Chapter Twenty-Two: The Second Task

Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover

A/N: Review responses for chapter 21 ARE NOT posted in my forums. I've got a cold and just couldn't summon the energy, sorry.

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Second Task

Kyle Katarn makes onions cry.

"Who the hell is RAB?" Kyle asked irritably once they were back in the safe house.

The kitchen table in the safe house had become a de facto conference table. The other surviving members of Amelia's initial team sat around it taking turns reading the note they found in the obviously fake locket.

"I can think of three possibilities off the top of my head," Alastor Gumboil, the oldest of them there, said in his low, slightly droning voice. "Ronaldus Antoninus Ballista, known to his colleagues as Tony; Richard Alceidas Bridgeworth, and Regulus Arcturus Black, known to his colleagues as Reggie."

"How do you do that?" Aura Devereaux, a hit witch, muttered as she stared at the man. "It's like your brain is a sponge."

"It is a challenge being so much smarter than anyone else," Gumboil said with a wry smile. "But somehow I make due."

"Did you pick those three just because of their initials?" Amelia asked.

"Partially, but also because they're all dead," Gumboil said. "Ballista and Black were both suspected of being Death Eaters, while Bridgeworth was a half-blood reporter for the Prophet. I can't imagine anyone thwarting You-Know-Who and surviving long."

"Black," Kyle said, looking distinctly piratical in his eye-patch. "And relation to Sirius Black?"

"I'd say so," Gumboil said. "He was Sirius's younger brother. Sirius and his cousin Andromeda Black - "

"That's Tonks now, thank you," Tonks interrupted.

"- were the only members of the Black family who did not actively support Voldemort," Gumboil finished without missing a beat.

Amelia and Kyle shared a knowing glance. "Low hanging fruit," she said.

"I agree," Kyle answered back. He looked around to the rest of the room. "Sirius Black is a known quantity, so we interview him first. Tonks, any chance of impersonating your mother? We want to get in without revealing who we are first."

As they sat there, Tonk's whole appearance changed, maturing and expanding until she became an elegant woman with a heart-shaped face and long, luxurious brunette hair. "Of course," she said with an aristocratic drawl.

With Nymphadora Tonks on their side, it was a simple matter of repeating the same tactic they used on Horace Slughorn, with the added advantage that Sirius believed he already knew his guest. Tonks stepped out of the floo in the ancestral Black home as if she owned it and gave the unkempt Sirius a disapproving frown.

"You're not taking care of yourself," she noted.

"You're not my mum, 'Dromeda," he whined.

"Thank God for that." She stunned him, and before he even hit the floor opened the floo for the rest of the team to arrive. Kyle was the last one through and arrived just in time for them all to be attacked by an ancient, foul-mouthed elf that Amelia quickly stunned as well.

"Kreature," Tonks said as she morphed back into her normal appearance. "Mum's told me horror stories about that little guy."

Amelia walked to Sirius's side and enervated him. He sat up, wide-eyed, with a gasp of alarm. Crab-walking backwards until he hit the far wall, he continued to stare in shock at the people around him until their appearances finally began to sink in. "Amelia?" he asked. "Katarn? But you…you're dead."

"Not yet, despite your headmaster's wishes," Kyle said.

"But…it was all a lie then?" Black said, growing more angry than bewildered. That is, until Amelia hefted her red robe to reveal the prosthetic leg.

"It was real enough," she snapped. "It cost me two of my people, my leg, and Kyle's eye. They knew we were coming and laid an ambush for us, but we survived it. Snape let them know we were coming, but I have strong reason to believe Dumbledore allowed him to."

"Bollocks!" Sirius said. "Dumbledore is a great man, he's…"

"The man who let you rot in prison until he needed a way to get Harry away from me," Kyle said. He knelt down in front of Sirius. "I accept that Dumbledore believes he's doing the right thing, but his motivation is not to protect Harry. It's to defeat Voldemort at any cost. To him, Harry is a one-shot weapon. And he fully expects Harry to die in the process and believes it's a tragic but acceptable price to pay for Voldemort's death."

