Curse Breakers!

'Lost the whole thing, eh?' asked Marvin Wand solemnly.
'Irretrievable,' Bill agreed. 'We brought in a pack of Nifflers, tried tunneling spells. It's as if it just melted into the sand. Left a big depression out in the desert...and in the office.' He signaled the waiter for another drink.
Wand nodded thoughtfully as wisps of smoke trailed from the pipe of his hookah. He knew the score better than most. As an ex-curse breaker, he had been in Bill's shoes often enough to pity the younger man. Sometimes all you could do was talk it out.
'Sneerscar couldn't have been best pleased.'
'Bit of an understatement, that!' Mr Sneerscar: Acting Head of Gringotts Venture and Reclamations Department (Cairo Division) and Bill's boss. He was a mean little goblin whose bald head was neatly divided into hemispheres by a meaty scar that ran from the nape of the neck to just under his chin. Bill had always felt that the scar's ridges above the eyebrows resembled the Swiss Alps, but he was unsure as to whether or not the effect was intentional. No, Sneerscar had not been pleased.
'Actually, he threatened to have me tortured.'
'Wouldn't put it past him. You know, his predecessor, Gimbleleg, had me hexed once. Not a well-loved man, Gimbleleg. They never found his body.'

Bill stared at his reflection in the mirror of the Khufu Club's cavernous men's room. Even with the fans going it was still stingingly hot and his shirt hung wetly on his skin. He loosened his tie - a relic from his school days in Gryffindor colours. A necktie was required at the Khufu and he only owned the one. Running cold water over his hands, he then slicked back his hair, which ending just below his collar was beginning to be a shade long. The red hair darkened slightly with the addition of more water. In this far-off place where he had no contact with his own life he found this most obvious mark of his 'Weasleyness' to be subtly comforting.
He shut off the tap and the attendant, an Egyptian, handed him a towel. He was unsure whether or not etiquette required he tip club staff and when he brought out a handful of Knuts the old man only wrinkled his face in a smile and turned away to dispose of the towel.

When Bill returned to the reading room he saw Wand was engaged in a heated discussion with a young man. As he approached the two men dropped their voices and the stranger said in an undertone, 'Offer's on the table, sport,' at which Wand sighed.
Bill stared at the man - he had sandy blond hair and infuriatingly classical features. Everything about him spelt 'wealth' in the most offensive type. His designer sunglasses alone would have bought a week's meals at the Burrow and the combination of the tailored safari jacket and absurd ascot he wore lacked only a sticker declaring 'I'm poncey' to be complete.
'What have we here?' he asked. ' A new face and... a Hogwarts alumnus at that!'
Bill winced imperceptibly. The old school tie - heraldry of the modern snob.
'Hello, I'm Bill Weasley,' Bill offered lamely.
'Fentington-Barrett,' replied the other, shaking Bill's hand. 'You a club member?'
'Bill is my guest,' answered Wand shortly. 'Don't you have anyone else to annoy, Edward?'
Fentington-Barrett outwardly ignored the jibe but for a grin which spread across his face.
'So, enjoying the sights of our beautiful country, Bill? Must seem rather dry compared to the old "green and pleasant lands" and whatnot. Are you staying long?'
'Permanently, I hope. I'm with Gringotts.'
'Oh, you're a bean counter?!' chuckled Fentington-Barrett, whom by now Bill had decided he hated.
Wand tried to warn him off silently with his eyes but it was too late.
'I'm a curse breaker.'
The smile froze on Fentington-Barrett's face and was slowly replaced with a much less good-natured approximation.
'Are you?' he whispered. 'Well, one day you'll have to teach us poor colonials how it's done.' He nodded to Wand, 'Marvin, think about what I said. Good day, gentlemen.' And he was off.
They watched Fentington-Barrett recede from view.
'Wanker.'
'Yes, but a very dangerous wanker.' Wand thoughtfully exhaled a great plume of smoke. 'Care for another drink, Bill?'

