Disclaimed!
Authors Note: Sorry this update took so long, finals and midterms and all that loveliness. Well, here's the next chapter, hopefully I haven't lost all my readers.
Crumpets Aren't My Style
By Marz
Surrey Interlude Part II
Samantha Carter thought she had to be in the strangest interrogation ever. She and Daniel sat across from their captors, drinking cup after cup of slightly bitter tea. Whenever Sam's cup was empty, Lupin would stand up and lean across the table, seeming slightly embarrassed, to pour her a refill. The man with the artificial eye, called Alastor by his companion, just sat there glaring at them. Sam was fairly certain there was some kind of sedative or psychoactive drug in the tea, but aside from a strange buzzing in her ears she didn't feel all that affected, though she would desperately need a trip to the ladies room in about twenty minutes. Daniel seemed to reach his tea capacity slightly ahead of her.
"Not that this isn't very civil," Daniel started, pushing his cup and saucer away, "But could you please get to the point?"
The man called Alastor stood up, glaring at Daniel with his real eye. The artificial one was looking at something on the ceiling.
"How many guards are on duty at the embassy?" he growled.
"That information is classified," Daniel replied. He seemed to be suppressing a sigh.
Alastor looked to Sam. "How many guards?"
" Ah-if-eyed" she mumbled through the orange plaster mask.
Alastor turned and glared at Lupin, who raised an eyebrow and shrugged. There seemed to be some sort of I-told-you-so passing between them.
"We don't have time for this," Alastor growled.
Sam was wondering if the way he spoke was due to the hideous scars on his face and throat, or just an attempt to frighten them. Alastor took a stick weapon from his pocket and pointed it at them.
"Petrificus totalus."
A blue light shot from the weapon and struck her in the chest. Another light flew past her and she was fairly certain it struck Daniel, though she couldn't turn her head to check. The only things still under her control were her eyes. She couldn't decide if she was in some sort of projected stasis field or if the blast had simply done something to her nervous system. Lupin walked across her line of sight.
"Alastor-" he started to say.
"Save it Lupin. Go get the pensieve."
She heard him walk out the door and a few minutes later he came back, carrying a large stone bowl filled with a strange glowing substance, that looked like a paler version of the Stargate's event horizon. She was certainly not going to be drinking any of that. Lupin stopped before her, holding the bowl so she could see into it without moving her head. Alastor stepped up beside him, and stirred the shimmering substance with the stick weapon. A shadowy image formed on the surface, rapidly swimming into focus. A moment later, the sour face of Mr. Smith was glaring up at her. Moody pressed the stick weapon to the side of her head.
"Where is he?"
She tried to glare at him, but a moment later she realized he wasn't threatening her. There was a strange feeling in her scalp, as if someone were pulling her hair, but painless. He pulled the stick weapon away, and she saw a strange silvery thread clinging to it. He dropped the thread in the bowl and the image changed. She saw the corridor outside the room where Mr. Smith was locked up. She saw the four guards on duty and she watched as a hand, which she belatedly realized was hers, swipe her security pass through the electronic lock, then type in her access code.
"Good," growled Alastor. "Now, how many guards on duty outside the embassy?"
It took her several minutes to figure out how to block the stream of thoughts her captor seemed to so easily pull from her mind. Fortunately Alastor spent most of the interrogation asking about the embassy security. By the time he started asking about zats and her C.O. she had learned to give them nothing but clips from a bad Van Dam movie she and Teal'c had watched a few months earlier. They moved on to Daniel, but he was able to adapt and block them out even more quickly then she had.
She heard Alastor growling from a few feet to her left. "Doesn't matter. We have what we need. Lock them up, Lupin."
A few seconds later, Lupin walked past, and out the door. Daniel floated out the door after him. He was frozen in a sitting position. He looked at her as he passed but couldn't speak. A few minutes later Lupin came back. He waved his stick weapon at her and she rose up off the bench like some mad balloon. She floated out the door after him.
