The Light Brigade by Ravenfur
AN: Man, I am absolute crap at timely writing. At least I have the ending mostly plotted out so it won't take as long for the final chapter.
Disclaimer: I make no claim to the Stargate universe or the Harry Potter series. Anything recognizable I don't own, but anything unrecognizable I do.
Chapter Four
"Missy Dory?"A house-elf poked her head in the door, attracting Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin's attention.
Dora turned from her worried contemplation of the purple shield covering one bed in Grimmauld Place's small medical wing. "Yes, Trinnea?"
Trinnea moved fully into the doorway. "Two men come to door, Trinnea let in. John Sheppard, friend. In foyer," the house-elf reported.
Relief washed over Dora, maybe John would be able to help. "Trinnea, watch over the stasis field," she ordered the house-elf and exited the room. It was a short walk down to the foyer and an unfamiliar raised voice was the first thing she heard.
"Oh, please! Where did you get your degree? What told you it was a good idea to try to write a new program onto the control crystals? You should be lucky I'm across the planet right now! Stop messing around with the Jumper and leave everything as is, I'll deal with your mistake when I get back. You'd better pray that I can fix it!" There was a click as if a phone was shut.
"Do we still have a ride back?" That was John's voice.
"If they haven't completely overwritten the original program then that's a yes, otherwise we'll probably have to go back by the Daedalus when it gets back in orbit."
Confused, Dora opened the door to the foyer and watched John sigh, shaking his head at his companion. "I hope you can fix it, I can't stand another three week trip back home. I think I really would kill Caldwell this time, consequences be damned." He was in his dress blues with more ribbons than the last time she had seen him in them. There was a duffel at his feet and an arm was held protectively around his chest. "What were they trying to do?"
The one with the loud voice was shorter than John and wasn't as fit. Two more bags were dumped next to him and a cell phone was slipping into a pocket. Dora noted a handgun at his hip, something illegal in the UK. A disgruntled expression was on his face. "Those idiots decided that they wanted to test if the Jumper could accept Asgardian programming, mainly their beaming program. I don't know how Sam Carter hasn't killed them all and started over with their replacements."
Dora finally entered the foyer when their conversation seemed to be finished. "John, what took you so long?" she asked as she went to hug him. Her relief at his appearance was transmitted into her abilities, her hair turning a bright blue. She felt the bandaging through the uniform and stepped back. "And what have you done to yourself?"
"Training accident," John replied as he returned the hug. "I didn't block properly and got whacked in the ribs. Broke two of them." Rodney raised his eyebrow at the glib answer.
"Alright, what's the real story," Dora replied. "And who's your friend?"
John sighed before saying, "I got hit out on a mission and broke two ribs. This is Rodney McKay, he's a friend I work with. Rodney, this is Dora Tonks-Lupin."
They shook hands, Dora looking the scientist over. "Friend, eh?" She noticed the hickey but shrugged. "Whatever. Now what took you so long?"
"It took Manny two weeks to find a way to get a message to me, and three more weeks for that message to get there. I came as fast as I could," John defended himself. "How's Moony?"
Dora sighed. "Still in stasis. We're lucky it held this long. Come on, I'll take you to him." She clapped her hands and Trinnea popped into the room.
Rodney was startled and looked at the three foot tall creature clad in a toga made from what looked like a curtain in surprise. "What is that?" he whispered to John.
"A house-elf. They take care of the house, do the laundry, cook and clean," John whispered back.
"Trinnea, can you take their bags to one of the bedrooms?" Dora ordered the house-elf.
"Trinnea will do," she nodded and took the bags from the pair. Another pop and the elf was gone.
John and Rodney followed Dora to the medical room. There weren't many mundane signs that this was a medical ward. Inside one of the two beds was completely covered by the opaque purple stasis field. Along one wall were shelves full of potions.
Taking a close look at the stasis field, John noticed that it only had a few days before it gave way. "Alright, auntie Dora," John began, taking the shrunken trunk from around his neck and removing the bag of Alteran technology from the second compartment, "I need you to sign something for me." Opening up the bag he grabbed the sheaf of paperwork he had seen stuffed in between the silver devices.
