I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire
Summary: While on an expedition to recover ancient Egyptian artifacts from a sunken ship, Dahlia Potter is assaulted by Isis, a Goa'uld symbiote that had been in stasis for millennia. Dahlia is able to avoid being taken over as a host, but she isn't the same after acquiring all of Isis' memories in the process. What she decides to do with that knowledge will change the fate of the galaxy.
Crossover: Harry Potter/Stargate
Pairing: Dahlia Potter/Hermione Granger
A/N: Another Stargate crossover! This would be a darker story than the other because absorbing thousands of years of memories of committing innumerable atrocities will necessarily have a big impact on Dahlia's personality — and not for the better. Dahlia still has her "saving people thing," but she's a lot more ruthless about it, even perhaps to the point of losing sight of the fact that there are people to save in the first place. With any luck, Hermione will be able to keep her from falling too far, but Hermione has her own darker impulses, as well as reasons to not be gentle with obstinate, bigoted people.
Thanks to Mainsail for beta reading this and to Bonnie for not only improving on the original, but also for her help in developing the plot so far.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, JK Rowling does. I don't own Stargate, MGM does.
Chapter 01 - Mind Games
February, 2003. Somewhere in the Atlantic.
"You look like shit, you know."
"Gee, thanks — just what a girl loves to hear. I can totally see how Fleur fell for your charms."
Bill laughed heartily at that, but Dahlia was too busy fighting the urge to throw up all over him to even smile back. The best she could manage was a grimace, which amused him even more.
"But seriously," he continued, "you do look pretty bad. Worse than usual, even."
"That might have something to do with the fact that we're experiencing the worst storm of the trip," she pointed out. She hadn't known she got seasick so easily, not before joining Bill on this Gringotts-funded expedition to recover ancient Egyptian treasures from the wreck of the Stewart Expedition ship. She sure knew it now, though.
"At least it's also the last day we'll be on this site," Bill said.
Dahlia simply nodded, not wanting to risk opening her mouth as the ship heaved up and down again.
He looked at her pityingly. "Look, why don't you turn in early?" he offered. "This is the last batch of artifacts. I can handle cataloging them alone." At her pathetically hopeful expression, he smiled and made shooing motions at her. "Go on! I'll be fine."
With a grateful look, she turned and stumbled back to her cabin, weaving back and forth as the ship rolled. She was sure that she felt worse by the time she'd made it to her bunk, but she tried not to think about it too hard. She simply lay down, clutching a plastic bag while making repeated vows to inform her superiors at Gringotts to never send her on an ocean expedition again. She'd stick to nice, safe, solid, land-based assignments from now on, thank you very much.
It was late when Dahlia awoke, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to fall asleep again. It wasn't just the rolling of the sea that was bothering her, though truth be told that seemed to have gotten slightly better. No, there was something else going on. Something was scratching at the back of her mind, signalling a threat of some sort.
She hadn't vanquished Voldemort and then become one of the youngest curse-breakers Gringotts ever sent out into the field by ignoring such feelings. She sat up, took several deep breaths to settle herself, then pulled herself to her feet. It took a bit for her to stumble out of her cabin and start moving through the ship. She couldn't go three feet without bumping hard into a wall, and she honestly didn't know her way around very well despite having lived on the ship for three weeks. She had told anyone who would listen — and quite a few who didn't want to — that ships had obviously been designed to confuse and demoralize landlubbers like herself.
Not that she had a particular destination in mind anyway. She had no idea what was causing her spidey-senses to tingle, much less where the threat might have been, so instead she simply wandered around in the hope that she'd stumble across the problem. It had worked on the Horcrux Hunt, after all.
Eventually she found herself in the hold where the artifacts they'd recovered from the Stewart ship were packed and stored... and that was when the scratching in the back of her mind turned into full-blown alarm bells. That wasn't the most disturbing thing, however. The most disturbing thing was the fact that the bells were accompanied by a soft, sibilant whispering that reminded her of how Voldemort had used parseltongue to whisper in her mind. If it weren't for the fact that she didn't feel the slightest twinge in her scar, she'd have been worried that he was back.
The whispering seemed to increase in intensity the deeper she moved in among the artifacts, until she found herself in front of a crate of items that had been recovered and packed earlier that day. A swish of her wand removed the lid, revealing two canopic jars, one topped with the head of Osiris and the other with that of Isis. The Osiris jar was cracked, but the Isis jar was intact.