"As if you're any better," Sirius snarled.

"I'm willing to die fighting Voldemort so Harry doesn't have to," Kyle said. "And I've proven it more than you have." He pulled the note they recovered from the locket and shoved it in Sirius's face. "Is that your brother's handwriting?"

Sirius blinked under the barrage of Kyle's words and the note shoved into his face. He frowned in concentration as he took the note and read it, mouthing the worlds silently. Then he read it again, his eyes misting.

With a grunt of effort, Kyle stood. "That's it, then."

"It can't be," Sirius muttered as he wiped an eye. "Horcrux? What is he talking about?"

"The reason Voldemort didn't die," Amelia said. She showed him the fake locket. "Have you seen anything like this since you've been here?"

Sirius stared from the locket to the note and back again. "Kreature!" he said.

The elf's compulsion to obey his master overrode the stunner. The withered old elf stirred. "Filthy mudbloods attacked Kreature," the elf muttered.

"Kreature, what do you know of this?" Sirius demanded, shoving the note into the elf's face just as Kyle did to him.

The elf stared at the paper before he began to viciously pull his ear. "Master said Kreature must never tell. Master said Kreature must destroy it, but Kreature failed! Bad Kreature!"

"Kreature, I am Amelia Bones, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." She held out the locket. "We are trying to finish what your master started. We found this. Do you have the original?"

Still tugging viciously at his long ear, Kreature looked to Sirius.

"Answer her, Kreature," Sirius ordered. "Tell us if it's true, if Reggie turned from the Dark Lord."

"True," Kreature said, wincing at the pain he caused himself. "Master was good master. Asked Kreature to help him. Kreature failed, bad elf!"

"If you bring us the real locket," Kyle said, "we will destroy it. Our mission is the same as yours. In fact, we'll destroy it right in front of you so you'll know your master's will was done."

Kreature stared at Kyle. "Kreature tried all magic. Locket would not die."

"I have a magical sword," Kyle said dryly.

Eyes wide and misty, Kreature popped away for a split second before returning with a locket in his hands that was identical to the one Amelia held—except for the darkness it exuded. Rather than touch it, Kyle levitated it from the elf's hands. "Yep, this is it," he said. "Black, these things make a mess when the die. Any place in this house that can take a beating?"

"What do you mean, these things? There's more than one?" Sirius demanded.

"Let's just say your brother had the right idea, but insufficient information," Kyle said. "Now, where in this place can we set off an explosion?"

"Well, the cellar, I'd imagine," Sirius finally said.

"Sirius," Amelia said. "Before we do anything else, I need you to make a decision. It's a very important decision. I need you to decide if you are Harry's godfather, or if you are Dumbledore's follower. I'm afraid you can't be both."

Sirius climbed unsteadily to his feet. "What do you mean? Harry's already said he doesn't want me."

"Amelia, this isn't a good idea," Kyle noted.

She raised a hand to the old Jedi. "Kyle, Sirius isn't perfect, but I remember that this man purposely painted himself with a target for Voldemort in order to try and protect his friends. It didn't work, but that took real courage and self-sacrifice." To Sirius, she said, "Our goal is to destroy Voldemort without Harry having to die in the process. Dumbledore's goal is to destroy Voldemort with Harry. And you need to decide, right now, which of those two paths you want to follow."

"Harry said he didn't want me," Sirius said again in a dejected voice.

"Harry gets to ride in spaceships and meet beautiful, buxom alien girls with blue skin," Kyle said. "Would you want to give that up for a dingy old house in London?"

"Blue skin?" Sirius asked.

"His first friend had orange skin, actually," Kyle said as if rethinking himself. "And tentacles instead of hair. But she was still cute."

"Merlin's balls, you men are such dogs," Amelia said with a shake of her head. "Come on, Black. You're with us now."

