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 4

Over the holidays, the Potter clan had their Yule party with Hermione's old friends. As Hermione intended, after a couple of hours of everyone being loosened up and comfortable around each other, she started a conversation with her old study partners Kevin and Justin. Posing questions about if they'd heard any new rumors in the muggle world about alien conspiracy theories and secret space programs. They got into a little discussion over it and as planned she raised the volume of her voice to ensure a variety of others in the room could overhear the conversation.

At one point she countered a point made by Kevin by saying, "Well, Harry and I have seen proof of it ourselves. What we've learned is pretty scary."

That more direct statement of personal experience caught Padma's attention who was listening and she interjected with "How so? What do you mean you have proof?"

More people turned to see what the commotion was and that was Harry's cue to join the conversation. "Yeah, actually you all might not know it, but over the past few years through my company in America, I designed and tested my own new space ship design. Just got back from the first test as a matter of fact and that is where we found out about what's been going on."

By that point and with that admission, virtually the whole party had gathered around Hermione and Harry's group to hear more about the controversial and unbelievable topic. It was Luna who broke the ice and said, "I believe it. But, I'd like to see proof. Will you show us and tell us what's going on?"

A couple of the people snickered that Luna would say something like that, as usual. But, the bait was taken and the hook was set and they had everyone's rapt attention. "Sure." Harry said nonchalantly. I'll show you my memories." he finished and with a flourish of his wand to his temple and into the air above everyone in the center of the room, he displayed selected parts of his memories.

He began with the day back in June when he and Hermione sat in the cockpit of his experimental ship when he first showed it to her and explained what he'd built and his plans. Everyone got to see his memory of their monitoring of the alien ships they detected and their apparent destruction. He paused and started again with key parts of the memory of their test flight, achieving orbit, warp-test, their return-then paused and showed them the memory of their encounter with the Endeavor, SG-1, ending with snippets of their memory of interrogating them-revealing the really juicy stuff they wanted them all to see and hear for themselves. This series of memories took over two hours to get through everything with interruptions for questions and breaks for refreshment. It was just enough to make them reach the same conclusions that they had done.

"So you see, that is why I decided to just drop any fight with the Americans over my patents and citizenship there and just came back to England. We are going to change directions and try to create a second and better defense for Earth, using our own intelligence and our magic to make a difference ourselves. We don't really trust the Americans to get it done right, especially when they are keeping it secret from our government and every other government on the Earth, going it alone and keeping all the discoveries and advancements they obtain for their own secret use." Harry announced.

"I want in." Luna replied immediately, and she looked around to see who else was with her in that idea.

There was a bunch of head nodding. Hermione thought that it was going better than they expected already and said "Really, does anyone else feel that way about it?" Lot's of people said yeah and a few even raised their hands like they were still in school (old habits).

That was Sirius' cue to interject. "Alright kids, if that's how you all feel. We are setting up some meetings with friends and contacts in a couple different circles. If you want, once we get a couple other meetings out of the way, we'll plan a big get together for everyone who wants to get involved and help us out. Does everyone want me to include you all in an invite for this?" he asked.

Again everyone seemed to nod and affirm their agreement to that. So, he said "Okay, that's a plan then. Why don't you kids get back to the fun stuff of the party and not worry any more about this tonight. We'll get back to it soon enough once we get organized. Oh, one more thing please. Keep this confidential between us. We don't want this getting out to the press or the wrong sort." Sirius concluded and left the room which seemed to signal to most people to also break up the informal meeting that had occurred and folks went back to different cliques now discussing their opinions of the latest news. With a number of course hanging around Harry and Hermione with more questions. But eventually the evening subsided back to the Christmas spirit and the party was back on.

During the next week, Harry and Hermione along with Sirius, met with Professor Dumbledore and his Order of the Phoenix to discuss Riddle and spread the word about the alien threats a little more. For that lot Harry required a magical vow of secrecy before he would tell their story. They were willing to risk trusting their peers and people Hermione felt she could trust. But, people of the OOTP type had many layers of agendas and possibly competing loyalties so, they would not take the same chances with them. Sirius knew almost everyone at the meeting already, from the first war. But Harry and Hermione got to meet (or get re-acquainted in Hermione's case for several of the faculty present) the likes of Alastor Mad-Eye Moody, and Remus Lupin finally made a re-appearance in Harry and Sirius's lives after the latter two shunned him back in the day for having never helped Harry when he was a young child. They would give him a second chance now since he was part of the Riddle war effort and an old friend and ally.

