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: Not the longest chapter, but it's mainly for information purposes rather than anything else; thing get more interesting later
Truth and Revelations
"OK," Daniel said, beginning the same process that they'd been working on since he'd deduced that those exposed to the device were still there, Tonks standing patiently over the 'yes' button as Lupin and Mitchell alternated their gazes between the book he was using to identify the Ancient symbols and the display above the machine, "first letter... next word... stop me when you see the right symbol..."
"Great..." Mitchell groaned, glancing over at his new friends in frustration. "No offence, but at this rate you'll have gone all furry before we're more than three sentences into this mess..."
"Trust me, I'm not happy about this either," Lupin muttered, staring intently at the writing displayed before them with an urgent stare, as though hoping he'd develop the ability to understand what was written there the more time he spent looking at it. "If only we could send him a message somehow..."
"Well, we're not going to deal with this mess by wasting time trying other methods of talking to them," Mitchell commented, shaking his head as he hit the button in response to the indication of another correct letter. "I get that I don't know much about magic, but we're talking about something that would need to cross dimensions; I'm guessing that Merlin didn't set this up to make it that easy to penetrate..."
"I've got it!" Lee said enthusiastically, sitting up from where he'd been studying his laptop screen intently to look at Daniel with a broad smile.
"What?" Daniel asked, turning away from the device to look at Lee, making a mental note to apologise to Mitchell and the others for stopping the translation like that once they were restored to normal (He definitely needed to work out a means of getting the translation finished without anyone else getting shifted into another dimension like Mitchell, Lupin and Tonks were if they were going to get everything down at this rate).
"I think I've figured out what happened to Colonel Mitchell and the others," Lee explained. "Firstly, assuming that the fact that this device only activated when Mrs Lupin made contact with it, it seems like a good guess that it used her own natural... magic... to act as a power source- particularly if we assume that Merlin wouldn't have had access to the naquadah generators we've been using to power it ourselves since we moved it here; it still had a bit of a charge when we connected it up to the generators, even if it was only a bit-"
"So?" Hermione asked, looking impatiently at Lee with the same intent frustration Daniel remembered from when she was criticising him and Ron for taking too long to do their work.
"Well... nothing, really, I just thought that was something worth noting," Lee said, shrugging slightly apologetically before he resumed his more eager explanation. "Anyway, by analysing a reverse scan on all of the, uh, energy fluctuations that we've been recording from the device and putting them through a program designed to..."
"Anyway," Sam continued, stepping in to take over from her colleague before he could dig himself into a deeper hole, "the important thing is that, thanks to some readings I took earlier of Daniel's wand while isolating the energy frequencies generated when you access your magic- or at least when Daniel used his; I admit that I haven't managed to check other people and determine if any kind of magical baseline exists-, Bill and I think we've managed to isolate the algorithmic frequency that was transmitted when... Tonks... to activate the device; if we can counteract the algorithm that should prompt the emissions being generated by the device to return to their normal frequencies-"
"In other words, you can get them back, right?" George asked, raising an impatient hand as he looked at Sam impatiently.
"Well... we think so, anyway," Sam said, nodding slightly at the Weasley twin in question.
"Just give me a sec..." Lee said, tapping a few keys as he studied his screen, Hermione and the Weasleys slightly backing away from the device even as Sam moved in closer to stand beside Daniel as he studied it intently. A blinding flash seemed to fill the room, and suddenly Mitchell, Lupin and Tonks were standing in front of the two members of SG-1.
"Remus..." Daniel said, smiling as he looked at the evidently anxious werewolf.
"Wh- Harry?" Lupin replied, looking at his best friend's son with a broad grin. "You... you can see me?"
"Uh... Harry?" Hermione said, prompting Daniel to turn around and look at his old friend just in time to see her wave her hand through his right shoulder without any sign that she'd noticed what she'd just done. "Are you there?"
Oh no... Daniel thought, horror spreading across his face as he looked over at Sam, whose hand was currently passing through the nearest desk as she looked at him in shock.
"Oh no..." Lupin said, looking apprehensively at his best friend's son as he glanced between them and the machine.
