Chapter 17: The Problem With Time and Plans

Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover

Chapter 17: The Problem With Time and Plans

1343 A.D.

Earth

Standing on the Patience Harry could not believe that he was finally home and, after all this time, he couldn't help but feel a deep sense of wonder at seeing it again.

Through all the trials and tribulations that he had experienced he had always hoped that he would get here. In his long life he had hoped many things that turned out not to be true however and had begun to believe that he would never get here.

When he had left he had been a young man of fifteen (albeit one was more than just a little jaded by life) and now, as he looked down on his birth place, It truly hit him that he wasn't anymore. There was, after all, a great difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing it deep down in your bones.

Though his body was, by his reckoning, only thirty six he was actually nearly sixty and in that moment he felt every day he had ever lived press down upon him. The weight of experience was so heavy and, in a weird way, it reminded him of the challenges that he had yet to face.

He had thought that he had known death when he had watched Cedric die but he soon learned that he was wrong.

He had seen the death of thousands... hell he had caused the death of thousands. Held crying mothers, weeping children, and seen the arrogance of those in power destroy lives much more thoroughly than death itself. He had done everything he could do to get here, all the good and bad, and he found that it wasn't what he expected.

He expected to feel elated even joyous at coming home but feeling was noticeably absent as he looked down upon Earth.

Though, as a relatively young magical, he still looked around twenty (if slightly younger) he did not feel it. He lacked the idealism that came with that age, the certainty of right and wrong, the clarity of knowing what was good and what was bad, as more and more all he could see now were various shades of grey.

He certainly wasn't a young man as, on some nights, what he had done as a Sith (or what they made him do he honestly could never be sure which) caused him to wake covered in sweat holding back vomit as the horrid images played across his mind.

That sort of thing did not happen to young idealistic men.

"Master there appears to be a problem" stated his ever faithful droid friend Hermione and, even as he frowned at that, he found it fitting that she stood beside him now as her namesake had once done on Earth so very long ago (and hopefully would soon do so again).

"Speak" he commanded wearily.

"Our recon droids have, as asked, scanned the planet below and have discovered nothing in the way of industrial build-up. Correlating all the data we have come to the conclusion that is not the year 2000 by Earth's local calendar".

"If it is not then what bloody year is it?" he asked hoping against hope that it was not too far off.

"We believe it is the year 1343 A.D. by the local measurement" she said softly.

"Fuck!" Harry shouted. You couldn't help but wonder if his life was cursed as he was over six hundred years early. He thought about the situation for a moment and then brightened.

"What are you thinking Master?" asked his faithful companion having seen that look many times before.

"That I can save my parents, save Sirius, save Luna's mother…" he said even as he was already planning how he could do that in his head.

"I am sorry Master" and, Harry would reflect later, she did actually sound sorry "but you cannot".

"Why the fuck not?" If she was phased by Harry's use of profanity her all too Human looking face did not show it. Harry had an odd passing thought in that moment, they really had done too good of a job on her face as it looked too perfect, even as he waited for an answer.

"Because any events that you do change could cause you to not go through the veil or not to be the person that you are. You must allow history, especially your personal history, to take its natural course". She replied clinically and, as if he had imagined the emotion that he thought he had earlier, without warmth.

"So I wouldn't be the same Harry Potter... not a deal breaker if I can save so many lives".

"It is not as simple as that. You could end up in a world where Voldemort was never vanquished and took over the entire globe or one where your parents never met. You could even end up in one where something worse than Voldemort happened and the world has been destroyed. This is of course not taking into account the paradoxes that it would cause if you didn't go through the Veil... and no one and nothing knows what that would do... but it's possible that you would destroy the entire Galaxy".

"So what you're saying is...I can't go back and save my parents?" Harry hated how lost and alone his voice sounded in that moment. It was reminiscent of what a young child sounded like when they were frightened of the dark or realised, for the first time, that their parents might one day die.

"I'm afraid it is worse than that Master" she responded. Harry cocked an eyebrow even as his mouth thinned into a tight line.

"How could it possibly be any worse?" He asked at this moment simply not seeing how anything could be worse than not being able to save his parents or destroying a Galaxy.

"When I say worse... I mean worse for you personally... if you do alter the time line significantly you have a limited time to fix it or you may cease to exist entirely. You may even be required to help events happen as they should to avoid that prospect".

"You mean" began Harry catching on to a horrible thought " that I might be required to help Voldemort's rise to power?" He almost screeched truly sickened at the very idea.

"The possibility is remote but it does exist".

For once he envied her ability (and the Progressive Jedi's ability to a much lesser extent) to truly detach from or turn off emotion. He was trying very hard not to freak out at this moment and, even employing Occlumency, he was only partially successful as he felt his shields almost buckle under the strain.

"Is there any good news?" Harry asked sarcastically not really expecting a positive response.

"Yes Master Harry. From the Rakatan understanding of temporal mechanics I believe that the further back you go, assuming that you don't interact with anyone in your direct bloodline, you are minimise the risk".