The rest of the building was so bizarre she nearly forgot her predicament. She couldn't help but think of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. It seemed a hundred lifetimes ago. Her father had taken a very rare day off to drive her and her brother out to Anaheim. Her brother had put gum in her hair. She watched in amazement as the paintings and suits of armor that lined the halls turned to look at her as she passed. Add a long line and some creepy narration, and she would be there.
Lupin pushed open the door of a dusty old bedroom. As he entered the lamps flared to life. He floated her over the bed.
"Finite."
Whatever energy field had been holding her still and holding her up disappeared, and she landed with a little grunt on the dusty comforter. She flailed a bit before she was able to sit upright. Lupin was still standing there watching her.
"I wanted to apologize again. This isn't how…this isn't how things are supposed to be," he finished lamely.
"Mrt er ut eee?" Sam attempted to speak through the orange paste without much luck.
"Your friend is entirely safe. He's in the room right across the hall. You'll be released as soon as we've retrieved Snape. I'm certain."
"Mrt er ut isss?" she tried to ask, pointing at the crusty orange mask that covered her face.
"Oh, of course. It's been nearly an hour hasn't it?"
Lupin reached towards her almost timidly and dug his fingers into the mask on either side of her face. The hardened paste cracked and split as he pressed in, but it came away in one piece, stinging slightly as it went. Sam blinked and brushed the remaining crumbs from her eyes, surprised by the feel of her skin.
"Almost as good as new," Lupin said, stepping back.
He looked down at the impression her face had left in the mask. He turned it a bit, getting different light. Sam saw quite a bit of her hair had come away with it. She looked across the room and saw herself in an old bronze mirror on the opposite wall. Except for the loss of her eyebrows, her face appeared entirely healed.
"Believe it or not," Lupin said, still looking down at the mask in his hands. "This was brewed up by the sour faced man you've locked up in the basement of your embassy."
Lupin stepped towards the door.
"Someone will bring you dinner in about an hour. You shouldn't be here much longer. Again, I apologize."
With a sort of half bow he backed out the door and closed it behind him.
Sam waited several minutes before she tried the knob. It was, of course locked, but didn't look all that sturdy. She kicked it as hard as she could, and succeeded in landing on her backside with an aching foot. She tried a few more times to no effect. She went to the walls next, tapping on the sheetrock to find the studs. She pulled loose one of the bedposts, but found herself unable to break through the wall with it, or even dent the plaster. She checked all four walls and found them to be equally sound. Frustrated she threw the post to the floor. The faint splintering sound it made inspired her to tear up the carpet.
The creaking came again, and then there was a sharp crack. The noise had started a few minutes after he'd been locked in the room by Lupin. Daniel knelt and pressed his ear to the floor. There was another cracking sound and the board beneath his ear rattled. He backed up, and looked around the room for a weapon. One of the boards in the floor buckled and split and a familiar and dirty shoe appeared in the space. Daniel scrambled forward and helped pull up the other boards, so Sam could squeeze out.
The orange paste was gone and so were her eyebrows. She was covered in dirt, spider webs, and a strange gooey gray substance that Daniel didn't want to look at too closely. She coughed into her hand and took a moment to wipe her face.
"We can get out under the floors. There's about a foot of space between us and the first floor ceiling. We can break through above a hall and we'll make a run for the door."
"Sounds good," said Daniel, though really he meant to say 'sounds claustrophobic.'
Sam disappeared back into the floor and he climbed in after her. Immediately he had to sneeze. He dragged himself along on his stomach using just his arms. There wasn't enough room to bend his knees. He wouldn't have minded the tight dark space nearly so much if it wasn't for the skittering sounds that came up and down the boards on either side of him. He could almost convince himself it was only mice, except every once in a while, something would giggle.
