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: Sorry to those of you who were looking forward to the meeting with the twins and the IOA this chapter; given how long it might take for the IOA to send our 'good friend' Woolsey down to the SGC, that might not be happening for a little while- and, indeed, the SG-1/SG-M team might get back to Earth before they get there- but the seeds have been sown for the meeting, and it will happen soon enough, I assure you
AN 2: Just to mention in advance, the reference later on in this chapter to Teal'c's staff weapon being composed of at least a variation of naqahdah is based on the episode "Enemy Mine", where Daniel used a powerless staff weapon as an example of what the SGC needed the naqahdah for when trying to negotiate with the local Unas. Based on this, I'm assuming that the staff weapons are at least made of a low-grade naqahdah- not as heavy or strong as the stuff used for spaceships, but still pretty durable-, which is necessary for a later plot point in this chapter
Truth and Revelations
As soon as Sam had given the order, SG-1 and 'SG-M' had leapt up from behind the platform, firing off a rapid combination of zat blasts and stunning spells; Teal'c had vowed to kill Snape, but until he got the opportunity to get a clear shot off, anyone they encountered was going to be stunned and brought back for later questioning. Admittedly, at least half of the Death Eaters managed to raise Shield Charms before any of the attacks hit home- the charms may not have been able to deflect zat blasts back at their origin, but they could at least stop them hitting their target-, but the attacks kept them distracted for a few crucial moments, and that was all that was needed right now.
"Split up and surround them!" Sam yelled over at her allies, as she switched her zat gun for her P-90 even as she spoke. "Remember; stun if possible, wound if that's not possible,a nd only kill if you know there's no other way to deal with them! Teal'c, be sure to question your target before killing him! Go!"
With that said, the group charged out from behind the platform, firing their weapons at the Death Eaters even as their foes, realising their initial assault had failed, split up and tried to get around the Stargate to surround them.
Whether the Death Eaters had traditionally relied to fear to achieve victory or were simply out of practice, Sam wasn't sure, but so far they weren't striking her as a very coordinated group. Dividing their forces might make them harder to hit, but it also limited the amount of damage they could actually do to their adversaries in a fight; spreading out to surround their foes helped limit the possibility of them being hit, but with something like five to one odds in their enemy's favour right now, it meant that their enemies were each expecting the other four to do the job for them. She and Teal'c had already managed to nail a couple of the Death Eaters with a few well-placed P-90 bullets, and the wizard members of their 'strike team' had already managed to take down a couple of Jaffa with some well-aimed stunning spells.
For a moment, Sam was almost able to pretend that they were back where they had been when the Stargate Program had first been put into action to fight the Goa'uld; not fighting evolutionarily superior Priors, but simply fighting Jaffa soldiers, possessing somewhat advanced weaponry but otherwise restricted to simply firing at the other guy. In these cases, it all came down to who had the superior tactical training, and given that the Death Eaters were clearly used to relying on surprise attacks to terrorise their targets, right now, the tactical advantage lay with them.
"G-G-Get away!" a voice yelled from off to the side.
Spinning around to face the voice, Sam's eyes narrowed as she realised who had just yelled those words; even from so far away, the silver hand under the cloak of the rapidly-retreating wizard was unmistakeable.
It was the man that Daniel had called Wormtail when he'd encountered the man on the last planet they'd visited.
The man who'd betrayed Daniel's parents and forced him to grow up without any kind of decent guardians until he'd been sent to that wizarding school he'd told them so much about.
He may have started Daniel on the path that would have lead to Sam even having the opportunity to get to know him in the first place, but he'd forced Daniel to deal with the knowledge that the most powerful dark wizard in three hundred years was after his blood from the moment he turned eleven years old, all because he was too cowardly to risk his own neck for people who would have died to protect him.
No matter what she might have 'owed' Wormtail for bringing Daniel into her life, however indirectly his involvement in driving Daniel to accept Catherine Langford's job offer all those years ago had been, Sam could never forgive him for what he'd done to the life of the kindest, most caring man she'd ever met or would ever meet.
She'd get back to the fight soon enough; right now, she wanted to make sure that they captured this… thing- he was such a coward he barely even deserved to be considered human- personally.
Glancing back at the rest of her attack force to ensure that they were dividing themselves up appropriately and the villains were too spread-out to take advantage of her planned absence- she was confident that she could manage her current goal without jeopardising their attack strategy, but she still wasn't going to run off and leave a potentially vulnerable point in her team's plan of attack without at least making sure that was the case-, Sam tightened her grip on her P-90 and charged in Wormtail's direction the man's silver hand shaking slightly as he raised his wand to point at her.
