Chapter 22: First Blood
Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover
Chapter 22: First Blood
A/N: it's my birthday on the 25th and I'm moving by the 8th so the next chapter might be a little late...depending on the surprise my wife has planned... also as a belated birthday present to me does anyone want to do me favourand re-edit the first 5-7 chapters. PM me if yes... I wouldn't ask but things are busy hereand I don't know if or when I'll get round to it. Cheers GC
25th of June 2000
A week later Harry had kept true to his word and either spent his time gathering and bleeding her Seer's gift into the minor ley line that ran under Bluestone or beginning to teach her the basics of the Force. In the few moments that he had free he either read up on more magic with Luna sitting quietly near him or talking with her about everything and anything. It was a peaceful moment, the calm before the storm, and from his perspective he intended to enjoy it as much as he could.
To Luna's perspective the time went both badly and very well.
It went badly because, over the course of the week, she had begun to lose the ability to see her creatures to such an extent that, where they were once vivid in her mind, they were now only faint outlines and shadows of what they used to be. Still though this was bad, even heartbreaking to her, she had expected it, although she did wish that it hadn't happened she still understood that it was necessary.
On the plus side for her Harry had lent her (after turning down the power settings) his silver hilted sapphire blade to begin to learn the most basic of the lightsaber movements and she was progressing very well according to Harry.
It was more than that to her though, she knew, as it was almost like she had been half asleep all this time and only now had she just begun to wake up. The Force and magic sang in her blood even as she moved through the basic repetitions of lightsaber combat she often felt her mind quieten under the repetitive swings and slashes she could feel both gifts throughout her very body and even her very soul.
When she confessed this feeling to Harry he had surprised her by admitting that the Force did not feel as close to him as his magic did. He had reassured her by saying that the difference in feeling between the two was negligible and probably had something to do with the fact that his Force affinity, though stronger than hers, was not a natural thing.
Her basic training did differ from Harry's in one significant way however due to the fact that when he was introduced to the Force he had learned the Dark Side first under the Sith's corrupt tutelage. Both she and Harry agreed that, although the knowledge was dangerous, willingly limiting yourself to one side or the other was simply too restricting. Far better, they reasoned, to take the approach of the Je'daii of old.
That being said the dangers were very real and though he had learnt the Dark Side first it was their joint decision that she (and any student that may eventually follow afterwards) would start at the very least with a very basic grounding knowledge of the Light Side before they began to battle the temptation and dark quagmire that was the other side of the Force.
Today was the day, thought Harry, that everything will change.
It started that morning with the goblins entering Bluestone in small groups and, as they passed him, they gave him smiles (or at least the goblin equivalent) and sometimes a small wave but otherwise didn't speak. They knew what was about to happen so no words were necessary and some had even waited many years for this very day.
At the same time Gringotts British branches management was handed over to a skeleton crew of French goblins until the end of the business day. Once these goblins were done with the final business of the day the branch would become a hive of activity as it closed for the last time. All spare goblins within the range of a portkey (which were quite a few) would painstakingly move all of the fortunes of Wizarding Britain into similar Vaults in France.
The goblins that had once run the branch would become the very first colonists of any sort, though hopefully not the last, to move to and fully settle on Fide making the planet their home. To that end each goblin carried one backpack of personal items and, included in their ship, would be samples of all the foodstuffs that they normally grew as well as a complete copy of their history as a clan of Gringotts.
This was the deal that Harry had worked out with them so very long ago.
With the repressive nature of the European Ministries (though Britain was the worst) the Nation was experiencing diminishing returns from their original treaty which was a big factor in them deciding to agree. There was also the fact that, at their core, each new treaty amendment (that was often followed by a 'Goblin Rebellion') that was proposed and backed, at least in theory, by the full might of the I.C.W meant that they were slowly completely losing the freedom that they as a people so longed for.
That was not to say that Harry's offer was either unconditional or completely satisfactory to the goblins but, compared to their treatment by the European Ministries, it was more than fair and (more importantly to them) left them room to grow as a people. More than that they would get a voice in the new government that was forming around the terraformed or claimed planets and get to experiment with, within reason, new materials and substances that they hadn't heard of before.
The final reason for them to agree was that they had their own Seers that not only enabled the Nation to determine that the offer was both genuine and beneficial but also foretold many battles in Harry's future. If there was one thing that the Goblin Nation had missed when they had begun to be bankers, aside from Goblin Rebellions of course, it was the desire to prove themselves in battle. According to their Seers Harry was to be part of a battle that was far far larger and further reaching than any that they had ever been a part of and the idea of that stirred their blood on a deep instinctual level.
They were more than eager to be a part of that, though they did not allow that eagerness to show in their negotiations as, even though they were only bankers by treaty, it was the goblins desire to be the best at whatever they turned their hand to that made them so effective as well as their general love of precious metals that made them so good. They had little desire to be bankers beyond that and their famous skill at both contracts and investment were more of a by product rather than a calling.
They were effective more because they approached anything they did with the same ruthlessness that they would have approached warfare.
On Fide although they would be bankers they wouldn't be the only ones and could truly be warriors again and test their skills against worthy opponents. The fact that they would be bankers didn't bother them all that much as they, in the main, viewed it almost as a service teaching others how to do the job properly so they eventually didn't have to. That was not to say there weren't goblins who enjoyed banking, they were as diverse as any other species after all, merely that they were a very small minority.
Then the 'New' Elves started to appear.
Harry wasn't sure what to call them as they themselves hadn't picked a name yet but they too quickly ushered themselves to the waiting ships that were designed almost as carbon copies of the Homeward Bound being modified Dynamic class freighters with inbuilt stealth and cloaking systems.
Their exodus from Wizarding Britain would have probably caused a much greater fuss if they still looked like House Elves. Thankfully they did not and all it took was a hooded cloak over their tall forms for the oblivious wizards to basically ignore them.
Harry couldn't help but take a moment to wonder if what they looked like now was anything like what they had looked like before whatever cataclysm that had happened that caused them to need wizard magic to survive.