Dora took the small stack that she was handed. "Nondisclosure agreement? National security? John, what have you gotten yourself into?" Despite her questioning she quickly read through the packet promising a lifetime in prison as the lowest punishment possible for breaking the agreement. With a wave of her wand she conjured a pen and signed her name where prompted.
"Liz slipped that to me," John told Rodney and collected the paperwork. "I had wondered what for but she must have known about the bag of healing equipment you smuggled out of the base."
"I didn't smuggle it!" Rodney was indignant. "I always take gear to study over leave. It just happened to be useful."
"Where did you get this stuff?" Dora asked, looking down at the bag of technology.
"I'll tell you later," John told her before looking over to Rodney. "What have you got?"
Rodney pulled out a few items. "Scanning devices," he reported and handed these to John.
Taking the gear, John looked at Dora. "You're going to have to take down the stasis field. I can't do anything with it up." Nervously Dora took down the purple field revealing a very pale Remus Lupin. There was more grey in his hair since the last time John had seen him. Remus was clad only in a pair of pajama bottoms and he was thin enough that his ribs were barely covered by flesh. The wrinkles on around his eyes and mouth were deep with pain despite his unconsciousness. Every single artery, vein and capillary were clearly visible, vividly contrasting the silver-blue of his blood against the reddened and blistering skin surrounding the blood.
The scanners, the Alteran equivalent of a Star Trek tricorder, began picking up information the second the field went down. It didn't take long for the full picture of Remus' condition to be drawn. "Rodney, did you grab a DNA sequencer?" John asked. The scientist rummaged around in the bag before coming up with a small silver device, a miniaturized version of the broken device the Goa'uld Nirrti used to try and create the perfect host. This he passed to John's outstretched hand. "Dora, do you have some sample of Remus' DNA from before he got attacked?"
Dora thought for a moment and then summoned Trinnea. "Please go grab Remus' hairbrush," she told the elf. Almost instantly the brush was being handed to Dora who passed it to John.
Taking one of the hairs from the hairbrush, John fed it into the DNA sequencer. It beeped and John set it on Remus' chest where it began to work. "The curse he was hit with is coating his DNA with silver. This should correct that," he began and studied the display on one of the scanners again. Turning back to Rodney, he asked, "Do we have something to filter blood?"
Rodney thought a second, and then pulled out a silver device, small and slim. "This should work, put it on a major artery. Jugular would probably be best. What do you need it for?"
"The iron in his blood has turned to silver," John reported before thinking at the device for a second. He placed it on the jugular vein and again there was a beep before the filter began to work, connecting to the vein and passing the blood through it, turning silver back into iron.
Taking out the fully functional Alteran healing device, John set it on the nightstand to the left of the bed and thought it on. A soft blue light began to emanate from it. "That will keep him alive long enough for the curse to be fully nullified and heal the burns from the silver in his blood and DNA. Let's leave the room, it's not a good idea to be in the same area as one of these if you are uninjured."
Across the street from number 12, Grimmauld Place, a man looking through a window picked up a radio. "Sir, this is observation, possible target acquisition."
There was a crackle of static before a voice responded. "Report, observation."
"Sir, two men went into the indicated house. One matches the description supplied. Orders?"
"Report the next time they leave the house. I need to get a look myself to confirm target acquisition."
"Yes sir. Observation out." He put down the radio and returned to his surveillance of the former Black Family Manor.
Fifteen minutes after leaving the medical wing, the three were sitting down to dinner in the kitchen. John and Rodney had changed out of the formal clothes they both had worn to the Pentagon. The unused Alteran gear was safely stored back in the shrunken and invisible trunk on the Colonel's necklace. Trinnea began passing out large bowls of beef stew and fresh cooked rolls.
"There isn't any citrus in this, is there?" Rodney looked doubtfully at the bowl of stew.
"I'm sure it's fine, Rodney. I've got a few Epi-pen's on me all the time anyways, not to mention the pile of healing technology." John accepted the bowl handed to him by Trinnea with a smile.
Trinnea looked at Rodney. "No citrus," she squeaked. Rodney nodded and dug in, surprised at how good it tasted.
"I don't know how you're hungry, you ate your lunch and mine," John watched him tuck in.
"I like airline food! Almost as good as MRE's," Rodney defended himself.
"The only thing worse than airline food is the junk the military puts in the MRE's," John retorted. He sighed and got back to the topic. "So what happened, auntie Dora?" the Colonel asked.