"Yeah, I guess I am." He led the group down into the cellar of the house, which proved to be even danker and dirty than the upper levels. Once again Amelia provided the light while Kyle placed the locket on an old workbench covered in dust and cobwebs.

"Everyone back up."

At his warning, the rest of the group bunched up close to the door and watched as Kyle lit his saber. The moment he approached the artifact, the locket popped open and a black cloud formed over it. Within it, they could see an attractive woman with slightly Asian features reaching toward Kyle.

"Don't let me fall! Kyle, please don't let me…"

Kyle Katarn did not change expression or hesitate a moment as he brought his saber down. The magical explosion blew him backward, only for him to be caught in a gentle cushion of magic Amelia provided. The hit wizards and aurors had cast magical shields that protected them from the shockwave which shattered everything else in the room.

One he regained his footing, Kyle summoned the now shattered locket and looked down until he saw Kreature standing nearby, hands together as if in prayer. He handed the shattered locket to the elf. "You have done your duty, Kreature," he said. "Your master would be proud of you."

Kreature sniffed. And then popped away.

"Now comes the hard part," Kyle said.

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked.

"I mean finding the rest of the Sith-spawned horcruxes. Come on, we need to talk."

~~Katarn~~

~~Katarn~~

Harry felt eyes on him when he left the headmaster's office the night before the Second Task. He didn't respond immediately just because his head was still spinning from all the magic the old wizard showed him. Now that he had completed his OWL and NEWT-level course work, the Headmaster said he saw no reason not to impart more advanced magic.

Finally, though, the sensation grew too strong to ignore. He felt nothing in the Force, but his instincts told him he was being followed. He gripped the cylinder of his saber, newly repaired following the short-out it experienced with the horcrux, and turned a corner at a normal walk.

The moment he turned the corner, he pulled not just on the Force, but also on the link he had as a Jedi with the crystal of his saber. Unlike normal blades, Harry's lightsaber employed a stygium crystal, which apart from having a duel-phase that could elongate the blade, also meant he could tap onto the inherent cloaking aspects of the crystal itself.

He disappeared more thoroughly than any mere disillusionment spell could accomplish. Moments later he heard the faintest scuffle in front of him. Without hesitation, Harry Force-blasted the invisible, Force-blind figure into the far wall. He heard a cry of alarm cut-off by a thud of something hitting the wall, and suddenly a boot appeared. It was a green boot, made with finely-scaled hide of some kind. Frowning, Harry stepped over and grabbed at where the rest of the leg disappeared. His fingers encountered a soft, supple cloth. He pulled it away and stared down at the frightened form of Draco Malfoy.

A frightened Malfoy who happened to be pointing a wand right at his face. Harry had a split second—not enough time to move even with the Force as his ally—before a burst of magic sent him flying away just as hard as his Force-blast to Malfoy.

He hit the wall hard but rolled when he fell to the floor with the cloak still in his hand. Malfoy had already scrambled to his feet and was sprinting away. Harry, without hesitation, followed. Malfoy had a head start, but Harry had the Force. With a burst of inhuman speed, he caught up with the other teenager and kicked his left leg out from under him.

Malfoy slammed into the ground face-first with a startled cry. He rolled onto his back with his wand out, but nothing happened this time. The wand was snapped by his fall. The boy, whose nose and lip were both bloodied from the face-plant into the tiles of the floor, stared in horror. "You broke my wand!" he shouted.

Harry slowly drew his own wand from his Jedi robe. He knew it would resonate more with Malfoy than a lightsaber. "Why did you stab me in the back before the holidays?"

"I didn't do anything," Malfoy said, spitting blood on the floor. "You just attacked me!"

"You stabbed me in the back," Harry said again. "Why?"

"You can't prove anything!" Malfoy shouted back.

Unlike with Malfoy under the cloak, Harry could feel in the Force a new danger surging behind him. He bunched his muscles, and when he saw a flash of light on the walls he launched himself into a backward somersault right over the head of his attacker. The moment he landed, he jumped into a spinning side-kick that sent this new attacker stumbled toward, and then over, Malfoy.

