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
Feedback: I'd like it, believe me
AN: I'm not entirely sure about this chapter myself, but I'm mainly using it to try and establish some of the framework for the relationship the two groups will have with each other as the story continues; essentially, it's a not-so-good thing that needs to be written
AN 2: Although the chapter is divided into two sections, they both begin at pretty much the same time, just after the two groups have parted ways to head for different elevators (They're both heading for different floors, after all); it doesn't really impact on either of them, but I just thought I'd clarify that
AN 3: Sorry about the delay; I had a serious case of writer's block this time around…
Truth and Revelations
"So," Hermione asked, as she, Tonks and Lupin followed Sam and Teal'c out of the briefing room- it had been decided that Fred, George and Hagrid would receive the 'briefing' on proper procedure for SG teams due to their lesser skills in duelling, while the other three tested how spells worked against Goa'uld weaponry on the Level Seventeen 'firing range'- and towards the elevators that would take them closer to the room where magic and Goa'uld technology would meet for the first time, "what else can you tell me about what Harry's been up to here since he left us?"
"He's already told you the essential details; why do you want to know anything else?" Sam asked, glancing back at the two witches and one wizard as she pressed the button for the lift and stepped back to wait. "If Daniel doesn't want to tell you something, I'm not going to betray his trust by telling you about it behind his back.
"I'm not asking for anything major; I just want to know some examples of what he does here apart from translate stuff," Hermione replied, shrugging slightly as she looked back at the lieutenant-colonel with an equally tense stance. Off to the side, Teal'c exchanged a somewhat uncertain glance with Lupin and Tonks, but their anxious return glances did little to reassure him; evidently, they were just as uncertain about the motives behind this 'confrontation' between the two women as he was. "What he's discovered, where he's been, what kind of people he's met on his trips through this 'Stargate' of yours…"
"And, as I told you, whether or not Daniel wants to tell you anything about that is his own concern," Sam retorted, folding her arms as she looked at Hermione. She knew she was being more than slightly petty for no real reason- after all, Daniel hadn't even seen this woman in almost twenty years
"He's changed a lot since you knew him, and you need to accept that," the scientist continued, bringing her mind back to the matter at hand as she stared critically at the British Minister of Magic. "Just because you may have known everything about him back then doesn't mean you have the right to know everything about him now."
"And you think you do have the right to know everything about him?" Hermione retorted, also folding her arms as she stared at the Air Force officer before her; the other three were currently starting to wonder whether they should just take the stares and leave the two women to work their apparent issues out in the lift on their own. "From what I gather, he never even told you about his past at Hogwarts- or, indeed, anything about his life as a wizard in the first place- up until now-"
"He had no reason to do that and he wanted to forget it; why should I blame him for that?" Sam retorted with a brief glare at the other woman as the lift doors finally opened; Lupin, Tonks and Teal'c slipped in past the two women to get inside the elevator first, leaving the two of them to just step into the front of the elevator while continuing to stare harshly at each other. "If he doesn't want to talk to me about something, I'm prepared to respect his wishes. Besides, It's not like he lied to me, anyway; I never really asked him for more details-"
"So now that you know there was more to his past than you thought at first, you think that gives you the right to ask for more?" Hermione interrupted. "You know, I may not know that much about Harry these days, but I'd never push him for information under any circumstances-
"I am not pushing him," Sam stated bluntly, glaring harshly at the witch before her as she spoke. "I haven't even tried to ask him for further information about his time at 'Hogwarts' or whatever it's called; I learned a long time ago that getting information out of Daniel when he wants to give it to you is easy enough, but it's less easy to do so when he doesn't, so there's no point even trying it. If he wants to tell me it, he will; if he doesn't, he won't, and I've come to realise that I'll have to accept that about him."
