Met By Magic

HiddenByFaeries: Stargate: Atlantis/Harry Potter Crossover, Todd/Harry: (Meeting)

After you've killed the man who made your life miserable, single handedly ending a magical war: what's left to do?

Live, Harry had told Rita Skitter.

So that's what Harry Potter is doing, so far from Earth he doesn't know the stars of the night sky: the only wizard in the Pegasus galaxy – maybe - certainly the only one from Earth.

Just out of Hogwarts, he'd been in the Ministry, and that had led him to the Stargates (yes, more then one – two in fact). How wizards and witches might have come to Earth, from the stars. And the thing about the Stargate was that it was missing, so no one could prove anything. It was all lore and myth. Harry had been determined to find out if they were truth or lies, after all how many Stargates could there be? They were unique and used an energy science knew but could not truly put a name to. Magic, Harry called it (not out loud) and shown up on the Russian base, talking about it. He was the only wizard who would, so they took him in and trained him, and sent him off to different worlds all in the name of science.

Harry Maybourne had nearly screwed it all up.

They'd been lucky, to keep exchanging information and technology. For Harry Potter, it wasn't enough. When SGC had announced its intention to send international teams to Atlantis, Harry Potter would – of course – be going. So here he was, a wizard among muggles, and he couldn't get a flashlight to work for spit.

"Stupid switch, stupid electricity…" Harry muttered, and finally gave up and swished and flicked his wand, with a mutter of Lumos.

And then there was light. Harry smiled in satisfaction – finally, something that worked!

And a wraith.

"Oh –ah - um, Todd? What are you doing here, sneaking about in the dark?" Harry's voice might have risen, but certainly Todd wasn't about to point that out as a sign of fear. Harry already knew that. Instead Todd slowly blinked; just to be sure what he was really seeing was real.

"How are you doing that, Harry?" Todd asked, calmly. Far more calmly then a muggle would take it. This was a Wraith, they sucked the life out of you, all before they flew in hive space ships and sent darts to terrorize worlds. Harry took a step back, and Todd followed.

"Doing what?" Harry asked pretending innocence with a worried smile.

"Making that light." Todd tilted his head toward it, mimicking Harry's smile far more successfully. Harry tucked the want behind his back, dimming the light, making it's source unsure.

"Oh, it's ah – electricity, science, you know all that Earth stuff." Todd inhaled, deeply, scenting him. Harry glanced backwards and away, this was an empty corridor – outside his door, his rooms which opened to anyone. There was no protection there (and what Todd might find there would make this situation all the worse if he knew how and where to look) and no witnesses: it was a bad situation all around.

"I don't think so, there is something other about you – Harry Potter, and you know what?" Todd had him against the wall, that was what. Harry's head was full of every spell he knew, every chance, every maybe – for who knew what would work on an alien, on a wraith?

"What?" Hair pressed to his face, slick green skin, warm and dry like a snake brushed his cheek.

"I'm going to find out what it is." Todd inhaled once more, sniffing, and then pulled away with a secretive – almost playful – smile. He walked – stalked –swayed? – away. It wasn't a bad show.

It was then that Harry Potter decided he'd best keep away from Todd.

"Nox." Harry sighed as heavily as if the word was a curse, left alone in the dark hall outside his room. He was at a loss to just to how to do just that. Atlantis was only so big.

0o0o0o0

The thing seems to be, about wraith going away, is they come back as inconveniently as they first appeared. Harry doesn't bother to sigh. He stands in front of Todd and waits. Wizards are particularly good at waiting.

"Where are you going?" From the doorway, Todd asks this, the doorway that Harry needs to get through to go out. He stands there confident that Harry won't do (any) more magic to get him out of the way. The annoying thing is: he's right.

"Away from you!" Harry can admit he is frustrated, but not that he'll give up and lay down beaten.

"If that is what you wish. It will not make me forget what I have seen. In fact, I've remembered. I've seen it before, long ago, when at war with your ancestors, the Ancients. You are one, aren't you?" Todd breaths the words, like a accusation, in Harry's face. Harry feels cold inside and out, and takes breaths he feels do nothing to keep him on his feet.

"Leave me alone." It's a deathly quiet whisper, a request that Todd would be fool to deny.

He obeys, reluctant, but stepping aside to watch Harry walk away. He tilts his head to enjoy the view, inhaling Harry's scent deeply. When he needs to, Todd will find him.

Harry doesn't turn around to acknowledge this, but keeps walking until he's out of sight by turning a corner.

