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Piercing the Veil	By : trudyw000 Category: Harry Potter Crossovers > Slash - Male/Male Views: 8942 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Stargate Atlantis, I make no money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 12
- 13
Author's Note - Here it is, chapter 13, sorry for the wait, hope you enjoy.
Chapter 13
"That's enough Colonel!"
Silence fell over the scene in the infirmary as everyone froze at the words suddenly barked out as Jack stepped up to the foot of the diagnostic bed on which Colonel Sumner grappled with the two corpsmen.
Into the silence Jack was able to continue in a more normal tone of voice. "These men have a job to do, you need to settle down and let them do it."
Sumner subsided onto the raised head of the bed, "what am I doing here?" he asked Jack, "I'm perfectly fine, so why am I here?"
Jack just looked at him thoughtfully for a few moments before asking the room at large, "does anyone here have a mirror?"
All eyes turned to Elizabeth and a brief flash of annoyance crossed her face but she just shrugged showing empty hands.
Jack looked around the room, "anyone?" he asked again.
Sirius looked around the room, on the floor he spotted a small pile of broken glass swept into a corner, apparently there had been some breakages in the moving in process. Walking over he leaned down and picked up the largest piece, careful to avoid slicing his fingers on the sharp edges. Cupping the shard in his hand he pictured a simple hand mirror in his mind. Once he had the image he pushed it gently at the glass which simply flowed into its new shape, a silvered backing flowing underneath the new formed circle to form a perfect mirror. When it was complete Sirius simply offered it to Jack who gestured towards the, still predominantly grey-haired, man on the bed and Sirius handed the mirror over.
Sumner took the offering and with some trepidation held it up to view his face. At first he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be seeing, there were no gaping wounds, no disfiguring scars, he looked a little older than he remembered but it wasn't as if he spent hours every day preening in front of the mirror. However as he looked he realised that the lines around his eyes were smoothing out and colour was leaching slowly back into his hair.
Eventually the image in the little mirror stabilised and he was looking at the same face he usually saw. "What the hell is going on here?" he asked angrily.
As the Colonel glared around him no-one quite seemed to know what to say.
"Well!" he demanded after several moments silence
It was Elizabeth who finally spoke up although not in direct answer to Colonel Sumner's question, "Lantia, earlier you showed us a recording of the Colonel leaving Atlantis, do you have recordings of what happened before that, and of the Colonel's return?" after all, pictures paint a thousand words, especially with a man of action like Sumner.
There was a slight pause before Lantia replied. If anyone had been watching Sirius they would have seen him unconsciously give a slight nod of his head as he answered the question the city had posed to him in the privacy of his own mind. Once she had received his consent Lantia replied, "Yes Elizabeth, I do."
"Thank you Lantia, can you please show the Colonel his actions from earlier today," she asked politely.
"I can use the diagnostic bed to display the images, if Colonel Sumner could lay back or move away please." Lantia replied and the Colonel who had been sat up with his legs hanging over the edge of the narrow gurney to examine himself in the small mirror Sirius had conjured, lifted his legs up and leant back against the raised head of the bed. The draft against his back had alerted him to the fact that choosing to stand at this moment would not be commensurate with his dignity, not in the open backed hospital gown that he had somehow been changed into before he awoke.
Once he was settled Lantia started the images rolling. First she showed the confrontation in the hallway as the Colonel almost fired a Rocket Launcher within the close confines of the city. After showing the unconscious Colonel being carried away by his men the images switched to show the scene that Elizabeth and the others had viewed in the shuttlecraft on the trip back from the mainland. Finally the images from the gate room were displayed, showing the Colonel gliding through the event horizon of the worm hole into the waiting arms of several enlisted men who gently carried his elderly body to the waiting medics and laid him gently on a gurney. As the viewers watched the other three members of his away team were each received in the same way, each unconscious but none of them stricken with advanced age in the same way that the Colonel was.
The images from the infirmary clearly showed the inflamed red hand-print on Sumner's chest as the medical team worked feverishly to support his failing body before they could even begin to try to understand what had happened to cause the sudden ageing. Then, as they watched the replay of events, slowly the hand print began to fade, as it disappeared the signs of advanced age also began to retreat until the Colonel regained consciousness and immediately tried to stand initiating the brief fight with the medical corpsmen that the others had witnessed on entering the infirmary a short while before. At that point Lantia shut off the replay and silence descended upon the room.