"So...no interacting with my great great grandfather? Anything else?".

"It appears, from the limited information that the recon droids have managed to gather, that at this time the Potter family generally sticks to the area you know as the United Kingdom. I would avoid even visiting the United Kingdom unless it was absolutely necessary". She paused as if weighing up what to say next "The Infinite Empire was familiar enough with the theory and had created specifications for a small device that would warn them of damage to the timeline to a dangerous extent. Small breeches were of little concern as time, for lack of a better term, healed itself".

"You make it sound like time is a living thing... surely that's not true?" Harry asked intrigued despite himself.

"Unknown". Harry never knew that a single word could chill him so much given the possibilities that the single word threw up in his mind. "The Infinite Empire theorised that time travel was damage and that time itself seeks to heal that damage and return events to as close to the original as possible. No theory on the actual sentience of time was ever recorded".

"Is there a way for me to tell, if I do change an event, how to fix it?" Harry asked beginning to be overwhelmed by the idea that time could be a entity as well as the idea that he may cease to exist.

"Not specifically what to do no" began the droid "though we could ask both the ship and your recon droids to gather data and extrapolate information to provide a statistically likely scenario as to what has changed how to fix it".

"What would be the downside?" Harry asked already expecting the worst.

"The entire ship would have to be given over to the task and, to try and preserve the timeline, it would be inadvisable for you to call for another... it will be risky enough with this one and your recon droids. When time passes the date on which you left however it should be possible to use the ship again without fear of a paradox".

"If the Empire was adept at time travel why did they not try and use it to save themselves then?" Harry queried the thought suddenly popping into his head.

"Any small change would have little to no effect given the size of the catastrophe and any large change was deemed too risky as it may have caused the very empire they were trying to save to never have been formed in the first place". Hermione's reply was succinct and to the point.

"This device that can warn me about a change…" Harry said dismissing ancient history in favour of his immediate problems "how small can you make it?".

"It can be as large as a house or as small as a thumbnail. I would suggest that you take the latter option rather than the former and wear it around your neck as jewelry. It would after all be much easier that way" she finished in a very dry tone of voice.

"Did you just make a joke?" Harry said more shocked then amused by the action.

"I did try Master... was it not good?" Hermione replied in her usual monotone voice.

"Anyway" Harry said trying to switch the subject " to sum up... no interacting with my family members or friends of family members, avoid the United Kingdom if possible, I will have no use of advanced technology while I'm in the past and if I change something I have to fix it?".

"Essentially correct. You can interact with family members and the like if, and only if, it does not alter the timeline".

"And how exactly would I know?" Harry asked.

"Fair point" she responded simply.

"Great... so I am to become the universe's greatest voyeur and be doomed to watch but not act...fan-bloody-tastic". If droid Hermione thought that she was supposed to reply to that comment she wisely decided not to.

After walking around the ship for a while Harry, as was his nature, gave up overthinking the problem and simply decided to go with his first idea that did not have too many issues as far as he could see.

"Hermione, call in a repair ship to meet us on the dark side of Earth's moon". Seeing that she was about to open her mouth he hastily added "Don't worry it's not going to land anywhere as it's merely to retrofit the Patience with everything I might need for this trip into the past. It will leave soon enough and, when it does, you will be on it".

"Will you not need me here?" She asked.

"I will need you running my company more especially if I'm going to be here for a very long time" Harry responded. "I know you would like to stay and help me and I appreciate it, I really do, but you're the only one I can trust with this. Someone has to keep the succession of Potters going if the Republic ever decides to look in and I am trusting you to keep the holodroids on task.

She nodded at that though she was clearly unhappy with it she understood the importance of her task.

"Is there anything else that I should do while you're gone?" she queried.

"Yes...I need you to devise a way to deal with a very delicate problem…. the elf problem…" Harry responded. In the time that the recon droids had been down on Earth, among other things, they had cataloged a great deal of data on the diminutive species.

In the four days that it took the state of the art repair ship to arrive Harry had not been idle. He had sent out his recon droids to learn as much about the place that he was going to land in as they could as well as reconstructing his lightsabers.

Though he intended to upgrade them eventually but for the present they were essentially the same as before except instead of various wand woods encasing them now they had no ornamentation at all. The hilts were now also made of New Atlantis Steel with the emerald one a deep black and the deep sapphire blue one silver polished until it shone.

When the ship did arrive he was a whirlwind of activity directing the accompanying droids as to what he wanted removed and wanted it replaced with as well as what he wanted to remain.

The navcomputer was scaled down as it's computations took up too many resources better used for temporal probabilities. In fact it was left with only two destinations in its system and those were Earth and the recently renamed Spero System.

In the same vein all weapon systems were removed although they, instead of being gutted, were simply disassembled and stored in the cargo hold. The cargo hold was itself was greatly scaled back and instead the free space was utilized as a second power system by placing interlocking portable power sources there. The equations and the task that the computer would have to do were immense after all.

He had installed a cloaking device on the ship but, again due to the power involved, it would only be used to enter and exit the planet undetected.

