You Look Pretty Good for a Corpse

SCG Infirmary July 31, 2001

Daniel stared at the door, his friends had just left through, stunned.

He had never given any thought to the fact that their might be or in this case had been a Harry Potter and a Tom Riddle in this universe. It should have occurred to him, especially after he'd visited two alternate universes through that mirror. It finally occurred to him that the only reason he hadn't given it any thought, even back in the '80s when they were alive was because by then he'd thought of himself only as Daniel Jackson, the son of Claire and Melburn Jackson. It wasn't that he'd forgotten who he had been, it was just that it had no bearing on his current life until someone had brought it up today. He still even did wandless magic occasionally and brewed a few of the more useful potions he'd learned in potions class, like the pepper-up one for when he had to be awake for long periods of time.

In hindsight, he realized that the bad headaches he'd suffered in 1980 and '81, while on that dig with Dr. Jordan, hadn't been because of eyestrain, or his needing a new prescription, but because of entropic cascade failure. He had probably been protected from the worst of it, because he carried within him the essence of Daniel Jackson, a boy who had died with his parents in 1973.

New York Museum of Art

January 18, 1973

Even though he was near the back of the tomb display, where it would not be easy for anyone to see him, Harry stayed under his invisibility cloak, watching as the Jacksons worked on erecting the columns for the tomb display that was to be set up in the New York Museum of Art. This was going to require precise timing to pull off.

It had taken him several months of research to find a suitable life to assume, not mention get the potions he was going to use brewed correctly. He was just thankful that he'd had enough foresight to purchase plenty of the ingredients he would need for the potions. That old library of the founders had been a treasure trove. The spells he was going to use and the potions that he'd had to make had once been part of a very old binding ritual between a master and apprentice, back in the days when there were no magic schools. The spells and potions insured that no knowledge would be lost, if the master died before the apprentice completed his training. Per the spell's explanation, assuming the apprentice had no direct hand in the master's death, then all the master's knowledge and skill would've passed on to the apprentice so that that knowledge and those skills would not be lost. There had also been potions in there that would allow one to permanently alter their appearance, right down to the DNA Those had been used to assure that bastard children and unwanted magical babies from muggle families, would share the traits of the wizarding families they were taken into.

Harry had taken great care in choosing the life he was going to assume. It was going to be a child and not an adult, but it had to be one who was going to die anyway and not from disease. The child also had to be an orphan and preferably one new to the country he intended to make his home, that way the child wouldn't have that many friends to start off with so he wouldn't have to explain away any changes in behavior.

According to the articles he'd read, Dr's Claire and Melburn Jackson along with their 7 year old son, Daniel, had been killed the stone roof of the tomb display they were setting up, slipped and came crashing down on them. The authorities hadn't known about the child until they got to the back of tomb display. He was found crushed by a section of column. The only thing they had concluded was he had somehow gotten back there without his parents, or any of the other adults in the area, seeing him.

Using the time turner he'd swiped from Dumbledore's office, during his last year at Hogwarts, Harry went back in time, each time in a slightly different position so he would have a good idea where everyone was and what they were doing the moment the accident happened. Right now there were five of him here, each had remained stationary, so there was little chance he would bump into himself. He only had one more to go after this one and he wouldn't be hiding then.

Over the past few days, Harry had deliberately encountered the boy several times, to insure all the potions and spells were in place. He had been surprised to find the boy had some magical ability of his own. It was enough to save Harry the trouble of having to link himself to the boy so that his magic could power the spells. He regretted having to use an Imperious curse on the boy to get him to drink the potions and then say the spells that bound them together with the boy in the place of master rather than apprentice. Then he'd used an Obliviate curse to make the boy forget they had met.

He checked his watch. It would be happening any time now.

He heard the cable snap and then a scream from Dr. Claire Jackson. He located the tracker spell he had put on the boy and wandlessly transfigured him into a heart shaped locket, that he moved over near Dr. Claire Jackson. It had a picture of the boy inside, so they would assume it was torn off in the accident. The real Daniel would be buried with his mother. A quick single turn of the time turner and he was now back one hour.

Now to that unoccupied office he'd found during one of his first few trips with the time turner to take the potions, that would complete the setup of his new life….

"Dr. Jackson," a nurse's voice pulled him out of his memories.

