Chapter Two: A Life Not His Own

Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover

A/N: So, I decided not to take the week off after all. So, here's the next chapter. Like all of my stories, there is pacing involved, so don't get upset if you don't get all the answers to everything all at once. This is a long, and hopefully entertaining,read. Also, I've created a new forum for reviews. Responses to Chap 1s reviews can be found there. Thanks for reading.

Chapter Two: A Life Not His Own

"Tell us the story again, Daddy!" Lily asked.

Harry blinked awake instantly as his daughter's voice echoed in his dreams. He sat up in the small, cramped apartment that belonged to Daroon Holdig. He returned on a separate craft with the command staff of the mining droids when their shift ended. The other officers mostly ignored him—like Holdig, the task of working on the droids was considered a dead end position at best and outright punishment at worst. Captain Markus was an example of that. None of the officers were friendly with each other at all, being bitter failures.

Still, the ride back was eye-opening for Harry. Even more than Holdig's stolen memory was the realization of just how human the Imperials were. They might as well have been commuters in the London rail for all their differences. The rage he felt when he first realized that the desecrators of earth were human began to burn again in his chest, but he fought to keep that rage carefully checked.

The Imperials themselves made every effort to keep the slaves from Earth ignorant. All interaction with the slaves was to be in full armour with helmets on. All communications were through droids to keep the slaves terrified and compliant. This was a direct order from the top of the command structure—Grand Moff Tarkin himself.

But once away from the slaves, the Imperials shed their helmets and became merely human once again.

Harry had always considered himself lucky, and his use of Holdig was even more so. The man had no friends, was generally disliked by his peers and performed well under expectations. Therefore no one even bothered to look at him when he stepped off the air-conditioned hover transport into the Imperial Compound for the first time.

Once through the fifty meter-high walls that separated the masters from the slaves, and the prisoner shanty-town that once provided workers before the lethality of the place burned through that resource, Harry found himself in what looked like an entirely different world. Unlike the desolation outside, the compound had carefully tended lawns, luxurious officer's quarters and apartment-style units for the Stormtroopers, and a large metal structure rising up in the centre near the skyhook itself that served as the command centre for the planet.

Once the officers departed the sled, they were off duty. After months as a slave, the idea seemed somehow shocking that Harry would have time to himself. He once again sifted through Holdig's memories until he knew where to go to find Holdig's apartment. The dead Imperial's security card again gained him entrance.

It was a small, cramped space, but even so Holdig had considered it a luxury. On board ships, lieutenants had to share rooms, while enlisted personnel slept ten to a room and had to share bunks. The room had a few personal items in it, including a little holo display that showed Holdig's parents on Corulag. He was an only child, spoiled almost from birth. He'd made it into the prestigious Imperial Academy only because of his father's bribes.

Holdig had a small kitchen, and a search through it found the remains of food from the last two meals he purchased. Harry ate the leftovers while tabbing through not just Holdig's personal files and accounts, but also through the base resources. It took some adjustment to be able to read Aurebesh, the written language of Basic, but once he made that adjustment (once again using stolen memories), he learned an astounding amount of information none of the captives from Earth had ever known.

When he went to sleep that night in another man's bed, he dreamed the same dream he had ever night, and remembered.

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

"Tell us the story again, Daddy!" Lily asked.

"Yes, please do!" Albus, the second oldest asked, while James merely nodded, being much too old and sophisticated to beg.

Faced with a coordinated assault from all three of his children, Harry Potter relented. "Fine, all you lot on the bed, then. This is the last story tonight, and then it's off to bed."

The children quickly gave their consent, and when he had their promise not to put off bedtime any longer, Harry positioned himself in the centre of Lily's bed while the three children gathered around him. Lily was nine, Albus eleven, and James thirteen, and all three stared at Harry attentively for one of the last nights before two of the three had to return to Hogwarts for their spring term. This was an unusual outing—all of them were getting old for such stories. But when they asked, Harry realized he would not have many more moments like this.

"So … how to begin?"

"With 'One upon a time', silly," Lily said primly. "It's how all the good stories start!"

"Okay, that's how we'll do it. Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived in a cupboard under the stairs…"

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

"Hermione, can I talk to you?"

Hermione Granger, Unspeakable Second Class of the Department of Mysteries, looked up from the thick file she was reading and smiled in surprise. "Harry, what are you doing here?"

"Looking for you. Have a sec?"

"Of course."

Seven years after the fall of Voldemort, the Ministry of Magic had returned to a fully functional organization. Things were not perfect, or course. No merely human enterprise could be, but Harry's respect for Kingsley Shacklebolt never faltered. The new Minister of Magic did not win every battle, but he fought hard for the reforms Harry and his generation felt were essential to prevent another Voldemort from arising. Having the unwavering support of Harry Potter and Hermione and Ron Weasley did not hurt the Minister's efforts at all.

