Author's Note: I apologize for taking over a year to update this. My only excuse is that I was busy with other things and updating this fell to the wayside.

The first thing Harry noticed upon his arrival in Egypt was that it was hot, much hotter than England. The second thing he noticed was that it was extremely dry, so at least the heat wasn't unbearable the way humid heat was.

Bill and Charlie (who had arrived by Portkey the previous evening) was waiting at the Portkey arrival point to meet everyone, and there was a flurry of hugs and greetings among the Weasleys before he turned to the others to shake hands with Sirius and Mrs. Longbottom and welcome Harry, Neville, and Susan to Egypt. Once the greetings were over, Percy announced proudly, "Bill, I got named Head Boy, just like you did! The owl came last night with the news and badge." He took out the Head Boy badge from his pocket and pinned it to the front of his shirt.

"That's great!" Bill exclaimed, while the Weasley twins rolled their eyes. "I'm sure you'll do an excellent job as Head Boy. Now, come on. I'll take you to your hotel so you all can put your luggage away and then we can decide what to do."

At the hotel, Sirius, Mr. Weasley, and Mrs. Longbottom signed the register for their rooms, got the room keys, and the group went upstairs to their room. It was much cooler inside, as there were various Cooling Charms placed on all the rooms and corridors. Harry was sharing a room with Neville and Ron, as Sirius had pointed out that the three friends would prefer bunking with each other rather than with other people. Ron was relieved to hear that, since otherwise he might have been stuck sharing a room with Percy.

Once everyone had settled in, it was decided that the first order of business was to go do some exploring of wizarding Egypt, or at least the part of it that was in Cairo. They passed by the entrance to the Egyptian Ministry of Magic and went straight to the Egyptian equivalent of Diagon Alley and its neighboring streets. This was a hidden district that was basically a large bazaar or marketplace, with various shops, stalls, and restaurants.

While exploring the bazaar, Harry, Ron, Susan, and Neville found some things that would be perfect as birthday presents for Hermione, who would be turning thirteen in September, and bought them. Susan, Ron, and Neville also found birthday presents for Harry, though the three made sure that his attention was on other things before they secretly bought the items and had them wrapped. The four of them also ended up picking up some small trinkets that would do as souvenir gifts for the rest of their friends.

At noon, the group stopped for lunch at a restaurant of Bill's recommendation. It had seating both inside and in an outside courtyard, and served extremely delicious Egyptian cuisine. Many of the dishes were vegetarian, with several composed mainly of lentils, beans, and other legumes, while others were similar to other Eastern Mediterranean dishes, such as stuffed grape leaves and kebab. Sirius, who insisted on paying for the meal, ordered one of each dish so they could all try them out, and what was leftover got boxed up for them to finish for dinner, along with two extra orders of the local bread, a kind of flat bread/pita bread called eish baladi.

The following morning was the photo shoot for the Daily Prophet. A small article about Mr. Weasley winning the Grand Prize draw was planned, and the newspaper wanted a picture to go along with it. Bill took them all to the pyramids, where the entire Weasley family posed for a picture in front of one. Percy wore his Head Boy badge for the photo, pinned to the fez he had bought the previous day and perched jauntily on his head.

Once that was over, the group spent the next few days exploring the pyramids. In addition to the areas that Muggles toured, Bill took them through the wizarding areas of the tombs. The curses that the old Egyptian wizards had put on the tombs were very, well, disturbing, to say the very least. Harry really couldn't believe most of them. In one of them, which Mrs. Weasley refused to allow Ginny to set foot in, it had the mutant skeletons of Muggles that had broken in and gotten cursed to grow extra heads and other unpleasantness. Bill told them some things about wizarding history in Egypt, which was highly interesting as the ancient Egyptian wizards were quite fascinating.

On Harry's birthday, the group took a ride on some magic carpets. The experience was fairly fun, but Harry decided that he still preferred riding on brooms. They celebrated with lunch at the restaurant they had eaten at on the first day, followed by opening of presents. Hedwig had, unbeknownst to Harry, flown to France and she returned that morning with a parcel containing Justin's and Hermione's birthday presents to him. In the accompanying letter, Justin had mentioned that they had wondered how they were going to send the parcel, in the off chance that it got opened at Customs, and Hermione said that they had been thinking of looking for a wizarding post office when Hedwig turned up. The parcel itself turned out to contain a magical model of seven French witches and wizards (dressed in shocking pink robes) flying on miniature brooms around the Eiffel Tower and a book on French Quidditch team the Quiberon Quafflepunchers. Harry recalled reading in Quidditch Through the Ages that the Quiberon Quafflepunchers wore pink robes, which meant that the tiny figurines that had been enchanted to fly around the Eiffel Tower model were supposed to represent the team.

Ron's present was a pocket sneakascope, Neville's present a scarab encased in a small amber pendant, and Susan's a model of a pyramid that could be opened to reveal a tiny mummy figurine in a sarcophagus, two toy clay jars, and three tiny chests filled with fake treasure. The twins gave Harry a model of the main room of King Tut's tomb, Ginny gave him a clay tablet of a copy of ancient Egyptian art, Percy gave him a book on some famous Egyptian wizards, and Bill and Charlie gave him two books on Egyptian tombs. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Sirius, and Mrs. Longbottom had gotten together and presented him with a book on the history of the Egyptian National Quidditch team, a model of the Sphinx, and a box of Egyptian sweets. Presents from the rest of the Hufflepuff Nine, Remus, and Ria for Harry had arrived the previous night or that morning, and they consisted of a set of books that Lillian and Hannah had found on a trip to a Muggle bookstore written by author Terry Pratchett (the store clerk recommended the series as being comedic fantasy), a book on famous potioneers (including a chapter on Harry's ancestor, Linfred of Stitchcombe, and another one on his grandfather Fleamont Potter, who had invented Sleekeazy's Hair Potion), a potions kit, and a pair of Quidditch gloves (as Harry was starting to outgrow the ones he had gotten two years ago).

In the evening, at Harry's request, the group went out to the Muggle part of Cairo, where they had dinner at a Muggle restaurant and then spent a couple of hours walking around a Muggle marketplace. It was much cooler at night, so walking around in an open marketplace wasn't unbearable they way it would have been if it had been in the afternoon. It was an interesting experience.