"S-s-stay back!" he yelled desperately as she headed towards him, the rapidly-retreating wizard soon finding himself within a nearby cluster of trees as Sam glared at him. "I-I'm warning y-you-"
"Give me one good reason why I should be afraid of a warning from a man who was so afraid of death he sold out his best friends to a man that he knew was going to kill him?" Sam retorted, raising her gun as she glared at Wormtail, allowing a hostility the likes of which she'd originally felt when Kelowna tried to deny their role in Daniel's death fill her as she advanced on the man before her. "If you'd had any kind of courage, you would have at least tried to fight back, but from what I've heard from Daniel and Remus, you just gave up Daniel's parents without even trying to fight against this 'Voldemort' just because you were afraid for yourself."
"H-he was taking over everywhere-" Wormtail began.
"I've spent the last few years of my life as part of an organisation fighting aliens who have been posing as gods on the worlds they visited for the last several thousand years, and nobody defected despite the fact that they operated on a far larger scale than this 'Voldemort'; don't even think about using his power as an excuse for what you did," Sam stated resolutely, as she raised her gun and pointed it at Wormtail. "And if you try to claim that you just went for the option that kept you alive, then, since you clearly define your actions based on what allows you to survive, I only have two more options for you to think about right now; drop the wand, or I'll shoot you."
For a moment, Wormtail's eyes flicked downwards to look at his wand, evidently contemplating casting a spell.
"Don't even think about it," Sam said, cutting off that train of thought before it could go any further. "I don't know for sure if your Shield Charms can affect bullets- we weren't exactly willing to test that in case somebody ended up injured-, but since they were originally created to deflect a spell- which is essentially an energy weapon rather than a physical attack, whether or not it's originally a magical or scientific means of generating energy- I'm betting that you can still catch bullets with the rest of us no matter what spell you try to use to stop them."
Raising her P-90 once again, Sam allowed her finger to tighten over the trigger as she glared at the man before her. Even as she knew she couldn't do it, that it was Daniel and Daniel alone who deserved to decide whatever punishment this man might have to endure for what he had done to Daniel's parents all those years ago…
She couldn't deny that there was a part of her that really wanted an excuse to give into that aspect of her that had been practically personified by her deceased Replicator duplicate and just shoot the man before her right now.
But she couldn't do that; right now, they had to bring back as many Death Eaters as they could for questioning. Teal'c taking out that Snape person was one thing- from what Daniel had told them about him the former teacher was too dangerous to risk the possibility of him getting out once they were back on Earth-, but someone like this? A coward whose main reason for being on Voldemort's side was that he originally wanted to save his own life and who had apparently been allowed to continue because he participated in a ritual that brought the man back in the past?
His actions were despicable, but they'd mainly been motivated by cowardice rather than genuinely malicious intent.
Sam wasn't going to kill a man because he was a coward, no matter how much she might despise him. Killing an evil man was one thing, but she wasn't going to kill someone who'd primarily been scared for his life; if he couldn't even really fight back, it was as close to murder as made no difference, as far as she was concerned.
After a moment's more hesitation, as Sam stared resolutely at Wormtail and the small wizard continued to shake as though he'd suddenly landed in the Arctic, her opponent dropped his wand and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.
"Wise choice," Sam said simply, as she lowered her P-90 and pulled out the plastic ties that they traditionally used when dealing with non-Goa'uld enhanced prisoners; Wormtail's silver hand was probably formidable in a fight, but his arm was clearly no stronger than a conventional human being, so he wouldn't be able to break the bonds that way. "Turn around and don't try anything, or I'll shoot you."
As Wormtail shakily turned around, leaving Sam free to walk forward and bind his hands, she could only hope that things went as well for Teal'c in his own personal 'mission' as they'd gone for her.
After Colonel Carter had issued her command, Teal'c didn't hesitate to act; his weapon clutched in his hands, he charged towards the greasy-haired figure of Severus Snape, his goal fixed in his mind as he charged towards his opponent. The man stood defiant as he aimed his wand at Teal'c, clearly prepared to hit the Jaffa with a spell at the first opportunity that presented itself; the wizard evidently assumed that his magic would be enough to protect him.
However, if Teal'c had learned anything from his time working in the SGC, it was that access to resources that were denied to your opponent did not guarantee that you would triumph in a confrontation between the two of you. If he had learned anything from the Tollan, he had learned that it was foolish to count exclusively on one particular defence to keep you safe; the Tollans' reliance on their ion cannons had doomed them in the end when that advantage had been negated, and this man's reliance on his magic would doom him.