After all, long before the Lord of the Rings was written, there were legends of the tall, graceful and beautiful elves especially among the Norse. Harry even remembered that, when he had first met the creatures, he had been disappointed that their forms were so different from his idea of elves based on literature.
There were no easy answers to why they were the way they appeared now as, he knew, though it could have been their natural form from before, Ritual Magic was very tricky and fluid as it heavily depended on the desire and intent of the caster. In the end it was just as likely that it was a wholly new form, their original remade or simply Harry's subconscious that reformed their bodies in such a fashion.
I doubt, Harry thought, that any elf will tell me just because they have new bodies that free them from being reliant on wizards and the fact that I am curious if they know at all.
Dobby popped in at that moment and interrupted his thoughts as he was now ready to lead his people to their new home in New Atlantis which they would be sharing with the humans that had already settled there.
The elves new forms had them no longer diminutive but rather topping six feet with an average of six foot four for the males and just under six foot for the females. Their ears were now almost completely human looking with only the hint of a pointed tip and their hair was now long, down to their shoulders, and generally brown or blond with the occasional black headed elf added to the mix. Their faces, once slightly odd and even pitiable in Harry's eyes, were now beautiful to behold with their main eye colours being purple, blue or a light amber. They were still very slender and, as hoped, still retained their ability to pop like the House Elves they once were. This though was almost an echo, a memory, of what they were rather than any real connection to any magic that they might have left.
Dobby himself was an exception for his transformed race (possibly because he was the first or something to do with Harry's blood) in that he topped almost six foot eight and, while he had long dark brown hair, he had silver eyes rather than the other more common colours that Harry had seen from the rest of his race. The face that greeted him may have been new to Harry but the expression it held was pure Dobby in that it was still open, honest and friendly.
"Dobby?" Harry asked, uncertain still with all the changes despite his facial expression what reception he would receive from his old friend.
"Hello my friend" Even Dobby's voice had changed and not just the vocabulary as it was now like captured musical notes in it's tone and, like everything else these New Elves had, was beautiful to him.
"You've changed more than I thought" Harry observed "even your grasp of the English Language is better".
"An unintended side effect of the change I am sure. Some do miss our old way of speaking as it, among other things, defined who and what we were for so long… but at least I can talk to you in full and proper sentences now" Dobby answered with a smile.
"So...no hard feelings Dobby?" Harry asked rather quietly and with no small amount of trepidation.
"No. Although our bond may now be broken I did partially bond with you when I chose to protect you from my former master. Though it was never fully completed I did get flashes of what you planned once you returned as well as your fear for my brothers and sisters. I know you felt like you had no choice and, though the insight from the bond faded when it did, I still remember my own surety and conviction that it was the right thing to do. The guilt you felt then, and now most likely, is unnecessary".
"So you are going with your people then?" asked Harry changing the subject and ignoring the subject of guilt.
Harry was sad but in all honesty not all that surprised as Dobby, being the agent of the Great Change to them, would either be seen as a horror or a hero. Harry was only glad it was the latter and logically his own people did need him more than Harry at the moment.
"Yes" replied Dobby earnestly "I would like to stay with you but I can't. My people are still discovering what this new existence means as well as being free. Including children there are almost six thousand of us and, even with your magically expanded ships, it will take several trips to move all my people and I can't leave them".
"And I would never ask you to my friend" Harry said quickly understanding that he couldn't ask his friend for more and to do so would cause him pain as he was inevitably refused.
"We did decide on one thing though" Harry's eyebrows rose in interest " as we are not bound any longer we decided that we should have last names both because it was time and to set ourselves apart. Mine is Silver" Dobby's voice turned small and vulnerable "Do you like it?".
"I think" Harry said slowly and in a warm voice while smiling "that I will enjoy having Mr Silver as my friend as much as I always have...maybe even more" Dobbys response surprised Harry as he moved forward and then slowly engulfed him in a hug before stepping back and looking at his friend once again.
"It's all coming to a head now isn't it?" Asked Dobby shrewdly.
"Yes" replied Harry darkly "it is. I'm not sure how far I should go though".
Harry had enough guilt weighing on him and he was wary off adding more if he could avoid it and Dobby could see that conflict, that fear, on his friends face. Often Harry had to wear a mask of confidence and surety to act but now Dobby saw part of the conflict that his friend must have gone through many times before now.
Given that Dobby thought about his response for a long moment and slowly came to a decision on what he was going to say to his friend about his choices.
"All life, all magic, is about balance. Every single House Elf not only knows this without being told as they feel it with every breath they have. The people of the Wizarding World have forgotten this lesson for far too long and, far from being free of it, the debt that they incur by ignoring that fact only increases. It is compounded by every generation that dismisses it and rather than it being excused their world is further thrown out of harmony".
"You have grown very eloquent in your time away" interrupted Harry causing Dobby to blush.
"House Elves could always think. Long ago the wizards stopped listening to us and then ordered us to never share our unsolicited thoughts on pain of death for us and our children. They did this so often that, I'm afraid, it became as ingrained on our character as our dependence on magic and our speech though the last was their idea as well. They did not want servants that were smarter than them (at least at some points) or that warned them of a doom that they believed would never come".
"I'm shocked" harry said with a healthy dose of sarcasm lacing his voice.
"Quite" chucked Dobby "still my point is simple. You recognize the balance of life and, with all that you have suffered, deserve a little happiness. When the two chessmasters and the Wizarding World realise that you won't play by their arbitrary rules, nothing else will matter to them except forcing you to. Not your hopes, not your dreams or your free will as they will have it their way no matter the cost. They don't even respect the Universes balance of life and magic and so they will never stop trying to force their desires upon you. Anything that happens to them, any of them, because of this is a debt or ignoring other responsibilities that are overdue for payment is their fault not yours. Strike hard, strike fast and leave confusion in your wake. Not only might you get a little happiness in the end but you might actually live long enough to teach some of us about this new power of ours".