For a moment, there was silence as the two women continued to stare at each other- Teal'c, Tonks, and Remus prepared themselves for the worst when the two of them began to talk once more…
Then, much to their surprise, Hermione actually smiled slightly at the other woman before her, lacking any of the initial hostility of her previous comments.
"He can be a bit stubborn like that, can't he?" she said, a slight smile on her face as she looked at the blonde astrophysicist. "I mean, you wouldn't believe how hard it was to get him to talk about something that was troubling him in the old days; we probably spent about half the time thinking that he was doing fine when actually he'd screwed up and just wanted to handle it himself…"
"Trust me, he hasn't changed; he practically never tells us when something's bothering him even now," Sam replied, a small smile spreading across her own face as she looked at Daniel/Harry's old friend. "The number of times he's tried not to tell us how much he's in pain from an injury or an illness of some kind… I mean, he was suffering from appendicitis at one point, but kept on trying to cope with it himself up to the point when he collapsed in his office."
Noting Hermione's suddenly shocked expression, Sam shrugged in a helpless manner as she looked at her new friend. "In his defence, he thought that it was just a bad stomach-ache, or maybe a side-effect of this recent accident on a mission that caused him to turn intangible; he never even suspected it might have been something more serious until he was actually examined."
"Yep, that's Harry all over; really not very good at sharing how he feels about anything…" Lupin said, chuckling briefly at the memory before he looked over at Teal'c, a suddenly saddened expression on his face. "Uh… is he any better at… well, talking about himself? I mean, I always saw him as a nephew, but, at the same time, I couldn't help but think that he could be a bit more… open… about his feelings, really."
"Unfortunately, Daniel Jackson remains just as uncommunicative about his feelings about subjects that are bothering him in the present as he is uncommunicative about his past life unless something occurs that requires him to tell us about it," Teal'c replied, as the elevator stopped and the group stepped out into the corridor. "He only told us about the events surrounding his confrontations with Voldemort when it was clear that the truth was the only option that would be acceptable, and he even told us few details about the fake life he had created for himself to escape his life as a wizard."
Tonks blinked in surprise.
"He created a fake life to account for his time at Hogwarts?" she asked, looking over in surprise, and no small amount of curiosity, at Teal'c. "How does that work?"
"As we understand it, he contacted a wizarding version of the American witness protection program, who provided him not only with fake documentation to account for his existence in what I believe you refer to as the 'muggle' world," Teal'c explained. "According to Daniel Jackson, this included false memories to prevent anyone from learning the truth about him by simply reading his mind, as they would 'read' the false memories before the true ones and assume that they were genuine. These memories have become incorporated into his mind, although he still recalls his original life; he told us that he tends to think of his life as a combination of his time at Hgowarts and the time he spent growing up with Claire and Melbourne Jackson."
"Ah," Hermione said, looking uncomfortably over at Sam as the astrophysicist began to slow down as she approached a certain door in the corridor. "Uh… what was his new life like? I mean, y'know, memories of a whole life as somebody else…"
"He didn't tell us much about it either," Sam said, shrugging apologetically as she walked up to a nearby door and opened it, waving the group in as she continued speaking. "He didn't want to have to lie to people he considered friends, so he created a fake life that basically matched some of the essential details about his past without all the details such as magic; in the new life he created for himself, his parents died when he was young and he was shifted around through various foster homes until he went to university, at which point the 'other' life he created for himself ends and his real life pretty much… 'link up', for lack of a better term."
"His parents died at a young age?" Lupin asked, looking over at the astrophysicist with a suddenly uncertain expression on his face. "Uh… if you don't mind me asking…"
"Claire and Melbourne Jackson were crushed by an Egyptian coverstone while setting up an exhibit while Daniel Jackson was only eight years old," Sam replied simply. She knew it was a bit of an odd way to phrase the answer, but she felt it was the appropriate one; if Daniel regarded his memories of Claire and Melbourne as being just as genuine as his memories of his time at Hogwarts, she would continue to think of them as having been real people.
