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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
- 5
- 6
- 7
Author's Note : Hi, here it is, Chapter Six, Thank you AlwaysLove for your review. It's so good to know that you're still enjoying the story.

Chapter 6

Sirius sat on a low hilltop overlooking the small clearing that had been his home for the last five days. There was little to show for his recent occupation, only the craft which he had flown from the city to the mainland parked off to one side, the camp fire he had laid in a circle of stones and the rough bed where he slept.

He had spent the first night in the ship but he found that the dark confines reminded him too much of the cell he had occupied in Azkaban. The next morning he had left the ship as soon as it was light, the weather was fine with blue skies and little cloud. The nights were cooler than the days but not by much so he had built himself a rough bed with a little skill and a lot of magic. A warm blanket transfigured from some stray threads he'd teased loose from his jacket provided the finishing touch and he'd spent every night since comfortably sleeping under the stars.

He busied himself during the days exploring the surrounding area, taking a new direction each morning then heading back in the early afternoon. He had explored the coastline for half a day's walk in either direction and taken a couple of trips inland. As he wandered he kept an eye out for anything that he thought might help him survive. Memories of long ago herbology lessons were dredged to the fore but were of little help in identifying plants that had evolved under a different sun. Still he had managed to identify several fruits and berries that had sustained him and he'd also found a colony of small rodent like creatures. He had been careful in choosing, watching them for several hours before picking an older animal, slower than the others but still with a fair amount of meat on its bones.

A moment spent focusing on his intent and a quick muttered Adava Kadavra had secured him a good meal for that evening, returning the much maligned unforgiveable to its original use in slaughtering animals for the table. Today he had spent the day walking on the beach, he had been lucky to happen upon a rockpool at low tide where a decent sized fish had been stranded. A quick spell to siphon out the water from the pool had left the fish high and dry, easy for Sirius to pick up and kill. After efficiently gutting the fish he had carried it back to his campsite and wrapped it in seaweed before placing it amongst the embers at the edge of his fire to gently bake.

As he waited for the fish to cook Sirius sat up on the hillside, as he did every evening, watching the sun going down and talking to Elizabeth about what he had done that day. To his side was the cairn of stones that covered her final resting place and sharing the sunset with her each day helped to relieve his loneliness.

It had been five days since he had landed here, five days since he had left Lantia to sleep beneath the waves once more. awaiting the expedition from Earth. Each morning and evening he checked the sensors within the ship for some sign that the city had risen and he could safely return but so far he had seen nothing. It couldn't be much longer surely, Khala had given him the impression that he would be alone in the city for a week, ten days at the most, it surely couldn't be much longer after the expedition arrived before the city rose. From what Elizabeth had told them it had not taken very long at all for the shield to collapse the first time round and while he wouldn't wish disaster on anyone Sirius wanted desperately to get back to the city. He had endured enough solitude to last several lifetimes, he wanted to meet the people Elizabeth had told them about and to speak to Lantia again.

It was two more days before there was any activity in the sunken city, but Sirius couldn't know anything about it as the Astria Porta once more flared into life bathing the chamber in its scintillating blue glow once again before people began stepping out of the portal to occupy the city once again.

The quiet of the deserted city was shattered as people were soon pouring through the portal bringing huge piles of baggage and equipment with them. Soldiers spread out quickly from the entry chamber while others hurried to clear the arrival area to make way for those that followed. In a surprisingly short amount of time people stopped appearing through the shimmering blue pool and a woman with shoulder length brown hair looked around her with satisfaction. Raising a radio she spoke "General O'Neill? Atlantis base offers greetings from the Pegasus Galaxy. You may cut power to the 'gate."

Everyone in the room turned to watch as the their last link with home shut-down but instead something strange happened, something that demonstrated that the stroke of a butterfly's wings can echo not just around the world but across galaxies.

Several million light years away two men stood in front of another glowing blue disk. The older man held a large bottle of champagne in his hands adorned with a ribbon and a large gift tag. As he made to kneel and roll the bottle through the event horizon of the gate the younger man at his side stopped him with a gesture.

