AN:

Hello there, and welcome to my re-write. I've gotten quite a few reviews about the pacing of my story, as well as the huge amounts of exposition that are happening all at once without really furthering the plot. I agree, but at this point it's too late. So I'm starting over. A lot of the material in the original will still make it into this in some form or another, but I'm not going to working in a strictly chronological story any longer.

In my first draft I moved Harry's birthday to make him 18 in 2004. This time I'm leaving that canon, so Harry will be 24 at the start of the story. This will begin 30 Pemense 006 LVT. Six years after Harry and Co. arrive in Atlantis. That date coincides with June 1st, 2004 on the Earth calendar. For a breakdown of Atlantis' Calendar year see my profile.

Finally I also got a lot of reviews that seemed surprised it was going to be a slashfic, since I clearly posted it both in the description and the first chapter. I'll make it clearer this time I guess...

THIS STORY WILL BE SLASH. IT WILL INVOLVE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN TWO MEN.

THAT MEANS THEY ARE GAY AND YES THIS STORY IS SLASH.

(maybe now I won't get moronic reviews…)

Critical reviews are welcome, as is praise. I like praise. You can also tear my story to shreds and point out every cliché and plot hole. Just don't be an idiot about it, yeah?

Oh and in case it wasn't obvious I don't own any of these characters or places and make no money for writing fanfic.

30 Pemense 006 LVT – High Councilor's Quarters

It was late and he should've fallen asleep hours ago. He tossed and turned and grumbled into his pillow until his bed partner had finally flailed a half asleep arm at him to quiet him. He knew it was time to get out of bed at that point.

Lord forbid I grumble again and actually end up getting smacked.

Harry Potter, Wizard, High Councilor – but most importantly Alteran – always slept very soundly. The city around him made sure of it, and sang most of them to sleep nearly every night. Atlantis wasn't alive in the traditional sense, but she was sentient and tried to see to the needs of her inhabitants as best she could.

Tonight was different. This city was thrumming with the kind of excited energy that she hadn't shown since she was powered up for the first time after they arrived and realized she was inhabited again after nearly 10,000 years of solitude. Something had changed, something was coming. He wasn't concerned, particularly, about what it was. If it was a threat the city would be worried and angry that anyone would dare threaten her, but she wasn't. She was excited.

Harry dressed in his casual robes of Alteran (not wizard) design and left their suite headed for the control tower.

It was only a ten minute walk and two transporter stations away, so before long he was heading up the stairs in the control room towards his office. It was late enough in the night, actually the fifth hour of the next 27 hour day, for there to be a few early risers monitoring various consoles. Harry approached Luna who was operating the communications module.

Luna Lovegood was one of the first on board with accepting their Alteran heritage. It seemed like no big surprise to her, and after she turned over a few books and some old Alteran tech to Harry he understood why. Her family had suspected the truth for many years, but never had anything concrete until Moros contacted Harry. Moros, known to the magical community as Merlin, was allowed by the ascended in this galaxy to contact Harry and tell him the truth of the source of magic so he could reawaken their race, but to take no other action. Moros fudged that a bit by leaving behind a portkey to take Harry to an Alteran outpost in the Antarctic. If he hadn't have done that, Harry would still be in the dark about most of what it means to be Alteran, and would've had to have settled for infiltrating the US Air Force in order to get to the Astria Porta Primus on Earth.

"Luna. Up early, or still up?"

"A bit of both really. I managed a few hours before whatever has the city in a tizzy woke me up."

"I feel it too. The city hasn't been this excited since we got here. Any idea on what it could mean?"

"No. I hope it isn't wrackspurts. I thought we left them behind in Avalon."

"I don't think she would be excited about an intergalactic wrackspurt infestation, Luna." Even after all these years, Luna was still Luna. In fact with their revelation about aliens Luna had come up with even more unbelievable creatures. It was good to hear her get back to the basics.

"True enough. The only thing I can see that happened around the time I noticed her change in mood is a correlative update of the Astria Portae Avalonus."

