Chapter 13: Chapter 13 – Re-arming
Harry Potter, The Jedi That Would Not Die
Chapter 13 – Re-arming
It seemed like days later that he awoke, the first thing he became aware of was the sensation of being underwater and of something inside his mouth, as his eyes opened he saw some sort of transparent barrier around him, maybe plastic, separating him from a room. Reaching forward he quickly recalled his lost limb when only one of his hands hit the side of the tank. Starting to panic slightly he began banging on the side of the tank trying to get someone's attention.
"Harry," called a familiar voice before a long haired brunette ran around to the front of the tank, she had a bandage wrapped around the point where the blaster had hit her but other than that she looked fine. "Don't panic, you're ok. You are in a bacta tank, it speeds up healing, do you understand?"
Although not entirely comfortable with the situation, he nodded.
"The medical droid said that as soon as you were conscious you could leave the tank," she explained. "If you look up you will see that the top of the tank is open, if you swim up I will help pull you out," she explained before disappearing out of sight.
Looking up he did indeed see a rippling surface of the strange fluid and with a couple of kicks he broke the surface to be greeted by the smiling face of Hermione. After an awkward couple of minutes struggling she was able to pull him out of the tank onto the surface of the floor above and helped him remove the breathing equipment. They both spent a couple of minutes breathing heavily at the strain before they turned to face each other and Hermione decided to hit him hard on the arm.
"Ouch...What was that for?" he asked confused.
"Can't you ever go into a fight without getting injured," she replied with a touch of humour but also annoyance and fear. "You've got to stop worrying me like this."
"He does seem to make a habit out of it doesn't he," commented Aayla as she came up the steps to their left from the floor below. "And so you are aware for when he next does something stupid, there are a set of controls on the wall downstairs that raise a platform out of the bottom of the tank so that they can simply step off."
When Harry turned to smile up at his Master he got the sudden feeling he was in trouble from the look of annoyance on her face.
"What did I do?" he asked innocently.
"Well let's see, how about leaving Senator Merrik and an injured Hermione unprotected, nearly causing several speeder crashes including with ours as you chased after us, taking on the rescue entirely by yourself without back up, causing the kidnappers to tip Senator Antillies over the side of a fast moving speeder which would have killed him if you had not caught him, taking Senator Antillies back into danger in order to rescue the others, engaging a more skilled opponent to a lightsaber fight that could have killed you on the back of a fast moving speeder, throwing yourself and the head of Death Watch over the side of aforementioned speeder and trusting that Senator Antillies was quick enough to catch you, then AGAIN fighting said Death Watch leader, getting half your arm cut off, the back of your head cut open against a wall and nearly dying on us."
There was a few seconds of silence before Harry tried to respond.
"But apart from that what did I do?"
After scowling at him quite fiercely Aayla dropped down beside him and pulled him into a tight hug.
"Apart from that you singlehandedly rescued two senators, the Duke's daughter and helped apprehended one of the Death Watch...I am so proud of you," she replied before pulled back and looked him in the eyes and getting more serious. "But I also want to make it clear that I do not want you to lose any more body parts, it does not exactly reflect well on me and if you keep losing limps at this rate there won't be anything as replaceable to cut off after three more missions."
"I'll try not to Master," he replied, blushing slightly at the praise. The fact that he had lost an arm had not really got to him yet, maybe the fact that he knew it could be replaced helped but he suspected that he would start to notice his loss more later. "So what happened after I passed out?"
"Well, after you sped past us a second team of Death Watch soldiers ambushed us from that cargo hauler that blocked our way, they obviously expected our pursuit, that's what delayed us for so long, it took a while to deal with them all."
"Why didn't you call me to let me know you had been held up?" he asked.
"I would have done, but SOMEONE left their comlink back on the ship," she said with a poignant look, making it very obvious who that someone was.
"Oh," he replied guiltily.
"When we caught up with the other speeders and Senator Antillies told us what happened, we arrived as you and Vizsla where trying to burn each other to death, Master Coleman and I engaged him while the senators and Lady Satine got you into a speeder and back to the palace. Unfortunately Vizsla was able to escape when a couple more of his team arrived and created a big enough distraction for him to get away."
"I'm surprised you let the senators and Satine came back and get me, I thought you would have sent them back to the palace with the royal guards?"