The rest of the Weasley's they hadn't met already except Percy who was the boot-licker of Cornelius Fudge and could not be seen gallivanting with a vigilante group led by Dumbledore. Molly, Arthur, Bill and his wife Fleur who Harry remembered from the Tetra-Wizard Tournament, Charlie and his girlfriend Dora Tonks (and Sirius cousin whom he was pleased to make the re-acquaintance of), all except Ginny who was still barred from the OOTP by her mother and Ron who was too selfish to be a part of the Order and was instead off with the Chudley Cannons training camp trying out for their Reserve Keeper position. He would never be let into Harry and Hermione's circle of friends anyway. As far as they were concerned Ron was persona non grata for the way he treated Hermione for four years. There was also Hestia Jones, Emmeline Vance, Sturgis Podmore, Rubeus Hagrid, Severus Snape (Hermione had no good memories of him either), Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, Dedalus Diggle, Poppy Pomfrey, and Elphias Doge.

The discussion about Riddle wasn't that long because Dumbledore had already brought Harry and Hermione up to speed at their earlier meeting. The focus was on how Harry could help them, considering the public's belief that he was the "chosen one," a notion that had even been promulgated by the Ministry as a cover for their inaction. They turned more to how Harry could help them and a protocol they could use between the Order and Harry for communications going forward. Harry did not want to go as far as to join their Order because of oaths and his own commitments. But his ideas for how to help them involved technology like Dumbledore suggested so he asked them all to take a magical oath of secrecy so he could tell them some big secrets of his own. For that purpose he simply repeated the sequence of memories over the next two hours for the Order. They didn't need priming, he already had their undivided attention.

To many of the Order, worse the higher the age of any given member, it seemed impossible and incredulous. But Dumbledore assured them all that the memories were not fake. That they might not have the background to understand half of it. But they understood a foreign danger, one that was powerful, well enough. Dumbledore convinced the Order because he was convinced that they should take Harry's news seriously and that they should help him in his goals. To that end, Harry was finally able to explain what he had in mind since all the background was out of the way. "What I want to do is build a defense program, like a second stop against those aliens. Build a next generation of my space ship technology that can match theirs. One path to expedite that would be to make our own way out into the stars and capture a couple of their smaller ships to reverse engineer them to help us build our own better ships." Harry said.

"Reverse what?" Hagrid asked.

"It's just a fancy way to say, take one of their's apart, figure out how they got it to work, so we can too." Hermione answered.

"Oh, yea, good idea." Hagrid agreed and everyone around the table nodded in agreement also. Arthur seemed to be daydreaming about muggle space-ships. He was living the dream, if it weren't for that damned Riddle.

"Right. So, the plan would be, once we have that power in our hands, I could use that to actually transport Riddle right off the Earth into the vacuum of space, dead on arrival; or many other high-tech weaponry or tactics." Harry concluded.

Snape had heard enough of what sounded like nonsense to him. "Potter, why all this muggle nonsense, why don't you just wizard up and duel him. The prophecy says..."

"Severus! That's enough." Dumbledore harshly interrupted. Watching Harry's face turn red. Not only because not everyone in the room needed to hear him finish that sentence, but also "We've already discussed that Doctor Potter does not believe in the prophecy, and after he and I discussed it, I agree with him that we might not have been interpreting it properly." Which was not exactly what he agreed with Harry, but he now had to straddle two lines between two different sets of motivations between his group and Harry and his group. Snape just shut his mouth and retreated from the conversation.

Harry looked to be calming and Dumbledore added "Sorry Doctor Potter, everyone has their own opinions about prophecy. But, I agree I think you're approach is sound. We will help you and hopefully you will be able to get what you need sooner rather than later. And by our working together we can take out two birds with one stone, as they say." said Dumbledore with a grandfatherly smile.