As his foe launched his first spell- yelling an incantation that Teal'c recognised as being the pain-inducing curse Daniel had mentioned during their briefings on magic-, Teal'c instantly ducked to the side, launching a staff blast that his foe only just managed to deflect with a Shield Charm. Teal'c was unable to stop a mild twinge of annoyance at what had just happened- evidently the Death Eaters had decided to test what would happen if they were required to go up against Goa'uld weaponry- but pushed it aside to focus on the fight at hand; becoming frustrated at what he could not control would accomplish nothing.
"So, you're the traitor who defied his alien master to work with a group of pathetic mudbloods?" Snape said, looking scornfully at Teal'c as the Jaffa regained his feet from dodging the curse, his staff weapon clutched tightly in one hand as he stared at the wizard.
"And you are the traitor who belittled one of the finest men I have ever known because you were unable to see past a grudge you bore his father," Teal'c retorted, staring grimly at the former Potions teacher as he tightened his grip on his staff weapon.
"What; you're talking about Potter?" Snape spat, looking scathingly at Teal'c. "I never understood why anybody thought he was worth anything as an opponent for the Dark Lord; he was a completely incompetent idiot-"
"Your very words betray your own ignorance," Teal'c interjected, his eyes narrowing as he glared at Snape. "Daniel Jackson- the man you once knew as Harry Potter- has accomplished many great things in his life since you and he last encountered each other. He has prevailed over beings who have spent centuries posing as gods, he has overcome great odds to form exceptional bonds with a diverse range of beings, and he possesses an intellect that has enabled him to solve mysteries that have plagued countless men before him."
Allowing himself a slight smirk as he studied the Potions professor before him, Teal'c noted the tightening of the man's fingers around his wand; evidently he was preparing to attack, but seemed to be willing to allow Teal'c to say what he was about to say.
Given what Daniel Jackson had told Teal'c about some spells requiring emotional force behind them to be truly effective, Teal'c suspected that this man was seeking all the reasons to hate him that he could learn in order for him to ensure that his next spell had enough power behind it.
Teal'c was not in the mood to disappoint him.
"You, on the other hand," he stated simply, glaring at his opponent as he spoke, "have, to the best of my knowledge, accomplished precisely what I would expect from a man who allows a childhood grudge to dominate his adult life; absolutely nothing."
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Snape roared, launching a jet of green light from his wand towards Teal'c. It was barely even a challenge for Teal'c to dodge the subsequent attack; at the distance between him and Snape at present, he had more than enough time to move out of the path of the spell before it struck him. Raising his staff weapon, Teal'c launched his own attack on his opponent, and was only slightly surprised when his foe repeated his own action and dived out of the path of the blast; the man may be a fool when it came to matters concerning the character of Daniel Jackson, but Teal'c doubted that he had come as far as he had by being an idiot in other matters.
As the man turned to launch more spells at him, Teal'c continued to roll along the ground, never remaining in one place long enough for Snape to hit him with a curse as he struggled to reach a position where he could strike back. The wizards' need to actually say- or, in the case of what Daniel Jackson had described as non-verbal magic, decide- what their attacks would do to the target provided Teal'c with a certain advantage, as all he needed was an opportunity to shoot and a weapon with which to do so, but the sheer range of possible curses Snape could throw at him limited Teal'c's opportunities to retaliate; he was reluctant to leave himself potentially open to someone who could do anything to him with only a single weapon.
Then something that Teal'c had once witnessed on television occurred to him, and he briefly felt like hitting himself if he hadn't already been in danger of being struck.
He might not be able to aim the weapon yet, but- based on their earlier tests showing that naqahdah like the type used to make the weapon could endure at least a couple of hits from spells without any damage- he did have another idea for an attack strategy that he could use…
As soon as the strategy had crossed his mind, Teal'c had thrown the staff weapon towards Snape like a javelin, leaping to his feet and charging towards the former Hogwarts teacher even as Snape tried to avoid being struck in the face by the staff after his attempts to banish it away failed; just as the naqahdah used for ships could absorb smaller weapons blasts without damage, the staff weapons could absorb spells without being affected. Even as he drew up towards Snape, Teal'c grabbed his staff weapon out of the air, pointing it at Snape's head even as Snape- realising that he no longer faced being struck in the face by a large metal rod- aimed his wand at Teal'c's face.
The situation was clear.
The second Snape attempted to cast a spell, Teal'c would shoot.