And it seemed to be calling to her.
She cast several detection spells and found nothing. Not just no curses, wards, poisons, or other dangers — she found nothing at all, which shouldn't have been possible. She should have been able to get some sort of result, and the absence of anything was in itself worrying.
She reached out with one hand and found that the jar was surprisingly warm to the touch. As she stroked the Isis head, she heard a click and the lid abruptly spun off. The whispers became shouts that she could finally understand.
"Come. Submit. Worship."
Dahlia gasped when she saw what looked like a tiny snake. Faster than she could think, it leapt out at her, and suddenly she felt something warm and squishy in her mouth. She collapsed to her knees, wracked by more pain than she'd ever experienced outside of a torture curse from Voldemort.
"Submit. Isis. Worship. Goddess. Submit. Host. Mine!"
The pain was in her throat, then in her skull as the voice was shouting, demanding that she completely submit her entire will and being. There was something moving and twisting inside her brain, inside her mind, threatening to torture and kill her if she didn't turn over her body to her new goddess.
"No!" she growled through gritted teeth. "Voldemort couldn't control me. He was inside my mind and my very soul for sixteen years, and I never submitted to him. You think you can do better? Bring it on, bitch!"
The pain increased a thousandfold as she screamed and screamed until her throat was raw. Then everything went black.
"Miss Potter?"
Dahlia groaned at the pounding in her head.
"Miss Potter, are you awake? If you can sit up, I can give you something for the pain."
That managed to get Dahlia's attention, and she tried to blink her eyes open. A woman with a kind face and wearing green Healer robes was standing next to her, and the spartan decor told her that she was in some sort of hospital.
"Wha—?" she croaked as the healer helped her sit up.
"Take this," the woman said in accented English. "It will help, I promise."
Dahlia quickly downed the nasty potion and was pleased to find that it did indeed relieve some of the pain — not all of it, and not as much as she might have hoped, but she did feel better.
"To answer your questions, you're in a Gringotts facility in Marseilles, France. I'm Healer Peruse. You've been with us in a coma for over a week. Something happened to you on a ship, but no one knew what. You were found unconscious, and when they couldn't revive you, they sent you here via emergency portkey. The ship itself is expected to arrive back in Britain in a couple of days." The Healer cast several diagnostic charms before saying, "Now you stay here while I go get someone."
Dahlia pressed her hands against her head as hazy memories began to shift into focus.
Seasickness. Whispering. A battle.
Her opponent had called itself Isis. It or she had claimed to be a goddess, but Dahlia knew better. Isis had been an alien snake, a member of a species known as the Goa'uld. They were stinking parasites, not gods, and this one had tried to take her over — to control her. It had wanted to use her as a host in order to regain control of... of... of an empire? An empire spanning multiple planets?
She shuddered as more impressions came, this time a flood of memories from thousands of years of history, war, atrocities, being worshipped, technology, and more. If she hadn't been forced by Gringotts to finally develop good Occlumency skills, she was sure she'd have gone insane trying to deal with the massive amounts of information that had seeped into her brain while she was unconscious. Whatever Isis knew, she now knew, including Isis' plans to escape this backwater planet and reestablish control over her empire, then return as a conqueror, subjugating and enslaving the primitive humans in order to ruthlessly exploit the planet's resources.
Plans that Dahlia decided in a split second to adapt to her own ends.
"Curse-Breaker Potter, you look like shit!"
Dahlia looked up to see her boss, Gutshank, standing inside the doorway.
"Thanks. I seem to get that a lot."
Gutshank grunted in amusement as he approached her bed. "Maybe you should think about why and do something about it."
"Yes," Dahlia said, nodding slowly. "I might do that."
"The healer says they still don't know what put you into a coma, much less why you woke. Nevertheless, she can't find anything wrong with you and suggests that you'll be fit to return to work in a few days."
"No," Dahlia said, "I don't think so."
"What? If this is about your reaction to being at sea, Curse-Breaker Weasley has already discussed it with me. At length! I can assure you that you won't be going on any sea expeditions again."
"No, it's not that, sir. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to submit my resignation."
