DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, Stargate: SG-1, Star Trek, or any of the real quantum physics and science in this story, the characters, plots, or stories from those series, but I do own my own characters, plot, and story. However, if in my zeal to squish real science together with sci-fi, if I accidentally stumbled upon something that works, I do want my Nobel prize (there is a cash reward that comes along with the trophy right?) Oh, and if you build one of these things and it works, you damned well owe me a ride.

Harry Potter and the Cochran Effect - Chapter 3

Meanwhile, over at NASA's Mission Control Center there was a teleconference hosted with the Director, certain experts there, remotely the JCS was online, the SecDef, and Lt. General Hammond from the SGC. They were trying to determine if they should try prepping a shuttle for launch. That wasn't something that was a quick or cheap thing to do, nor did they know what exactly their mission would be if they launched. In the meantime until the decision was actually made, they began calling in a viable crew to prep. just in case. Wheels were turning, whether or not they'd be left spinning in the mud, was anyone's guess. This was new territory for everyone. And at that point hundreds of mostly important people were interrupting their normal routine to deal with this, whatever it was, and that was just in the U.S. Other countries with space programs and programs that monitored space launches were also looking things over and checking their intel. Normally if one country's program is doing something at least on the overt side, they'd have a schedule just for safety purposes. But then again, sometimes those things happened, and no one was the wiser. So, they were just monitoring and tracking too, and trying to see what else if anything they could learn.

Back in space, Harry and Hermione were all fed and watered, refreshed and relaxed and ready for the next segment. "All diagnostics came back Green. We're go for Impulse burn to Delta-1." said Hermione. "Good. Calibrating HEO Stellar Navigation sensor lock... Earth, Moon, Sun vectors confirmed. We should begin developing a much better Stellar Cartography now as we begin traversing deeper space." Harry explained.

"And not lose sight of home to within a nanometer even as she moves through space." added Hermione. "Exactly." said Harry. "Extend the EM deflector array and activate." he said. "Roger, EM deflector activated." Hermione replied.

"Good. Confirmed Auto-Pilot for Delta-1, engaging in T-10 seconds, mark." said Harry. The Phoenix began a pitch and roll maneuver to orient the ship toward it's destination, and in 3-2-1, the Impulse engines fired at 50% thrust, increasing to 80% thrust incrementally. In thirty minutes the ship would reach a sub-light speed of 200,000 kilometers per hour and 15 minutes later arrive at its destination. Ion Impulse engines require a slow and steady build up of thrust before reaching optimal acceleration, then the Impulse engines can reduce burn to a fraction of output just to maintain a small forward acceleration for their mass against the minor drag that still exists in the vacuum of space. Thus conserving fuel as well. No need to go as fast as humanly possible when you are traveling to a point only 200,000 kilometers away ;-}

"Sir's, NASA reports that the Target has just maneuvered and is now accelerating away from standard orbit, now passing 100,000 kph and still accelerating." announced Sgt. Siler.

"What?" exclaimed Lt. General Hammond. "Captain Carter, we don't have anything that can go that fast do we?"

"No, sir... all except the Ion thrusters used on small deep space probes like the Deep Space 1, but the Target is about the size of a 747 and has even more mass. That shouldn't be possible, at least with that rate of acceleration." she continued.

"Do we know where it's going?" asked the General.

"No sir, just the current vector. It's already past our highest Earth orbit and heading into deep space."

"Hmm, that tells us something at least." he replied.

"Sir?" she asked.

"What the General is getting at Captain, is that this apparently isn't an imminent threat if it launched simply to head deeper into space. Whoever, whatever it is, they aren't shooting at us or anything." said Colonel O'Neill.

"Thank You Colonel, my throat was getting a little sore from talking anyway." observed Lt. Gen. Hammond.

O'Neill just rubbed his forehead and his eyes and said, "Sorry, sir."

"Alright people, stand down from General Alert, keep an active track on it and notify me of any changes. I'm going to make some calls."

"Yes, sir." they all echoed. And Hammond went off to confer with NASA and the JCS.

Aboard Phoenix they approached their Delta-1 test location and initiated reverse Impulse to slow them to a near stop. "Mione, let's run diagnostics again and re-measure everything to ensure the Impulse drives worked and can take us home." "Roger, running them now." she replied. They didn't get up for another break this time. This coming part was the part that really made them nervous. All of the other technology were things NASA and others had used in one fashion or another for a while now, even if Harry did tweak some of it and integrate it differently. But, this was a whole new ball-game. So, they sat their watching their Impulse diagnostics coming up Green, while they went over and over and over again all the factors in the warp-drive tests.

When they were finally sure they could check over nothing any more than they had already triple-checked, Harry locked the sequence into the Auto-Pilot. "Condition check." said Harry. "The Shield is at full power and holding steady, Warp-Coils report full quantum lock holding steady. All systems Green for Warp-drive." answered Hermione.