"I'm fine," Daniel was quick to assure her. "My mind just went wandering for a bit. I'd better get back to work though and stop daydreaming. SG-7 needs this information a.s.a.p."

The nurse smiled, "I'll leave you to your work then."

As Daniel returned his attention to the photographs in front of him, his mind really wasn't on the translation. It wanted to be down in the brig with the rest of SG-1, trying to find out who the people impersonating his parents were. He briefly considered the idea that they might really be Lily and James Potter and felt a surge of anger at the thought of his parents abandoning him and letting their friends think they were dead.

SGC Holding, July 31, 2001

Lilly Potter was sitting on one of the cots in the cell, staring at the far wall through the bars, while her husband paced.

They had already exhausted the topic of trying to escape. She had managed to convince James that it wasn't a good idea, especially if they wanted to find out what Dr. Daniel Jackson knew about their son. Not to mention that they really didn't need the military chasing them.

This was the closest they'd been to Harry so far. Lily just hoped that when they finally met this Dr. Jackson, he would be willing to share the information he had. She didn't know what she would do if Dr. Jackson acted like Remus Lupin and refused to tell them what he knew.

She still shuddered when she remembered the anger that Moony had displayed, when they'd apparated to his home after Harry's disappearance three years ago. If it had been nighttime and the moon had been out she was fairly certain that Moony would have ripped them to shreds.

It had taken several months of repeated attempts, before Remus would even listen to their explanations of why they had let their friends think they were dead instead of in hiding and why they'd apparently abandoned their son. Once he had heard their story, Remus proceeded to verbally rip them to shreds for abandoning Harry and condemning Sirius to Azkaban by their silence. The last thing Remus had said to them, before shoving them out the door was 'he was glad Harry had gone to another world so he didn't have to find out about his parents betrayal'. He hadn't spoken to them since that day and all James' attempts to try and see his old friend had failed. While Lily was hurt that Remus no longer considered himself their friend, unlike James she could understand why.

Even though the werewolf was only evident during the full moon, the wolf's instincts still guided a lot of Remus' behavior. To the wolf part of Moony, the pack was everything and all he could see was that two members of the pack had abandoned their cub and the pack. Unless the cub or wolf was sick and couldn't keep up with the pack, that was not considered acceptable behavior in a wolf pack, especially the abandonment of one's own cub. Such wolves could not be allowed back into the pack, even if the pack now only consisted of two and one was far away.

The information that Harry had used a portal spell to take him to another world, combined with the knowledge that their son must have found the spell at Hogwarts, sent them on a quest to find the hidden library of the Founders.

The arrival of the three people who had interrupted their search of Dr. Jackson's flat, pulled Lily's thoughts back to the present.

James and the grey-haired man who had the name 'O'Neill' on his jacket above the pocket engaged in a staring contest before the grey-haired man spoke. "Would you two care to change your story any?"

"What do you mean, change our story?" James growled. "We told you the truth. I am James Potter. This is my wife, Lily Evans Potter. And we are looking for information regarding our son Harry Potter who went missing three years ago on his eighteenth birthday."

"Well, then I must say you to look very good for a couple of twenty year old corpses." O'Neill congratulated them.

"What are you talking about?" Lily knew she sounded confused as she joined her husband at the cell bars

"Did you think we wouldn't check your story out?" The grey-haired man wanted to know. "According to the records, James and Lily potter, along with their son Harry were killed by a drunk driver named Tom Riddle on October 31, 1981."

O'Neill watched as the prisoner's faces turned pasty white. Either they hadn't expected the truth to be uncovered so fast or they had been surprised to hear the fate of the people they were impersonating. "Now would you like to try telling your story again and this time stick to the truth, it works a lot better."

Lily looked at her husband, then said, "we really are the Potters… just not the ones from this dimension or reality if you prefer the term. We came here through a portal that was created using a very old spell. Our son used the same spell three years ago to come here and we came to bring him home."

"Oh, come on now, do you really expect us to believe that you came here through a 'magic' portal from an alternate reality where magic is real?" He turned his attention to his companions and asked. "Carter, when did we wander into the middle of an episode of 'Charmed' or 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'?"

"I'm kind of surprised that you know about those shows, sir." The blonde woman, whom Lily assumed was Carter, commented with a smile. "I wouldn't have thought either one of them was your kind of show."