All non essentials like furniture and foodstuffs were removed. Even the lighting from non essential parts of the ship were ripped out with those sections of the ship sealed off and even the life support and artificial gravity being diverted to save power.

In fact the only additions that Harry made were a CE3 droid that would act as the voice of the ship if he needed those calculations, a chair designed to flash imprint knowledge and two cryostasis tubes.

The first tank was remarkable simply because it was empty. The second had a clone, naturally grown from his current body, resting in it at age ten.

Harry was aware that he often did not think things through all the way. He was not Hermione (the original not the droid) and it simply wasn't part of his nature to naturally think through every possible action that he could take before he acted.

It was sometimes a flaw, he knew, but on the other hand where people like Hermione might be stymied by shock over the unexpected like she had with the Devil's Snare in their first year Harry never was. He instead generally saw a problem and then acted and, more than that, when he acted he did so decisively and to the best of his abilities.

The reason that he had this clone, the reason that the Potter Industries Trade Agreement had worked out so well, was less to do with his ability to analyse all possible outcomes (Harry privately thought that he was piss poor at it) and more to do with the fact that he had literal years to plan things out and, given that, he had been able to work in his contingencies.

That was, he reflected, the true bonus of a long life. His many enemies, political or otherwise, were concerned with the now or at best two to three generations down the line. He however was able to formulate plans that would possibly take hundreds of years to accomplish, if they came to fruition at all, and it helped that his opponents believed that he was as short sighted as they were.

The clone was a case in point. While he had certainly hoped to be within the rough time period of when he left he had quickly realised that it was unlikely and so had created many contingencies if that were not the case.

The clone was his failsafe if he was too early.

The chair on the other hand was simply a way of trying to keep up to date with his company and the wider Galaxy during his long stay on Earth. He planned to periodically use it in conjunction with his occlumency to remain aware of the more important facts of his company and the Galaxy at large. This included (but was not limited to) who his current allies were, his opponents, the current state of Potter Industries, his current alias (at least in the Republic) and the state of the Spero System.

The downside was that, mainly due to both power requirements and the eventual rise of technology, updates would be one way and infrequent at best. It was a risk, both to himself and the future of his life in the wider Galaxy, but he felt that it was a risk worth taking.

He was also never more thankful for the Potter families now infamous reputation of almost galavanting across the known (and sometimes the unknown) Galaxy. It had started when he had founded Potter Industries so long ago and with the many missions that first the Sith and then the Jedi had sent him on (combined with the reclusive nature of his holodroid 'family') the wanderlust of the Potters had become somewhat legendary.

Combine that with the well known secrecy behind when an heir would be produced and, more to the point, the genetic engineering that made them all look the same and he was fairly certain that no one would be able to tell definitively where he was or where he wasn't until he was actually there.

When he thought that he was ready he double checked his bags as he prepared to land and leave. He had six large bags shrunk down to fit in his pockets (he had added a featherlight charm for good measure as well) filled with gold bullion, another two with silver bars along with six fist sized bags of precious and semi-precious stones with two of those bags being filled with diamonds.

His lightsabers were clipped to his belt and the newly made temporal amulet hung on a cord around his neck.

Activating the cloaking device he piloted the ship for the nearest empty piece of land adjacent to Paris.

"Scanning the area for non human life signs in the vicinity of Paris" stated the droid.

"Thank you GE3...let's go home...sort of" he said.

One Week Later

Harry had hidden his ship in a derelict building between where he had landed in the middle of the night and the outskirts of Paris.

He had removed the armour from his robes and altered their cut so that now he look like a very well to do monk or priest. The lightsaber hilts may have looked odd but, unless they were activated, all they looked like was a odd curiosity.

It also hadn't taken much to scan the mind of a passing noble in a carriage and extract the knowledge of mediaeval English, Old French, even a smattering of Arabic and to fill in the remaining gaps in Latin (including vulgar Latin). It appeared that Harry's target was quite well educated for the time and in that he was very lucky.

This world was stranger to Harry than he expected. He knew that the Middle Ages would be the cause of a culture shock for him but what surprised Harry the most was that there was an open Wizarding Quarter. There was no Statute of Secrecy and there wouldn't be for many years.

Most of all the 14th century Paris stank what with people tipping their filth into the streets and horses defecating whenever and wherever they wished. He found himself missing indoor plumbing more than he ever thought possible. it was far from the city of love that it would become.

All that being said they still tried not to draw attention to themselves and the Quarter was not a formal arrangement in the same way that many other quarters (such as the Jewish Quarter for example) were not. Instead the wizards, congregated together for the same reasons most minorities did. They came together in common hope, to protect one another and help each other but mostly they just tried to get on with their lives with a minimum of fuss.

That being said some things didn't change it seemed as when one went looking for a goblin the best bet was to look underground. In Harry's native time some very racist wizards used to call them deformed tunnel rats due to their predisposition to live underground and the fact that, to the majority of humans at least, they were not very attractive at all.

