Author's Note: Comma.
LRH: So, another chapter. Huh.
Eriu: *giggle* sleep dep- or not.. Do you love us yet?
LRH: OR do you hate us? After all, we have already killed Danny-boy, and it's only the fourth chapter.
Eriu: If I could laugh manically I would right now. But- look on the bright side, guys, the good Doctor's not smoking anything! Now is he?
LRH: *looks at Eriu as if she were mad. Oh wait...* And what, precisely, would the good but oh-so-bad (we wish) Doctor be smoking?
Eriu: think THING, babe, think, THING.
LRH: Oh, right. THING. Hee hee. Got to go... ;)
Eriu: anyway, read it eat it, review it. And maybe at some point you could love it? We've been a bit negligent as of late...
(COMMA)
Chapter IV
Teal'c clattered down the stairs, Sam and Jack close behind him. The trio came to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the spiral, all staring at the still, broken body of Daniel Jackson. Sam lurched toward the lifeless body that had once housed the man she had loved as dearly as a brother. She fell to her knees, crawling the rest of the distance.
"Oh, God, Daniel, no..." she pulled his still-warm body to her.
Daniel's head fell back at an unnatural angle, neck grinding as his shattered vertebra no longer supported his head. His eyes were half- open, filmed over in death. A trickle of blood stained his jaw, marking a grim tail from his slack mouth. Sam wiped it away with her thumb, caressing his cheek. She kissed his forehead tenderly and then she snapped her head up to glare at the wizards who had just reached the foot of the stairs.
"You" Jack growled at Sirius, in the lead. "This is your fault," Jack stood face to face with Sirius, shaking with terror and sorrow "I may not have my gun but I can still kill you. You fucking bastard, I'm going to rip you apart with my bare hands!" Jack tackled Sirius and began pummeling him.
Teal'c jumped into action, grabbing Jack around the waist and pulling him off the prone form of Black.
"O'Neill! Do not do this, DanielJackson would not want it!"
"He killed Danny!" Jack shouted, his voice cracked as he struggled futilely against Teal'c's grip.
"Jack?" Sam's voice was barely above a whisper "Sir, he's going to come back... right- Jack?"
Jack stopped struggling and suddenly everything was very quiet. The newcomer, Remus, stood from his position next to Black and moved closer to kneel beside Daniel's cooling body.
"I know you," his voice was a bit shaky but as he moved on he became more sure of himself. "You can't be dead yet, you have not yet met the Prophet. You cannot die."
As if Remus's words had convinced fate of its mistake, Daniel's eyes snapped open. One eye was mazed with burst blood vessels, coloring the white a vivid red. His mouth gaped wide in a silent, agonized scream. With a horridly abrupt wrench and a crushing grinding sound, his neck righted itself, bones unbreaking and tissue untearing while the SG-1 team and the wizards watched in shocked silence. Bronze sparks tinged with blue played over Daniel's skin as his chest heaved in an explosive breath, centering over his heart, making it beat again. As that breath came out again as a tortured shriek thatechoed terribly in the stoned walled room. He arched his back in Sam's arms as his twisted limbs straightened themselves, a convulsion that tore his body out of her grip. The back of his head struck the stone floor and he lay still. No one moved for a moment until his eyes opened once more.
"What... happened?" he murmured his voice a horse whisper.
"Daniel!" Sam and Jack cried out in joy. Jack tore himself free from Teal'c, leaping forwards and grabbing Daniel into a rib-crushing hug. "You damn spacemonkey, don't you ever do that again!" He was laughing and crying, but stopped when Daniel, who had been all but limp in his arms, cried out.
"Not so tight," he gasped, trying and failing to stand on his own feet. He smiled weakly in reassurance at Jack's consternation. "I'll be alright, Jack." He winced, a hitch in his breath "After all, I've had worse."
Teal'c moved forward to support Daniel from the other side. "Can you walk, DanielJackson?"
Daniel tried to stand but he couldn't seem to get his feet to cooperate. "No," he said "but if you let me lie here for awhile, I may change my mind. Sometime in the next week or so." Again the weak smile.
Jack smiled back with great fervor. "Sorry, Danny, train's leavin' and you're going first class." Together, Teal'c and Jack lifted Daniel into a fireman's carry. Sam looked at Dumbledore, who was standing by passively.
"Do you have any medical facilities?" She looked at him with some asperity.
