Author's note: Sorry about the long wait people. I have way too much homework. I hope you enjoy the chapter. Another one will be up soon, and the return to Earth and the SGC is not far off. Remember; reviews are way cool.

Crumpets Aren't My Style

By Marz

Serpents

Part II

Harry hunched down even further, and wished strongly that the rebel Jaffa had embraced the Tauri custom of wearing deodorant. The hold of the cargo ship was so packed that not everyone could sit down at the same time, unless they were in someone else's lap. And the rebels weren't really that sort. The life support systems were working at maximum to keep the oxygen levels up and the CO2 down. Apparently it didn't have time to worry about the old sweat sock smell that was getting stronger by the moment.

The majority of the Jaffa packed into the cargo hold were in a kind of meditative trance that slowed their metabolism and reduced their need for air. The cargo ship shuddered as it worked its way out of the atmosphere and the meditating warriors didn't seem too concerned about who they were tipping onto. Harry winced as a woman, at least a foot taller then him, was jostled against his injured hand.

It had been more then an hour since Professor McGonagall bit him, and it still stung horribly. He scooted a little further away from the woman and loosened the strip of tee-shirt he'd tied around the injury. The crescent shaped chunk missing from the palm was still oozing. She'd been biting and clawing him much more often lately, usually whenever he returned from a mission with the rebels, but not usually hard enough to draw blood. When he volunteered for this one, right in front of her, she'd been in an incoherent rage. She didn't even speak. Harry was pretty sure it was a sign she was going off the deep end. He'd have to send her back to Earth with the next SG team they ran into, whether she wanted to go or not.

The woman tipped even further and Harry stood up. He didn't really have anywhere to go too, but he started squeezing past and stepping over people, searching for a less cramped space to occupy. He finally settled on a six foot high stack of crates, containing the weapons they were going to use on the mission. He climbed to the top of the stack. He had to sit cross legged and a little hunched, but at least nobody was falling on him. He was surprised to see Ro'dan a moment later at the bottom of the stack. Harry reached down an arm and helped him up.

"So you aren't doing that whole meditating thing?" Harry asked.

Ro'dan shook his head. "I am not yet skilled enough in kel-nori-eem to slow my respiration."

"Oh."

"Do you think we will be in combat on this mission?" Ro'dan asked, sounding very hopeful.

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. We'll probably just be lookouts again. We're not supposed to be anywhere near the major battles anyway."

Ro'dan looked as if Christmas had been canceled and replaced with clean-out-the-septic-tank day. He and Harry had only been on two other missions with the rebels in enemy territory, and both times they were lookouts. Harry thought this was a bit strange as he still didn't have any glasses and anything more then three feet away from his face was rather indistinct. He'd brought this up with Joe'mec and Bre'tac, but neither seemed overly concerned. They'd both said something along the lines of "a warrior fights with his heart not his eyes." Harry was pretty sure they had missed the point. To be on the safe side he intended to use a zat instead of a staff weapon.

The only reason the younger warriors were crammed in the hold of the cargo ship, with nearly fifty adult Jaffa, was because most everyone else from the rebel camp was out searching for a new rebel camp. The Tok'ra had abandoned the planet a week earlier and the Jaffa were getting nervous, as nervous as Jaffa ever got anyway. Even Bre'tac had been away when Wiet'c of the Ashen Sea had come through the gate. She'd been in the service of the Goa'uld Morrigan and some old friends of hers had told her of the battle about to take place on the planet Nortus in Morrigan's territory. Morrigan and Ba'al had been arguing over ownership of that world for nearly a thousand years, and had finally come to the conclusion that they had to send in some Jaffa to kill each other over it. Wiet'c said the shapa'i on Nortus was now heavily guarded by Morrigan's troops, so Ba'al was landing his Jaffa in ships. She had come to the conclusion that while the two armies were engaged, it would be a very good time for the rebels to steal everything they could carry.

"So how long will it take us to get there?" Harry asked.

"Joe'mec estimated about sixteen hours," Ro'dan answered.

They crawled along on their bellies. Harry had the radio strapped tightly to his back. Ro'dan had the binoculars. They each had a zat and a staff weapon. Harry thought it was more trouble then it was worth to drag the staff up the cliff, but he didn't say anything. The Rebels used guns and rocket launchers made in the United States and provided by the Air Force, but they were in no hurry to give up the staffs that had been given to them by the Goa'uld thousands of years ago. Ro'dan got to the edge of the cliff first.