As the grey haired man turned to see what was up he was surprised to see the fair headed man holding a heavily loaded rucksack. "Please Jack, I could just..." The younger man implored as he gestured towards the gate, it would be so easy to just step through, to explore a new galaxy free of Goa'uld and Ori.

With a resigned shake of his head the man called Jack spoke words he had apparently already repeated several times. "No Danny, we need you here."

This time however Danny brought out the big guns, hefting a second rucksack in his other hand he said "you could come too!"

Jack stared at him in shock, then suddenly a wide grin broke out over his features, "do you mean..." he asked to the confusion of all those around them as one hand reached towards an inside pocket.

Danny nodded with a slow smile, "absolutely."

Somehow Jack accomplished the impossible as the grin on his face spread even wider. Reaching inside his camouflage shirt he pulled out two, slightly dog-eared envelopes and checking the fronts he handed one to Danny in exchange for the second rucksack.

Both men now had large grins on their faces as they turned to their audience and as one called out "we resign!" Tossing the envelopes to the ramp in front of them they simultaneously stepped backwards through the event horizon only to reappear moments later before the astonished eyes of the Atlantis team in the Pegasus galaxy.

"General O'Neill, Daniel!" The shock was obvious in the voice of the woman as she greeted the two late arrivals.

"Just Jack!" the older man stated gleefully as he offered the large champagne bottle he still held as if it were a peace offering, "we resigned."

Whilst the younger man, Daniel elbowed his companion with a muttered aside, "see, some people can use my correct name." He then turned to greet the woman with the radio, "hello Elizabeth, congratulations." An expansive wave of his arms encompassed all that was visible of the ancient facility, making it clear just what he was congratulating her on.

By this time the commotion had recalled the exploring soldiers to the gateroom. The man who had come first through the 'gate stepped up beside Elizabeth, "General O'Neill, Dr Jackson, we weren't expecting you."

"Hello Colonel Sumner, it's just Jack and Danny..."

"Daniel!" Daniel corrected the older man.

"Whatever," Jack waved off the correction, "we resigned, consider us..." he paused, sharing a glance with his companion. "Civilian consultants." He finished with Daniel's apparent consent.

"You can't just resign and run away through the stargate!" the other soldier sounded shocked at the very idea.

A shocked silence settled upon the room at the Colonel's words, the very idea of General Jack O'Neill and Dr Daniel Jackson running away from anything was apparently unthinkable to these people. Those names, after all, were legendary to anyone even remotely associated with the stargate programme.

The silence was broken by the hiss of the radio, "Dr Weir, are they with you?" came the question and no-one had any doubt who the voice was asking about.

"Dr Weir?" the radio crackled again before the man called Jack prompted her to answer the call.

"Yes, they're here."

"Thank you," relief was evident in the young sounding voice from another galaxy, "I've someone on the line who would like to speak with them."

"Go ahead," Dr Weir instructed.

Now a new, older voice floated from the radio, one recognised by every single person listening in the Atlantis base gate room, the voice of the leader of the free world, "Jack, Daniel, I just received a very unusual call from the young Lieutenant you left in charge of the Antarctica facility. Unconventional but even so, resignations accepted with the thanks of a grateful nation, and if they but knew it, a grateful world." Seconds later the gate shut down and an urgent whispering started amongst those crowded around.

Finally shaking off her shock Dr Weir raised her voice to quiet the expedition members. "Quiet everybody, Quiet." It took several minutes but finally some semblance of order was restored. "Yes, that was the President of the United States. Now this has been a little more excitement than we expected, even given the nature of the planned events of the day. But now we have important work to be doing so please go about your assigned duties." She waited for a moment to see that her instructions were being carried out before calling two more expedition members over to join her, "Rodney, John could you join us for a moment please?"

One of the two men addressed, John had been about to leave the gate room to aid in scouting the facility for any sign of life. He quickly lowered his weapon and moved over to join the small group at the foot of the ramp from the stargate. The other man, Rodney was busy directing the members of the science team. They had been initially ordered by Colonel Sumner to 'park it' while the teams of soldiers cleared the base. However Elizabeth's instructions could be viewed as permission to begin their own investigations and he chose to take it that way until someone told him otherwise. Shooing the scientists off to their various tasks he too moved to join the little huddle in front of the stargate.