Every few feet he would reach out and tap the bottom of Sam's foot to let her know he was still behind her. It was almost pitch black, since most of the rooms were carpeted. He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut as he crawled. It seemed cowardly but he was certain he was starting to hallucinate. It seemed as if hundreds of pairs of faintly glowing eyes were staring at him from the darkness a few feet away. His fingers bumped the bottom of Sam's shoe again. She'd stopped moving.
"Are we above the hall?" he whispered.
She didn't answer.
"Sam!" he hissed a little louder. "Are we there yet?"
Still no answer. He grabbed her foot and shook it. It felt strangely cold.
"SAM!" he shouted. He started to crawl up next to her.
"Daniel?" called a faint voice far to his left. The voice was definitely Sam's.
His heart was nearly deafening. He reached out. The space around him was empty.
"S-Sam? Can you hear me?"
"Daniel? Where'd you go?"
He scrambled toward the sound of her voice as fast as he could, scraping most of the skin off his fingers as he went.
"Sam! There's something in here with us!"
As he crawled, he heard things moving on either side of him.
"What?" she seemed to be getting farther away.
Something slithered over his fingers and he froze. Four glowing red eyes peered at him, only a few inches from the end of his nose. The parasite hissed, and all around in the dark other Go'auld hissed in response. It darted at his throat.
He was aware he was shouting and trying to roll away. He wasn't sure how he broke through the ceiling. Wood, plaster and bits of insulation rained down with him and the swarm of Go'auld parasites. As soon as he pulled one from his neck another would squirm up in its place. Some small part of his mind was telling him that the parasites could not have been living in the dry airless environment of the crawl space, but that part was overwhelmed by the part of him that existed in absolute terror of one of those creatures chewing its way into his cerebellum.
He didn't realize there were other people in the room until a blast of red light swept the swarm away from him. The parasites melted away to smoke. He looked to his saviors, who turned out to be a group of red-haired teenagers playing cards on the floor.
"It's coming back," said the only girl in the group, as she slowly lay down her cards.
Daniel looked over his shoulder, and in the next instant he was scrambling across the floor away from the largest spider he'd ever seen.
"I think that one's yours, Ronniekins," said one of the boys, whose stick weapon was already aimed at the monstrous arachnid.
"Don't call me that!" said the tallest boy, as he drew a stick weapon from the sleeve of his robe. "Riddikulus!"
A flash of light flew from the weapon and struck the spider and its legs vanished. "Ha!" the boy crowed triumphantly, and the creature vanished in a puff of shadows.
"Thank you," Daniel said, shakily.
"What were you doing in the ceiling?" asked one of the shorter boys, who Daniel noticed had an identical twin standing next to him.
He didn't think "inspecting for asbestos" would go over too well. The kids didn't seem alarmed by his arrival, though. He supposed they got a lot of guests arriving in unusual ways. Right, he thought, I just have to pretend to be part of a culture I know nothing about. No problem.
"You know, I'm not really sure," answered Daniel. "I thought I was going to end up in the kitchen, like last time," he added for good measure.
The tall boy nodded. "Bet it was Mundungus that made your port key. He's been kind of hungover lately."
The twins glared at him, but he just shrugged.
"Could any of you tell me where I might find Remus Lupin?" Daniel asked.
"He's usually in the parlor. It's down the next hall, first door on the right," the girl provided.
"Who's that?" one of the twins asked.
Daniel looked up and saw Sam looking down at him from the hole he'd kicked in the ceiling.
"Don't worry Sam. It's the right house, just the wrong place," Daniel said, surreptitiously gesturing for her to play along.
Sam dropped out of the ceiling and landed with undue grace next to him.
"Hello," she said to the red heads. "Sorry about the mess," she continued smiling.
The tallest boy, and, Daniel was starting to suspect, the youngest, smiled back.
"No problem," he said, waiving his stick weapon. "Reparo!"
The rubble sprung upwards and the ceiling healed up flawlessly. Sam nodded appreciatively, and the boy seemed to glow for a moment before the girl elbowed him in the ribs.