"The Lady Satine was MOST insistent that we go back and get you, she threatened to go in one of the speeders by herself if we didn't," Aayla explained, slightly annoyed by the fact. "Senator Antillies also insisted on going back to help you, only Senator Palpatine thought it was a good idea to go back to the palace."
"How could he think about just leaving you?" asked Hermione angrily.
"Not everyone has to be as brave as a Jedi needs to be Hermione," replied Aayla, in a chastising tone, causing Hermione to blush slightly. "But that's not important now, let's get Harry cleaned up, I know the senators, Lady Satine and the Duke all want to thank you for what you did."
It was a standing ovation that greeted the surprised Harry as he slowly walked into lunch, his energy reserves had mostly recovered and most of the burns, cuts and gashes had been fixed but the bruises under the skin and the pain that went with them were still very much there causing him to limp slightly as he walked.
It was a quite unusual sight for Harry who thought the most he would get would be a quiet thank you from those he had helped but to have not only three senators, a duke, a duke's daughter, a Jedi master, several government officials and the rooms entire population of royal guards on their feet applauding him left him a bit sunned until his Master gave him a gentle prod in the back and pushed him into the room.
Harry was quite embarrassed by the time he had made it to his seat, it's not that he was not used to people looking at him, being Harry Potter that was an everyday hazard but normally it was either people gossiping about him spreading rumours or similar, which just meant he had to ignore them, he did not know how to react to praise and congratulations.
After being thanked personally by all those who he had rescued and by the Duke himself he was eventually seated back where he was yesterday next to Satine who was worrying him the most, whereas the others congratulated and complemented him on his bravery and skill before passing him onto the next person in line, Satine fussed over him worse than Mrs Weasley ever did, even to the point of helping him cutting up his food before even giving him the chance to see if it even needed cutting up which Harry found most embarrassing much to the amusement of all the others. Harry had very quickly picked up his cutlery in his right hand and began eating before she started trying to do that for him too. What was worst of all though was the way she talked about the loss of his arm, the way she described it made him sound like he had died to save their lives rather than just losing a limb.
The oddest thing about the meal though was not the behaviour of Satine, but the behaviour of Hermione opposite him. Her expression kept changing from one of amusement, presumably at Satine's actions to one of annoyance when she started leaning in close to him and started holding his hand, if he didn't know her better he would swear she was...No, it was nonsense, he must be imagining it.
The mood of the meal picked up for Harry when he became the subject of attention in a better way as they kept asking about his planet and other things that only he and Hermione knew.
As the meal ended though it got even better with the Duke announcing that as a thank you for saving his daughter and the senators, he had had a rugged cybernetic arm build for Harry out of Mandalorian iron, the same material as the armour that had deflected Harry's lightsaber during the fight on the speeder, which meant it was incredibly strong and lightsaber resistant. The Duke also, after confessing that he did not know a lot about what a Jedi would need in an artificial limb, had decided to get the first arm made as strongly as possible, stated that if Harry sent back specifications and size requirements he would have a second one built for him so that he could have a spare more tailored to his needs. In addition to this, the head of the royal guard announced that because of the heroic rescue of a member of the royal family without personally spilling any blood (as those members of the Death Watch he had knocked out of the speeder had all lived) and in so doing kept to the New Mandalorian guards beliefs of non-lethal defence, that they now considered him to be an honorary member of the guard and gave him a complete set of adult sized Mandalorian royal guard armour, also made out of their iron.
Harry got his knew limb fitted after the meal, the surgeon droid who did it asked if he wanted an artificial skin covering over the limp, but Harry opted not to, he thought it was pointless pretending he had a real arm when in fact he hadn't.
Hermione had confessed that she had hoped to get his old arm attached magically but as all her books were back on Coruscant and she did not have the necessary medical expertise to hand they were forced to drop this idea.
The new limb was quite skeletal in its design, with metal bones fused to the cut bones and mounted in a metal bracket which was fitted with connectors was permanently fixed to his stump to allow him to remove the rest of the arm for maintenance easily when necessary, there was a rough outer frame of four 'corners' (as much as an arm and a wrist can have a corner) struts that surrounded the arm mechanisms, and plates of moulded iron that fixed to the four sides and made a quite good arm like shape, which meant if a sleeve was put over the arm, everything below the hand at least would look real, the hand of course had no such covering and was designed to be as strong as possible. The whole limb was made slightly larger than his other arm and was designed so that he would grow into it as he grew to maturity.
