January 18 2008
Atlantis, The Lost City of The Ancients
The Infirmary

I couldn't see. Probably because it was dark, and there was smoke all around me. Smoke that really had no business being that thick and dark when only a few trees were burning and some scattered control panels sparking. It's not like there was anything that really could have been smoldering that much since most of the debris I was picking my way through was twisted metal and broken stone…

And bodies. I tried not to think about those. I was looking for survivors, not dead weight to carry. It was hard enough trying to walk through the mess as it was...

There was a loud crashing noise and a sharp pain in my arm. With a shout, I suddenly landed on the floor of the infirmary.

January 18 2008
Atlantis, The Lost City of The Ancients
Dr. Weir's Office

I walked into the control room and noticed that the cute French tech girl was on gate duty. Strolling past her through the doorway into Elizabeth's office, I was promptly knocked on my ass.

"Ow!"

"Whoops, sorry." Recognizing that southern accent, I was ungracefully hauled back to my feet.

"No problem. It's not like I was knocked unconscious by a bronze paper weight just last night or anything," I snarked. "Oh, wait...I was!"

Major Dana Ursa was quickly becoming the fifth worst bane of my life. She would be, after lack of coffee, the Wraith, Kolya, and Kavanagh.

After my remark she only rolled her eyes and left the room, managing to step on all of my paperwork on the way.

Elizabeth sighed, shaking her head slightly. "You know Rodney, that really wasn't her fault."

"Yes, I'm so sure it wasn't," I said moodily, bending down to salvage my lab reports. "Just like it wasn't her intent to hit me in the face with her gun the other day. Or to shoot me in the thigh. Or to put all of last month's lab reports in the shredder."

"Well, you do have to admit that she is a bit clumsy," Elizabeth allowed as she helped me pick up the now dirty papers.

"And you have to admit that there is no way she managed to pour three and a half gallons of boiling water over my head in the mess hall last week. I mean she's almost six inches shorter than me. Something like that is just not possible."

"True...but it wasn'tboiling Rodney," she reminded me.

"That's besides that point." I said with a wave of my hand. "Anyhoo, I have the latest power extrapolations, and a shopping list of the supplies we need. It's divided into the categories of "needed yesterday", "will need soon", and "would be really, really nice to have." Oh, and the latest lab reports, including the ones the Evil Mistress of Doom destroyed."

Elizabeth choked into her coffee. "Did you just say...Evil Mistress of Doom?"

"Yeah, what else am I supposed call her?" I asked.

"Major Ursa?" she suggested.

"What's the point of having a nickname if it's your real name?" I protested.

"There isn't one...Superman." she smirked evilly.

"Oooo, that's just low!" I protested, throwing my hands up in the air.

"And Evil Mistress of Doom is..."

"Accurate."

Elizabeth snorted into her coffee. "You really don't like her, do you?"

"I have my reasons. The top of which being the non-boiling water."

Elizabeth sighed, and looked down at the mess of paperwork spread across her desk, and fished out a large manila envelope. "Do you need Radek over the next few days?"

"Not unless we're going to try and build nuclear bombs with an impossible time limit, save people who've gotten trapped in the gate, pull the city out of an unlock able lockdown, or repair flood damage again." I replied, mentally ticking off the times when Radek has come in handy. "Why?"

"He's being confined to quarters for three days," she informed me. I stared.

"What? Why?" I asked in shock.

"Well...he did throw a bronze paperweight at your forehead and according the Miko he was the one who started the fist fight." I sighed heavily. When she's right, she's right.

"Okay...point taken. Though I'm fairly certain he didn't throw the paperweight at me on purpose. What'd you do to Kavanagh?" I mused.

"He's confined to quarters for 24 hours." Elizabeth told me with a smirk.

"Well... at least we get one Kavanagh free-day." I sighed. "Maybe we should hold an unofficial holiday."

