Tonight was the night of Arrival, the anniversary of the day when Hecate brought the remaining magic users and magical creatures to Domus Novae from Old Earth. That was ten years ago.
Ten years of hard work remastering magic on a world that was almost, but not quite, a copy of Old Earth. The ley lines weren't in exactly the same places. Some were stronger than what the human magic users and the goblins remembered and some were weaker.
The Moon was the same size and had the same orbit but the face was different. The other planets in the new system were similar. They all had the same size and orbits as their counterparts but the details were different. Venus and Mars both had single moons. Some of the known larger asteroids in the belt weren't quite in their 'original' orbits. Jupiter's Great Red Spot was in the other hemisphere.
On Domus Novae, coast lines were similar to Old Earth. Ditto mountain ranges, islands, and volcanoes. Rivers showed greater variances. Without the activity of humans, both magical and not, the rivers flowed where geology and chance dictated.
Domus Novae was a world where no magic users had walked before and no humans had walked at all. Until Hecate and some of her friends intervened.
Luna Lovegood knew all the above. She'd been among the first magical humans to be taken to Domus Novae. Luna and magizoologists from all over Old Earth located the best locations for the magical beasts to be transplanted. The Scamanders and other magical beast caretakers brought all their charges to Domus Novae and then went back to Old Earth to collect more. Farmers and house elves brought domestic animals from strong breeding stock from all over Old Earth. They brought honey bees and fruit tree saplings, cuttings and seeds from magical plants and food plants. The house elves appreciated in a way the magical humans did not that once the final move was made from Old Earth there would be no going back to get what they forgot.
The house elves remembered being betrayed and left with nothing but tattered magic when the sidhe retreated to the Hollow Hills. The house elves remembered losing everything in a moment. They remembered and they remembered with Luna.
Luna had been the first mage to look up at the new sky and realize there wasn't a single familiar constellation in that sky. Where the Milky Way should have been was just a slightly denser smattering of stars. And opposite in the sky was the Black where no stars shown, only far distant galaxies.
"You will need a telescope to see the Milky Way from here," Hecate had murmured.
"Someone will build one," Luna had said. "It's important to keep track of where we came from and where they are."
"You'll need more than a telescope to keep an eye on them."
"Yes, but we have a little time."
Today Luna's seer's sense told her that Domus Novae would have visitors from this universe's version of Earth. This Earth didn't have magical beasts or magic users or if it did they were pale, insignificant things. This Earth had aliens that filled much the same niche.
Hermione Granger knew to listen to Luna Lovegood's warnings. She didn't always understand them as they were frequently embedded in an almost impenetrable word salad, but she did listen and take them seriously. Luna was a true seer who could actually see the currents and permutations of magic and energy and make sense of it enough to warn of future events. She wasn't a prophetess and people who didn't know her well thought she was more than a little dotty. Hermione likened Luna's gift to being able to hear distant storm reports but concentrating on those meant not being able to pay much attention to the rain clouds already overhead. But Hermione had also read in an ancient tome that true seers were only born if there was a need.
Hermione double checked the wards in and on the lunar outpost that housed the Portal itself. The wards prevented anything with evil or violent intent from getting out of the arrival/departure room. For the evil they knew about, the portal would shut off and refuse to accept commands from the other end until reset by hand from within a fortified, goblin warded, doorless room in the outpost.
She and others who had 'security' experience had spent months securing the Portal after it had been discovered in an alien base near the area where Glastonbury Tor would have been had it existed. Since the base was 'technically' found on 'British' soil, the other magic users decided the Portal was a 'British' problem. So it was 'British' magicals and goblins that took charge of it and later took advantage of it.
Even with magic it had taken months for the outpost building team of goblins and humans to build the underground outpost, laying wards and charms while wearing spacesuits in 1/6th gravity. They'd had to vastly improve portkeys to allow the transport of large objects across long distances.
'Constant vigilance' Alastair Moody had drummed into her and her companions during the last Wizarding War. She considered it a good credo considering everything that was out there in their new galaxy.
On one of their first forays into the wider galaxy using addresses from the alien database, the Magi (only the 'British' used the Portal so the 'British' chose the name they would call themselves when dealing with outsiders so everyone else could just suck it up) discovered the wraith, a predatory space faring race that were uncannily like flightless dementors and fed off of human life energy. Oddly, 'notice-me-not' charms seemed effective against them and no Magi had been taken by the wraith. Casting a Patronus to see if that affected the wraith hadn't been tried yet to Hermione's knowledge.