The colour had drained from Sumner's face as he watched the events unfold and he realised that his career was over. When the last of the pictures faded from the air he turned to Jack with empty eyes. Summoning the tattered scraps of his pride to him he pulled himself to sit upright and addressed the older man with quiet dignity. "General, if you'll have someone find my clothes these men can escort me to the brig, Bates and the others were purely following my orders, I would like to request leniency for them. I'm relinquishing command of the Atlantis Military contingent to you as the ranking officer on board."
"Relinquish Schminquish, did no-one get the memo, I'm retired!" Jack exclaimed forcefully. "Before you go throwing yourself upon your sword, we have a theory as to what caused your actions, Danny, would you care to explain?" and he took half a pace backwards allowing Daniel to take the floor and explain the conversation that had taken place in Elizabeth's office earlier.
"So you see, we believe that you were not in full control of your faculties when these events took place." Daniel wrapped up his explanation of what Jack was starting to think of as the 'Multiple Mangled Timelines' theory.
The Colonel thought for a few moments after Daniel had finished speaking. It might be grasping at straws somewhat, but if that was what it took to save his career then he could live with that. There was just one thing still bothering him though. "If this is the result of events in alternate timelines, then how do we know it won't happen again?" he asked.
Daniel was trying to find a diplomatic way to answer the question when Rodney stepped in with an uncomfortably forth-right reply, "Well, since the theory postulates that it was your simultaneous deaths in each of the affected timelines that caused the problem you should be the safest person on Atlantis going forward."
"Rodney!" John Shepherd scolded the scientist in exasperated tones.
"No, it's alright," Sumner interjected, "so we think I'm in the clear, what about everyone else? Could other members of the expedition be affected in the same way?"
"Well, obviously we're working purely on conjecture here, but the effects seem to be fading as we move away from the initial events. We should all be alert to the possibility of a repeat but I'm hoping that as time passes with no further time-space disruptions this timeline will stablise and we won't see any further bleed-through." Rodney finished his explanation, complete with his characteristic rapid hand gestures as if words were not enough to convey the thoughts firing through his super genius brain.
Colonel Sumner relaxed slightly, if the others were happy to accept the story they had concocted then far be it from him to argue the point. "Very well then, but, what happened to Bates and the rest of my team, they didn't seem to have been affected by these wraith?"
In the excitement Jack and the others had forgotten about the rest of Colonel Sumner's impromptu gate team. At the reminder they looked to Carson for an answer. The Doctor moved over to a curtained off area of the room, pulling back the curtain he revealed the three men, each lying on a diagnostic bed identical to the one occupied by the Colonel. "They were unconscious when they were first brought in here, they now seem to be conscious and there are no visible signs of injury but they're apparently completely paralysed."
"Shit!" the sudden obscenity from Sirius surprised everyone in the room as the wizard strode quickly over to the three stricken men that he had completely forgotten in the excitement of Sumner's recovery. Concentrating carefully he reached out with his mind to each of the three men, seeking the curse that he had placed upon them. As he felt the iron-hard tendrils of the curse encasing their bodies he gave a mental tug, lifting the curse and freeing each from their invisible captivity.
As each man was freed they took in a massive breath, filling lungs that had felt constricted by the sudden paralysis that had struck them down. As soon as they realised that they could move once again they scrambled off the diagnostic beds, backing up against the walls of the infirmary and staring around them with wild eyes.
It was Bates who found his voice first, "what the hell just happened?"
Remembering that he had no official standing in the expedition Jack looked to Elizabeth for approval before approaching the three men. At her sharp nod he stepped forward, addressing himself to Bates he asked, "what do you remember of the events of the last few hours?"
Bates looked a little perplexed at the question but drawing himself to attention began to relay the events of the day.
Sumner winced a little at hearing the description of his behaviour that morning relayed yet again. But it was when the soldier reached the events on the alien planet that his attention was really caught as this was all new to him.
"We were all on edge, when the boys burst out of the trees they took us by surprise, Chapman shot the boy in the mask before we realised what was happening." Bates relayed the events as dispassionately as he could, he saw his Colonel propped up on the diagnostic bed on the other side of the room. Even at this distance it was obvious that the manic edge that the man had been displaying for most of the day was gone and Bates was pleased about that, but it did raise the concern over what would happen to himself and the other men for following Sumner.
He completed his recital of events, one moment he had been leaning over his stricken Colonel trying to understand what had happened, the next he was waking up in the infirmary, completely paralysed, able to see and hear everything that went on around him, but unable to do anything else.