"Don't call me auntie, I'm not that much older than you," Dora said as she began to eat, amused at their banter.
"What happened?" John insisted.
Dora sighed and looked down at her bowl, blue hair going mousy brown as her mood shifted. "I'm not exactly sure. I was home on my day off and Remus' emergency portkey activated. It had a deadman's switch programmed into it so when he got hit by the curse he was portkeyed back here. He must have been attacked on his lunch break. Remus managed to whisper that a Hunter had found him before he fell unconscious.
"Minerva had Poppy come over to look at him," she continued.
"Minerva McGonagall, Hogwarts' headmistress, and the school healer Poppy Pomfrey. Poppy's probably the only reason I survived my time there," John told the confused Rodney, who nodded.
Dora sighed. "Poppy tried all the tricks she could think of for silver poisoning. She even had a friend at the Red Cross blood bank send over some blood so we could replace his blood but as soon as we started the transfusion the silver was back."
After a long quiet moment, the metamorphmagus continued. "St Mungos, the largest wizarding hospital," she explained to Rodney, "wouldn't have anything to do with a Werewolf. Poppy got a consult with one of the Healers there who recommended putting him in stasis until they came up with a working treatment plan. That was three months ago. A month and a half ago I sent Herman Juno that letter thinking that you might have some idea, anything."
Pausing to take a bite of the stew, Dora asked, "Alright John. Where have you been, why was it so bloody hard to get in touch with you, what was that stuff you used on Remus and why did I need to sign that paperwork?"
John reached up to scratch his head and winced, the hand going to his tightly bound ribs instead. "Uhm..." he wondered where to begin. He looked at Rodney. "Do you have your computer? And those pictures you and I have been taking?"
Rodney grinned. "Photographic proof. Good idea," he said and stood. The scientist paused. "Where's our stuff?" he asked Dora. He was led by Trinnea to their bedroom and came back with a tablet computer, which he began booting up.
Sheppard looked seriously at Dora. "I need your Vow that you won't tell anyone about what we're going to tell you," he insisted. "In the mundane world you're covered by the nondisclosure agreement but the magical world can get around that."
Vows were very serious things in the magical world. A person's magic would force them to keep to the terms of the vow and not break it. She held up her wand. "I, Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin vow not to speak of anything covered by the nondisclosure agreement to anyone unless John Sheppard allows me." There was a flash of magic from the wand sealing her oath.
"Do you believe in life on other planets?" John asked Dora as Rodney tracked down the file of pictures of the universe beyond Earth.
Confused at this apparent non sequitur, Dora nodded. "Well, for the past three years I've been living in the Pegasus galaxy, in a floating city that was built by a race called the Alterans."
Dora blinked. And blinked again. When her brain finally caught up with her, she took a big gulp of the drink in front of her, wishing it was alcoholic. "What?"
Rodney passed John the tablet computer and John looked down at it, and then opened a file. He held up the computer to show a picture of a large stone ring in a beautiful city, at least twenty feet high if the person in the picture was an indicator of scale. It had seven visible blue v-shaped devices around the dark metal rim but what was most interesting was what looked like a puddle of water suspended in it. The person in the picture - Dora thought she recognized the shaggy mop of hair - was actually walking out from the wall of 'water'.
"This is the Stargate. It was developed by the same race, the Alterans, that built the city we're living in now. To get to a specific planet you dial that planet's Stargate on a device called a DHD. Doing so establishes a stable wormhole between the two Stargates that you can walk through."
Dora looked at the picture. "Earth has one of these?"
"Yeah," John said and both he and Rodney went on to explain the war against the Goa'uld, now mostly over, and the efforts of the SGC in the Milky Way galaxy.
Halfway through a description of what happened in Antarctica, John froze, a faint connection tugging at his mind. He closed his eyes and -pain/amusement- washed over his mind. "What's wrong, Lan?" he whispered down that tie to his city.
A picture bloomed in his mind. -Kavanagh sitting at a lab table, tinkering with something that began to buzz loudly. The scientist backs away quickly and the device explodes violently, taking out two walls and ninety percent of Kavanagh's hair.-
"Are you alright?" he asked the city, sending back - comfort/love, - disliking feeling her in pain. The mix of feelings he got back made him assume that, while having two of her walls demolished hurt a lot, her amusement at Kavanagh's predicament overcame that pain.