"Uh... Doctor Jackson?" Lee said after a moment's awkward silence as he took in what had just happened, the glares from Hermione and the Weasleys doing little to help his confidence, "if you can hear me, could you... press this button?"
"Well," Daniel said, sighing slightly as he turned his attention to the writing that was now visible on this side of the dimensional 'shift', "as long as I'm here, we might as well keep up with the translation; maybe we'll find something this way that we were missing earlier..."
"Before we go any further," Lupin asked, raising an anxious hand as he looked over at the two new arrivals, "I don't suppose either of you have anything that we could use to render me unconscious before I transform?"
"Well, I have my wand..." Daniel answered, pulling the object in question out of its now-usual hiding-place in his sleeve, shifting it into his right hand as he looked slightly apprehensively at his friend. "But... are you sure that's the best way to deal with it? I mean, it's been a while since I studied werewolves, but-"
"Even if it doesn't put me down for the whole of my transformation, any time it can buy for us would be welcome at this point!" Lupin said, staring urgently at his former student. "You have to be ready to stun me, Harry; there isn't time to-"
"We have time," Daniel said, staring grimly at the werewolf before he turned his attention back to the object before them, trying to ignore Lee's evident discomfort as Hermione and the Weasley twins glared at him amid his protestations of fixing this latest incident while he continued to study the writing. "OK, from what I'm seeing here, this looks like it's a log of some kind; Merlin was conducting research on some kind of new invention..."
Staring reflectively at the device, Daniel reached out to touch the holographic display, prompting the writing to change to display a new sequence of Ancient writing.
"Whatever it was," Daniel said, continuing to tap the screen as he scanned the words before him, searching urgently for something that they could use, "it was something big... he went to great lengths to try to hide it... actually, this device was invented for the sole purpose of keeping his research a secret from..."
"What?" Tonks asked, looking in frustration at Daniel. "Seriously, who was he trying to keep this whole mess secret from?"
"His fellow Ascended beings," Daniel finished, looking up at the small group around him with a slightly stunned expression that was almost automatically mimicked by those who'd just heard what he said.
"Hold on; Merlin was Ascended?" Mitchell said, shaking his head as though trying to clear it from this latest confusing twist.
"Ascended?" Lupin repeated uncertainly, trying to make sure he understood what had just been revealed before he progressed any further. "As in... he reached a point where he learned to exist as pure energy... right?"
"Yeah, that's right..." Sam said, nodding briefly at Lupin in conformation before she looked back at Daniel. "But... if he was Ascended... he'd have to retake human form to perform his research. I-I just don't get it; what invention could have been so important that it would have led him to give up his Ascension?"
"A weapon," Daniel said grimly as he studied the information displayed above the device. "A weapon capable of destroying Ascended beings."
If the news that Merlin had once been one of the Ascended had shocked the group listening to Daniel's translation, this latest twist left everyone stunned.
"Back up a minute here for those of us who seem to have lost the plot; he developed a way to kill the Ascended?" Mitchell said, staring at Daniel as though the archaeologist had just gone mad. "Why would he do that?"
"Well, according to this," Daniel said, scanning through the Ancient text before him, "Merlin believed that the Ori represented a significant threat to the safety of this galaxy… including the Ancients themselves, who refused to take any action to protect themselves against them."
"So... he just developed this weapon without worrying about what the other Ascended would think of him?" Tonks concluded.
"A bit like Professor Dumbledore, really," Lupin said, looking over at Daniel with a reflective smile. "Albus was never one to back away from the right thing even if there was an easier option..."
"Yeah..." Daniel said simply, avoiding the topic of the long-dead Hogwarts headmaster- a part of him would never stop wondering if things could have been different if Dumbledore had given him a bit more information or trusted Snape less than he seemed to have done; he might have made a new life for himself since then, but a part of him would always mourn Ginnyand Ron's deaths- as he turned back to the translation. "Apparently he completed his research in this other dimension to prevent the other Ancients from learning about it; from what I can make out here, it sounds like what Merlin devised was a means of generating an energy wave that essentially 'cancels out' or 'negates' the energy that comprises the Ascended on a galaxy-wide scale, but having completed the weapon here on Earth he then relocated it to..."