"Morrigan's Jaffa are retreating across the plane towards that city. It won't buy them much time. They would have been better off staying in the mountains, where there was cover," Ro'dan said and then looked back to Harry as if waiting for him to agree or argue with his statement on battle strategy.

Harry shrugged and crawled forward. He held out his hand and accepted the binoculars. After much adjusting he could actually see what was happening. He rather wished he couldn't.

Morrigan's Jaffa were retreating across the plane that opened up at the base of the cliffs on which Harry and Ro'dan perched. Harry didn't think many of them would make it to the city on the other side. It was at least two miles away and Ba'al's Jaffa were tearing up their backs with burning orange light. He caught a hint of movement among the distant clouds. Harry adjusted the binoculars again.

"Death Gliders," he said, pointing.

He handed the binoculars to Ro'dan, who tried to look through them, gave Harry a baneful glance and then began adjusting them again. Harry gave him a "I can't help it if I'm blind" look and took out the radio. He relayed the position of the gliders to Gal'me who was guarding the cargo ship they arrived in. She confirmed and told them to keep watching. Ro'dan said something that Harry didn't catch, but as he turned his head towards him, he saw the explosions very clearly. The Death Gliders had opened fire.

"They're strafing the city," Ro'dan said.

"But Morrigan's Jaffa aren't even there yet," Harry said, taking the binoculars back.

"Ba'al may have simply ordered it destroyed."

"Why?"

"Morrigan made the humans of this world name the city after her. It could be for that reason."

"But it's full of civilians," Harry muttered, adjusting the lenses.

"That means humans who do not fight, does it not?" Ro'dan asked.

Harry nodded, half listening. He saw the outside wall of the city had collapsed and people were spilling out from buildings like startled mice, running in all directions looking for somewhere better to hide. The Death Gliders made another pass, and more buildings fell. The wooden ones burned. The structures made of clay bricks just sort of burst. There was a person on fire running down the middle of a street. He tripped over a tilted paving stone and fell. The gliders came around again.

There were only six of them. From what they'd seen, as the cargo ship circled Nortus before landing, a great many Death Gliders were fighting far above the planet. Morrigan was clearly losing but didn't seem any more willing to surrender because of it. Harry didn't think any of her fighters were going to come and get rid of these guys. Ba'al's gliders strafed the city again.

"There has to be something we can do to stop this," Harry said.

"That's not why we are here," Ro'dan reminded him.

"But all those people- I mean they've got nothing to do with this and…and they're being slaughtered."

"We have not even managed to steal a cargo ship yet, and we can not risk the one we came in," Ro'dan replied, being annoyingly logical. "That ship would not be a match for six Death Gliders anyway. This is not a battle that can be won."

"Doesn't mean it shouldn't be fought," Harry said, half to himself.

Ro'dan saw the look on the Tauri's face and started to get worried. He had a lot of respect for the human boy though he could, on occasion, be very slow. He'd seen HarryPotter make some very impressive shots with a staff weapon, despite his claims of blindness, and didn't doubt the human would be able to hit the power cells on one of the Death Gliders, as it passed over head. He was certain his companion could take out one of them that way. But if he did the other five would not be caught the same way, and could easily destroy them from a distance. He thought perhaps he could remove temptation, and held out his hand for the binoculars to be returned. Harry passed them back without looking at him.

"When the Goa'uld have been defeated and exposed for the false gods that they are, these kinds of atrocities will not occur," Ro'dan said.

Thinking about a future in which the Goa'uld had no power over them always made him feel better. Then the Jaffa could do battle when they wanted. He wasn't certain who they would fight once the Goa'uld were gone, but he was fairly certain something would come up. He turned to ask Harry what the Tauri did when they weren't fighting. The first thing he noticed was the radio, lying next to him. Next he noticed Harry was gone.

As he ran through the waist high grass, Harry started to wonder whether this was one of his better ideas. He heard a glider turning his way and ducked down. It passed over, and did not fire. He got up and continued to run. He supposed they were saving there ammunition for the city. Harry focused on the outline of the burning city before him. He refused to look back at the cliffs. He could feel Ro'dan's eyes burning into the back of his head from where he lay perched, still doing his duty as lookout.