"Of course," Dumbledore smiled. "Follow me to our Hospital Wing." Sam nodded, already filling a needle with morphine; she injected the drug into Daniel's system with practiced ease.
"Does this mean we have to go back up the stairs?" Daniel asked from his human litter.
"Yes, it does," Dumbledore pulled out his wand. "Here, let me help you. Wingardium Leviosa." To his intense surprise, nothing happened. Remus spoke up apologetically.
"Passive magic doesn't seem to work on him, Headmaster. I meant to catch him when I caught Sirius, honestly I did, but he fell right through it." He shrugged pathetically. "I tried."
"We can carry him," said Jack defensively. He looked down at Daniel, who was slumped forward, half-asleep from the morphine. "We've done it before."
En mass, the group re-ascended the stairs. This time, they gained the top without incident, but incident awaited them there.
A large man stormed across a large room towards them, clearly enraged. The SG-1 team stared at him for several reasons. One leg, when it appeared from under the robe, was a carved wooden claw and one eye rolled madly in its socket while the other scowled murderously at Daniel.
"Necromancer!" the man growled, drawing a wand from his robes. Thrusting it sharply, he sent a wave of barely-visible energy at Daniel, knocking him out of Jack and Teal'c's arms and sending him flying towards a far wall. He would have hit it quite hard, but Sirius leapt to intercept, catching him in mid-air and cushioning his impact with his own body.
Sam, who had taken the staff weapon to free Teal'c's hands, brought it to bear and fired- or tried to. The tip of the weapon did not even open. Reacting quickly and improvising, she thrust it forward, connecting squarely with the man's nose. Jack dove after Daniel and Sirius, checking both their vitals. They were unconscious, but otherwise okay. Teal'c followed Sam's attack with a swift kick to the aggressor's gut.
"Halt!" Dumbledore's voice rang through the room. Everyone halted; Sam in mid-swing and Teal'c about to grab the aggressive wizard's leg. Only the ugly man who had started it all didn't stop. He threw a disgusted glance at Dumbledore and then threw another spell at Daniel, who was beginning to re-awaken. He eyes widened as he saw the spell approach, but he couldn't move. Pain enveloped his chest like a cloud, lifting him off of Sirius. He couldn't breath, he couldn't think, he could only listen to the stranger's voice as he began to question him furiously.
"Who are you?"
Daniel gasped out a reply, forced to do so by the pain. "Daniel... Jackson."
Moody scowled impatiently. "Not the alias you've taken for yourself. Who are you?"
The pain seemed to grip him tighter, and a tendril of agony quested deep within Daniel's chest, finding something that he hadn't known was there and ripping it out of him. "I'm Raven!" he screamed in torment.
"Moody!" commanded Dumbledore sharply. "Stop this at once! Have you taken leave of your senses?"
Moody lowered his wand, but Daniel's pain did not ebb. "Headmaster," he said in an impatient voice. "You saw what this man did. He is a Necromancer. The darkest of dark wizards."
Jack snapped at him. "Daniel healed himself. I don't know how he did it, but he did. How is that dark magic, or whatever this is about?"
"He was dead," growled Moody. "He should have stayed that way. It is the natural order of things."
Jack stood, blocking Moody's view of Jackson. "Daniel is the kindest, most innocent person I know. He wouldn't hurt a fly without reason. He is not evil. Now let him go!"
Moody flung Jack our of the way with an impatient flick of his wand, advancing once more on Daniel. "Who sent you?"
As the pain intensified, Daniel shrieked. "Accident! Was... Accident!"
"You're not an agent of the Dark?"
"No! God, no! Stop!"
With an abruptness that left Daniel gasping for breath and twitching in residual pain, Moody ceased the spell. Daniel fell to the floor, landing with a crunch next to Sirius, who was just now beginning to awaken. Moody stepped closed, towering over them both. His normal eye scowled down at Daniel still. "Then what are you?"
Daniel curled into a fetal position, hugging himself for protection and comfort. "Linguist, I'm a Doctor of Linguistics and Archeology, majoring in anthropology..." He gasped for breath. "Please... no more." He fell silent, seeming to shut down. His eyes closed, and he shook as if anticipating the next blow.
Dumbledore stepped forward, gripping Moody's shoulder. "No one's going to hurt you anymore, Dr. Jackson, I swear it." His voice was like iron, his face frightening in its fury. "Moody, go up and wait for me in my office. I will deal with you when I've gotten Dr. Jackson seen to."