0o0o0o0

"Harry Potter!" Rodney McKay's voice is not one to enjoy waking up to, it sing-songs giddily. At this point it is annoyed and has forgotten for the moment why he's bothering. Yes, Rodney is a morning person, it wouldn't be so bad if he were only a morning person, but no – whenever someone needs waking, and Rodney is up, Rodney is only to happy to wake them. That is why Rodney is a waking person.

Harry Potter isn't in need of waking: he's in need of finding.

Rodney is shortly going to find this out, having dragged himself out of his lab when repeated ringing on Harry's intercom hadn't worked, and neither had (three!) Atlantis-wide radio calls ("Harry Potter, oh for the love of – please, please, please wake up and call your best friend McKay!" had snarled one John Smith at 5AM) – and he'd had to go and get Harry himself. Harry living three spirals away from the main spiral (big enough for anyone and everyone and everything else, but for Harry? oh no) wasn't a hike anyone was taking for Rodney just to wake a cranky English man who had close personal connects with Russians.

"Harry?" Rodney takes one look around, scanning; just to be sure Harry is gone. He is. There is no sign of him. Rodney hadn't gotten lost or taken any wrong turns, Harry simply wasn't here any more.

"Uh oh." Harry had –more then once when annoyed - threatened to go exploring all on his own. Rodney had just never given it much thought, or credit. Quicker then he had taken to get there, Rodney McKay left for the main spiral, and help.

0o0o0o0

"People don't just disappear, Rodney." John tries, for the sake of the team and peace before 12PM, to keep a reasonable tone of voice. It's sympatric, understanding even, and shows none of his irritation that his scientist has single handedly somehow misplaced another scientist in a (alien) planet wide game of hide-and-seek. Before noon, even.

"I'm not saying he's disappeared, John – I'm saying he's gone missing. Or perhaps gone exploring, adventuring, on a walk about, seeing the sights. Without me, or supervision at all, or back up – and he is important on Earth, John. Little English guy, in bed with the Russians, they won't be happy we've lost him." Teyla Emmagan and Ronon Dex glance between each other, amused at the babbling. The soldiers of the Tau'ri were much like any inspired warrior or leader, their scientists were…colorful and emotional, like children, curious and yet with strong egos.

"Out there?" John waved to the sea, the shore beyond their sight.

"Out there, in Atlantis, he's somewhere – yes- so use your little Ancient gene and find him." Rodney jerked his hands toward the chair, and John raised an eyebrow at this. It was too early in the morning for this, and he hadn't had coffee.

"You know it doesn't work that way." John wished it was a simple as Rodney demanded it be. It wasn't, and looking for Harry with the Ancient technology was headache-inducing and it was far too early in the morning to have a twenty-four hour headache just yet. True, people were supposed to wait twenty-four hours before reporting a missing person, but this was Atlantis, in the Pegasus galaxy. Harry couldn't be too far away. They would look the old fashion way, and if they found Harry that way – thanks be to common sense.

"And you know the scanners won't pick Harry up." Rodney snarled, with a roll of his eyes.

"Why won't they?" Todd has snuck up on them, or something, for he was suddenly in the doorway looking in. Or rather looking as if he didn't know if he should be going in or out, and none the less his curiosity had gotten the best of him.

"It's weird. But, basically, by genetics, who knows why – but Harry's got more Ancient in him then any of us. Atlantis wasn't designed to spy on other Ancients, just people like us, and Harry is Ancient enough that Atlantis won't show us where he is even if he wanted to be found." Rodney frowned, but dismissed it with a shrug. He'd learned to live with it after doing everything to study Harry but dissect him.

"I could probably find him." Todd muses, walking away. Ronon stares after him, wide eyed. Teyla nudges him with a shoulder and a frown.

"What is it?" Her eyes are dark, and Ronon doesn't meet them, he stares after Todd as if he wants to follow.

"There are only two ways Todd could find Harry, just like that – one, he's a Runner like me – or…." Ronon shook his head, as if he didn't want to say.

"Or?" John pressed for more information, feeling he needed to know even if he didn't like it, and because it was John, Ronon answered.

"Or Todd's fed on Harry." Ronon didn't like to say it, but did.

"Well, that's his – their – business – yeah? Whatever floats his boat, I guess." Rodney gave a little shudder. John flushed, because Todd had taken and given him life, and it had been Ronon who explained – bluntly – that that was sex to the wraith.