"Okay, here goes. Activating Auto-Pilot Warp-Test Sequence 1 for .01 power, SSFIRE crystals are live..." began Harry. Warp-Reactor reports steady negative energy current build-up just like the tests back home. Good so far..., 2%...,5%...okay, we're past the failsafe on the Warp-Coils...the reactor is auto-engaging to optimum output...SSFIRE crystals are at 49% and holding, the Warp Field will fire in T-5 seconds, mark... 5-4-3-2-1, the Phoenix shook with the feeling of an explosion, but nothing actually exploded. It was just how it was perceived by the human nervous system.

"God, that was intense. Who knew?!" exclaimed Harry. "I assume you felt that too?" he asked.

"Yeah, like a major pressure from inside some kind of imaginary core that suddenly got released." she offered.

"Something like that. I thought we were blowing up for a second there." Harry observed.

"Well, we are in one piece, all systems still look Green." Hermione replied.

"Yes, the SSFIRE matrix output burst through the 50% barrier and surged right to the optimum planned 51% initiating the warp-bubble and is holding steady like the equations predicted. According to these readings, we are encapsulated in a static warp bubble, negative energy is pouring off the Phoenix and sensors are dead. Unfortunately, also as predicted. I was hoping we'd get lucky somehow, but it's like I first said, we won't be able to navigate while we're inside the warp-bubble. Not that we could initiate a turn anyway, but once we start folding space in front of us we're blind until we drop out of warp."

"We will need to plot our Delta-2 jump point and calibrate the warp-fold amplitude and wavelength relative to the SSFIRE matrix power output equation prior to engaging the drive and navigate to our destination in discrete waypoints. We will need to drop out of warp at each waypoint, calculate new warp-jump parameters, repeat, and so forth."

"That is what we've been planning for all along isn't it?" she observed, helpfully.

"Yeah," Harry sighed, "but I was hoping we'd experience something better than what the theory predicted during this test. This is going to make navigation a bitch."

"Oh, well. First version and all that. We've prepared for this like you said. Let's wrap up this first test and measure and run diagnostics." Hermione suggested.

"I agree." said Harry.

"Disengaging warp-power in 3-2-1, mark." As Harry said it, so he did and the Phoenix popped back into normal space with a flash of light.

"Uh, Harry?"

"What dear?"

"Take a look at the navigation update." she suggested.

"Oh boy. That really did it. Where exactly are we?"

"Navigation sensors are coming back online and re-calibrating... the good news is we're still in the Solar system, so we have a sweet lock on a sub-light home trajectory still. That's good. But I still need to figure out why we moved at all. I have a feeling I know but I need to see what the figures are." answered Harry.

"Okay, the external view-cam's are coming online now, take a look." Hermione replied.

"Ah ha, is that Mars out there in front of us?" Harry asked.

"Yup, one point two million kilometers away, sending the transactional figures to the navcomp now." she answered.

Back at NASA all hell broke loose and the SGC was informed as well, when they detected that the Target they were tracking which was slowly drifting at 200,000 kilometers distance from Earth, disappeared in a flash of light. "Director, can you figure out where it went?" asked Lt. Gen. Hammond.

"I don't see how. We'd need at least some clue what direction it went, if it didn't just explode or something in the first place."

"Okay, transmit your satcam footage over to us, and I'll get my team to look at it and see if they can make anything more of it."

"Wilco." the Director answered.

Ten minutes later back at the SGC with a crowd centered around a large display in the briefing room. "Captain, do you make anything of that?" asked the General.

"Well sir, I don't think it's an explosion. When we slow it down to look at it frame by frame, we can first see a small flash that precedes a second larger flash just before it disappeared, and there is no residual mass echo." she answered.

"What does that mean?" asked the General.

"It doesn't look like a hyper-drive engaging sir, but my best guess is some other kind of faster than light travel technology."

"Shit!" exclaimed the General.

"Very well, come with me Captain, and you Colonel, we'll explain your findings to NASA and see what they can do with it."

"General, I'm glad you called, we were just about to call you. We think we picked up something by Mars. We don't have much data but the Mars Surveyor probe which is still enroute to Mars detected an anomaly in its sensors. We can't deploy the camera until the probe reaches orbit which isn't planned until next year. But, with the data we have, we want to reposition the Hubble to see if we can get a closer look at what is going on. Maybe it's our target?" said the Director with some excitement in his voice.

Carter was just shaking her head, and the General said, "What is it Captain?"

"Sir, the Hubble can't see objects that close with any clarity."

The Director, overhearing that said, "Yes, that's true. But, if it is a moving object with mass and it crosses our line of sight to Mars, we should be able to detect it as a small reflection and if it's moving, track it to some degree."

Carter just shrugged and said, "Yes sir, it's worth a try."

"Okay then Director," said the General.

"Let's get to it then."

"Yes, sir." replied the Director.

