Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Gringotts, the Leaky Cauldron or anything else in JKR's wonderful world. Except for the little pebble just to left of the front doors of Hogwarts. I put that there. I might own that. Maybe. But probably not.
A/N: This is my prequel to my sequel that I wrote before the prequel so that I had to write the prequel to be able to have a sequel to the prequel. Just make sure to read the prequel first so the sequel makes sense because if you read the sequel first you wonder what the prequel was to get them there…Er, sorry about that. Writing Luna tends to scramble my brain a bit. Please, grab some popcorn and a soda, or a beer, sit back and enjoy the show. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you…
Luna Lovegood Visits Star Gate Command … Ooops!
Luna Lovegood applied the last dab of paint to the image on her wall and stepped back to examine her work. The silver-gray circle was slightly taller than she was, and she had divided it into 6 equal segments. The one she'd seen had had more but she'd only needed 6. In each of them she'd painted one of the runes on the original. They were strange, those runes, like none she'd ever seen before, but they were pretty and called to something within her. She'd heard that calling before and always answered. The results had varied, but overall, she'd always had fun. She'd just have to see where this adventure took her.
Stepping back to the wall she painted a runic array next to the ring. It flared brightly as it connected to the Ley line that ran under her home. The 3rd most powerful Ley line in the world, it was also one of two that crossed under Hogwarts Castle in Scotland. It was a font of immense magical power.
One stroke of the brush connected the two; with a golden flash the six strange runes blazed to life. The center of the ring rippled and rolled before forming a whirlpool that deepened into the wall before snapping back out flat but now with a mirrored surface.
Luna smiled at her new mirror before reaching out to touch it. Her smile widened and brightened as her hand sank into the smooth surface. Without another thought she stepped forward and vanished into the wall.
((((((OOOOO))))))
The Air Force Sergeant with the duty watch in the SGC gate control room was occupied with updating the day's status reports into the central computer. Since there were no SG teams off world at the time and the gate room wasn't being used that was essentially saying nothing was happening.
However, at the moment he had company. Looking to his right he saw Major Samantha Carter working on another terminal, updating programs on the gate control computer itself. As he was the only person on duty in the control room her presence was a welcome distraction if for no other reason than he could spend a little extra time writing his status report.
She suddenly looked up and out at the gate as she hit a key on her console. On the gate the multi leafed iris scissored open. She hit another key and it started to close but stopped halfway. Unperturbed she hit the first key again and it opened. Some quick typing, hit the second key and this time the leaves all swung into their closed position quickly and smoothly. She cycled the iris three times and on the first two times it operated as required. The third time however it stopped after only moving a quarter of the way. With a heavy frustrated sigh, she opened it again and consulted her computer screen.
Giving the major a last glance, he looked up and through the window into the gate room where the giant ring was located ... Just as the chevrons around the circumference of it flashed into brilliance.
"Major!" He said excitedly.
"Just a minute." The engrossed woman responded, not looking up from her work.
"Major!" He called again as the center of the ring suddenly erupted outwards before collapsing back into the rippled water surface of a stable wormhole.
Major Carter had finally looked up at the sound of the wormhole forming. "What the hell?" She exclaimed as he lunged to another console, flipped up a transparent cover guard and slapped a large red button down. As alarm klaxons began blaring throughout the complex, she got on the loudspeakers. "Security forces to the gate room! This is not a drill! Off world gate activation! Gate breach! Intruder in the gate room!"
The Sergeant stared at the being who had just walked out of the gate: dressed in blue jeans, tennis shoes and a pullover sweater it looked like a young woman with long blonde hair pulled up into a bun with a stick through it.
As she walked down the ramp to the gate, she did a quick turn as she looked around the room. Finishing her turn, she looked up at him, smiled brightly and waved at him! He watched her walk to the door and go through it.
((((((OOOOO))))))
Luna walked out of the portal she created into a large well-lit room onto a metal ramp. As she walked down it, she turned quickly and saw the large ring she'd seen and modeled her painting after.
Looking up at some windows set in the upper facing wall she saw a cute young man. Thinking she might find and talk to him later, she smiled at him and waved.
With the loud noises and someone shouting about an intruder somewhere echoing in the large chamber she decided not to stay and look around, so she went through an open door and turned left into a long corridor. She did so because a sign on the wall had several arrows on it pointing left or right with various destinations, one of them being a cafeteria. Since she hadn't eaten since breakfast, she thought she might grab a bite to eat before she began her explorations of this place. Who knew what kind of new and wonderful animals she might find?
Her explorations came to an abrupt end only seconds later at an intersection as the sound of running footsteps, and then the men doing the running came around the corner. She successfully moved out of the way of the first man around the corner, but the second crashed directly into her, bouncing her backward several feet and onto her bum with a loud squeak.
The man who crashed into her went down too, directly into the path of the remaining men behind him. With surprise cries they too fell with the sound of thumps, cracks, banging metal of the things they carried, and a pained scream followed by rather loud cursing of some very bad words her mother had once told her to never use.
"Well, that was certainly very rude." She said as she looked at the pile of human limbs and bodies trying to disentangle themselves. "You really should watch where you're going in such a hurry. You might hurt yourselves."
She stood up … and found herself facing the first man who was pointing something like a short wand with a hole in the end at her. "Freeze!"
She looked at him for a second. "Well, if that was a freezing charm, I have to tell you it didn't work." She said calmly. "You have to say glacis and give a poke." She demonstrated what she was talking about.
