Disclaimer: 'Stargate' and 'Harry Potter' both belong to their respective creators, so I don't own them; I'm just borrowing them for the immediate moment in time and space

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Truth and Revelations

An hour later, as Harry was sitting by Hermione's bedside, watching her as his eyes continually flicked anxiously in the direction of the door, as though he expected somebody to come charging in to look for a him at any moment, his last true friend- the other members of the Order were so much older than him he still found it hard to think of them as actual friends- slowly stirred, and, at a pace that was too slow to be normal, opened her eyes to look at him.

"H… Harry?" she asked him, an uncertain tone in her voice as she squinted at him; evidently, her vision still wasn't quite back to normal. "Wh… what happened?"

"Hey, Hermione," he said simply, as he reached over to place a hand on hers. "You'll be glad to know your efforts to kill Nagini weren't in vain. Ginny sliced her head off while you… kept her occupied, and I took Voldemort out just a short while ago, while you were still unconscious.

Despite the darkness of the event in question, Harry couldn't stop a slight chuckle coming from his lips. "The stupid twat broke his neck when he tried to hit me while we were fighting."

Hermione smiled at that, which at least confirmed Harry's own feelings about the matter were justified; somehow, the idea of Voldemort, a half-blood who'd devoted his entire life to just learning how to fight with magic, dying of something as mundane as a broken neck, was rather amusing…

"Good…" she said simply, her eyes slowly closing as she began to lie back in her bed. Just as her head touched the pillow, however, a thought seemed to occur to her, and she slowly pushed herself upwards once again to look at her friend. "Where's Ginny?"

Harry sighed as he looked back at her. He'd been hoping this could wait until she was stronger, but he'd never been able to actually lie to Hermione about something that might directly concern her- telling her he was coming along with the golden egg in the Tournament was one thing, but this was a totally different situation- and he wasn't going to start lying to her now.

Especially not when he was about to make the most important decision in his entire life…

"Hermione…" he began, before taking a deep breath and saying the two words that, in his mind, would make the earlier incident fact once and for all. "Ginny's dead."

"What?" Hermione said, sitting up sharply at that comment only to regret it when her head rapidly began to ache as she spoke, forcing her to fall back onto the bed as she clutched her head.

"Pettigrew," Harry stated, by way of explanation. "I left the bastard with Ginny in Grimmauld Place after he told me where Voldemort was- took every precaution I could think of to stop him getting into a position where he could hurt her- and he went and killed her when I got back. He got away before I could take him out and take him to Azkaban, and… I just didn't have the strength to follow him…"

Sighing once again, he bowed his head, staring at the floor below him, his shoulders slumped in despair as he recalled the last fresh image of Ginny that would ever be in his memory, as she lay at the bottom of the stairs of Godric's Hollow, blood flowing around her head, mixing in with her red hair as it lay around her like a halo…

It was then that Harry made up his mind.

He'd been thinking about it for a while now, but this memory made up his mind for him.

He couldn't just stay here and have to cope with the memories that he'd be faced with for the rest of his life.

"I'm done," he said, standing up from beside the bed, a grim expression on his face.

"W… what?" Hermione asked, looking in confusion in his direction from where she lay in the bed.

"I can't do this any more, Hermione," Harry said, as he turned to look at her, knowing this wasn't the best time to say what he had to say, but at the same time knowing he had to say it now if he was ever going to say it; he'd never be able to get away once the news of the previous night became public. "I can't remain in a world where I'll always be known for something I can't even remember doing. I've beaten Voldemort, but I've lost Ginny… Ron's dead… Dumbledore's dead… hell, even Sirius is gone…"

Reaching one hand out, he leaned against the wall with that arm, bowing his head in despair as he recalled the past. "There's just not enough reasons for me to stay in the wizarding world any more…"

Looking back at Hermione, he sighed again as he took her hand in his, the better to ensure she was paying attention to him as he spoke. "Besides, if I stay here, I'll never even have a moment's peace from the press, especially after this. Forget the hassles of having a ton of Romilda Vane wannabes chasing after me all the time, trying to tie me to a bed and have their wicked way with me; how can I even be sure someone will hire me for a job because they really think I'll do it well, rather than just as some kind of marketing gimmick- you know, 'I've got the Boy Who Lived working for me'…"

He sighed once again as he stared at Hermione before standing up once more. "It's just… it'd be too hard to stay here without her to make it easier, you know?" he said, as he looked at Hermione apologetically.