Even if Snape cast a non-verbal spell, Teal'c would still fire his staff blast on reflex as the spell hit him.
At the current distance between the two of them, there was no possibility of Snape avoiding Teal'c's staff blast if he chose to cast a spell.
After a moment's silence, Snape clearly trying to think of some other action he might be able to take and Teal'c deciding to give his foe one last opportunity to consider his actions, the Jaffa finally spoke.
"Demonstrate the appropriate respect to Daniel Jackson and join us in our goal to vanquish Lord Voldemort from this life and I shall spare you," he said, his gaze fixed resolutely on Snape's face.
For a moment, Snape seemed to be considering Teal'c's request/order as he stared back at the Jaffa, but then he opened his mouth and Teal'c knew instantly that his opponent had made the wrong choice.
"Ava-" Snape began.
Teal'c didn't even let him finish the word he was about to say; as far as he was concerned, the man had possessed just the one opportunity to escape punishment for the way he'd treated Teal'c's friend, and he had just sacrificed it. Before Snape could even say the next syllable, Teal'c had fired the staff blast at practically point-blank range into the former Potions Master's face, sending the one-time Hogwarts teacher collapsing to the ground, his head practically destroyed.
Looking at the body of his opponent, Teal'c nodded resolutely.
It was over.
The man before him had learned what would happen to those who showed disrespect to Daniel Jackson, and his past crimes against his friend had been avenged.
With that personal mission attended to, Teal'c turned his attention back to the field around him, as his new allies struggled against their old enemies, and hurried back into the battle.
Severus Snape may have been unwilling to talk to him, but Teal'c was confident that he and his allies would soon discover one among their foes who knew something more about Voldemort's return from the dead than Draco Malfoy had revealed when questioned.
He could only hope that Daniel Jackson learned the answer to the mystery of his enemy's return soon; this man had already taken enough from him as the situation currently stood, and Teal'c had no desire for his friend to endure the return of this adversary for longer than he was required to do so.
As Daniel blinked his eyes open, he instinctively clutched at his head, trying to convince himself that he really didn't have multiple sharp needles digging into his brain on all sides, he glanced around himself to try and establish his current location and whether or not he should be worried.
The first thing he noticed was that he was simply lying in the SGC medical bay rather than lying in some off-world prison or something like that; at least he was in the hands of friends (He doubted that Voldemort had the knowledge, the resources or the inclination to try and trick him into thinking that he'd been rescued when he was really a prisoner; his old enemy would want him to know that he'd been defeated after all the trouble he'd caused the self-proclaimed 'greatest wizard in the world').
The second thing was that he wasn't alone; at least two other beds in the room were occupied, although he freely acknowledged that there might be other people in the area that he couldn't hear.
The third thing was the identities of the people in the immediately occupied beds; Hermione Granger and Cameron Mitchell, both currently unconscious from whatever injuries they had sustained in the confrontation with Malfoy.
The fourth thing was the rather unexpected presence of the woman currently standing beside Hermione's bed, who had just stood up to look in his direction; presumably she'd heard him groan.
"Ah, Mr Potter, you're awake," she said, smiling slightly at him. "I see that two decades haven't decreased your habit of getting into dangerous, potentially life-threatening situations."
"What the… Madam Pomfrey?" Daniel said, staring incredulously at the form of his old school nurse as she stood beside the bed of his old school friend; he hadn't been expecting to see her of all people here. "Wh-what are you doing here?"
"Oh, Remus and Rubeus requested my presence here after you were injured; they apparently don't want to make it too public among the wizarding world that you're still alive unless they absolutely have to," Madam Pomfrey replied, smiling slightly as she looked at the man who had been her most regular patient when he was a child. "When I heard that you were alive… well, how could I resist the chance to see what new ways of hurting yourself you'd come up with in your new profession?"
"Uh… thanks?" Daniel said, smiling slightly uncertainly at this other ambivalent reminder of his old life in Hogwarts. In many ways, Madam Pomfrey and Janet Frasier had been so like each other that he'd sometimes wondered if they were actually related; the two doctors had both had a certain knack for sticking him back together no matter what had just happened to him while still leaving him feeling guilty about putting them to so much trouble in the first place.
"You know, Mr Potter," Madam Pomfrey sighed as she looked at him, "I sometimes wonder how it is someone who has survived as much as you seem to have seems to have yet to fully grasp the idea that you're meant to avoid getting injured when you're in a dangerous situation?"
"Would you believe that it's because I just keep dealing with increasingly dangerous bad guys and/or situations who have this annoying habit of whipping something new out of their arsenal to try and kill me with?" Daniel asked hopefully, smiling in what he had been told was a charming manner.