"They aren't," O'Neill was quick to defend himself. "Cassie conned me into taping them for her while she was on that school trip to DC last week. I caught bits and pieces of it while I was recording it for her."

"Unh huh," Carter smirked

"We're getting off the subject here," O'Neill quickly put in.

"Which is, is magic real and can it be used to create a portal between realities?" The black man with the gold tattoo on his forehead put in.

"Exactly, Teal'c," O'Neill agreed.

"DanielJackson once showed me a tape of a magic show and explained that stage magicians rely heavily on misdirection and sleight of hand to accomplish their stage tricks." Teal'c commented. "Is there such a thing as real magic, Major Carter?"

"It depends on who you ask, Teal'c." She told him. "A Wiccan would tell you 'yes'. Others would say 'no, it's all fakery and tricks'."

"I think I can settle this debate for you," James told them, "but I'll need a little more room than I've got in this cell."

O'Neill was instantly suspicious. "What are you planning to do?"

"I am an animagus." Seeing the blank looks, he added, "An animagus can shift into the form of an animal. In my case it's a stag."

"If you do indeed change into such a large creature, then it is understandable that you would need more room to accomplish it." Teal'c observed.

O'Neill looked at James Potter consideringly for several minutes before walking to the door and having a whispered conversation with one of the guards outside. A few minutes later another person appeared and handed him an odd looking gun. O'Neill pressed something on the side and the gun changed shape with a whine. Weapon in hand, he unlocked the cell door and gestured for James to move out of the cell and to the far side of the room.

"Go ahead," O'Neill told him.

James purposely did the transformation in slow motion, as if it were the first time he'd done it, so they could see it wasn't some kind of trick. Once the transformation was completed, he moved slowly and carefully, turning around as if modeling for them. The reaction of the three people standing on the other side of the room was rewarding. The older man, O'Neill was staring at him mouth opened in amazement. The black man with the odd name of Teal'c had shown no reaction other than a raised eyebrow, as if strange things happened around him all the time and this was nothing new. The woman, Carter, had a look on her face that reminded him a lot of Lily when she was trying to figure out a new spell.

The woman moved up carefully and touched his neck and lower antlers. "They're real, sir and there's no way he could've disappeared from this corner without us seeing him go."

"Change back now, Potter." O'Neill instructed.

Once he was back in human form, James Potter asked, "Do you believe us now?"

"That you can work "real" magic," O'Neill commented, "yeah. That you came through a magic portal from an alternate reality, maybe."

"Look," Lily spoke up before her husband could open his mouth and stick his foot in it, "all we want to do is find our son. He doesn't belong here any more than we do. We just want to bring him home. Just let us talk with Dr. Jackson, get what Harry left with him and we'll be on our way."

"Once you've given us back our personal possessions, including our wands," James added.

"You've still got questions to answers before any of your possessions will be returned, or before you will be going anywhere." O'Neill countered. "And according to Dr. Jackson, the Harry Potter he met is an orphan and he left nothing with him. So, if that young man was indeed your son, why does he think you're dead?"

"And are you sure you found the right reality? After all Potter and Harry are both common names, so how can you be sure your son is here?" Carter put in. "There are thousands of alternate realities out there, if not millions of them."

"Can we at least discuss these matters someplace a little more comfortable?" James requested.

"Daniel," Jack's voice interrupted his train of thought, just as he was getting to the most interesting part of the stele carving that SG-7 needed translated.

Daniel looked up and saw his friend standing there, nervously shifting from foot to foot. "What is it, Jack?"

"Well, there are a couple of people outside who would like to talk with you. The General said it was okay."

While he was fairly certain he didn't want to know the answer, Daniel asked anyway. "Who wants to see me?"

"James and Lily Potter."

Daniel gave him the expected look of disbelief. "I thought they were dead."

"The ones from this reality are," his friend agreed. "These two are from an alternate reality only they didn't get here by traveling through a mirror like that one you fussed with on 233. According to them they came here through a portal created by a magic spell. The Harry Potter you met apparently did too."

"And why do they want to see me?" Daniel interrupted.

"They want to talk with you about the Harry Potter you met in Chicago." O'Neill told him. "They said they came to bring him home."

"The Harry Potter, I met, is an orphan, remember?" Daniel put in, really wanting to avoid this.