Gutshank eyed her critically for several long moments. "I don't suppose you'll tell me why?" he asked at last.
"No. Sorry, but it's personal."
He sighed. "Very well. I can't say that I like it, but we can't force you to stay. If you ever change your mind, let me know. Normally we don't let employees return after they've resigned, but in your case I might make an exception."
Dahlia nodded, knowing that this was high praise from a goblin. She'd keep in touch, since she'd likely come across ancient artifacts that she could sell to them, but she knew that she wouldn't be back for a job. She had much bigger things to do. She had a planet to save. Or maybe to conquer? Perhaps it was both. She found it difficult to separate the two. After that, she had an empire to... create? Destroy? She wasn't clear on that, either, but she knew it was important. There were millions of humans out there who needed... liberation? leadership? Something. She'd give it to them, at any rate. Oh, yes, and it would be for their own good, too. They'd love her for it.
She shook her head, dismissing the confusion in favor of focusing on the here and now. She slowly rose from the bed, feeling a bit unsteady after having lain in a coma for so long, and began focusing on the next steps. First, she needed her clothes. Then she needed to get out of there. And after that, she needed to get to Egypt.
There was a Tel'tak hidden there, and she knew exactly where to find it.
Eighteen months later, somewhere over continental Europe.
Dahlia reread the letter for what must have been the hundredth time and was no more certain about what to do than she had been after her first read-through. It had been six years since she'd last seen Hermione Granger. Six years since their big fight when Dahlia had tried to convince her best friend that despite defeating Voldemort, too little had changed in wizarding Britain and everything was bound to go downhill again. Six years since Hermione had accused her of defeatism, telling her that if she was so convinced that nothing could change, then she should leave and stop wasting her time with people who cared.
Which was exactly what Dahlia had done the next day. The fact that she'd intended that weekend to finally reveal her true feelings to Hermione hadn't mattered — she'd been rejected, definitively and absolutely, and so resolved never to darken Hermione's doorstep ever again.
Now, six years later, she'd received a letter from her, asking for a meeting. Dahlia wanted to go, because she still wasn't over the bushy-haired witch and was desperate to see her. And she didn't want to go, for the exact same reasons. She'd never get over Hermione if she didn't learn to let go, yet how would she manage that if she went running back whenever Hermione called? Not even her... changes had managed to loosen the hold that witch had on her heart, even when every other attachment and emotion had been seriously destabilized.
Then again, maybe this is exactly what I need? she mused. Maybe the only way to get closure is to see her one more time?
Finally arriving at a decision, she penned a quick note, then went to the cockpit to change course and head back to Britain. Searching Antarctica for leftover alien technology would have to wait.
Leaky Cauldron.
Dahlia had been nervously waiting for over half an hour when Hermione arrived, right on time. Dahlia had told herself that she'd gotten there so early because she wanted to get a good table, or maybe because she wanted time to ensure that the place was safe. It certainly wasn't due to anxiety over seeing Hermione for the first time in so long.
That was what she kept telling herself, at any rate.
She stood as Hermione approached the table and froze when she realized she didn't know what to do — not that Hermione looked any more confident. After a moment they both laughed nervously and leaned in to give the barest of hugs — the sort of hug you give someone when it's expected, not out of any real affection. Dahlia avoided meeting Hermione's eyes, not wanting to let on how much that had hurt.
"So," Dahlia said once they'd ordered dinner. "I was surprised to get a letter from you."
"I know — I was surprised when I wrote it. I saw you exiting Gringotts here the other day, and I froze. It had been so long, but I recognized you instantly. It felt strange to see you, yet to not be able to talk to you. It bothered me, and finally I decided that I had to write. To see you, no matter what."
Dahlia smiled slightly. "I might have done the same."
"So what were you doing here? The last I'd heard, you'd left Britain entirely."
"I was selling some things I'd acquired. My old boss, Gutshank, was transferred here and whenever I see something shiny that I think Gringotts would like, I sell it through him. Because I use him exclusively, he gives me a better price and keeps me up-to-date on rumors and other bits of information that don't make it into the mainstream press."
"So, you don't work for them as a curse-breaker anymore?"
"Not for over a year now. I'm... independent. Doing field research and such. What're you doing these days?"