Every off-world team member had Occlumancy runes tattooed on their bodies so the wraith would not be able to gain any information on Domus Novae or the Magi from the minds of any Magi that might be captured by the wraith since apparently the wraith were fairly skilled legilimens. Even the Portal address for Domus Novae was locked in a rune. A little magic pushed into a Portal from someone possessing a Portal rune opened a link to Domus Novae's Portal and the bearer didn't have to know the address. The address was also under a fidelius charm so even if an off-world team member knew the address, they couldn't share it.
Constant vigilance.
The Genii were a potential problem. The general technology level of the galaxy appeared to be pre-industrial with a few exceptions. Medicine was more advanced than what would be expected for that general level of technology and every culture with access to a Portal knew they weren't alone in the universe.
But every Magi trade and contact team had a mediwitch as part of the team and the mediwitches had detected that almost all the Genii farmers or traders they had come across were suffering from some sort of radiation poisoning. And that could only happen if the Genii were hiding their technology level from everyone else. It wasn't a bad idea. Everyone knew what had happened to Sateda, that they had become industrialized and the wraith bombed them into extinction.
When Harry Potter heard about the Genii radiation poisoning he'd argued for the Magi offering technical help to them. Luckily more security minded (read 'paranoid') people convinced him that since societies with technology were rightfully concerned about the wraith finding out, letting the Genii know that the Magi knew about their secret technology was fraught with issues.
Then, just over a year ago, humans from Earth arrived on long hidden Atlantis and managed to save the cityship. The Magi knew from the database the address of Atlantis and more than a few researchers had wanted to go and claim it but Luna and Hecate herself warned them against it.
"There are forces and tides at play there that you, my children, are not prepared to handle alone. The Alterans created these issues. The Alterans' children, the Taur'i, have to take the lead in solving them," Hecate stated.
"Or die trying," Harry groused.
"Or die trying," Hecate agreed before fading out of view.
"From what we've gathered, the Ancients or Ancestors or Alterans or whatever we want to call them left a lot of issues," one of the trade team leaders, Isaac White, commented to no one in particular.
"I think we can agree that for the time being, we should wait and see how the Taur'i handle themselves in the galaxy before revealing ourselves," Augusta Longbottom, grand dame and eldest of the Magi advised.
But so far, it wasn't looking good. On the Taur'i's very first visit to Athos the wraith attacked and took several Taur'i to feed on. The Taur'i mounted a rescue mission and killed a wraith keeper and all the wraith awoke.
"I would have done the same thing," Harry commented on hearing the reports. "They didn't know about the keepers or how wraith hibernation worked and Earth's location was at risk. Heck, we didn't know about the keepers. Can you imagine the devastation if the wraith found all those billions of people on Earth?"
"And the Taur'i don't have occlumancy," Hermione reminded them.
"Maybe we need to be prepared to do something about that when we do finally decide meet with them," Harry suggested.
The Magi waited, sending out trade missions to societies they knew and trusted. Domus Novae was a fertile planet. The British managed a thriving trade with the other cultures on Domus Novae, trading the firewhiskey and butterbeer Britain and Ireland had been famous for on Old Earth for coffee and chocolate and other food stuffs that didn't grow well in the British climate even with magic. When the communities of Western Europe and North America asked (demanded) access to the Portal, their trade items got added to the mix for off-world. Wine, beer, spirits, coffee, chocolate, simple potions and amulets that worked for non-magicals, cheese, butter, and yeast bread were traded for items the people of Domus Novae didn't actually need but found interesting since they were looking for information and that was easier to get after a good bout of haggling.
It was after the Doranda incident where the Taur'i managed to activate an abandoned Alteran weapon and blew up 5/6s of the Dorandan star system, when the decision was made to contact the Taur'i.
AR1 consisting of Major John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagen, and Ronan Dex had arrived on Theros. Teyla had been the one to tell the Atlantis expedition about the Grand Market being open on Theros for the next ten days. Teyla had been hard pressed to explain what the Grand Market actually was except that it was open for ten days every half year or so as measured on Athos. Athos had always had cloth and leather to trade and it was an honor to be chosen to go to the Grand Market.