As John spoke to his city, Dora looked at Rodney. "What's he doing?"
"He's talking to Atlantis," McKay said as he started on his second bowl of stew.
"Atlantis?"
"That's the city we're living in. It's a city-ship built by the Alterans, capable of intergalactic travel. A long time ago it used to be on Earth but the Alterans got hit by a plague and retreated back to the Pegasus galaxy. We found the Stargate address and went to study it," Rodney explained.
John refocused back on the conversation, catching this explanation. "Well, Kavanagh finally got that haircut," he told Rodney.
"What happened?" his favorite geek asked.
The Colonel smirked. "Kavanagh was working on something in lab 4; it blew up taking down two walls and most of his hair. Lan is wounded but too amused to care."
"That's it!" Rodney exclaimed. "He's going back to the SGC when we get back. That's the third time this month he's blown something up."
"In a box?" John asked hopefully.
Rodney snorted, remembering their conversation before the Daedalus arrived with much needed reinforcements and supplies. "I wish."
"Atlantis?" Dora repeated, still stuck on that concept.
"I'm the head of the military there, under the civilian command of Dr Elizabeth Weir. Rodney runs herd on the scientists and tries not to pull out his hair when they blow stuff up, get switched into other peoples bodies, infect the city with various viruses and other stuff like that."
They regaled the metamorphmagus with tales of their time in Atlantis, telling her about their various adventures and showing her pictures of the city and the Pegasus galaxy. Dora was amused at some and horrified at others. "No wonder every inch of you is covered in scars," she told John. "Do you have a death wish or something?" Rodney nodded in agreement. Concern over John's own safety was something he had tried to beat into Sheppard's head several times without success.
"It's my job to protect these people. The majority of the scientists haven't held a gun in their lives. Some, like Rodney," John smiled at his geek, "pick it up and can hold their own off-world, but the military still has a duty to protect those in our care."
Dora sighed. Once he played the protection card she knew she'd get no more out of him. Time to change topics. "So, how can you communicate with Atlantis?"
John shrugged. "I'm not exactly sure. She just likes me."
The gathering broke up not long after that, when John and Rodney both finished a second bowl of the stew. The three headed back to the medical wing to check on the progress the Alteran technology was making. Remus was looking better than Dora had seen him in some time but still was unconscious. The scanning devices showed that the silver in his blood and coating his DNA was drastically reduced, the blistering and burns created by his lycanthropic reaction to the silver were decreasing and that the Werewolf was stronger than he had been. Assured that the devices were working and that hopefully would cure her husband, Dora led the pair to their bedroom and then went to bed herself.
John and Rodney were sprawled on the queen size bed, watching some black and white horror flick on Rodney's laptop. Although it was late in London, almost midnight, their bodies were still set time-zones away, back where it was about noon Atlantis Standard Time.
"I'm ruined for horror movies. None of them really seem scary after all the crap we've been through," John said about an hour into the film as a woman screamed the ear-piercing screech common to bad horror movies.
Rodney agreed with that sentiment. "So what are we going to watch next? It's your turn to pick. And if you say Back to the Future again I'll hurt you."
Sheppard thought for a moment. "V for Vendetta," he offered.
"Sounds good," Rodney agreed and they fell silent again. About fifteen minutes later the scientist sighed and leaned more into John. "This is nice. We never get to sleep together."
That was true. Between the soldiers coming to John's door at all hours of the night, scientists asking Rodney questions at three in the morning AST and the life signs detector that the staff in the control room checked hourly to make sure there were only humans on Atlantis, the pair didn't get much chance to actually sleep in the same bed. While the 'Ronon and Teyla', 'John and Rodney' tent assignments that had long since become routine on off-world missions meant that they had the chance to sleep with each other on extended missions, sleeping together in an actual bed instead of sleeping bags on dirt was rare.
"Get some sleep, we're running tomorrow morning," John told Rodney. "We missed it today."
Rodney sighed. "Is there any way I can convince you otherwise?"
"You can practice your running for your life," John told the other man before closing his eyes. A moment later his breathing evened out and he fell asleep.