Harry quite liked the limb, he could feel just as well with it as he could with his normal hand and he already had plans for what he wanted in the second limp, he could imagine using the extra space inside the limb that was not taken up by the mechanism to store a spare lightsaber. There was a proper term for the smaller lightsabers that people often used as second weapons like his Master did (or main weapons if you were the size of Masters Yoda or Yaddle) but he could not remember what it was at the moment, but either way, that space could probably fix at least one in there if not two if he designed them well.
Apparently this design of limb was quite unusual, most artificial limbs were designed to be as similar as possible to their predecessors in strength, appearance and touch so that as far as anyone else knew the arm was completely original, but Harry actually preferred his the way it was, he might no longer have a biological limb, so why not turn the disadvantage into an advantage.
At first he had found the limb quite unnerving, the way it followed his instructions was quite scary and occasionally it would do something odd and twitch or contract without being told to but the droid who fitted it for him stated that this was because the micro computer in the arm was calibrating itself to his body, the odd movements would decrease the longer he was connected to it, but he need not worry about him accidentally crushing something because there were built in safeguards to prevent that. The limb was actually lighter than his real arm, but because it was longer he initially kept whacking it against things, which was odd as he could feel the contact almost as if it were a real arm as there were microscopic sensors built into the metal at regular intervals allowing him to feel contact on the back of his hand and many more on the ends of his fingers and on his palm allowing for much more detailed texture and pressure detection.
The one thing he had had to work on was not over squeezing, because while the hand could not accidentally crush something, if Harry thought that he wanted to squeeze something tight it would apply a lot more pressure than he normally could as he discovered when he had been helping do some everyday maintenance on their ship ready for when they departed, he had tripped and grabbed a hold of a set of steps to steady himself, when he released his hand there were five finger marks were the step had been crushed on both sides.
It was two days later when the departure was scheduled, Hermione and Master Coleman would be going with Senator Antillies, who had insisted that after the rescue they had both taken part in that Harry should now call him Bail, on his way back to Alderaan in the ship the Jedi had arrived in, while Harry and Aayla would escort Senator Palpatine back to Naboo in his cruiser which the other Senators had used to get to Mandalore.
When they were saying goodbye the next day on the landing platform, Satine made both Harry and Hermione promise again to stay in contact as she did not have many friends off world her own age and she didn't want to lose contact with them, it also helped her future in that she would be going into politics when she was older she wanted to start making friends on other planets and two up and coming Jedi seemed a great place to start.
The two ships travelled together for the first few days as Alderaan was on the hyperspace route between Mandalore and Naboo. As they passed Alderaan Bail's ship left the Hydian Way hyperspace lane and continued on to his home planet while the second ship continued onto Naboo which was annoyingly over twice as far from Mandalore to Alderaan making for a much longer and more complicated flight as they had to change hyperspace lanes several times on route.
Whereas the Hydian Way did pass within 20 parsecs of Naboo as it passed through the Mid Rim, the quickest route was to take the more complicated route of leaving the Way whilst still in the Inner Rim, transferring to the less well used Harrin Trade Corridor, travelling via the several solar systems of the corridor until they reached Lazerian before transferring to the Enarc Run trade route at Ropagi then following the run as far as Enarc before travelling into the Chommell Sector and finally to Naboo. It was going to be a long trip.
When not on duty or doing homework for his Master, Harry spent most of his time either practicing with his new arm and lightsaber or drawing out plans for new lightsabers, he had already come up with several designs that he had roughly sketched together. He liked the idea of a long handled lightsaber, they were not as quick at short movements because the weight was spread out but were much better and easier to wield during a fight that involved more swinging of the blade, there were only a couple in the Order and most belonged to the larger bodied species of Jedi. He also liked the idea of a clear lightsaber where you could see the workings and maybe another one made inside the handle of his old Nimbus broom that he still had...
"May I join you Padawan Potter?" came Palpatine's voice from the doorway to the meeting area of the ship.