I'm really not cut out for this solider business he thought to himself. He could smell the smoke from the city. The grassland around it was catching as well, but the wind was blowing away from him. It would be appropriately stupid for me to die that way though; Boy-who-live heroically runs into grass fire. It seemed to take forever to get across the plane, but Harry knew even with his constant ducking to avoid drawing the gliders attention it had taken him no more then ten minutes. All that training with the Rebel Jaffa had gotten him in shape at least, though obviously he still hadn't learned to follow orders. He scrambled up over the rubble of the fallen walls and into the city. What the heck am I going to do now?

The answer seemed to present itself as he heard a woman wailing. He jogged down the cobble street and saw a woman and a little boy trying to dig an elderly man out of a pile of rubble. The old man was struggling weakly, but they weren't making too much progress. They didn't pay him much attention when Harry joined the excavation, but as he jammed the end of his staff weapon under a large chunk of stone and used it as a lever, he got an odd look from the woman. She didn't scream or try to hit him though, so she'd probably correctly assumed that he wasn't one of the invading Jaffa. The old man finally crawled free. His legs were a mess though, the compound fracture in the left one was hideously apparent. Harry got under one arm and the woman got under the other. They hurried up the street, Harry following the woman's lead. At least half the buildings they passed were in flames. She started to drag them into one of the few that wasn't.

"No!" Harry said.

"The demons in the air will return! We must hide!" she shrieked, looking upwards.

"They're here to destroy the city! No where in the city is a good place to hide. You have to get out."

"But it's wilderness for fifty miles in every direction! There's no shelter! The Jaffa of the evil god Ba'al are invading!"

"The Jaffa of Ba'al are coming here! Your only chance is in the wilderness."

"We won't survive," she said.

"You've got a better chance out there then in this building!"

She finally nodded and let Harry take the lead, which was not such a brilliant idea since he had no knowledge of the lay of the city, but he did seem to be having a lot of good luck. They found a wheelbarrow and put the old man in it. A few other disoriented people joined their odd little procession, and a pregnant woman was crammed into the wheelbarrow as well. Harry thought the fact that he was armed was what made they want join up, since he was otherwise not a commanding presence. He'd seen a river flowing past the far side of the city from the cliff top. He figured it was a good a direction to send these people as any, since they would have water at least. More and more people darted out of dark crumbling houses to join the exodus, and Harry knew it was making them more and more of a target. A Death Glider passed close over head but its shots were too wide and struck the row of buildings across the street instead of the refugees. It started to circle around for another pass.

He didn't think he'd be able to knock the ship out of the air with any of his still not quite under control magic, but he was sure he had enough for this. He planted his feet wide in the street and faced the glider. The people around him started to run. He worried they'd trample each other, but he had to push those thoughts aside as he focused.

"Accio Smoke!"

The thorn in his right hand twitched as smoke from the burning city came towards him, in complete contradiction to the wind and gravity. He held his breath as it came down around him blotting out the glider and the sky and searing his skin. Here was where the plan got tricky. He knew how to summon things towards himself or to banish them away, but he'd never tried summoning something to a foreign object, much less one that was moving. Well Hermione was always encouraging him to try new things with magic.

"Death Glider Accio Smoke!"

He didn't know if his bad Latin grammar would get him in trouble, but the smoke blew up and away from him, toward the flying craft he could only envision in him mind. He blinked and rubbed at his watering eyes. The smoke had formed a dense cloud with the Death Glider at its core. The ship had stopped firing and was gaining altitude, probably trying to get above it. If Harry had done what he meant to though, that wouldn't happen. The refugees had stopped to watch the Death Glider and now they watched him approach with suspicion.

"There are five more of them still up there!" Harry shouted to get them going again.

Harry saw a few of Morrigan's Jaffa running through the streets, but none of them tried to join the refugees, who numbered almost fifty at that point. The group was slowing down as more people came together. Harry didn't think they'd make it unless he took out a few more of the gliders, or at least drew their attention to another part of the city. He noticed a man who'd had the foresight bring a blanket and a water skin with him, and figuring he was the most clear headed in the group, left him in charge with instructions to get the hell away from the city until the battle was over.