"I want to be free to make my own way in life, Hermione. Having everyone I apply for a job with falling over themselves to make it easy for me… that's no way to live. I don't want to go somewhere where everyone has all these expectations of me just because of who I am; I want to be hired because my employers actually think I'll do a good job based on my credentials, rather than my name."

"But… what will you do?" Hermione asked, looking in confusion and despair at her friend. A part of her wanted to ask why he was telling her this now, of all times, but at the same time she knew that he didn't have much choice; if he waited too long to leave, news would get out about the defeat of Voldemort, and then he'd never be able to get away from it all without someone managing to figure out what was going on…

Harry shrugged at her question.

"I've been spending a bit of time with Bill recently, when I had time off; Egyptian history sounds pretty interesting, so maybe I'll see about something in Egyptology," he said, before a half-smile flickered across his lips. "Come to think of it, maybe something in languages would be worthwhile as well. I've been finding it pretty simple to learn them since I actually learned about my Parseltongue abilities; maybe my brain's just better suited to coping with that kind of stuff these days…"

Shaking his head as to clear away those pleasant thoughts, he looked back at Hermione, a solemn expression on his face once more, as though he was almost resigned to the consequences of his decision. "All I know is, I can't stay here any more, Hermione. I'm sorry, but I have to go."

"Harry…" Hermione began, looking at him sadly as he stood up. The young wizard was about to turn for the door, but, at the last minute, he turned back to look at Hermione and, leaning over, planted a brief, brotherly kiss on her cheek.

"Goodbye, Hermione," he said, a small smile on his face as the two of them looked at each other for the last time, the faint trace of tears in both their eyes as they recalled all that they had been through together to get to this point. "I'll try and stay in touch… send a card or something, you know. Just… don't look for me, please."

Hermione opened her mouth as though she was about to protest, but Harry held up a hand in a halting gesture.

"Please," he said, as he stared back at her, a single tear trickling down his left cheek, as he stared pleadingly at the young woman who had become like a sister to him, as he prepared to walk out of her life forever. "I… I don't want to be found any more. I want to be left alone."

And with that, Harry James Potter, the Boy Who Lived, turned around, walked out of the door of the ward that held one of his few remaining friends, and vanished from the wizarding world.

"From there, it was relatively straightforward," Daniel continued, looking around at his friends as he spoke, trying to conceal the pain he felt when he thought about his old friends. "Using some contacts I'd made in my search for the horcruxes- a couple of Ministry officials who were more interested in helping me as a person than trying to use me as a symbol- I was able to set up a false background for myself as Daniel Jackson, and moved to America so that I'd have a better chance of escaping discovery; the wizarding community over here isn't as established as it is in Britain. Thanks to the knowledge of languages I'd acquired during my time with the Order, coupled with my new-found interest in Egyptian history, I made a significant impression in an American high school- fortunately, I looked rather young for my age at the time- and, after receiving a few scholarship offers, soon found myself enrolled in the University of Chicago, and…"

He shrugged slightly. "Well, after that whole incident with Osiris taking Sarah as a host, you all already know the essential details about that point in my life."

For a moment, General Landry and the rest of SG-1 could only stare at Daniel incredulously, apparently unable to believe that he could have kept something so incredible a secret for all that time. Putting aside the fact that he was a wizard, there was also all the loss he'd suffered in that time, apparently just because he was who he was…

"Hold on a minute," Mitchell said, sitting forward in his chair to look at Daniel critically. "Not that I'm doubting your story- after everything we've just seen, that would be pretty dumb- but there's a few details about this whole thing that don't quite make sense, and I'd appreciate some answers."