"I'd be happy to" replied Harry "when did you get so philosophical?"
"I am 384 years old" Dobby shrugged clearly amused "maybe it's my midlife crisis setting in? Besides I am bound by oath to be truthful, enforced by magic or not, we intend to keep our oaths, all elves do. We also do listen, we have always listened, and I truly believe that under these circumstances my people will enjoy being free".
Harry walked his friend to his ship, the last to leave in the first wave, as the next ship to arrive would be the newly restored and refitted Patience that would be ready to leave whenever Harry was and he couldn't help but ask one more question.
"How can you tell if I am in balance?" he asked.
"I can't...not now anyway. House Elves can though and it is something that they always know as it is as easy for them to know that as it is for you to look up and tell the colour of the sky. Why do you think so many of us trusted you and turned up at Bluestone in the first place?".
"I almost wish that you were here to watch their reaction as the Wizarding World awakens to the knowledge that 85% of the House Elves of Britain have up and vanished without a trace".
"So do I. Do me a favour? Give the Malfoy's hell would you?" requested Dobby.
"If I can. I'd do anything for you my friend" was Harry's honest and heartfelt response.
"I'm counting on it Harry".
With that Dobby boarded his ship and left, swiftly disappearing as the ship rippled and became undetectable to sight and earth's machines due to its cloak, and Harry looked towards where he knew it once was and couldn't help but wish his friend well.
Before Harry could do anything, say anything else or return to training Luna he staggered into the wall as soon as his friend had left his line of sight as a minor vision from the Force struck him and, even as it swept over him, he couldn't help a rueful thought.
Why me, he thought, many Jedi go their entire lives without a single vision and I seem to keep getting them.
"Luna?!" Harry called and at the worry in his voice she came running.
"Yes Harry?" She asked with her cheeks flushed and, Harry noticed somewhat guilty, her chest covered in sweat and heaving from both her workout and running into the room.
"I have to go. Keep practicing your exercises until I return". He tried not to order her, or be unduly harsh, but the power of the vision made his head ache and his voice strained.
"How long will you be?" She asked concerned at the seriousness that she saw written all over Harry's face.
"I shouldn't be more than a few hours" he said. While doing this he had made sure that his armour was on, his bracer ready and and his Sorosuub, loaded with darts in it's launcher, was strapped to his leg at his side, and both his ebony wand was in a holster on the underside of his right wrist and his ring on his left hand middle finger.
Sensing that perhaps this was something both important and time sensitive Luna held in the questions that she clearly wanted to ask.
Instead she simply moved forward and lightly hugged Harry as softly as she could. In those few moments they didn't express their undying love for each other, the relationship was too complex and currently too ill defined for such a loaded declaration, but each did simply take comfort in the presence of the other. Given what he knew about what was about to happen (and the risks involved) Harry took solace in that and used it to strengthen himself for what was coming.
"I'll make lunch for us both for when you return" she said with a surety that reinforced the idea that he was going to come home safe and sound. He fully intended for that hope to be realised and to enjoy a relaxing lunch with Luna especially as he had no idea if his blood bags would work from halfway across a galaxy and even less inclination to find out.
Stepping back he composed himself and placed his old mask on his face. With a small nod he popped away until the only sound in the house was Luna beginning to make lunch and humming to herself while unsuccessfully trying to keep her thoughts on her task and away from wherever Harry went because when she thought about it she sensed only darkness.
To Harry's mage sight the island before him was a blight to magic pulsing like an black angry blister on the world. The seven different ley lines that fed the island were almost like seven great rivers of pure white with rainbow flecks falling into a massive open plug hole with the great abyss of nothingness at the center swallowing all the power both greedily and endlessly
This was the island of Azkaban and, what later would be called, Azkaban Prison.
Like what had happened to the House Elves in the distant past the rumours and legends swirled around the island like so much thick obscuring smoke so that no one was certain how the island was formed in the first place. The Goblin Nation most likely knew at one point, as their civilization was experimenting with the printed word when humans were first slinking out of their caves, but as they had next to nothing to do with the island they had never recorded it.
It would have been like a cowboy describing a horse or a man describing the light that shines from the stars in that it would be intellectually interesting but ultimately pointless and goblins were not known for ever, in their long history, recording anything that was trivial to them.
The Wizarding World had many ideas and dark legends about how the island and the Dementors had come into being. The most popular and the most widely accepted had to do with the fall of Atlantis and the dark times that had followed for the early survivors of that cataclysm.
After Atlantis had fallen beneath the waves, so the story went, the few wizards and witches that had caused the fall and somehow managed to survive were imprisoned there only after being cursed by the last, and greatest, king as he died. So great was he, this unnamed king, that it was believed that his grasp of magic would dwarf that of Merlin himself. No story recounted what happened to the very few, if any, innocent Magi of Atlantis that managed to escape.
There they stayed, not physically held but marooned on the dark isle until they died. Then, long after that, came Ekrizdis (mad wizard that he was) who had created his fortress out of the very bones of the land on the island. After he had done so it was believed that he had tried to resurrect the long dead and cursed Atlanteans and in that way the Dementors were born into their tortured existence.
Whether it was the mad wizards intent to create them or the curse of the last King of Atlantis remained both unclear and a subject of much debate among what passed for wizarding scholars. What was agreed on by all was that these things were once wizards who had either been reborn or reanimated in the darkest of ways and had only one thing on their mind in this new and agonising existence.
Their hunger was a deep and unending. Their need for human souls was a fire that never could be quenched and so they roamed unsatisfied and in constant pain. They were supervised by a Warden who, like most wizards, took the easy way and not only didn't reside on the island but only visited once a month accompanied by a squad of nervous Aurors.
Though the Ministry had plans to replace the Dementors stewardship of the island and their purpose as the primary jailers of the worst of their society, aside from not knowing where to move the Dementors, they had not yet done so for two understandable (yet to Harry's mind at least) inexcusable reasons.