Harry ran back towards the cliff ward side of the city, which was the most heavily damaged at that moment. It seemed as if the gliders had taken up a grid flight pattern over the area, to destroy the city more efficiently, Harry guessed. Harry crawled up the side of a half collapsed building to get a better view. Five gliders were still criss-crossing and blasting away, creating plenty of smoke. Harry used his wavering magic to give them each their own personal dark cloud. All five of the gliders climbed steeply, until Harry couldn't see them anymore. He thought they might have left the atmosphere even. He looked toward the cliffs again and frowned. Ba'al's Jaffa were gathering at the edge of the plane. Despite his currently poor eyesight he could make out the hundreds of shiny suits of armor. Harry climbed down from the crumbling building and ran toward the refugees that were heading for the river. They could probably use a heads up about the approaching army.

At least now that his troops are moving in, he won't be bombarding the city anymore.

Harry really hated how he was so consistently wrong.

He had just reached the group, which was now at least three hundred strong and moving at the pace of an unusually lazy snail, when he heard the whine of Death Gliders cutting through the air. He turned. The people started running, but the streets were too narrow and there were too many of them to get out of the way. There were three Death Gliders. Harry could make them out clearly. He held up his hand. They fired.

"PROTEGO!"

The thorn lodged in his hand was going ballistic and he was sure it was seconds away from tearing right out of his skin. He felt the impact of the energy blasts against the deflection barrier he'd thrown up. He winced as they struck. The sensation threw him off balance and he ended up on his backside. He scrambled up again, looking around for the Death Gliders. He could already feel the spell fading. He could only see one glider then and it was some distance off. One of its wings was smoking. Harry took a few steps. The street seemed to tilt upward and he stumbled. A large man in a leather apron, who Harry hoped was the city butcher, caught him around the middle and set him upright. Somebody else pushed his staff weapon into his left hand. He hadn't realized he'd dropped it.

"You destroyed two of the sky demons," the butcher hissed in his ear as if it were some big secret. "You sent their fire back at them!"

"Don't know if I can get any more of them," Harry said. "Keep running. There are Jaffa coming too."

Ten minutes later they were at the river bed. The river had seemed bigger from farther off. A lot of people had gotten the same idea that Harry had and were following the course of the water out across the plane. There were several thousand at least, trudging along the muddy banks, with nowhere left to go.

"My Lord Ba'al!"

The Goa'uld turned slowly in his throne like chair and raised an eyebrow at his first prime, Lore'ek. The Jaffa had come in without announcing himself properly, but the battle was going in his favor, as were most other things these days. He decided not to execute him outright.

"Speak."

"My Lord, in the city of Morrigan-"

"It has not yet been destroyed?"

"No, my Lord. There is some sort of weapon in the city. It has destroyed two Death Gliders and disabled seven others."

"And where in the city is this weapon located?"

"It seems to be mobile my Lord," Lore'ek said. "Should we attempt to capture the weapon or shall we destroy the city with fire from above?"

Ba'al looked at the monitors again. He had been watching all aspects of the battle, maps of the planet showed almost every city was now under his control or destroyed, and the losses were minimal; only eighteen thousand of his Jaffa dead. Morrigan's fleet was in ruins. Her command ship alone was still functional, and it was slowly drawing away from the planet. He supposed there was no great risk in having them seize the city.

"The weapon will be mine."

Loke'ek bowed and backed out of the room. Ba'al went back to watching the destruction on the monitors.

"They are moving away from the cargo ships," Wiet'c voice buzzed in her radio.

"In which direction?" asked Gal'me, slightly irritated.

She had been coordinating with the others for the last hour, having them scout different approaches to the landing area, but there were too many of Ba'al's Jaffa guarding the landing craft for their small strike teams to sneak in and steal them unnoticed, and far too many to battle. It was starting to look as if they would return to the camp empty handed, not to mention without the fool Tauri boy, who Ro'dan reported had run off to the City of Morrigan to try to help the humans evacuate before it was destroyed.

"They are moving up the road into the mountains," Weit'c said. "It seems to be the bulk of their forces."

The radio beeped, indicating a call on another channel. Gal'me looked at the little Tauri made box in continued amazement and turned the dial at the top.

"This is Ro'dan. Ba'al's Jaffa are moving toward the city. More death gliders are moving over the city as well. Someone in the city is shooting them down. It is not staff weapons fire."

Over the next half hour all the scouts and look outs reported in. The Jaffa guarding the cargo ships and those patrolling the surrounding area were all being sent to the City of Morrigan. One scout had been close enough to the enemy soldiers to overhear their orders. They were being sent to the city to seize the weapon that had destroyed the Death Gliders. Ro'dan was reporting at least twelve hundred Jaffa were moving into the city at that very moment. It seemed unlikely that HarryPotter would find his way back to them.

