible at surfing, as fun as that adventure with Naomi, Veronica, and the Egyptian boys had been.
 
Abby had been flitting around the stalls, her attention grabbed by everything and anything, and held for about five seconds before she got distracted and moved on to something else. There was a method to her movements however, because so far, the shop merchants had zeroed in on the slower tourists.
 
"Do you like these?" She stopped at a cluster of glass perfume bottles arranged on a shelf, and glanced back at Raine. "I wonder if they'd hold potions. Looove potions," she decided with a smile, gesturing at the one with rosy swirls.

Abby Reid might be a squib but her room sounded like a very magical place or at least so thought Raine, who found herself entertained by images of circus tent scarves and starry-skied ceilings. It seemed like the decor dreams of a little girl. In spite of them being very nearly the same age, she fancied that perhaps Abby was a lot like a little girl, coddled and loved by the people around her.

In that sense, Raine felt a little jealous of her roommate, though she didn't think about this very much as she was far too busy keeping up with the way they were flitting from one crowded stall to another-- ducking the calls of over-eager hawkers. Clothes, sequins, bottles, jewellery, knick-knacks. Abby was going on about putting up a surfboard now; her impression of Professor Reid was wonderfully accurate and the Gryffindor laughed in her discordant manner, immediately seeing the resemblance between sisters. Runes were not down her alley but she rather liked the elder Reid. There was something very calm and composed about the professor that Raine could appreciate.

They finally stopped long enough at a stall for Raine to remember that she'd come here to do some shopping. Nothing had really caught her eye but Abby looked fascinated, examining  shelves of assorted glass bottles. "Do you like these?" the girl asked: "I wonder if they'd hold potions. Looove potions."

Smiling faintly, Raine picked up the small bottle that had been indicated and held it up to the light. A beautiful and pale shade of pink shone through, like rose quartz. Sanya would have liked that colour: "They are very pretty. I don't see why they wouldn't hold potions but I suppose people prefer more practical containers."

The stall owner was fortunately busy jabbering with one of the other customers, his lines peppered with broken English and harsh Arabic tones.  Raine lowered the bottle and offered it to her companion: "Love potions are only temporary, I heard. Like with puppy love," she turned a deliberate gaze to Abby: "Why," asked the witch curiously: "Do you have someone in mind?"

Something told Raine that allowing Abby to get hold of any kind of potion (much less a love potion) would be both unwise and unquestionably hilarious.

Abby was pleasantly surprised that she'd managed to coax the sound of laughter from her roommate. This only encouraged her antics.

"No," Abby told her honestly and glumly, her face a comical pout for a few seconds before it transformed back into her usual smile. "But I did meet some very cute boys while I was surfing! It's too bad we barely speak the same language. Though, I guess the language of love can overcome all boundaries," she said with a straight face, then laughed.

"I wouldn't use a potion anyway," she declared. "Ok, maybe I would, but it would be one of those really temporary, funny ones. Like you get gifts for a day! And flowers! And a bloke follows you around looking heartsick and hanging on your every word! I could go for that."

She'd heard of stronger love potions, where it turned from puppy love to something more obsessive, but she didn't fancy that idea. Abby had never had a boyfriend before, and thought it would be brill to flit about from boy to boy for a while, with no mind to anything serious. The closer her seventeenth birthday approached, the more she questioned whether she'd want to go along with her parent's plan to marry her off and get her out of their hair.

"Do you? Have a crush," Abby asked suddenly, turning from the bottles to give Raine her full attention, curious to know if she could put her matchmaking abilities to good use!

Abby's quick and transparent conveyance of emotions was a relief. It made conversation so much easier to comprehend, compared to the nuanced expressions of less forthright persons. Even if there were a lot of changes to follow.

"And a bloke follows you around looking heartsick and hanging on your every word! I could go for that," she finished eagerly. It didn't seem so long ago that Raine and her sister had been walking along together at school, heads leaned towards each other as they whispered childishly about the boys they did or did not like.

On the other hand, the idea romance sort of nauseated her now. "Do you?" Abby suddenly said and the witch found herself the focus of her companion's deliberation, which wasn't a particularly comfortable place to be: "Have a crush," she clarified.

Faced with one squib, another one flashed briefly at the back of Raine's head and she suppressed a shudder. Under different circumstances, she supposed that Roger probably would have been her crush. Or even more than that, but thinking about him sent her into a miserable and irritable mood. She smiled fleetingly at Abby: "No," her voice was deadpan at first, "Boys are like insects."

Suddenly realizing the levity of what she had said, Raine's cheeks reddened: "I mean, I like boys. Just not no--"

Her sentence was broken off by the merchant at the stall when he finally noticed that there were two victims customers planted next to the perfume bottles, and began chattering to them in Arabic. Raine stared blankly at the bearded man, a little startled by his interruption, but then turned to Abby: "Buying anything or should we move on before he thinks we want the whole shelf?"