Here Sirius took up the story, "We came through the gate and followed Colonel Sumner's team to the village. When we arrived the Colonel was already down, Bates here was with him and the other two were threatening the rest of the villagers. I used a paralysis spell to disable the three men still standing and levitated all four back to the gate." Turning to the three men still standing against the infirmary wall, each now looking less tense, "please accept my apologies, I should have released the spell when we were back in the city."
Bates drew himself up into and even more upright stance than before, "apology accepted Sir!" he snapped out then asked quietly "Sir, what happens now?"
Sirius had no idea how to answer the tentative question and with a slight shrug he stepped aside, turning to Jack for a response as he did so.
Jack thought for a moment, "Bates, return to your quarters, you're on medical leave for the rest of the day, tomorrow you will return to your duties." He stopped then, accepting the soldier's nod of acceptance and waiting as the man marched out of the infirmary, eyes firmly forward as he left.
Now Jack turned to face the remaining two men, Chapman and Wright stood to attention beside their beds, they were each still in uniform as Bates had been. Apparently the medical staff had either been unable to change their clothes, or had been too busy with the Colonel to get to these men yet. Jack considered the two men carefully, Bates had been following his superior officers orders and had acquitted himself well in a difficult situation when the child had been shot and then the Colonel had been struck down by unknown forces. These two however had panicked, they had lost control and caused serious injury to an innocent child as well as threatening an entire village. The problem was that with no possibility of resupply in the near future every resource was vital. That included personnel, he did not want to have to lock these two up, that would just increase the impact to the military contingent as they not only lost Chapman and Wright but also the man-power used to guard them.
Then suddenly inspiration struck, "Lantia, you must have a lot of work to do maintaining a city that has been abandoned for ten thousand years?" he asked the city.
"Yes Jack," came the reply "there is much to be done and power reserves are dangerously low."
He hummed thoughtfully, "would a couple of extra pairs of hands come in handy?" he asked, a slight smile lifting the corners of his mouth.
"Yes Jack," the city responded eagerly, she was already recalculating the work schedule. Even untrained the two men would provide a valuable extra resource, freeing up her drones to work on more complex tasks.
"Very well" Jack gave a decided nod, "go to your quarters and rest up for the rest of today. As of 09:00 tomorrow morning you two are under Lantia's direct command, make the most of this opportunity. You have until we make contact with Earth to redeem yourselves. Understood?"
The two men snapped out sharp salutes with a barked "Sir!" before filing out of the room.
Sirius' gaze was doubtful as he watched them leave, "Are you sure about this?" he asked.
Jack looked towards the door through which the two men had left with a small frown, "I don't know, but we have nowhere secure to hold them and we don't have the men to guard them 24/7 so I'm not sure what else we can do."
Sirius nodded, he didn't like it but he did understand Jack's dilemma. Still he wasn't going to leave anything to chance. "Lantia," he called out in his head, "keep a careful eye on those two, any trouble call me straight away!"
"What about me?" the question came from an unusually subdued Colonel Sumner.
"That's up to the good Doctor here," Jack replied and Dr Beckett quickly stepped up, glad to have control of his infirmary returned to him.
The Colonel sat with bad grace as he submitted to the examination. Disregarding the advanced medical technology of Atlantis Dr Beckett used nothing more than a pen-light and his wrist watch as he quickly and efficiently checked his patient's vitals. "There's nothing wrong with you now, but given the state in which you were brought in to the infirmary I'd like to keep you here for observation." he concluded.
"Is that an order Doctor?" Sumner asked sharply.
"No, I can't keep you here, but I'd strongly recommend..." The Doctor got no further with his recommendation, Sumner was already swinging his legs around, preparing to stand and he had no choice but to move back, out of the way, unless he wanted to physically grapple with the man.
"I assume you have my clothes around here somewhere?"
The question hung in the air for a moment until the Doctor gave a disgruntled nod and called out to a passing nurse "Get the Colonel his clothes please."
Looking around Carson saw that his infirmary was still unusually full of people, "was there anything else?" he asked the room at large.
Halling spoke up first, "Can I see my son yet?" he asked hopefully and Carson swiftly dispatched him off to the private room in the back of the infirmary where Jinto was recovering from surgery. Kavanagh chose to go along with the tall Athosian to check on the child too.
Elizabeth left next after thanking the other men for their help.
Finally there were only the five of them left with Carson, Jack, Daniel, John, Rodney and Sirius.
"Gentlemen?" Carson sounded harried, most of his patients may have been cleared out but there was still a lot to do to get the infirmary fully set up.
"Actually Carson we were wondering if you had a moment?" Jack asked.