"I said freeze!" He said again, excitedly.
"I heard you." She sighed in exasperation. "Perhaps if I did this …"and reached out and stuck her finger into the hole in his funny looking wand. Perhaps he didn't realize it was defective and if she plugged the hole it would work. "Try again." She stated, trying to be helpful.
Instead, he just gaped at her for a second before jerking his hand back, and nearly dislocating her finger that was firmly stuck in the end of it.
"Ow!" Luna tried to pull her finger free, but the man wasn't holding still and was twisting and pulling. Just then another group of people came running up led by a graying haired man with metal birds on his collar. He took one look at the scene and reached out and grabbed the first man's wrist, stilling its movement.
"Lieutenant, why is this young woman's finger stuck in the barrel of your weapon?" He asked in a conversational tone.
With a wild-eyed look he replied, "She stuck it there, Sir."
Turning his gaze to her, he asked, "Miss, by any chance did you come out of the big room with a big metal ring in it?"
She smiled up at him. At least he was being polite and not trying, unsuccessfully, to hex her. "Yes, I did." she replied. "How did you know?"
He reached up with the hand not holding the other man's wrist and flipped a picture card hanging from a chest pocket. "You're not wearing one of these nice badges." he explained.
"Oh, I didn't know I needed one. Can I get one?"
"No, I'm afraid not." he replied sadly. "You came in the wrong door so unfortunately we can't give you one just yet." He reached up with his other hand again and gently grasped her finger, still stuck in the strange wand. With a tug he tried to free it; it stayed stuck. "So, you British? You sound British."
"Uh huh." She replied. "You're remarkably free of nargles." She stated as he gently tried to twist her finger out of the metal wand.
"Yeah, nargles don't like me much." He answered without looking at her, concentrating on his task. "I'm Jack O'Neill by the way."
She smiled. "I'm Luna Lovegood." she told him. "You do have a very large amount of Wrackspurts, however."
"Well, you know how Wrackspurts are, once you get them, they're awful hard to get rid of." He let go of the man's wrist and took hold of the strange wand. "Give me your weapon Lieutenant."
When the man had released his wand, Jack did something, and a big piece of the wand fell into his other hand. "So, Luna, how did you manage to hook up with the ring?" He pulled back on the top and a little something flew out, which he deftly caught. With reflexes like that, he'd make a good seeker, she thought.
"I just painted a picture of it on my wall." She watched him manipulate something and another piece came off. "But I only used the six runes I needed to get here instead of all of them on yours."
"Runes?" Said another man who had come with Jack. He was younger and wore glasses and was dressed like the others in the corridor, but he wasn't carrying one of the funny looking metal wands. "You know runes? What kinds?"
"That's Daniel, Daniel Jackson." Jack said with a wink and a smirk. "He's a big brain; wants to know everything. Reads all the time."
She giggled at his conspiratorial tone. "So does Hermione. She loves learning new things too." She looked over at the man named Daniel. "I know all of them." Then she thought of something. "At least I did. I've never seen yours before, but I'd certainly like to learn them."
"If you just painted a picture, what did you use to power it?" Jack asked as he seemed to be finished taking the wand apart, leaving just a metal tube stuck on her finger.
"I made a rune array that draws power from a ley line under my home and channels it to the image which became a mirror. It's really very pretty." She eyed another man approaching down the hallway as she explained this to Jack. He was big, slightly taller than Jack, almost bald and had stars on his collar where Jack had birds. Perhaps he was an astronomer? Unlike the other men around her who were dressed in greens and browns he was in blue, light on top with dark trousers and he looked determined.
Daniel saw where she was looking and moved towards the man.
((((((OOOOO))))))
Daniel intercepted general Hammond before he came too close. "Sir, if you could wait back here, please?"
"What's going on Doctor Jackson? Is that the intruder? What's Colonel O'Neill doing with her? Why hasn't she been taken to a detention cell?"
"Yes Sir, that is the intruder." Daniel answered. "Jack is dismantling the handgun stuck on her finger ..."
"Stuck on her finger? How the hell did that happen?"
"I don't know, Sir, but Jack is using it as an impromptu interrogation session. She's quite open and willing to answer and seems to have a personality quite similar to part of his which has helped him establish a rapport with her."
Hammond gave him a penetrating stare. "The insightful and commanding part?" There was a hopeful note in his tone of voice.
"Ah, no Sir, the crazy as a loon part."
Hammond sighed heavily. "I was afraid you were going to say that." he said resignedly. He'd know O'Neill for years and was well aware of his personality quirks. "What do we know about her?"
"Well, about half of what she has said is really out there, but she says her name is Luna Lovegood, she's British, or faking the accent really well, and she dialed into our gate with one she painted on a wall and powered with a dead language." He knew runes weren't actually a language as such, but hey, it got the point across.
He got a stare that was several seconds long before the general decided he wasn't joking. "And Jack is just going with the flow, isn't he?"
"Hasn't missed a beat yet, Sir."
Hammond glanced back down the corridor. "Is she dangerous?"
"I didn't see any obvious weapons on her, but you know some of the things we've seen around this place: she could be a weapon for all I know."
Hammond look back down the corridor at the person in question. "Alright. Let Jack know he can run it the way he wants but if it goes TU on him, it's his ass that gets chewed."
With a little wry grin Daniel nodded. "Yes Sir."
The two men each turned back the way they had come.
((((((OOOOO))))))
Luna watched Daniel go. "Who's that?" She asked.
