The Science of Magic
Summary: A joint work by FC and me. SG-1 is thrown for a loop when a part of Sam's past is revealed that none of them ever could have guessed. Note: So far, neither FC nor I have seen any fic like this, meaning Daniel is not a wizard.
Disclaimer: Neither FC nor I owns Stargate SG-1, the rights of which belong to someone I don't want to look up, or Harry Potter, which belongs to J.K Rowling and assorted other people. I don't want to look up them either.
Note:Hey everyone! This is FC and I's latest fic. We colaberated and decided to write this together. As in, I write some, she writes some; so if you notice that the style changes, it's probably because the writer was switched.
We hope you enjoy it!
The airman entered the briefing room almost at a run, throwing a salute with poorly contained impatience and, when General Hammond nodded an 'at ease' toward him, broke into babble punctuated with hastily added signs of respect.
"There's an owl on base, sir! An owl, flying–sir–flying through the base; no one's been able–sir–able to stop it, and it's on level—" the poor man was cut off when the owl in question swooped gracefully through the door and landed neatly on Sam's shoulder, who had closed her eyes the moment she had heard the word 'owl'.
There was silence in the room for a moment, all eyes focused on the red major and the bird preening on her shoulder, before Sam reached up a hand and nimbly detached the slightly crumpled envelope from the bird's leg and laid it on the table in front of her. "It won't object to be taken out now," she told the General softly and reached to stroke the owl's feathered head.
"Airman Siddens, take the bird out," Hammond said almost automatically and the strained, disbelieving silence persisted until Siddens gathered the bird in shaky hands and backed out of the room deferentially. Then, all eyes turned to Sam and the letter before her.
Sam kept her eyes down and looking at the letter in front of her, the neatly written 'Sammie' on the front staring at her unapologetically. She took a deep breath, afraid to look up at the confused faces around her. Deciding that she should just get it done and over with, she looked up and met the eyes of everyone sitting at the conference table.
Hammond's voice asked the question all of them were thinking: "Major Carter, would you care to explain this." Ok, not a question; an order. But she couldn't; by saying what was really behind the letter, she wouldn't be just exposing herself, she would be exposing a community that had existed for thousands of years in secret. Not even Daniel had the faintest idea that it existed.
Sam put on her best confused face, but tried not to make it look too puzzled so that they wouldn't immediately know she was holding something back. "I can't, sir."
"You can't, or you won't?"
"Neither. Sir, how would you explain it if you had an owl land on your shoulder in the middle of a briefing?"
"Well, Carter, that would depend on whether I was surprised by it or not," Jack drawled from across the table, leaving the Which you obviously weren't unspoken but obvious to everyone at the table, and only years of military conditioning let Sam repress the urge to glare at him for making this harder than it already was. She had to choose her words carefully, balancing a thin knife's edge between going against the secret heritage she had been born with and the conditioning to answer her chosen job had thrust upon her.
"Well, Major?" Hammond asked after a few seconds of Sam staring down at the letter blankly, and she blinked and looked up like she had almost forgotten they were there. If she knew who the letter was from, and she though she did, there was another load to burden her—he hadn't spoken to her in over a year, and now seemed an odd time to start.
"Sir, I'm sorry, but I can't tell you everything, even under direct order." Eyebrows shot up all over the table, and she continued under the beginnings of a blush. "This letter is from my half-brother." True. "He's kind of eccentric—" Also true, if you call turning into an animal every full moon eccentric—which is stretching the definition, I suppose. "—and this is the way he prefers to send his letters." True. Leaving things out, but essentially true. "I'm sure he didn't mean to cause alarm or seem to pose any kind of threat when he sent it." True, but dammit, Remus, you could have been a little more careful!
"'Kind of eccentric'? What is that supposed to mean!" Jack glared at the bag of tortilla chips in front of him, as if willing it to defy him.
Daniel didn't answer; instead he sat on Jack's couch, thinking about the briefing two hours ago. After Sam had finished her 'explanation', she had stood up and excused herself, leaving the base before anyone had gotten over the shock of what she had said. Sam. Samantha Carter, his colleague and friend, had basically told him that the incident was none of his business. And not just him! She said it to Hammond too! Her boss and superior!
To put it bluntly, Daniel was confused as hell. Which was never a good thing for him.
He was snapped out of his thoughts when a hand appeared in his face. Daniel automatically glared as he turned to the offender, only to see Jack.
"Daniel. Daniel! Are you okay? You've been out there for awhile now."
Daniel creased his eyebrows. "Huh? Oh, ya." Sighing in exasperation, Jack flopped back into his chair and covered his eyes with his hand. "What do you think she was talking about, Jack? Or rather, what do you think she wasn't talking about?"
"How the hell should I know?" Jack snapped back, and Daniel tried hard to stay calm. It had to be even harder for the other man knowing that Sam had brushed him off as both a close friend and a boss, and Daniel just knew that they had feelings for each other they weren't letting on to. Gazing at a chip philosophically, Daniel shrugged. "Well, we just have to wait for her to tell us what's going on." And hope that she trusts us enough to do just that.
Sam glared at the letter, willing it to say something, anything, other than what it did. There was so much she had missed, so much she had forgotten. She had left the wizarding world twenty years ago, and now she was hard pressed even to remember her half-brother's face.
Voldemort's back, Sam. Very few of us believe it, but he's back. Sam had been long gone by the time Voldemort was defeated, but she remembered it—remembered the letters she had gotten, where Remus had poured out everything—two of his best friends dead, a third accused of their murder. She was all he had—their mother had died in his third year, his father before he had started school. There were still pictures, faded but still moving tirelessly, that Remus had sent her during school—a group of four boys, or sometimes two or one or three, but always the same faces, laughing. She had even met them once, during one of her few trips back to England, and she had felt sad when she heard of James's death, and glad when she learned of Sirius's innocence; but that had been the last correspondence she had received, and she had gotten it over a year ago. And now…Voldemort's back.
