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 apologise in advance for this chapter; it's more of a 'filler' setting the stage for the events of my next update than anything else
Truth and Revelations
An hour later, SG-1 and their new wizarding allies- with the exception of the still-weak Hermione, who was currently confined to the infirmary until she wasn't as dependent on potions as she was at the moment- were staring incredulously at General Landry as he sat back in his chair, looking critically at them as he did so.
"You-you're putting us on stand-down?" Daniel yelled, looking in shock at General Landry. "General, with all due respect-"
"Doctor Jackson," Landry interjected, looking pointedly at his organisation's archaeologist as he spoke, "according to that… medi-witch… your colleagues brought here, you've just had to endure a curse designed to do nothing but cause pain directly into your skull, and Colonel Mitchell sustained some fairly unpleasant injuries from that spell that was used against him. I respect this 'Madam Pomfrey's' opinion in matters of magic, but given the alien technology the two of you have been exposed to over the years, coupled with the severity of the situation we currently find ourselves facing, I feel it best if you and your teammates take the next couple of days off to guarantee that you're in the best possible condition before returning to active duty."
"And what if Voldemort gains even more ground in that time?" Daniel interjected, looking in frustration at Landry as he stood up, barely able to contain his rage at being kept out of something this personal. "What if he tries to launch an attack? What if he forms even more alliances with the other Goa'uld still out there; having him work with Hestia's bad enough, but if he finds any more allies-"
"All SG teams sent out on missions will be given explicit instructions to keep an eye out for Voldemort and his forces, along with specific orders not to engage the enemy unless it becomes clearly necessary for them to do so," Landry interjected, avoiding his archaeologist's attempts to continue his 'rant'. He knew that Doctor Jackson had his reasons for being so hostile, of course- given that they were dealing with the man who had killed his parents and been responsible for the deaths of so many other people who had been dear to him in his childhood, it was only natural that he should have a personal investment in this situation. "We are not abandoning the search for Lord Voldemort, Doctor Jackson; we simply feel that it is for the best that you and Colonel Mitchell spend a bit more time recuperating before you return to the field, particularly given the current high stakes that we face at the present moment."
For a moment Daniel simply stared back at General Landry, a grim expression on his face as he tried to bring his emotions under control- he may be tapping back into his 'inner Harry', but if he allowed his emotions full reign like he had back then, all he'd get would be even more trouble than he had already-, before he finally nodded in resignation.
"Fine," he said simply, before sitting back down in his chair.
"Uh… anything needing doing that we haven't been able to do earlier?" Mitchell asked, raising a hand inquiringly as he looked at Landry.
"Well…" Landry said, trying to make it clear that he'd not wanted to do this as he turned to look at Daniel. "On the topic of this current situation, Doctor Jackson, I apologise for not mentioning this earlier, but…"
He sighed apologetically. "The IOA have requested an interview with you."
"What?" Daniel said, looking at Landry in confusion. "But why… oh," he continued, halting his speech as the implications of recent events hit him. "They want to talk about the whole 'I was born with a different name and I've been hiding some special abilities that I possess for years' thing, right?"
"Correct," Landry replied, nodding apologetically at the archaeologist.
"Sorry, Harry," Fred said from the other side of the table, "but once it was confirmed that you weren't a nutter and that we could actually do something about this whole situation, that Wooly-"
"Woolsey," George corrected his brother.
"Right, sorry… that Woolsey bloke insisted on you attending an interview-."
"Wherein you are apparently meant to talk to him and a bunch of other sods-"
"About why you ditched the world you grew up in to become an archaeologist-"
"And why you haven't been using your magic before now."
"Ah," Daniel said simply, taking care to keep his tone neutral as he looked back at Landry. "When do the IOA want this meeting to take place, General?"
