Disclaimer: 'Stargate' and 'Harry Potter' both belong to their respective creators, so I don't own them; I'm just borrowing them for the immediate moment in time and space
Feedback: I'd like it, believe me
AN: I acknowledge that this chapter isn't brilliant, but it's most filler for the main story; the action becomes more interesting in the next few chapters
Truth and Revelations
Despite the seriousness of the situation they were currently in, Daniel couldn't help but chuckle at the expression on Hermione's face. Even given how much he'd changed over the last couple of decades, he'd somehow doubted that he'd ever be able to come up with something that would surprise Hermione, but the evidence in front of him made it clear that, not only had he succeeded, he'd actually done something that he'd thought was impossible.
He'd rendered Hermione speechless.
And, now that he took in the other person in the room, he noted that Tonks seemed just as shocked about this as his old friend did.
"Well?" he said after a moment's pause; evidently the rest of SG-1 were either just as stunned at the identity of the Minister of Magic as Hermione was to see him or wanted him to make the introductions, so he'd have to take up the conversation on his own. "Isn't anyone going to say anything?"
"You…" Hermione whispered, staring incredulously at him. "You… you're alive… you're alive…."
Before Harry could fully process it- when you got down to it, he hadn't even expected this; Hermione had never really been a very physically expressive person when he knew her- his old friend had stood up, literally leapt over her desk, apparently uncaring of the papers that were thrown about by such an action, and had thrown her arms around Hathe man who had once been Harry Potter, sobbing slightly into his shoulder.
"You're real…" she whispered, as Daniel put his arms around her, hugging her in return. "You're really here… you're all right…"
Then she stepped back and slapped him in the face.
"OW!" Daniel yelled, reeling back slightly and clutching at his cheek as he stared at Hermione. "What was that for?"
"You left us all, Harry; what do you think it was for?" Hermione yelled, glaring at her old schoolfriend through her still-red eyes. "It's been twenty years, and what have I got from you in that time? A bunch of Christmas and birthday cards! DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT YOU CAN JUST WALK BACK INTO MY LIFE AND-"
"Hermione," Daniel said, staring at his friend, knowing this would be unlikely to win him any more points with her but equally knowing that he had to say it. "He's back."
Once again, Daniel was treated to the sight of Hermione Granger, Minister of Magic and top witch in her graduating class at Hogwarts, rendered speechless as she stared at him. Evidently, his theory about what he'd need to say to reveal Voldemort's resurrection had been right; Hermione knew well that there could only be one person who Harry would describe as simply 'he'.
And, once again, there was silence- SG-1 must have recovered from the initial shock by now, so Harry could only presume that they were simply awaiting his cue to reveal themselves to his wizard colleagues- until the silence was broken once again, this time by Tonks.
"Wh… what?" she asked, staring at the man who had once been the closest thing to a nephew she could actually be proud of. "He… do you mean…?"
Daniel simply nodded, not trusting himself to speak right now.
"But… how can he be?" Hermione asked staring incredulously at her long-absent friend. "And how do you know?"
"Well…" Daniel said, taking a deep breath and exhaling before he looked at the two women once again, "I can't answer the first year, but the answer to the second one is a fairly long story, and I'll need help explaining the background to it- such as what I've been doing for the last decade or so- before I can even get to that part of it. So, if you'll give me an hour or so, and are willing to be patient…"
Hermione nodded slightly, a shaken expression on her face as she stared at her old friend.
"S… sure…" she said, as she reached over to scribble a note on a piece of paper and slipped it into a nearby message tube. "I… I can just cancel my appointments… nothing major coming up anyway…"
"Thanks," Daniel said, smiling briefly at her as he glanced back at the place where- he was fairly sure, given the same slight shimmer he'd noticed earlier- the rest of SG-1 was standing. "Now then, this is the 'help' I said I'd need to explain the background."
Reaching back, Daniel felt for the invisibility cloak and pulled it off his teammates in one motion, once again smiling slightly at the stunned expression on the face of the Hermione Granger he'd once thought to be totally unflappable. Glancing back at SG-1, he couldn't help but grin even more as he took in the expression on their faces, grateful that Sam and Mitchell seemed to be more shocked than hurt that he'd kept this detail from them; Teal'c, of course, was harder to judge.
"H… Hermione Granger?" Sam said, staring incredulously at Daniel as she looked between him and the women sitting before them. "You mean that your old schoolfriend is the head of the entire wizarding government?"