The first was that the Ministry had been corrupt for far far too long, perhaps since the adoption of the Statue of Secrecy, and they tended to run on bribes wherever possible. So, even though it was a security risk, the people that could have enforced a change had other things to do which kept bumping down the issue on their own personal lists of things to do which of course meant it moved down the order of Ministry business as well.
After all to their minds, if someone asked them to do something with a healthy 'donation' they were of course given immediate service as that was part and parcel of the privilege.
The second was also monetary, but had little to do with bribes, simply put the Dementors never needed paying and therefore aside from the Warden and a rotating squad of Aurors that guarded him and delivered inmates as well as food no funds were required to be set aside for the running of the prison.
Worse for the corrupt officials of the present era there was supposed to be a slush fund set aside for the payment of guards and the maintenance of the prison but, as it turned out, at some point after its inception the majority of that money had been diverted to some influential and 'proper' families every month for an appropriate fee.
The Ministry was trying its hardest to stop that particular fact (and the massive scandal that would ensue) from coming out for as long as possible and were therefore actively avoiding discussing the issue for as long as possible especially as the Ministry was effectively an oligarchy that had some of those same families still in power.
This meant that as soon as Harry appeared on the corner of the island, on the edge of its cliffs, he began to feel the debilitating effects of the Dementors almost immediately and although he no longer had an extra piece of Voldemort's soul in his scar, which of course had made him a much more appetizing meal to the Dementors, he was still free and outside of the specifically warded (the wards composition was another thing lost to time) cages that kept them from feasting on their prisoners.
In effect he was a veritable buffet to a starving man and all of the dark creatures on Azkaban were already converging on him with the need to be first as there would not, could not, be any sharing. Whatever the truth of their creation they were now need driven creatures that were wholly and utterly twisted by the dark energies that both maintained and consumed them.
When the first arrived, ahead of a swarm of others (with the speed that they were travelling it was impossible to get an accurate number), Harry tried to push it back with the Force to no effect. He then quickly summoned Prongs which at his wordless command managed to canter in a slow circle around him and kept both the debilitating effects and the lone Dementor away for the moment.
Harry knew that it had next to no chance at keeping the horde away though and cursed inwardly that one of the few runic schemes that he had been unable to learn was the one that kept the Dementors at bay.
It seemed that they were another brainchild of the late and unlamented Ekrizdis and no one, especially Harry, had ever been suicidal enough or keen enough to move the temperamental beasts into their own homes to try and study exactly what made the wards work so they could be recreated or find other ways to stop them.
For one thing most wizards wouldn't even try because, frankly, they were lazy. They had the patronus and it had worked well for centuries and so like all good traditionalists they had looked no further. Added to that even for Harry dying was one thing, a large and inconvenient gamble as his blood bag was in stasis halfway across the Galaxy, but losing your soul was another matter entirely.
So, even as his ring summoned his patronus he drew his black hilted viridian blade as an added form of protection even as he thought about what he might do.
The problem with Dementors, Harry thought, is that the dark magic that made (or cursed) the fucking leeches protects them from every physical attack anyone has ever thrown at them. Although my blade is made of plasma (and it was one of the five fundamental states of matter according to some of the Department of Mysteries published papers with the fifth being magic) so it should help me do some damage it'll still be next to useless in trying to fend off the horde. Life is about balance after all... that's what Dobby said... and if they are immune to physical attacks and mostly immune to magical ones it stands to reason that they would be weak to another fundamental force. If not then I'm in for a world of hurt… at best.
Similarly his patronus, Harry knew, while able to corral a good amount of them under good conditions could not conceivably protect him from all angles and there had never been a single instance of any one wizard casting multiple patroni at any one time. Added to that they only drove Dementors away temporarily and even if he could drive them all away its effects would most likely be diluted and exhaust him for no reason as they could be right back at him as soon as it faded.
Thanks to the makeup of Azkaban his magic felt slow and sluggish almost as if it was half asleep and it felt like he was trying to wake it up from a comatose state even before the Dementors got close to him.
There was hope though, Harry concluded, even as the lone Dementor circled around Prongs. There was a much more common and useful form of plasma that was known to have a detrimental effect on some spirits and it gave him an idea.
It was stupid and reckless to be testing it out under these circumstances but he was aware that certain almost intangible creatures that were borderline dark, like Poltergeists such as Peeves, were susceptible to certain energy disruptions.
The more readily available form of plasma, the thing that disrupted them and did so badly, was lightning. Although this was a known weakness for Poltergeists it did not kill them rather it just disrupted their physical forms for a time though it could be weeks, even years, before they managed to reform themselves.
Ghosts were different as they were an imprint and, much more than a moving painting, were almost a literal echo of the person that they once were. They however were much more susceptible to magic and there was a whole branch of magic dedicated to dealing with unruly spirits of that type. Still Ghosts were rarely an issue as they, unlike Poltergeists, couldn't actually touch anything though both could interact in other ways such as speech.
Harry was betting that Dementors had more in common with Poltergeists than Ghosts as he began to summon as much Force Lightning as he could without losing himself to the seductive nature of the Dark Side. The unique makeup of his phoenix tear enhanced blood helped in this endeavor greatly increasing his physical resistance to the damaging effects of the Dark Side of the Force.
Harry would normally be wary of using too much even given its nature but considering the twisted nature of his enemies it was far too simple, even easy, for him to summon a great deal of hatred for them. That did not mean that the constant accumulation of energy was not causing portions of his hands and arms to crack, blister and break open due to the effects of so much lightning (it caused him so much pain that he had to bite his lip to keep from screaming in fact) more that his body was healing as quickly as it was damaged.
It also seemed to strike some primal half buried fear in the prowling Dementor as, regardless of the protective nature of Prongs, it recklessly charged as soon as the smallest gap appeared in its defensive circuit around him.
Stepping to one side and carefully maintaining his lightning for the horde with one hand as he waited for them to get closer for maximum effect was not easy but he managed it. With his now free hand he activated and swiftly thrust his lightsaber into the middle of the charging Dementors chest.