They had all taken to using more and more Alteran phrases for things over the last few years, even going so far as to call the Milky Way, Avalon. He suspected it was inevitable that they would end up speaking strictly Alteran sometime soon, after all there were some things in multidimensional physics that English just didn't have words for. It was much easier to adopt the Alteran phrases than having to use whole sentences or even paragraphs to get ideas across. Though they still called their home planet Earth, even if the Alterans called it Terra.

Harry couldn't see how a system update a galaxy away could have any effect on Atlantis' moods, even if she was tied to every gate in the Local Cluster Galaxies (LCG). What had changed in the Avalon Gate system that would excite Atlantis?

Harry had no idea, and Atlantis wasn't giving up any details. But had they had the ability to ask anyone at the SGC they would've had a few more clues to work with. Like the fact that a Potentia had been connected to the Astria Porta Primus on Earth.

Gate Room - SGC

Meanwhile, an entire galaxy away John Sheppard was flipping a coin. It was the fifth coin he had tried, under the belief that the first four were somehow being tampered with. He had flipped those coins a total of 145 times so far and every time it had landed on heads, landed on Atlantis. It was a mathematical absurdity and it made him extremely uncomfortable. John had always liked numbers and the predictability of mathematics, and he felt a little bit more betrayed by math every time that coin came up heads. Clearly something he couldn't discern really wanted him to go to Atlantis. Something he couldn't see or hear or touch, but maybe he could feel, kept making that coin land on heads. It was more likely than such a thing happening naturally anyway.

He finally gave up beating that particular dead horse when Elizabeth Weir started giving her speech. It was a good speech, and if the program were ever declassified school children everywhere will probably memorize it. By the end, John just wanted them to get on with it and dial the gate. The last three weeks since he had sat down in that damn chair in Antarctica had been a whirlwind of off-world training and reading mission reports and he just wanted to get on with it.

Finally they dialed the gate. John had only seen the gate dialed a few dozen times at this point, but even he felt the difference in the air with the ring revolved around for the eighth time before landing on the symbol for Earth. The unstable event horizon accelerated towards them before settling into the typical vertical pool of blue.

The MALP ambled up the ramp at its typical two miles per hour and finally crossed over the event horizon. As soon as the MALP sent back habitable atmosphere on the other side, the Atlantis Expedition would begin the greatest undertaking mankind had attempted up until this point.

Little did they know those plans were about to hit a bit of a snag.

Control Room - Atlantis

"Harry, we've got an incoming wormhole."

Harry turned from where he was going over power usage for the last few weeks and walked over to Seamus Finnegan who was operating the Astria Porta (AP) controls.

"Nothing scheduled to dial-in now?"

"No, we've not got any teams off-world right now, and…" he trailed off when the eighth chevron began to encode.

"Intergalactic dial-in in progress!" Seamus yelled. Everyone else in the control room was intrigued. Was this the Asgard of the Old Alliance? Was it Dumbledore and his cronies finally come to drag them all to Azkaban? No one knew.

"Incoming inorganic traveler. From the telemetry it looks like a probe, five seconds to rematerialization."

Now Harry had a tough call to make. He could raise the shield and whoever was on the other side would probably leave them alone but might not. Or he could allow it to rematerialize. If it was a probe, a technological one anyway he doubted it was Dumbledore, not that the man was much of a threat anymore anyway.

"Leave the shield down."

Seamus didn't have time to respond to the order before a strange looking vehicle on half-tracks rumbled out of the event horizon. Harry had a rather bemused expression on his face. It looked rather like the Rover he had seen on television before they left Earth. He approached slowly not sure if it had any automated weapons. He saw what appeared to be a camera mounted on the top, near the center, so he waved to it. A tentative voice spoke from the speaker mounted under the camera.

"Uh… hello?"

Three Minutes Ago – SGC Control Room

"You know, I could just…" Daniel Jackson gestured toward the staircase leading to the gate room.

"For the last time, Daniel, the answer is no. You can't go on this expedition."

While this ongoing argument continued Weir had just finished her speech.

"Dial the gate."

Jack nodded to Walter, not that Walter was really looking in his direction. He was far too focused on inputting an eight chevron address for the first time. There wasn't much variety in his job, so this was a moment to savor.