"Just the British branch; I'm pretty the American government's independent of the British Ministry," Daniel said, looking at the three of them with an apologetic expression combined with a small smile. "Sorry I didn't mention it earlier; I guess I just… well, wanted to surprise you, I guess."
"Oh yeah; 'surprise' is definitely the right word…" Mitchell said, as he looked at the two women with a small smile on his face. He had to admit, it was a change to meet a politician around his age; most of the ones connected with the SGC were at least a decade or so older than he was, but Hermione actually seemed to be about a year younger than him. "How'd you get this job?"
"Oh… uh… quite frankly, even I'm not sure about that at times; I was just convinced to try out in the elections and got lucky…" Hermione said, looking at Mitchell in what Daniel could almost swear was an approving manner before she seemed to realise what she was doing and turned to stare reproachfully at Daniel. "And who are these people, anyway?"
"Oh, right, sorry; I forgot that you haven't been told anything about us," Sam said, smiling apologetically at the other woman as she stepped forward and held out her hand to Hermione. "I'm Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, of the United States Air Force."
"Cameron Mitchell; ditto on the other stuff," Mitchell said, stepping forward to shake Tonks' hand as Sam shook Hermione's. "Oh, and the big guy's just called Teal'c, although he can be called Murray when we're in public."
Hermione blinked in confusion as she looked at the three new arrivals for a moment, and then finally turned to look at Daniel.
"United State Air Force?" she said, incredulity evident in her very words as she stared at her old friend. "Harry, no offence, but what the Hell are you doing with members of the United States Air Force?"
"Well, for starters, I'm not being Harry," Daniel put in, staring fixedly at Hermione as he said it.
He knew it was a bit of a harsh thing to say right now- he generally didn't like being that blunt with people he knew, particularly on important matters- but, as far as he was concerned, he hadn't been Harry Potter since the day he walked out of Hermione's hospital room, and he wanted that to be established right now.
He'd made a new life for himself since the aftermath of the war against Voldemort; it was time to make sure that everyone he'd known acknowledged that fact.
Hermione blinked.
"Wh… what?" she said, looking increasingly confused as she looked at the man who had once been Harry.
"I changed my name after I left the wizarding world," Daniel explained, as he looked at Hermione and Tonks. "I've called myself Daniel Jackson for the last two decades; 'Harry Potter' was just too distinctive, and it would have made it easy for any wizard with even half a brain to realise who I really was."
"Oh," Hermione said in a small voice as she looked at her old friend.
She had to admit, she hadn't actually expected Harry to go so far as to actually change his name when he left them. She knew that he'd said he hadn't wanted to be found when the two of them had last seen each other, that long-ago day in St Mungo's, but to go to these kind of lengths to ensure that 'wish' was fulfilled…
He must have really wanted to get away from his past.
"So," Tonks said, breaking the awkward silence that had settled over the room, looking at Sam as she spoke, "just out of curiosity, what does… Daniel… do for the Air Force?"
"Oh, he's officially a civilian consultant for potential diplomatic missions," Sam explained, shooting an inquiring glance at Daniel who nodded reassuringly, prompting her to continue. "He generally serves as our linguist, archaeologist and anthropologist in making first contact on… well, our missions."
Hermione blinked.
"Sorry, are we talking about Harry here?" she said, staring incredulously at Sam. "I mean, not that he wasn't smart at school, but smart enough for-"
"I am standing right here, Hermione," Daniel interjected, a slightly teasing expression on his face as he looked at her, before his expression became more serious. "To answer your immediate question, things change a lot over a couple of decades. And before you ask why the Air Force would need someone with all those talents Sam just told you I have… well, that is something you are definitely going to have trouble believing."
Hermione chuckled slightly at that.
"Har- Daniel," she corrected herself, noting her friend's fixed glare in her direction, "I'm the head of a government for a secret magical society, while you- no offence intended, of course- have been working with the United States Air Force as a civilian consultant. What could you all have to tell me that I wouldn't believe?"
"Aliens exist and influenced the development of our entire civilisation by posing as our gods thousands of years ago," Mitchell put in as he looked at Hermione, a small smile on his face. "Actually, Teal'c here's one of 'em- an alien, that is, not one of the guys who posed as a god."
Hermione's eyes widened once again as she stared incredulously at Mitchell, apparently unable to take in what had just been said to her. Tonks, on the other hand, was a lot more expressive in her shock; she literally fell forward, out of her chair and onto the ground before her.
"Al… aliens?!" Hermione said, as she looked at Teal'c in confusion. "And he's… But… but he doesn't even look like an alien!"