Sam sighed and ran a hand through her short hair. This is not good. This is definitely not good! She collapsed onto her couch, trying to think. His letter had been vague, probably so that it wouldn't mean much in case it was intercepted. Of course, if it had been intercepted by base security, that would have been a disaster! She would have to warn him about never sending anything to her at work again. But the letter, back to the letter. It had only said what was essential; that Voldemort was back, and the Phoenix was back home—in other words, the Order was back together. Not much to go on, but she would have to go; she couldn't just let him face this alone, couldn't abandon the first world and family she had ever known. She had to see her brother.
Jack, Daniel and Teal'c walked up the path to Sam's house, Daniel sighing before ringing her doorbell. They stood on the front porch a few minutes, waiting. When it became apparent that she wasn't going to answer, they tried again, only to find that they were either being ignored, or she wasn't home.
Daniel turned to Jack. "Do you think she's here?"
Jack looked around, worried. "She should be here. She never goes anywhere without her car." He drew his gun and nodded to the other two, gesturing for them to go around the back and see if anything was out of place. Each drew their weapon and did as they were told, Daniel circling around on the right, Teal'c the left. When they met around at the back, neither of them seeing anything out of the ordinary, Daniel left Teal'c and headed back to Jack.
"There isn't anything back there."
Jack nodded. "Okay, time to improvise." He kicked the door open and went inside, pistol at the ready. He and Daniel swept the house but found nothing, until they entered Sam's bedroom. The place was a mess. There were clothes everywhere.
Jack looked around. "Someone was in a hurry to leave."
"So it would seem. What do you think she was doing?"
"I don't know, but it looks like she didn't want anyone to know she was leaving."
"So, where is she? And how did she get there?"
Sam emerged from the fireplace at Number 12, Grimmauld place in a fit of coughing, barely even registering Remus coming forward to take her suitcase and envelope her in a warm hug. She wiped her streaming eyes and hugged him back, noting with worry the way his shoulder blades stuck out and the grey she could see in his hair. She pulled back to study him further, and frowned.
"Remus, you look terrible!"
"Nice to see you too, Sam," he smiled at her. "You look wonderful, though. Your job's going well? I still can't believe you went military…"
"Yeah, though it didn't help things having an owl fly through base," she retorted, beating him to her suitcase and hoisting it before he could protest. He shook his head a little and beckoned her over to the door on the other side of the threadbare carpet, and she followed him out down a hallway and up a creaking flight of stairs, wrinkling her nose a little at a display of—house-elf heads?'—mounted on the wall. Ah, wizarding houses—she could never decide whether the simple pleasure and obvious magic in having your mirror greet you good morning was worth things like temperamental cutlery. This house seemed almost…dark, though, and a lot dirtier than she would have thought.
"Hey, Remus!"
They both turned, and Remus grinned and beckoned the longhaired, slightly grimy man at the foot of the stairs forward. "Sirius! You remember Sam, don't you?"
Her eyebrows rose involuntarily as she looked at the man now walking towards her. "Sirius? It's been awhile. You look…"
"Terrible, I'm sure," he grinned, and reached out to shake her free hand. "Of course I remember meeting Remus's pretty half-sister. Welcome to the Ancient House of Black," and he swept his arm down in an exaggerated bow.
Sam laughed. "Cute. It appears that you did learn some manners after school." Grinning at the familiar sarcasm, he stood up straight and walked toward her, enveloping her in a brotherly hug.
"It's good to see you, Sam."
Sam smiled, "You too."
Separating, they looked at Remus, who was smiling broadly. "So, now that everyone is once again acquainted, would you like the tour?"
Sam looked around at her dark and dingy surroundings. "Well, why not!" Then she playfully added, "Not like there's much else to do." Laughing more than he had in ages and hooking her arm through his, Remus began the somewhat long, and rather boring tour of Grimmauld place; unless you counted his sarcastic remarks about every room, that is.
Harry was freezing cold, to the point where it hurt to move because his joints were so stiff. Not that the area around him was exceptionally cold, but the only-the-gods-knew-how–long flight at altitudes of a couple hundred feet sure was. Hearing Moody say something to him, he turned to look at the auror, who handed him a piece of parchment and told him to memorize what it said. Opening it, Harry found written in loopy letters:
The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at
Number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London
"What's the Order of the—?"
"Not here boy! Wait till we're inside!" The parchment was then snatched out of his hands and promptly burned to ashes.
"But where's—?"
Lupin whispered to him quietly. "Think about what you've just memorized."
His brain running through the newly acquired information, Harry was shocked to see a building begin to appear between numbers eleven and thirteen. Shortly, the whole structure was visible. But before Harry had a chance to really look at it, a paranoid Moody quickly ushered him in.
Once inside, Harry got a short glimpse of a rather dark and dusty house before he found himself in the midst of one of Mrs. Weasley's hugs. "Oh, Harry dear, are you ok? How was the trip? My! What have they been feeding you! You're all skin and bones!" She turned to someone behind her, but the person was blocked from his view by the woman in front of him. "Sam? Would you please take Harry down to the kitchens?"
When Mrs. Weasley finally moved, Harry found himself looking at a very beautiful young blond who was talking to Lupin. She turned and smiled. "Sure, Molly."
Lupin saw Harry's dazed look and hit his head lightly, "I almost forgot! Sam, this is Harry. Harry, I would like you to meet my sister, Samantha Carter."
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Next chapter: More SGC and HP fun, and Why Sam Left The Wizarding World! (Possibly)