The dialing sequence took a little longer, which surprised no one since there was an extra revolution of the gate necessary. Jack was disappointed that the event horizon wasn't lime green or a sucking void like when they dialed that black hole. Not that black holes are cool, but a sucking void to Atlantis would be cool. But no, just a normal blue puddle.

The travel time on the MALP was also considerably longer, again not a surprise to anyone. What happened next definitely was. Jack was so surprised he nearly fell over when the MALP rematerialized and a young man with dark hair dressed in what he recognized as Ancient robes cautiously approached the MALP before waving at the camera. Everyone in the control room was staring gobsmacked at the display.

Weir was starting to get worried. Everyone in the control room looked shocked. More shocked than they should've been at the view from the MALP. Atlantis whole, Atlantis in ruins, they had considered every option. Apparently they missed one because they weren't getting the go ahead. She began to move towards the control room when she saw Jack O'Neill reach for the MALP microphone.

"Um… hello?"

Atlantis Control Room

"Hello. Does this device have a recording device on it? Can you hear me as well?"

Harry had made quite a few first contacts since coming to the Pegasus galaxy, not all of them pleasant. He had perfected what he called his 'High Councilor Face'. When Hermione had found those entries in the database about Alteran Government they had immediately held elections for their High Council and made Harry High Councilor. Harry fought hard against his nomination and harder against his own campaign when he found out the posting was for life. But the population of Atlantis would have none of it. He had led them here, and he was going to continue to lead them.

"Uh, yes. We were expecting to find an empty city. We weren't aware there were any Ancients still around."

Harry frowned; if these people were calling them 'The Ancients' and not by name then they were probably very young. Harry heard another voice over the speaker chastise the first.

"Jack, I doubt very much they call themselves 'The Ancients'. Honestly. Give me the microphone please. Thank you. My name is Daniel Jackson and we are from a planet called Earth."

"Greetings, Daniel Jackson of Earth. I am High Councilor Harold of the Alteran city-ship Atlantis. It has been many years since we have had news of your planet. How have you managed to dial another galaxy?"

"We found your outpost on our southernmost continent and the energy source there was enough to connect the two gates."

"Ah. I see. How full is the Potentia? How long can you hold the wormhole?"

"It was nearly half full. We can hold the wormhole for another twenty seven minutes. We were hoping to send an expedition to Atlantis, which we thought was abandoned. Would it be possible for us to do so while we still have the chance?"

"I am very sorry Daniel Jackson, but we cannot just open the gate to you just because you hail from Terra. However, we have Potentia of our own and can dial Earth. If you would allow it we would send a delegation to your planet. Twenty minutes is not enough to negotiate much of anything. Our delegation can recharge your Potentia when we arrive to both send us home and continue to defend your planet from our outpost. I trust that you are using it in defense of yourselves and not to conquer others, yes?"

Harry couldn't be sure since this was an audio only communication but he imagined from his tone of voice that Daniel had a rather affronted look on his face, whatever that looked like.

"Of course not! We would never use advanced technology to oppress other races. The Asgard are our allies and would never stand for such a thing."

"You know the Asgard? We have been attempting to get ahold of them for some time now, but the Astria Porta will not connect to their homeworld. Do you know why?"

"Idavoll was lost. They have a new gate address on a new homeworld. Our expedition has been ordered to stand down and we are prepared to receive a delegation when you dial Earth. Please do not step through the gate until we give you confirmation. Our iris closes every time the gate dials, and must be opened manually by a technician before you can travel through."

"I understand. We will be in contact soon."

With that the gate connection shut down.

Conference Room – SGC

Major General Jonathon 'Jack' O'Neill had a headache. What was supposed to be a cheery send-off followed by cake had turned into an intergalactic meet and greet. They were still waiting for Atlantis to dial in and everyone's nerves were a bit frayed. To his left were Daniel and then Sam who both looked thrilled at the idea of meeting an Anc- no… Alteran. Must remember not to call them ancient… check. Next to Sam was Elizabeth Weir who looked torn. On the one hand, she was also excited to meet the people who had built the Stargates, but on the other it didn't look like they were ever going to get to Atlantis at this point. Following along the table were Brig. General Hank Landry who looked pissed at having been told to sit in the middle of the table, while Jack stole his chair, followed by Colonel Sumner and Major Sheppard and capped off at the end by Dr. Rodney McKay.

