"I am not a scholar of Egypt ze way Bill is, but I don't zink zat was very accurate," Fleur opined from over her plate of french fries. I'd eventually bowed to ordering them as "chips" to not be scoffed at by the locals, but they would always be french fries in my heart.

"It is what the muggles term 'science fiction.'" Percy explained to the French witch. "It seems to be largely concerned with various invented stories about beings from other planets, with technology far greater than that of modern muggles."

"Doesn't technically require aliens," I corrected. "A lot of it is just set in the future with advanced technology. Though a lot of that is less about genuinely trying to figure out what the future will be like, and more talking about modern politics and social issues in a way that people get separated from their existing prejudices. Pretty sure Stargate was about the Gulf War, more or less." I realized everyone but Penny was completely lost by that reference, so I explained, "The Americans are fighting with Iraq—modern Persia—over oil, so desert-based conflicts are in the popular consciousness."

"The Iraqis aren't space gods," Penny clarified, just in case.

We'd wound up taking a triple date out to see the newly-released blockbuster on the January Hogsmeade weekend. The various purebloods didn't stand out too badly in Leicester Square, with the strange dress styles of all the tourists. It was originally just going to be me and Mathilda, but Percy and Penny were interested, Percy suggested that Bill would find the subject matter amusing, and so we wound up taking Fleur as well. Afterwards, we'd adjourned to a nearby restaurant for afternoon snacks and discussion of the movie.

"They did a pretty good job with the language," Bill opined. "Vowel sounds were all wrong, but I could tell they made the effort. The scenery was decent. A lot better than stage plays I've seen." It probably wasn't fair to muggle Egyptologists that wizards had much more complete records of the language that they weren't sharing. Egyptian wizards were still casting spells in the old language when the Rosetta Stone was big news for non-magical historians.

"And it was exciting!" Mathilda reminded everyone.

"The costumes were good too," Penny added. "Honey, we're going as Sha'uri and Daniel Jackson for Halloween this year."

"Hah, I wasn't going to say anything," Bill chortled. "But he was so much like you, Perce."

Percy pushed his glasses up and gave a faint smile, "I was not expecting the 'nerd' to get the girl. That was a pleasant surprise."

I grinned, "I think this table can all appreciate how many pretty girls go for nerdy guys."

"You aren't a nerd, Harry," Mathilda disagreed. "You're a geek."

"Basically interchangeable terms these days," Penny said. "And Harry teaches a math class. He's also a nerd."

"I only taught that one time so far!" I argued. "And that was just so I could be at the school for my birthday. As well as that worked out."

"Excuse me," a voice of a young woman cut into our discussion. A twenty-something brunette who wasn't a waitress had just walked over to our table holding a pad of paper and a pen. Once she had Fleur's attention, she asked, "Can I get your autograph. You're here promoting a film, right?"

"I'm not in any films," the Veela witch demurred.

"Sure you are, you're… you're…" the woman was clearly reaching for who she thought Fleur was and couldn't come up with an answer. She frowned and stalked off after saying, "Sorry to bother you." It was as if she thought Fleur was famous, and just refused to sign an autograph.

"Sorry," Fleur said. "Ze allure, it does zat to muggles. Zey zink always I am some film star, singer, or model. Makes zem believe zey 'ave seen me somewhere before." She smiled at us, "It makes it 'ard to go out in public. But I am 'appy you can all resist. Zis is ze first outing I 'ave 'ad wiz friends in a long time."

"That's rough," I told her. "And it must be even worse if you were full Veela."

"I can tell you a secret?" she asked, lowering her voice. "Zere is not really such zing as 'part-Veela.' Zere are merely daughters 'oo embrace ze magic more zan ozzers."

Mathilda slapped her forehead. "That makes so much sense! It's not like there are male Veela. You must have to mate with human men. I mean, if you want kids."

She nodded, "Zose Veela 'oo have fully chosen zeir powers can only have daughters. Zose that 'ave not can 'ave sons, but zose boys will just be human."

"Where did Veela come from, anyway?" Mathilda asked, curious to follow up on a magical species she didn't know much about. "We don't really cover them at Hogwarts."

Fleur shrugged. "My great-grandmuzzers didn't keep good records. We 'ave been 'ere for centuries, at least. Some zink even longer. Maybe Greece, wiz ze fury and harpy connection."

Something was tickling the back of my mind, about impossibly beautiful women, having to choose their magical or mortal half, and being around since before the Veil. "Sounds kind of like you're a kind of sidhe," I said.