"Such as?" Daniel said, looking over at Mitchell.

"For one thing, if your parents were a witch and a wizard who got killed by that 'Moldiewart' guy when you were one, how come that incident with the Gamekeeper on P7J-989 showed you a memory of them being archaeologists who were crushed by a falling capstone when you were eight?" Mitchell asked, looking critically at Daniel.

The archaeologist, however, didn't seem that fazed by Mitchell's statement; his only immediate response was a small, sad smile.

"That's fairly straightforward, really," he explained, as he looked at Mitchell. "You remember that incident a short while ago, when you were given someone else's memory?"

Mitchell could only nod slightly at that; even if he no longer remembered killing an innocent woman by accident, he still remembered how he'd felt about it until he'd been fully cleared, and that was often enough to leave him feeling sick to his stomach about the whole affair.

"Well, I essentially had something similar done to me; it just wasn't somebody else's memory, it was a totally original one," Daniel explained, as he looked around at the others. "When I left the wizarding world, I knew that there was always the chance someone could find me, and I wanted to take every precaution I could to stop that from happening. I already knew that it was possible to alter memories, so I contacted the wizard… 'witness protection program', for lack of a better term- I can't recall what they actually called it- and, using a disguise to avoid attracting too much attention, had them stick a bunch of fake memories in my head about a life as Daniel Jackson. Some wizards are capable of, essentially, reading minds- a method known as legilimency, to be specific- and the memories would stop any wizard who encountered me from realising who I was; even if he recognised me, the examination of my memories would make him think that the resemblance to Harry Potter was just a coincidence. It also helped me catch up with my language abilities; the spell kind of 'advanced' my knowledge of the languages I'd been learning already, and left me with a significantly greater talent for languages. I'd continue to improve my talents in college, of course, but the information I received with the memories was necessary to create a greater… difference… between Harry and Daniel; Harry never really knew all that many languages, although since they weren't part of the school curriculum at Hogwarts that was hardly a major issue."

Sam opened her mouth to ask a question, but Daniel raised a hand to stop her. "No, the memories I received didn't replace my old ones; my original memories are all still in my head, and I remember both the real ones and the false ones. It's just… well, the false memories are… in front of my real ones, I guess is the best way of describing it, so anyone trying to read my memory would only see the memories of my life as Daniel, rather than my life as Harry. Oh, and in case you're wondering why I gave myself such an… unpleasant childhood experience… I deliberately asked for something traumatic to have taken place to give me a reason not to talk about my past; if I didn't have something that I'd want to talk about, I wouldn't actually have a reason to lie to anybody when I was discussing my past."

"Uh… actually, I wasn't going to ask about how the memory thing worked; it would have been my next question," Sam said, as she looked critically at Daniel. "What I was going to ask is, if the Jacksons never actually existed, why did you sound so sincere when you asked the Gamekeeper to stop his recreation of their deaths? Was it just an act," she continued, sounding for a moment as harsh as any Goa'uld as she stared at Daniel, as though unable to believe he could lie so much that he even faked his reaction to a significantly traumatic experience, "or was it something else?"

For a moment, Daniel seemed as though he wasn't going to reply, and then he sighed and looked directly at Sam.

"Well, even if I consciously know that it wasn't real," he said, as he looked at Sam, "that doesn't change two facts."

"These facts being?" Teal'c asked, studying his friend curiously.

"Well… firstly, I have no actual memory of the death of my… well, my real parents," Daniel explained, as he looked around the table. "After all, they died when I was barely one year old; all I recall is some vague recollections of their voices, and I only remember that because of… an encounter I'd rather forget." For a moment, Sam looked like she was about to ask what he meant by that, but then she saw the expression on his face- this topic was evidently causing him a great deal of pain as it was- and decided against it.

For all he'd omitted when talking to them, it was becoming increasingly clear that he hadn't done it because he didn't trust the rest of SG-1 to keep it secret; he just hadn't wanted to remember.