Back on Phoenix, Harry told Hermione. "I know why we moved to this position. I forgot to account for the minor drift as we sat there at Delta-1. We weren't actually motionless. The existing momentum carried with us into the warp-field and caused us to move a small distance while we sat there because the distortions from the momentum caused small amounts of space-time distortion in front of the ship, producing small folds inside the warp-field. Nothing like what we would generate when we amp up the SSFIRE power on purpose, but enough as we sat there contemplating our navels to move us." He paused for a moment and added.

"Our fail-safe protocols might well have saved us, because even though we weren't firing up the warp-fold reaction, the navcomp still required a pro forma Delta-2 target, minimum of two hundred kilometers from any known celestial object." Harry said.

"So in other words, because we were pointed at high Mars orbit as if we were going to try to go there, that's where we ended up with the small push the distortion gave us?" observed and asked Hermione.

"Yes, sort of. This is still a weakness in the navcomp protocols overall. It isn't designed to take us out of warp automatically unless we are in fact initiating a programmed jump, under which conditions it is just a power and elapsed time equation. We were lucky we shut down warp when we did."

"Won't any similar motion need to be taken into account in future warp-jump calculations then?" she asked

"Exactly. So, another lesson learned. That's why the small test first." Harry concluded.

They paused to reflect on all that for a bit. The Phoenix was currently still drifting, near Mars but safely well out of the planet's centripetal pull.

"Hmm. So, do you want to risk the warp-drive to get back? From here back to Earth is just under twenty-one days at Optimum Impulse." asked Hermione.

"I don't know, let me think about it for a minute." Harry said, sounding a little frustrated; as all wonky scientists are wont to do when they realized that they forgot something important. What else might he have forgotten? He was too emotionally charged at the moment to make any risky decisions, so he said.

"Nah, let's head back at Impulse. We have provisions for two years for just the two of us. It'll be okay. Better safe than sorry. We can work on this when we get home." said Harry with a bitter sound of defeat in his voice.

"I'm sorry Harry, like you said that's why we have these tests. Look at the bright side hon, what you have accomplished here today, no human has ever done before. Regardless of what other bugs still need to be worked out or tweaks, you've made history!" Hermione offered, trying to sound enthusiastic and positive for him.

"Thanks, hon." Harry said with a hug, feeling a little bit better. "Let's go home."

Later back on Earth, NASA reported the new Target detected drifting near Mars, then reported it moving on a vector that would take it close to Earth in approximately twenty-one days, traveling at 200,000 kph. "That's must be our guy then." said Colonel O'Neill. "Yes, sir. I'm thinking someone was testing an experimental FTL propulsion. Had some measure of success and either it was a one time use, or there was some problem and they can't use it for their return trip."

Lt. Gen. Hammond who walked up behind them and overheard the last bit said, "And NASA and the JCS agrees with you, that's why the President has ordered a little welcoming committee to meet them on the way home when they return to Earth orbit. The Endeavor wasn't due for another mission until December, so she's being sent up ahead of their arrival to say hello, or something potentially more harsh, depending on what is going on."

"Being diplomatic sir?" asked Colonel O'Neill.

"Something like that." the General replied.

"General," began Daniel, being his normal self. "Why would we presume any kind of hostility toward who might be behind that ship? Surely any other country on Earth is free to perform their own experiments?"

"It might've seemed possible at one point. But, the JCS took a stronger interest in it than they already had when with the FAA collaborated with NASA, and they patched together what they believe was a flight origin from somewhere in Texas." the General answered.

"Oh...wow." replied Daniel.

"Yeah...holy smokes." added Colonel O'Neill.

"Well, you three are going to see it first hand. Because when Teal'c gets back tomorrow the four of you are headed to Florida, to the Kennedy Space Center to take the ride up with the Endeavor... Just in case this does turn out to be one of ours."

"Your orders, straight from the President via the JCS are to take possession of that ship and bring it to Area 51 at any cost." the General concluded.

Daniel gulped and said, "General, I'm not an astronaut, or any other kind of 'naut."

Before Hammond could reply, O'Neill just slapped Daniel on the back and with a devious grin on his face said, "Oh, you'll be fine Space Monkey...'naut."

The General just shook his head over the antics of his crack team and stood there a moment reconsidering his words. "Dr. Jackson, you're right. This is purely a military op now, you can sit this one out. Colonel, you have your pick of anyone from one of the other teams to be your fourth. Get it done."

"Yes, sir." As the meeting was dismissed Daniel left with a bad feeling about the whole thing.

Twenty days later, when the Phoenix began approaching their original Delta-1 departure point, Hermione announced "Harry, sensors have picked up a welcoming party directly in the path of our approach, cameras indicate it is the USS Endeavor, on a maneuver to make a port to port passage with us."

"Well, isn't that friendly of them. Nice to see they are adhering to maritime customs. You know if we don't slow down, they won't even see us go by." he offered.

"Yes, but if we don't slow down, we're going to get a face full of Earth, if anything is left after we burn up in the atmosphere." she wittingly replied.

"Oh, well, alright then. Preparing to disengage Impulse and fire braking RCS for standard orbit." he replied.