On arrival, John realized why Teyla had such a hard time describing it. The stargate itself was set in a killing zone - on either side of the access path was a ten meter stone wall with crenelations on the top. There was no DHD in sight. That was troubling. The stargate also sat in an earthworks bowl. The exit was up a ramp just wide enough for an Athosian style cart. A man in what looked like it might be a uniform stepped out from behind the stonework.
"Well met, gentlebeings," The man said. "Apologies, but we do not permit projectile or energy weapons at the Grand Market." He held out his hands to take their weapons. "They will be returned to you on your departure." Ronan glowered at the man but handed over his weapon. Teyla smiled as she handed over hers. John hesitated and Rodney followed his lead.
"We would be very poor hosts if we allowed anything untoward to happen to our guests," the security guard said.
John and Rodney handed over their weapons. "Don't lose those," John warned.
The guard chuckled. He walked over to the wall and an opening appeared. He placed the weapons in the revealed chamber and the opening disappeared. Then he handed each member of the party a gold coin. "Do not lose this claim coin." He smiled. "Enjoy your visit to the Grand Market." He waved them past.
As they reached the top of the ramp John could see a cart track and about two klicks out was a wide street surrounded by a sea of brightly colored tents and simple sheds. The scene reminded him of the bazaars he'd visited in the Middle East.
The impression of a Middle Eastern market stayed with him as they got closer. Shop keepers nodded politely as they passed. Tables were filled with displays of fresh fruit and vegetables. Other vendors displayed soaps and candles, and yet others displayed jars of preserved fruit and unfamiliar nut butters.
There were rugs and woven hangings, rolls of fabric, piles of leather. And the smells of food.
Teyla greeted every vendor they passed and she stopped and spoke with many. Occasionally pieces of what looked like paper traded hands. John knew that Teyla had taken on the responsibility of finding trading partners for Atlantis to get fresh food.
Then John literally smelled coffee as he walked toward a brightly colored tent with a table filled with ceramic cups filled with a dark liquid. Also on the table was a brazier heating up a water kettle and what looked to be a genuine glass and steel coffee press.
"You have coffee?!" Rodney practically shrieked at the coffee vendor. He grabbed one of the cups and tasted the contents. "It's coffee! Real coffee!"
"That will be 1 knut," the vendor said, trying to get the cup away from Rodney. Teyla handed the vendor a copper colored coin and the vendor relinquished the cup.
"And where do we get the money they're using?" John asked quietly. "I'm really sure they don't take American Express around here."
"Gringotts will convert precious metals into coin. Gold, silver, naquadah, anything made by the Ancestors. They accept gems as well, but they are extremely picky about those," Teyla explained. "If you have an account with them, you can withdraw coin to use."
"Pegasus has banks?" Rodney sputtered. "Since when?"
"Sateda had banks," Ronan Dex said quietly.
"Well, any society that's complex enough will have banks or something like them, but there's one here?" Rodney asked.
Teyla nodded to one of the few permanent buildings in the market place. It was a short distance from the coffee vendor and was surrounded by other bright tents selling other food stuffs.
The building itself was simple gray polished stone with no windows and heavy metal doors. "My people have accounts with them for when we come to trade at the major markets," Teyla added.
John looked closer at the building. It looked to be made of polished granite. The doors looked to be steel with designs engraved into them. Above the doors the word 'Gringotts' was engraved in Helvetica type face and in Ancient.
"That's an Earth type face," Rodney sputtered. "How are they using a letter design from Earth?"
Teyla shrugged. "Gringotts is allied with the Magi and the Magi are a reclusive people with many secrets."
"Do you think there are any of them here today?" John asked.
"I know they were here because their trade goods are being sold," Teyla said. "All of these vendors are selling Magi goods. But I do not know if they are still here on Theros."
"If they are here they're probably in the bar," Ronan told them. "You can get a lot of information just listening in bars, especially when people don't realize how potent firewhiskey and Magi beer is."
Ronan led the group to another permanent building further down the main thoroughfare. This one was painted wood and brick. The interior wasn't as rough as John had seen on other worlds, or even in places on Earth. In fact, it looked positively homey. Cheery yellow and blue walls, woven rugs on the polished hardwood floors. There was a door set into the back wall and next to it was pass through window to what was probably the kitchen. A wooden tavern bar with a granite top stretched across one side of the large main room. On the wall behind it were simple shelves with glasses and a selection of whiskey, gin, and wine bottles. A heavy set man with ginger hair graying at the temples nodded at them as he wiped down the counter top.