"Tempting...but I'd hate to see the paperwork that would require," she gestured down at her desk, which, as I mention before, was completely covered in paperwork all in various stages of completion.

"I think I've been a bad influence on you," I noted. "You weren't nearly this disorganized when we first came to Atlantis."

"Well, disorganized chaos works so well for you, I thought I'd give it a try," she retorted.

"I have a system!" I protested. "It just based on phi, so most people don't understand it."

"Fee?" she asked raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah-- don't tell me you've never heard of the divine proportion?" I questioned, shocked.

"No I can't-" she was cut off by the loud klaxon wailing of the alarm.

"Yipee, another adventure." I muttered sarcastically, walking with Elizabeth to the control room.

January 18 2008
Atlantis, The Lost City of The Ancients
The Control Room

In the control room was a very strange sight.

The gate was active; which wasn't unusual. No IDC was coming through, but that wasn't so difficult to believe. Whatwas odd was that the gate was alight with more symbols than was usual.

Twelve of them to be exact.

"What's going on?" I asked the tech.

"I do not know!" she practically screamed, pounding random buttons on the keyboard. "Ze gate, it just started up, and it won't shut down! And I cannot get ze shield up!"

"Let me have a look," I ordered. Wordlessly, she pushed her chair back as far away from the computer as possible. I tried several of the basic override alga rhythms, and all of the more complex ones, than I gave up and shut down the computer.

The screen went blank, I breathed a sigh of relief, and looked at the Stargate, waiting for it shut down. Waiting. Waiting.

Still waiting...

"Nothing's happening." Elizabeth observed. I turned to face her.

"Yes, I kn--"

"What ze 'ell!"

I looked over at the French girl and found her staring at the computer in shock. I looked down at the screen, and found myself unintentionally mimicking her expression.

The screen was no longer black-- unless you counted the color of the greasy hair and billowing robes of my ex-potions professor. He appeared to be in the gate room of the SGC, of all places.

"Well, well, well, Mr. Weasley. I'm afraid I'll have to take a few points from Gryfindor," he sneered. I stared at the computer in shock for nearly thirty seconds, before it gave me another one.

Literally.

"Ow!" I yelped, cradling my now-burnt hand to my chest. "That hurts!"

"Dr. Beckett, please report to the gate room. Sgt. Bates, we need a security team in here." Elizabeth ordered into her earpiece. She then turned to look at me. "What was that all about?"

"I --"

"Look out!" shouted one of the marines stationed by the gate. I snapped my head up in time to see large pieces of debris come hurdling into the gate room, heading straight for us.

"Get down!" I roared, reflexively grabbing Elizabeth's arm and forcing her down as a piece of stone flew threw the air above us, impacting on the briefing room wall and shattering the glass.

"What was that?' another marine asked.

"Don't look at me! I don't know!" I protested, shakily helping Elizabeth to her feet.

"Rodney..." she said warily.

"What?" I snapped, more because of the fact that she was squeezing my burnt hand very, very tightly than anything else.

"People are coming through," she calmly informed me, staring at the gate.

I too stared. The first to come through was a tall, gangly boy, who was trying to balance an unconscious girl in a fireman's hold and keep a slender piece of wood level. Another, short girl whose blonde hair was tangled in an unmanageable mess, was trying to support a badly limping young man soon followed. They too were carrying the same sort of sticks.

No not sticks-- wands. These were wizards.

Or at least they would be if that weren't impossible on many levels.

"Bloody hell," the tall kid whispered in a British accent. "Where are we?"

"I dunno." answered the boy with the injured leg, his voice sounding more Welsh. "Someplace else?"

"I have an idea." began the girl, but she was interrupted by a joyous shout from the doorway. Major Ursa had left her post and was rushing towards the gangly boy.

"Ron! Hermione!" she shouted, engulfing him in a fierce hug, causing him to drop his wand.