"Why don't you try to hail them on their standard frequencies and see if they want to talk or something." Harry suggested.

"Will do chief." answered Hermione.

After exchanging tense greetings where SG-1 played it somewhat cool in order to gain easy entry to the ship during which, SG-1 called down to Houston to verify the new order came directly from the President via the Joint Chiefs. It was agreed that the Endeavor and the Phoenix would dock together and an armed delegation, namely SG-1 would board Phoenix to arrest Doctor Potter and Miss Granger and take their ship to Area 51. Fortunately, since Harry had borrowed much of the software and techniques from NASA's space shuttle program for their orbital maneuvering programs and docking protocols, they were rather quickly able to put together something that actually worked between them to do that. The ease of which raised some eyebrows aboard the Endeavor and back at Houston.

"Howdy there Colonel O'Neill, Captain Carter, and friends." Harry greeted the four. "I am Harry Potter and this is my fiancé Hermione Granger. Welcome aboard the PH1 Phoenix, my personal property by the way. What can we do for the United States Air Force this fine afternoon?" he concluded maintaining a straight face. Hermione just stood there and tried to keep her grin from showing, while handshakes were exchanged all around. Harry could be such a character sometimes.

Teal'c and Major Harrison came up from behind Colonel O'Neill and Captain Carter each with a Zat in their hand firing. When Harry detected the threat he simultaneously wordlessly shielded himself and Hermione and immobilized the four of them. They just floated around the docking bay bumping into each other, while Harry and Hermione's feet were firmly planted on the floor thanks to the special simulated gravity boots and deck tiles Harry invented for the weightlessness of space, looking at them he pondered what to do next with them.

"What do you think Hermione? Not a friendly meet and greet after all?" Harry said.

"Apparently." she sighed. "I guess we should've figured on it. Being the U.S. military and all." Hermione said.

"Well, I know we'll get home safely now with our handy hostages there. But, I think we have to change plans and direction. Damn, I really wasn't counting on this. Why don't you secure them in the dining hall, turning it into a makeshift brig while I make some calls." said Harry.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I don't want to say here in front of them." he replied.

"Aren't we just going to Obliviate them after?" she countered.

"Good point." Harry agreed. "I'm going to call down and put things into motion to move our home and our company. I'll have them contact your family too so they can be brought to safety and not used as leverage against us." he continued.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"I don't know yet. When you get them secured, just come back up to the cockpit and we'll get people on the radio and talk it through." Harry concluded.

Ten minutes later up in the cockpit. "I have them all incarcerated and unconscious for now and I have all their weapons stowed and locked. Uhm, one of them is some kind of alien. It has a snake of some kind living in a pouch in its belly? I gave me a hell of a time keeping him under, but I resorted to some stronger measures." Hermione reported.

"Whoa, really. Okay, something else to check into while we're at it. Are you sure they can't get out, or at least that one?" Harry asked.

"I'm sure. It or he is really strong but, when you replace incarcerous ropes with titanium alloy, he's not moving." she answered.

"Cool." he said.

"Hey, I have Aunty Agatha and Uncle Sirius on the radio and we're discussing options. We also realized that we'll need to do something quick because the crew of the Endeavor will get suspicious when they don't hear back and who knows what else will happen next." he said.

"Why don't we go ahead and undock from Endeavor and break orbit or go into another orbit for a while, while we're sorting all this out." Hermione suggested.

"Okay, let's do that." They disconnected the docking ring and used maneuvering thrusters to distance themselves from Endeavor while planning a new orbit.

Sirius, on the overhead loudspeakers with Agatha, asked "Harry, don't you think we should move immediately on the financial stuff before the government makes that hard to do?"

"Yeah, go ahead and get that started will you?" Harry answered.

"Will do. Also, Hermione's parents are on their way here as well."

"Thanks Sirius." Hermione interjected.

Unknown to them but, predictably, once SG-1 reported back to Houston and the SGC that the people aboard the ship were Potter and Granger, wheels were already getting into motion to confront and secure the Potter Holdings facility and Granger's home and parents. They intended to search and sequester all of their things in the interest of national security. Harry and co. were only mere steps ahead of them on the ground. Fortunately, Potter Ranch was under Fidelius and would not be found in any case and that was where all their good non-public stuff was anyway.

"What's Sirius doing?" Hermione asked.

"He's going to work through our financial department and my personal investment managers to move all of my money from U.S. banks back to the UK as a first step. Our dual citizenship should give us some measure of protection at least for a while. We are also distributing some of it in various overseas accounts in other currencies, places where the US doesn't have as much easy access. I already have accounts like that, so it won't take long, it's just a matter of some very large wire transfers getting done ASAP." Harry answered.

"Then we still need to plan our personal move. We don't know how serious this is yet, except they just tried to shoot us. Will they act openly in the public against us? If this is a secret military operation maybe not? Then again even so, there are many ways the government can hurt us, starting with our company, our families. So, that's why we're securing that immediately." he finished.