"Anyway," Daniel continued, placing one hand on a chair as though to give himself the strength necessary to continue, "one of the explanations for why I felt so strongly about that memory is probably that, when the false memories were implanted, the ones of the fake death of the Jacksons ended up becoming inextricably connected to the real death of my parents…"

"And when you saw that recreation taken from the false memories, it was like you were watching the death of your real parents, since you never actually saw them die in the first place?" Mitchell asked, looking inquiringly at Daniel.

"Yeah…" Daniel said, nodding slightly before he looked at his commanding officer and sighed. "Of course, there is another reason…"

"Which is?" General Landry put in, looking inquiringly at Daniel.

"Well… you know how I said I had memories of my life as Daniel Jackson implanted in my mind?" Daniel asked. Landry nodded, and Daniel continued. "Well… I got memories of a childhood with the Jacksons as well. It was pretty much everything you'd expect of a life with a pair of archaeologists- Claire teaching me hieroglyphics and singing me Egyptian lullabies when I couldn't sleep on the digs, Melbourne letting me excavate a statue all by myself and praising me when I spotted a hidden door that everyone else had missed…"

For a moment, Daniel paused, his mind lost in his recollections of the past- whether real or implanted, nobody could be sure- and then looked back at Landry, as though a part of him was reluctant to look at his teammates until he had finished what he was saying now. "Given a choice between eight years of a life like that, no matter how badly it ended, and a life where I spent about ten years being forced to sleep in a cupboard and being called everything from 'boy' to 'freak' by people who were meant to be my relatives, is it any wonder I prefer to think of my first eight years with the Jacksons as being my real childhood, and the Dursleys just a temporary family I had to put up with for only a couple of years before I went to Hogwarts?"

Nobody could answer that.

They didn't need to.

Daniel just nodded slightly as he looked at them all, evidently feeling that words were unnecessary.

"Exactly," he said simply, as he looked at his friends. "I generally try and think of my life prior to the University of Chicago as being a mix of my two sets of memories; the Jacksons for the first eight years of my life, and then seven years at Hogwarts, with some of my more pleasant sets of foster parents in between the two."

There was silence in the room for a moment, as SG-1 and General Landry took in what they had just been told, and then Sam looked up at Daniel once again.

"What about Nick?" she asked, looking curiously at her friend. "Where does he fit into all this? I mean, was he actually your grandfather, or was he just somebody you knew who posed as your grandfather?"

"Well, it's a bit of both, really," Daniel explained, as he looked over at Sam. "He's not my biological grandfather, but he married my maternal grandmother when my mother and my aunt were still very young. However, he was away a lot on digs, so he didn't really spend much time with my parents; I sometimes think he wasn't even fully aware that they were magical. Anyway, he was away a lot when my parents had me and when they died, to the extent that he barely even seemed aware of the fact that I was living with the Dursleys; my grandmother had died some years ago, so he'd found increasingly less reasons to come home, especially since the Dursleys didn't like him that much anyway."

"But… what about him not wanting to adopt you?" Sam asked, looking at Daniel in confusion. "I mean, based on what he was willing to tell us, it sounded like he was actually there for your parents' funeral; how does that tie into your real life if those memories are all false?"

Daniel sighed slightly. "Well… that's a bit more complicated to explain- I'm not entirely sure how it happened myself- but the simple reason is that, after spending so much time being either away or in that mental care facility, when he learned about me, he… couldn't take that he'd missed so much of his grandson's life, so he kind of... created a 'fantasy' life where he knew about me from the beginning, based on what I told him about my life with Mel and Claire. In the end, since it didn't seem like telling the truth was doing any good, and the staff seemed to think it would be easier for him if he actually had someone from the outside that he could relate to…"

He shrugged slightly once again, this time in a more awkward manner as he looked at his teammates. "I know it probably wasn't the best thing for him to fall into that kind of fantasy world on a long-term basis, but… well, he seemed to need something to hold on to in the outside world, no matter what it was. I… tweaked my false memories slightly to accommodate his presence- it wasn't that hard, really; once they've been implanted it's a straightforward matter to rewrite them slightly- and I let him believe what he wanted to believe."