Jack looked up at her from what he was doing then looked back over his shoulder at where she was looking. "Oh, that's General Hammond, our boss." He explained as he pocketed another piece of the wand. "He's a good guy. He only executes one or two people a week."
She thought that sounded kind of mean. "Won't he run out of people after a while?"
"Nah!" Jack replied. He pointed a finger at the men around them. "That's what we've got all of these guys with stripes on their arms for. We can always get more."
She looked around, saw tight smiles or open grins on many of the faces. A couple were shaking their heads with one or the other. "You're taking the Mickey from me, aren't you?"
With a straight face he said, "Why would I want your mouse? There, all done."
She looked at the result of his work: of the large black wand originally stuck on the end of her finger, all that remained was a thick-walled metal tube, like a straw.
"We still have to get that off," he pointed at the tube, "but at least you won't have to carry so much around now."
Just then Daniel came back. "Jack, the General says it's your call but if she destroys the base, it's your head."
There were chuckles from the men around them at the face Jack pulled and Luna asked, "Can they get more of you?"
It was open laughter until Jack quelled it with a fierce look around. He then turned back to her…and smiled. "I like you. Let's go find Doctor Frasier and get that thing off." He pointed. "You and you take rearguard. The rest of you, stand down."
"Sir! Do you think that's safe?" the young lieutenant asked.
Jack looked at him drolly. "That is not your concern, Lieutenant." He told the young man. "Your concern should be about what you're going to tell the armory Sergeant-at-Arms why you can't turn in your sidearm because you got it stuck on a young woman's finger. And about getting a statement from everyone here. I want to know every single little thing that happened!"
He turned back to Luna with a smile and offered her his arm. "Miss Luna, would you do me the honor?"
She giggled as she looped her arm through his.
"So, tell me, do you always just step through weird mirror pictures on your wall to someplace you've never been to before and don't know how dangerous it is, or did you know what was here and just wanted to take a look around?"
They started off down the corridor, the two soldiers behind them and Daniel to Luna's left.
"I wanted to explore new places, maybe find new animals. I didn't know where the portal went but I knew I needed to go through it."
"What kind of animals are you looking for?" Jack asked as they walked.
"Do you know if there are any crumpled-horned snorkacks around?"
She didn't see Daniel's eyes widen at her question, or the shake of his head when Jack answered. "I'm pretty sure there aren't any of those around here but there are jackelope somewhere up in the mountains I'm told."
Her forehead furrowed in thought. "What's a jackelope?"
"Think a large jack rabbit with antlers." Came the easy reply.
Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped at the implications. "They could be cousins!" she exclaimed excitedly. "A divergence of one or the other on the family tree, related but totally different species, like antelope and deer or dragons and wyvern!"
Daniel rolled his eyes and shook his head again.
((((((OOOOO))))))
Doctor Janet Frasier looked on as the five people walked into her infirmary. She'd expected something like this since the alarm had gone off. What she hadn't expected was for all of them to be on their feet and in seemingly good spirits if the smiles on O'Neill and the young woman on his arm were any indication.
That was also unusual. She was intimately familiar with almost every inch of Jack and Daniel's bodies, having patched them back together so many times she lost count. She also recognized the two airmen with their weapons stationing themselves at the door, if only from regular checkups and the usual accidents common with active young men in the military.
The girl, or rather, young woman however, was unknown to her. Dressed the way she was, not in uniform and with no ID badge visible, led her to only one conclusion: "So, is this our mystery intruder?"
"Hi, Doc!" O'Neill greeted her cheerfully. "Yep! Say hello to Miss Luna Lovegood. She has a little problem." He held up one of her hands.
She stepped closer and had a look. "Colonel, is that a gun barrel on her finger?" she inquired.
He grinned back at her. "Sure is. Got any butter or oil we can put on her finger so we can get it out?"
"No." she said as she turned away. "Luna, is it? Can you come here please?" She pulled an emergency oxygen tank out as the girl walked over.
Taking a length of surgical tubing she forced one end onto the tank's outlet. Taking the other end, she shoved it into the chamber of the barrel. "Hold that," she said to the girl, pointing to the metal barrel, "and pull gently on your finger."
She opened the tank valve and with a soft 'pfft' the barrel popped off Luna's finger.
The girl grinned as she looked at her now free finger. "Thank you!"
Taking the piece of the weapon, Janet walked over to O'Neill and handed it to him. "Mind telling me how she got her finger stuck in a pistol barrel?" She asked. "Just for my records, you understand."
He smiled back at her. "Haven't got a clue, Doc." He turned to the girl. "Hey, Luna, how did you get your finger stuck?"
"I stuck it there when that man tried to hex me." She replied absently as she investigated several medical devices standing against the wall. "It didn't help though. He wasn't even saying the spell right."
Janet raised an eyebrow as O'Neill didn't even blink." How do you know he wasn't doing it right?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"It's a secret."
"Who says?"
"The statute of secrecy."
"What's that?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"It's a secret."
"Who says?"
"The statute of secrecy."
Janet caught Daniel's eye and raised a questioning eyebrow. He just rolled his eyes and shrugged.
"Excuse me!" She said in a loud voice. Both of the other two stopped talking to look at her. "Thank you. Now, Colonel, since she is an unauthorized person on this base and she did come through the gate, I suppose you want me to perform the various prescribed examinations upon her, correct?"
Looking not the least bit disturbed at her glare, he nodded. "Yes, I do." He said, then looked at the blonde. "Luna, Doctor Frasier needs to do some tests on you and then we can get you your own badge."