"Well," Landry continued, managing to make his sympathy for the former Boy-Who-Lived clear even as he issued his orders, "the representatives will be here tomorrow to talk with you, but in the meantime they've… requested that you remain on the base-"
"They're worried I'll try and get away from them, right?" Daniel asked, shaking his head slightly as the corners of his mouth turned up in a slight smile. "It's almost ridiculous, really; after all the effort I went to in order to get these guys here todeal with the current crisis, they really think I'd run out on the SGC now?"
"Eh… any chance 'Arry can 'ave some people at that meeting wi' 'im?" Hagrid asked, looking uncertainly at Landry as he spoke. "Jus'… if they wan' a character witness or summin' like that, I've known 'Arry 'ere since he first learnt he was a wizard in the first place- told 'im 'bout it meself, as a matter o' fact-, an', well, if they're worried 'bout him keepin' summin' 'bout his past quiet 'cause 'e was a berk back then or summin'…"
For a moment, as he looked at the uncomfortable face of the man who'd first introduced him to the wizarding world and shown him a life that went beyond being beaten and abused by the Dursleys for nothing more than the fact that he existed, Daniel felt like crying.
Even after leaving some of the closest friends he'd ever had in the manner that he'd left them in, with only a brief conversation with Hermione to provide any kind of explanation for all those that he was leaving behind, to know that his old friends still cared about him enough to do something like that (Hagrid was never a brilliant public speaker when it came to anything not relating to magical creatures)…
It was touching, really.
"Well…" Landry said after a moment's pause, his eyes fixed on Hagrid in a reflective manner, "… I'm sorry, Mr Hagrid, but I don't think that will be possible; the IOA prefer to conduct one-on-one interviews with their subjects in this kind of situation."
"Oh," Hagrid said, looking slightly awkward at the general's comment.
"On the topic of things that need doing," Landry continued, as he looked around at the rest of the table, "Teal'c, your presence was requested by Bra'tac at Dakara; the Jaffa are beginning the conferences on whether or not to make the Free Jaffa Nation a democracy, and Bra'tac feels that your vote would go a long way towards helping to say the decision in the progressive faction's favour."
"Thank you for informing me of this, General Landry," Teal'c said, nodding gratefully at the general as he stood up. "May I begin to make preparations now?"
"Feel free," Landry said, nodding at the Jaffa as he looked around at the rest of the team. "And on that topic, dismissed; I'll contact you all if your presence is required.
After Landry had left the room, there was a momentary silence as the group of wizards and soldiers looked around at each other until Hagrid broke the silence.
"Uh… sorry if I embarrassed yer there, 'Arry," the half-giant said as he looked apologetically at his old friend. "Jus' thought ye'd 'ppreciate a friendly face there; didn't think it'd be 'gainst any rules this lot had or stuff like that…"
"Don't worry about it, Hagrid," Daniel said, leaning over to smile slightly at his old friend. "You couldn't have known, and the offer's appreciated if nothing else; it's…"
He paused for a moment, uncertain how to express what he wanted to say, before he finally finished. "Well… it's good to know there aren't any grudges."
"What; just 'cause yer left like that?" Hagrid said, shaking his head as he thumped Daniel reassuringly on the back (Daniel only just managed to regain his balance; Hagrid evidently still hadn't quite managed to remember to adjust his strength at times). "'Arry, we all missed yer, but yeh chose ter make yer own way in life; it's a great thing yer did there, an' I'm sure we're all proud of yer fer takin' that kind o' chance."
"Exactly," Lupin added, smiling slightly over at the archaeologist. "You've forged your own path, Harry; even if it isn't quite what any of us were expecting, your parents would be proud of you for that if nothing else."
"Thanks…" Daniel replied, smiling slightly over at his old teacher before he glanced at his watch, sighing slightly as he did so. "Well, I think I'll just head off to the lab; I've got a couple of translations that I've been meaning to do, and, since I can't head back to my apartment, this seems like as good an opportunity as any to get them done."
"Plus it gives you somewhere to be where you can be sure your presence will be recorded, huh?" Mitchell added, smiling over at his friend even as he restrained a slight wince; his body clearly still hadn't fully recovered from the Sectumsempra curse Malfoy had used against him earlier.