The wraith's eyes bored into his, the pale face offset by what looked like black holes for eyes. The Colonel's hand twitched to his empty holster and he wondered for a second where his Beretta had gone. Two wraith warriors kept their grips on his arms despite his struggles to free himself. He was breathing heavily from the run to get away from the hunting wraith. Taking a second to look the wraith that held Rodney in its tight grip, feeding glands pressed tightly against the scientist's chest, John wondered how they were going to get out of this.
"You thought running could save you? Pitiful humans," the wraith hissed sibilantly before draining Rodney of his life force. Rodney aged, looking fifty, sixty, seventy years old before the lifeless husk that had been the man he loved was discarded like an empty wrapper.
The wraith walked forward to John's frozen form and shifted, turning into someone John would have been thrilled never to see again, the supposedly dead Acastus Kolya. The two wraith keeping him from escaping morphed into two of the men that had escaped with Kolya the night of the hurricane in Atlantis, two of the over sixty that he killed. The Genii stalked forward, a evil smirk on his face. Pulling a knife that was already dark with blood from a sheath on his belt, Kolya ran the blade down John's cheek leaving a deep red line in its wake. "Don't be so tense, Sheppard," the dead man told John. "We've got all night to catch up."
The Genii shifted his grip on the razor sharp blade before thrusting it into his chest and dragging it down, blood flowing from the open wound freely. John gritted his teeth before screaming in pain.
John woke with a start, lurching upright, scream stifled behind clenched teeth. He cursed quietly as his ribs told him in no uncertain terms that move was a bad idea. As he tried to get his breathing under control he felt the last remnants of the nightmare drift back to the corner of his mind reserved for all the things that scare him.
Kolya was dead, never to see the light of day again. Rodney was sleeping next to him, alive and healthy. The wraith were a galaxy away, not on Earth. There was nothing wrong, Sheppard told himself. Nothing wrong.
John climbed out of bed, careful not to wake Rodney, and pulled some pants over his boxers. He wouldn't be able to get back to sleep so there was no point trying. Four hours of sleep was good enough. He grabbed his copy of War and Peace and exited the room.
The next morning, John was stretching as much as he could with his broken ribs taped up. Rodney, also in exercise clothes, looked down at the Colonel. "You're injured!"
"We're still running," Sheppard told McKay.
Another excuse then. "Are you sure this neighborhood is safe?"
"We're still running."
"I really don't think you should be running with your ribs like that, what would Carson say?"
"We're still running Rodney," John said as he stood. He looked his geek over before frowning. "Where's your sidearm?"
McKay looked at the t-shirt and sweatpants he wore. "Not too easy to hide it in this and I don't want to get arrested by the first idiot in a uniform."
John searched their room before coming up with the holstered 9mil Beretta. Closing his eyes, there was a silver flash from the not-freckles before the holstered weapon disappeared. "Here, I don't want you unarmed. It's only the holster that's invisible, the second you take the Beretta out you'll be able to see it. Now let's go, we're wasting daylight. It's already 0800!"
Rodney sighed and awkwardly belted on the invisible holster. He did feel a little safer with it on.
The man across the street was watching as two men emerged from the indicated house and began running. He picked up his radio. "Sir, this is observation, target has left the house."
"Understood observation. Hold for one moment while I apparate to your location." There was static from the radio before a pop sounded in the room. The man that appeared was clothed in black robes and was fit to the normal lazy pureblood wizard's level of fitness. "What's the situation?"
Frommel Higginson, in charge of the observation post, reported. "Sir, what appears to be the target has left on a run with another man. Both are unarmed. They should be coming back though I am not sure when."
Han Sobel, fully trained Hunter and Tracker, nodded and joined his man at the window. It took a about an hour before the two men came running from the opposite direction they had left in. Sobel got a good look at their faces and grinned. "Target confirmed. You watch the house, I'll get the team together. Good work, Frommel."
"Thank you sir."
Remus fought his way through the haze in his mind, trying to figure out why he felt so awful. It felt like the worst hangover he had ever known combined with several bad transformations on the full moon. His eyes wouldn't open and even breathing took some effort. There was something metallic on his neck and another something metallic on his bare chest. He heard someone speaking near him and tried to focus on the voices he heard.
"6211," an unfamiliar voice said.
There was a short pause before a voice he thought he recognized replied, "Prime. 7435."
Another pause. "Not prime. 3538," the unknown person said.
