Reflections of a King

By Abby Ebon

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Messages Between Worlds

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

When it stopped, Harry feared she was dead, because he didn't know if he had succeeded in closing the connection between them, or his magic had stopped feeding his life-force simply because there was nothing left within her to feed from. It felt the same, that absence. Even so she did not look aged as a normal person might who had endured magic freely given becoming magic stolen. Reese, he became aware of, she'd been standing beside him for some time, stopping the rest from interfering. They looked at him, and did not see the monster he might have become. Harry took a breath, and Reese started talking, filling the silence that had descended with welcome chatter.

"She is alive, Harry, it's just in a healing-sleep. Like how she kept the Wraith from starving by making them sleep." Reese told him, after checking the Keeper while Harry could only watch, not yet speaking. Instead Harry nodded, an abrupt gesture, his jaw ached from clenching his teeth. "We got contact with Atlantis, Leo and Tigr are dead – but Lt. Ford and his team never went through." Harry nodded again, the movement jarring and jerky, it was not as bad as it could have been.

It was still his fault.

"Where did Irial go? How does he know you?" Reese continued, because she had likely seen his surprise for what it was. Who knew how quickly or slowly she saw things compared to the norm? Maybe a scientist would know, or Daniel, but he didn't know – there was a lot he realized he didn't know; if Voldemort was alive…how? The answer was the same; he did not know. Yet, somehow, the Ori – once Ancients but now Ascended, did know.

"I don't know. I've never met the Prophet Irial in my life. I think I know where he went, he should be dead, but he is not – he may be weakened, but someone is feeding him magic that isn't his. I need answers." Harry wasn't answering her question, not just yet, and Reese knew this, but what she realized that what he wasn't saying was a part of her answer. All she had to do was figure out the middle; it shouldn't be too hard with Daniel, who was kneeling on the other side of Harry. A medical team were busy putting the Keeper on a stretcher, but Reese did not think that Harry even noticed, so lost he looked. It was unlike him.

One of the med team looked him over, and shook his head, Harry might be in shock, but there was nothing physically wrong with Harry and doctors couldn't do much about what they could not see. The man looked her in the eye, and Reese realized she was being told to keep an eye on Harry.

For the first time, Reese realized just how vulnerable magic made a wizard when he was surrounded by people who didn't know magic from an anomaly. She was hovering, and until Harry told her to leave him alone, she wasn't going to stand aside, Harry was one of the few friends she'd had that had believed in her from the start. She'd wanted to stay with him, even as she'd activated the 'Gate and fled, but she hadn't asked him to go with her, as it would be unfair and dangerous for a human – even one with magic – and maybe even more so with magic, so she hadn't asked, but she had known he was out there, and that had helped.

"They call themselves Priors, Harry, but I don't know if that's the name of their people, the title, well, there is a lot we don't know so at least we're on the same page." Daniel says absently, correcting, and Reese just wants to roll her eyes, because this is Daniel, and yes, it's the same as with the Ancients. Who call themselves Alterans in their home galaxy, yet are known as Lanteans or Ancestors in the Pegasus galaxy, and call themselves Anqueetas in their own language. It didn't matter because humans from Earth were called Tau'ri, yet are as a species known as Homo sapiens to their own scientists, yet other humans called themselves from their own world if they went off-world, often enough as a person of a nation on Earth would reference to such a difference.

"How do we stop it?" Reese demands of Harry, asking about the 'feeding him magic' seems a little more important then identifying name, rank, species, and what they should be called by their own word. Harry looked at Daniel, and Reese did not like the look in his eyes. It was something she had never seen – that careless and reckless determination. Daniel knew the most about Harry now, and she could tell he didn't like it either.

"We go to the source." Harry answers simply, as if it was obvious, and maybe it was to him. Yet it couldn't be nearly so easy.

"How? We don't know where the Ori are." Daniel points out, because the Ori weren't on Earth, and that was a fact – it was also as good of a guess as any to where the Ori who were feeding this Prophet Irial were. Harry eyes were on Daniel, but he looked at something else for such a long time that Daniel looked at her, uncomfortable, and Reese opened her mouth to say his words again. She had never seen Harry like this, and was …nervous. It was a human word, but the closest to the wary caution she felt toward Harry who stared so much yet said so little, but his eyes showed his thoughts were not pleasant ones.

"I need a wand." Harry said his decision, as if nothing else mattered to him, as he moved to stand, Daniel looked to Sam, who shrugged one shoulder, not sure what to make of Harry in the wake of all of this. Daniel knew him better, he had known Harry since Abydos, but sometimes Daniel felt he'd changed too much to fit all the way back into his skin. He wondered what had changed, if he was the same person Harry was friends with, or if Harry was the one who had changed.

"I'll go with you." Daniel says, even as he knows it's a far chance. Magic had made itself known to some, families they were related to, children who were not known to be either wizard or witch before their magic could manifest, and certain key individuals in need to know places. Still, even knowing of them, they were secretive, and when a person could disappear and reappear at will, using such high amounts of magic to short out any chance of a bug surviving to send a beckon on their person, there was little to stop them from hiding amongst them.