"Okay, makes sense." she replied.

"Do you want to go back to the UK then?"

"Eh? I don't think so. I'm not sure. If this will go as deep as it looks with the military coming right up here to attack us, I think we ultimately need to get away from the US sphere of influence altogether. Perhaps cozy up somewhere in secret with one of the other major powers that might be open to us if only to stick it to the US, like say Russia or China. But, my bet is on Russia right now." he replied.

"Hmm. Could be a good idea. What's next right now?" Hermione asked.

"Right now I want to buy some time to let things on the ground get done before the confrontation up here gets out of control and they start doing worse things faster. So, I thought we should raise Endeavor on comms. ask to be patched through to whoever is in charge on the ground and have a real conversation. Keep them talking while our folks on the ground get our major assets moved and secured." Harry answered.

"Okay, that sounds good too. I'll go ahead and get those comms. set up." said Hermione.

"Sirius, Agatha, we're going to leave you guys on listen-only so they get no wind of your activities on our behalf down there and you can overhear if things get more squirrelly for us up here."

"Sounds good kids, we're going to be busy with our own calls anyway."

Later... "Doctor Potter, this is Lt. General George Hammond, United States Air Force. I understand you have some of my people captive aboard your ship. I order you on behalf of the United States of America, to release them, turn yourselves over to their custody, and pilot your ship to coordinates they will give you. You and your girlfriend are now under arrest." the General boastfully announced, as ordered by the President.

"Well, General. I do have four of your people. They boarded my ship under false pretense to have a civil conversation and straight away tried to shoot us. Naturally, we defended ourselves and took the hostile action for what it was. We have no intention to simply turn ourselves over to a hostile and illegal act such as this." Harry replied.

"Doctor Potter we can and will make things very difficult for you if you do not come in easily. The more difficult you make this for us, the harder it will be on you. I strongly suggest you do as ordered and come in peacefully." replied Hammond.

"Well, we have some major problems then. Because this ship is my personal property. Its experimental technology is proprietary and confidential research and development. I will... [...] and the conversation went on like that back and forth for a couple hours, as Hermione maneuvered the Phoenix into a new one-hundred fifty kilometer high-earth orbit and kept the Endeavor a safe distance from them.

While Sirius and others on the ground were making good progress on their end. For the governments part they hadn't gotten as far as interfering with Harry's business and financial life behind the scenes, but Agatha reported the perimeter wards at the Grangers house were breached and when she went to check it out, the house was surrounded by unmarked black SUVs. The Grangers were quite put out as you might expect, but they had arrived at Potter Ranch safely an hour before. Following that Sirius reported that Potter Holdings main facility in Odessa, Texas had been likewise surrounded and military police of some kind were inside the premises harassing and sequestering the employees and confiscating materials left and right.

Things were escalating, but the bulk of Harry's fortune had been successfully moved. With Harry's consent they even began a second step of moving bulk amounts from their UK banks into Gringotts, converted into Galleons, in an effort to secure even more of it. In the meantime, Sirius had prepared his old abandoned family estate at Grimmauld Place, with a Fidelius that Agatha helped put into place and they would be moving the bulk of their household there to get off U.S. soil as a starter.

"Whadya think Hermione? We disappear into the magical world for a while, as we figure out our next steps and next moves?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, sounds okay. But what about the ship and everything in the secret hanger in Pine Springs?" asked Hermione.

"I had an idea about that too. I think we could cast a Fidelius on the Phoenix and then they wouldn't be able to see to track us at all. They could still detect our motion and wake through the atmosphere, but that would be it. As for where to land and hide it, I am not sure yet. Once we get back and into jet mode, we could land just about anywhere. We would just need a private landing strip somewhere, one where no one is looking and so on." Harry replied.

"So, an old abandoned airstrip somewhere?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, that would be good." replied Harry.

"Okay, I will begin looking through the Internet for that, while you take care of the other stuff." she replied.

Harry broke off comms. with the SGC and the Endeavor once he got word that the most important things were secured for the moment, effectively telling them they would have to agree to disagree and that they should not expect to see or hear from him and Hermione any time soon. That they were aware of their actions at the Granger residence and Potter Holdings and that he considered the actions of the U.S. Government an unprovoked act of war against the Potter and Granger families, and that they would take appropriate countermeasures. On the ground, things were safe for them in the UK because naturally the UK didn't know what was going on. All they were told is that the US was conducting new space shuttle experiments in space. That got all the world powers to climb down off their high alerts, but of course their chief competitors in geo-politics only focused their eyes even more acutely on them after hearing that. If the UK Prime Minister had known anything was going on with Harry Potter, he would've made the connection to the magical worlds Harry Potter very quickly. But even the American magical world didn't know that Harry was involved in anything and the U.S. President never knew of Doctor Potter's dual identity as a wizard or his fame there either. So, certain dots had not yet been connected, which played further into Harry's favor. At some point, he figured people would put things together and start leaning on each other more. So, they wouldn't waste any time being sedentary in the UK. They would need to figure out a new long-term plan and get going on it. At the end of the day the UK on the whole was too close to the US to ever consider it safe for them there either.