"There's that," Daniel admitted, nodding slightly at his new commander before he shrugged slightly. "Anyway, I'd better get on with this; the sooner I get those things finished, the sooner I can start preparing for the IOA."
"That bad, huh?" Tonks asked, raising an eyebrow as she looked at him.
"You remember that time I was called before the Wizengamot?" Daniel asked, looking over at his wizarding friends. "Think what Dumbledore and I told you about the questions I was asked at that point, and you're pretty much there."
Before anyone could ask him for further details, Daniel had turned around and begun to walk off towards his office, leaving his friends and teammates standing in the corridor before Mitchell broke the silence.
"Uh… sorry if this just comes under the heading of 'more dumb questions from the non-magical guys', but is a Wizengamot like… a government or something?" the lieutenant colonel asked, looking uncertainly over at the wizards, his curiosity aroused by Daniel's last statement.
"And if it is, what had Daniel done to merit being called in front of it when he was still in school?" Sam added, joining Mitchell in looking at the wizards in a critical manner, Teal'c joining them in the glare as Daniel's newer allies stared at Harry's older ones. "If it's possible for him to have to deal with problems from your government as well as ours, I think I'd prefer to know the situation sooner rather than later."
"Oh, no worries on that front- everyone involved in that farce of a trial got kicked out of office long ago-, but actually that's kind of an amusing story when you look back at it; it wasn't that funny at the time, of course, but when you know how it all turned out, there's a certain humorous touch about it all," Fred said, a smile on his face as he looked at SG-1. "Did Harry tell you about the events of his fifth year after Voldemort came back from the dead the first time around?"
"Uh… that would be the time when the head of your government basically decided to deal with the problem of a powerful homicidal maniac walking about again by sticking his fingers in his ears and humming a lot?" Mitchell asked, a slight expression of loathing on his face as he remembered what Daniel had told them about that point in his life (Which, he had to admit, hadn't been that much; all of SG-1 had quickly gathered that his fifth year at Hogwarts was one of the times Daniel liked thinking about least, and decided to respect his desire not to talk about it).
"Exactly," Lupin said, looking around briefly before he turned around and entered a nearby empty laboratory, followed closely by the rest of the group, Hagrid shutting the door behind him as the last one to enter the room. "Anyway, at one point during the summer, Delores Umbridge, the Senior Under-Secretary to the Minister of Magic- a truly unpleasant woman, really; she issued several legislations against everything from werewolves to centaurs for no real reason other than that she could-, decided to try and deal with Harry's 'lies' by sending a couple of dementors after him; she was worried about her continued status in the Ministry if Harry managed to convince people that he was telling the truth, so she was, as you can guess, pretty determined to stop him from telling anybody else about Voldemort's resurrection even if she didn't believe in it herself-"
"I apologise for interrupting," Teal'c interjected, looking inquiringly at Lupin, "but what are these 'dementors' that you mentioned earlier?"
"Some of the worst things the magical world's ever seen," Lupin replied simply. "They look somewhat like tall men in cloaks, but wherever they go, they give off an aura of fear and darkness that leaves anyone in their presence feeling as though they will never be happy again."
"What; you mean they make you miserable just by being there?" Mitchell asked, raising a surprised eyebrow. "Talk about sucking the life out of a room…"
"Yer 'aven't 'eard the worst bits 'bout 'em yet, Cameron," Hagrid said, looking grimly over at his new friend. "If a dementor gets near enough ter yer, it can make yer relive all the worst days of yer life as though yeh were really there; I got stuck in a prison that was guarded by dementors when I was framed once, and they made meh relive everything from my expulson ter my dad's death…"
"Oh my God…" Sam whispered, her eyes widening in shock as a horrible thought occurred to her. "Did… did Daniel…?"
"Relive the memory of his parents dying whenever he was near them?" Lupin finished for her, nodding regretfully at the woman before him. "He did, Colonel Carter; it caused him to faint when he first encountered them when he was thirteen."