"Well," Sam smiled, finishing Daniel's assessment for him as six symbols appeared amid the rest of the writing that even the wizards could instantly translate, prompting the archaeologist to pause mid-sentence as he took in what was in front of them. "I don't need to know Ancient to understand that."
"A gate address to where he hid the weapon?" Tonks asked curiously.
"Bingo," Mitchell said, smiling at the woman in confirmation before he looked back at Daniel. "Anyway, not that all this hasn't been fascinating, but with time the way it is, maybe we should see about getting out of this dimension before things get any hairier... and I really wish I hadn't said that..."
"Oh, don't worry about it; Harry's father was always referring to my transformations as my 'furry little problem' when we were in public," Lupin said with a casual smile before he turned back to Daniel. "The important thing is, does what you've got there say anything about getting us back to our... proper... dimension?"
"Yeah, that's the right phrase, and to answer your question, I... think so," Daniel said, trying to ignore Doctor Lee's muttered comments about adjusting the algorithms behind him as he stared intently at the device in front of them. "It's a bit of a long shot, but if I'm reading this correctly, I think we're close to the master control screen; if I can find the right button combination, I think I can put us back in phase..."
"Could you hurry up?" Lupin asked, looking anxiously at his watch. "We're getting a bit close to sunset for my liking..."
"Just... a... minute..." Daniel said, tapping urgently at the keys of the device in front of him, eyes flicking across the screen as he took in the available information on the screen before him, finally inputting the last sequence and triggering a bright flash of light just as Lee was about to enter further information on his laptop.
"You're back-!" Lee began with a broad grin, only for Lupin to suddenly tense up, his eyes flicking urgently at the rest of the people in the room as his head began to lengthen and hair began to spread across his hands.
"Oh no..." Hermione whispered, glancing at her watch as she realised what was happening. "He... it's nearly night..."
"We've got to get him out of here!" Tonks yelled, grabbing her husband by the right arm as she looked urgently at Lee. "Where's the nearest empty room?"
"Wh-what?" Lee said, looking at the metamorphagus in confusion; evidently either news of what Lupin was hadn't spread through the whole base or he didn't quite get the implications of what was happening in front of him. "Uh... the room... next door on the left... should be free..."
"Right," Daniel said, taking Lupin's other arm as he and Tonks quickly hurrying the rapidly-transforming werewolf out of the lab and towards the indicated door, closely followed by Sam as she ran ahead of them to open the door.
"Sorry about this, Remus," Daniel said as he shoved his father's friend into the room, barely registering it as Lupin's nose and mouth began to extend outwards before the door was closed before him as he pulled out his wand, "but we're a bit pressed for time; Colloportus!"
"Collo-what?" Sam asked.
"Locking charm, basically," Daniel said, slipping his wand back into his sleeve as he looked back at Sam. "It should prevent Remus from accidentally opening the door while he's transformed in there; right now, without his potion, the only thing we can do is keep him isolated until the morning."
"Trust me, it's easier this way; even with the potion he prefers to keep himself in his room at this time of the month," Tonks said, glancing over at Sam with a brief shrug. "It's complicated, but what can you do?"
"Yeah... I'm sure," Sam said, nodding uncertainly at the pink-haired younger woman before she turned back to Daniel. "Anyway, we'd better get on with things; if there's anything in what you just translated of Merlin's research, we need to get started fast."
Daniel couldn't argue with her there; Voldemort might be the more immediate threat, but if there was a way to take the Ori- easily the most powerful enemy they'd ever faced- out of the equation right now, then they had to find out more about it as soon as possible.
He just hoped that finding out about it was going to be the hardest part of this search; it seemed like the only time he'd really stopped since Voldemort came back into his life had been when he was in the infirmary...
AN 2: Well, hope everyone enjoyed that research session; next up, 'SG-M' faces its greatest challenge as the war on Tagalas reaches fever pitch in my new take on "Ethon"...