The girl beamed back at him. "That would be wonderful! A doctor is a muggle healer, isn't it?" She practically skipped back over to them.
"What's a muggle?"
She looked up at him innocently. "I can't tell you."
Before it could get started again, Daniel jumped in. "Yes, Luna, she is a healer. Now, most of the tests won't hurt at all."
"Some will?" the girl asked, seemingly surprised. "That doesn't seem very civilized. A good healer shouldn't hurt their patient at all,"
"Have you seen a lot of healers?" Jack asked.
"Not so much in the last few years, but during the war I did, though not as much as Harry. He had his name on a bed in the hospital wing at school he was in there so much."
"Where was that?"
"I can't..." Her jaw snap shut with an audible clack as Janet thrust her arm out at her with her index finger raised and with an iron glare. "You do that better than Madam Pomphrey." She said quietly, scrunching in on herself at the implied reprimand.
Janet looked at the three of them. "Be that as it may, I have an examination to do, so you two... out!"
Daniel started to leave as O'Neill said, "Luna, she's good people so do what she says, and I'll see you later and we'll get you that badge." He then headed out the door.
With a shake of her head and a sigh, Janet turned to her patient as the two security men kept a watchful eye.
((((((OOOOO))))))
"So, she's human, Sir, as far as I can tell. Nothing out of the ordinary in her blood work, musculature, organs, EKG or skeletal structure. We had to go full x-ray however because we couldn't use the MRI."
"Why was that, Doctor?" General Hammond asked from the head of the table.
"We couldn't get her to hold still." Janet replied. "Every time we turned on the imager she broke out in uncontrollable laughter. She said it tickled."
"Could she have just been trying to avoid the scan?" Samantha Carter asked. "Trying to get you to rely on the X-Rays to hide something that wouldn't show up on them but would on the MRI?"
Janet shook her head. "I thought of that, so we tried two different times without the magnetic imager. She was still as a rock. No reaction whatsoever. The moment we turned it on, however, she fairly exploded with laughter. Couldn't hold still to save her life."
"So, she has an affinity for magnetism." Hammond recapped. "But other than that, she's normal?"
Doctor Frasier nodded. "Short of a full DNA analysis, as far as I can tell, yes, Sir."
"Other than some mental instability." Daniel added.
"She's no more unstable than I am." O'Neill said, leaning back in his chair and tapping the tip of his pencil on the table.
Daniel looked at him. "Jack, if you were her age, female and blonde, she could be you."
O'Neill took the comment casually. "Why, thank you, Daniel. It's nice to know you think so highly of me."
"I have her statements here, Jack." Hammond said, indicating some paperwork. "Some of what she said is downright crazy. What makes you think otherwise?"
"It all makes sense if you go with the assumption that she thinks she's a witch." Jack said in a calm voice.
Everyone at the table just stared at him.
"And that she thinks she's a part of a society of witches, and probably warlocks, too." He casually threw out.
"Magic?" said an astounded sounding Carter. "You think she's some kind of magical being, like Merlin?"
"No, I said she thinks she is." He corrected her.
"Just how did you reach that conclusion?" Hammond looked puzzled as he asked.
Jack sat up straighter. "Let's start with how she got here: by painting a picture on the wall and using runes to connect it to a ley line to power it. Now, I'm not an expert by any means but I've heard of runes. I thought there were only the Viking kind and from what I've read in the old myths of the Vikings, runes were considered a magical language, used for good or evil."
Daniel nodded thoughtfully. "He's right. Norse runes were considered a mystical, almost magical language. So are several others if she didn't use Norse."
"But magic?" Sam said skeptically.
"I didn't know what a Ley line was either, but it sounded familiar, so I looked it up." He looked around at some of the expressions around the table. "What? I know how to use a dictionary. Anyway, Ley lines are bands of magical power that circle the earth."
"There's no proof they even exist, Sir!" Sam interjected.
"I didn't say they do." O'Neal replied. "Only that she said she tapped into one. She also said she painted a ring on her wall and used it to open a connection to the gate, and in the Southwest, Native American tribes create sand paintings because they're supposed to be magical."
"So, she's saying she combined all three." Hammond said.
"Yes Sir." O'Neill agreed. "Then there was her encounter with Lieutenant Sternhausen. He told her to freeze, and she said that was wrong, that he should have said glacis instead."
"That's Latin for ice or glacier." Daniel supplied.
Jack nodded. "And she said he needed to poke as he said it." He thrust his hand forward with the pencil as if he were holding something in it.
"Like she was using a magic wand?" Sam asked. "Come on, Colonel, there's no such thing as magic."
Doctor Frazier spoke up. "He's just pointing out why she seems to think she's a witch."
"She also said Sternhausen tried to hex her, and she said it was a spell."
"OK, so she talks like she thinks she's a witch," Daniel said, "but what makes you think there's a society of them?"
"We're muggles," Jack replied with a shrug, "whatever those are, which means she's not, or thinks she's not and the last time I was in England doctors were called doctors, not healers, and last but not least, the Statute of Secrecy. Unless I'm wrong, a statute is something a government puts in place. A government means a lot of people, so, a society."
"You know, Jack," Daniel said slowly, considering the man beside him, "sometimes your cognitive processes are absolutely amazing."
"Well," the other man drawled as he leaned back in his seat again, "don't spread that around. I do have a reputation to uphold."
"She certainly doesn't sound like she's making all of that up on the spot." Janet said.