"Yeah," Jack scratched his head, "well it seems that may not be the case. The Potters faked their death somehow. Anyway, the General said it was okay for them to talk to you about him."

Daniel sighed, not wanting to deal with this right now, but then again, he didn't want to have to deal with it later either. Finally he said, "Let's get this over with.'

As Jack left the room to fetch the Potters, Daniel took several deep breaths to calm and center himself so he could strengthen his mental barriers, in case either of the people coming in was a skilled legilimens.

As his teammates led the couple in, he did a quick bit of wandless magic to check for glamours, but detected nothing. When he caught sight of the couple's faces, he hoped that his expression of polite indifference hadn't slipped. Though they looked older than the pictures he had of them, it was quick clear that James and Lily Potter were indeed alive. An absurd argument began in his head. Unless I'm very much mistaken there's now only a few years separating our ages. I wonder what they would say if I told them I was their son? Not that I will. They'd probably stare at me like I was crazy. And then there's Jack, what would he do? I don't want to be forced to leave. l love my job here and I don't want to lose it. I'm making a difference here and I am protecting my home. I won't lose it, just because these two somehow managed to reappear in the world and find me.

Not knowing the thoughts going through the man's head, Lily Potter was the first to break the awkward silence that had filled the room. "Dr. Jackson, I want to thank you for agreeing to see us."

"I only did it to stop you from breaking into my apartment again." Daniel told her flatly.

"Yes, we're sorry about that." Lily sounded apologetic.

"That doesn't excuse what you did." Daniel's response surprised his friends. With the possible exception of the Goa'uld and a certain Senator, the archeologist/linguist was usually willing to extend the hand of friendship to just about anyone, as well as give them a second chance. "According to Jack, you claim to be the parents of a young man I met two or three years ago."

"We are his parents," James growled.

Lily put a hand on her husband's arm, silencing whatever else he intended to say and stepped forward, holding out a small photo to Daniel. "This is the most recent picture we were able to find of Harry, before we came here. We're fairly certain he wouldn't have been wearing any glamour charms when you met him, since he wouldn't have expected anyone else to be able to follow him here."

"Glamour charm?" Sam asked.

"It's a disguise spell." Lily told her. "It's visual disguise only. It's not tactile."

Daniel took the picture reluctantly, wondering which one it was. In his sixth year because he was tired of the wizarding press and Colin Creevy taking pictures of him without his knowledge or consent, Harry gone through the Hogwarts library looking for a spell that would blur his image. His last two years were relatively free of those trying to get his picture without his consent, because all they got was a fuzzy image in his place.

The picture, Lily Potter had handed to him, was one of the ones he had allowed Molly Weasley to take of him at his Hogwarts graduation, except this one was still. He was standing, unsmiling, behind Ron and Hermione who had their arms around each other.

Daniel didn't have much time to dwell on thoughts of his former friends as Lily said, "as you can see, he looks a lot like James, though he has my eyes. Dr. Jackson, we just need to know anything you can tell us about our son. Please help us find him."

Daniel briefly considered lying and saying that the person in this photograph looked nothing like the Harry Potter he had met, but aside from the fact that they probably would think he had just worn a glamour, he wanted some answers from his 'parents', "Before I tell you anything, and understand this, what I do decide to tell you will be based on how honest you are with me, I want some answers first."

"Now you listen here!" James spat. "Harry is our son…"

"No, you listen," Daniel overrode whatever he had been about to say. "You claim to be Harry's mother and father, but the young man I met, believed himself to be an orphan because he parents died when he was still a baby and the relatives he was left with treated him like a cross between a slave and a leper. Having lost my parents at the age of seven and spent time in fosters homes, I think I can say I know how Harry might feel if his parents who he thought were dead suddenly turned up, so before I say one word about him to you or anybody else, I will be the one determining if you have the right to that information."

"He is our son, Dr. Jackson," Lily pointed out.

"Whom you apparently abandoned, Mrs. Potter." Daniel countered. "Why was that?"

(AN: Yes I know it's a cliffy, but the conversation between Daniel and the Potters isn't quite working right yet and I want to post what I had. Besides, I'm feeling a little sadistic today)

(AN: Answers to questions asked in the reviews can be found in the Loprogue. Usually after the next update.)