This new attacker, however, was not a student. The air suddenly exploded with a swarm of angry bees. Harry summoned the Force and blew them back at his attacker, while at the same time casting a stunner. The new attacker vanished the bees, conjured a shield that blocked the stunner, and then cast a whole fusillade of magic in a volume greater than any mere student could have managed.

Harry conjured his own shield in the process, but despite all the magic he had recently learned, he was still a novice wizard. It was not enough to know the magic. He'd never used the magic in a practical fashion, much less in a fight. Moreover, his attacker was highly skilled.

Harry had the briefest moment to realize his mistake in not fleeing, or at least moving more, right before a conjured object struck him in the head while he was simultaneously trying to shield against one spell and dodge two more.

~~Katarn~~

~~Katarn~~

When he woke, it was due to a sharp, agonizing pain in his stomach. Nor did the pain go away when he woke; rather it pulsed with a sickening anticipation of getting worse. Blinking back crust from his eyes, he found himself in utter darkness marked only by an intense, terrible smell.

He tried to move but realized quickly that the ache in his arms and wrists were due to the robe binding them behind his back. His head was spinning with pain as well, likely from whatever hit him. It felt as if his thoughts were having to plow through molasses.

Although it came slowly he realized the pain in his stomach was coming from the Goblet of Fire. The second task.

"Don't panic, Harry," he whispered to himself. "There is no fear. No fear. Right." Closing his eyes again, he drew strongly on the Force and filled himself with its power. It was not a healing trance so much as a cantrip, but it worked well on concussions. In a few moments, the dull, heavy ache in his head faded and his thoughts began to move quickly.

He'd obviously not missed the task yet, since he wasn't dead, but the intensity of the pain told him it was getting closer. Grasping the Force, it was a simple matter to loosen his bindings. He began searching his clothes and sighed in relief when he found his lightsaber. But then he frowned when he found the broken pieces of his wand.

Malfoy.

He stood, only to hit his head on a metal surface. "Sithspit!" he muttered in pain. A quick search with his hands revealed he was in a pipe—the sewer pipes for the castle. That certainly explained the smell, then.

Fighting back an urge to gag, he opened himself once again to the Force in the hopes it might guide his steps. Help me!

His answer came not from the Force, but it came nonetheless. A silver form dropped down from the pipe overhead. She did not cast any illumination at all, but he saw the features of the Gray Lady clearly. "You live," she said softly.

"For now," he said. "Can you lead me out of these pipes?"

"You have little time," she noted. "Come."

She turned and flowed down the pipe and he followed, bending over and using his hands against the upper curve of the pipe to steady himself. "Where are we?"

"The sewer leading from the Chamber of Secrets," the ghost of Helena Ravenclaw said. "It was through here that old Salazar's basilisk came to terrorize the school two years prior."

He ran after the silver shade until he stumbled into an old cleaning cupboard. The door was locked, but not magically, and a quick swing of his saber opened it. "Thank you!" he shouted to the Grey Lady before sprinting to his room. Without his wand, he had little hope of performing any magic to accomplish a task that he at least knew was underwater.

But he did have a Jedi rebreather.

Once he had what he needed, Harry ran with a speed only a Jedi could have matched from the castle to the shore of the lake where everyone was gathered. He received several odd looks as he passed, until finally he reached the newly constructed wooden platform that held at least a hundred VIP spectators, the four judges, and no one else.

The other competitors must have already been in the water. The fact that the pain was gone told Harry he wasn't too late, but it was a damned close call. "Where have you been?" Dumbledore asked anxiously as he stepped down from the judge's booth.

"You wouldn't believe me," Harry said darkly. He then removed his broken wand from his robes and tossed them to the old man. "And since it was one of your staff that broke my wand, you can handle its replacement. Now, how late am I?"