The blade of pure plasma pierced cleanly through the entirety of the things chest and Harry heard something then that, as far as he was aware, no one had ever heard before. The noise that rushed out from under the things hood was nothing short of bone chilling agony and its screech would ring in his nightmares for years.
Its long arms lunged forward with its pale hands and long dark claw like nails reaching for the hilt of the weapon that currently was impaled within it. From underneath the hood the screeching increased to such an intensity that it almost made Harry's ears bleed and, between on heartbeat and the next, the wound that he caused with his blade began to hiss black smoke as the Dementor began to seemingly turn into black sand.
Still he managed, if only barely, to keep building the Force Lightning in his hand.
Barely a second later that was all that remained of it. Harry then turned to the baleful dark cloaked mass and the almost physical sense of wrongness, hatred and hunger that they exuded into the cold air.
He couldn't help but wonder then if the stories were true. Back in Atlantis, it was said, magic was naturally more like wet clay ready to be molded and shaped by the people of that doomed island. They had, after all, created the Veela and attempted to turn their first creation the Centaurs to minding the future for them. Who knew what else they had created back then or what they might have created if Atlantis had not been destroyed by their own arrogance and folly.
All of the time the lightning that he continually summoned was growing almost like a living thing and it reached from his ring hand up to his neck across his broad chest and down to the tip of his lightsaber on the other side. It snarled outward like some great angry animal lashing its fury deep into the cold air. When the approaching swarm was close enough he unleashed it upon them like the myths of Zeus in his fury.
The lightning that he summoned, despite the damage to him, almost seemed to arch playfully over his flesh was released in a ever widening stream of fury and was the embodiment of his denial of their power and his disgust at their very existence. The closed fist that directed it was his gauntlet thrown down against them, against the dark manipulations that had plagued his life, and the scream that came from his mouth as it moved was both gut wrenching and a verbal assault against the dark oblivion that came for him.
The swarm seemed to shudder like a great wounded beast under the relentless assault even as Harry began to feel his hatred being purged as it traveled along with the lightning towards its target. The swarm seemed to buckle under the strain of the attack. As Harry had hoped the lightning seemed to destroy a fair few of them as the air around Harry suddenly became thick with the black dust that made up their remains.
Strangely, rather than feel disgusted, Harry felt more and more purged by the second. He felt cleaner as he expelled the great hatred that he had felt (and had grown) unknowingly for as long as he had realised that he was being manipulated. Still he poured more of the lightning, more of his darkness, into them, being more determined now more than ever to see them end.
Far from being deterred by the death of their fellows however this act seemed to enrage the Dementors and make them more than a little reckless. Their speed of approach increased at the cost of scores and scores of their evil bretherns lives.
Harry himself was feeling the strain as well both physically and mentally. The mental effects for him were the worst however as to control the Sith Lightning and keep his Patronus required both intense focus and an old Je'daii technique combined with the judicious use of occlumency to keep both emotionally charged (not to mention polar opposite) attacks running. On top of that the seductive siren song of the Dark Side was only growing in his head as he kept the lightning going and he knew the delicate balance could not be held for long.
It was effectively like Harry had compartmentalised his brain into two separate sections and while one fed the hatred inspired lightning that destroyed the Dementors the other ran on every single good thought or memory that he could dredge up to empower Prongs. Even for someone of Harry's unique circumstances and abilities this was beyond taxing and, if he maintained it too long, his body might fail or have a stroke and he could very well die on the shore with the cliffs of Azkaban behind him.
Allowing both Prongs and, the admittedly effective, lightning to falter as he realised that he needed to conserve his strength he reinforced his mental shields so he could better withstand the mental effects of the Dementors aura he readied himself for the remaining creatures onslaught.
As the Dementors moved in to contain what they assumed was a weakened and easy meal Harry was unsure if the creatures could feel surprise. If the twisted things could however he was sure that they did when he moved, as fast as the Force would allow him, to confront them. Harry, far from being the weakened and despondent prey that they were expecting, was like quicksilver and the barest stouches of ligning played in his otherwise empty fist even as his lightsaber hummed dangerously in the other.
He lept high, assisted by the Force, over the frontrunners and, though not an Ataru master by any stretch of the imagination, was easily able to use that to blast streams of lightning into them even as he twisted in mid air.
It only got worse for the Dementors as, when he landed, his ring hand that was coated in lightning slapped the ground at his feet from his now crouched position. The lightning splayed outwards and destroyed many who, overcome by their natures and the apparent vulnerability of his crouched position, had landed and moved in swiftly ready to fight for their food.
Then he was among them brutally utilizing both the small amount of Force Lightning left around his fist and the powerful blows from his sabre using his preferred Form V (Djem So) to cut vicious and powerful blows into his enemies.
Harry quickly learned, to his cost, that if he impaled a Dementor with his lightsaber in the torso they either took too long to die or were dealt grievous wounds that were somehow healed almost as quickly as he made them. He found himself being forced to withdraw more often that not as the sheer weight of numbers pushed him back.
Thankfully he soon learned that this rapid healing didn't apply to him removing their heads from their bodies or bisecting them right down the middle and began to adjust his attacks accordingly.
Thankfully for this period of adaptation his Force enhanced punches that were still wrapped in lightning did not suffer from the same issue. Not only did the strength of them cause them to go through the Dementors incredibly weak flesh like a hot knife through butter but, once the lightning had either overwhelmed or bypassed the cursed flesh, it seemed to hungrily and even eagerly eat them much more quickly than they could react let alone heal.
Still, despite his successes, he felt the sharp nails of their cursed hands rake both his armour and flesh deeply. He could feel that, enhanced regeneration or not, the dark wounds would take a long while to heal not only because they were deep but because they were cursed. They also bled much more than they should and each nick or cut burned as if they were on fire and were wounds three times their size.
