Chapter Text
Pansy has yet to find something desirable about traveling by portkey.
It's nauseating, dizzying, and leaves her feeling like a fish pulled on a line. Sure it's timely, but that's hardly worth much. Not when she can easily apparate to anywhere of her choosing.
Unfortunately, her employers have yet to change their policies despite her persuasive arguments, citing something about an unreasonable percentage of curse-breakers lost due to splinching accidents. Ridiculous to think she'd ever be so inexact.
Arriving in a wizarding market square in Cairo, Pansy's quick to set her sights on a drink and a drag before setting off for those blasted dusty dunes outside the city. The runes can survive another half hour without her attention... Her stomach cannot.
~
This is Neville's first assignment on the African continent, and frankly, he's more than ready for it to be his last. He'd enjoyed a certain fascination reading about the native plants during his schooling years, but the reality of Cairo's cursed tombs and deadly wildlife has left him longing for soggy, gloomy London.
And speaking of deadly wildlife, who should he spot arriving to the site but...
"Pansy Parkinson," Neville utters, perfectly stupefied, "Merlin's beard, what's she doing here?"
"Suppose she's here for the tomb, being a curse-breaker and all," His weathered partner grunts, "Come on Longbottom, eyes on the prize."
"Oh," Neville's eyes snap downward, "Yes sir."
It's rather anticlimactic really, chasing a wanted man across continents, only to find him dead in an ancient trap. It's a ghastly scene, one which normally would rapt Neville's full attention, but today he can't seem to give this dead fellow the time of day.
He isn't really sure what he expected Pansy to be doing with her life... Honestly, he hadn't really given it much thought after they'd graduated. He supposed she'd be married off by now, swept back into the folds of her beloved highbrow society; not gallivanting off to dangerous tombs in far off countries.
It perplexes him so that, even after they complete their analysis of the scene, package up their wayward query, and send the unfortunate fellow on his way back to headquarters, Neville is still standing in the sand; pondering.
~
An hour, maybe two passes before she reemerges from the tomb's entrance.
Neville isn't sure what he's expecting to see when the light touches her skin. He supposes she'd look the way she did when she entered, primly dressed with clear skin and a properly placed bob. Not the disheveled and weary woman that he finds standing before him now.
"Pansy..."
"Longbottom," She greets him coolly, her posture rigid, "Did you need a statement?"
"What?"
"For the incident, earlier," She motions to the disabled trap outside the tomb.
"Er," He knows he shouldn't lie to her, but he's already decided on an answer before the words have left his lips, "Yes."
"Fine," She huffs, a stray tuft of hair bouncing lightly away from her lips, "But you're going to buy me a drink first."