"Of course Senator, be my guest," he replied politely. So far during his time in the Order he had met and spoken to only three senators, coincidentally all those who were involved in the cultural exchange; Bail he liked quite a lot, although a traditionalist he was prepared to get his hands dirty when necessary and was fine with putting himself back in danger to rescue the other captives during the incident on Mandalore, Senator Merrik he had not really got the chance to talk to other than short conversations during the meals on Mandalore and the split second after the captives had been taken when they understood each other when he said he would take care of Hermione so that he could go after the others. Palpatine was the third, he had spoken to him even less than Merrik but one thing Harry knew about him was that there was something about him that he didn't like other than the feeling he had when he shook his hand, maybe it was the smile, it was the sort of smile that didn't so much express happiness at you but at whatever he had just managed to do or get away with that you were unaware of.
"What are you working on?" he asked sitting down a couple of chairs further around the table and placing the small plate of food he had brought with him down on the table.
"I'm creating some alternative lightsaber designs," he explained, continuing to sketch on the bad in his hands.
"Don't you already have a lightsaber young Potter?"
"Oh yes, but I would like to make a couple more, it never hurts to have a spare."
"I imagine it does not," the senator replied. "What design and colour are you going for?"
"Well I am planning to make a shoto lightsaber with a shorter blade and hilt to start with as a backup, it will probably be just a plane lightsaber built to a smaller scale. As for colour I think I will stick to the same colour I have for my first blade."
"Have you ever considered using a synth-crystal?" asked Palpatine causing Harry to look up confused.
"What do you know of lightsaber design Senator?"
"Oh, I did some research into them a few years back, they are such an unusual and comparably rare weapon when compared to blasters that I thought they were worthy of research. I learned that synthetic crystals can produce a more powerful blade than natural crystals."
"True," Harry nodded; he and Hermione had done plenty of lightsaber research. "But a synthetic crystal feels like cheating to me, besides most of their blades are red and I don't particularly want a red blade, they are usually associated with Dark Jedi or Sith."
"I thought the Sith were extinct?" asked the Senator, seemingly genuinely interested in the subject.
"They are, but Jedi's have long memories and I don't want people to even compare us just because I use the same coloured crystal."
"You should not let others feelings and opinions prejudice you against something just because they do not like it. A lot of people consider that the only truly civilised worlds exist in the Core Worlds galactic grouping like Alderaan and Coruscant, but Naboo is in the Mid Rim and Mandalore in the Outer Rim and both are just as beautiful, cultured and civilised as Alderaan and Coruscant."
"Good point Senator," he replied, making a change to the design in front of him. "But there is quite a difference between an opinion of a planet because of its galactic positioning and the difference between the light and dark sides of the Force."
"Not as much as you would think," replied Palpatine with that unnerving smile. "While researching lightsabers I looked up a lot of information about the Force at the same time and they are remarkably similar."
"Where did you find information on Jedi?" Harry asked, stopping his work and looking up.
"I found a copy of that manual they give you 'The Jedi Path' I believe it's called, it was most insightful on how Jedi connect to the Force."
"That book is only supposed to be given to Jedi, you should not have a copy at all," Harry replied seriously. "If Force users who had not received Jedi training get a hold of it they can become very dangerous.
"Well it's, too late now, I've read it and besides, if I were a Force user I would be a Jedi rather than a Senator. I lost the book years ago anyway, no idea where it went." Harry looked at him suspiciously; somehow he did not believe that he had lost the book. "But as I was saying, your abilities are very similar, especially to how Jedi used to be, before they started pretending that emotions do not exist."
"Now you have lost me," replied Harry.
"The old Jedi used to use their emotions just as the Sith did. Harnessing them instead of suppressing them, I only know of one Jedi who actually does that now a days."
"Who?" Harry asked curiously. He knew that Palpatine was trying to peak his interest, he just did not know why.
"Master Windu, he perfected your Form VII, Vaapad I believe you call it. The Ferocity Form where you use your inner darkness to fuel your attacks without letting it control you. It was originally a Sith form called Juyo. And the Jedi are not just similar to the Sith in their lightsaber forms, your use of the Force is similar in some ways as well."
"How?"
"Well you push and pull with the Force, the Sith used all the same abilities, there are only a couple of attacks that Jedi believe to be too dark to use."
"But there is a big difference," Harry replied. "And they are not attacks, they are abilities, just because I use the Force to push or pull something or someone in battle," he demonstrated, holding his hand out as one of the small pieces of fruit of the senators plate flew to it. "That does not mean that that is that abilities only use. And besides the light side of the Force fits in with the world around it, the dark side corrupts and destroys."