"I'll keep an eye on Todd." Ronon had shaken his head, as if he didn't believe it to be so simple, or that Rodney was so blind.

0o0o0o0

Not even a half hour later, Todd had Harry back in the lab, and Harry wasn't talking to Rodney about 'it': which he was grateful for, and insulted by. Harry was one of Rodney's friends. Okay, so it was more like Harry was the only one outside his team and Beckett (who was frozen) who tolerated him: that was what a friend was, in the end, to Rodney: someone who was there and who gave a damn (not how much, just enough).

When they were finished for the day, Todd was waiting to walk Harry 'home': which was creepy. Harry agreed with Rodney apparently, and silently (while Rodney had said "You know you're being the creepy, possessive, stalker Wraith boyfriend type, right?" to Todd's face), so refused. (When Rodney had asked where exactly Harry was sleeping the next morning, on account of his bad breath, bad hair, and using the lab showers, he'd shrugged and said he was camping around).

There was no finding Harry in the mornings, or at night. He showed up to work on time, spent the day glued to someone's side (Rodney was good at noticing things and patterns were one of those things, it wasn't always Rodney's turn, but it was someone in the lab who didn't care to go out that day – and wasn't scheduled to go through the Stargate) and avoided any public place that he might run into Todd. It was like they were once-lovers now avoiding each other.

It had to end, either in courtship (because once Ronon had started following Todd, he hadn't stopped, and at lunch every day Teyla – who Ronon passed his information onto – clued them in). Creepy as it was to think of Todd with Harry, Harry was becoming reclusive and…cranky: like a paranoid, and that just wasn't like Harry.

0o0o0o0

"Why are you doing this?" Teyla demanded after one week of not seeing Harry at breakfast, lunch, or supper – but getting passed bits and pieces of Todd's hour-to-hour activates, courtesy of Ronon, who was still following Todd who was still stalking Harry. She felt by now that knew too much of Harry's schedule, and it felt like an invasion of privacy.

Worst was that Harry knew it, as Todd made his presence obvious: but Harry didn't bother to say anything or get help. It was as if he thought that he needed to protect them (them, being everyone on Atlantis) from Todd, so let himself get stalked.

"Do you not think it strange? He is the only true pure-blood Ancient left in the Pegasus galaxy – and he came from Earth, was born there. What power does he show? What potential?" Todd stood outside the lab, just leaning there and waiting. Harry was inside, avoiding him. Eventually Harry would come out, Todd would greet him, follow him, and Harry would continue to go quietly insane. It wasn't healthy, Todd's obsession and Harry's…silence.

"He is Tau'ri." Ronon was leaning on the other side of the wall, across from Todd. He'd made it very clear that he was following Todd – and Todd, who seemed amused, otherwise didn't care.

"Is he? He certainly looks Tau'ri, I grant you – but so do you, Teyla, and you have something of my people within you." Teyla curled her lip, disliking the association, but nodding to go along with it and get Todd to go on.

"You're point being?" She hinted, when he didn't. He leaned, closed his eyes, and breathed, as if snatching a scent or thought from the very air.

"What if he isn't, what if he is pretending?" Todd was fascinated by whatever stray thought or scent he had caught, smiling absently, with favor. Teyla inhaled, and realized, what Todd was scenting, was snatching the thoughts of, was Harry.

"What proof have you?" She hissed the words, threateningly. At last Todd opened his eyes, took her seriously.

"What business is it of yours – of ours, if he hides what he is in plain sight?" Todd shook his head, with a sigh. This was a Wraith who had been here – living - ten thousand years ago, when the Ancients lived, he had tasted of a Ancient's life, perhaps – though that thought was near repulsive in a sacred way. And if he saw Harry as more like an Ancient then a Tau'ri as the technology of Atlantis itself agreed – who was she to argue with it? How was her question, and why now wasn't her business. What was – was that Harry was a friend – their friend, and Todd clearly wanted closer to him, while Harry fought to keep him at a distance.

Todd was a Wraith, and the Wraith were dangerous, perhaps Harry had reason to keep away, and they were not careful enough to see it.

"Oh, but haven't you noticed? He's been hiding for a very long time – and I? I want to know why, and from what." Possessive, protective, and arrogant, Todd did not move from his post – as if he did not stalk and follow Harry as plainly as they saw it, but protected him from dangerous things they did not see.

"Why not ask?" Teyla asks, eyes flicking between the door to the lab and where they three stood.

"Why would he tell me? As you've pointed out – his race and mine had been… enemies." Todd breathed in, deeply, as if he wished it had been another way.