Things were not going quite as well as he'd hoped. Harry peeked over the edge of the crumbling wall behind which he crouched. He couldn't see any Jaffa coming up the alley. He put his head down and tried to stop it from spinning. He'd used Protego to deflect shots from the Death Gliders away from the column of people fleeing the city, and the enemy fighters had most definitely realized he was the one doing it. He'd run deeper into the city and they had flown after him. He could hear them circling still, which on the good side meant they weren't bombing the cities former occupants, but on the bad side meant he'd never be able to run back across the plane to the cliffs, where his only chance for a ride home was hidden.

The inside of his right arm felt as if it were burning. The skin of his palm looked scalded and the thorn he'd been stuck with on that alien world seemed to have grown larger. It had allowed him to focus his magic, but it seemed to be feeding off it as well. He didn't think he had much left to give it.

There was a scuffling of feet at the mouth of the alley and Harry stood preparing to run. For a second his vision went dark and he sank back down. He brought his hand up to his head. It seemed to weight a hundred pounds. The foot steps came closer. He picked up his staff weapon. It charged more quietly then the zat anyway. They came closer still and Harry suppressed a miserable groan as he heard another distinct set of feet enter the alley as well, and then another. He crept further back into the half collapsed building, in which he was hiding.

"Jaffa Cree!"

Gar't was starting to think his orders were foolish. He did not doubt he and his comrades would be executed for failing to carry them out, but they seemed foolish all the same. The glider pilots had reported a dark haired human boy was firing some sort of weapon at them. They'd caught many humans trying to hide in the city so far, but none had known anything about a weapon.

Gar't had seen the trail of foot prints leading into the alley. They were small but the prints seemed to be made by Tauri boots rather then the native human's leather shoes. If there were Tauri in the city it could mean any number of things, but it was unlikely they would bring a boy with them. The prints lead into a crumbling building. He charged his staff weapon and stepped inside.

There were a dozen fist sized holes in the roof of the building, but the inside was unnaturally dark and cold. Gar't's night vision was nearly perfect, but in this room he could barely see the charged end of his staff weapon. He heard Tegen't stepping into the room behind hind him.

He strained his ears for the sounds of breathing and thought he heard a whispered word.

"Who-"

Gar't's question was cut off as hundreds of slimy flapping things struck him in the face. He stumbled backwards into Tegan't and they both fell sprawling to the floor. Two more Jaffa came running into the room, blocking the entrance and cutting off nearly all of the outside light. Gar't was still clawing at the things on his face, when he saw the boy. He stepped forward out of the shadows in the corner of the room, a zat-nicka-tal in one hand and a staff weapon in the other. The room was filled with flashing lights.

Gar't rolled aside just in time to avoid being shot with the staff. The boy had managed to get everyone else in that first instant though. The boy sprinted past him out into the alley. He heard more shots exchanged and surprised shouts. He crawled to his feet. The things clinging to his face faded away, as if they had never been anything but unusually thick smoke. He peered into the alley. The boy was the only one still on his feet. Six other Jaffa lay on the ground unmoving. They were unmarked, so Gar't assumed they'd been hit with zat blasts. The boy had been hit in the leg and was using his staff weapon as a crutch. The Jaffa activated his zat. The boy must have heard him, for he started to turn, bringing up his empty right hand. Gar't fired.

The indigo light flashed across the alley, but never reached its target. In the air, a few inches away from the boy's empty hand, the light stopped. It flickered and spun around the boy's out stretched arm like tame lightening before winking out of existence. The boy pulled his arm against his chest as if it pained him. He leaned against the wall with his staff weapon pointed at Gar't. Using the wall for support he continued to back away. He failed to notice one of the Jaffa he'd shot waking up a few feet behind him.

The boy let out a strange little yelp as the blast from the zat hit him in the back. He fell forward on his knees. Gar't saw him reaching for the staff weapon that had fallen at his side, and added his own blast of indigo light.

"This can't be good," Harry tried to say to himself.

It came out as a sort of gurgle. His mouth hadn't moved at all. He blinked. At least that was still working properly. His mouth felt dry. He tried and failed to swallow. He knew his body was still there. Everything that wasn't actively hurting was numb, but he could feel the stinging burn on his leg, the pulled muscles in his back, and the two horrible stabbing pains in the back of his neck and head. He thought perhaps that was where the zat shots had hit him, but there was no localized pain the last time he'd been hit with them. Zat shots didn't really explain why he couldn't move either.

