Reckoning Night

Chapter 7

The contrast between bright day at Cheyenne Mountain and dark night in Hogsmeade couldn't have been more striking. The air was still warm and stuffy from the day's heat and clouds were covering a big part of the sky, obscuring the stars. Daniel thought it was eerie. It was nothing tangible, just a feeling in the air. The same feeling that tended to show up when missions were about to go wrong. He knew Jack felt it, too, even though he couldn't see him.

Beside him, Neville fidgeted. "Uh, I don't want to sound paranoid, but maybe we shouldn't walk back to the castle through the front gates. "

"You think we might get company?" Jack asked.

"Maybe. I know a safer way. Harry showed it to me last year."

They followed him to what appeared to be a shop of some sort. Neville managed to open the door without sounding an alarm, and they snaked their way through a number of shelves with goods.

"O'Neill, is this edible?" came suddenly Teal'c's voice from behind them.

"Uh, I wouldn't try that if I were you," Neville said quickly. "I really have no idea if it has any adverse effects on Muggles."

"I see."

Moonlight fell through the shop windows as the clouds moved on, and only now did Daniel recognize what type of wares were sold here -- sweets. Lots and lots of sweets, in all shapes, sizes and forms.

"Down here," Neville said and disappeared into some sort of cellar, where he finally activated his wand light. He searched the floor for a bit, until he eventually found what he was looking for. He pulled open a hidden trapdoor. "This tunnel will take us straight to Hogwarts."

They climbed down into the tunnel and followed it in the light of Neville's wand and Jack's flashlight, which flickered and died when they came closer to the castle. They went up a flight of stairs and stopped when they seemingly ended in a wall. Neville opened the entrance, but instead of a friendly room or hallway, more darkness greeted them. As soon as Neville stepped out of the tunnel, his wand light was literally swallowed by the darkness.

"Who's there?" came suddenly a squeaky voice from further away. Daniel felt how Jack tensed beside him, but Neville seemed to know the voice.

"Professor Flitwick! We just returned from the ... er, the mission Professor Dumbledore sent us on. What is going on here?"

The voice sounded relieved. "Ah, Neville. Finally you return. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has put a Spell of Darkness over the castle and demands that Harry Potter be delivered to him."

"And what does Professor Dumbledore plan to do?"

"He is preparing for a fight."

There was a moment of silence. Professor Flitwick continued hesitantly, "He is down in the entrance hall, if you are looking for him. It is not easy to find the right stairs in the darkness, though."

"I can help you," came suddenly a second voice from down the corridor.

"Ron?" Neville sounded surprised.

"A few of us have been laying strings through the castle, this one here goes to the entrance hall."

"Good. I need to talk to Professor Dumbledore. I'm going to go outside." Neville's voice sounded suddenly very firm and determined.

"Neville? What are you talking about?" Ron sounded as if he had a good idea of what Neville was talking about but didn't like the sound of it.

"I'm going to face him. If we're going to get into a fight anyway, at least I can try my best to prevent it."

There was another moment of silence as Ron swallowed audibly. "There is no way to talk you out of this?"

"No."

"I don't think this is a good idea. At least take someone with you," Jack said.

"I am not going to risk anyone else's life," Neville said.

"Where exactly are they hiding?" Jack asked.

"We are assuming somewhere near the Forbidden Forest," said Professor Flitwick.

"Okay. Are there any other tunnels like this one that lead to the Forbidden Forest? Any other way to get there unseen?"

"Hmm." Ron sounded thoughtful. "There is no direct connection that I know of. However, we could go back to Hogsmeade and from there through the tunnel in the Shrieking Shack to the Whomping Willow. It's at the edge of the Forbidden Forest."

"Neville," Jack said urgently. "You go and do your thing. But not without backup. We're going to this whomping whatever, and sneak up on them from behind."

"But--"

Jack didn't let him finish. "We are not going to attack until everyone else is, too. What I want is the moment of surprise to get an advantage over them."

"Oh."

"All I ask of you is to wait until we're there, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good. Ron, can you show us the way?"

"Sure."

"Let's go. Good luck, Neville."

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They travelled back to Hogsmeade through the tunnel and from there up a small hill. They couldn't see exactly what was there as the moon had disappeared again, but when they got closer and Jack dared to switch on his flashlight for a second, they could make out that they were standing in front of an old, seemingly abandoned building, complete with peeling paint and boarded windows and doors.

"Inside, there is a tunnel leading to the Whomping Willow at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The easiest part will be getting inside. These boards have been in this place since ... well, since Remus' schooltime, but they were designed to keep things in, not out."

Jack wondered how Ron knew that particular detail, but decided it was not important at this point. He tested the stability of a board. "We'd be able to get them off with some C-4, but I don't think we want to attract that much attention..."