Noting Sam's questioning look in his direction- she, unlike the rest, knew what Nick had said to Daniel after the funeral- Daniel shrugged slightly.

"He wasn't perfect," he said to his friends by way of explanation, "but, unlike the Dursleys, he never hated me; he just couldn't manage to find the time for me."

For a moment, there was silence throughout the room as the rest of SG-1 contemplated all that their friend had said to them, before the silence was broken by a slightly cough.

"Anyway," General Landry said, looking directly at the various members of his frontline team for a moment before looking back at Daniel, "as fascinating as your personal history has been, Doctor Jackson, I feel we should get back to the main issue at hand at the present moment; what connection does the 'Voldemort' you encountered on your mission have with the man you killed two decades ago, and what can we do to fight him?"

Daniel sighed in frustration at that comment, a look of slight self-recrimination on his face as he looked at Landry, evidently wishing he could give the SGC commander a better answer than the one he had at present.

"As to the first one… I don't know," he said simply. "He's gathered Voldemort's old followers, and he certainly looks like Voldemort, but at the same time, he's clearly being controlled by a Goa'uld, and Voldemort's body, as I told you, was destroyed when he died. As far as what the connection is between them, I'm as confused as the rest of you."

For a moment, he paused, looking for a moment like he wanted to just get up and leave, but simultaneously knew that he had to say what he had to say.

He'd been 'running'- even if he didn't think of it like that- from his past for far too long.

It was time for him to face his past once again.

"For the second…" he said, before taking a deep breath as he looked at his friends, before finally saying the words he'd never thought he'd say. "We have to go back to England and contact the Ministry of Magic and the Order of the Phoenix; we can probably do a good job against the Death Eaters with our normal weapons, but some people with experience in this kind of thing would definitely be helpful."

As he spoke, Daniel kept his eyes fixed on General Landry, willing the man to understand why he was suggesting this, why they would need help in tackling this situation, why, on this occasion, the SGC alone couldn't be enough…

And, finally, Landry nodded.

"OK; I'll arrange transportation for the four of you to go to Britain," he said, as he looked at SG-1 before looking back at Daniel, who was looking at Landry as though he wanted to say something. "It may be a different culture, Doctor Jackson, but I doubt an entire government is going to send a detachment of the local military all the way over here without you being able to provide some kind of proof of your claims. If they can read minds, as you say they can, I acknowledge you might be enough, but the more views on a situation like this the better, I think."

Daniel remained silent for a moment, as though he was thinking about what Landry had just said to him, and finally nodded.

"Excellent," Landry said, as he stood up to look around at the rest of SG-1. "I'll sort your transportation out; if all goes well, you'll be on a plane to Britain this time tomorrow."

Despite the dangers of their current situation, and the story he'd just told the others, Daniel couldn't help but smile at the thought of what was awaiting them.

He may have left the wizarding world behind all those years ago, but he'd tried to keep up-to-date with the news of major events in it. Of course, he'd cancelled his subscription at the beginning of the year- he'd rather not have to explain why he was having a newspaper sent to Atlantis, and he'd never managed to get around to sending off for a new subscription after that whole thing with Vala that stopped him boarding the Daedalus on its trip to Atlantis…

But still, he doubted the situation would have changed that much in the last few months.

And, if it was still the same, asking for help might prove to be far easier than any of the others had even suspected…

AN: The theory about why Daniel reacted so strongly to his vision of the Jacksons' deaths in 'The Gamekeeper' was created by the very talented MaureenT, and I am grateful to her for the suggestion; it helps everything make more sense, in my opinion (By the way, to any Sam/Daniel fans reading this, I can recommend her series 'What You Already Know: Ship Version', where Daniel develops powerful psychic abilities around the middle of Season Seven and- eventually- starts a relationship with Sam; it is absolutely BRILLIANT)