"Oui," she looked confused. "And you are a 'e." We all stared at each other for a moment before I realized she'd heard "she" and said "he."

"No. Sidhe. S-I-D-H-E. It's Gaelic," I clarified.

"It would help if you pronounced it right," Mathilda poked me. "Sidhe."

"Oh, sidhe," Fleur said, seeming to get it.

"You both said what I said," I argued.

Mathilda boggled, "You honestly can't hear the difference?"

Percy said, "Maybe Harry needs to set learning to speak Gaelic as an aspiration." We all looked at him. He was making a face like he'd told a joke. He didn't try that often, and never around his family, but I'd learned to recognize him mugging for a laugh. Finally, he sighed and explained, "Because the D in sidhe, modified by the H, is properly termed aspirated."

We all gave him an "oh" rather than a laugh, but Penny took pity and said, "It was very clever, baby." She then realized, "So is that why any Gaelic word with an H in it is confusing? It's especially weird because you'd expect there to be an H at the beginning of the word, after the S, but there isn't one. Lots of Gaelic words that start with S-I seem to have a 'sh' sound. Like Siobhan. Is that the same thing?"

Percy said, "Possibly. As I understand it, it all comes down to old Gaelic writing including diacritic marks above letters to indicate they were pronounced differently. But those eventually got dropped, probably because of a shift to the limited typesets of the printing press, and they had to start using other letters instead to serve that purpose, which made the whole thing dreadfully unclear to non-native speakers…"

We were off on a discussion about Gaelic, which Mathilda was very interested in. She could speak the Welsh variant, but hadn't really done a detailed study of the linguistic basis for any of it. Bill had been mostly quiet for the whole thing, and at the next moment of quiet where it looked like it was time for a topic change, and I was thinking about bringing up the sidhe connection again, he said, "You know, I think someone who worked on Stargate might have not been properly obliviated."

That abrupt statement got everyone's attention, and there was a collective, "What?"

"I realized I'd seen something similar under the pyramids," he explained. "In the sections that muggles aren't allowed in, and they're supposed to be obliviated if they sneak in and see something. The gates aren't nearly that big, and they don't spin or anything, but they look kind of similar. We're pretty sure they were old travel anchors for the ancient Egyptian mages. Before portkeys and apparition. Kind of like a proto-floo."

"Like the raths," I nodded. Then I realized I hadn't really told anyone about those, and explained, "The old 'faerie' mounds. Like the one near Hogsmeade where Penny and Percy first met my godmother." They nodded, remembering the small, man-made hill. "They were supposedly easier ways to cross over into the Nevernever before the Veil, and connected to other raths around the island to make it faster to travel. I bet the Egyptians used those 'stargates' for the same thing." There were nods that it made sense, before I cautioned, "I've been trying not to use them, because you can stretch the Veil and let monsters sneak out if you do."

"That was why the beast attacks!" Mathilda got it. "Bellatrix was using those raths."

"Sorry," I apologized to her. "I wasn't sure if we'd been over that. It's getting easier to talk about things now that most of what my godmother is up to is public knowledge."

Penny mused, "I guess we should start thinking about needing those again, if the Winter Court succeeds in tearing down the Veil." Most of the Order had been read in on the likely outcome of me or Maeve winning the tournament.

"Quitter talk! We just need Fleur to win," Mathilda argued.

"You want me to win?" the French girl raised an eyebrow. "Zat is not exactly spirited competition."

"I didn't even want to be in this thing," I told her. "So speaking of helping you win, how's your swimming practice going? And, Bill, are you prepared to be a hostage?" I had been taking for granted that the dates from the Yule Ball would be the thing we'd sorely miss, and preparing Mathilda accordingly. I suddenly realized, "Wait. I understood why you were home for the Ball, since it was the holidays, but shouldn't you be back in Egypt by now?"

"I transferred back to the London branch," he shrugged. "Last dig was at a stopping point, and I wanted to be around in case the war heats back up and I'm needed. So what is this about being a hostage?"

We spent the rest of the meal strategizing for the Second Task. It was only a little more than a month away, and I realized I still had a lot of work to do. Fleur's Veela heritage was as a creature of air and fire, so swimming in a freezing Scottish lake wouldn't play to any of her strengths. But it would play to Maeve's. I was going to have to think of some way to prevent her from a runaway victory, or, worse, taking the opportunity to just murder one or both of us in the icy depths.

I dreamed that night of the halcyon days when my only real problem was a murderous lich and his gang of dark wizards.