"Nevertheless, I am not as human as I appear," Teal'c said, as he looked at Hermione. "It is hard to believe, but I am a Jaffa warrior, formerly the First Prime of the Goa'uld System Lord known as Apophis, and presently one of these privileged enough to have fought alongside Earth against the System Lords and played a part in the creation of the Free Jaffa Nation."
"Goa… what?" Tonks said in confusion, latching on to the most distinctive word in that sentence.
"Apophis?" Hermione said at the same time, looking at Teal'c in equal confusion. "Wasn't that the Egyptian god of the dead?"
"OK, can I just begin this story where it all began for me, please?" Daniel put in, raising a hand to draw Hermione's attention back to him. "Hermione, have you ever noticed how, in all those records in our history and curse books of the security spells put on the pyramids, the spells were always described as having been put in after the pyramids were built, and never during construction, when it would have been a lot easier?"
"Well… yes, but what does that have to do with anything?" Hermione said, looking promptingly at Daniel; evidently she resented the fact that he wasn't answering her query about Apophis. "I mean, maybe the Egyptian wizards just didn't want their magic to interfere with the construction and felt like waiting until the work was done; after all, just building the pyramids must have been hard enough as it was without adding in any more magic to the equation…"
"Actually, the reason was that the pyramids had been built millennia earlier than anyone had thought," Sam explained, as she looked at Hermione, trying not to think too much about the concept of defensive spells being used in pyramids; thoughts of Goa'uld technology being in them was more than enough strangeness for her as far as she was concerned.
"You see," she continued, enjoying the slightly incredulous look on the other woman's face- a part of her was glad to know that she could even shock people who used magic on a regular basis-, "centuries ago, a race called the Goa'uld- alien, snake-like parasites that can use humanoid bodies as hosts- were dying out, for reasons we've never been able to establish, but managed to discover Earth, and realised that the humans who lived there were perfect to serve as hosts for them."
Nodding thankfully at Sam, Daniel took up the story once again. "Taking control of convenient host bodies- commonly powerful, spirited men and women- they used their advanced technology to pose as various gods from both Greek and Egyptian mythology- that's why Teal'c's old master was called Apophis; he inspired the Egyptian myths that feature the aforementioned god- and took human slaves to other planets through the Stargate, a device that was created centuries ago by a race we know as the Ancients."
"The Ancients?" Tonks interjected.
"Pretty much some of the first sentient beings to evolve in our universe," Mitchell put in. "They created a whole bunch of advanced technology, including the Stargate network- a bunch of planets in our galaxy that can be instantly accessed thanks to these Stargates acting as 'portals' to the various worlds- but they vanished several centuries ago when a terrible plague struck; it's a long story that isn't really relevant to the current issue."
"Don't worry, Hermione; I'll tell you more about them when the time's right," Daniel said, smiling reassuringly at his old friend- guessing, quite accurately, that she'd want to know more about the details of those events- before he continued his original story. "Anyway, the Goa'uld were eventually driven away from Earth by a slave rebellion in Egypt, and the Earth Stargate- well, one of them; there was another one located in Antarctica, but it was destroyed a few years ago by a Goa'uld using an Ancient weapon- was buried at the Giza plateau until it was finally dug up in 1928 by a team of archaeologists."
"Experiments on the Stargate only seriously began in the 1970s, but no real progress was made for ages," Sam put in, taking up the story herself. "I was one of the team involved in the attempts to make the Stargate work, but, after two years, we had nothing…"
Pausing briefly, she smiled over at Daniel in a slightly teasing manner and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Until, that is, Doctor Daniel Jackson here managed to work out that the Stargate allowed us to 'dial' other planets- in only two weeks, without ever seeing the 'gate itself- and managed to activate it to send us to the planet Abydos, populated by some of the Egyptian slaves that the Goa'uld had taken all those years ago."
For a moment, Hermione's eyes grew so wide that it looked as though they were about to fall out of her head.
"D… Doctor Daniel Jackson?" she said, staring incredulously at Daniel. "You've got a doctorate?"
"I have three, Hermione, weren't you listening earlier?" Daniel asked, a smile on his face. "I'm an archaeologist, anthropologist and a linguist these days; when I said I wanted to make a life for myself in studying Egyptian history, I was really determined to do what I could."
"Trust me, he's good," Mitchell put in, smiling slightly at Hermione's stunned expression even as a part of him noted that she was kind of cute when she looked shocked. "The man knows twenty-three Earth languages and about seven alien ones, including fluent Goa'uld; can translate pretty much anything you want in a matter of minutes, though stuff like Babylonian can take him a bit longer."