"She's been remarkably consistent." Daniel agreed.
"And don't forget Harry, Hermione and Madam Pomphrey." Jack piped into the conversation.
"They could just be people she really knows." Carter stated.
"Doesn't matter." The General said. "The Colonel has made a good argument: she thinks she's a witch and she certainly managed to access the gate somehow. Speaking of that, what's the status on that, Major?"
"However she did it, she's got a huge power source. The gate is still open even though it has passed the automatic shutdown limit. If you remember, the last time that happened there was a black hole on the other side of it. Since she walked out of it that's not a problem here, but I can't imagine what she's powering it with." She looked at Hammond. "We have the iris closed while we continue to try to shut down the wormhole. Nobody else is coming through."
"So, the team is still trying to shut it down?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Then talk with the girl and see if you can't get more information out of her. Dismissed."
As they left the briefing room Major Carter addressed O'Neill. "Really, Sir? Magic? Witchcraft?"
"Isn't there something that says after you've removed all of the improbable, whatever is left, no matter how impossible, has to be the truth?"
Sam scoffed at him. "Not even that covers magic, Sir."
He shrugged. "Whatever. Until we find out how she did it, I'm sticking with it."
Daniel just grinned and shook his head. He was pretty sure Jack was just yanking Sam's chain and he wasn't going to interfere with his fun.
"Say!" Jack suddenly exclaimed. "Let's swing by the cafeteria and pick up something for Luna. She's probably starving."
((((((OOOOO))))))
Luna looked around the room she had been left in. It was a bit pragmatic, having only a bed, a chair, desk, sink and toilet, but wasn't bad overall, much better than the Malfoy dungeons.
Healer Frasier's examinations had been very thorough and not all that odious, though she'd worried about blood rituals for a moment before remembering what Hermione had once told her about blood samples and all the things' muggles could learn about a person's health with them. She'd never said anything about pee though.
She wondered when Jack O'Neill would come. She liked him, even if he was old enough to be her father. She could tell about people and knew he was trustworthy. He'd said he'd see her later and she believed him.
She was hungry though. Maybe if she went to that cafeteria place, she could be back before he would arrive.
Checking to make sure her wand was stuck through her bun, healer Fraser had returned all of her things to her after only a brief examination, she turned in place and vanished with a pop...
... to reappear with another at the intersection of hallways where she'd met Jack. Fortunately, nobody was around to see her, and she headed in search of something to quieten her grumbly tummy.
((((((OOOOO))))))
"So, you see Teal'c, we need to talk with her, find out how she got here, how she's keeping it up and get her to shut it down."
Having entered the cafeteria, the three of them had found the ex-Jaffa just sitting down to eat. He'd been enjoying a day off from the base and only recently returned. "This young woman you describe, O'Neill," The big man said, "is she blonde, shorter than Major Carter and dressed in jeans and a sweater?"
The three of them looked at each other in consternation. "How did you know that, big guy?" Jack asked.
Teal'c raised a hand and pointed. "She just walked into the room." They all turned to see the girl in question moving down the buffet line before picking up an entire serving bowl of what looked like chocolate pudding before turning to a table and sitting down.
"Sir, wasn't she under guard?" Sam asked, cautious worry evident in her voice. "And in detention?"
Daniel could understand her concern: Luna would have had to get out of a locked room past two armed guards. He may have liked her, but her danger quotient had just gone way up.
"Let's get these people out of here ... quietly." Jack said as he moved towards the closest occupied table. They moved across the room slowly, getting people up and out of the room as they approached their target.
"Hey Luna!" Jack called as he stepped up to her table.
The smile she gave him made Daniel believe there wasn't an aggressive thought in her head. "Jack O'Neill!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry I didn't wait for you, but I got hungry."
"That's alright," Jack replied as he pulled a chair out and sat down across from her, "completely understandable. This is Samantha and that's Teal'c, by the way, but weren't you with a couple of guys, though?"
"Uh huh." She mumbled around a mouthful of pudding.
"Where are they? They're supposed to be with you."
"Probably outside my cell." She replied distractedly as she scooped another spoonful of pudding out of the big silver bowl.
"It was a waiting room." Jack explained.
Luna lowered the spoon she'd been raising and gave him an exasperated stare. "Jack, I spent months locked in a dungeon. I know what guards and a cell are."
"Yeah, right." Jack said contritely, having been caught out, as she returned to her pudding. "How did you get past them?"
"I can't tell you."
"Witchcraft?"
She was silent as she looked up at him warily, slowly raising a spoonful of pudding to her mouth. Then her eyes switched to him, then to Sam, and finally Teal'c... where she halted. He saw her stare at him for a few seconds and then her eyes traveled down to stop at his stomach. She cocked her head sideways for a moment, then said "Doesn't it tickle to have a snake in your belly Mister Teal'c?"
Teal'c raised an eyebrow in surprise as the others openly gaped slack jawed at her statement. "Luna," Jack asked cautiously, "how do you know he has a snake in his belly?"
"I can see it." she replied brightly. "He has a pretty aura, lots of blues and yellows, but there's a blackish snake like shadow in his belly. It moves."
"Teal'c comes from far away, Luna, and he has what we call a symbiote." Jack started to explain.
Daniel looked at the suspiciously quiet woman beside him. "Uh, Sam? Nothing to say?"