Maybe they had never existed in the 'real' world, but they existed for Daniel, and, as far as she was concerned, that was enough.
After everything she'd heard from him about the Dursleys on the flight over to England, she wasn't going to even begin to think about the fact that the only decent parents Daniel had ever had didn't, technically, exist; he remembered a life with them, and that was all that really mattered.
"Oh," Hermione said, clearly uncertain what she should say next, as she continued to study the room they'd entered before her eyes fell on a familiar pile of objects in the middle of the room. "Um… are those the weapons we'll be practicing with?"
"Indeed," Teal'c said, as he picked up the staff weapon from the table and glanced critically at the three wizards standing before him. "Now then, which of you three would prefer to test the effects of this against your defensive capabilities?"
"So…" Hagrid asked, looking curiously over at Daniel as the five men walked towards the lift that would take them to another storeroom- if nothing else, it was one of the few rooms in the base that Hagrid would be able to stand in without needing to crouch slightly- to begin the wizard's 'briefing', "apart from these Goa'uld things- and those 'Asgard' yer mentioned- have ye all ever encountered any… other aliens?"
"Would you like the list?" Mitchell asked, smiling over at Hagrid as they approached the lift. "Because trust me, it is a very diverse one."
"Wait; there's more out there than those two races out there?" Fred put in, looking eagerly over at Daniel. "How many?"
For a moment, Daniel looked uncertainly at Mitchell, before Mitchell shrugged.
"Hey, they've already got clearance to be here, and they already know about keeping secrets for a long time; it's my call to make, and I'm making it," he said, nodding affirmatively at his friend.
"Thanks," Daniel said briefly, before looking back at his old friends as they stepped into the elevator. "To answer your question, there's a significant amount of aliens out there; some of the most prominent ones we've encountered include the Unas, the Nox, the Replicators, the Ancients, and the Wraith."
"Which are?" George inquired, looking eagerly over at Daniel.
"Well, the Unas are dinosaur-like aliens who were originally used as hosts by the Goa'uld before they found us and thought we were better hosts than those guys," Mitchell explained, a slight smile on his face as he looked at the eager expressions on the twins' faces, so much like his own expression when he and his colleagues had initially learned about the Stargate. "The Nox are a peaceful race who can heal others and possess some seriously advanced technology, but generally assume a pacifist stance in any conflict they get involved in."
"The Ancients- as Hermione may have already mentioned to you- were the race who originally built the Stargates," Daniel continued, looking casually over at the twins as they finally reached the lift and walked into it. "They were struck by a terrible plague centuries ago, but managed to escape death by learning how to… well, long story short, they learned how to evolve beyond their physical bodies and exist as pure energy, a state that they continue to exist in to this day."
The twins' eyes widened in surprise at that, but Hagrid spoke before either of them could get a word in.
"Hold on; they exist as energy?" the gamekeeper said, looking in surprise as his old friend. "How's that e'en possible?"
As he pushed the button that would take the elevator up to the floor that the storerooms were located on, Daniel shrugged apologetically at the man who'd first taught him about the wizarding world.
"As to that, I'm not entirely sure myself," he said, which was only a half-truth; he did have some idea what was involved in the process of Ascension, but it was nothing concrete, and he didn't feel quite ready yet to tell his old friends about him dying and Ascending at the moment. "All I know is that it works; my wife had a child while she was under the control of that Goa'uld I told you about, and, after spending about a year being 'raised' by one of the Ancients to follow their teachings, he managed to shed his physical form and join them as a being of pure energy."
"Really?" Hagrid asked, looking at Daniel with wide eyes. "Wow… that's jus'… incredible…"
"I know," Daniel replied, nodding at Hagrid with a slight smile before looking back at Fred and George (Who, he was pleased to note, looked just as shocked at his latest revelation as Hagrid had). "Unfortunately, the last of those two species- the Replicators and the Wraith- are both, in their own way, almost worse than the Goa'uld; fortunately, all Replicators were annihilated last year and the Wraith are in another galaxy altogether, so you definitely won't be dealing with them any time-"
"Hold on; another galaxy?" George interjected, looking incredulously at Daniel. "How'd you know about aliens from another galaxy?"