As Rodney and John joined the group Colonel Sumner came straight to the point "civilian consultants my ass, we have no room for hangers on. If you're here then you're drafted back into the military."

Jack didn't like the sound of that, they were here for one reason and one reason only, Danny had finally relented. Being drafted back into the military would definitely put a cramp in his plans, don't ask , don't tell was a step in the right direction, but in Jack's opinion it didn't go nearly far enough.

Elizabeth was thinking her own thoughts at the Colonel's words, she couldn't deny that having General O'Neill and Dr Jackson working as an official part of the expedition would be a major coup. It was well known that the General had the strongest manifestation of the ATA gene yet discovered, although Major Sheppard looked likely to rival that crown, and of course Dr Jackson's encyclopaedic knowledge and archaeological experience would be an asset to any scientific mission. However she was sure that the Colonel's approach was entirely the wrong one if he wanted to get the two surprise new comers onside. General O'Neill's stubbornness was well known to all members of the SGC and if the stories were even half true then Dr Jackson was far worse.

Daniel's thoughts mirrored Jack's but he kept quiet, prepared as always to cover his friend's six but trusting Jack to talk his way out of anything he truly didn't want to do.

Meanwhile both John and Rodney had seen the fatal flaw in Colonel Sumner's plan. "Do you really want to draft the General back into the military Colonel?" John asked, carefully emphasizing the relative ranks of the two men.

"Especially after the President of the United States has accepted their resignations in person?" Rodney hammered the last nail in the coffin of the Colonel's intentions.

"Damn right I..." it took a few moments for John and Rodney's points to sink in, but as soon as they did he stopped dead. "What are your plans now that you're here?" he asked the two newcomers instead.

Jack and Daniel exchanged a quick glance before the older man took up the conversation once again. "We want to help explore the Pegasus galaxy, I have the gene, Daniel is one of the foremost authorities on all things Ancient as well as speaking, reading and writing about a gazillion dead languages." He broke off to shush his friend who tried to object to the massive exaggeration. "I think you can find some use for us here on the base."

Elizabeth decided it was time to intervene and remind everyone that the ultimate authority on this expedition was civil, not military. "I for one am very glad to see both of you, I know the scientists will be very grateful to have access to such a strong manifestation of the Ancient gene and to Dr Jackson's expertise in all matters Ancient." Then she asked the question that had been lurking in the back of her mind since seeing them step through the gate. "Would you be prepared to head up a gate team Gen... Jack?" she quickly corrected herself.

Light flared in the silver haired man's eyes at the thought of leading a team through the gate once more with Danny at his side. It dimmed almost immediately though as he looked at his friend and remembered why he'd accepted the promotion to General in the first place. He was no longer a young man, years of gate travel and the stresses and strains placed on his body by the many running battles with the Goa'uld and other aliens encountered along the way had all taken their toll. While he still kept up a punishing physical fitness regime he was no longer up to the extreme exertion required in a gate team. "Thank you Elizabeth but that's a young man's game, leave the gate teams to the Colonel and the Major here, Danny and I will provide behind the scenes support on base here and maybe some follow-up after first contact has been made.

Elizabeth was disappointed, but not surprised. Whilst it would be amazing to recreate the legendary SG1 team it was only a pipe dream. She had chosen good people for the expedition and was sure that with the help and advice that Jack and Danny could offer they would quickly shape up into a first class exploration and first contact expedition. "Alright, find a quiet corner and take a seat whilst the military teams finish scouting the city." As she spoke she looked around and realised that there wasn't a single scientist, other than Rodney and Daniel, in sight.

"Rodney, where are your people?" she asked, suspicion clear in her tone.

Whipping his head around, Colonel Sumner realised that she was right, he had been so distracted by the arrival of General O'Neill and Dr Jackson that he hadn't noticed the scientists ignoring his instructions and heading out to explore. "Dr McKay!" he barked in a threatening tone.

"What!" Rodney asked "Elizabeth, you told us to get on with our assigned tasks. The scientific teams assigned task is exploration of the city and the galaxy."

"Rodney, you know very well that's not..." Elizabeth's remonstrance was broken off as a massive shockwave shook the whole of the city around them.