Ron pointed his wand at the boarded door and spoke one of his weird incantations. A dull purple light shot out of the wand and cracked the boards in the middle. Now they could easily remove them.

They followed Ron into the dusty interior of the house. At the end of the corridor, there was a trapdoor which they climbed down and followed yet another tunnel, which Jack assumed was leading back towards Hogwarts grounds. The tunnel ended between the roots of a big tree. Ron fumbled a bit until he had found what he was looking for and announced that it was now safe to climb out. They moved away from the willow, which was standing at the edge of a huge forest. From the shelter of the trees, they peered through the darkness, looking for any sign of activity. It was hard to see anything due to the clouded sky.

"Over there," Teal'c said suddenly and gestured to an area at the border of the forest that was closest to the castle. There seemed to be some movement. They edged closer until they could see the figures more clearly. Jack took out his binoculars to make out more details.

A magically amplified voice sounded from the hill towards the castle.

"Your time is up!"

At first it seemed like nothing happened for a while. Then, a lone figure came walking from the castle towards the group of wizards. There was a tense silence as everyone waited for the person to reach the edge of the forest.

"Where is the Potter boy?" asked the voice from before, now in normal volume but still clearly audible to the team.

"You will not get him. I'm here in his place."

It was indeed Neville, Jack noted with a bit of surprise. The foolish boy really wanted to carry this through.

Snickering could be heard from the Death Eaters.

"Let me get rid of this prat for you, Master," said one of them in a rather arrogant sounding voice.

"Lucius, why are you always so impetuous?" Lord Voldemort said. "I find this highly amusing."

Neville said nothing, he just waited. Voldemort turned to him. His voice was drenched with contempt. "Do you think you can just walk in and take the place that has been destined to Harry Potter from birth?"

Jack's hand inched towards his zat, but he caught himself. Nothing had happened yet. It wasn't time yet. Wait just a bit more.

"I will end this here and now," was all Neville said. The Death Eaters laughed again.

"Master, I know this boy," one of them said. The voice sounded awfully familiar to Jack, but he couldn't place it.

"He is completely incapable," the wizard continued. "He is such a bad wizard that he will need a big lead if he wants to have any chance of getting out a proper spell at all!"

Jack had no idea if that was the truth, but it seemed to boost Voldemort's confidence a lot. He laughed derisively. "Get out your wand, boy, so we can have a proper duel."

The moon was now lighting every detail of the scene. It was as if the clouds had forgotten to keep moving in front of it, busy watching the spectacle below. Even the slight wind was holding its breath.

"I need no wand."

There was a dumbfounded silence for a moment. Then Voldemort laughed again. "As you wish."

In an exaggerated gesture, he bowed to Neville, who mimicked the action in an equally ridiculous way. Jack couldn't be sure from this distance, but he thought he saw a small smile play around Neville's lips.

"Thank you. Harry told me you tend to do that a lot. You have just taken the final step to seal your fate."

"What the--" Jack's whispered exclamation was interrupted by Ron's excited babbling.

"Blimey, I never thought about it this way!"

Jack made an angry gesture to shush him, which toned down the volume but not the excitement. "But don't you see? He has just marked Neville as his equal!"

"So?" Jack asked. He couldn't see Ron because he was keeping his eyes on the scene, but he was sure Ron was rolling his eyes in exasperation, just like Carter probably did behind his back when he didn't understand her technobabble.

"That means he has just fulfilled the last requirement of the prophecy that kept it from applying to Neville!"

"Well, no one ever said the marking has to happen at birth, right?" Daniel said.

"And we never realized it," Ron said.

Neville was raising his hands towards the sky in a slow and very dramatic way, as if to conjure up or invoke something. No spell came from his lips, though.

"You can't kill me," Voldemort said. Jack thought there was suddenly a trace of uncertainty in his voice. Uncertainty that made him hesitate instead of starting to cast curses, or whatever it was that wizards usually did in such a situation. "There is a prophecy that says only Harry Potter can."

"I know," Neville said.

Carter tapped on his arm. "Look, sir!" she whispered, pointing to the sky. The clouds had suddenly started to build up rapidly above them as if drawn by a giant magnet.

"I'm in that prophecy, too."

Instead of pondering the answer, Voldemort finally pointed his wand at Neville, and Jack gripped his zat gun tighter. Voldemort started uttering something, a spell probably. But just at that moment, a lightning bold struck down from the clouds above. For the fraction of a second, his whole body was outlined with a blue-ish white glow, then he literally crumbled and fell into dust.

Seconds stretched into infinity while everyone just stared.

Jack started wondering if he was missing something. This was supposed to be significant, wasn't it? Okay, the lightning had been cool, but...

"That's it?" he asked, still careful to keep his voice down, just in case that it wasn't.