Although the debilitating aura of the creatures stopped him from apparating around them to further maximise the damage that he could inflict, not to mention the wards against both that and portkeys that activated at the first moment of violence or magic, at length even the Dementors realised that they would most likely lose and self preservation kicked in.
As to why the wards kicked in only when they did the thinking was simple. Why ward the island to stop people both arriving and leaving when it was far more expedient to simply do the latter and leave the former until after they arrived and allow the natural tendencies of the Dementors to deal with any interlopers.
They began to flee first one by one and then in a rush as they began to flee from a bruised, bleeding and battered Harry Potter.
Summoning strength from somewhere that not even Harry himself knew, especially given the state of his magic in this place as every second he felt it trickling into the void, he summoned Prongs once again and herded the fleeing Dementors back towards him. Prong cantered back and forth in the air forcing ever decreasing waves back towards him until finally there were no more left as he had met them with both his lightsaber and lightning wrapped fist.
Every single one of the terrors that were called the Dementors of Azkaban were destroyed.
As far as Harry was aware this now made the species extinct and as much as he had wanted and could have used help none one he knew could have combated them half as effectively as he could himself. The only one that came close was Luna, given her unique gifts, but she was far from ready for a confrontation of this magnitude.
He had originally planned to send for a full battalion of droids from Spero, not that he was sure their weapons would work, but in his absence there had been an increasing amount of pirate attacks. It was not that they were a threat given the multitude of droids that he had but it did pull away resources to guard his systems that he could otherwise use.
His small grouping of planets had grown in his absence and though, at the moment, he had never visited these new worlds and they weren't yet adapted to magic they were his and deserved his protection. Spero was of course the only one with a Geo Forge as though it could copy itself the risk of misuse was high. There were now twelve other systems in his still somewhat informal alliance which totaled eighteen planets in all and also lent some urgency to finishing up here.
After all, despite the best efforts of Droid Hermione, some things like the possibility of forming a government to maintain it all should really have his personal attention given that it now involved the life of at least a few million rather than ten or fifteen thousand in the Wizarding World.
Those facts, combined with the immediacy felt within the vision he received ment he was doing this by himself.
So instead of being protected by a horde of Droids he was standing alone on a now Dementor free Azkaban and desperately trying not to think about what all the black dust in the air was made of or how much of it was in his hair, ingrained in his skin, in his wounds and most likely in his lungs.
He knew that his greatest test today was yet to come.
His lightsaber closed down as he fell to his knees and he slowly closed his eyes for a time, lightly meditating, to try and restore himself as quickly as possible. He felt the Force, uninhibited by the dark isle, fill and soothe him almost immediately.
Despite all of dark miasma in the air he felt cleansed. All of the anger that he felt was still there of course but, now that he had given it an outlet, it no longer weighed on him and he felt like he could breathe and see clearly for now.
Still, Harry thought, this is not why I came here though it was a good day's work if I do say so myself.
Then the Portkey wards were suddenly torn apart like so much confetti even as Harry rose to his feet. It was not however his doing.
Voldemort and three of his Death Eaters appeared and no doubt were intending to free their compatriots and to enlist the terrifying weapon that was the Dementors into their army as well. To say that they were shocked to feel not a single iota of their presence in their minds was the understatement of the decade (if not the century). Though of course they barely bothered Voldemort himself given the fractured nature of his soul.
The vision that he had been 'gifted' with had come true as Voldemort moved forward with three of his masked Death Eater morons ready to complete their mission, only to immediately be wary given the circumstances, and to almost straight away be faced with a masked man covered in a dark gritty sand. They couldn't actually tell that the man behind the mask was Harry Potter as, apart from the changes in his body and the dust that covered him, he was covered by both battered armour and, of course, the mask that obscured his face.
Although Voldemort had managed to smuggle out two of his most trusted for an important mission, thanks to the Dementors, and as much as Bellatrix and Rookwood would help he needed them all and even the inept Ministry would notice if all the marked Death Eaters and sympathisers disappeared. They would certainly notice the already missing pair if he didn't act soon.
"Who are you?" Demanded Voldemort in his mocking sibilant voice with his red eyes glaring at the unknown masked man.
Harry didn't reply but instead smiled behind his mask as he quickly thought through his options.
The problems that he had were obvious as he was both injured and bleeding (though not too badly despite how it felt) while his opponents were both fresh and uninjured. More than that, at his best, Harry was only marginally more magically powerful than Voldemort and he was not at his best by a fair stretch.
On the plus side of the equation all of the Death Eaters were, like most purebloods, magically weak compared to normal wizards let alone him, even in his battered state, and not only did the nature of the island make magic in general weaker and some spells weaker but, as a mixed bag, it meant the dark magic that worked tended to be both stronger and easier to cast.
Harry spun on the spot casting Spears of Agony towards the three Death Eaters and one towards Voldemort. The four spears that flew towards his enemies were as dark as midnight and were so named because they not only caused cursed slow healing wounds but also inflicted agonising pain in the mind of the target until the wound was sealed.
Voldemort of course moved as did two of his Death Eaters (though with less speed of course) and, less than half a second later, they were very grateful that they did so as the final Death Eater tried to shield probably confident that his magic would protect him even as their masks had always protected them from prosecution (with a little bribery thrown in).
The paper thin magical shield that he produced (and it was a fair bet the Death Eater was male by his grunt of pain) had been no protection for the pureblood terrorist as the spear had barreled right through it as if it didn't exist and pierced the unfortunate man high in his shoulder. Blood had spurted instantly even as the man began to scream like a wild animal unnerving the remaining Death Eaters.
As Harry moved with enhanced speed towards his enemies he knew that he had to end this quickly before the lack of Dementors was truly felt by the more dangerous prisoners. Not to mention that, despite his meditation, he was running almost on empty magically speaking. Ordinarily that wouldn't be the case but not only was a Patronus taxing normally but it was, due its nature, one of the most draining spells to cast in Azkaban as well as the fact that the island was continually taking his magic trickle by trickle.