Hermione sighed and took a sip of her wine. "Well, for the past day or so I've been wishing that I'd joined you on your travels." Dahlia quirked an eyebrow, but didn't say anything as Hermione fell silent for a bit. "Things haven't been all that great for me," she finally went on. "I had so many hopes and dreams when we graduated Hogwarts, but so far none of them have gone anywhere. What's worse, I'm not sure they will."
"Are you sure that you aren't just being impatient?" Dahlia asked.
"Not hardly," Hermione huffed. "It's not like I expected to be Minister of Magic by now, after all. But I did expect that things would be going better. That I'd be on a career path where I'd see steady improvements, both for me personally and society generally." She took another, larger sip of wine.
"So what's the problem?"
"None of the causes that I've championed, like freedom and rights for house elves, have seen any progress. My so-called 'career' in the Ministry is going absolutely nowhere. I'm stuck in a low-level position in administration where I'm not able to do anything meaningful. I'm barely able to make ends meet these days, too. It's gotten so bad that I've had to borrow from my parents several times simply to keep my tiny, one-room apartment in Hogsmeade."
"Times are tough all over—"
"That's not the problem," Hermione interrupted as she poured herself another glass of wine. "Lots of people in wizarding Britain are doing well — they have influence, power, money, you name it. And they all have one thing in common. Can you guess what it is?"
"They're all from old pureblood families?" Dahlia hazarded. She wasn't surprised in the least — it was what she'd told Hermione would happen.
"Right in one! Even the Malfoys are respected and influential again, if you can believe it. No one seems to care that they bankrolled two disastrous civil wars in the past thirty years! They're purebloods and they're from an old family, so they're automatically important. If you're muggleborn, then you don't matter — including me, even after all I've done for this society. After all I've sacrificed! I suspect the only reason they keep me around at all is because I'm a war hero. I'm their token muggleborn, the witch they point to when they want to say that they aren't bigoted gits."
Hermione quickly downed her wine and poured another. Dahlia suspected that she hadn't noticed that she was the only one drinking and would soon finish the bottle on her own. Dahlia liked wine and used to drink it, but she'd found that her recently-acquired memories and personality changes didn't mix well with alcohol. It was tough enough keeping an even keel and maintaining her facade of civility without the effects of strong drink thrown in.
"The pureblood traditionalists have regained nearly all of their lost ground," Hermione continued bitterly. "They head all the departments in the Ministry. They hold all the positions on the Hogwarts Board of Governors. They even hold most of the staff positions in Hogwarts now, too." Hermione's voice had been getting steadily louder as her rant continued, and when Dahlia surreptitiously looked around, she could tell that a few of the other patrons were paying attention. They'd started staring as soon as Dahlia herself had come in, but their expressions had been shifting from curiosity to hostility over the course of Hermione's diatribe.
This was why she avoided bringing a staff weapon with her in public, even disillusioned. Too many temptations to start using it.
"So, I've been studying in my spare time for a Rune Mastery," Hermione concluded after upending the last of the wine into her glass. "Once I get that, maybe some more career paths will open up for me. Anything's gotta be better than what I've been doing. I've completed most of the research, too. Mostly what's left is to organize it, verify a few things, write it up, and submit it. Once it's accepted, I can start looking for work elsewhere. Maybe even outside of Britain, though I hear most countries are just as bad as this one — or worse, if you can believe it."
Dahlia eyed Hermione closely, thinking about how desperate the other witch sounded. She hadn't noticed it before, but in retrospect the letter had had a tone of desperation, too. Then she looked around once more at the expressions on some of the faces around them.
"It's getting late," Dahlia said as she stood. "What say we go back to my place and keep talking there?"
Hermione blinked at her. "You still have a place in Britain?" she asked, draining her glass and looking a little forlornly at the empty bottle.
"I never sold Sirius' family home."
"What? Where is... oh!" Comprehension dawned on her face as she realized she'd forgotten something without ever having realized it.
"Let's go," Dahlia said, helping an unsteady Hermione to her feet. Keeping her hand on the other witch's arm, she led them out the muggle side of the pub and into a nearby alley. She leaned in close to whisper, "Dahlia Potter lives in Number 12, Grimmauld Place."