"I agree. It's a good way forward for all of us." Harry replied. Sirius just snarled at Snape on the way out of the meeting and he and Remus agreed to follow-up on personal time. In addition to the scheduled group meeting they were going to set soon.

Later in the week Agatha took Harry, Hermione, and Sirius to meet with her friends in New York. She introduced the trio and her friends to them. "Allow me to introduce my very dear old friends, Sue and Reed Richards, Sue's brother Johnny Storm, and their friend Ben Grimm. Otherwise known as the infamous, Fantastic Four."

"No way. I thought you were a myth?" Hermione said.

"We used to think that witches and wizards were myths too." Sue replied for the group with an impish grin.

"Touché." Hermione replied, shaking Sue's hand.

"Please c'mon and take a seat. We have Hors d'oeuvres and drinks, and we can sit and talk about the news Agatha brought us before we have dinner." said Sue, motioning them all to the sitting room.

They exchanged pleasantries first about the mythological Fantastic Four and the mythological wizards and witches. The trio got a small history of the Fantastic Four, what was true and what was just legend and the fact that they had been in retirement from the hero business for years since they lost both their son Franklin and daughter Valeria to the implosion of the negative zone. Not to mention a list of other very good reasons having to do with the government and declining public opinion. They shared condolences over the lost of their children and they tried to share their grief but Harry and Hermione didn't know how. Harry's own personal experience would come a bit close, but he never really knew and remembered no real bond with his parents. They got past that awkwardness when Johnny suggested they break with the sullenness and let Harry share his bad news after dinner.

That was an icebreaker of a sort, so they had dinner, made some more small talk. Harry and Hermione felt quite out of their element with the news Sue and Reed dropped on them. They almost just wanted to leave and not bother those people at all. But, Agatha thought they should talk to them. So, after dinner they continued to enjoy their hospitality, and Harry showed them the same memories he showed their friends at the Christmas party and the Order over the next two hours.

Afterwards they talked quite a lot about all of that deep into the night. Reed of course was very intrigued but he would not turn back from the decisions he and Sue made those years ago and she wouldn't even entertain the thought. They had to give up trying to have more children because every time they did, Sue had to go into the negative zone to counter the effects of the cosmic radiation that gave them their powers, just so she could have a successful delivery and live through it. Not the least of which for the loss of their two children, but that the negative zone was now gone too and naturally so was Reed's negative zone gateway, and there was no threat of criminal mutant gangs anymore, so they would remain retired from that life. They sold the Baxter building and moved out a long time ago and had little cache of their old lives left but, what Reed had he would offer them to help in their work and he would be willing to consult with them remotely for technical advice but that was it. Sue agreed wholeheartedly, she just wanted to stay home and continue to live the almost normal life she finally got to have.

Johnny and Ben were not at all insensitive to Sue and Reeds position on it but, neither of them were more gainfully employed at the moment in anything bigger than what Potter had in front of him. So they agreed they would join him, not so much for how their powers might be of use, but to lend their piloting skills and their own technological know-how. Especially Johnny's which had grown in great leaps from his younger days. He was not Reed's equal, few were, such as Harry. But, he was a very good aeronautical engineer and mechanic. As the dinner broke up, Sirius got contact information from Johnny and Ben; and Reed went into his private study and came back with one of his universal translators and a memory stick with the schematics and instructions to build more. He also promised to send them a working copy of his personal artificial intelligence aided design program once they get set up in a new headquarters.

As they were saying their goodbyes Reed added. "Oh, there is one more thing I can try that might help you. I can't promise anything, I may not even be able to reach him anymore. But, I will see if I can arrange for our old friend T'Challa to meet with you."

"Who is that?" Harry asked.

"He is the former Black Panther of the secluded Kingdom of Wakanda, in Africa." Reed answered, unhelpfully to all but Agatha. The trio just looked at each other and at Agatha who seemed to not have he same puzzled look on her face, so Hermione braved it herself.

"Why do they call him the Black Panther?" she asked.

"Well, he's not the Black Panther anymore. And it is a real long story, that I will wait to see if he wants to tell you. But for simplicity, you can say that Black Panther is the traditional name given by his people to their King." Reed explained.