No. Nononononono. She did not just call them what I thought she called them. And he does not have red hair. No way. Not possible. Not happening.

"Do I know you?" he demanded, once Ursa pulled away. She gave a sort of half skip and suddenly her mouse brown hair turn violent bubble-gum pink. "Nymphadora Tonks, at your service, though if you ever call me Nymphadora, I will kill you."

"Tonks!" cried the limping guy, slurring the word a little. "Where are we? What's going on?"

"That was what I--" but once again the blonde witch was cut off by the appearance of two young men stumbling through the event horizon.

This isn't happening. Nope, not happening. And the twins did not just step through the Stargate. Yessiree, they most certainly did not.

"Fred! George!" shouted Major Ursa/ Nymphadora Tonks, rushing over to hug them too, her hair changing to an alarming shade of lime green.

"How does she do that?" Elizabeth asked, looking bewildered. The marines must of felt the same way, because very few of them were still holding their guns at level, and only three were still in a crouching position. Two started to help the Welsh guy and the girl whose name was not Luna.

"Since when does she have a British accent?" I countered, absently watching as a Green Beret joined the happy little reunion at the base of the stairs.

Not that it actually happened, mind you. Because there is no way in hell, heaven, earth, or Atlantis, that dead people can miraculously come back to life and appear in a different galaxy.

Sort of like a scrawny little kid with unmanageable black hair called Potter, who just happened to be the wizarding world's savior, did not just fall through the Gate before it closes, screeching my sister's name.

"Mon Deus! Zhis can not be!" the tech whispered. "'arry Potter?"

"Why...don't you go find out?" I suggested, as she ran down the stairs.

"Who's Harry Potter?" Elizabeth demanded.

"Someone who didn't just come through the Stargate." I said cheerfully.

"What the bloody hell is going on here?" said a voice from behind us. I jumped around almost knocking into Carson. "Ack, lad, what did ye do to yer hand?"

"It wasn't me! It was Snape!" I protested.

"Who?" Carson asked.

"Never mind." I said quickly. "Let's just get out of here."

"No need lad, I can do it here," he responded, holding up a first aid kit. "The burns aren't serious. Though I expect they sting like the dickens."

"Yeah, that's right." I mumbled, as I watched Bates' team thundered into the control room.

"What's going on here?" he asked.

"I don't know!" Elizabeth shouted, exasperated. "Why don't you ask Major Ursa, she seems to!"

"My name isn't Ursa, it's Tonks." squealed...whoever she was, practically skipping as her hair changed colors, something Bates only just seemed to noticed. "And we need Carson down here, Hermione is in a bad way, and Neville's ankle is broken."

Carson obligingly trundled off, leaving me alone with three things: a burnt hand, a confused Elizabeth, and the single notion that I was very, very screwed.

THE GENERAL RAMBLINGS OF THE WALRUS:

This was a necessary chapter, but their wasn't a lot of action. Don't worry, the next one is better, Ron's POV on how they got to Atlantis, and his first hour or so there.

Font Key

Dream

Internal Monologue

Emphasis

Location

Replies:

Belisse: Don't worry, you'll get not one but two chapter explaining what's going on and how this is possible.

PurpleYin: Believe or not, I wasn't trying to be evil with this, I just had writers block.

Eris86: Well I've updated, and I'm pretty sure I've come up with an idea no one will be able to figure out. (Evil grin, maniacal laughter)

PentagonMerlin: Yep, red hair and freckles. And a Granger. I have to ask though- what exactly does red hair smell like?

Missmcweir: Absolutely fabulous randomness! Wow, that's high praise. And half the time people are on here they should be doing something else. As for Remus- I have plans for his character. Big evil plans. Mwahahaha (chokes, coughs, falls off chair) Don't worry, I'm okay! Thanks for reviewing. Twice! Thanks for reviewing. Twice! (grins happily)

And again, thanks to my beta, who had to ut up with me changing tenses halfway through the piece.