Gravity of it All by PLS
Summery: Sick of trying to survive as Harry Potter in a post-Voldemort world, a young wizard takes a new path in the past that leads to the stars.
Chapter One: Always in the Thick of Things.
"This world is huge,
If treasures were hidden somewhere,
Astronomical probability discourages you from finding it.
Just hoping for some chance doesn't make anything."
(Agreement by Suiteishou-jo)
"Colonel Uric Paterson, it's a pleasure to see you again, sir." Harry fought the urge to roll his eyes. The desk jockey who greeted him was one of the very few who refused to either call him by only his last name or his middle name. Uric was just a passing whim of his when creating his new life. A tribute to a man who, in Harry Potter's opinion, was a hero for going against the grain of the society he lived in. Heck, Harry liked the guy if only because he showed up to a meeting a few hundred years ago wearing a live badger on his head and nothing else. That kind of stuff took guts, because badgers could be such evil and violent creatures. Despite that, he hated being called by his first name.
"Ah, Thorne, I see you made Major. Congratulations." Harry said.
"Thank you Colonel." Harry saw the look on the poor man's face. He was just bursting with a few questions. Sighing, he gave himself over to the inevitable.
"Okay, what do you want to know?"
"You used to play dumb. I mean, your profile says you got your doctorate in the eighties and even now you are writing ground breaking stuff. I didn't even connect the books with you, sir. I don't get it. Why'd you try to come off as an idiot? I mean, well, you're brilliant but you used to doodle all over your reports, use simplistic terms, and generally act like you never even took your A Levels." Harry smirked as the Major rattled on about how stupid he acted and more variations on 'Why?' Finally, to spare the man more embarrassment he held up his hand.
"Stop. I acted like a common laborer because you wanted me to and that's what you saw. No one wanted to think that the guy who was slogging through jungle swamps and doing recon in the Middle East was any smarter than they were. No one wanted to see that I knew the implications of the missions I undertook. But everyone in any special force task force has to be intelligent as well as a good soldier. So, pick that jaw up, and get over it. We have a general and a couple ministers to impress, Major Thorne."
"Yes, sir."
Harry walked into the meeting room with his dress uniform on, his attaché case filled with notes, notebooks, and his new toy, a notepad computer with a wireless connection and few choice games to play if the meeting got boring. But it shouldn't, he was called out of retirement for a top secret project that he had yet to briefed upon. The reactivation letter and phone call had focused on his latest work and how it could be used to serve his country. Through it all, Harry had been sorely tempted to say 'Why the heck do you think I went through all that trouble to start teaching and get published? For the money?'
As he walked in he saw a few faces that he did not expect, especially the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense. He had originally been lead to believe that only their aides, a couple of Major Generals, and maybe a Lieutenant General would attend.
"Welcome Colonel Paterson." said the Prime Minister with that 'sincerely trying to be sincere' smile that he had. It was one of the reasons that Harry hadn't voted for the man in the last election, not that it did any good.
"It's a pleasure, Ministers, Generals. Now, I'm guessing you didn't call me back in to exchange pleasantries." Harry decided to make this that much shorter of a briefing. There was no point in the song and dance that would happen if he let the politicos take over a military meeting. The Prime Minister's smile became real, even if the other smiles in the room grew cold and fake. Good. It meant he was a man sick of the games he had to play and would be more inclined to listen to Harry if he took a straight forward approach to things.
"Right. Recently it has come to our attention, and to the attention of the world that the United States has been undertaking a dangerous and rather fantastic project. They call it the Stargate, and via this alien technology they have visited numerous alien worlds, come into contact with both hostile and benign races of alien people, and even brokered treaties and trade agreements on behalf of both their own country and the Earth as a whole with said beings." said the Minister of Defense. Harry nodded.
"I see. Well then, how does this involve me?" Harry asked.
"We'd like you to take up command of a new task force which will eventually become a regiment focused on extraterrestrial contact, the stargate, and intergalactic exploration. You will be working not only within the British Army but with our navy, air forces and marines, as well as working in close contact with smilier forces from around the world all taking direction, right now, from the commanding officer on the US stargate project, General Jonathan O'Neill of the United States Air Force." said the General. Harry nodded.
"Okay. It'll be good to work with Jack again." Harry smiled as he saw the confusion spread over all the faces but the one or two officers he had served under or with before, "General O'Neill is my best friend and not only did we work together in developing out master theses on military history at Cambridge, we also collaborated extensively when it was possible in the field for years. He's a solid, honorable man, with an eye for the big picture, as well as great loyalty to the people he works with.
"If that's it, I can probably catch a flight to the US, get clearance and transportation, and get started on my appraisal of the stargate project and just how best to structure this new task force biased upon our needs, the needs of the project, and so on. I'll probably also recruit civilian consultants as well as call a few people out of retirement." Harry saw that most of the people were nodding with looks of astonished approval. He knew they didn't have a clue what to do about the whole can of worms and were glad to give it to someone who did.
"Excellent, most excellent. The only concession we ask you to make is to take Major Thorne as your assistant and second in command once you start building your task force." said the Minister of Defense. Harry shrugged.
"As long as he can deal with the unconventional and such, I don't care." Harry let his face curl into a very cartoonish evil grin, "After all someone's going to have to deal with all the paper work I'm going to spend most of my time ignoring." The higher ups' eyes all sparkled with good humor as Thorne paled. Harry smirked. Did the poor man think that he was honestly going to let all the bureaucratic skill go to waste in the field?
Besides it was good revenge for the continual use of his first name.
End Chapter One-
(I have no knowledge of the power structure of the British armed forces, but I figure it doesn't matter. Well, not as long as I keep it vague. I'm not even totally sure how the US armed forces works. I mean I've read a good number of Tom Clancy books, looked up a few web sites, and made inferences from those and the news, but I'm not one hundred percent sure of it all. Same goes for the British side of the coin, aside from the books. I've never read books with the English version of Jack Ryan's world.)