"What is it, as you can see I'm very busy!" Carson gestured to the bustle around them as the medical team got on with the business of unpacking and settling in.
"Come on Carson," Rodney stepped forward slinging an arm around the Doctor's shoulders. "you know the nurses will be perfectly capable of getting everything sorted without your help," he paused for moment, "in fact it'll probably go faster if you get out of the way and leave them to it!"
At first Carson seemed inclined to bristle at the implication, but looking around at his well trained staff he simply shrugged, conceding Rodney's point.
"Very well, what did you need?"
"I don't suppose you have an office maybe, somewhere we can talk in private?" Jack resumed control of the conversation.
"I don't know" Carson raised his eyes to the ceiling "Lantia lass, do I have an office?"
"Of course Dr Beckett. As Chief Medical Officer of Atlantis your office is this way, follow the lights please." and as her lilting tones faded the, now familiar, trail of lights in the floor lit the way deeper into the infirmary.
"Thank you lass, but please, it's Carson."
"Sorry Carson," Lantia apologised and a door swung open ahead of them, "here we are."
Inside was an office very similar to those they had already seen, but this one had a warmer, cosier feel, well suited to the man who would occupy it. The business area up front was perfectly functional but it was immediately clear that it was in the area further back that the real work would get done.
Three soft, comfortable looking sofa's formed an open sided square, the open side facing a view over the city as spectacular as any they had seen. It was a homely, calm space where you could relax and talk freely about anything that was bothering you and it fitted Carson perfectly.
Quickly they shucked off their heavy boots, leaving them on the rack that marked the line between the functional and the comfortable areas of the office, and settled themselves on the sofas. "Well, what was it that you couldn't to discuss in public?"
"Magic" Sirius replied simply.
Carson looked confused "Huh? You might need to elaborate a little on that one."
"I wondered why some of your team would be able to hear Lantia when they aren't wizards. So I performed a spell on Jack and John and it turns out they are wizards but their magic has been bound, probably in childhood." Sirius explained.
"Wait, so the Ancient gene is also the magic gene?" Carson looked shell-shocked as he slumped back against the cushions. "But, I have the Ancient gene!"
"Oh shit Carson!" Daniel exclaimed, "of course you do. It's been a crazy day, I can't believe we forgot there are other gene carriers on the expedition."
Rodney, never one to take a back seat in anything, butted in now "We don't know for sure that it's the same gene but the three people we tested are all latent magicians..."
"Wizards!" interrupted Sirius sharply.
"Wizards, Magicians, whatever, the point is that the three people we tested all have the potential to use magic," Rodney charged ahead ignoring the look of fierce anger on Sirius' face at being called a magician. However, before his temper could escape his control Carson unknowingly headed it off.
"You said you tested three people, who else have you discussed this with?" the question was asked levelly enough but Sirius found himself much more attuned to the subtleties of tone, inflection and body language since his time with the Ancients behind the veil and he detected the hurt in the Scotsman's voice. No-one else seemed to have noticed anything though so he decided not to make a big deal about it.
"You are the first person we've come to with this," he assured the Doctor. "Lantia detected that Daniel has the..." Sirius stumbled over the unfamiliar terminology "the gene too, he's the third person I tested." He paused a moment, "Do you want me to check you for magic?"
"Wait a minute, Daniel has the gene, that's impossible, he's never shown any sign of being able to use the Ancient Tech." Carson's surprise at hearing that the archeologist had the gene briefly overwhelmed the shock of hearing that he might be a wizard.
"It's complicated, we think his magic was bound when he was travelling with his parents as a child. Lantia assures us that he should be able to hear her and my own spell confirms that he has a very powerful magical core." Sirius explained.
Carson decided to let the matter drop, the other's seemed happy with the explanation and he could run the proper tests himself to verify Lantia's findings. Instead he thought for a moment about his own situation, did he really want this, it was bad enough finding that he had the Ancient gene and being expected to use it to control the artefacts left in the city. Did he really want to find he had the potential to be a magic user too with all that that would entail.
He was about to turn down Sirius' offer when a stray memory floated through his mind. A memory of nights as a child, snuggled up against the chill of a highland winter, listening to his mother telling stories of myth and magic. Was he really about to turn down the opportunity to find out if those stories could be true, to be a part of them himself. The words came then of their own volition, "what do you need me to do?"
Rising to his feet Sirius indicated a point several feet in front of himself, "just stand there" he requested and as Carson complied he held out his arm and performed the same spell he had used on the other men earlier, "Specialis Revelio!"