0o0o0o0

"Hey, Harry, stop for a minute? We need to talk." John Sheppard called out, because Rodney, and Teyla, and Ronon – all of his team, but him – saw something wrong, and he trusted them to notice things, when John only knew Harry as the guy who got Ancient tech to work, even when John was sure it wouldn't.

"Sure." Harry was defiantly twitchy, eyes flicking to where Todd stood. He let John walk to him, keeping his gaze on Todd, and John stayed between them. There was something in that look, a warning – a threat - that John thought was for him, but knew wasn't. And that was wrong, because Harry had never been intimating or threatening that John remembered, not in the least – quite it's opposite, if anything.

John had thought he'd be the one protecting Harry, in this, but it seemed to him that Harry needed no protection. Even if he offered it, even if Todd offered it – he wondered what Harry thought of that, if he was insulted.

"What's going on here - between you two?" Above the lights flickered, Atlantis responding to an Ancient's distress. John knew it wasn't just a random power flux, he was standing right beside Harry – between the two of them, and John knew who had stronger Ancient genes. Harry was it, John realized, a living breathing Ancient - as close as anyone would come.

"He's running." Todd spoke, not coming closer, but clearly wanting to do just that.

"What, why?" John looked between the two of them, confused, conflicted. He was torn to which side he would take.

"Imagine it John Sheppard, the Ancients coming to Earth." Harry's breath came out in a hiss. A warning. His fists clenched but John felt it, the power built in the room, the power that flickered the lights of Atlantis in warning. It came from Harry. John froze between them, not taking a step away or forward. He was waiting for it, this was the calm before the storm, and all of them had been to blind to see it.

"Hiding, breeding, don't you think they might have forgotten – the pure-blood Ancients, they forgot who and what they were. Yet they kept hiding, they kept running – and they thought they were running from you, from the Tau'ri. They weren't – they weren't even running from the Wraith. They were running…running from the Ascended, from themselves – can you imagine it?" Todd mourned, it was clear, mourned for them, the loss, the distance, the fear that kept the greatest of races among the Tau'ri, hidden.

"And he's realized it." Todd did now dare step past John, as if John was a barrier between them, a line that Harry did not want crossed.

"The question is- what will you do about it, Harry Potter? Your people are still hiding in the dark, waiting, and out of all of them you are not, why not? What drove you out?" Todd murmured, so softly that John has to strain to hear – and then wondered if he should, this sounding like a conversation that should be kept private.

"I'm not afraid of you." Harry hissed, softly. Todd dared to raise his hand, his palm, his fingers and put them against Harry's skin. John took a breath, to protest, but when Todd spoke his voice was gentle, a whisper.

"What are you afraid of?" Todd inhaled, eyes shining, waiting for a word, an answer. Harry didn't move away, didn't move any closer, but took a breath of his own, as if Todd has stolen it.

"I'm alone here." Harry admits it, blinking and breaking eye contact to glance about them. They were alone in the hall, and John noticed all the doors shut, Atlantis having obeyed Harry's silent plea for privacy.

"This is a city, built by my people, it should be living and breathing – alive – I've seen it's like before, gone to school in a building where the pictures moved, the staircases likewise, and it was magic – but this, this is dying. It's old. Not because it was sleeping, but because we are – all, all that's left – dying out. There are others, on Earth – we call ourselves wizards, witches, and there was a war, has been a war raging since before I was born. I thought I finished it." Harry shook his head, and Todd's thick fingers and sharp nails moved with him, though it would have been easy to let go in fear of hurting him.

"Your people, the Ancients on Earth -wizards and witches, they war with each other even now?" John spoke, shakily. He couldn't imagine it, on Earth, a war that no one saw.

Harry closed his eyes and when he opened them, they gleamed like green gems.

"They war after death, as the Ascended and the Ori. It doesn't end, when I die – on and on, warring into eternity." He blinked back tears, and Todd enfolded him in his arms, crooning. Like that, perhaps nothing could touch him, perhaps he felt safe.

"Then I will not let you die." Todd promised, nuzzling at Harry's dark hair. John didn't know if Todd could promise that, but if anyone could – it was him. Todd held him, and Harry let himself be held, opposites like Yin and Yang, healthy living skin and pale snake green skin, wild black hair and long white, slim and dangerous, tall and imposing, Ancient and Wraith – impossibilities, probabilities.

John let out a short bark of laughter, if they could love and live with each other – the rest of them surely had a chance.