She was looking at the small blonde woman with a look of concentration. "There's a lot of evidence for aura's, Daniel." She surprised him by saying. "As early as the 1960's Kirlian photography has shown a kind of static discharge, an aura if you will, around everybody and each person's is different. There have been people who have said they can see them, and what they say they can see has been confirmed with the photography."
Okay, he thought, maybe Jack is right in some of his assumptions after all.
Meanwhile, Jack was still talking to Luna. "…it helps keep him healthy and live a lot longer."
((((((OOOOO))))))
Elsewhere, a young man and two companions stood in front of a certain wall looking at a circular mirrored disk surrounded by strange symbols. He raised his hand and placed it on the disk, left eyebrow quirking upwards as his hand sank into it up to his wrist before stopping. He moved it around, feeling whatever barrier was there, then backed up and drew his wand.
((((((OOOOO))))))
There were ten people currently in the gate room: six technicians with various electronic diagnostic equipment connected to various parts of the gate, and four airmen, two each manning the defensive cannons mounted to either side of the room. However, with the iris closed that duty was more perfunctory than necessary. With the leaves of the iris made of inch thick titanium alloy closed, nothing was going to get through it before they could man their weapons, so they just stood at their stations, chatting and watching the technicians work.
That activity came to an abrupt halt with a clatter and banging of falling pieces of iris petals to the metal decking as a large hole appeared in the iris. As it was off center the tips of several petals didn't vanish with the rest of them, thus the noise as they crashed to the deck.
It was a credit to the airmen that they took only a second worth of shock at the unexpected event before they sprang to their weapons even as the technicians ran for the door amidst the raucous sounds of the alarm klaxons and the voice on the loudspeakers proclaiming another gate breach.
((((((OOOOO))))))
His head snapped around at the sound of the alarm. "Sam, didn't you say…"
"The iris is closed! There can't be a breach!"
Jack stood up. "Armory." He snapped. "Full weapons load. Luna, you stay with us. Let's go!"
((((((OOOOO))))))
It was just a few short minutes before they strode into the gate room, Jack and Sam in front, weapons ready, Luna behind and between them, followed by himself and Teal'c, to find two fully armed six-man squads already in place along the wall facing the gate under the control room window, all with weapons pointing at the gate, and another squad divided along the other two walls. Other than the uncharacteristic hole in the iris with the undulating surface of the wormhole behind it showing through, nothing seemed out of place.
"Colonel!" came the amplified voice of General Hammond.
"What's the situation, Sir?" Jack replied as he surveyed the scene.
"That hole you see in the iris appeared just over six minutes ago." The General stated. "Since then, nothing. And what's the girl doing with you?"
"She got hungry, Sir, took a little walk to get something to eat and…" he stopped talking abruptly and Daniel could see a confused look on his face. "Daniel," he said momentarily, "would you be so kind as to tell me what is rather forcefully poking me in the back of the head?"
He took a step back and his eyes widened in surprise. "It's a stick, Jack, floating in the air. One very similar to the one Luna uses as a hair pick."
"Hi Harry Potter!" the aforementioned young woman said with a big smile as she turned.
"Hi yourself, Little Moon Child." Came a not sounding displeased male voice seemingly out of thin air. "Getting yourself into trouble again?" Whoever was speaking sounded almost as if he was used to this sort of thing out of the girl. Then, considering she had walked through a gate with absolutely no idea what kind of danger might lay on the other side, perhaps he was.
He also didn't seem to be worried that he had a dozen high powered weapons all pointed in his general direction, though the being invisible thing might have something to do with that. That was a little troubling if he was anything like Luna and some of the things she had done.
Luna giggled. "Huh uh! They've been really nice to me."
"Then why are you surrounded by four armed guards?"
She shrugged. "Oh, that's because I came in through the wrong door and I don't have the little picture badge and I left my cell before I was supposed to, but I was hungry, and their pudding is so delicious and they're nice Slytherin's because they like snakes and keep them in their tummies and heads…"
Like the well trained and disciplined team they were, SG-1 snapped into action at her last statement, Jack, Teal'c and Sam all spinning and raising their weapons to ready positions, covering the soldiers already in the room, even as he grabbed Luna by the shoulder and pulled her back towards the door. Sam was covering the five men on the right side of the room while Teal'c and Jack divided the rest of the room between them. "Where Luna?" Sam questioned sharply. "Who has a snake in his head?"
"SG-1! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Hammond roared over the loudspeaker.
"She took one look at Teal'c and knew he had a symbiote, where it was and what it looked like, Sir!" Sam shouted back as she crab walked sideways for a better field of fire on the five bewildered looking men on that side of the room. "If she says someone in here has an implanted Goa'uld, I believe her. Who, Luna?"
"Go with it, Sir!" Jack shouted even as he faced off against his own men. "I trust her and better safe than sorry."
He turned and looked at the girl, who he had pushed behind him. "It's important, Luna."
She nodded and stepped out and pointed. "Him."
He brought his own weapon up and stepped out. "Sam! Second from the left!"
Their target now identified, Teal'c and Jack turned and moved to cover him as Sam shouted commands at him. "Weapons down! Now!"
The man, Daniel didn't recognize him and couldn't read his name tag, looked amazed that he might be their target. "What! Some stranger comes in, breaks every protocol and says I'm a snake head and you believe her?"
"Put your weapons down, Harter." Jack said, "We'll get you checked out and clear this up, but you put … your … weapons … down!"
"Alright! Alright!" he replied and crouched down to put his weapons on the floor … and opened fire on the man to his right, even as he swept his other hand across the room.