Harry also made the logical assumption that the reason the Aurors hadn't shown up as he destroyed the Dementors was Voldemort's own preparation for this 'liberation' of his people. That should be hardly surprising as the Ministry was so riddled with corruption that Harry had little doubt that either someone who was loyal to Voldemort, or paid by someone who was, had arranged it.
Neither Voldemort or his remaining Death Eaters, to their credit, stayed still and soon a flurry of screamed spells began to rain down upon Harry. Thankfully for him they used their trademark green curse rather than becoming more imaginative. The killing curse was deadly but it wasn't the best choice against a lightsaber wielding foe (though they could hardly know that) as, although it required only a small amount of power coupled with a great amount of hatred, it was a pinpoint spell meaning no area of effect or splash damage.
That meant, of course, that he could deflect their attempts to kill him with his lightsaber easily enough. More than that as he, with years of practice, smoothly switched to the Shien variant of Form V was able to easily deflect one of Voldemort's killing curses into the (he assumed) surprised face of one of his Death Eaters. In other circumstances Harry would have enjoyed the look of complete surprise on the now dead Death Eaters face as he was forced to live up to his name when the body was recovered and the mask was taken off.
At the moment Harry was more concerned with living up to that point.
Still even though he was tired, bleeding and by this point pretty worn through as well as burning through the low level of magic that he had left at an alarming rate both helping him absorb fire (by way of stones on the ground) and every now and again return with his own he was doing fairly well. A great part of that had to do with his liberal use of his lightsaber as well as surprise as they didn't have any idea of how to effectively combat the Force as they hadn't encountered it before.
Then suddenly it was just Harry and Voldemort as the last Death Eater fell to his lightsaber.
The two men then began a fight, on the edge of Azkaban's shores, that defied true description. Harry used every scrap of Force power that was left to him as well as every ounce of enhanced speed and strength that he could muster to attack the Dark Lord.
In return Voldemort was using every scrap of knowledge that he had ever learned, stolen, discovered or bought to unleash a veritable tidal wave of dark spells that hadn't been seen since the darkest days of the Roman Empire. He sought nothing less than to crush this new and unknown threat so that he could then release his remaining faithful.
Harry attacked with his saber in a vicious overhead chop and it crackled madly as it was met and blocked by a shaft of the blackest magic that Voldemort had somehow summoned and utilized to stop Harry's weapon. The anger and hatred that had gone into the spells creation seemed to warp the very air around it with faint images of suffering and torment.
In response Harry barely gestured with his free hand and conjured several spheres with spinning and razor sharp blades to attack Voldemort from the rear even as their bladed duel picked up pace with neither man giving a single inch of ground.
They moved slowly, in a flurry of exchanges, towards the cliffs that surrounded Azkaban. In the small breaks that surrounded the combat Harry could hear the distant sound of water lapping against the cliffs far below their peak.
With a twist like the snakes that he was so fond of, just as the blades were about to reach him, Voldemort spun while somehow deflecting Harry's blade down and away only taking a shallow cut on his leg for his trouble that was sealed by the hot nature of the blade as it hit.
Despite himself Harry was impressed. Their speed was evenly matched as Harry had the Force and Voldemort had his rituals (not that Harry would ever do them as the price was too high) and he knew that purebloods taught their children how to use a blade as a matter of course and that some would continue it out of pure enjoyment, if not the sword division of the duelling circuit. but he had no idea that Voldemort studied it let alone got so good at it.
He was only thankful that in this day and age, unlike when he studied at Beauxbatons, the fields of magic and sword dueling were completely separate and therefore Voldemort had to combine them on his own. That was not as much of a help as it might otherwise be as, no matter his other faults and insanity, Voldemort was a stone cold genius.
When the dark blade connected with them it not only seemed to destroy them utterly but it literally devoured them like some ravenously hungry beast. To Harry's mounting horror, as they were destroyed, he not only saw the constructs fall but felt a small tug on his almost depleted magic as if it had even eaten the very magic that had created them.
Worse than that, though the blade itself seemed to ripple as it absorbed some, most of the magic seemed to flow back into the Dark Lord into the Dark Lord healing his wounds faster than than Harry ever thought possible and even seemed to rejuvenate the smirking Dark Lord slightly. As their blades clashed again Voldemort couldn't help but taunt his foe.
"What is the matter? Have you never seen the Blade of Darkness before?" Voldemort asked viciously and with an air of self satisfied glee.
"Have you never used a blade before?" Harry responded his voice thankfully muffled by his mask and Voldemort face became contorted with fury and Harry pressed his enemy, seeking to overwhelm him with unconventional attacks, even as he pushed him further and further back. Though with a fancy manoeuvre Voldemort proved that he was quite adaptable and was able to stop the assault.
Thankfully Voldemort's fancy flourish to stop Harry's latest series of attacks had put his sword a hair out of position and so Harry, with a last great burst of speed and strength, managed to slip his lightsaber past the Blade of Darkness and cut the arm holding it off just below the shoulder blade even as his other hand came up and Force Pushed Voldemort back and over the edge of the cliff.
Harry's lightsaber deactivated as he doubted Voldemort would ever be back tonight but he was sure that the masked man was now high on Voldemorts enemies list. Instead of showing fear Voldemort's face was a picture of hatred as he fell.
Before he could hit the rocks below however an emergency portkey activated and he was gone leaving only the memory of his hatred and darkness behind him. On the ground, before a now exhausted Harry, lay Voldemort's severed limb and for a moment as the adrenaline left his system he just stared at it until he focused on something else.
Voldemort's wand.
Placing both in expanded pockets Harry surveyed the prison even as his mind turned fully towards the slowly less and less terrified residents within and he knew that, without a doubt, if given even the smallest chance the sympathisers (let alone the marked Death Eaters) would return or join Voldemort at a moments notice and without a second thought.
Worse the Death Eaters that were here were not only completely unrepentant but had done such horrendous things that no amount of bribery would have bought them a pardon even if they had wanted one. Given the blatant corruption of the Wizarding World that was truly saying something about how twisted these individuals were.