"Oh, we sent an expeditionary force over there about a year before I joined the program," Mitchell explained as he glanced over with a small smile at the twins, taking up the story once more. "The Ancients moved this massive 'city ship' of theirs over to that galaxy some centuries back- the city in question went on to inspire the Atlantis myth, if you're interested- and when we discovered the Stargate address for the place, we sent a team over there. They spend their days learning about the Ancients, discovering the secrets of the galaxy that they've made their new home, and dealing with the Wraith, who are that galaxy's version of the Goa'uld."
"Essentially," Daniel spoke up, taking up the story once more as the elevator doors opened and they walked out towards one of the storerooms, "the Wraith are humanoid leeches, draining humans of their life energies to keep themselves alive- kind of like vampires, except that they don't actually drain blood or anything physical from their victims. The available evidence suggests that they're some kind of hybrid of humans and a life-draining insect the expedition encountered on one of their first trips through that galaxy's Stargate network, but how that actually happened is still a mystery at the moment."
"Ouch…" Fred whispered, as the elevator stopped and the doors opened. "They do not sound pleasant."
"And that's even before you factor in the tech these suckers have access to," Mitchell added, groaning slightly at the memory as the five of them turned towards the unofficially-designated 'briefing room' for the current moment. "I mean, their ships are at least twenty times the size of what we've got available to us-"
"Hold on a minute; you have spaceships?" George interjected, looking over at his friend in shock. "What are we talking here; space shuttles, or what?"
For a moment, there was a contemplative silence as Daniel and Mitchell looked at each other, and then Daniel smiled and nodded in confirmation.
"No, we're talking about actual spaceships here," he explained, a slight smile on his face as he recalled some of his trips in the aforementioned ships in the past. "Our 'fleet' isn't much- our original one was called the Prometheus while the later one's known as the Daedalus, and we've got a few other ships under construction at the moment- but they're still pretty effective at what they do, even if they're not quite as advanced as some of the stuff out there."
"Uh… what are the other ships out there like?" Fred asked, a suddenly anxious expression on his face as he looked at the two men; clearly he was worried about the prospect of facing any spaceships on his first mission through the Stargate.
"Oh, you probably won't have to deal with much yourself; Hestia's a pretty minor Goa'uld in the grand scheme of things, so she's unlikely to have anything really large available to her, and most of the biggest ships we've encountered belong to the Wraith, who, as I've already mentioned, live in a totally different galaxy than we do," Daniel said reassuringly as he opened the door to the storeroom where they'd be giving his three old friends their 'lesson'. "And the Replicators aren't going to be a major concern for you either; they were artificial life-forms dedicated to 'replicating' themselves by spreading over the galaxy, but we discovered an Ancient weapon that generated a unique energy wave that caused the Replicators' atoms to disperse, and they haven't been heard from since."
"Ah," George and Fred said,
"Right now," Daniel said, as he turned to look grimly at his old friends, his expression all business rather than the more relaxed attitude he'd been broadcasting up until this point, "now that all that's out of the way, we need to get down to business."
"OK then," Mitchell said, taking up the explanation for the moment, "the first thing you all need to understand is that; we're going into hostile territory, dealing with some enemies that you know and some that you don't, so you all need to follow orders as soon as they're given, got that?"
"Check," the twins said, as Hagrid nodded.
"Good," Daniel replied simply. "Now then, based on what we saw of Hestia's planet, we're dealing with a society at a level comparable to that of ancient Greece, with a great deal of temples around the location where the Stargate is kept, so we'll be developing a combat strategy to accommodate that as well as our enemies' potential firepower…"