A wall of force flashed outwards, and he saw Sam go flying backwards to crash to the ground on the other side of the gate ramp and not come back up.
Teal'c managed to get a blast off with his staff weapon, but Harter dodged the bolt as the big former Jaffa was knocked to the floor.
Where the hell did he get a Karra'Kesh? He thought as Jack, on the edge of the force wall, braced himself against it and opened fire on Harter as the man ducked down and threw up a shield with the hand device and fired on the other three airmen to his left.
The other soldiers were maneuvering around the room when suddenly a man appeared on the gate deck and leapt off … and with a roar transformed into the biggest damn bear he'd ever seen in his life!
Harter saw it too and was just as shocked as he was if the look on his face was any indication but even if he was shocked, he still managed to get his hand up and blast the animal back up into the air a good thirty feet to come crashing back down where he had leapt from.
"Neville!"
Another invisible person? How many were there? A woman this time from the sound of her voice, and then a bolt of light flashed down from the deck to explode against the shield Harter had thrown up, even as the man Luna had called Harry suddenly came into view as what looked like a cloak slid off him. His arm outstretched with what had to be a wand in his hand, the light bolts began to come like a machine gun, explosion after explosion echoing through the chamber, pounding away at the shield Harter had thrown up.
More bolts from the deck platform flashed down, but not at the Goa'uld. They impacted the equipment and gun mount Harter was using as cover … and turned them to glass!
Daniel just accepted the impossibility of what he was seeing even as Luna was screaming at Jack. "Destroy that!"
Jack didn't even hesitate, Teal'c joining in as they blasted away at the items, even as Harry threw up a shield of his own as Harter dodged sideways enough to gain a second to go on the offense.
That was when he noticed Luna was no longer behind him.
((((((OOOOO))))))
She knew they had to get rid of the man's hiding place, reduce his cover so they could get to him. He had to be stopped, too many people had already been hurt or killed, but if the snake in his head was somehow responsible for his actions, somehow making him do it, he didn't deserve to die or even be hurt. Samantha Carter's reaction to hearing someone had a snake in their head and not in their belly told her the snakes were an enemy, but if they used a friend then she had to do something.
And snakes? Yeah, she knew how to do something about them.
She pulled her wand free of her bun and stepped around Daniel Jackson.
((((((OOOOO))))))
He saw her then, out in the open where Harter could see her, chanting something, her wand moving in intricate patterns. To Harter she was just a target, something to distract the others from shooting at him. A quick wave and he went from shield to explosive much like what Harry was doing. Harry blocked it though, throwing a shield up in front of Luna that blocked it even as the blast rocked him back.
That impressed him more than what he had been doing. He knew from experience how much force the device could generate. It broke his shield, but he'd been able to take it. He immediately raised another.
Teal'c was suddenly there, one staff blast after another taking the pressure off of him, but he couldn't fight if he was shielding the girl. He had to get her out of there.
Power cables laying on the floor suddenly came alive, rising up like cobras, striking at Harter's shield, trying to hook it, pull it away, reach behind it and grab him.
Taking the distraction, he stepped forward and reached to grab her, even as she took a step as well. He reached out to grab her … and another's hand grabbed his wrist. He looked up and met Harry's eyes.
"Don't!" he said in the relative quiet of the moment. "She knows what she's doing." He looked at her, then back at Daniel. "I hope." He let go of Daniel's wrist and turned back towards Harter, who had backed into the corner by the Gate and the equipment there. Unlike the rest of them, he didn't need to worry about ricocheting bullets.
With nothing to offer in trying to subdue Harter, he listened to Luna as she continued her chanting, her wand moving in a hypnotic motion. Something suddenly struck him. "Is she… is she speaking Sumerian?"
"You're asking me?" replied Harry and Jack at the same time. The two men had stationed themselves on either side of the little blonde and looked over her at each other in surprise at their simultaneous response. "Have you met Luna Lovegood?" Harry queried. "For all I know, she could be speaking Martian, and I wouldn't be surprised if she was."
He was suddenly cut off as a trio of blasts smashed against his shield, obviously trying to get to Luna. "What are you doing?" Harter suddenly bellowed, eyes flashing as the unknown Goa'uld made its presence known. "I command you to stop!" The man/Goa'uld staggered to his feet as he ranted. "You cannot command me! I forbid it!" he fired off another blast, but his arm jerked upwards at the last moment and the blast hit the ceiling high overhead, showering them with a spattering of debris.
Daniel could sense something had changed. "Jack!" he yelled. "She's got him somehow! Back off!"
Jack responded immediately, trusting his teammate. "Check fire! Check fire!" His order was obeyed as the other man staggered out of his corner, legs stiff and obviously unwilling. He was bleeding from several wounds and cuts, the arm with the hand device pointing towards the ceiling, the firearm abandoned back in the corner.
"You will release me!" he roared. "I commm… I comm…"
His eyes suddenly dimmed back to normal, arm dropping down to his side.
"Incarcerous!" The invisible lady struck again as ropes suddenly appeared out of nowhere to wrap around and bind Harter tightly.
"You seem to know what's going on more than I do." Jack stated suddenly, speaking to the black-haired young man. "What do we do now?" While his speech was conversational, he kept his weapon trained on the possessed man.
"I don't know what she's doing," Harry replied, no longer shielding the girl, but wand at the ready, "But she's not finished."
Jack nodded. "Right. She's not finished so we let her finish. It's worked so far."