"I think I found us a good place to land." said Hermione. The best of the abandoned airfields is RAF Wroughton in Wiltshire. It's just a museum now. So there might be some people there. But, the runways are still in good condition after all these years." she explained.

"That sounds like the ticket then." said Harry.

"Also, it has a lot of hangars. I bet we could commandeer one of them, put it under a Fidelius and keep the Phoenix safe at least for a short while." she continued.

"Excellent Mione. Great job. Let's get Sirius on the horn and ask him while he's in the midst of moving things to Grimmauld Place, if he could go check out that airfield and see if he can spot us a good hangar as well."

After a couple more hours of the Endeavor still trying to shadow them and threatening them on the radio, the Phoenix just disappeared altogether from their sight and their Radar. There was great confusion and concern on the ground but they were more non-plussed than ever. Harry's ground team as it were had prepared a dusty old hangar suitable for them to hide in. They would not Fidelius anything until after they got back for simplicity sake. But they should be okay since the Phoenix itself was coming in invisible as it was.

The Phoenix began re-entry at the same speed as the shuttle would do, starting from an orbital velocity of 28,000 kph; the Phoenix extended only it's stage one of three stages for it's wings, creating the same short, blunt wing configuration that the shuttle has, ideal for generating the right kind of drag during re-entry. The Phoenix, due to its fatter shape had a lot of advantages over the shuttle during re-entry as it produced far more drag while the Auto-Pilot executed hypersonic S-turn maneuvers to kill off speed, even more efficiently than the shuttle was capable of thus not requiring the same kind of heat shield tiling they did. This re-entry did burn off the outer layer of the reproducible zirconium dioxide ceramic, as it deflected the first wave of heat produced on re-entry. But, the ship's internal magnetic shield kept all the heat from reaching the interior spaces and the modified tungsten plates of the outer hull were designed to handle the shorter duration heat stress. Harry and Hermione remained in a perfectly normal environment for the entire trip, that is to say except for the same bumpy ride and stresses on the body of the G-forces. They could have used magic to reduce a lot of that, but they decided while still on the ground not to, to train themselves to handle the stresses and see how the ship held up, because eventually Harry's invention would need to be operated by muggles. So, they treated themselves as muggles when operating the Phoenix. If they actually hurt themselves, they would of course rely upon magical healing to recover.

When the Phoenix leveled off over the other side of the planet in the Pacific, in international waters, they were down to a simple Mach 3 and decelerating. By the time they got over land, they would be sub-sonic and cruising as any other jetliner would be, but instead of heading home to Pine Springs, they were on their way to Wiltshire, England.

Finally back on Terra Firma, they Obliviated the three Air Force officers and Teal'c the Jaffa, after interrogating them for a day under Veritaserum. They learned many, many interesting things which would again change their direction and plans for the future. They kept all of their weapons of course, including the interesting Zat'Nik'Tels. Then about twenty-four hours or so after the Endeavor observed the Phoenix disappear from sight, SG-1 woke up, stunned to be completely unaware of how they arrived, sitting around the statue in the Jefferson memorial, with over a days' gap in their memories.

Back at their new home at Grimmauld Place, which was now a bit cozier than they were used to, sharing it also with Hermione's parents. They were in the process of building a new database of all the information they learned, cross-referencing things with public information. Made for themselves maps of important locations on Earth, records of information about Stargate travel, including a number of important addresses that Captain Carter fortunately had a great mind to remember, and so on. The location of the SGC, their secret Area 51 projects, the X-301 project, their hidden cache of alien artifacts, etc. As they chewed that down to manageable bites of information and began accepting the new reality their imaginations swayed from one end of the spectrum to another and back, over what they should do with their newfound information.

As for their remaining assets in the U.S., Harry had Potter Holding's lawyers take care of starting a process to gracefully shutdown what remained of their U.S. operations. That included helping the Granger's move what was left of their home after it was ransacked and selling it for them. They were actually settling in rather comfortably back in the magical world. It made a good safe respite for them, although the Grangers were a bit out of their element. The U.S. knew that Potter and Granger must be back on Earth because of the activity surrounding their lawyers shutting down their U.S. operations. The U.S. realized they let them slip through their grasp with their ham-handed approach, and even their attempts to freeze their financial assets came far too late they realized. Wherever they had gone, they were doing a good job of hiding. And they had no idea that Potter had any of their secrets. Their attempt to have the Tok'ra use their technology to recover what were obviously lost memories from their team was unsuccessful. Whatever had erased their memories was very thorough, there was nothing of them detected to even try to recover. That situation also made them realize that whoever Potter really was, it likely wasn't as simple as they once believed. That was an interesting capability and they began wondering if his genius proclivity was ever simply one of human prodigy or were there other aliens already living among them? The Tok'ra had no idea either. But they were equally puzzled over it.