"Me too…!" Reese cries out, her voice high in curiosity and demand. It's as if she is afraid of being left behind, and Daniel looks at her, because maybe she's seeing something he's missing and doesn't know it. Harry has always been straightforward for a wizard, certainly if he says he is leaving and they say they want to come along, he will either go without them or let them come along, not…

"As you wish..." Harry breathes out as he says the words, as if he had been holding them in, and them he is gone. There is no whirl of displaced air, no displacing pop of air and sound, simply…gone.

Daniel takes a shuddering breath, and knows that Harry has lied to them, perhaps for their safety, but lied all the same, and the look of focus in his eyes, it had promised someone death. When a wizard killed, there was nothing left, because there was often nothing left to find. No trace, and Daniel worriedly looked to the place where Harry had been, and wondered if he had missed something vital, or that wizards and witches simply hadn't told them.

"I missed him, huh?" Daniel glanced to O'Neill, and nodded an affirmative, dressed up in a fancy Lt. Gen uniform (that he must have hated putting on) and the look on his face was sort of worried, but mostly amused. He'd caught everyone off guard and they looked at him paused, as if they were deer waiting for the headlights, and he smiled a bit as them.

"At ease, people, we've got a wizard to find." before he does something he'll regret, went unsaid, but Daniel heard it loud and clear.

"Bigger problem, the Stargate is still online, sir. It's how we got them to stop sending people so quick, they heard it all, but there is no…shimmering water thing we can travel through." Sam was looking at the person who'd said it, with the look on her face that Reese could identify as one Daniel would have if he had heard someone speaking one language and calling it another. It was sort of a grimace that was…twitching, almost painful looking.

Reese had decided that laughing would not be the appropriate response.

"That's helpful." Mitchell muttered dryly, Reese had never met him, but knew, from Daniel, that he had taken Jack's place when he'd 'moved up'.

"Wizard..?" Vala asked, frowning at Daniel, and Reese realized that maybe if the newer members of SG-1 hadn't known about Harry, and if they hadn't…then a room full of people who weren't "in the know", were about to get a briefing about a home-world society of people almost more top secret then the 'Gate they worked around daily.

O'Neill seemed to realize this as she did, but groaned aloud.

"Indeed." Teal'c murmured, eyebrow tilting, and it seemed to Reese that he'd developed a sense of humor after all. It was just at someone else's expense.

"Communications are back, Elizabeth is asking – I'm sorry, sir – but I believe she's asking why the hell Atlantis is stuck on their side…?" O'Neill looked to Reese, and she squirmed, wishing that Harry had, after all, taken pity on her and let her go along with him. Still, some sort of explanation had to be offered, if only so Atlantis would be alright.

"His necklace of crystals… it was cold to the touch, dim, like…they weren't glowing and warm like usual. It's his connection with Atlantis; ask if Atlantis lost their bond?" Reese hadn't wanted to finish her thought, 'like it's dying', let alone say it aloud.

Yet she knew her words were being sent back to people who would understand, which was more then what she can say about this side of the 'Gate, apparently Elizabeth had only said that Harry was a diplomat between the Ancients and the others, and was making a alliance…at least that's what Reese assumed, because it left out a lot of the 'crazy talk', as people who weren't in the know would assume. Reese appreciated Elizabeth's caution, but Reese didn't like that she was the only one who could translate between 'magic' and what these people thought they knew.

"Elizabeth says that Faye says that…Atlantis only says 'Harry is alive' – it, he? Can't tell anything more, or help?…and Atlantis only knows that, because of Harry bonded with both Atlantis and…Earth? Atlantis says that its second-hand knowledge, and that Earth can't really help Harry, because she's just awoke and they haven't exchanged gifts or been bonded for long…I'm sorry, that doesn't make any sense, but it is what I'm getting." Reese wondered when that had been, and how it worked out if it had been before Harry had left Earth (why would he leave that sort of connection?) or, well, it would have had to happen after, and that meant. Reese looked to Sam Carter, whose eyes widened; Reese hadn't been the only one to notice a delay.

"Okay, well, that's news to me, people, so don't look at me like that!" Reese protested, worrying at her lip as her thoughts raced, Harry and his reactions had been strange, even for a wizard, and maybe Atlantis had answers that Reese could not consider questions to.

"Now it's something else, 'Voldemort?'…that's it, their connections dead, the crystals probably just died on their end." Sure enough, the glow in the chevrons dimmed and died. To sustain a connection between Earth and Atlantis took a huge drain on the 'Gate and the crystals, but with Atlantis aware and awake, and the Ancients walking around, Reese tried not to let herself worry about them when she had something else to be worrying about, because Jack and Daniel had just gone silent and still.

Reese noted only that they had the same look as Harry had. She was missing something, and she didn't like it.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O