He had no idea where he was, but at least knew where he wasn't. He was most definitely not in the city any longer. The floors were smooth. The only light in the room came from a row of glowing panels set low along the wall. His face was turned towards them and the glare made the rest of the room appear pitch black. This new and high tech location also meant he'd been captured of course. He tired to sigh and got nothing. Captured by the Goa'uld, it couldn't be that much worse then being captured by Voldemort right? He tried to frown. I've just jinxed myself haven't I?

It was another hour before they came for him. Two Jaffa with little pointy symbols tattooed in the centers of their foreheads came into the room and grabbed him under the arms. His lolled forward so he had a good view of the floor and his dragging feet as he was carried along. The pointy symbol was Ba'al's, not Morrigan's. So that meant he was on one of Ba'al's ships, which meant in turn, that he was completely screwed. He tried to focus his magic enough to trip up the guards. Nothing happened. He didn't know if it was because he'd burned himself out fighting in the city or if it had something to do with his paralysis.

The guards stopped for a moment and a door opened. He was carried across a slightly different floor. This one had gray tiles instead of uniform black of the corridors outside. They dropped him. His chin hit the floor and his teeth clicked together. He heard a groaning creak as something large and metal was forced to bend in a direction it did not want to go. The guards rolled him over and picked him up by the arms again. One of them was completely blank faces. The other was carefully not looking Harry in the face. This can't be good.

They pulled off his jacket and dropped it on the floor. His head rolled uncontrolled on his shoulders and for a moment he saw the frame. It looked like a giant cast iron gingerbread man, with wire cages on the ends of the arms. He only saw it for a second before he was pushed against it. His arms were shoved into the wire and they suddenly constricted, pinning him. They put straps around his feet and chest to hold him more firmly in place. His head wasn't at all supported by this, so he spent the ordeal looking at his own feet. He could see the jacket too and his stomach jumped. The outside of the jacket had no markings on it that would indicate he'd gotten it at the Alpha site, but the tag in the collar with the washing instructions had USAF stamped on it in traitorous red letters.

The guards stepped away, but they were still in the room somewhere. Harry tried again to summon up some hint of magic, but nothing came. Boots clicked sharply against the tiles as a new somebody entered the room. Harry felt eyes on him, but couldn't raise his head to return the stare. More boots clicked as others came in.

"This is all you found?" asked a resonating Goa'uld voice.

"Yes my Lord."

The Goa'uld snorted with obvious contempt.

"Our search of the immediate area turned up nothing. He must have disposed of the weapons he was using before he was captured."

"And what information did you get from this…boy before you brought him here?"

"N-nothing my Lord. He was unconscious. He was struck twice with shots from the zat-nicka-tal. We could not wake him."

"You are certain you hit him twice," the Goa'uld said.

It sounded more like a statement then a question to Harry.

"Yes my Lord," the other voice answered, sounding more nervous by the moment.

Harry heard clicking boot heals again and a bit of shiny black cloth entered his field of vision by his feet. He heard little tapping sounds as if someone was typing on a key board.

BEEP!

The stabbing pains in the back of his neck and head increased a thousand fold. He let out a gargling shout. The pain faded slowly and Harry realized he could move again. He pulled against the straps holding him to the frame, but there wasn't even a millimeter of slack in them. Slowly he raised his head.

Pitiless dark eyes watched him. The Goa'uld's face was pale, with high cheek bones and an aloof expression. He had a goatee and short curly black hair. Had Harry seen him on earth he might have mistaken him for a wizard. He wore black robes with a hint of gold stitching in them. At least I'm going to be tortured to death by someone with good taste. Harry saw the small remote control in the Goa'uld's hand. Now that he could move he realized the pains were caused by some sort of foreign objects lodged in the back of his head and neck.

The Goa'uld looked over his shoulders to the Jaffa guarding the room. They stepped out side and the door closed behind them.

"I am your god, Ba'al," the Goa'uld said.

Harry looked at him as blankly as possible.

"If you provide useful information, I may let you live," Ba'al said.