"Then you need to try and avoid making yourself such a prominent target for those people," Madam Pomfrey bluntly informed him, before she sighed and turned back towards the door. "In any case, all I can do for you and your friends now is give them time; I have other patients that require my attention. When Minister Granger wakes up, be sure to have her take the potion by her bedside as soon as possible; she should remember what to do from the fight in your fifth year in the Department of Mysteries."
Before Daniel could reply to that, Madam Pomfrey had walked out of the infirmary, leaving him to lie back in bed and allow himself a slight smile at this other sign of his past having come back.
It was almost amusing, in a way; he'd spent so long denying all the memories of his time in the wizarding world that, on some level, he'd ended up trying to forget about the good memories as well, and now here he was, facing the good times once again even as he found himself facing his old nightmare once again.
He'd known there'd been good memories, of course- his time on the quidditch team as seeker before he'd left school to hunt for the horcruxes, those moments he'd spent with Ron and Hermione before the war had begun again and they'd been unable to spend much time together as they had before, his dates with Ginny during those few private moments they'd managed to spend together- but after all the losses he'd suffered in the magical world, in many ways he'd found it easier to repress those memories than reflect on them.
He'd had fun back in those days, of course, but reflecting on those times just led to him remembering why they'd had to end in the first place, and that had only left him feeling depressed all over again. In the end, he'd just found it easier to try and forget everything that had happened to him back then and focus on the joys of his new life.
It may have had its sorrows, too, but at least this time around he could actually do something to the people who'd been responsible for them. Voldemort had already died when his followers had dealt their most devastating blow to Harry's life; when Sha're had died, there had still been several Goa'uld out there for him to defeat, even after Apophis had died in the battle against the Replicators, which had at least given him something to take out his rage on.
Then, of course, he'd gone and made things more difficult for himself by falling for-
Hold it right there! Daniel told himself, slapping himself slightly on the forehead; the last thing he wanted was to start thinking about that issue all over again. He had enough problems with Voldemort having been resurrected; the last thing he needed was to take the chance that Voldemort would tap into whatever remained of their old link- would it really have survived whatever ritual Voldemort had used to bring himself back to life on this occasion?- and learn how to effectively hurt him this time around.
He'd lost Ginny to Voldemort's followers before they'd had the chance to really have a life together, and Sha're had been taken from him after only a short time with each other; he was not going to give Voldemort any more potential ammunition to use against him in a fight. Sam could handle herself in a dangerous situation, he knew that almost better than anyone, but if Voldemort really wanted to get his hands on her…
Even after everything he'd been through since joining SG-1- hell, even after he'd died while on that mission to Kelowna-, he just didn't think he could quite handle it if he lost another woman he… cared for (Don't think the word; don't ever think the word).
"Something on your mind?" a voice said from off to Daniel's side. Glancing over in the direction of the voice, Daniel was relieved to see that the voice was only Mitchell, sitting up in a nearby bed and looking none the worse for wear from the curse. He seemed a little pale from what Daniel presumed was the blood loss caused by the curse, but that was the only sign of his latest injury.
"Oh, nothing," Daniel replied off-handedly, trying to look casual as he lay back in his bed; he didn't want to prompt any questions that he'd have to avoid answering. "Just… well, seeing everyone again, fighting Malfoy… brings back memories, you know?"
"Certainly sounded like it," Mitchell said, looking critically at the archaeologist as he sat up in his bed as Daniel looked over in his direction. "Just out of curiosity, when you talked about him not taking anyone else you loved from you… you weren't just speaking of a 'friend' kinda love when you were thinking about Sam, were you?"
Daniel blinked in shock.
"Wh-what?" he said, looking in confusion over at Mitchell. "I-I don't know what you're talking about-"
"Jackson, it may have hurt when I got sliced like that, but that doesn't mean I went down straight away, y'know?" Mitchell pointed out, looking at his friend with a slight smile. "I may not know you that well, but I think I know you enough to guess that you weren't just talking about losing people you loved as friends when you were beating the crap out of that guy… and I'm no expert, but given that you're not gay, and you haven't shown any sign you think of the Minister over there as anything more than a sister, I think I can make a pretty good guess regarding who you were thinking of as well, mmm?"
Despite his long practice in keeping his emotions on that topic secret, Daniel couldn't stop a shocked expression crossing his face as Mitchell correctly guessed at the secret he'd been trying to keep for the last two years.
As if he hadn't had enough on his plate to deal with already, now he had this to cope with?