With seven years of hard-fought, often death-defying experience under his belt Harry was already an Auror Captain. Hermione started in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, but after three years accepted an invitation from Saul Croaker to work with the Department of Mysteries. It was a fast-track position into the upper administrative echelons of the DMLE, which oversaw not just the Aurors, but many other regulatory and law enforcement bodies. Harry knew that Ron planned to retire from the Auror department to work full time with his brother George when Hermione moved into the DMLE. It was a testament to Ron's maturity as a person that he was willing to give up his own career in the Aurors to further his wife's ambitions and better chances.

Also, he would make more money with George.

The two friends left Hermione's cramped office and made their way through the Department of Mysteries to the lifts, talking about life and loves, and Harry's son James, who was fourteen months old, and the expected second child. Hermione's first born was expected within a few months of Harry's second, since she was only newly pregnant.

Finally, they reached Harry's office in the Auror Department. As a captain, he ranked his own office rather than a cubical, with hefty privacy charms which he activated upon their entry. Hermione sat in one of the two chairs facing his desk, folding her unspeakable robes to hide her mostly invisible baby bump, and stared at Harry squarely. "Okay, out with it. Something's obviously on your mind."

Harry fidgeted nervously with his ring, and then with a sigh he flicked his phoenix-feather wand at his face. Hermione watched curiously for what would happen. At first, nothing seemed to change. However, the young Mrs. Weasley was not considered the brightest witch of her age for nothing, and leaned forward attentively. "Harry, what did you do?"

"I removed an aging glamour," he admitted, while staring at her intently.

Hermione stood and leaned over his desk, so close he could feel her breath. She reached out and touched his cheeks, then removed her dragon heartstring wand and performed a diagnostic charm. "Harry, you're still…you look seventeen! How can this be?"

Harry looked back down to his wedding ring and spoke without meeting her gaze. "I…I've been keeping a secret, Hermione. From you, Ron…even Ginny. I noticed three years ago. You've seen how Ginny matured after James was born. She's more beautiful than ever before, but she's…well, her face has changed. She's lost her baby fat and… she's aging, and I'm not. So I used a glamour charm on myself."

"But Harry, why?"

"The Deathly Hallows, Hermione. They came back to me."

Hermione settled back in her seat, her mouth gaping. "What do you mean?"

"The morning after the battle, I woke up with the Resurrection Stone on my finger, the Elder Wand in my hand, and the cloak of invisibility around my shoulders."

"What did you do?" Hermione asked.

"I broke the bloody wand and threw it into the lake with the ring, of course!" Harry said. "But the next morning…"

"They came back," Hermione finished. "Where are they now?"

"Er, I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, after a while I stopped fighting them, you know? It seemed pointless to keep breaking the wand and throwing the stone away, so one day I just stopped fighting. And they just sort of…well, disappeared. But I know they're still in me somehow because I can cast wandlessly as good as I can with my old wand. It's like the Elder Wand is actually in my magic, somehow."

Hermione was on her feet before he finished, wand in hand, and began casting a dizzying array of diagnostic spells, most of which Harry had not even heard of. Despite his experience and skill as an Auror, Hermione still outpaced him in terms of sheer magical knowledge. Whatever results she was getting back, though, left her confused and alarmed. She finally settled back on the very of the visitor's chair, as if she were about to bolt. "Why didn't you ever tell me before?"

"Because I was tired of being different!" Harry said hotly. "I wanted to be normal, just for once in my life. I wanted Ginny, and a family, and everything I'd never had, and this…this made me different again."

Rather than argue with him, Hermione merely nodded. That was as much a testament to her maturity as were Ron's actions to his. She no longer instantly argued with anything she didn't agree or approve of. Instead, she studied his face again. "I'm not sure how, Harry, but what you've thought appears to be the case. You're not aging, or if you are, the process has been radically slowed. I'll need to take a tissue sample to be sure, but at first glance you're experiencing normal apoptosis, so it's not that your cells are no longer dying. Rather, it seems that your cell division is unchanging."

She pointed her wand at Harry and cast a silent cutter. "Ow!" Harry said. "Why'd you do that?"

"Blood sample." She conjured a glass phial and pushed it to the cut. She started to heal it, but paused. "Harry, look!"

He didn't have to look, though. "It's healing, I know."

"This has happened before?"

"Remember that fight I had with Rowle in Gloucester? I couldn't block all of a severing curse that hit me in the chest. It wasn't lethal, since I did block some of it. I didn't want to leave off, so I continuing fighting, and when it was over I didn't think about it. The cut was healed in two hours. Last year, that gunshot I took in France? Four hours. It's getting faster and faster."