"Surely not if it's under the control of someone who know how to handle it."
"It was that sort of opinion that led Jedi into becoming Sith and what has led to many conflicts over the centuries."
"I'm not saying go as far as trying to take over the galaxy, but just use your emotions rather than suppressing them and don't automatically assume that an 'ability' as you refereed to it is dark until you have tried it."
"That might still make me into a Dark Jedi."
"Not necessarily, have you not heard of Grey Jedi?"
"Of course," Harry replied, this whole conversation was quite unnerving him. "Master Qui-Gon is one."
"Not that sort of Grey Jedi," replied Palpatine shaking his head. "He is considered a Grey-Jedi as he doesn't always follow the High Councils orders, the other sort of Grey Jedi are those who use the dark side of the Force to help them do their jobs as Jedi. The dark side is supposed to be very powerful and most Grey Jedi are more powerful than the standard Jedi because of it. That is not turning dark, it's not doing evil, it's just using the power available to you. It is not where the power comes from; it's how it is used."
"You do make a good point Senator, I will think on what you have said," he said getting up. "But if you will excuse me, I am back on duty in a few hours and I need to get some sleep."
"Of course Harry," replied Palpatine with a smile as Harry walked out of the room.
As expected as soon as he got out of the room he found Aayla leaning against the doorframe. In silence they walked into his room and closed the door.
"Did you get all that?"
"After you started relaying what you were hearing, yes. I found that quite disturbing," she acknowledged, leaning back against his wardrobe with her arms crossed, not looking directly at him.
"As did I, his knowledge of Jedi and Sith history and powers was more than he should have had, even if he had got a hold of the 'Jedi Path' most of that information is not in there."
"Nor is that information about Form VII. The 'Jedi Path' has not been revised in Master Windu's lifetime; if it had his Form would be included in it. It is possible that research might have turned up some of that information," admitted Aayla. "There were a large number of Sith in the past and who knows what they recorded for others to see."
"I've always felt there was something...something 'off' about the Senator."
"Off how?" she asked looking at him for the first time since entering the room.
"Well, when we first met I felt a chill run through me when we shook hands, plus a tingling in my scar."
"You've lost me Harry," replied Aayla with a confused look.
"The only other things that have ever caused any feeling in my scar are Voldemort and dementors, and to me they are the embodiment of evil."
"I would have thought either Master Coleman or myself would have felt something if he was in possession of a Sith artefact or similar," Aayla replied sceptically, returning to staring at the floor.
"Do you think we should do anything about it?"
"Like what?"
"Well, check to see whether he has possession of any Sith artefacts that could explain my feelings or his knowledge."
"We can't, we don't have enough evidence and being a senator if we were wrong he could make things very bad for us and the Order, but we will tell the Council on our return, they won't be able to act either but at least they could keep a closer eye on him."
"Ok Master," he nodded, not entirely happy with the conclusion of the conversation before a yawn decided his next sentence. "I should get a few hours sleep before I go on duty."
"Good idea," she nodded, before seemingly slightly distractedly heading for the door, but not before sending a sideways glance at her protégé.
"Master," he said calmly and in a slightly resigned way, causing her to turn back to him slowly.
"Yes Harry?"
"What you're thinking now," she nodded. "It's not going to happen."
"Wh- How did-"
"I have seen that look before Master, it's about half way between the 'he's the one can talk in that dark snake language' and therefore 'the terrible things that have been happening, he must be responsible' look and the 'his name came out of the cup, he broke the rules and has let us all down' look. I assure you no matter what the Senator said I have no intention of turning into a Grey Jedi, a Dark jedi or a Sith."
"I'm sorry Harry," she apologised turning fully to him. "After what you have been through I should not have thought such things."