"A-A-Archaeology?" Hermione stuttered, her eyes widening as she stared at the man she'd once known as Harry Potter; if she'd been drinking something, she would have spat it out in shock. "After all the times I had to take notes for you in History of Magic, you actually took a career in historical research… I don't know whether to feel surprised or angry…"
Daniel just shrugged dismissively as he looked at Hermione.
"You'd be surprised what can happen when you've got time on your hands and an actual interest in the topic," he said, as he smiled slightly at his old friend. "After all, those lectures on goblin rebellions just got so tedious after the first lesson, and you know as well as I do that Binns never even tried to make them interesting even when they were totally new to us…"
For a moment, Daniel just stood there shaking his head slightly, a nostalgic smile on his face as he did so, but then the moment passed and he became more serious once again. "Anyway, when we arrived on Abydos, the team that had been sent there- consisting of me, Colonel Jack O'Neill, and Majors Charles Kawalsky and Louis Feretti, encountered our first Goa'uld- Ra, who as we later learned was the Supreme System Lord of the Goa'uld- and managed to defeat him by transporting a nuclear bomb onto his spaceship when he tried to run away. We thought that was it- the writings I'd translated seemed to say that he was the last of his race- but, a year later, we learned that Ra was just one of many Goa'uld active out there, and, as a result, the SG teams were set up."
"SG teams?" Tonks said, looking at the four people before her and Hermione in ever-growing confusion.
"A group of teams consisting of at least three personnel, whose jobs were to travel through the Stargate to make contact with other planets and learn means of combating the Goa'uld, as well as to form alliances with anybody who may be able to help us take them on," Mitchell put in, indicating Teal'c as he spoke. "Actually, T here was our first major non-human ally. As he said at the beginning, he was the First Prime of the Goa'uld Apophis- position's the equivalent of a general in their armies, basically- but he defected to our side when the commander of the original mission convinced Teal'c that he could free the Goa'uld's slaves from their masters."
"It was a statement that has proven to be true," Teal'c said, taking up the story for himself. "My people- the Jaffa- had long been dependent on the Goa'uld for our survival, having been bred to lack a conventional human immune system. We were forced to act as incubators for larval Goa'uld to supplant our own immune systems when we passed the age that you call 'puberty', thus keeping us alive, but slaves to the Goa'uld; any attempts to remove the symbiote will result in our deaths, and we must constantly change to another symbiote when our present one becomes too mature to require a Jaffa any further."
"Oh my God…" Hermione whispered as she stared at Teal'c. "H… how did you get over that?"
"Via the use of a drug called tretonin," Sam said, taking up the story once again. "Essentially, tretonin was originally produced from ground Goa'uld symbiotes- we use a synthetic version these days- which serves the same purpose as a symbiote, without the previous disadvantages inherent in that method. Teal'c was one of the first Jaffa to start using the drug on a regular basis, and it's become a regular thing among the Jaffa since then; it's one of the main reasons we were able to forge an alliance-"
"Uh… excuse me?" Tonks said, holding a hand up as she stared critically at the man who she had once called Harry. "Not that I'm not finding all of this interesting, but could you possibly get back to the part where this ties into the fact that he's apparently back?"
"Oh… right," Daniel said, looking apologetically at Hermione before his expression became more serious as he continued. "Anyway, since we first started going through the Stargate we've come a long way; the Jaffa have set up their own government, the Goa'uld are as good as defeated- there's only a few minor Goa'uld still active nowadays- and, while there are still problems, it's not as bad as it used to be; the bad guys are tough, but their numbers are limited, and they're not really relevant to our current problem…"
Daniel paused for a moment, as though trying to decide how to say what needed to be said, and then continued to talk. "But, a few days ago, the SGC was infiltrated and the Stargate was activated, allowing the attackers to make contact with Hestia, one of the few remaining Goa'uld. The attackers wore the black robes and skull-masks of the Death Eaters…"
Once again, Daniel fell silent; the only difference, in this case, was that he wasn't doing it even partially for dramatic effect, but because he found it genuinely difficult to say what he was about to say.
Eventually, however, Teal'c decided to say it for himself.
"And the Goa'uld that led these men to Stargate Command, subsequently forming an apparent alliance with the minor Goa'uld known as Hestia at the other end of the Stargate, called himself Lord Voldemort," Teal'c explained, looking at the two women as he bluntly gave them the reason why they had come to them in the first place
Hermione's eyes widened as she looked at Teal'c, both shock and confusion blending together on her face as she stared at the people before her.