At the words Carson closed his eyes and braced himself as if expecting the spell to hurt. However after a moment he cautiously opened one, then both eyes, raising his arms he looked in wonder at the tracery of green light flowing through his body. Gazing down at himself he saw how the network of filaments all came together in a ball of glowing, green light in the centre of his chest.
Looking up at Sirius with an expression of wonder on his face he asked, "Does this mean..."
"Yes it does, you're a wizard," Sirius replied to the partially formed question. "Welcome to the family"
Stumbling backwards a few steps in shock, Carson slumped back down onto the couch.
"You OK," Daniel asked after a few moments, as always the archaeologist’s greater empathy picked up on Carson's sudden distress before any of the others.
At his words the Scotsman, whose breath had begun to quicken in anxiety, turned even paler and leaned forward, hanging his head between his knees, hands clenched as his chest heaved, struggling to pull in sufficient air. Rodney who was seated beside him quickly recognised the signs of a panic attack, he moved closer, one hand gripping a shoulder whilst the other rubbed firm circles on the Doctor's back as he commanded, "come on Carson, deep, slow breaths."
As everyone gathered around he waved them back' "give him some room!" before turning back to his charge, "come on Carson, you know the drill, slow down, breathe in, two, three..." The others watched in amazement as Rodney, whose one defining characteristic they had all taken to be selfishness, slowly and patiently calmed the Doctor down until finally the other man was able to sit back once more, slumping against the cushions, eyes closed in exhaustion.
As his breathing returned to normal the other men settled back into their seats, giving him a few moments space to recover his equilibrium. Suddenly Carson seemed to shake off his torpor, rubbing his large hands briskly over his face he straightened in his seat, "OK, what's next?"
Sirius looked at him carefully before carrying on, "well, you, John and Jack are all wizards with your magic bound in a fairly standard way in childhood. I can release the binding if that's what you want. A small amount of magical energy has been flowing through your body all along, releasing the binding will increase that flow so that you can begin to use magic and I can teach you how to control it." He paused briefly, looking across at Daniel who sat beside Jack nervously wringing his hands, "Daniel however is a slightly different story. Daniel's magic has been more tightly bound, all his magically energy is locked up in his magical core. I believe I can," he paused, searching for the right word, "relax the binding to allow a small trickle of his magic to begin to flow around his body. Once the magical pathways have opened up then I can release the binding completely and he can begin to learn magic." He ended with a big smile, in his teenage years he had enjoyed working with his friends to help them learn the animagus transformation, he thought he might enjoy working with these men to teach them magic just as much.
"So the question now is, do you want me to try to release the binding on your magic?" Sirius surveyed the four potential wizards before him, he felt sure he knew what Jack and John would decide, it was Carson and Daniel who were the unknown quantities. He had unloaded a lot of information onto the Doctor very quickly, the man might need some time to process it before making a decision. Then there was Daniel, he had not even been sure he wanted to know if he was a wizard, would he want to go any further?
It was Jack who spoke first, "you said that you believe you can relax the bindings on Daniel's magic, how sure are you that you can do this without harming him?"
"With you, John and Carson it's all straight-forward, it will probably be a bit of a shock to your systems but I know it can be done and I'm confident that I can do it without causing you harm. Daniel is a little different, I'm not a mediwizard, so this is not my area of expertise but I'm convinced that releasing his magic all at once would be dangerous. To suddenly have all his magic flowing through channels that have been closed since childhood would be an immense strain on his body. To relax the binding first is safer but also more difficult which is why I won't try it without medical supervision. Daniel this is entirely up to you, if you want to wait until you can get back in touch with Earth then that's fine. I would be able to provide you with an introduction to some people who could get you to St Mungo's, it's a wizarding hospital, they have professionals who could help you much better than I can." Sirius sat back, it was up to Daniel now, but Jack still had something to say he and Danny had waited a long time to be together, he was keen to start learning about magic but it was more important to him that Danny be safe.
"Danny, it might be safest to wait, we'll be back in touch with Earth eventually, I'll wait too, I want us to be able to learn this stuff together, if that means waiting a year or two then that's fine, your safety is what's important here!" Jack meant every word that he said but looking at him Daniel knew just how eager the older man was to investigate this new part of himself. He knew Jack would wait if that was what he decided but, truth to tell, Daniel was just as eager to see what he had missed out on for all those years.
"When can we start?"

A/N - well there it is, sorry for the wait, hope you enjoyed
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Piercing the Veil