That all meant that Harry was unsurprised to find them on the shores of the east bank of the Seine river. What did surprise him however was that when he did find them there was no grand marble entrance like he remembered. Instead there was just a rough artificial hewn cave mouth that was guarded by two goblins behind a simple muggle repelling charm that was built into the lip of the cave.

Still, Harry thought, politeness cost nothing. So when he was passing them he nodded to the two Goblins and moved swiftly inside.

The inside of the building was also different from the one that Harry remembered. It was more rough then he recalled and again instead of the marble that he knew it was inside the same rough hewn stone that was outside.

Swiftly moving through the mostly empty bank he approached a teller. The goblin looked bored and distracted behind his counter and, at first, didn't even look up as Harry moved closer.

Harry was now near enough that he could fully focus on the goblin in front of him and the only difference he could see between these goblins and the same ones that he remembered was that they seemed to be carrying some form of crude wands as well as the expected goblin steel. It appeared that the law against them carrying ones had not been proposed or passed yet .

"How can Gringotts help you today wizard?" The goblins voice, though still sharp and speaking Old French, lacked some of the hostility that he had become accustomed to in talking to goblins during his school years. It was refreshing for him to say the least.

"I wish to open an account" Harry responded very softly in the same language and then continued " a premium account".

The goblins eyebrows rose. Harry had found out that premium accounts were only given to extremely wealthy customers of the bank and they required a bank manager to run them. He had learnt this in his third year while he was staying in the Alley as, contrary to some people's opinions, he was not simply sitting on his arse and eating well at the Leaky Cauldron.

He did find out that the goblins definition of extremely wealthy did mean extremely as certain families, like the Malfoy's for all their vast wealth, could not come close to owning one though the Potter's did (among a few other select families).

This was a calculated risk on Harry's part as he had no idea if the money that he had brought with him would be enough to actually allow him to have one. The goblins, as a rule, did not disclose the amount needed to open such an account nor were they generally in the habit of telling you things that they believed you should already know.

To their way of thinking wizards were an annoyance and any chance to one up them as it were was taken with a great deal of relish. Given that the Harry did learn some things while he was in his third year he doubted that he learned half of what he probably should have already known. Though he did fancy that, in his day and age at least, he knew more than the average wizard about them although that was not saying much.

It did get him in the door though so to speak.

"Follow me, Mister?" Asked the still unnamed goblin.

"Mr Altayih, Roul Altayih" Harry said in reply even as the Goblin smirked at the obvious alias that he had chosen.

"An interesting name" commented the goblin as he closed his position and began to move deep into the warrens of the bank and gestured for Harry to follow him. "You however are not of Arabic descent... tell me do you travel often?".

"Some" was Harry's vague response and despite continued questions from the goblin Harry said no more. Soon enough the questions petered out and the rest of the walk continued in silence as the goblin seemed to sense that Harry would answer no other questions about himself.

At length they came to a great oak door and his guide knocked sharply three times to be met with a dep echoing silence. For a brief time the seconds seemed to stretch into eternity as the silence dragged on and Harry feared, for a moment, that there would never be a response and he would be ejected from the bank...harshly.

"Enter" said a strong and deep voice on the other.

"A word of warning human.. Do not anger Account Manager Sharptooth. Do not draw your wand without express permission and do not make a single threatening move. There are no appeals under Goblin Law and you will be killed if you do".

"My thanks Master Teller" Harry said gravely and with great formality.

"I do not wish or require your thanks" answered the goblin swiftly. "I said what I did so that, if you do not act in the required manner, your government cannot claim ignorance to avoid certain penalties".

With that the goblin left, without even a backward glance, presumably to resume his duties.

Harry quickly entered the room understanding that, to a goblin, time was money and wasting money was the second worst thing that you could do after theft.

He also knew that, aside from the so called purebloods desire to see them as beasts, they found muggleborns just as annoying if not more so. To a goblin overt politeness and small talk was a waste of time and therefore a waste of their talents as well as money and so, whenever a well meaning muggleborn began trying to do that, they grit their teeth and assumed a bland interested expression that was patently false.

No matter how much they wanted to do that they did not yell at them as they understood that, no matter how misguided, the muggleborns meant well unlike the purebloods.

The Account Manager's office was opulent and tasteful much like Harry remembered Gringotts from the future. Its walls and flaws were made of perfectly set marble rather than the stone that was still forming the bank proper.

The desk behind which Sharptooth sat was expensive, beautiful and slightly imposing. Harry had no doubt that it was by design. The artwork on his wall was similarly imposing, depicting the great battles of his people, but like the rest of the office, it was also tasteful in nature and almost imbued with a casual elegance.

Harry took all of this in with a glance as his eyes were drawn instead to Sharptooth. It was plain to see that he was not pleased.

He also saw, that for a goblin, Sharptooth was both exceptionally tall and muscular and he had no doubt that if he did offend Sharptooth then not only could he be attacked with the crude wand strapped to the Account Managers thigh but that any number of vicious looking and exquisite weapons that lined one wall could do the job easily enough.