"Ah, okay. I understand." Hermione said. They concluded their goodbyes and returned to England.

Back home they sat and reviewed all the progress they made gathering friends and allies in the past month. It had been a pretty good start. They decided they didn't want to wait any longer to put together an op. against the SGC's Area fifty-one, so they didn't miss a chance to get their hands on that spare stargate, if they hadn't already. Up until that point they weren't sure they would get enough support to startup a viable program and organization. But, it looked as though it might just work out. So, with Dumbledore's personal help on the mission, Sirius, Harry, and Hermione, worked together to secret themselves invisibly into Area fifty-one and without incident stole their spare stargate, and their un-powered DHD (they would work on that), a few staff weapons, and a few more Zat'Nik'Tel. They purposely didn't go after anything that wasn't in storage lock down, in the hope it would take longer to be found missing. And toward that end, they exploited Dumbledore's unrivaled expertise in Transfiguration to leave behind permanently transfigured copies of the items they stole. They wouldn't function, but they might keep anyone from noticing their theft for a while. It was fortunate for the Potter team that this occurred after the NID had already been caught using the spare gate in replace of a duplicate of their own using the same tactic. However, the new SGC guard securing the spare gate was easily overcome with magic and was none the wiser. The Potter team knew nothing of the NID issues of course, they just fell into dumb luck trying this at the right time, or they might've gotten the NID duplicate themselves. Irony is often over-rated and sometimes doesn't have a place in allowing plot to move forward.

For the time being they just stored their loot in their hidden Wiltshire hangar with the Phoenix. There would be time to investigate it once it could be set up in a proper headquarters far off the grid somewhere. For the moment it was time to plan the next big meeting where they would bring together all the people who said they were interesting in helping out, "joining" their program. They hadn't decided on the right location yet, they thought they would open that discussion up at their first big group meeting.

In Early February 1999 they had their first big gathering of supporters for their anti-Goa'uld cause. The meeting was held at RAF Wroughton in Wiltshire, where they used their hangar to accommodate the large crowd and give their new friends a tour of the Phoenix and a look at their stolen stargate. There were over thirty attendees at the meeting. The young witches and wizards who were friends and friends of friends of Hermione, the old witches and wizards who were the friends of Dumbledore and Sirius; and Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four. During the meeting some of the younger witches asked how come Ben looked human, what happened to his Thing form. So, he showed them. And explained that one of the side effects of their final battle in the negative zone was that his form would thereafter shift from human to the Thing seemingly at random; and that it was Agatha who invented a spell that she cast on him that thereafter allowed him to control it.

Others from the older crowd, after Harry revealed his mutant ability, having remembered the mutants that rose during world war II and seemed to disappear altogether in the early 80's, asked about them. Agatha answered and explained what happened, her fight with Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlett Witch whom she had previously apprenticed in an effort to teach her how to control her chaos magic. She grew more powerful but was ultimately unable to control it and during a fight with her against Agatha and the X-Men, she erased the X-gene from all active mutants that existed anywhere at that time. Then she explained her theory about Harry and other potential mutants who might have been carrying the X-gene at the time, in which it had not yet activated. There might be some new mutants out there around Harry's age but, they had not encountered any yet.

She was asked if the X-Men and other mutants died because of it or what; and she explained no, that they simply lost their powers. Those whose power made them appear unusual returned to their normal human appearance. All lost their powers. Those who were guilty of crimes were rounded up and imprisoned. With Doctor Xavier having passed away years before all that occurred, the remaining X-Men just left the Institute and either returned to their families if they were young, or set out to make it in the world as the ordinary people they then were. With the Institute abandoned it was seized by the U.S. Government and restricted. They kept it as a research lab which is also now closed. As she understood it they were trying to get Xavier's old Cerebro machine to work, but without a powerful mutant telepath to power it, it simply did nothing. So, it too sits gathering dust.