"Mum's going to yell at you," muttered the girl.
The boy paled for a second before turning to glare at the girl. "How's she going to know?"
"Remus was where?" Daniel interrupted.
"That was the third group of Americans this week," said Ginny as she settled down again, picking up her cards.
"At least this group didn't end up in Kreacher's closet. That was an awful mess," said George.
"Mundungus really needs to work on his aim," said Fred.
"Do you think we should have asked them about Harry?" Ron asked. He made a movement towards the door as if he really intended to go and ask them.
"You want to walk in on them right as they tell mum how you used underage magic to impress a pretty witch with your ceiling-fixing skills?" Fred asked, trying to distract his brother before he started himself brooding over the whereabouts of his best friend again.
"She wasn't that pretty," Ron said in his own defense.
Fred was about to dig in when the loud and unmistakable howl of Mrs. Black's portrait came echoing up the hall.
"Guess they missed a turn," snickered George.
Footsteps thundered by the door and they scrambled over to see what was going on. Bill and the new recruit Milton disappeared around the end of the hall and the four youngest Weasley children scrambled after them. Bill noticed them almost immediately.
"Get back in that room! Two prisoners just got loose!"
They traded surprised glances, and Ron squeaked "Prisoners?" in a small voice.
"These prisoners wouldn't happen to be a man with glasses and a blonde lady with no eyebrows, would they?" called George.
Bill stopped short and turned.
"What have you done?"
Private Dwayne Washington stood in his booth watching the fog and wishing for coffee. His eyes kept trying to sneak closed whenever he let his attention wander. He knew he shouldn't have stayed up all night playing Halo 2 with Corporal Nyuen. He stifled another yawn as two figures emerged from the obscured street. They approached the security station. Dwayne leaned out of his booth to check the new comers I.D.s. The man pulled back the hood of his coat and Dwayne couldn't help but smile.
"Hey Dr. Jackson! Car trouble?" he asked taking the I.D. and handing over the sign in sheet.
Dr. Jackson looked confused for a moment. He pushed his glasses further up his nose. "Er…yes. We ran out of fuel."
Dwayne glanced at the sign in sheet as it was returned. The signature looked correct, but he would have sworn Dr. Jackson had signed with his left hand this time.
"Do' ya need me to send somebody for it, Sir? Or call up a tow truck?" Dwayne asked.
"No! No, that won't be necessary. I just need to get some…fuel. The car is only a few blocks away."
"Alright sir."
He reached out for Colonel Carter's I.D. She wasn't really looking at him though. Her attention seemed focused on something in the misty street.
"Is everything alright ma'am?"
"Yes. All's well," she said.
Dwayne knew some people picked up a bit of an accent when stationed over seas, but the Colonel sounded borne and raised British for a moment there. She signed in and Dwayne waved to the guards on the inside of the gate, to let them in. Then they were gone, and Dwayne was left struggling to keep his eyes open. He wondered what was wrong with Dr. Jackson. The guy was kind of a nerd, but usually very friendly, always recommending museums and exhibits and crap like that.
A little later he was jerked out of his half stupor by the sound of pounding feet. Two figures darted out of the fog, heading straight for his booth. They skidded to a stop in front of him gasping for breath. He did a double take.
"Dr. Jackson?" he asked, looking to the guards on the inside of the gate. They shrugged.
Dr. Jackson and Colonel Carter stood before him. They were covered in dust and dirt and their clothing was ripped.
"I…need…to…talk…with the…with Corporal…Andrews. Or whoever is on duty right now," Dr. Jackson gasped out.
"I…I'll need your I.D. sir," Dwayne said.
"Our I.D.s were stolen," Carter said. "I need to talk to the head of security, right now!"
"But-"
"This is an emergency, Private," Carter said.
He realized her eyebrows were missing.
"But, you checked in fifteen minutes ago!"
Carter and Jackson exchanged baffled glances.