"What does a human, of no House wizarding or noble, want with one of the premier banks of the wizarding world?" Harry tried to mask his surprise at the idea that there existed other banks that wizards used. In his time, by unbreakable contract, all wizarding money was both minted by and banked using the Goblin Nation alone.

"To bank with of course...as well as other things" Harry said even as he slowly and carefully reached into his pockets. He was very aware of of Sharptooth's eyes following his hands every movement and he had no doubt that if he had reached for a wand he would have at thievery least been in a great deal of trouble and more than likely be dead a few seconds after.

The goblins own hands were almost to carefully placed on his desk. Harry assumed that there was a panic button or charm there as, after all, Goblins were known for many things but never stupidity.

Thankfully for Harry's health he was not reaching for his wand. He laid out three of the six bags of gold as well as the two bags of silver and, after asking permission, he waved his hand and the ring that he wore glowed softly.

The bags expanded and as Harry opened them the demeanour of Sharptooth shifted from a dismissive anger to one of guarded curiosity. Harry then proceeded to pull out the other bags of gold and the silver but he left the gems in his pocket for now.

"This is sufficient to open a premium account but I would suggest that you do not do it under your alias… Mr Wanderer.. as even today Arabs are not particularly welcome in Europe". Sharptooth's eyes seemed to slowly caress the contents of the bags in front of him like a lover, especially given that the bars were almost six times the standard size and twice the weight, before swiftly turning his attention back to Harry.

"About that" began Harry "I am in need of Gringotts discreet services... is there a ward that you could put up?".

With a practised flick of his wrist Sharptooth hit a rune on the underside of his desk and Harry could feel the wards go up. They were now effectively isolated from the rest of the bank as well as the outside world.

What makes you think that Gringotts offers such services?" There was a dangerous tone in his voice then and Harry was aware that the next few moments would be critical. " After all" Sharptooth continued with apparent nonchalance "we are a respectable institution".

"Permission to draw my wand?" Asked Harry and before he nodded Sharptooth withdrew a heavily enchanted long and wicked looking dagger. After all they were cut off from the rest of the bank and Harry had no doubt that one cut from that weapon would utterly destroy him or his body at any rate.

Harry pulled out his wand, smoothly flipped it in his hand, and laid it gently down on the desk. If this negotiation failed, Harry thought, then it would be worth the trouble that he had been through simply to see the look of surprise on Sharptooth's face at that action.

"It is common knowledge" continued Harry "that Goblins are masters of enchanting objects. Scan this wand please and tell me how old the first charm on it is... barring those that were used in its construction of course".

Sighing lightly but giving the strange human before him a moments indulgence Sharptooth began to chant knowing that if nothing came of this then, if he was lucky, the human would lose the veritable fortune currently sitting on the desk.

Of course, the goblin continued his train of thought, if the human was unlucky then that was what dragon pens were for. Eventually he stopped chanting as the magic created a piece of paper in front of him filled with symbols and runes. Looking down intently he began to study the paper.

"The charm is forty six years old, a children's magic monitoring charm if I am not mistaken, that is not uncommon for parents to do so that they may be aware of the children's early exploration into magic". Sharptooth paused in his explanation as he read once, twice and finally a third time the next set of runes on paper before him. " the charm was placed on the item, presumably if not by the parents then when sold, in…. 1996?!" He finished with a gasp that caused his voice to almost gurgle at the last words.

"You are a time traveller?" Sharptooth's face was open and unguarded in shock at this revelation.

"Harry Potter at your service my dear goblin". Harry then paused waiting for a moment to see if the amulet would heat up and when, to his eternal gratitude it didn't not, he continued "I have an offer for the Goblin Nation assuming that it goes no further than you and the head of the Nation itself".

"The great Ragnok himself, known to wizards as Ragnok the First?" Sharptooth asked curiously "Very well...he has always liked to be intrigued and we have never seen someone travel so far back in time. Be warned however that if you insult us or try and trick us in any way your head and the heads of anyone related to you will be forfeit".

Sharptooth couldn't help but ask the question that have been floating around his brain since the man before him had identified himself "Given your unruly hair and your name are you related to the British Potters? The Potions pioneers?".

"My family are Potion experts?" Harry said with some surprise "I never knew that".

After the wards were brought down and a goblin called to pass a message to the King Harry was asked to return the next day to discuss his proposal. Harry was unsurprised that they asked for some time as, not only was his request unorthodox to say the least but, he had just dropped a rather large bomb on what they knew of the world.

He left his Holly wand with them as a show of good faith and merely asked that they remove the trace sometime prior to 1999 and have it transported to the British branch of Gringotts and allow it to be retrieved on request sometime after that.

As this was of little difficulty to them and he was now an account holder of the bank they had no problem granting his request.

The next day he met with the Goblin King and explained his plan. The King was receptive but hardly willing to accept it without thought or negotiation.

They talked for hours and even had lunch and then dinner together while they went over the final points. As they did Harry was aware that the King and his two advisors were beyond shrewd negotiators and he was aware that part of the reason that they kept him so long was the hope that he would become tired and make mistakes. It was a technique that he had used himself many times and he was always surprised at how effective it could be.