"Ronan, see you brought some friends finally." The bartender grinned at them. "So, what'll you all be having?"
"Got any of that Londinium Porter in?" Ronan asked.
The bartender pulled a dark bottle out from under the counter and placed it on the granite.
"And I'll have a glass of that partridge eye wine I had last time," Teyla said.
"Oeil de Perdrix," the bartender said. "I have Pinot Noir and Zinfandel."
"Pinot Noir please, Ron."
He looked to John and Rodney. "And you gents? I'm betting American pale ale."
Ronan chuckled. "They should try firewhiskey."
Ron's eyebrows raised. "I thought these guys were your friends."
Rodney had stepped closer to the bar to read the labels on the bottles. There were no brand labels on any of them, just hand written identifiers on simple white labels: Irish, Scotch, Canadian, bourbon, corn, potato vodka. But the glass bottles looked authentically Earth-made.
"Canadian neat," Rodney ordered.
"And you, Major?" Ron asked.
"American pale."
"And an order of chips," Ronan called out as he made his way to one of the empty tables that was away from the front door.
"Malt vinegar or ketchup?"
"Both please, Ron," Teyla called back.
Ron poured Teyla's wine into a stemmed wine glass and handed it to John along with a bottle of pale ale. Rodney grabbed his own glass as soon as Ron poured it.
Rodney took a sip as he walked over to Teyla and Ronan's table. His eyes widened. "Either I'm unconscious somewhere and I'm dreaming this or I'm dead and purgatory is just plain weird."
"Well, whichever one you are, then so am I," John drawled as he slipped into his chair. "This is real beer with real hops and who in this galaxy has a working brewery and would call a beer American Pale much less have a beer named Londinium Porter?"
The pub door opened with a chime and Teyla nodded to the three people who walked in. "I believe the Magi would."
John looked them over. By appearance, two men and one woman, all wearing dark robes of a finely woven material with leather boots and gloves that looked to be from a reptile of some sort. But it was their eyes that caught his attention. They were scanning the room the same as he and Ronan and Teyla had done coming in the door. He noted that Teyla and Ronan were keeping their hands in sight.
"Well met, Mage Isaac White," Teyla said pleasantly, dipping her head in greeting.
The taller man bowed with well practiced elegance. "Well met, Lady Teyla Emmagen of the Athosians and Ronan Dex of Sateda."
Teyla gestured indicating the other two at her table. "Major John Sheppard, United States Air Force and Doctor Rodney McKay, PhD."
"Emily Scott and Alexander Ross of the Magi." White waved his own companions over to a table near Teyla's party.
"Hey Ron, how about three butterbeers, heavy on the whipped, and three orders of cheese toasties," Emily called out.
"And chips," Alexander added.
"Hard day?" Ron called back. A plate of fried potato rounds had appeared in the pass through and Ron took it to Teyla's table along with a dish of red stuff and a bottle labeled malt vinegar.
"Long day," Emily corrected. "Borega got attacked."
"Casualties?" Ronan asked.
"Some pasture land," Emily stated. "No indication the wraith sensed the false image shields we put up. And we already know wraith can't sense things through hard rock."
"So the bunkers worked?" Ronan asked.
"Seems so," Alexander said. "No one was culled."
"Good," was all Ronan said before he started to dig into the potatoes.
Rodney grabbed a round and nibbled on it. "Real beer, real whiskey, and now real potatoes. Where the heck do you find real potatoes in this galaxy?"
"Borega," Ron said, bringing potato rounds, grilled cheese sandwiches, and three mugs of foam topped yellow drink to Isaac's table. "Well, that's one of the places that's doing really well with potatoes and goats. Mum figures in a couple years their flocks will be big enough they'll be able to trade out their excess milk and goat cheese. And potatoes don't need a lot of tending once the soil's prepped."
"Isn't introducing alien species into an environment asking for trouble down the line?" John asked.
"Anything humans do is asking for trouble down the line," Isaac said. "Humans are an apex predator and once their numbers are great enough, nothing is safe. Before all the wraith woke up, they were pretty good at keeping the human populations low enough to not be too dangerous."