For whatever reason, the President didn't consider the wizarding world as a place to look. Everyone was talking about aliens and no one beside him in his administration even knew the wizarding world existed. And for him, knowing it was just about all that he knew. He wasn't a technical guy or a scientist and had no idea what magic was really capable of either. They didn't cause trouble, that was all he needed to know and never paid them much mind. However, what he did instruct a commission to look into was if this could be another one of those mutant problems? Supposedly they all were neutralized years ago by a problem with one of their own people. Could they be coming back or something?

It was late fall 1998, winter was setting in and the following was what they pieced together regarding the U.S. involvement with aliens:

They had made enemies of the Goa'uld when they killed Ra and turned back Apophis and were actively engaged with them off-world and trying to prevent new incursions to Earth by them. They made recent friends now possibly allies with a branch of good Goa'uld called Tok'ra who were also fighting the Goa'uld. Captain Carter's father now hosted one of their symbiotes and lived among them off-world. There was another very advanced, apparently friendly race called Asgard that they encountered briefly on the primitive human planet Cimmeria, who also came to O'Neill's rescue once when he got too entangled with an ancient knowledge database that he couldn't handle. They met another advanced alien race called Nox who were very human like but pacifist and isolationist. And also the Tollan who were now few, survivors of a cataclysm. None of the advanced races would share technology with the SGC. They had a list of some of the stargate addresses, but not all. They hadn't thought to dig into that but so far and who knew if they remembered them all. But they remembered the story of the Abydos cartouche, that might be a place for them to look as well, if they get that far.

They fought the two Ha'tak mothership back in June and with the help of alien defector's destroyed them and captured two of their death gliders, now the so-called X-301 program. The previous year they had saved Dr. Littlefield, a survivor of an earlier military stargate experiment, who had been stranded alone for decades. They accidentally set loose another old Goa'uld named Hathor that had been discovered imprisoned in a healing sarcophagus in Mexico last year, barely escaping one of many foothold situations they'd had in the SGC.

Doctor Daniel Jackson was married to a human woman named Sha're from the planet Abydos, but she had been abducted by Apophis and now carried a Goa'uld herself, as Apophis' queen, Amaunet; and they'd had a forbidden human child together called a Harcesis, a human who possessed the genetic knowledge of the Goa'uld; and then the child was sent into hiding with his human grandfather Kasuf. One of the most interesting things they got out of them was the existence of a second stargate, which they called the Beta gate, that was stored in Area 51. Harry and Hermione thought it might be quite useful to acquire that gate for themselves. But, that as well as many other ideas they had stirring would require some espionage and preparation. It was time for Harry's special abilities to come out and play once again.

They returned to the thought of the Russians or other governments on Earth. The thing they realized is that they were all the same. Frankly they wondered if they would be different themselves under the circumstances. So, they concluded they would not trust a direct relationship with any muggle government, but ironically would reach out to certain magical world contacts to see if they could staff up their own strong team of support and run a program of their own. Perhaps prepare a second line of defense for Earth in their own style of mixing magic with tech. Possibly even someday take their own base of operations off Earth entirely if it became feasible. They were a long way from that though. They first needed a reliable secret lair on Earth, far enough away to keep minimum the likelihood of bumping into muggles when they did their own thing. Fortunately, that was something magic could help them with tremendously. But, they needed more than just the four of them plus the Grangers.

So, since Christmas was approaching and they were back in the UK; Hermione thought she would try to reconnect with a couple of the few other muggle-born friends she had made at Hogwarts. There was Justin Finch-Fletchley, Kevin Entwhistle, the pair who she had known fairly well; and there was Colin Creevey who had been one year behind her and his little brother Dennis. That might help them get the lay of the land among their peer-group, and Harry decided he would finally relent and return Professor Dumbledore's several owls from the past year requesting he come see him regarding the Tom Riddle matter. Dumbledore was powerful in the magical world, even internationally as Supreme Mugwump; so perhaps Harry would have to engage in a little quid pro quo to get some official support or at least his own backing. As for Harry and Hermione's friends back at Salem, they decided to just leave them out of it for now considering their loyalties. Perhaps at another time when they were more secure they could approach some of them.

Meanwhile there were also trips back and forth to their secret hangar in Wiltshire to get their ship cleaned up and restored for its next use. There was no time to work on fixing bugs and next generation stuff though. They were just trying to maintain it and organize the hastily moved machines and materials from their Pine Grove complex. It was still there hidden under Fidelius of course. The property belonged to Harry after all. But, they didn't want to chance leaving anything valuable behind. Plus they would need it where they now were. If it weren't for magic, it would've been a tight squeeze getting all their gear inside the one hangar and all their home furnishings inside Grimmauld Place.