Not to mention that even in this time wizards had become more closed off to ideas that were not already a comfortable part of their world and therefore had often, unbeknownst to Harry, turned their noses up at the Nations food so often that they were no longer even given the courtesy of the invitation to eat with their negotiators. It was therefore a surprise to them when, on a whim, they decided to test him and not only did he accept but seemed to enjoy the food.

They of course could not know that as a Jedi let alone during his previous and subsequent travels around the Galaxy that Harry had tried many different types of cuisine and therefore had almost no prejudices when it came to eating as long as the food was at worst palatable and at best enjoyable. This bought him a lot of goodwill within the Nation as it was another one of many things that showed them he was different from the average wizard and may be operating in good faith.

That being said, like there were even now wizards obsessed with their bloodlines, if not quite the blood purity of later years, there were still Goblins that distrusted him simply because he was a wizard but his actions during the negotiations made what could have been a vocal majority into a quiet minority.

After much back and forth not only did Harry have an account under the much more suitable alias of Roland Vauquelin (the last name was the Nation's own little joke at his expense) but he had agreed to Harry's offer in principle for the British branch at least.

His account would be managed by Sharptooth and his successors until, at the very least, Harry asked for his wand to be returned. The main reason that King Ragnok did not manage the account himself (his financial prowess was legendary after all) was that it would draw a lot of attention, especially over time, to one Roland Vauquelin.

September

It had been a few months since Harry had adopted the alias of eleven year old Rolan Vauquelin and in that time he had not only switched to his eleven year old body but had also bought land near where he had stored his ship. He then tasked the goblins with building a home on it and thanks to the speed of magical building they were done within two weeks.

Even as they had laid the foundations for his home he had them install a magically sliding roof in the ground and into a hidden cavern specifically dug behind the house and then, under the cover of night, had flown his ship into it.

He had then had them ward it to hell and back though it had cost him around half his gold. Harry was aware that it might be considered overkill but, he reflected, that it wasn't paranoia if people were actually out to get you. Harry had no doubt that his enemies would look for him eventually whether it was Voldemort, the Sith or someone that he hadn't yet met.

He had, wary of changing time, told the Goblin Nation as little as he could about himself. He did get the distinct impression that he hadn't been completely successful. He had, had many years to practice his skills in misdirection and bargaining but the goblins were literally born to it.

As his amulet had not heated up during the telling of his tale and as the ship was now safely hidden and set up for calculating temporal probabilities he was reasonably certain that he hadn't destroyed the future or caused a random black hole to spontaneously appear in the skies above him he believed that he hadn't destroyed the future. He did understand however that reasonably was a very subjective term and that unfortunately it was the best he was going to get.

God he hated time travel.

Still, despite his time with both the Sith and the Jedi he was aware that he needed more training in his magical gifts. Sure he could use his (almost pathetically small) range of spells both wordlessly and without much in the way of gestures but still that did not make him a fully trained wizard. He was also aware that just trying to experiment with magic and make do was not only foolhardy but incredibly dangerous. He was now more in touch with his magic than he had ever been before but all the power in the world would be useless if he did not know how to use it.

Hogwarts was of course out of the question due to its proximity to so much that Harry could change by accident and yet he could not bring himself to be far from his birth country despite that and so he found himself heading to Calais and the relatively young (it had only been open fifty years) Beauxbatons Academy of Magic.

Common wisdom placed Beauxbatons high in the Pyrenees Mountains and that error was by design because, though the Academy had powerful wards, it's defences were not yet fully charged and somewhat untested. The fact that anyone who was looking for the place would be searching entirely the wrong section in France went a good way to helping keep it safe.

They even went so far as to have new students take a secrecy oath about its location and any prospective students parents were not allowed to know where it was only where they could safely pick up their children. That simple misdirection made Harry grin even as it caused him to once again muse on mankind's stupidity. After all if it was where people thought it was no secrecy oath he would be needed.

The fact that only the most wealthy of magical families in France sent their children to the new school and demanded the utmost level of protection for their heirs had nothing to do with it of course.

Thanks to the remaining wealth that he had brought with him the Nation had, for a fee, provided not only the paperwork for an 'orphaned' Roland to attend but had also promised to update Harry Potter's relevant scores when the time came citing secret personal tuition.

It helped that, in the future, many would believe that The Boy Who Lived would have already had that anyway. As a rule the best tutors were held under strict secrecy oaths to never reveal the names of their clients and, even in this day and age, many were under the employ of Gringotts as curse breakers.

From the banks point of view it saved time and money if their employees could receive on the job training and, as no one knew what dangers they could face in a tomb, they were trained in a wide variety of fields. Many would not question this, given all that, and those that did would meet a dead end due to Gringotts. Ministry records, in Harry's case, would even show the supposed dates that he got qualifications but not who actually taught him.