Knowing that Harry slowly took one weary step after another towards the Fortress and, when he was closer, his lightsaber lit up once again.
They wouldn't have the chance to cause anymore pain to anyone ever again.
Albus Dumbledore smiled as he saw his plan was coming together. He had finally realised that he couldn't wait for others, not even his trusted agents, to find Harry.
He had not wanted it to come to this and, as he sat in his chair and stared at his bound phoenix, he regretted that it had. After all it was all so very unsubtle and that directness, that obviousness, that lack of elegance and planning really irked the puppetmaster that he had always been whether he admitted it or not.
The biggest problem that he faced at the moment was the mass disappearance of so many House Elves. The public were in a panic over the sudden loss of their most versatile servants as well as there go to for most manual labour. Entire businesses, from building to plumbing were going out of business as their unpaid workforce disappeared overnight and they had no idea what to do about it.
Truthfully neither did Dumbledore but, in the man's defence, they had been serving wizards for years uncounted and no one could have seen this coming. The lives of the two species had been entwined for such a long time that the Wizarding World had only come to rely on them more and more until they soon used them for almost everything that they couldn't or didn't want to do.
It wasn't as if they could simply petition the other European Ministries. Years ago the I.C.W. had set a limit of the transportation on elves across international borders to curb the growing trade in young untrained elves as well as protecting the risk to the Statue of Secrecy. They certainly could replenish their stocks from the remaining elves but it would take centuries of careful planning and a comprehensive breeding program. Such forward planning was beyond most.
After the abysmal failure to contain Voldemort's first rise both the British Ministry and Dumbledore personally had many enemies abroad that were not inclined in the slightest to do them any favours by bending the rules. On the contrary, like hungry jackals, they were circling around the political hayday that was the disappearance of the House Elves and would be more than happy to attack at any sign of weakness.
Also there were rumours, no much more than faint whispers really, of something going on with the Goblins and Albus had not gotten as far as he had to dismiss whispers. He planned to look into that once he had Harry back and at least put a temporary stop on the international community nosing in on what he considered his business.
Throughout every other period of history there had been, at the very least, some rumblings of discontent or rebellion or something but it was normally from the Goblins themselves and this time they were unusually silent.
Now with a crisis in the Wizarding World that they were completely unprepared for Dumbledore would have expected the Goblins to capitalise on it in some way but instead there was silence. Not one word came out of the unofficial channels (nothing came from the official channels as they would never communicate with the Goblin Liaison Office) except, as far as anyone could see, business as usual.
Given all of these concerns Dumbledore wanted the Harry situation dealt with as quickly as possible and so had decided that Harry would instead come to him.
Mundungus Fletcher, for a surprisingly small amount of gold, had easily taken the Dursleys and they had been quickly been force fed the Draught of Living Death and hidden in the, now mostly unused, House Elf quarters of Hogwarts. If Harry was suspicious of him Dumbledore believed that he would come eventually for them as they were the last of his family.
If he was not it might inspire him to seek Dumbledore's wisdom as to where they might have gone or who had taken them especially if he believed that Dumbledore was still the kind grandfather like figure that he often portrayed himself to be. Though he admitted to himself that since Harry had become Lord Potter (though he couldn't work out how) it was unlikely unless he had been coerced into it by someone else.
Regardless, either way, Dumbledore would win.
In a very similar vein he had, using his floo just a few minutes prior, instructed Molly Weasley to bring him Xeno Lovegood as Harry was last seen in the company of the man's daughter Luna and she, as a minor, would have to return without her father's continuing permission eventually. Even if Dumbledore did not know exactly where she was with Xeno under his control he could use the Auror Department to begin to search for her for her own wellbeing as a missing minor and heir to a pureblood House.
If she returned on her own it would likely be to Hogwarts or her home and, when she found it empty, her next port of call would either be the Burrow or the Ministry and right into his waiting clutches.
Albus's good mood at these ideas was broken when Mcgonagall entered his office in her usual quiet manner with a look of deep worry on her face and in a worried tone she spoke.
"Albus… Gringotts has closed its doors...permanently"
It was at this point that, far away from Dumbledore's office, that Luna experienced her first true Force Vision. Seeing that it was about her father she reacted instantly and without thought. She was never more grateful in that moment that her father had flouted Ministry guidelines and had taught her to apparate so that they could better hunt for the creatures that, as it turned out, only she saw on one of his working holidays. He still searched for them with her though and she loved him all the more for that.
She appeared outside her home, keyed into the rudimentary wards as a family member, just as Molly Weasley was loudly berating her father and demanding that he come and talk to Dumbledore as it concerned an issue with Luna's safety.
The annoying shrew of a woman, thought Luna, how dare she dictate to my father as if she was his mother and he was a misbehaving child of hers.
Soon, from watching outside, it was clear to Luna that Molly Weasley was not going to take no for an answer. As Luna opened the door a crack to get a better look she saw Molly's back as the woman began to try and half guide and half manhandle her father to little affect. So, as Luna watched, one of her hands began to slowly creep towards her wand so that she could force him along.
"Stupify" Luna whispered with her wand pointed at the small of Molly's back. She fell like a marionette with her strings cut and, given the tone Molly often used, it was a relief on multiple accounts as Luna took a moment to enjoy the blessed silence before she turned to her father.
"Pumpkin!" he said and rushed to hug Luna with wide open arms and a dazzling smile.
"Daddy! We have to go" she replied while cuddling into his warm shoulder " I know somewhere safe but we have to go now" she finished urgently.
"Whatever you say sweetie" agreed the affable man.
Within moments both were gone and Molly was slowly waking as her own bodies internal magic began to slowly break down the spell that had overpowered her.
The first moves had been made and blood had been drawn. Soon the hammer would fall and a world would shatter. The chessboard would tumble and the kings would lose their crowns.
The final days of Voldemort, and many other things, had begun.