After everyone got caught up on what happened to all the other powerful non-magical meta-humans that everyone there had ever heard of, they returned to the business at hand. How to get organized into a program to ready themselves to defend Earth from the Goa'uld. Naturally, Harry, Hermione, Sirius, and Agatha already had ideas so they started with those. Others chipped in their thoughts both from the perspectives of young recently graduated witches and wizards and others from a more sedate and seasoned perspective. It all meshed together and they decided upon calling their group, "The New Defenders." Or in short they would refer to their organization and a new shell company they would form to move things around in the muggle world as needed, "TND, Ltd." It would be funded by $5 billion from the Potter Trust, and it's annual budget would be $300 million, which was the current annual net income of the trust's investments. Any large capital expenditures had to be approved by Harry. Sirius Black donated $75 million, half of his family fortune. That money would be used as the initial seed capital to fund startup. Others who had significant wealth could donate to the TND general fund if they wished, but that would be how they started.

They agreed they needed to find a new hidden lair, preferably deep underground and large enough not only to house their operation and people, but large enough for them to build and dock at least several space ships of their own. Folks would begin looking into suitable locations. One factor was to find a location that theretofore was not used as or known enclaves of the magical world, other past meta-humans like mutants, or even any of the places usually mentioned in muggle conspiracy theories. All to reduce the likelihood of someone looking for them in "likely locations." So, that research would begin in earnest.

As for who in the group would do what. Fifteen of the group would start off as permanent members and staff at their new base once they get it started. These included Harry, Hermione, Sirius, Remus, Dan and Emma Granger, Ginny, Colin, Justin, Hannah, Kevin, Padma, Luna, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm. Those would all receive salaries from TND equivalent to a senior Auror or Bobbie, with all other expenses paid. Except Johnny and Ben who would receive salaries equivalent to a senior engineer and pilot, respectively. From there would be eleven to thirteen other full members who would only be part-timers, keeping their normal jobs and lives. Those included Dennis, Orla, Bill and Fleur Weasley, Arthur, Charlie and Dora, Parvati, Lavender, and Susan Bones. Dora said that her parents would certainly join as part-timers too once she explained to them what was going on. Agatha would remain ensconced at Grimmauld Place to maintain order there and serve as Liaison since they would maintain it as the TND safe-house and apparition and portkey gateway for the part-timer's from London to where ever they decide to settle a new base. The rest of the Order of the Phoenix members would not become official members but, considered allies over their mutual enemies, Riddle and the Goa'uld. The exception was Dumbledore himself who would from time to time join them on missions when he could be useful, like he had been in the Stargate theft.

Until they would get a new permanent home, they partitioned off a section of their Wiltshire hangar to serve as makeshift headquarters so they could get to work immediately making their plans and cross-train everyone. Kevin, Colin, and Justin would help get their girlfriends more up to speed with muggle concepts and use of technology in general and then Hermione would take them all and the other magicals the next step to learning the advanced concepts and technology that she and Harry created in the Phoenix. From there they would all learn together the more advanced technology of the Goa'uld. With Harry, Hermione, and Johnny and Ben's help, they would begin engineering new solutions of their own. Reed would be advising them remotely for technical consultation from time to time. That would be a start.

As the people settled into their roles and progress was made. Makeshift labs and workstations were set up for everyone and people became acclimated. Then Reed contacted them that he was successful and that T'Challa agreed to meet with them. Reed would take a small delegation of them to Wakanda where they would meet T'Challa as well as the current Queen of Wakanda, his sister Queen Shuri, as well. So, Harry, Hermione, and Sirius accompanied by Reed, Johnny, and Ben traveled to Wakanda.

They learned that while T'Challa was no longer Black Panther and King of Wakanda, he had been bestowed even greater powers by the goddess Bastet and that he now ruled the Kingdom of the Dead, the necropolis underneath Wakanda-but that he could not leave it for long periods of time, his duty was now there. However when he spoke to his sister about what Reed told him, they agreed they should try to help this New Defenders group indirectly, and directly as much as their tradition would allow, even while they would not end their isolationism to do so any more than they had done for any other of the great meta-human conflicts of Earth's past. Toward that end they would gift them several of their advanced technologies which they could integrate into their own for some advantages. Plus, they would engage in trade with them something others covet but rarely get, selling them a small but regular steady supply of refined Vibranium, which they also had to explain the utility of to the non-initiated.