"Damn…" Mitchell said, shaking his head slightly at that news. "That's gotta suck…"
"You haven't heard the worst bit about what they can do to you," Lupin put in grimly. "When they wish to use their last and most terrible weapon, they remove their hoods, and… well, we assume there's some kind of mouth under there, but nobody who's witnessed it is in a position to tell us, because they then… suck out your soul."
Mitchell's eyes widened in horror.
"They what?" he said, staring in shock at the werewolf.
"It's worse than you think," Lupin said, his expression grim as he looked at the man who'd only recently learned about the world that he himself had been a part of all his life. "Losing your soul alone wouldn't kill you- you can still live without it so long as your heart and your mind are intact-, but you'd be left simply… existing, for lack of a better term; not really experiencing life, or even responding much to anything. It's never even been sure that they're even aware of anything happening around them; once their souls are gone, they just seen to… stop, quite frankly."
"Oh my God…" Sam whispered in shock, before her eyes suddenly narrowed in rage. "And somebody sent something like that after a kid?"
"Umbitch was always a sadistic piece of work," George said, shrugging casually at the memory. "When she was made Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts- popular theory is that the Minister at the time thought that Dumbledore was trying to set up an army in Hogwarts so they put someone in who wouldn't teach the kids how to defend themselves-, she actually made Harry use this one quill that actually wrote what he was writing into the back of his own hand when she was making him write I must not tell lies."
Sam felt almost ill.
"She made him write that into the back of his hand?" she repeated, staring at George in horror. "And you think that's funny?"
"When you consider that Harry ended up being revealed as right when Voldemort actually showed up inside the Ministry of Magic itself, and Umbridge got sent to Azkaban- now dementor-free after some of the reforms begun by Hermione's predecessor- for cruelty to half-bloods, muggle-borns and every other kind of not-quite-totally-pureblood-magical-life-form-under-the-sun after Voldemort bought it?" Fred replied, smiling slightly at Sam. "Yeah; I'd call it funny."
Mitchell nodded in agreement.
"Gotta admit, I'd certainly think that was amusing after what she did," he said, allowing himself a slight smile before he glanced over at Sam. "Looks like Jackson hasn't changed much since then in that regard at least, huh?"
"Oh, you mean in that he still manages to annoy government employees?" Sam replied, smiling slightly back at Mitchell as she shook her head in reflection. "He certainly manages that..."
"Hold on; Harry's managed to hack off the American government as well?" Fred said, smiling slightly as he looked at the attractive astrophysicist with a broad grin. "What did he do?"
"Well, he did once defy the orders of this group called the NID- the National Intelligence Department, if you're interested in knowing what it stands for- by letting a group of aliens called the Tollan go free when they wanted us to keep them until they agreed to share their technology with us," Sam replied, smiling slightly at the memory before she noticed the suddenly apprehensive expressions on the faces of the wizards and realised what they were thinking. "Don't worry, the NID's cleaned up a lot since those days; nobody's going to try and force you to work here if you don't want to. We stopped that kind of agent from trying to dissect Teal'c's symbiote back when he first arrived here, and we've made it our policy since then to never take anything from another civilisation that they weren't willing to share with us openly."
"Always good to be reassured on that point…" Tonks said, shaking her head slightly at old memories before she turned her attention back to the people before her. "So, in other words, Harry's kept up his old habit of getting in the faces of the current government if he disagrees with their policies?"
"Indeed," Teal'c said simply.
"Good to know," Lupin said, smiling slightly at the rest of SG-1 before he glanced at his watch and raised his eyebrows slightly. "Talking of things that would be good to know, where do we sleep; it's getting late."
"Oh, that little detail, right," Mitchell said, looking slightly embarrassed as he smiled at the wizards. "No worries; T. and I'll fix you up in a couple of the guest rooms, OK? We've got some rooms on base we use for providing any offworld guests with somewhere to stay when they're on Earth; you guys can probably use a few of them until we can sort out something more permanent."