"H-he broke-"
"You are getting into the habit of disobeying me, Lucius," the cloaked figure said, softly – dangerously. "I don't like that. Perhaps so much time left to your own devices has robbed you of your respect for my authority. A lesson is in order, I believe."
Malfoy shrank back, but before he could do anything, the cloaked man moved, his arm – and more importantly, the hand which was suddenly holding a wand – pointing directly at Malfoy.
"Crucio!"
Malfoy dropped to the floor, writhing in agony and crying out in pain. The others in the group stepped back fearfully, eyes alternating between the man on the floor and the one who was hurting him.
"Stop!"
Jack didn't like Malfoy – obviously – but he didn't like seeing anyone tortured, either. Although he didn't understand how it was happening this time, he'd seen Goa'uld torturing people, and that rubbed him wrong, too.
The figure in the cloak turned his attention to Jack, and Malfoy sprawled flat on the floor, whimpering.
"You don't approve?"
Jack scowled, and looked at the others, and then back at the guy in the cloak. He ignored the question and decided to ask one of his own.
"Okay. I've seen enough. What the hell is going on here? Who are you?"
The figure reached up and pulled the hood of his cloak back, and it was all Jack could do to keep from taking a step back. The man – at least he was shaped like a man – was pale and incredibly thin, with red, weird-looking eyes and a nose that definitely needed the handiwork of a good plastic surgeon. There was hardly any nose at all, simply slits.
"You probably have heard of me. For I'm told that even the Muggles know and fear my name, now. I am Lord Voldemort."
If he'd been expecting that to make an impression on Jack – and he obviously was – Voldemort was in for a huge disappointment, because Jack didn't know who Voldemort was. Sam did, however.
"He's the main antagonist in the Harry Potter stories, sir," she said, her face pale as she watched the cloaked figure. Not as pale as it had been, though, when she'd seen the man turn into the rat, though, so Jack could tell she was getting her nerves back under control – which was what he expected from someone so cool-headed. "The hereditary enemy of Harr-"
"Do not mention that name!" Voldemort said, his eyes narrowing as he turned his full attention on Carter. "I will deal with the Potter boy in my own-"
Jack stepped between Carter and Voldemort, not liking the way he was looking at her, and wanting the attention back on himself. The narrow eyes regarded him, now, and Jack met that gaze without faltering.
"You've obviously taken a lot of time and effort to make us believe that you're someone you're not… but you're wasting your time. I don't believe in magic. Only tricks. So if you're finished… why not point us to the door so we can get back to the hotel in time for lunch?"
"You don't believe in magic?" Voldemort asked, sneering. "Perhaps because you've never seen any…"
Before Jack had a chance to respond to that, Voldemort had turned his attention to a chair in the corner of the room – the farthest side of the room.
"Come out, Wormtail."
There was a moment's hesitation and then the rat Jack had seen earlier, came slinking out from under the chair, his beady eyes bright and his whiskers twitching quickly.
"Jack here doesn't believe in magic," Voldemort said, ignoring the way O'Neill turned and looked at him at the casual familiarity. "Be so good as to prove to him it exists."
As they all watched with varying degrees of fascination and revulsion, the rat suddenly grew and changed shape, becoming more and more man-like, until a few moments later, the rat had become human once more. Wormtail prudently stayed back from Voldemort's reach, but the dark lord wasn't interested in him just then. He turned back to O'Neill.
"Well?"
Jack had seen a lot in his time with the SGC that he couldn't explain. Heck, he didn't even have to leave the planet to be well out of his element when it came to the unexplained. He had to admit that he'd never seen anyone turn from an animal into a person before, though. But he was used to having things going on around him that he didn't understand, and because of this, he wasn't as taken back by the event as Voldemort had probably expected him to be.
"Impressive."
Voldemort sneered, looking over at Wormtail, who cowed at the glance.
"Nothing about Wormtail is impressive, Jack. He's barely competent enough to be allowed to remain with me – although he does have his uses. I'm sure you know people like that…"
Jack shrugged. He knew lots of people like that, but he didn't want to have anything in common with this man.
"So, you know my name and I know yours… are you going to ever get around to telling us what this is all about?"
The group gathered at the doorway gasped at the impertinence in the question, but Voldemort ignored them, much as he was ignoring the other members of SG-1 and focusing only on Jack.
"I wanted to meet you."
"Yeah? Well, hi."
"You really have no idea what this is all about, do you?" Voldemort asked him, amused.
Jack scowled.
"As near as I can tell it's about someone dressed up like a character in a book, passing himself off as a wizard with a bag of tricks and some kind of illusion doohickey that's designed to make us think your friend over there can turn himself into a rat at will. It's pretty original, I'll admit, but not very amusing."
And it certainly wasn't helping them with the initial problem of Teal'c believing in all this crap – because Jack had to admit it was a really good illusion.
"There's more to it than that, Jack…" And now Voldemort moved, coming to stand closer to Jack, who stood his ground as the cloaked man approached. "I won't bother with trying to convince you what you're seeing is real – we can take care of that later. What it's really about is you. And me. Little brother."