He did have an ulterior motive for choosing Beauxbatons as, from what he had been told by the Nation, where Hogwarts was currently famous for its Transfiguration lessons (and to a lesser extent Charms) and Durmstrang was famous for the Dark Arts classes Beauxbatons was famous for Runes courses. In Harry's time both Hogwarts and Beauxbatons would lose those distinctions with the former becoming famous for nothing, though they were a sort of jack of all trades, and the latter becoming famous for certain less used (and some might say) useless Charms.

Given the amount that Harry had used runes and other similar talents during his time in the wider Galaxy it made a lot of sense for him to go there instead of anywhere else and when he felt the inevitable pangs of homesickness for a Hogwarts that did not yet exist it would become a great comfort to him to know that he was working towards something important in the best place that he could.

In all of the counties that housed the famous schools there were other lesser schools but the quality of their education was slap dash at best, never was the adage you get what you pay for more apparent, as they were truly subpar. They were also almost never hired by institutions such as Gringotts or served as Royal Advisors as it simply was more trouble than it was worth to train them to a reasonable standard.

Also if he went to Hogwarts or Durmstrang and managed to grow comfortable there he might one day run into Dumbledore or Grindelwald and he couldn't overstate how bad it could be if he ever met either or both of those men.

With a side trip to a French wandmaker by the name of Piers Josse for a new wand he began to gather his school supplies. The whole experience was almost surreal for Harry as he couldn't help but think back to his first shopping trip with Hagrid and he found that, now being back on Earth, memories that were long buried so that he could not only function but thrive were suddenly shunted to the forefront of his mind.

His new wand was surprisingly not holly but a twelve inch ebony and, when the wandmaker had started to look for a core, one of the phoenixes from Spero had appeared in a flash of fire and Whimsy (as that was her name) had donated a single solitary feather.

Harry had tried his best to look as gobsmacked as the wandmaker and, not needing any other surprises given both his wand and his uncertain emotional state, had quietly and quickly left after paying his bill and had ordered all his other supplies as well as a small mountain of other books through the Goblins.

Thinking of the Goblins they knew that he had some form of Philosophers Stone, Harry had smiled as their jaws dropped at that and though Harry himself had never called it that he had not corrected them when they had done so.

They also knew that he had been off the planet at some point and that he was a Potter by blood and did not want that known at this precise time. They had understood after thinking about it for some time especially when taking into account the fact that he was a time traveller. They had promised to mask his particular parentage until the time was right and to merge his accounts on the morning of Harry Potter's chronological sixteenth birthday. They even did something to the owl post system so that he could receive it under his assumed name.

It would only take one slip up after all for someone to notice that Roland Vauquelin was receiving mail under the name of Harry Potter. Once again those were questions that he did not need to answer.

The architecture of Beauxbatons had Harry wondering if Walt Disney had either been a squib or once had wizards in his bloodline as it looked like a thinner and slightly more ethereal and delicate version of the castle that he vaguely remembered from sneaking looks at the disney films Dudley watched when they were both younger. It's white beauty with blue trimmings was a stark contrast to the rolling green fields that surrounded it.

Unlike Hogwarts in later years there was no Hogwarts express to take the first years to the school and so most were Apparirated by their parent to out of the way locations to then be picked up by teachers or seventh years or used a portkey from inside their local Gringotts branch. Brooms were out of the question as, even in this day and age, they would quickly negate any attempts at secrecy. At the time that Harry started the only muggle that was aware of the location of Beauxbatons was the French King and even he was only aware of its general location.

Harry, as an orphan, had only one logical option and so he took a Gringotts issued portkey. Thanks to the mutual trust that was in place between Gringotts and Harry however he was able to take it from his home.

It deposited him in the antechamber along with the other first years and he was again hit with a wave of nostalgia as he found himself looking around at the other eleven year old first years with an experienced adult eye. He was also hit, once again, with a wave of nostalgia and longing as he couldn't help but remember his first sorting.

He realised, that for the first time in a long time, how much he missed Hogwarts. Despite the deep reservations that he had in regards the Headmaster Dumbledore and his ever growing hatred of Snape Hogwarts was, and still remained, the first place that he had ever called home.

The differences between Beauxbatons and Hogwarts were welcome as they managed to take his mind off of his memories.

For all that he missed it Hogwarts was, at its core, an English castle that doubled as a school but as learning increased the focus on defence began to shift from both magic and more traditional methods to wards as they improved to take up the slack as it were.

This meant that Hogwarts was hardly homely. It was an often cold and drafty place in winter and the stone walls cast shadows along many corridors and a fair few of their resources were tied to the physical structure protecting the old designs from decay as magic had been imbued into the stones later rather than at the start.

Beauxbatons on the other hand was, for its time, a marvel of modern magic. Where Hogwarts was sometimes gloomy Beauxbatons was the opposite. Using a mixture of runes, glass and charms it was almost a bastion of light. The interior was of white marble and lush deep carpets and Harry couldn't help but wonder if this was where the Goblin Nation got the idea for their bank as he assumed that they had a hand in its construction.