"Not prime. 4021."
"Prime. 1229."
The familiar voice replied, "Prime. Hey auntie, do you want to play?"
"Don't call me auntie," his wife retorted. "What's this game?"
Remus recognized the voice now. "One person says a number and you have to say whether it's prime or not prime. It's the only way to keep the scientists occupied on long hikes off the base. Without something to think about they begin to get a little... squirrelly," his cub, John Sheppard said.
"I resent that remark," the unfamiliar person said.
"You resemble that remark, Rodney. The last hike we went on you badgered me about lunch while complaining about everything from the rain to how heavy your P-90 and pack were. I started Prime/Not Prime just to keep you occupied." John sounded smug.
"It was a five hour hike back to the Stargate! While mineral samples are certainly fascinating," this was said with a healthy dose of sarcasm, "with five hours of walking of course I was going to get bored!"
"Five minutes in?" John countered. Rodney, whoever Rodney was, refused to reply.
Remus was recovering more as he lay there, wondering what was going on. He remembered a man in a black clothes cornering him on his lunch break at Oxford, pulling a wand on him and talking. He remembered getting hit with the curse, feeling his deadman's portkey activate and seeing Dora's horrified face at the silver burns that were already appearing. After that... nothing.
He finally managed to get his eyes open, finding himself looking at the ceiling of the spare bedroom that had been set up as a medical ward years ago. To his left a strange silver cube glowing pale blue was humming slightly on the nightstand. Across the room from him his wife, oddly sedate in black hair today, sat with John and a man he didn't recognize. Remus opened his mouth to say something and croaked.
Three heads turned towards him and Dora almost cried with relief. "You're awake!" She got up and moved to sit on the bed next to him, taking a glass of water with a straw in it from the nightstand, helping Remus to drink from it.
"I told you he was going to wake up today," John told the metamorphmagus as he got up from his chair and took a silver device Rodney passed him, running it over the werewolf. He looked down at the information it was feeding him and smiled. "Just lay still, Moony. You're mostly healed. The devices just need to finish working."
Remus smiled tiredly at Dora. "How long?" he whispered, not having enough energy for anything else.
"Three months," she told the werewolf, feeling the last of her stress draining out.
Looking over at his cub and the man he didn't know, Remus asked, "And when did you get here? I've been trying to get in touch with you for years! What the hell have you been doing?"
John grinned. "I've been heading the military contingent of a highly classified base whose research has just saved your life. Once you're up to it you're going to need to sign a bunch of paperwork. I just flew in two days ago. You're really lucky to be alive, you old wolf."
As his godson and the man he didn't know helped him sit up, Remus inspected the new face. "And who are you?"
"Doctor Rodney McKay, I work with John on Atlantis. I'm the head of the scientific department there."Just a co-worker, eh? Remus thought as his lycanthropically-enhanced sense of smell detected his cub's scent all over McKay.
"What exactly happened to you, Moony? Dora told us you said something about a Hunter but that you passed out before you could say more," John asked as he began deactivating the Alteran healing devices and setting them aside. Enlarging the shrunken trunk around his neck he opened it to the compartment with the duffel of Alteran technology. He left the trunk open for the moment after returning what healing gear had been used to it.
The memory of the attack came back in a flash. "The Hunter had tracked me down and cornered me after a lecture at Oxford. He – it was definitely a he – said something about me leading him to his bounty before hitting me with the curse. I'm not sure what me leading him to his bounty was about but I'm glad I'm still alive."
While the Hunter's remark worried John, he hoped it wouldn't be anything that would disturb his vacation.
Multiple pops announced the team's arrival in the observation post across from number 12. "Good, you're all here," Han Sobel said as he picked up a full color magical photo of the two men who went for a run earlier. "This is the target," Sobel pointed to one of the two. "He is to be taken alive if at all possible. My employer wants to have a word with him. The other one is not necessary." The team of highly trained wizards understood what that meant.
The team geared up and double checked that they had everything. Exiting the observation post they quickly crossed the street and made it to the stoop of 12 Grimmauld Place without being seen. Sobel counted down from five on his fingers and the door was blasted open with a Reducto, giving the team full access to the house where their bounty was holed up.
AN: Well, that's that chapter. One more to go. Let's see if I can get this next one out before I die of old age, eh?
-Ravenfur