"Escape! Escape!" She linked an arm with Raine's and urged her forward, waving goodbye to the merchant calling after them hopefully.
 
"That was a close one," Abby let out an exaggerated sigh. "Yeah, I doubt the Aurors would want pink perfume bottles lined up on their desks. But you never know." She'd pointed them out for Raine, just in case.
 
"I get exactly what you mean," She jumped back to their conversation before they'd been interrupted. "Boys can be so immature."
 
Abby said this as if she hadn't just been babbling about starry bedroom ceilings and mimicking her older sister. But she could see why a serious person like Raine would have a difficult time finding a nice boyfriend, and didn't see anything strange about her calling them insects, considering the creative names she'd overheard from Aileen.
 
"What kind of things are you looking for?" Abby changed subjects like she changed shoes. "Don't let me pull you away from the stalls too fast if something catches your eye."
 

Happy to be away from the over-eager merchant, Raine allowed Abby to drag her onwards to the next stall. Talkative people might be annoying but she much preferred it when they were talkative in a language she properly understood!

"What kind of things are you looking for?" Her roommate posed a very good question: "Don't let me pull you away from the stalls too fast if something catches your eye."

They hadn't really passed by anything she found interesting but that was probably because she only had a hazy idea about what to buy for herself. Whenever she saw something, she could only think of a family member or friend who would enjoy such a gift. Raine frowned thoughtfully: "Don't worry about it," she said: "Your pulling me away is the only thing keeping us from being talked into purchasing entire stalls."

Remembering the rather pretty perfume bottles they had just been looking at, Raine promptly thought of something she wouldn't mind having: "Actually, we could try looking for Oud. I think Professor Cosmos said that it's a sort of fragrant oil that they wear to the mosques." The teacher had likened it to the scent of sandalwood, which made her curious.

The witch swept her gaze along the stalls that they were passing, trusting her nose as much as she did her eyes: "There," she said after a moment and pointed demurely with her free hand to a booth that had wisps of smoke drifting from its interior: "I suppose they must be burning Oud logs." Linked at the arm, it was slightly more difficult for the two girls to cross the crowd to the other side but they managed without bumping into many people.

Raine's nose wrinkled as they reached the stall. The merchants were in fact burning some Oud logs and it was a miracle she hadn't smelled it before: the scent was pungent, intense to the point of being intoxicating.

There was a kind of spicy undertone that made it seem rather exotic. She looked at Abby with an amused smile: "I'm not sure if I want to smell like this. What do you think?"
 

Abby followed Raine's lead towards the burning Oud logs, reassured that she wasn't running the girl ragged all over the market. Raine seemed quiet but not shy (excluding the topic of boys, when she'd blushed as much as Sasha). Abby merely glanced at her roommate as the sharp smell wafted up and stung her nostrils. Judging by the look on Raine's face, she was adjusting to it too!

"It's gotta be perfect for Professor Cosmos' classroom," Abby decided with laughter in her voice. "It's very in your face, here I am, stinking up the castle with- lovely, strong smells!" She amended when the merchants noticed them.

"But for you," Abby mimicked a posh London perfumers' tone, and glanced her over. "A classic, elegant, understated scent with a spicy undertone. Only hints of it! Anything too powerful would overwhelm your delicate beauty."

She dropped the act and grinned at the wood burners, "Don't you agree?" Now she had done it! The merchants started rambling in excited Arabic and showing them small bottles of the oil, several in each hand. Abby gave Raine a light tug on the arm, in case she was ready to make a run for it.

"Anything too powerful would overwhelm your delicate beauty."

Raine smirked at Abby's mimicry and at the comment about Professor Cosmos. It really did smell like something the Divination rooms would reek off, its powerful aroma clinging to the robes of departing students. "Don't you agree?" Her roommate asked in a normal tone and before she could respond, the merchant was upon them.

He spoke so speedily that had either of the girls understood Arabic, Raine doubted  any of it would have made sense. She gave the man a scowl (which he promptly ignored) and was just about to say nothankyouverymuch in a patronizing voice when she noticed another scent drifting from behind the man, in the stall. Smoke. The witch exchanged glances with her roommate before turning back:

"Something. Is. On. Fire." She enunciated each word carefully, wishing she knew the Arabic word for fire. The smell of smoke was getting stronger but he kept jabbering on to them and in a final, futile effort, Raine repeated: "Something. Is. On. FIRE."

Finally, the man over his shoulder to see what she was pointing at. One of the burners had caught fire to the back curtain, setting it ablaze-- and the merchant turned around immediately to glare at them. Not that it was their fault. Not that he cared. But appearances didn't help.

More out of intuition than any real observation, Raine shot Abby a warning glance: "Run. Now!"