"E… excuse me?" she said, looking over at Daniel. "But… Voldemort's a Goa'uld now? He's become an alien… snake… that can take over people's bodies, and he knows about this… 'Stargate' thing of yours? How does that work? What makes you think he's even telling the truth about his name?"
"I don't know how he did it; that wasn't all that important to me at the time," Daniel said, shaking his head as he looked at Hermione. "All I know is that he is Voldemort; even if some Goa'uld managed to take control of a wizard and use his body- which, by the way, looks remarkably like Voldemort's old one for reasons I also can't explain yet- the Death Eaters wouldn't follow him just because he looks like their old boss. It'd take a lot more than just a name to convince them that Voldemort had come back; he'd need to be able to do pretty much everything that Voldemort could do prior to his defeat for the Death Eaters to follow him, not to mention the fact that I doubt just anyone can activate the Dark Marks or stuff like that. Besides…"
Once again, he left the sentence hanging for a moment, as though trying to decide how to say what he was about to say, and then continued. "I've had these… dreams… recently, that suggest there might be more going on then even we know about."
"When you say dreams, do you mean… like you had prior to the Quidditch World Cup?" Hermione asked, looking curiously at Daniel.
"Not exactly," Daniel replied, ignoring the confused expressions on SG-1's faces as he continued. "I wasn't actually seeing Voldemort or anything like that; it was just… well, like a warning, I guess is the best term for it. I saw… people dying- all people who were already dead; I don't think he's 'planning' to kill anyone at the moment, and he didn't even seem to know I was involved in the Stargate program, so he couldn't have been trying to consciously get at me like he did during my exams- and then, at the end of it…"
He swallowed slightly, as though preparing himself for something that he'd rather not think about, and then he finished his sentence.
"I see Voldemort's eyes… and I hear his voice telling me 'Soon'."
For a moment, there was silence in the room as the other five contemplated what Daniel had just told them, and then Sam spoke.
"Uh… what does she mean, dreams like you had before the… Quidditch world cup?" she asked, looking in confusion at Daniel.
"And what is Quidditch anyway?" Mitchell put in.
"It's a wizarding sport," Daniel said, looking back at Mitchell first. "Seven players and three goals for each side, four balls for the whole game, ten points per score, and a potential bonus of a hundred and fifty points for whichever side catches one of the balls first; it's really rather interesting, if a bit complicated at times."
Then the smile faded as he looked back at Sam. "As for the dream query… well, I learned a long time ago that, when Voldemort failed to kill me, it formed a kind of… 'link' between us. I sometimes saw what he was planning in dreams, or he could try and feed me false information, that kind of thing…"
He shook his head, as though warding off some unpleasant memory, and then looked back at the others. "It doesn't matter, however; as I told Hermione, this wasn't like those dreams. I wasn't seeing Voldemort, it was more like a part of me just… knew he was coming and tried to warn me, but I couldn't understand it until it was too late."
"Ah," Mitchell said simply.
That was all he could say, really; he was starting to feel increasingly out of his depth with the current situation- magic was not something he'd expected to deal with when he'd joined the SGC, even if some of the technology they used could be compared to it- and could only hope that they'd get down to the essential details soon.
Specifically, that they'd get on with the business of actually asking these guys for the help they'd come here to request in the first place.
He didn't have long to wait; evidently, Daniel wasn't all that interested in waiting around here longer than he had to.
"Anyway," Daniel said, shrugging the earlier matter off as he looked up at Hermione and Tonks in a determined manner, "you've both heard the situation that prompted me to come back here, so now I'll just get down the specific reason I came back; I need to know if you can spare any aurors- preferably the ones who actually knew me when the git was walking about the last time; the less people who know about me being back the better- to help us travel back to the planet that Voldemort's stationed himself on and deal with the situation."
Hermione's eyes widened.
"You mean… you want me to send a group of aurors- from the Order of the Phoenix, no less; there's not that many of them about any more- through this… 'Stargate'… to fight on another planet?" she said, staring incredulously at Daniel. "You can't expect me to just-"
"I'll have a team of the most loyal former Order members selected in twenty-four hours, Harry; you just see about arranging transport," Tonks said, standing up and nodding at Daniel and SG-1 before looking back at Hermione in a slightly apologetic manner. "Sorry, Hermione, but we both know that I have authority in auror matters, and, if there's even the slightest chance that we have an actual solid lead on…" she faltered for a moment, as though unwilling to say what Daniel had just revealed to them, before she finally settled on saying, "on the Death Eaters… for the first time in the last two decades, then we have to investigate it."