"Don't worry about it Master, I know that suggestion is a very powerful thing and once even the smallest hint of doubt it put in your mind, how hard it is not to analyse everything with that doubt in mind, it happened a lot at Hogwarts for one reason or another and the last few months of training, especially those on other cultures and upbringings have taught me not to judge everyone's reactions against how I would react to something." Moving to sit on his bed he went onto explain while she continued to stand near the door, looking slightly stunned at not only having doubted her your apprentice but being caught doing it and now receiving a, although very forgiving explanation coming from Harry, it almost sounded to her like she was back at the Temple getting a lecture from one of the masters on how not to judge people too quickly. "When you explained to me why you were so against the conditions I was treated to at the hands of the Dursleys by explaining how your planets culture also uses slavery on a large scale, you explained how it was unforgivable to you to use children as slaves but you were not as against using adults as slaves, when I heard that I was just as appalled by anyone being treated as a slave regardless of age and it took until I got to the Temple for me to realise that's because my upbringing, such as it was, has affected how I regard such things just as yours has affected yours and I must not think bad of you because you're beliefs on slavery are more forgiving than mine. When you went on to explain to me what happened to your first Master and how you lost your memory for a while and turned to the dark side it helped me to understand why you are so worried about the effect of that upon me, you have experienced it yourself and know just what can happen when you use it hence the reason why you are very worried about me even being in a conversation about it. I have been around darkness since I started Hogwarts and I have never felt compelled to use it or join it, in fact the closest I have come to doing so was using the basilisks fang to destroy Riddle's diary. All that conversation did was make me want to keep a closer eye on the Senator. I have no interest in joining the dark side so please do not worry about it as I know you are."
"Harry...I-" she began, quite vulnerably.
"You don't need to explain or apologise, I understand Master," he interrupted.
After looking at him in shock and quite vulnerably for a half second, she moved forward and pulled him into a tight hug, more for her benefit than his.
"I'm sorry Harry, I should not have thought such things despite my own experiences I should remember that you are not me and do not react the same way." After a few seconds she pulled back. "You know I'm the one who is supposed to be giving that sort of knowing lecture, not you."
"You said it to me yourself Master, you are very young to take an apprentice and I am not only the first one you have ever trained, but I am not your typical apprentice either. Things are not quite the same for us as they are between most masters and their apprentices."
"How did you get so wise so young?"
"The worst way," he replied. "Through experience."
As he returned to his cabin to rest that evening Palpatine was quite happy with what he had achieved, he was obviously not expecting the boy to go from wanting to be a Jedi to being a Sith in a few minutes but he had implanted the idea and that was all that was needed to start the chain of events that he hoped would follow.
He had felt such power within the boy, such strength; if only it could be turned to suit his purpose then he could use that power to his own ends. He was also not blind to the darkness within the boy, hence the reason for suggesting the idea of becoming a Grey Jedi. Knowing of the boys past he knew he would not go straight from Jedi to Sith over night, it had to be done slowly. He knew he had felt the presence of the boys master outside, whether he had called her or whether she had just come along he did not know but he suspected that the boy must have repeated the conversation to her. This was of concern but of no matter, he had placed enough false evidence in his chambers on Coruscant and in his house on Naboo in case they did get suspicious that all pointed to that information being either related to the Jedi's stupid book or to long hours of invented research on the Force by other people at his request, he was not to know what research the people he employed would bring back to him, all his real Sith materials were hidden so well that no one would find them, besides they would not dare search a senators rooms without compelling evidence, as such the Jedi would likely blow it off as another someone being fascinated by their 'strange religion', there were many such people in the galaxy.
All he had to do was sit back and wait, he had planted the idea in the boys mind and no doubt the seeds of doubt in both him and his masters, all it would take would be a little time for those seeds to grow.
It had taken Voldemort several days to fight his way out of the tunnel, like the previous attack the beasts had obviously been instructed to capture but not to kill any who passed their way, though Potter had made a grievous error with this part of his minds defences; the area where the creatures had dragged him was close enough for him to see what it was that was being defended in the Shrieking Shack. He should have suspected it really, being a protégé of Dumbledore, love was bound to be important to him, despite how weak the emotion made you, The room had been filled with memories of that long haired Mud-Blood friend of his that had left the planet with him, he might be able to use that to his advantage in the future, for now he had other places to be, he had to get to the memories that Potter was trying to hide the most, he had to find out what was in them.
Making his way up to the castle, not wanting to try to rest before attacking again he immediately found that unlike the other two attempts to gain access to the boys mind, that this time he might actually be able to get through. The dementors barely affected him, he was used to them, they had served him before and as they were not chasing him he would have an easy time exploring the school.
As he expected he found many memories on the way, Potter was most definitely organised with every memory seemingly sorted into the correct location. He checked the various common rooms, the Headmasters Office and the Great Hall and found memories in each, but none had more than simple protections that he could get passed, it was not until he finished routing through the Slytherin Common room that it occurred to him that there was only one place in the castle that Potter believed he had sole access to. One place that only he and Voldemort could enter and that would provide Potter with the best security.