"The other contestants started just minutes ago," Ludo Bagman said helpfully as he too came down to see what was happening.

Harry nodded before removing his Jedi robes and placing them on the platform. He continued to strip down to just his slacks and his rebreather.

"We will have to deduct points for you not being here on time!" Headmaster Karkaroff declared pompously from the booth.

Harry snorted before he dismissed the man and started breathing heavily. He drew on the Force, squatted down, and then sprinted forward from the platform, and then onto the water. He didn't care what it looked like to the spectators as he ran lightly over the waves, borne by the Force. Jedi had been known to walk on water before—Luke Skywalker once walked on magma inside a volcano.

He continued sprinting across the water, held aloft by the Force, until he felt his goal nearby. He pushed the breather in, leapt up and then dove down into the bitingly cold water. He pushed his hands in front of his eyes and again called upon the Force to help propel him into the depths. It was difficult to equalize the pressure within his body, as that was one of the more esoteric skills most Jedi were taught later in their training, and not something he had to do often. But if nothing else, it was a good exercise.

Without his wand he could cast not magical light, but a Jedi did not need eyes to see. He could feel four bright presences in the Force nearby, surrounded by cooler Force presences all around—the merpeople, he suspected.

He swam down almost directly onto the merpeople village, bypassing most of the many hazards of the lake, until he reached one presence that called out to him. He lit his saber, and by its dark light saw Hermione chained to a post, eyes closed. Her Force presence felt strong and alive, just asleep, so he knew magic was preserving her.

He felt a new presence and turned to see a half-man, half-shark creature zip by another pole, grabbing the chain and yanking another hostage away. Assured of the nature of the task, Harry cut Hermione's bonds, hooked his saber again, and started swimming toward the surface. He tried very, very hard not to think about the feel of her body in his left arm as he swam with his right, especially when her drag in the water forced his hand into her armpit, and his forearm across her…

I'm not thinking about it! A Jedi is above such thoughts.

But in the back of his mind, he heard Kyle snort.

The moment they broke the surface of the lake, Hermione sputtered awake. "Harry!" she screamed in alarm, pawing at him. "I can't swim!"

Her panicked struggles almost made him lose his grip. "Hermione, stop! I've got you, I promise."

"But…but…we're in the middle of the lake!"

He spun her around, treading water as he did so, until he looked her in the eyes. "I've got you," he said in a low, calm voice. "I won't let you go. Just relax, and I'll swim for us both, okay?"

Staring at him, their faces so close, Harry saw her cheeks redden. "Okay, Harry," she said softly. "But if we drown, I'm going to kill you."

"Noted. Now, lay back. I'm going to put one arm around your stomach, and swim with you. We'll be going fast, okay?"

She nodded and did as instructed, and as soon as his arm crossed a safer part of her body, Harry looked to the distant platform, pulled on the Force, and started swimming. He was conscious of the drag again pulling her down, until his arms were across the middle of her rip cage. Her own hands held on to his arm as well, but he was painfully aware of where his arm was.

He was also thankful, for the first time, how cold the water was.

Finally they reached the platform. Viktor Krum was already there with a younger boy in a Durmstrange uniform, both covered in heavy blankets. Nearby, a forlorn Fleur Delacour sat crying, her legs covered in painful looking bite marks that were oozing a green pus. Madam Pomfrey and Headmistress Maxime were both casting magic at the leg. There was no sign of her hostage.

Harry and Hermione just cleared the edge of the platform, to be enveloped in magically warmed blankets when Cedric Diggory and his hostage, Cho Change, cleared the water. Once they were on the platform, Dumbledore walked to the edge of the water and dipped his wand into the lake.

Just minutes later, the merpeople emerged carrying a miniature version of Fleur. The Beauxbatons student burst out into a fresh round of now relieved tears as she gathered the girl from Dumbledore and held her tight.

Harry, meanwhile, shivered and tried hard not to think how close he came to dying.

sp

Thanks for reading.