As Hermione thought about the secret, Dahlia stepped back and began casting spells on her. "I have some nasty wards around my place," she explained. "I learned a lot about wards as a curse-breaker, both how to take them down and how to create them." Once she was done, she grabbed Hermione's arm again and apparated them both to her front step, trying hard not to think about how much she enjoyed the physical contact.
"I never noticed that I'd forgotten where this place was," Hermione noted as Dahlia let them inside. Even the short walk seemed to have cleared her head a bit. "I guess I assumed you'd sold it after you left."
"I'm sure everyone thought something like that," Dahlia responded as she took Hermione's jacket and led her into the living room. "If you're not consciously aware of the Fidelius Charm being cast, your mind makes up rationalizations for why information is missing. It protects you from potential backlash if you try too hard to figure out what's been magically concealed."
Hermione nodded absently as she looked around the room. "You've fixed this place up," she said as she walked over to a wall with photos. "It's a lot friendlier than when the Order was here." Dahlia left the room to fix some tea, and when she returned, she found Hermione focused intently on the largest photo of the collection. It was right in the center of the wall and showed Dahlia and Hermione, their arms wrapped around each other while standing in front of Hogwarts castle.
"I remember when this was taken," Hermione said softly. "It was a week before graduation, and about a month before..."
An awkward silence descended when she didn't finish that thought, and after a moment, Dahlia said, "Yeah, I, um, put that up shortly after coming here after graduation. So, uh, tea?"
"How come I don't see any photos from after that time?" Hermione asked once they were sitting. "Nothing from your work, nothing from abroad."
Dahlia shrugged. "I've never been close enough to anyone since... well, since we went our separate ways. I haven't seen the point." Hermione's expression turned sad, but before she could say anything Dahlia tried to change the subject. "So, what's your Rune Mastery research about?"
Hermione's eyes lit up just as she'd expected — just as they always had when Hermione was asked to talk about some interesting bit of academic research. "Enchanting, but not just any old enchanting. I'm researching how to integrate magic with muggle technology."
"Do you think that's possible?" Dahlia asked, suspecting that it was. She could use magic around Goa'uld technology without any issues, though she didn't know why. She thought it had to do with the use of crystals instead of transistors and wires, but she didn't understand how the technology worked well enough to be sure. That was one of the weaknesses of the Goa'uld: as scavengers, they didn't understand their own technology nearly as well as they would have if they'd developed it themselves.
Unfortunately, that lack of deep understanding now extended to her as well, and she'd never learned enough advanced science on her own to easily make up for it.
"Absolutely," Hermione said, sounding excited. "I've already had some successes in my tests, too. You know that I've always wanted to make a difference, to make the world a better place. I originally thought that working in the Ministry would let me do that, but now I'm hoping that my research will. If I'm right, it will be possible to not merely shield electronics from magic, but use magic to enhance muggle technology. Using runes, I think we might be able to make things lighter, stronger, more powerful, you name it!"
"That's great!" Dahlia responded, and she genuinely meant it. "If you succeed, you'll have all the money and influence you could want. You might be able to pursue some of your other ambitions."
"Yeah, maybe," Hermione replied, suddenly looking depressed.
"What's wrong?"
"That all assumes that I'll ever even be allowed to publish my research, let alone use it. Do you remember Padma? She's working in the Department of Mysteries these days. She knows about my research and supports it, but she's cautioned me that traditionalists are pushing for more and more restrictions on how magic can be used, especially in conjunction with muggle items. She thinks it's possible that my research will end up being proscribed as soon as it's completed, which would put me on a special watch list for the rest of my life. It could lead to me losing my current job without having anything to move on to."
Dahlia felt her heart constrict as she watched Hermione curl in on herself. Almost immediately, though, her sadness was crushed and replaced by a towering rage Those worms! How dare they threaten to destroy Hermione's spirit and dreams while keeping wizarding Britain from progressing! She closed her eyes and was just barely able to suppress the urge to raze the entire Ministry, and it was a while before she could achieve a measure of calm again.
When she opened her eyes, she found Hermione looking at her with a curious expression on her face. Smiling in an attempt to be reassuring, she asked. "What if I could give you that?"
"What do you mean?"
"What if I could give you your chance to change the world?" Dahlia asked. "To make it better. To save it, even from itself."
Hermione sighed and set her cup down. "What have you gotten yourself into now?"
"Something dangerous and crazy," she replied, giving Hermione a lopsided grin.