The military men raised their weapons as they rapidly scanned their surroundings for any sign of a threat while McKay reached for his instruments to try to ascertain what was happening. Jack and Daniel just looked around trying to see any hint of the cause of the alarming shaking of the city having no access to weapons or instrumentation at present. A face appeared at the head of the stairs opposite the stargate. "Dr McKay, you'd better get up here, quick" and the face disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared.

That started an immediate stampede as the small group ran up the steps to see what had happened whilst they had been distracted. "Well, what's going on Dr..?" Rodney rapped out, snapping his fingers at the man who'd called him up there in lieu of using the man's name which he had obviously forgotten.

"Dr Grodin," Elizabeth interjected.

"Whatever!" snapped Rodney, showing his customary lack of concern for the social niceties.

"We've just got these consoles up and running, we had to wait for one of the gene carriers to get here. This one appears to be monitoring the power level in the city." He gestured to the console he was standing over, the quantity of red lights on the display didn't arouse confidence in anyone's breast. "The level's dropping like a stone and nothing we've tried has stopped it."

Pushing Dr Grodin out of the way, Rodney moved around to examine the readings on the console in question. "What 's causing this, what could be causing such a massive drain on the power system?"

Dr Grodin looked up surprised before he realised that the other's had not yet left the gateroom and so hadn't seen exactly where they were. Gesturing to the group he led them away from the consoles and around a corner before stepping aside to allow the others to take in the amazing view in front of them.

As the group entered the room they each stopped dead as they saw took in the incredible view before them. One entire wall of the room was glass and beyond that they could see the city spread out before them. Above the city they saw the occasional sparks of some forcefield holding back an immense volume of water. Their shocked minds slowly grasped the implications of what they had just seen in the other room and what they were seeing now. The entire city was submerged many hundred's of feet down at the bottom of an alien ocean. The water was held back by a forcefield and the power levels were patently insufficient to maintain that incredible sheild. As they watched the forcefield contracted in one area and another section of the city collapsed under the sudden influx of water. Moments later they felt the shockwave once again shaking the city beneath their feet.

Colonel Sumner reached for his radio, although what command he intended to give they would never know as another massive shockwave ripped through the city throwing everyone to their knees. Throughout the city both military and civilians grabbed onto anything that seemed to offer some semblance of security as the entire city seemed to be trying to shake itself apart.

The ground beneath them tipped at an alarming angle and suddenly everyone's ears popped with the sudden change in pressure as their stomach's seemed to drop away with a feeling akin to shooting up in an express elevator. Looking out through the large windows the command team had a front row seat as the city surged up from the floor of the ocean. The dim light inside the city brightened somewhat as the layer of water above their heads thinned until suddenly they found themselves blinded by sunlight. The spires of the city broke through the surface of the water and they found themselves looking out over the sparkling vista as water sheeted off the now floating city to rejoin the surrounding ocean.

They might have had more time before the city surfaced, more time to try to find a solution to the situation. Who knows what they might have been able to achieve in that time but unbeknownst to them the zero point module powering the city had been brought to the brink of collapse. The changes that Lantia had made to the forcefield to allow Sirius and Elizabeth to leave had used a massive amount of power, power that the virtually drained module could scarce afford.

There was one more surprise in store for the Atlantis expedition that day. It happened some two hours after the city had shot up from the depths like a cork from a bottle. Dr Grodin was working on the consoles in what they took to be the command station above the gate room when a small alarm sounded. Examining the unfamiliar displays it took him a little while to realise that there appeared to be a small craft homing in on the city from across the ocean. Immediately he grabbed up his radio and called Dr McKay to gateroom command.

Hearing the call the other members of the command team all converged on the young British scientist and he found himself once again the centre of attention with unwelcome news. Before he had time to speak however a loud scream of tortured metal echoed through the gateroom and as they all turned to look out over the banister rail their eyes were drawn to the roof which was slowly peeling back to reveal a massive opening in the ceiling.

"Close it!" Colonel Sumner rapped out the command but no one had a chance to even try to comply before a small, grey, cylindrical ship appeared in the gap and started to lower itself down into the heart of the gateroom.

A/N : Well there it is, let me know what you think, Please Review.
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Piercing the Veil