He rapidly made his way to the toilets in question and opened the tunnel before beginning his descent, as he slid down the pipe he saw an unknown pipe off to the side as he went, but knowing it was the wrong way he ignored it. As he approached what should have been the end of the pipe, the floor fell away to reveal a deep chasm, he dropped through it and was briefly able to see had memoires of himself and of dementors in it before he fell down through a hole at the bottom of the chasm and entered another chamber, thirty meters square with only the hole in the sealing. No sooner had he entered the chamber than he was subjected to the horrific pain of the torture curse and the concentrated power of a large mass of dementors all at once. He screamed out in pain as he was assaulted and curled up on the floor, unable to do anything else.
AUTHOR'S ESSAY: Right, about Harry's arm being cut off, yes it's a cliché and I thought to be honest that the fact that it's done twice in the movies was a bit dodgy (though as Harry and Hermione are in the universe now it might not happen to Luke or Anakin if there even is a Luke or an Anakin in this story), but I always thought that canon missed quite a few good opportunities with it that I felt that I had to do it right in my story. Also its actually an official lightsaber move which is part of Jedi teachings so those of you that have them please open your copies of 'The Jedi Path' (assuming you have the same edition as me) and turn to page 77 you will see the attack known as 'Cho Mok' which and I quote 'severs a different limb, such as a leg. Maiming of this nature should be done only if an opening exists and you do not think you can otherwise win the fight'. Now of course that is the Jedi teaching of the attack whereas Vizsla is not restricted to only doing it if necessary, and although he easily outclasses Harry he still knows he has to end the fight quickly to prevent the other Jedi from catching up and he would not have any qualms about cutting off a boys limb just to end a fight quicker.
As for Harry only thinking of Magic at the end, the problem I had with that is that I was not sure quite how he could use it in the speeder fight. He could for example try to summon the members of the Death Watch off of the speeder but they have jetpacks so that won't necessarily work, he could summon the captives but he cannot risk trying all at once in case their speeder cannot catch them all and one at a time would give the Death Watch a chance to react by the time they were summoning hostages numbers two and three. He could use attacking spells to try to bring the speeder down but that could kill the hostages, he could try to stun the soldiers but their armour is lightsaber resistant so it is probably quite spell resistant too as such he would have to use much more powerful spells that could easily miss when aiming at a fast moving object from a fast moving object and hit one of the hostages who had no armour at all, and once he was on the speeder Magic becomes too risky as you are far too close and one swing from the Darksaber during your cast and you no longer have a wand or a wand arm either.
"...Harry received many cuts, nicks and other minor wounds in the fight..." valid point Andor Swiftblade, we are fighting with lightsabers not swords, that description was not accurate, it was a slip of the digital pen. I have been writing another story with swords in it and obviously it slipped through without me noticing. In hindsight I would have changed the above line to "...Harry received many burns, cuts and other minor wounds in the fight but knew that he dare not pay attention to them because as soon as he did he would likely be dead, but thanks to the cauterising affects of lightsabers they bled little..."
Additionally, Andor Swiftblade also spotted something else that I didn't and that was that a speeder fight has been done in Episode 2. I have to admit that I did not even think about that fight when I was doing this one. I actually wrote myself into a dead end by having the Senators kidnapped without actually planning the next stage of the fight. I knew I did not want the Masters there, I just wanted it to be Harry and I had to stop them before they left the planet as the Death Watches ship was bound to be better armed than anything Harry and the others could get a hold of at short notice so they would almost certainly either lose them or get killed. As such I knew it had to be between the Palace and the Docks and I came up with on the back of speeders as the obvious solution, it was not until Andor Swiftblade pointed it out to me that I realised that I had effectively copied the fight from Episode 2. So my apologise for that, I'll try not to do it again.
Will a false arm interfere with magic or animagus transformation? I would say probably no as Harry is right handed to the best of my knowledge, not left so the replacement hand won't come into play when using his wand and as regards animagus transformation, well the clothes are transformed as well so I think an artificial arm would be as well though this maybe due to some charm on the clothes.
I like the way some of you are saying 'Please don't use the original plot be different' while others are saying 'The original plot is great, please use that'. Well I can tell you it will be a mixture of the two.
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