"So, the usual, in other words."
"Not exactly," Dahlia insisted. "I'm not looking for you to save my butt this time. I'm looking more for... a partner."
"I suppose you're going to push ahead with this anyway, whatever it is, with or without me?" When Dahlia nodded, Hermione continued, "Fine — tell me what it is."
"No, first I'm going to need your word that you won't say anything to anyone. This is too big."
Hermione frowned at her for a moment, then she sighed. "Alright, I promise I won't say anything to anyone — not without your permission."
"Thanks. Let's go," Dahlia said, holding out her hand to help Hermione stand.
"Where are we going?"
Dahlia hooked an arm through one of Hermione's and pulled her close as they stepped into a metal circle that had been embedded in the floor, reveling in the contact again. "Do you trust me?"
"To get us into trouble, yes. But won't your wards prevent us from apparating in here?"
"This isn't apparition. This is... different," Dahlia said, slapping the control crystal on the wrist device that had been hidden by her sleeve. There was a deep thrumming sound as metal rings rose up from the floor, surrounding them and bathing them in light. Hermione had just enough time to start to scream before they were dematerialized and transported to the cloaked Tel'tak that had been parked in high earth orbit.
Tel'tak Phoenix, 36,000 Kilometers Above London.
Hermione's scream cut off the instant after they rematerialized, only to be replaced by her asking, "Who? Where? How?" as her head whipped this way and that. "What the bloody hell did you do?"
"This way," Dahlia indicated, leading the other witch to the cockpit.
Hermione froze as she looked out through the cockpit window, seeing the Earth for the first time from space. "This... this can't be..."
"Oh, it is."
"But... how?"
"Sit," Dahlia said, pushing a shell-shocked Hermione into the co-pilot's seat. "This is going to be a long story." And it was. Dahlia spent the next half hour explaining what had happened to her at the end of her last expedition with Gringotts, how she'd had to fight against an alien parasite, how she'd thereby gained thousands of years of knowledge, and how she was now trying to collect as much alien technology as she could in anticipation of the aliens coming back again.
Hermione was silent for a long time after Dahlia was done. She could tell that her old friend was thinking hard — very hard. Her entire understanding of the universe and the world she lived on had been turned upside down, and it would take her a little bit to adjust.
Finally, she said, "OK, I believe you. If that story were coming from anyone else, I might not, but I believe you. Only you could get involved in something like this — and entirely by accident, too."
Dahlia smiled at that.
"So now what?" Hermione went on. "You said that you can make it possible for me to change the world and make it a better place, but somehow I don't think you meant anything obvious like reverse-engineering alien technology to sell on the market. Or at least, not just that."
She turned to face Dahlia and looked her square in the eye. "What else is there? What have you got up your sleeve?"
Dahlia turned away to gaze out the cockpit windows. "Look down there. Look at how fragile our planet is. When you're on the surface, it seems so secure and stable, but up here you see the truth." She looked up from the planet and out into space. "Up here, you see how vulnerable we are. Worse yet, a lot of it is our own fault."
"What do you mean?"
Dahlia dismissed the world beneath them with a sweep of her hand. "Witches and wizards are powerful, but they can be more narrow-minded and xenophobic than even the worst of the muggles. Almost every community is divided over blood and heritage, sometimes violently so. Wizarding communities have set themselves above other magical beings rather than make common cause with them. And the muggles are scarcely any better — they constantly go to war over land, water, religion, or ancient disputes that no one in their right mind should care about anymore. This makes us vulnerable."
She stabbed a finger towards the vast expanse of outer space. "There are System Lords out there who command armies numbering in the millions and who can draw on the resources of dozens of planets — planets filled with human slaves, by the way. If they knew about us, they'd sweep in like locusts, enslaving the entire population and strip-mining the planet until it was little more than a barren wasteland. They've been doing it for thousands of years now and have gotten very, very good at it."
Dahlia paused for a moment and tried to regulate her breathing. She was passionate about this, but she didn't want to scare Hermione off by being too over-the-top. This would not be a good time to lose control. "It's only a matter of time, too," she continued once she was a little calmer. "It's not a question of if they will find us, but when. It might be tomorrow. It might be next year. But it will happen. If we want to survive as a free and independent species, never mind rescue everyone who has already been enslaved, we have to be prepared."