T'Challa, like Reed, would consult with them part-time remotely, but in no other way become directly involved. The technology they gifted them was a copy of T'Challa's personal Kimoyo card, a very advanced PDA and communicator, a set of his Vibranium energy daggers with instructions how to make more, a set of his Vibranium armor (lighter and thinner but otherwise similar to Iron Man armor) with instructions how to make more, one of their sky-cycles which they could reverse engineer and learn from some of its technologies, and if they were interested they would sell them one of Wakanda's advanced stealth fighter aircraft (similar to an Avengers quinjet) with instructions how to make more. And finally they would give their engineering teams access to their former arch-enemy Klaw's sonic super-weapon, from which they could perform some non-destructive reverse engineering in case any of that technology would be of use to them. T'Challa also said he might have an idea of a good place for them to build their new hidden base, but that he would need to contact some people and get back to them on that.

Back in England, the nerds were having a field day with all their new toys, while the non-nerds were learning and trying to catch up to the muggle nerd-stuff. While they waited to see what T'Challa might come up with as a place for their new base, Harry and Hermione decided to take what was for them becoming more of a lull and down time except for just regular work, to finally get married. They had a lot of new extended friends in addition to their small families, so while they did not make a huge deal of the ceremonies, they did throw a lavish party on the Hogwarts school grounds the weekend of the wedding. That enabled more of Hermione's old acquaintances to see her again as well as stretch their contacts out a little bit further. However, they made it a point not to talk about the TND except when others brought it up. This was them and their friends little break from it while they simply celebrated and had a good time. The faculty and students of Hogwarts had an extremely good time since the whole affair was put on at Harry's expense.

Unfortunately, Riddle and his crowd got wind of the gathering, having also heard that Harry Potter had returned to Britain, had gotten married to a mudblood and was celebrating with his friends on Hogwarts grounds. They had been at a stalemate with the Ministry because Fudge turned the place into his personal fortress. Riddle didn't believe even he was strong enough to defeat the Hogwarts wards and his numbers never got large enough to do so, because he kept losing large amounts of them in his Ministry raids, but he would be damned if he let that Potter brat who was the cause of his fall from grace and his mudblood just go about enjoying their day like there wasn't a bloody war going on.

So, he ordered an attack. He got away with it because he used one of the aces up his sleeve he had been saving for a bigger day. He got his senior pet death eaters to use their children that attended the school to come to the gates and invite his warriors in. That was all that was needed to overcome the wards by simply side-stepping them. Likely he would not get away with that tactic again after today, but that was okay. He was just sending a message anyway. For that reason, he did not personally attend. Not with both Dumbledore and the chosen brat there, as well as, rumor had it, Agatha Harkness (he shivered). He'd thought she was dead. With the help of some junior death munchers, a crowd of black-robed wizards and witches wearing silver masks made their way onto Hogwarts grounds. When they turned a corner around a blind-spot going around the Black Lake, they spotted the revelry and mounted brooms, three dozen maniacs sped to the scene of the party, firing all manner of dark curses including the killing curse, into the crowd.

Pandemonium ensued and every one of the adult attendees who had experienced war went immediately into action with great fury. Dumbledore thundered an order over Sonorous to Minerva and the throngs of kids attending to run back to the castle to safety and lock themselves in. The rest of the faculty and Order that were in attendance would take out the trash. At the same time, the New Defenders in attendance not the least of which the happy couple, who were decidedly no longer happy in the least unleashed their fury accompanied by Sirius and Agatha, whom glanced over to Dumbledore who returned her glance with a nod of acknowledgement and appreciation. The students ran as a herd in chaos toward the castle, screaming and crying. Dumbledore, Flitwick, and other teachers turned with wands at the ready to meet side by side with Agatha, Sirius, Harry, and Hermione and other friends of theirs with wands at the ready. Johnny flamed on and became once again, The Human Torch; and Ben Thing'd up, it was Clobbering time. With all the allies lined up side by side, they numbered about equal to the oncoming flight of death eaters. All of this happened in the space of a minute and the field was not as clear as it might have sounded when the full battle broke out. Several casualties were taken when the death eaters announced their presence with their opening salvo into the undefended crowd. And as many had turned to run, their backs made good targets. The death eaters seemed to be too stupid to put their full attention on the gathering storm of adult defenders whose fury was mounting.