Harry tried to repress a disbelieving snort. It came out as a hiccup. The Goa'uld watched him for a moment longer and then raised the remote control, so Harry could see it very clearly. His thumb pressed down on the button. Harry could hear the strange wheezing noises he was making. He couldn't get enough air to scream properly. The pain radiated out through his skull and down his spine. His muscles locked up. All sense of time was gone, but when it stopped Ba'al was holding his arm just as it had been, as if only a second had passed.

"I am not known for my patients, or my mercy. You will answer all of my questions, and then I will decide if you will live. You understand."

Harry didn't think any of that was a question, but he nodded.

"The shol'va you arrived with have stolen five of my cargo ships. They are taking them to a rebel camp. Where is the camp located?"

"I don't know," Harry said.

Ba'al held up the remote again. "Tell me where the camp is. Claiming ignorance will not save you."

Harry glared back at him. "What's a camp?"

Ba'al hit the button again. As Harry tried to get his eyes to focus again the Goa'uld continued to talk.

"Resisting will not save the traitors you have allied yourself with. The ships they stole while you were distracting my Jaffa all have tracking devices installed. We are pursuing them even now."

Harry felt his stomach drop, and tried not to let anything show on his face.

"You are Tauri. Why were you on Nortus? What weapon did you use against the Death Gliders?"

Harry shrugged. He wanted to say something dashing like "how about I show you?" and then blast the Goa'uld through the next three walls, but his magic was still out of commission.

"What weapon did you use to destroy my Death Gliders?"

"I used my magic powers," Harry said.

Ba'al hit the button.

The nextseveral hours went on in basically the same fashion, though Harry had run out of bad attitude to throw back at Ba'al's questions and was reduced to sullen silence. Ba'al was about to hit the button again when a chirping little alarm sounded. The whole room seemed to lean for a moment. Ba'al was smiling.

"The rebels have stopped. We will shortly be in weapons range. I will burn them from the face of the planet."

Harry could only stare at him. Ba'al pressed went to the door and opened it. He spoke to one of the guards and a moment later Ba'al returnedcarrying a fish bowl.

"Normally I would simply torture you until you'd bled out all the information I desire, but I have little time to indulge myself today. Fortunately there is another, much quicker method available."

Ba'al reached into the tank, and fished out the molten green snake like creature, which hissed and shrieked as soon as it was removed from the bowl.

"This symbiote matured a few days ago. I did not think I would find a host for it. My good fortune I suppose."

Harry tried to summon up some repellent force, but he had no more luck with it then he had knocking away Ba'al a few hours earlier. He searched for the bubbling crowding energy that usually filled him in panicked moments like these, but nothing came. He felt empty. I need to cook and the bloody pilot-light's gone out. This is not happening! Not Happening!

Ba'al stepped closer, smirking. "Preferentially a symbiote will enter through the throat or neck, but if it is given no other option it will move in through the eye socket."

Harry pressed back against the frame but there was no where to go. The parasite lunged at him but Ba'al still had a tight grip on it. It brushed against the side of Harry's face. He felt as if he was falling. Not happening. This is not happening! The feeling in his heart wasn't anything like magic but he could barely breathe because of it. He'd never felt such horror.

Something in his chest exploded.

Harry blinked. He'd never felt more exhausted, or upside down. He turned his head to the right. The room was scorched and filled with rubble. Part of the ceiling had collapsed and wires hung down. Bits of broken crystal were scattered across the floor. He looked to the left. He could see Ba'al's foot sticking out of under a large piece of ceiling. The Goa'uld he'd been threatening Harry with lay crushed and burned on the floor, blue goo oozing out of it. Harry sighed in relief. Now all he had to do was get untied and find some way to escape the ship and warn the rebels and not pass out again while he was doing it. He pulled against the straps. They apparently had not been at all affected by the final blast of accidental magic he'd been able to call up. The frame wasn't much affected either. It had simply come loose from the floor and tipped over.

A faint rustling sound came from rubble under which Ba'al had been buried. Harry felt his heart jump again. If Ba'al had only been knocked out, he'd wake up in a very bad mood. The booted foot shook for a moment, and then the body went still. Harry looked up at the ceiling again, and tried to take a calming breath. He didn't really think Ba'al was going to get up from that. His eyes tried to stay closed. He couldn't remember every being this worn down, not even after the Tri-Wizarding Tournament mess. Maybe if I just rest for a few minutes I'll be able summon up enough magic for an "Alohamora". His eyes sank closed and refused to be open again. As he passed out of consciousness, he thought he heard the faint sound of slithering on the other side of the room.