There was suddenly movement in the ranks of the Death Eaters as what had happened had had enough time to sink in. They heard agitated whispering. Jack tensed. Figures were moving down the hill towards the forest. One of the Death Eaters suddenly moved forward and spoke a curse that was directed at Neville, but before he had finished, he was hit by the blue light of a zat shot and went down. All this magic stuff was really impressive and all, but Jack decided he really liked his conventional weapons better. At least it didn't take ages to fire a shot from them.

The group from the castle were teachers and older students that began to fight against the Death Eaters, who suddenly seemed to be determined to finish what their leader had started, even though he was no longer around. It was not clear what their primary motivation was -- whatever *did* happen to those who were caught, eventually? Jack wondered.

Something came shooting their way and missed Jack's head by an inch.

"From the colour, I'd say that was a Killing Curse," Ron commented helpfully. Jack thought maybe he didn't want his information to be *that* precise.

Although both sides were throwing their magic at each other, it still seemed very much like the casualties on the light side were growing at an alarming rate. Jack's team also moved forward and took down a few of the enemies with carefully aimed zat shots.

One of the Death Eaters seemed to have enough and disappeared into the forest. Another one followed him shortly. Someone shouted after them to return instantly, but instead, the next one was hit by a zat shot, and one by one, those of the Death Eaters who hadn't gone down started panicking and fled into the woods. The two or three that were left found themselves severely outnumbered and preferred to drop their wands.

Jack took a deep breath and unconsciously wiped his arm over his forehead. Mission accomplished. They were rid of the Goa'uld now. He saw Neville running towards the ones who had fallen. Had that lightning bolt also been part of their school curriculum? Hadn't Daniel said the wizards always needed a wand to cast a spell?

Now that the fight had died down, there was still a lot of commotion going on.

"We need help here!" -- "Where is Madam Pomfrey?" -- "Someone has to inform the Ministry." -- "Sirius needs medical attention!" -- "Isn't this Draco's dad?" -- "Has anyone seen Seamus?" -- "My wand is broken!" -- "Someone go and call St Mungo's already! Tell them we need all the emergency teams they can spare!" -- "Don't move her, she was hit with a Bone-Breaking Curse."

"Are you and your team all right, Colonel O'Neill?" It was Professor Dumbledore.

Jack was still looking at the wounded and dead, feeling uneasy. He had seen it so often, and yet it hurt every time. "Yes ... yes, surprisingly we are. I suggest you secure those Death Eaters that were hit with our weapons immediately. The effect of the zat is going to wear off soon."

"Can we help in any way?" Daniel asked.

"No," Dumbledore said. "Not right now. But you can keep an eye out, just in case one of the Death Eaters decides to return while we're still taking care of people here."

Two voices interrupted them.

"I said I'm fine!"

"You took a pretty nasty fall there, I saw it."

"Well, I'm better already, okay?"

Jack recognized the two. They were the ones they had first met in the hotel in London, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. It had been no more than a few days ago, but now it felt like an eternity. He looked around and saw Agent Devlin had also shown up. He seemed to be watching Neville, who was crouching next to another injured person. If Jack didn't know better, he'd say Neville was trying to give them back their life energy. He couldn't do this, could he?

"The magic is still imbalanced, and I hate to admit it, but we're vulnerable," Dumbledore continued. "Severus, did you bring the artefact?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack noticed a black-cloaked figure standing nearby. His instincts started screaming "Death Eater" in alarm, but then he noticed with relief that it was actually the person Dumbledore was currently talking to, so he assumed there was no need for concern. He even recognized the silky voice as Professor Snape's. What the heck he was doing here in Death Eater drag was probably none of Jack's business.

"Right here," said Snape and Jack could see he held a small object in his hands. Dumbledore produced a light at the tip of his wand.

"Is that the same one you were talking about?" he asked the SG-1 team. Snape carefully unwrapped the object from the cloth it was hidden in.

"Oh yes, definitely," Daniel confirmed. "It just looks ... well, different in a way because the opening on this side wasn't there when it was in the museum."

Jack could see it now -- one of the two flat sides of the cylinder sported a circular hole that hadn't been there before.

"Give me that!"

The one called Sirius Black had suddenly appeared beside Snape, who did not look very pleased about this fact.

"What do *you* want here, Black? This is none of your concern."

"I just want to take a look at it."

Snape eyed the other man suspiciously, and even Dumbledore frowned.

"No."

"I said give it to me!" Sirius lunged at Snape, who stepped quickly out of the way.

"I said no."

Sirius followed him. Still gripping the artefact with one hand, Snape suddenly held his wand in his other. "One step closer and you're another of the casualties." His voice was stone cold.

Suddenly, Jack felt Carter's arm on his shoulder. He turned to look at her. Her eyes were wide and she pointed at Sirius.

"Sir, *he's* the Goa'uld!"

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