Hermione sent owls to Justin, Kevin, Colin, and Dennis and invited them and a date to a Yule party at Grimmauld Place. Just on the premise that because she and Harry were back in the UK with their families and she wanted to get re-acquainted with old friends and what a better way to do that, than to throw a party? After they all accepted, Hermione met with them to give them and their dates the secret to Grimmauld Place's location. Justin brought Hannah Abbott, Kevin brought Padma Patil, Colin brought Ginny Weasley, and Dennis brought Orla Quirk. And while Harry contacted Dumbledore to meet him in private, Agatha thought it was time to reach out to old friends of hers who might need to be made aware of what was going on, considering all the new threats they learned about. They hoped they could recruit them to their side too, the question was also their loyalties, would they not betray Harry and Hermione to the U.S. Government?

"Come on Ebony, let's pay a visit to some old friends." said Agatha.

She went to her friends Reed and Susan Richards, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm. They all went their own way after the fiasco with Wanda in the early 80's when Agatha was forced to kill her to defend herself, but not before Wanda's out of control chaos magic removed the X-gene from all active mutants. Her theory on Harry had always been that since that happened before his gene activated, that he was spared that. Which also made her consider that there might be other mutants who survived the purge, any who were born but not yet active during the same years. They would need to keep a lookout for them too in time. So far there had been nothing in the news about it, as the last mutant rising had eventually done. Yes, I have simply retconned the timeframes and events of Agatha's life with the Fantastic Four and Scarlet Witch to fit my plot. The mutants you know are gone (well, their powers are). The Fantastic Four were the only non-magical meta-humans she was still aware of, since they were not mutants but cosmically altered. Good thing they were all very good people, not bent on exploiting their abilities to dominate others.

Harry and Hermione asked for and got a magical vow of secrecy, and explained to Dumbledore a high-level outline of what their problems with the U.S. Government was and what they learned of their secret war with aliens. Dumbledore agreed that Harry and Hermione had real problems and that with the off-world things they mentioned, if they were to be believed they all had bigger problems. He would indeed help them with his political influence, at least with political cover and support in the magical world. That having been said, he likewise hoped to play on his cooperation to get what he wanted from Harry. As Harry wisely predicted.

"Certainly, what's on your mind?" Harry asked.

"The same thing as the last time I spoke to you I'm afraid, ...Tom Riddle." said Dumbledore.

"I thought you had him contained over there and that we agreed I wasn't crucial to his defeat as you once thought." Harry replied.

"Both of those things are true. But, one of the reasons he is only contained and not vanquished is because of, I'm ashamed to say, our Ministry and our public's general apathy toward getting directly involved." Dumbledore continued.

"Wait, you mean to tell me that the Ministry won't get involved in defending itself?" Harry asked sounding incredulous.

"No, it's not that. The Minister is quite happy to sequester all the Ministry resources to his own personal defense, but he doesn't do anything to help the public. My Order of the Phoenix group, made up of volunteers, only stretches so far. And as I said, I'm ashamed to say that many in the public who could stand up and fight back, or join us for a more deliberate fight, have been raised to believe in the myth and legend of the great boy-who-lived, Harry Potter, who vanquished him once with little or no effort, so why doesn't he do so again most believe, and spare them this." Dumbledore finished.

"What!? You have to be kidding me?" Harry nearly exploded.

Dumbledore just waved his hands gesturing Harry to calm down. "I know, I know, my boy. It's wrong, and I may have had a part to play in that myself, for having publicized that notion back in nineteen eight-one after that night. And since then until his return, he remained vanquished and everyone turned complacent. Then with his return surrounding your participation in the tournament, which was rather public as well, that reinforced the public's belief that the fate of you two still surround each other and feel rather that whatever they could do would be little compared to you." he explained.

"Man, you gotta be kidding me." repeated an exasperated Harry.

Hermione put her arm around him and whispered, "What do you want to do, hon?"

Harry just sighed and said, "I don't know. I don't know what I can do? ...Contrary to everyone's popular belief I'm just an ordinary wizard, nothing special." Harry insisted.

"You know that's not exactly true." offered Hermione, not clueing Dumbledore into what she meant, she referred to his invisibility mutation and he always humbly downplayed his talent for wandless magic. Dumbledore had a different tact in mind altogether, not that he wouldn't be interested in those tidbits as well.

"What I was thinking is that you could put your super-science knowledge to work on a solution. I don't really know what you've done with combining magic with technology, but if you really can mix the two, perhaps you could devise a unique way to deal with him that we would never think of." Dumbledore suggested hopefully.

He didn't know if that would be enough to hook Harry into it, but he hoped to get him somehow emotionally invested in the war with Riddle, the actual solution would come when it may. He was still convinced the Prophecy meant Harry had to do the deed, horcrux or not; but he wouldn't share that belief with Harry anymore, that would be a sure way to turn him off.

Harry stood there and thought for a moment and said, "Okay Professor Dumbledore, let me give that some thought. Maybe there would be something I could do there. That would play to my strengths actually." Hermione smiled at the confidence.

"That's fantastic my boy." Dumbledore replied.

"Let's set up a meeting after the holidays to discuss next steps." Harry offered, and they left both feeling like progress had been made to secure each other's help with their respective problems.