Sam moved towards Daniel, kneeling down beside her distraught friend. She ran her hand through his short hair. "Daniel?" she soothed. "It's going to be okay. But you're going to have to come back, Daniel. Please, don't do this, Daniel, don't leave us. Not like this." Now she was on the floor beside him, one hand on his cheek, the other stretched out above her head. He didn't respond, merely flinched at her touch. She didn't pull back, and eventually his eyes opened.
"Sam?" His voice was hoarse with unshed tears and pain. "Sam? It's cold, Sam." He took a shaky breath. "I can't... I can't..." Daniel tried to sit up and failed. His arm collapsed under him, clearly broken, but all he did was sigh and sink down, content to lie perfectly still on the cool stone floor.
Sam checked his vitals, finding his pulse to be rapid and erratic, but strong. She looked up to where Jack was standing across the room, rubbing ruefully at his shoulder, which had hit the wall hard. "He's unconscious, sir, but he's not in immediate danger." Her voice shook.
"He may not be," growled Jack. "But that Moody character sure is."
Dumbledore raised his hands placatingly. "Alastor Moody will be disciplined for this outrage, I assure you. He has more than two decades of experience fighting the Dark, but that is no excuse for this entirely unprovoked attack. Please allow me to extend the school's most sincere apologies for-"
Jack cut him off impatiently. "With all due respect, Headmaster, cut the diplomacy crap. That's Danny's job, and, as you can see, he's not really up to it right now. Could we just get to your infirmary? Please?"
"Yes, of course. Mr. Teal'c, perhaps you would carry Dr. Jackson, and Remus, would you please help Colonel O'Neill? He seems to be favoring that leg." Indeed, Jack was leaning against the wall, putting as little weight on his left ankle as he could and gritting his teeth as he did so. With only a token resentment, he leaned on Remus's proffered shoulder.
"Is it a long walk?" he asked with a half-smile, watching anxiously as Sam helped Teal'c sling a limp Daniel over his back. He scowled to see her then offer his hand and shoulder to Sirius, who was limping as badly as he was himself. Sirius leaned close to Sam's ear, saying something that Jack couldn't hear, something that made her smile weakly as though reassured.
By the time they reached the infirmary, Daniel had still not come to. Whatever the SG-1 team had expected in an infirmary, it wasn't the primative appearance that met them here. The light was brighter here than it had been in the corridors, but it was still genereated by wall sconces, to all appearances gas. The room was immaculately clean, but the farthest wall was lined with thick glass bottles and jars brimming with vari-colored liquids, some of them murky with unidentifiable contents.
Jack gave a low whistle. "You do still have that first aid kit, right Carter?"
Sam smiled, hitching Sirius higher on her shoulder. "Yes, sir."
Snape spoke up for the first time since the basement. "That will not be necessary. Our facilities are perfectly capable, Colonel. We have no need of technological crutches to perform medical miracles."
The room wasn't empty. At the far end, two women stood over a bed where a young man lay grimacing as the shorter of the women tended to a deep gash on his temple.
"Renee," said the short woman crossly. "I know you two like to play Quidditch by your own rules, but once you have hit your opponent with the Bludger, I do think it bad form to follow up by hitting him with the bat." She waved her wand over the gash and it closed with a wash of slow-moving yellow sparks. Snape caught Jack's eye, arching an eyebrow smugly.
"I didn't hit him too hard," protested Renee. The man glared at her. "And anyway. He deserved it."
Dumbledore strode across the room, interrupting the man's half-formed retort. "Poppy, I have some new patients for you."
"Stay here, both of you," she said sternly to the two before crossing the room briskly to examine the new arrivals. "What happened?" she admonished, seeing the shape that Daniel was in. She directed Teal's to lay him on the nearest cot, continuing to examine him while muttering her diagnosis to herself. "Broken collarbone, brken radia, two, no, three sprung ribs, a fracture in the left hip, concussion, not too bad, but compounded with morphia, and... an interrogation spell?" She whirled on Dumbledore, incensed on Daniel's behalf. "Who did all this?"
Dumbledore opened his mouth to answer, but Jack, who was now sitting on the cot next to Daniel's, beat him to it. "Moody."