"You're saying the wraith are part of a galactic ecosystem as a super predator of humans?" McKay asked, wanting clarification.
"Yup."
"Actually, that makes sense in a lot of ways," McKay mused. "The rotating hibernation cycles would protect hives in the event of a plague taking out awake hives or a big chunk of the human populations. Actually, we don't know if there've been pandemics spread through the stargate system. It would make sense if there were. And since most of the societies we've run across don't have written histories that go back very far or only have oral histories…"
"You're sure about that?" Alexander asked.
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"If you're a society that knows that any evidence of technology or even heavy agriculture will get you bombed flat, wouldn't you come up with ways to preserve and hide your technology?"
"Sateda didn't," Ronan said quietly.
"Politicians frequently refuse to learn from history and think that this time the bad guys will keep their word," Isaac said. "Never happens and it's their people who suffer."
"And sometimes the history they need learn from belongs to somebody else," John said softly. "If you can't be a good example then you'll just have to be a horrible warning."
"So, you're saying that maybe some of these agrarian societies we've met are more than they seem?" McKay asked.
"Some of them, surely," Teyla said. "And some of them are exactly what they seem. Instead of trying to save and build on their achievements after the wraith flattened them they deemed their own ancestors arrogant, even evil, for having caught the wraith's attention. They gave up trying."
"Is that what happened on Athos?" Emily asked.
"I believe so," Teyla admitted. "We were forbidden to enter the ruins of the old city. We were told there were evil ghosts and monsters there."
"Did anybody find any ghosts or monsters?" Ronan asked.
"No, but no one ever admitted to looking for them, either."
Ron called out: "Runner just came through the Portal. Ezra says he's in rough shape but he also had an explosive pack with him. Ezra's initiating a Portal blackout. Where do you want to send the runner?"
Isaac pulled a small cellphone like device from out of a hidden pocket and checked the screen. "776," he read off the screen. "Send Portia a heads up,"
"What are you going to do with him?" Ronan demanded.
"Send him through the Portal to some people who can fix him up and remove the tracker. And then, we're going to make the wraith believe he succeeded in damaging the Portal here."
Rodney looked puzzled for just a moment. "You have a way to keep the stargate from accepting an incoming connection signal. It'll look like the stargate's been destroyed."
"Exactly," Isaac said with a grin.
"And what if the wraith come in ships to investigate?" John asked.
Isaac grinned and beckoned for them all to follow him out of the bar. Except for Gringotts, every tent and building was gone as though they'd never been there. Even the bar had vanished. Ron bent over to pick up what looked to be a bright blue pebble and put it in his pocket.
From the corner of his eye, John thought he caught the faintest shimmer of glowing silver runes engraved in the polished stone of the bank.
"Incoming!" Ron yelled. He grabbed Teyla and Ronan and literally disappeared with a bang. Isaac grabbed John around the waist and Emily did the same with Rodney. John felt a wash of vertigo, the feeling of something hooking him by the navel and twirling him round. He saw an image of the stargate event horizon in front him and then the cold of the stargate wormhole itself.
He didn't quite stay on his feet when the stargate ejected him and Isaac into a gray windowless room that was barely big enough to allow an puddlejumper access to the Portal. Isaac rolled to his feet and helped John to his.
"Everybody okay?" John asked his own team. They all seemed to be a bit pale from the 'ride'.
"We're at one sixth gravity here," Rodney said. "And what the hell happened?"
"Emergency evac," Isaac explained. "We detected a hive entering the system there."
"I guess Ezra didn't zap that runner fast enough," Ron commented.
"Did the people in Gringotts get out?" John asked. "The building hadn't disappeared."
Isaac chuckled. "It's the wraith who have to worry if they're stupid enough to attack Gringotts' people. I fully expect to see wraith heads on pikes tomorrow outside the main bank.
"And before you ask, they chose to stay to reset the Portal once they've determined it's safe, plus they found a really nice vein of silver they want to mine."
"You're cleared to proceed," an anonymous voice announced as a set of doors set into one of the side walls opened to reveal a gray corridor.
"Proceed to where?" Rodney asked. He still looked a little green from the last 'trip'.
"The planet, of course," Emily said with a grin. "This is just the security bunker for the Portal. We'll take a shuttle down to the planet."