The entirety of the interior of Beauxbatons was made to seem light and airy because of this, with wide arches in the corridors and thin resilient beams that (thanks to magic) held up the impossible weight of the castle. There were murals on almost every ceiling of astounding beauty and charmed heating stones imbedded like mini portable heaters in the walls for the rare occasion that it got too cold.

Wealth was also apparent here as the archways were edged with gold and the walls, instead of having portraits, were lined with priceless ceiling of their great hall for example was a magical reproduction of Giotto's fresco cycle in the Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel.

To Harry it all stemmed from one fundamental difference between Hogwarts and Beauxbatons. Hogwarts was and always would be a castle that held within it a magical school whereas Beauxbatons was a school that couldn't even exist without magic that just so happened to be in the shape of an idealised castle.

The first years waited in the antechamber together until individually their names were called. As the school was only fifty years old, there were as of yet no ghosts to break the tense silence.

Harry fidgeted in his new tailored robes. The robes were the schools traditional shade of blue but they had (In hidden pockets on both the left and right side of his body) his lightsabers.

This was because, despite all of the good memories that he associated with Hogwarts, he was still painfully aware of the amount of times his life had been in danger there and though he didn't think it likely he wanted to be prepared regardless. This led him to keep his lightsabers close to hand so that he would not be unarmed even if, for whatever reason, he was without his wand and ring.

The only thing of note that had been explained to the first years as they were led into the chamber by Deputy Guarin (a short kindly looking wizard that, though he lacked the mixed parentage, reminded Harry strongly of Professor Flitwick) was the school houses of Beauxbatons and the Arch.

The Arch was an ingenious application of magic as well as being the French schools answer to Hogwarts Sorting Hat. As you entered the main hall you were to stop just past the door and in that way you would enter the Arch which, on the first day of term, was placed just past the main doors after all students but the first years had been seated. It would then scan your mind and assign you to one of the seven Beauxbatons houses.

The seven houses of the school were named after one of the seven Knightly virtues. These virtues were Courage (symbolised by a figure fearlessly facing a dragon), Justice (a set of scales), Mercy (symbolised by two hands clasped with one seemingly lifting the other), Generosity (an open hand spilling coins), Faith (a figure in a traditional monk's cassock kneeling in prayer), Nobility (a unicorn's head) and Hope (a phoenix in flight).

Harry found it strange for a moment that a school would place such emphasis on the Knightly Virtues until he remembered the long lived nature of wizards. Given that it was quite possible that some of the students families, especially their grandparents, could easily remember Camelot and Arthur who was the first and only wizard King.

Harry could not help but sympathize with that idea due to the fact that he, as a time traveller, was more than aware of the slide into disagreement and political infighting that the Wizarding world would one day fall into. To a certain extent, he realised, it wasn't a bad idea to try and keep the memory of a time when everyone was united under an efficient rule and to try and cherish the ideals of that time.

He did find it privately amusing that, given the historic bad blood between the two nations, that a French school would be trying in some small way to remember and honour an English King wizard or not.

Due to the fact that his alias was quite low on the alphabet he had to wait some time before his name was called. At length however it was and he strode towards and into the Arch with a purposeful gait.

As he moved to do so however he noticed that the students that were already sorted had the symbols of their new houses stitched (he assumed magically) on the left breast of their robes.

He found himself wondering, in that short walk, why he had never seen these symbols on the robes of the students invited to take part in the Triwizard Tournament. He would think more about it later and eventually come to the conclusion that they were purposefully lacking to promote a sense of school unity and togetherness while competing with the two other schools.

He also vowed to himself that, if the tournament was running during this time, not only would he never enter it but he would make sure that he was at least on the other side of the school from the Goblet of Fire if it was Beauxbatons turn to host the event. He had no intention or desire to ever be part of that again and the fame that would come with it would be detrimental to his plans.

Where the Sorting Hat of Hogwarts spoke in words this Arch, made out of white marble inlaid with gold filled runes, was more of a comforting presence and at first that soothed him until he realised that it had easily pierced his Occlumency barriers.

He found himself trying to quell a moment of panic then even as he found himself wondering if the Arch would be able to tell anyone his unique history.

He sighed almost inaudibly when he received a cold and negative feeling in response. He got the impression that all though it was not alive and, more to the point incapable of it, the Arch was still offended by the idea. At this moment however Harry was far too relieved to care much though he would feel oddly sorry about offending it later.

He, not a split second later, also got the distinct impression that the Arch wouldn't even remember his details once it was finished and that the simple reason that it could breach his barriers was the fact that it was not human or, in a traditional sense, even had a mind.

He felt no presence rooting around his memories for ideas or images which was a pleasant surprise. In fact all he could feel was the almost constant sense of comfort that he had gotten from the very first moment he had entered the device. Regardless of that in the span of another second it had decided where he belonged.

It was like that, with a sense of reassurance and comfort, that Harry Potter alias Roland Vauquelin an orphan boy that no one had ever heard of entered Beauxbatons as a member of the House of Justice.

His education in magic had truly and finally begun.