Powerful magical shields bloomed from many wands to block and deflect curses aimed at the retreating kids. While others fired area of effect spells aimed at tearing several death eaters from the sky at a time. The Human Torch launched himself directly at the closest incoming death eater and simply grabbed him as he went by carrying him further up and incinerating him by his mere touch. One down. As several others hit the ground, Ben clobbered two of them together shattering their skulls. Three down. Dumbledore and Agatha shared another glance and as one raised their wands and let loose a torrent of lightning that struck all the remaining members of the airborne killers, stunning or killing them instantly and bringing them all to the ground. Harry for his part was in awe, he'd never seen such power unleashed before, even from his Aunty Agatha. The rest of the witches and wizards finished off the several death eaters that survived and were trying to lift themselves wearily off the ground, binding them with incarcerous and taking all their wands.

Riddle delivered the message he wanted, at the cost of three dozen of his death eaters. They weren't his best, just the cannon fodder. The battle was over quickly, but the school took casualties. He and his inner circle reveled in that. The three surviving death eaters were turned over to the Ministry, whose Auror's only arrived after the battle was over, as was their modus operandi. In fairness they could not have gotten there fast enough with as quick as the defenders put down the attack. But they ought to have had Auror's stationed at the gate in the first place. Dumbledore would do more than have mere words with Fudge this time. None of the non-student guests were hurt in the fight, mostly out of just dumb luck.

Three students were killed and ten were seriously injured but would make a full recovery. There were solemn funerals held for the dead and Harry and Hermione were nearly inconsolable, believing it to be all their fault. Dumbledore shared in their self-blame, it was his responsibility, his decision after all. They should've known better to hold such a spectacle of a celebration on the Hogwarts grounds involving the entire student body. They had been lulled into thinking that Riddle was so focused on the Ministry that he would continue to pay no mind to the goings on at Hogwarts. They all knew he would come there too someday when the time was right for him, but they believed that day was far off. They were too complacent and a number of families paid the price. The sadness turned to anger and Harry was then very emotionally involved with the destruction of Riddle. Dumbledore had got what he wanted in that, but not in any way how he wished it would happen.

After the post mortem literally and figuratively had passed, the allied groups met again to discuss how things got out of control and what if anything they would change in their approach going forward. They still didn't know Riddle's secret hideout either. Most likely protected by Fidelius like all their's were. Harry asked Agatha how she and Dumbledore were able to combine a lightning spell to so much power and area of effect like that. That is when she came clean to Harry and the others that she was Gellart Grindelwald's ex-wife. Which then also explained both how Albus knew her so well from a previously unexplained past, and possibly why she was one of the few he ever feared. Albus went on to explain that Agatha had no part in Grindelwald's mad war alongside Hitler's in world war two, that she'd divorced him because of it. But that before all that had happened, in their youth they'd all been friends once. The spell that Harry saw them use was one of Agatha's own invention. It was indeed one of the most powerful spells they would ever know. It required a witch and wizard together to cast the spell with united purpose. That perhaps they ought to teach that spell to he and Hermione. Agatha agreed and that was one small thing on a future agenda.

The members all went back to their normal lives and duties, and TND finally heard back from T'Challa. He asked for Harry and a delegation to come and he would take them somewhere safe to meet some people who would offer them a solution. So they did. T'Challa led them from Wakanda to a secluded place on the western shore of Lake Victoria in Tanzania. Where he brokered a deal for them with the Haya tribe who would under the noses of the Tanzania government, spirit Potter and his TND team into their lands on the west bank of the lake, where they would give them a small, slightly mountainous unpopulated island just off their coast that they could put completely under a Fidelius, wherein and underneath they could build their underground base and have an underwater egress for their secret space ships. They thought the plan was perfect, so they accepted.