The short woman looked stricken. "Albus, what's he talking about?" She pulled out her wand and went to work on Daniel, still talking. "Alastor may be a little paranoid at times, but he wouldn't attack innocent people, would he?"
"Apparently," Dumbledore said, a glance warning Jack to let him speak first. "Alastor doesn't believe that Dr. Jackson here is innocent at all. He called him a necromancer and began to interrogate him without warning, and he ignored me when I ordered him to stop."
Poppy stopped her examination to stare at Daniel, who was beginning to stir fitfully. "A necromancer?" There was fear in her voice, and disgust, poorly hidden. "Albus, is it safe to have him here, in the school? Shouldn't we turn him over to the aurors, if he is a necromancer?"
"What?" Jack glared at Poppy. "You're not turning my linguist over to anybody, get it, lady?" He tried to stand, only to fall back onto the bed with a plop. "Teal'c, get Danny. Carter, help me, we're leaving."
"There will be no need for that, Colonel," said Dumbledore sternly. "Poppy, although I'm not sure precisely what Dr. Jackson is, I am certain that he is not a danger to anyone, particularly in his current condition. Which, I believe, it is your professional obligation to remedy. What he is that moment is your patient. Do your best for him, is that understood?"
She nodded, turning back to Daniel without comment. A few waves of her wand closed the cuts on his body, and then she flicked her wand in the direction of the bottle-laden shelves. "Accio!" she said, and a number of bottles flew to land neatly on a table by her hip. Opening two, she measured precise amounts of their contents into a beaker. Seemingly on its own, the bed lifted Daniel into a half-sitting position, and she patted his cheeks to wake him up. "Come on, then," she said in a sing-sing voice. "This will make you feel much better."
"Hold on," said Sam. "What's that you're giving him?"
Poppy hardly looked up, distracted. "It's just a boneset potion, with some painkilling elixer added to it. It'll have him right in an instant." She held the beaker to his lips, ignoring Sam and Jack's protests. Half-wake, Daniel sipped it obediantly, awakening more as he felt its effects. They all heard the sickening pop as the bone in his arm reset itself, but his only reaction was to widen his eyes in surprise, not pain. He took the beaker himself, draining its contents eagerly, then he flexed his new-healed arm, grinning.
"Thanks," he said genuinely.
Poppy grimaced, turning away top tidy her supplies. "It's not me you should be thanking. If I had my way, all of your kind would be in Azkaban, and good riddance to you."
Daniel frowned at her hostility. "Azkaban?"
Sirius, who had claimed a chair in the shadowed corner, grimaced. "Wizard's prison." Poppy, who hadn't noticed his presence, leapt back in startlement, and then narrowed her eyes when she saw who it was, and returned to working on Jack;'s sprained ankle as she addressed Sirius sternly.
"Sirius Black. What are you doing here, and alive?" A small smile played at the corner of her lips. "Glad to have you back, Black."
"Glad to be back, Poppy," he said, smiling in relief. "Although I really don't think I was ever dead."
Daniel's frown deepened, undistracted. "Why would they send me to prison? What'd I do?" IT still amazed Jack that after eight years of intermittant hardship, Daniel still clung to his old naivete.
Jack scowled. "You didn't do anything, Daniel. These people just have problems with accepting diversity."
"Diversity?" asked Poppy increulously. "This has nothing to do with diversity, although that's a fine thing for a muggle like you to talk about." She muttered a moment to herself. The only word that Jack could pick out was "Salem." "If he is a necromancer, then he's a practitioner of the darkest kind of magic possible. Imaginable!"
"He's not a practitioner of any kind of magic!" retorted Jack, fuming. "He's a scientist, for Christ's sake! A linguist! He studies old, dead languages and old, dead cultures. He's not a necro-whatever, not an evil wizard or anything like that. He's the king of nerds!"
Daniel rolled his eyes and glowered at Jack. "Thank you, Jack O'Neill. Maybe I could defend myself for once? Hmm?"
Remus stepped forward. "Actually, Poppy, Colonel O'Neill, you're both wrong, in a way, and both right. If Mr. Malfoy and I are right in our assumption, and circumstances make that nearly certain, than Dr. Jackson is a wizard, yes, and he does have a necromancer's power over death, but these things do not make him evil. Rather, they make him the son of Osiris, the Ankh-ish. Legend has it that he can only die once, after he has found the true prophet. Well, after the prophet has found him, actually. It's a little vague there."