The apologetic smile then faded from her face as she looked critically at the younger woman. "So, do you want to come along as well, or are you just going to stay here and wonder about what might have happened if you'd come along?"
For a moment, Hermione seemed about to protest, but Daniel raised a hand to stop her.
"Hermione, if you're about to say that you've got too much work or something like that, I'm warning you, I will hit you; I heard enough of that when we were in school, and you don't have much of an actual excuse now anyway," he said, glaring at her slightly. "You can take a few days off, you've got other people who can keep track of the work until you get back, you are way overdue for a holiday if my information's still accurate, and we both know that you were an expert duellist once you got past your inability to decide between all the spells you knew in a split-second decision."
Then his face lost its seriousness, and, an almost pleading expression on his face, Daniel reached over to take one of Hermione's hands in his, as he looked at her pleadingly.
"Besides," he said, looking at her with a soft, almost pleading smile on his face, "I've… well, I've missed you. I'd like the chance to just… well, kick back with you for a bit when we get the time, and I'm not going to get that if you stay here."
For a moment, the two old friends just sat there, looking at each other, and Sam was unable to restrain a pang of jealousy despite herself. She knew that it was hardly fair of her to be jealous of someone who Daniel- or Harry, as this woman thought of him- hadn't even seen for the last two decades, but still, a part of her couldn't help but resent the close bond the two of them evidently shared even after so long apart.
If Daniel had left then for two decades when he was Ascended, would she have been as close to him as Hermione was when he'd come back to them? Admittedly, it would have been harder for her to adjust to him being back than it was for Hermione- if nothing else, Daniel would have remained the same age he was when he 'died' while she would have been in around her fifties, but he and Hermione were still the same age- but still… could she have coped with it?
Stop it, she thought to herself, shaking that thought off as she turned her attention back to the matter at hand. Even with their knowledge of alternate realities- hell, even after their confrontation with their other selves trying to steal the Atlantis ZPM- she saw no point in dwelling on the 'What Ifs' of every situation they'd ever encountered. Her dwelling on what might have been if Daniel had been Ascended for longer than he was in the end was irrelevant; the fact was that he'd come back when he'd come back, and that was it.
Looking back at Hermione and Daniel, she smiled slightly as she saw the Minister of Magic shake her head slightly as Daniel gave her that slight 'puppy-dog' look that always left her feeling as though a part of her was about to melt.
Even after almost a decade, she'd never managed to figure out how to resist it, and she somehow doubted Hermione had ever been forced to deal with it; something like that look took a while to perfect, and she had a strong certainty that Daniel hadn't been able to do it when he was just a teenager.
Judging by the slight sigh that came from Hermione's lips as she looked back at Daniel, her theory was correct.
"All right," she said, as she looked at her old friend with a small smile on her face. "Tonks and I will have a couple of people ready by tomorrow; where shall we meet you?"
"Just at the airport; the sooner we can get back to the SGC the better," Daniel said, as he stood up and nodded thankfully at Hermione as he tossed the invisibility cloak back to the rest of SG-1. "How many seats should we book?"
"Well…" Hermione said, pausing thoughtfully for a moment before looking back at Daniel with a smile on her face, "I'll be seeing about call four of our older, closer friends, not counting Tonks and myself… so you'd better get seven extra seats."
For a moment, Daniel looked confused at that statement- Sam didn't quite understand it herself- and then he smiled as inspiration apparently hit him.
"Oh," he said, grinning at Hermione as he nodded in understanding at her. "Got you; we'll make the calls tonight."
"What?" Mitchell said, looking in confusion at Daniel as he and Sam took up their positions on either side of Teal'c as the Jaffa shrugged the cloak back on. "What are you talking about?"
Daniel, however, didn't answer; he just nodded briefly at Tonks and Hermione and then walked out of the room, leaving the now-invisible SG-1 with no other option but to follow him unless they wanted to lose track of him.
Personally, though, Sam didn't particularly mind that Daniel was apparently going to keep another secret from them. Judging by the smile on his face, it was only because he wanted to surprise the a bit when the time came for their question to be answered, and, after all the trouble they sometimes had getting Daniel to do much more than just grin for a few seconds- a grin that, unlike this smile, never reached his eyes…
Well, Sam, for one, wasn't going to take away the reason he had to smile like that unless she had a good reason.