They saw what she was doing only moments later as a little reptilian like head on a long slender body appeared over Harter's shoulder. Swaying and writhing, it was obviously trying to resist Luna's control.
"She has forced one to give up its host!" Teal'c's voice had an incredulous tone of disbelief to it. Understandable, Daniel ruminated, considering the only known way they had to remove a Goa'uld so far was a dangerous surgery that killed more hosts than not.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Luna suddenly intoned as Harter suddenly collapsed, though Harry did something with his wand that seemed to stop his fall inches from crashing to the floor… which left the snake writhing about in midair. Everyone stared or gaped at the spectacle. "Hermione! Skeeter trap!"
Daniel noticed how Luna's voice had become commanding, so unlike what she had displayed before, even as a large glass container appeared underneath the flailing worm. Luna lowered her arm and the snake floated down into the jar, where a lid appeared on top, trapping the little alien.
Jack walked over to where the jar sat on the floor and gave it a gentle tap with the toe of his boot. The creature inside coiled and struck at the container to show its displeasure. "Huh." Was all he said.
Luna turned to the black-haired young man. "Hello, Harry Potter!" she exclaimed with a wide smile.
With a snorted laugh and grin, he reached out and pulled her into an embrace. "Luna, what have you been up to this time?"
"I've been meeting new people and making friends and seeing new things and having pudding and Harry they have such wonderful tasting pudding and…"
((((((OOOOO))))))
They were once again in the gate room, their four guests preparing to go home.
The investigation of how Harter had picked up his hitchhiker and managed to avoid seeing Janet for the mandatory physical was going to take some time as he was unconscious, and Janet didn't know how long it would take for him to wake up. The possibility of brain damage was very real as well and the doctor wanted to take things slow.
Hermione had made the woman almost whine in envy as she magically healed all of the wounded. Broken ribs, punctured lung, cracked pelvis and a concussion had been Samantha's tally, and with a few waves of her wand the British witch had diagnosed and healed the bones in seconds. A potion from a bag on her hip had fixed the concussion leaving a confused Sam pondering just what had happened.
Various bullet holes and broken bones had been healed just as quickly, including the man/bear Neville. Harry had explained that while wizards were tough, a thirty-foot drop, which would likely kill a normal human, was nothing to be ignored.
The high of everyone not killed outright being healed almost immediately had taken a sobering drop as Hermione demonstrated why nothing that had happened today could be spoken about outside of the base. The idea someone could walk up to you and erase entire sections of your memory, including the one of them walking up to you, was rather frightening. According to Harry the magical Americans were rather stricter about protecting the Statute of Secrecy than their British counterparts. General Hammond had immediately declared everything that had happened as Somewhere Above Top Secret and gave dire warnings as to the consequences of defying that edict.
When the subject of returning home, or rather the method, came up, Luna had calmly stated they'd be using the gate of course. Sam had politely told her you couldn't go out an incoming wormhole without being destroyed, to which Luna had replied "Sure you can!" She had then walked up the ramp and into the wormhole before anyone could stop her, only to reappear a few seconds later, proving her point. Samantha had asked to go with her to see what devices she had used to connect to it in the first place and Luna had cheerfully agreed.
They had returned half an hour later with Sam mumbling to herself that there "was no way a few dabs of paint on a wall could interface with a device thousands of years more advanced than anything else on the planet". There had to be something hidden, something she wasn't seeing.
In that half hour, Luna's three friends told stories about her, explaining that while she was the kindest, gentlest, most loyal person you would ever meet, she could also be the most dangerous as well. Nobody knew for certain what she knew, or how she knew it, but her knowledge of the magical and arcane sometimes baffled even her closest friends.
As for Nargles, Wrackspurts, and Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, Harry commented they had learned to just go along with her. She could be right after all. People around the world were discovering new species every day. Why couldn't her animals exist?
As the four of them prepared to return home, Jack stepped up to the young woman who had made their day so exciting. "Luna, I have something for you." He said, holding out a white plastic badge.
Her smile threatened to split her face it was so wide as he clipped it to her sweater. "Thank you, Jack O'Neill!" she cried delightedly as she grabbed him in a tight hug.
He hugged her back as he said, "You send me an address so I can write to you, and we'll keep in touch and set up a date to go camping and go looking for some jackelope up in the mountains. How does that sound?"
Daniel saw Sam roll her eyes at his statement but just smiled. He didn't think Sam and magic were going to get along well at all.
As they watched the four walk up the ramp and into the wormhole she said "Really, sir. Jackelope?"
"Yep!" he replied happily. "Maybe we'll get lucky and find a thunderbird nest. Or some dragons or wyvern. I'd think they'd all like high mountain ranges."
"Colonel!" she sounded exasperated at him as they watched the wormhole collapse back into nothingness. "Those are all myths. They're not real!"
"Haven't you ever seen a stuffed jackelope?"
"They're all fakes!"
"Are you sure?" was the reply. "I mean, have you ever examined one to check if it's real or not?"
With a wry grin Daniel fell in beside Teal'c as they followed the arguing couple out of the gate room.
A/N: Just tested positive for Covid yesterday so I'm stuck at home in quarantine for a while. Nothing worse than a hacking cough so far and I'm saying that's all it's going to be with the good Lord's blessing, but it gives me some extra time and I thought I'd finish this up. With my projects on hold I can get back to House and a couple of other stories I've been working on. I really love writing Jack with Luna because the two of them have such complementary personalities. He's like a much older big brother. Hope you enjoyed the story. TA! ER