The summer nights of Cairo were always warm, and usually windy. The people lucky enough to be stationed here all loved the city, the exotic foods and smells, and the kind of history that'd reach up out of the sand after five thousand years just as powerful as the day it'd last been seen. Bill had expected to spend the next several years here before transferring to India, China, or the Andes. What he hadn't expected was an Urgent All-Recall Notice pelting him in the face while he ate, but surprises hadn't stopped there.
Every Curse-Breaker they had was being ordered to pack their things and return to London; why was unknown. It was just his luck that when he'd finally gotten his things out of the Burrow he had to find a place to stay in England again for who knows how long. To make matters worse, the tellers were in a tizzy about something, refusing to exchange the dinar into galleons, saying they would have to take it up with London.
He'd just been about to grab an early portkey back to England before all the rooms at the Leaky Cauldron and the Three Broomsticks were snapped up when he was told Overseer Alkrat wanted to see him. He had seen him at a few digs, just as excited as everyone else at the thought of treasure, but Bill hadn't even thought Alkrat knew his name.
Being probed, prodded, and scanned while the giddy little Overseer cackled in the background certainly wasn't the most dignified of meetings though. He had tried for patient silence in the beginning, thinking it was some sort of new security check, but it had gone on for more than half an hour and they gave no sign of letting up anytime soon.
"Is this going to take long?" Bill asked as one of the small cadre of goblins started measuring the fingers of his right hand while another did his left foot. "I've got somewhere to be tomorrow - on top of the Reassign."
"Yes-yes-yes, you're very interesting," Alkrat said with a wave. "Do not be forgetting the hair - I want to know why it is red."
Bill tried not to sigh. Whatever this was about had better be worth it.