John was pissed. Those damn coins had pretty much told him it was fate that he go to Atlantis. There was no other way something with a 1 in 4,601,490,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000 chance of happening had happened. He refused to believe otherwise. But of course the city was occupied. Of course.

The tension was palpable and everyone jumped when the gate engaged behind them. It was possible that this was just a local call, but that thought was quickly squashed when seven chevrons came and went the gate kept spinning. After the eighth rotation the event horizon stabilized.

The moment that the gate started dialing Jack and Daniel got up and moved toward the gate room. It had been decided they would greet their guests and bring them to the conference room. They sent confirmation that the iris was open through the speaker on the MALP and that drove it back through the wormhole.

Four people emerged from the gate behind the MALP and gate shut down immediately afterward. The four took a moment to study their surroundings which gave Jack and Daniel the opportunity to study them. The one that Jack and then Daniel had spoken to was a little over 5'10" with wild black hair and green eyes that seemed almost crystalline. There was another man off his left shoulder who was a little taller and broader with dark brown hair and warm dark honey colored eyes. On either side of the two men were two women who both were about the same height. One had completely straight blonde hair and piercing blue eyes while the other had an untamed fury of brown hair that framed her face.

Daniel stepped forward and introduced himself first.

"Hello. I am Daniel Jackson, but you can call me Daniel. Welcome to Earth."

"Greetings from Atlantis, Daniel. I am High Councilor Harold, but you may call me Harry, or Councilor if that is against your custom. Perhaps we can continue introductions once we have met with whatever group you have assembled for this meeting?" Jack nodded before also stepping forward and gesturing toward the blast door that lead out of the gate room.

The group set off, and Harry began asking questions before Daniel could, much to the former's chagrin.

"Are we in a military installation, Daniel?"

"Yes. We are in a secure bunker under a mountain. Even before our country figured out how to operate the gate we realized it needed to be somewhere secure."

"Yes I understand." And he did. Far more than what Daniel probably let slip. Apparently the rest of the world was still unaware of the existence of the Stargate. Harry really thought that after they left Earth and removed the genetic markers that made wizards able to manipulate the world someone would have put together something and forced the US Air Force to surrender the gate and international coalition.

Harry knew the Asgard wouldn't ally themselves with any one country on a world. To do so would inevitably and always lead to war on that planet as one country evolved technologically past others, and the Asgard knew it. The whole situation was already confusing and they hadn't even begun discussions yet.

As they continued to the conference room Harry considered something else. There was something about the man in uniform who had greeted them with Daniel Jackson. He had most of the genetic markers of an Alteran, Harry could sense it. Perhaps all those with partial gene sequences hadn't been affected by the retrovirus he designed to strip Alteran DNA from any Alteran they came across. They did this as they were leaving the planet so that there would be no one with the powers and responsibility that comes with being an Alteran without educating themselves about their heritage left on Earth. At the time the Americans had been traveling through the gate for nearly a year and would eventually develop the technology to detect the energy emissions that magic gave of 'Muggle-Repelling Charms' or no. Harry had given them a choice, and had told everyone who would listen about what Moros had told him and shown them what proof he had found. Few listened. Soon, those that were unwilling to accept the truth started to turn on those that did. Harry was named the new Dark Lord Alteran and they were all vilified and hunted. Humans from Earth weren't meant to wield such power. Not yet. But this man didn't seem to have any access to the energy of the universe, but could perhaps use their technology. An interesting possibility, but it was irrelevant for now. Also, they could clearly use some of their technology at least since they had recovered the Potentia from Antarctica.

Harry's musings ended when they reached the conference room and the first meeting between the Alterans and their progeny the Terrans, began.

AN: Well… what do you guys think? Do you like the new direction I'm taking this? Most of the old story will get smushed into this one at some point, probably in bits and pieces, as well as explanation and back story for the Harry/Neville relationship later. I think I get to the action better this way without sacrificing character development; at least once I fill in some holes.