"Put the embassy on alert!" Cater ordered. "Call the security office, ask them where Dr. Jackson and Colonel Carter are right now!"
"What?"
"Tell them to locate us using the security cameras!"
Dwayne snatched up his phone and obeyed. It took them a minute
"Sir you're also on the security cameras in the secure elevator."
"Get security down there right now. Don't let any of those people leave!"
"But-"
"Now!"
"Yes sir!"
The next few minutes were a confused mess. He sent out orders to apprehend Dr. Jackson and Colonel Carter, and armed guards were sent after them, all of them. He watched uncertainly as four men came to the front gate to escort Dr. Jackson and Carter inside. Dwayne tried to explain that he meant the other Dr. Jackson and Carter but there seemed to be a matter of semantics that could not be over come. As they were dragged away the red light in his computer consul came on, indicating high alert status. He sighed. At least he was no longer in danger of falling asleep.
Snape ignored the polite knock on the door and continued to pick over the crossword puzzle. Most wizards would insist that they had a language in common with muggles, but Snape was not at all convinced. A seven letter word for an enviable sports car? The first letter is F. The door was pushed open. He was facing the door so he saw them come in. Carter and Jackson he believed they were called. He ignored them, as they closed the door behind them. He would have gone on ignoring them, except Jackson pointed at him and exclaimed in a rather high voice "Snape! What in Merlin's Mad Menagerie is 'at fing on your head?"
"How nice of you to stop by Nymphadora," he said in an icy voice. "I hope neither of you is missing an important Quidditch match to come get me?"
"We don't have time for chit-chat and bickering," Carter growled in a tone that could belong to no one other then Mad-eye Moody. "It's your own fault for getting captured in the first place."
"Of course. You fools can't keep Potter from wandering into the Dark Lord's chambers, so naturally this is my fault."
"I think that bucket on your head is negatively affecting your disposition," Tonks said as she went through her pockets.
Something slammed into the door, but none of the wizards seemed concerned.
"What have you been telling the muggles, Snape?" growled Moody.
"I haven't mentioned our world actually, but perhaps this is something we should stop and discuss after we are out of muggle influence? I trust one of you remembered to bring a portkey?"
Tonks smiled at him, finally producing a colorful silk handkerchief. "It'll take you straight back to headquarters."
He snatched it away without a thank you, and disappeared. The banging on the door increased in volume and the wood started to splinter. Tonks leaned over the crossword Snape had been filling out.
"Ferrari," she said, pointing at the final blank space.
Moody rolled his eyes, and dissaparated.
Daniel sighed and rubbed his forehead. The impostors and the prisoner had some how disappeared in the confusion of the previous night. He and Sam had spent the rest of the night in the security office, trying to sort out the identity theft, change their codes, and get all the necessary tapes classified.
"At least they didn't write any bad checks on our behalf," he muttered.
Sam snorted faintly, but was too tired to humor him more then that. She sat typing away at her computer. She was trying to figure out where they had been held prisoner the day before, but retracing her steps and going over maps was futile. They could both remember the inside of the house with prefect clarity, but after they burst out the front door, there was nothing either of them could consistently recall, not even how many blocks they'd run to make it back to the embassy. Her cell phone rang.
"Yes sir. No sir. No sir. Yes sir. No sir." After several more minutes of one sided conversation she hung up, and turned to Daniel. "We're being transferred to another assignment."
"What?"
"That was General Briggs at The Pentagon. They're still out of contact with the SGC, so he's issuing orders. We're to report back to U.S. within twenty four hours."
"But…" Daniel said, pausing a tape that showed nothing but a glaring red light, "but we're really onto something with the Dursley family. Twenty four hours? That may be enough time to track down Mrs. Figg-"
"We've also been ordered to cease all investigations until we've been debriefed."
"Do you think?" Daniel started to ask.
"Better not say anything until we've talked to General O'Neill."
Daniel nodded and adjusted his glasses. He didn't think he would miss London all that much.