"Daniel! Get down." Jack hissed, yanking unsuccessfully on the back of his shirt. Daniel didn't move. Something had his complete and determined attention. Slowly, O'Neill stood up next to him, gun at the ready, while Carter and Teal'c followed his lead.
Standing in the middle of the room was a woman in a long black robe. She had bushy brown hair that was pulled back, although several tendrils had broken loose and were cascading around her face. She was staring at Daniel with the same rapt attention that he had focused on her.
"Do I know you?"
Jack lowered his gun and motioned to the others, keeping his eyes on the woman in black. "Shouldn't you be saying something?"
She looked in Jack's direction for a moment, frowned, and looked back to Daniel, who had come around the table to stand in front of her.
"Daniel. Take it slow." Jack shifted his own position closer to the two of them.
The woman looked into Daniel's eyes. She reached into a long bag that hung at her side, and rummaged in the bottom until she came up with a small blue speckled feather. Putting it into the palm of her hand, she reached towards Daniel's forehead. Jack clamped his hand over her arm, stopping her. "It's got to be his choice. I know the rules." She frowned at O'Neill, made a frustrated sigh.
"Jack, do you know her?" The colonel didn't even look at Daniel, not breaking eye contact with the woman. "Jack?"
It was the woman who dropped her arm and turned to look squarely at Daniel. "Daniel Jackson. Do you wish to remember?"
Daniel froze for a moment, then bobbed his head toward her. "Excuse me? Remember what?"
She took a deep breath, her expression not changing. "Do you wish to remember?"
Daniel kept looking at her while he spoke to Jack, as if she were some alien who didn't know what he was saying. He also noticed that there was something quite attractive about the set of her jaw and the depth of her eyes. "Jack? What's going on here? And why does it feel like I should know her from somewhere?"
O'Neill spoke quietly. "Will he forget us?"
She frowned, lightly, then shook her head. "No. He'll remember everything."
"Ja-ack?" Daniel turned to Sam and Teal'c where they stood two paces behind the colonel. "Do you guys know her? Am I missing something?" They looked at each other and shook their heads, although Daniel noticed that Sam kept her rifle aimed carefully at the stranger. A slight thrill of fear was passing through him when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to look into the concerned brown eyes of his friend.
"Look, Daniel. There's some things you don't remember. Not all bad, not all good… just different. It might be hard."
"Things about what?" He stared into Jack's eyes and a light dawned. "Things about me?"
"Yeah." Daniel felt the hand squeeze his shoulder. "Do you want to remember?"
Suddenly the fear blossomed into something more tangible. "Should I?"
Jack shook his head loosely and blew out a breath. "I think I would. And knowing you, Danny," he grinned at the younger man, "You won't be able to sleep nights if you don't." Jackson looked from Jack to his teammates, and then at the strange woman in black.
"Ask me again."
She smiled, her expression changing to one of warm concern. "Daniel Jackson. Do you wish to remember?" He swallowed hard.
"Yes."
Holding the feather in her palm, she held it against his forehead and whispered, "Deletrius." Daniel closed his eyes, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then he cried out and dropped to his knees, holding his head as if it would explode.
"Daniel!"
"Leave him, he's got to do this. Don't touch him." They might not have listened if the woman hadn't looked like she was holding herself back as well. She leaned forward to murmur to him. "Daniel, just let it happen. Don't fight it, it only makes it worse. You know that."
Sam stopped at the colonel's elbow. "What's happening to him?" Jack shook his head, his eyes riveted in horror.
"How long?"
"Not long. This is only the first stage."
"First stage? Who came up with that idea?"
She looked away from Daniel's pain and found herself face to face with Jack's, instead. She tried to soften her voice. "He did."
On the floor, Daniel had stopped writhing. He was laying on his side in a fetal curl as his breathing slowly began to normalize. The woman seemed to not be able to stop herself any longer, and dropped to his side. As she smoothed the hair back from his forehead, the rest of the team saw a fine pink zig zag of scar. Sam touched the colonel's arm. "Did she do that?"