By the time Bill had returned to Gringotts he had managed to quite forget about Edward Fentington-Barrett and his expensive ascots, and was concerned more with his own state of pleasant inebriation. Stepping jauntily into his office, he was brought up short by a cold voice from behind the desk.
'Late lunch, Weasley?' asked Mr Sneerscar, showing more than a few teeth. The goblin sat on a high chair; his secretary, quill in hand, stood beside him.
Bill felt as if ice water had been poured over him. He sobered up quickly.
'Yes, sir...' He wondered why Sneerscar would travel so far from his own subterranean office to rub shoulders with curse breakers. 'Is something wrong, sir?'
Just then Professor Ceggerson pushed past him through the door, a bundle of papers and notebooks crushed haphazardly in his arms.
'Found it!' he cried, tossing the lot on the desk. 'Found it, Sneerscar! Oh, hi, Bill.'
'Hello, Professor. Found what?'
Sneerscar reached across the desk and took up a manuscript rather absently.
'The Professor believes he may have found the key to translating the inscription on the scarab the two of you managed to salvage. He hopes--'
The Professor jabbed a finger at a yellowed page in one of the books.
'Right there! See for yourself!'
Bill was beginning to feel drunk again. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a woman standing in the doorway. Without thinking, he passed her the full wastepaper basket, assuming she was the cleaning woman. She coughed.
'Mr Sneerscar, I'm Anne Strathmore.' She slammed the wastepaper basket into Bill's chest, forcing him to grapple awkwardly with it lest it drop.
'Ah, good! Miss Strathmore, welcome to Gringotts, Cairo. Your arrival is fortuitous -- the Professor was about to tell us of his new discovery.'
'Oh, Professor Ceggerson! I've heard so much about you.' Anne shook his hand, and the Professor blushed. 'Please, don't let me interrupt.'
She ignored Bill completely but he was too busy trying not to stare at the exposed skin between her knee-high brown boots and short khaki skirt to notice. How had he thought she was the cleaning woman? Must be the glasses, he decided. He meant to shake her hand but only just remembered the wastepaper basket before he dropped it. The Professor cleared his throat.

'Yes, um, well. As I was saying, the inscription on the scarab is clear enough for the most part. It is in part a collection of pass-spells and counter-curses as I first thought, but it is also a map, or rather, more accurately an address.'
Sneerscar's secretary listened intently as her quill scribbled away. Anne took up a position beside her, the better to view the notebook which the Professor was now rifling through.
'The scarab' -- he pointed to the golden beetle which lay discarded under a pile of notes -- 'gives us the location of a vault, not unlike, I suppose, the one Bill and I found earlier, and also the magics needed to deactivate its defenses. The only problem is that some of the hieroglyphs are specialized, trade jargon if you will, so I'm not quite done with the translation.'
Sneerscar leaned forward. 'Does it say anything about the sort of treasure this "vault" might contain?'
'Well, actually, that is the final symbol, the one I just found the meaning for. It's an old piece of iconography from the priests of Thoth. It could be translated as 'power' or 'treasure' or...'weapon.'

They were all silent for a moment while the Professor's words sunk in. Bill could feel the excitement building in his veins -- another vault like the last one! Sneerscar smiled grudgingly.
'Of course,' continued the Professor, 'if it is a weapon, we should probably let the Ministry know about it. I could pop 'round there today and let their boys have a look at my translation and see what they--'
'The Ministry be damned!' cried Sneerscar, causing Anne, who was not yet used to his temper, to jump. 'Does this office belong to the Ministry? You are a Gringotts employee, Ceggerson, and you would do best to remember that.'
'See here, Sneerscar, there are laws about these things, you know!' shouted Ceggerson, every inch a prima donna of academia.
'Professor,' soothed Bill, 'we don't even know what's in the thing! There's no point in worrying about telling the Ministry about some weapon, especially when for all we know it might be empty. If it does turn out to be some sort of weapon,' which Bill sincerely hoped it did not, 'we can alert the proper authorities at that time.'
The Professor and Sneerscar steamed silently for a moment, both wishing to have the last word and both losing to Anne, who whispered, 'In vino veritas.'

'Then it's settled,' decided Sneerscar. 'How much longer on the translation?'
'It should be done by tomorrow.' The Professor handed Sneerscar the scarab. 'You can lock this up. I've already transcribed everything.'
'Excellent. You,' Sneerscar pointed a gnarled finger at Bill, 'make a list of what you'll require for the expedition, then run it down to accounting.' He rose to leave, secretary in tow. 'Miss Strathmore, I trust you will settle in comfortably.'
'I'm sure I will, sir,' replied Anne cheerfully.
'Then I bid you all good day.'
Once Sneerscar was gone and Bill had distanced himself from the wastepaper basket, he approached Anne.
'Hello, I'm Weasley.'
'How sad for you,' she sympathized, and with a swish of her wand the small office expanded a few metres. Bill heard shouts of protest from the next office over, but Anne seemed oblivious to the noise and with another flourish over her wand a small but attractive desk snapped into being with a loud POP.
'Er, what are you doing?' inquired Bill affably. He looked to the Professor for support but Ceggerson was writing something in his notebook.
'I'm settling in.' Anne surveyed her work.
'I see, well, it's just that--' Bill gaped as Anne raised her wand once more and his signed Puddlemere United poster was plastered over by an enlarged image of the Montrose Magpies team lineup. 'Now just a minute! Who do you think you are?'
Anne looked at him and smiled. 'I'm a curse breaker.'

Stepping out into the daylight, Sneerscar's secretary, Fern Pennyweather, blinked. She casually made her ways down several side streets moving in the direction of the marketplace. Stopping at stalls and shop windows every few blocks, she looked about herself as if checking to see whether she was being followed. Seemingly satisfied she was not, she handed a short note to the man who rented post-falcons. As the bird and missive left the perch, she blended back into the crowd and disappeared.