Jack gaped, then smirked. "I'm locking you in my closet for all eternity, Danny. You're never going to meet a new person ever again. And you'll live forever."
Daniel smiled back, enjoying thoroughly the normalcy of such banter. "But you know Jack, if I live forever, someday, I will have to come out of the closet."
Sam and Renee giggled, while Remus, Sirius, and the man who still occupied the bed at the far end of the ward, along with Harry and Draco, laughed loudly. Snape and Teal'c smirked, and not even Dumbledore could keep from smiling, but the joke flew right over Jack's head.
"What?"
They all only laughed harder.
The homey moment was broken by a loud as the doors flew open a tall gaunt man stood framed in the doorway along with a cat. "Moody said- necromancer!"
Daniel sneezed miserably, falling off the bed with a groan. "The universe hates me."
Jack shook off Poppy's ministrations, getting to his feet. "You're not touching him. Hasn't he had enough?"
The man took a step into the room, looking closer at Daniel, who was peering at him from under the bed.
"You're the necromancer?" the man was clearly taken aback, and, by the looks of it, a bit disappointed.
Daniel sneezed again, shrugging sheepishly and crawling out from under his bed "That's what people keep telling me."
"He's the Ankh'ish!" said Remus excitedly, Draco nodded in agreement.
"Truly?" the tall man asked.
"When Moody questioned him, he was Raven." Harry put in. "Whatever that means..."
"I said what?" asked Daniel, perplexedly.
Remus turned to him "You don't remember?"
"I remember falling, and pain, lots and lots of pain, and being carried, and Sam, I think, gave me a shot of something, and then..." He grimaced, remembering "I remember a very angry man wanting to die, and questions." Comprehension, "Oh, right the questions. Yeah, Raven. Haven't a clue where that came from."
The Tall man growled "Maybe one of your undead minions, perhaps?"
Daniel smirked insincerely "No I haven't had minions in about three years or so, thank you very much, and I'm pretty sure they weren't the Undead."
Jack eyed Daniel "Since when did you have minions?"
"Oh, sorry, Jack, dream," Daniel said sheepishly "I blew up Moscow by the way..."
"Okey?" Jack drawled
"OH! Yeah, yeah y-y-y-y-yeahah!" Laughed Sam. "Was that while you were a Sarcophagus junkie, Daniel?"
The junkie in question rubbed the back of his neck embarrassed "That was just mean, Sam." He paused rubbing his cheek "Where are my glasses?"
"Oh, yeah!" Harry winced sympathetically "I grabbed them when you fall off the stairs. Here."
Daniel put them back on with a satisfied smile. "Thanks- Harry, is it?"
"Yeah."
"Look, Potter," Draco drawled "Someone who doesn't recognize you on sight. Your PR agent must be slipping."
Jack laughed at the blonde's sarcasm. Daniel just looked confused. "You a movie star or something? Sorry, we don't get out much. Not on this planet anyway."
Jack clapped a hand to his face, covering his eyes. "Classified, Daniel, classified! For crying out loud..."
"Oh, please, Jack. It's not like it's a press conference or something. Besides, I'm pretty sure they already figured that part out."
"Figured what out?" Said a new voice from the door. The SG-1 crew, alert, whirled to face the two new arrivals, a boy and a girl who looked to be about Harry and Draco's age. It was the boy who'd spoken.
"Oh, Harry, there you are. We've been looking all over for you, mate. Who are these guys?" His face expressing innocent curiousity, he gestured to Sam, Jack, Teal'c and Daniel.
Before Harry could answer, Jack butted in "Maybe we should leave before the whole school knows we're here?"
Sam spoke up concernedly "Sir, I don't remember seeing a DHD in the Stargate Chamber. We may not be able to leave that way."
Jack threw his hands up in the air. "What else cam go wrong with this mission? We were supposed to be collecting soil samples for Christ's sake!"
Remus popped in hesitantly "You could stay here for awhile. Dr. Jackson has a gift and it may become dangerous if he doesn't learn to harness it."
Daniel nodded "I agree with Remus, Jack, if there's any way I can hide this... gift I'd like to learn it."
"Daniel has a point, sir." Carter said before Jack could disagree.
Teal'c also stated his opinion on the matter. "If DanielJackson's abilities were to be discovered by our enemies, it could be most disaserous."
Jack sighed "Guess I can't change your minds, can I?"
"No, sir." Sam said, smiling.