Jack shook his head. "No, it was there after the flash when she first showed up." He dropped to one knee. "Danny?"
Daniel opened his eyes slowly, blinking. His hand lifted to the mark on his forehead, rubbed against it for a second. Then he pushed his glasses up and looked into the woman's face. Frowning, he opened his mouth, stopped. The frown turned gradually into an open smile.
"Hermione?" The woman inhaled abruptly as a wave of relief washed over her. Her eyes sparkled with tears. "It is you."
"It is."
He shifted his gaze over to Jack. "You knew."
"I knew a little. You okay?"
"Yeah…" He sat up with Jack's help, leaning hard against him. "But if I remember right, I'm not done."
Hermione nodded. Reaching into the bag at her side once more, she pulled out wooden stick. "You said I should give you this."
Daniel's eyes lit on the stick and he laughed. "You know, there's a large part of me now that doesn't really believe any of this."
"You always had that part, Daniel. It's what made you so careful when you arranged this."
"Sir?" Sam got the colonel's attention. "What is that?"
O'Neill looked at her briefly before looking back to the scene unfolding in front of him. "It's a wand, Carter. Haven't you ever seen a wand before?"
"A wand?" She blinked at him, looked at Daniel and let out a little gasp of amazement. "Not like a wand about 11 inches long, made of holly, with a phoenix feather in it?"
"The same."
"You're kidding."
Daniel looked up at her from where he leaned on Jack on the floor. "Don't worry, Sam, I'm a little disbelieving myself." He looked over his shoulder at Jack. "I think you can stay there, if you don't mind."
"I'm here, pal. Just do what you have to do."
Daniel reached up to Hermione and took the wand in his right hand. He closed his eyes and whispered something. Apart from a sharp intake of breath, nothing else seemed to be happening. Daniel just sat there with his eyes shut, occasionally moving his lips, as if he were reading something. Jack looked up at the woman in black.
"Is he all right?"
"He will be. This could take a while."
"How long?"
"Less than an hour."
Jack shifted and supported Daniel more comfortably. "We should let the General know everything is okay." Hermione shook her head.
"The rest of the base is unaware of anything happening." The three other team members stared at her. She blinked at them, somewhat haughtily. "For heaven's sake. I'm not without power myself, you know."
The team exchanged looks. "Right."
Sam squatted down next to Jack and pushed the hair back off Daniel's forehead, looking at the lightning bolt scar once more. "So let me get this straight. He's Potter. And it's all real." Hermione shook her head.
"Almost. Potter's him. And yes, it's real. That woman was pretty clever, so we decided to give her enough to make a whole world. With enough changes to distract anyone who was after him- eye color, name." She sighed.
"It's like this. Daniel Jackson was twenty when Hogwarts came under magical attack. He was teaching there at the time, finishing up his graduate studies." She smiled fondly and a little sadly for a moment. "We'd finally figured out…" She shook her head, pulled herself together. "The dean knew that Daniel was the only one strong enough to take his place, but also knew that it wasn't yet time. That was why-" she paused. "Why the enemy was in such a hurry to attack. Then the Ministry of Magic wanted to have him try to defend us anyway. For a while, it seemed everyone was after him." She sighed and stretched her neck to get the kinks out.
"Daniel came up with the idea of us putting a memory charm on him. Something to keep him busy while waiting for the timing to be right. He chose some things – archeology, for one. We formed the charms as best we could… when you're changing someone's whole history, it's better to use as much as you can from their real past." She slumped to the floor, cross-legged, and sat next to Jack. He realized for the first time how much this had taken out of her. "So even in this 'life', he had lost his parents early, and had an unusual childhood. The one that surprised all of us was when he became the leading expert on ancient languages – but we realized that it all made sense when the serpent lords came." Sam looked at her quizzically.
"What do you mean?"
Hermione sighed. "Parseltongue. He can talk to snakes."