When Harry suggested they could hire Goblins to help them quickly and expertly excavate their underground base, T'Challa got very agitated and almost wanted to pull out of the deal entirely. When asked why, he explained that Wakanda had to defend itself from Goblins in many wars in the past, as they kept trying to take their sacred mountain from them. They would not trust them to do anything. Harry then got T'Challa to agree to the bargain that he would only hire the Goblins to do the initial excavation and would tell them nothing about what they were doing or why, or that he and Wakanda were involved at all. Their location was far enough from Wakanda to not draw any suspicions in that direction. They would pretend they never even heard of Wakanda in the presence of any Goblins. That calmed T'Challa enough to accept their involvement on those terms but wished them to be extremely careful with those untrustworthy wanyama, but he agreed they were good for one thing, digging holes.

Harry, with Hermione's help and blessing so long as she was in charge of it, hired one hundred well paid and treated Elves to work for TND. They would finish what the Goblin's started, making it into a well finished underground base suitable for human habitation and work. The Elves would also turn out to make fantastic teams to invisibly, creatively, and nearly instantaneously "acquire" hard to get resources, especially quantities of large heavy items they would need. Of course, their target for such creative acquisition would be the American SGC stockpiles and so forth. Not so much as to cripple their own efforts, but more of a "sharing," so that TND would be able to "help" them in their mission. Yeah, that made sense to everyone. They weren't too put out about taking things from the Americans, the Americans tried to take all of Harry's things and tried to shoot the pair of them. So, Eff them.

By June, their new base was ready to move into and they transferred everything from Wiltshire to their new subterranean underwater fortress they called, New York-just to confuse anyone who would ever get lucky enough to eavesdrop on one of them and in particular to stick it to the Americans yet one more time. They were English after all, they had dibs on the name New York as well, they glibly explained to their American friends from the Fantastic Four. The latter just shrugged and Johnny said, it was a good prank, to which Sirius just grinned. Their fifteen permanent members moved in and their part-timers also came for a few visits to get acclimated and participate in some team training. Fred and George while working at their WWW in London, would begin experimenting with magical tricks that could help them with their fight against the Goa'uld. It couldn't be all technology they reckoned, and it didn't need to be.

Finally they had built a proper home for their own stargate and DHD, their own secure gate room as it were. With Reed and T'Challa's help and with Harry's SSFIRE crystals as a power source, they managed to restore power to the dead DHD and the gate. They had determined by trial and error that the negative energy put out by Harry's crystal was one hundred percent compatible with the stargate. They filed that observation away for future study while they took full advantage of it. They also built their own gearing mechanism to control the titanium Iris that they got with the gate, so they would have the same security for inbound connections as the SGC did. Except theirs was tied into a runic ward stone, which could be triggered by a spell through an open wormhole as well as by the computer control from inside the base. They had in the meantime learned more about how and what the SGC did by having a team of invisible Elves go there in rotating shifts, with Omnioculars recorders and record everything going on in their gate room, control console, and main debriefing room. In this way, they kept a regular update on the SGC and learned more about how to use the Goa'uld technology.

They formed their own special off-world exploration team which they called ND-1. Unlike the SGC though, they didn't go off-world in mere uniforms. They each had their own ND armor, customized copies of the Vibranium armor T'Challa gave them. The hands and face mask could retract easily to allow access to their wands or other direct use of their hands and faces as necessary while interacting in the environment. The suits even had their own limited supply of oxygen if they ever found themselves in an oxygen-poor atmosphere or around other toxins. One hand of their armor could fire built-in Zat blasts, the other hand could fire Vibranium energy daggers. And the suit, while it could not fly, did possess a low-powered energy shield in addition to the natural energy reflection properties of the Vibranium itself. TND designed their own magic-assisted disillusioned MALP's that looked like little floating orbs (refer to Kino's) that they would first send through the gate to determine the environment and any threats before stepping through. ND-1 consisted of Harry, Hermione, Sirius, and Remus and it had become time to begin their own Stargate program of exploration.

A/N:

I will take this moment to remind everyone of item number 2 on the information section of my profile page. As I have long stated, all stargates in my stories are individually addressed so there is no confusion of wormhole connections when there is more than one gate on a planet or anywhere else. It has always been my position that the Alterans would never have been that stupid. So, no need to try to remind me that canon says otherwise. I have over-ruled it in my AU's. So say we all.