"So what do you intend to do?" Hermione asked, and Dahlia could hear in her voice that she'd managed to drive her point home.
"I want to save them. Us."
"Obviously, but how?"
Dahlia sighed and ran her hand through her hair. This was the critical point. This was where everything would come together or fall apart. Directing her gaze toward the serene blue planet, all too aware of how helpless it was, she said quietly, "I intend to take over."
As the moment dragged on without a response, Dahlia turned to look at her best friend, only to find her staring back as if she were insane. And perhaps she was. After all, she did have thousands of years of memories from a megalomaniacal, insane parasite. That changes a person. It had certainly changed her.
But that didn't mean that she was wrong, or that her solution wasn't the best one.
"Explain," Hermione finally demanded with a look of grim determination. She didn't rant, she didn't complain, and she certainly didn't storm off. Instead, she insisted on learning more, giving her one-time best friend the benefit of the doubt, just like she used to.
"Not literally and directly," Dahlia said quickly. "I have no interest in being personally in charge of any government. I have bigger concerns, as you well know." Hermione nodded slowly and looked slightly mollified. "But things have to change. Dramatically. Aside from all the ways in which wizarding Britain is broken, there's no way we'd stand a chance against a single System Lord backed by multiple planets worth of resources when all of magical society is as divided as it currently is."
"So you want to unify magical Britain, just not under your personal rule?"
"More or less," Dahlia replied, avoiding the unasked question of whether she wanted to go beyond Britain. She did, but she didn't want to argue over that right now. "I mean, I'm not looking to force goblins, centaurs, merpeople, witches, and wizards to all be under the same government, but they can't be at each other's throats, either. I don't care who's Minister or Chief Warlock, just so long as I can work with them when war comes. They need to be the sort who are willing to work for the long-term betterment of all magicals, not just purebloods, wealthy 'donors,' or the like."
"And how exactly do you intend to fight these aliens, even with a peaceful, progressive government behind you?"
Dahlia smiled. "That depends on you, Hermione. I have plans, but I'm not sure that I can accomplish them alone."
"Why not? What would you need me for? With all your knowledge, I'm not sure why you'd need anyone else."
"Knowledge, not cleverness," Dahlia said, and Hermione smiled at the reference. "A list of facts does not make one wise. Or even just smart. I know lots of facts, but figuring out how to use those facts has been slow going. I've been at this for a year now, and I've barely scratched the surface of what needs to be done. Besides, your knowledge of and research into runes could make a huge difference. Goa'uld technology hasn't changed in millennia. Millennia! Not because it's so great, but because they're scavengers. They almost never innovate, and when they do, it's only because they absolutely have to. Even if you weren't able to do anything more than lighten and strengthen key pieces of tech with your runes, you'd significantly alter the balance of power."
"Is that what you want from me, then? Runes?"
"What I want is a friend... or rather, I want my friend back," Dahlia said, reaching out and taking Hermione's hand. "I need a friend and a partner. When I started on this, I expected to be alone, but the more I work, the less confident I am that I'll succeed if I remain alone. And after spending a single evening with you again, I'm not sure I even want to do it alone."
Hermione looked away and stared out the cockpit window again, lost in thought. Finally she said, "I'll need to think about it. This... this is too big for me to decide on right away. And I'm going to need details — something more than just a declared intention to take over."
"That's fine, I understand," Dahlia replied. "I'll take you home." Hermione started to stand, but Dahlia held up her hand and smiled. "No, we'll go direct." It only took a moment to bring the engines to full power, and then they were diving down towards the planet.
"Wait, won't they see us?" Hermione asked after a few minutes.
"No, we're cloaked."
"Holy cricket!" she exclaimed, seeing how quickly they were approaching Scotland and then Hogsmeade.
They landed in an empty field a few minutes' walk outside of the magical village, and Dahlia assured her that she'd stick around for a few days to give Hermione a chance to think things over. The other witch promised to tell her one way or the other, then she gave Dahlia a warm, rib-cracking hug before setting off into the night.
Dahlia stood there for several minutes, rubbing absently at her sore sides and remembering a time when she enjoyed such contact on a near-daily basis. She was in a melancholy but hopeful mood when she returned to the Phoenix and took off again.