Hermione nodded, though her eyes looked far away. "So that means you can still be hurt, and that implies that you can still die. You're not impervious, then. But…Harry, you could be functionally immortal. What these charms are showing me is the same thing Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel experienced while living on the Elixir of Life!"

"So what do I do?"

Hermione shook her head. "I don't know, Harry. This doesn't appear to be a case where you can't die, only that you won't die of natural causes. But…let me do some more tests. I could be completely wrong."

"You think this has to do with the Hallows, then?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "I don't know, Harry, but it's likely. No one has ever possessed all three Hallows at once. How could anyone know someone could become the Master of Death if it hadn't been done before? And just what does that mean, being a master of death? I just don't know. But I promise, Harry, I'll find out for you."

Harry grinned, feeling vastly relieved to have one of his best friends helping him. "Thanks, Hermione. I knew I could count on you."

"You can thank me, Harry, by telling your wife and brother in law. I know why you kept it a secret, Harry, but you have to know how much Ginny and Ron love you. They deserve to know the truth."

Harry nodded. "I know. Thanks, Hermione."

Two weeks later, in a meeting with his closest true family, Harry told Ron and Ginny what had happened, and to prove it he removed his glamour. It was Hermione, having tested his blood, who provided the details. "Harry's magical core has been altered in a way never seen before," she said. "His magic has been saturated with…death, for lack of a better word. The same energy signature found in the Killing Curse saturates Harry's magic. But it's not killing him. Instead, what it appears to be doing is halting the normal degradation of his body that comes through the normal process of cell division. This means he'll heal faster, and if he ages, it is in a miniscule amount compared to us."

"Blimey," Ron breathed. "So you're unkillable?"

"If you cut my head off, I'd die," Harry said. "Same if you stabbed me in the heart. I just…I just won't age like normal."

"Why didn't you tell me, Harry?" Ginny asked softly.

He saw the hurt look in her eyes and said, "Because I was afraid, Ginny. I wanted to live a normal life with you so bad, I was afraid of what this meant."

"Were you afraid I wouldn't love you anymore?"

"I was afraid you wouldn't be able to," Harry admitted.

"You're a stupid prat."

"Yeah, I know. But I'm a prat who loves you."

"And I love you too, no matter what."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

"…best friends had many more adventures and lived happily ever after. The end."

Lily sighed in her sleep, snuggled as she was against his leg. Albus was nodding off, though James was still awake. Harry levitated his daughter up enough to get free, carried Albus in his arms, and motioned for James to follow to the boys' shared bedroom. He placed Albus down, kissing his forehead, before moving to James.

"I know that story was about you, dad," James said sleepily. "I read about it in the Daily Prophet. Teddy said you're the most powerful wizard alive."

"I don't know about that. But think about this. Why do you think I ended it with 'happily ever after'?"

"'Cause you won?"

"No, silly," Harry said as he ran a hand through his eldest son's hair. It reminded him so much of his own. "I ended it that way because I have you, Albus and Lily."

As old and mature as James pretended to be, he couldn't help but smile. "'Night, Dad."

"Good night, son."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

Harry showered in Holdig's shower and dressed in Holdig's uniform. He sat that morning and performed a minute transfiguration on Holdig's ID until it matched his own appearance. It was easier than maintaining a glamour charm, and their appearances were not so very different. He planned to Obliviate anyone who might know him well enough to tell the difference.

According to Holdig's schedule, he was to work a night shift, which left him the day to his own devices. He spent that time checking his monetary accounts, and then more time reading just what Imperial Credits were in relation to buying power. He quickly learned that Lieutenant Junior Grades were not well paid, and Holdig was not a very intelligent man when it came to personal finances. In fact he carried almost twice his contract salary in debt.

He was about to look for something else to eat when a heavy knocking brought him to his feet, ready Disapparate at a moment's notice. However, panicking usually made things worse, so he took a deep breath to steady himself and answered the door. On the other side was another Imperial in a military uniform—a full lieutenant.

"Lieutenant Holdig?" the man asked, glancing at Harry in surprise.

A spur of stolen memory made Harry snap to attention and salute, "Yes, sir."

"You appear different, lieutenant."

"Tripped and broke my nose, sir. Had some work done to fix it."

The officer, surprisingly, accepted that. "Very well, Colonel Nadist has requested your presence in the command centre at once."

"Yes, sir!" Harry rushed back inside, grabbed his uniform jacket, and followed the other lieutenant out the door. "May I ask what it's about?"

"We lost a refinery droid last night," the other lieutenant said darkly. "You must have been a sound sleeper since we could see the horizon light up from it."

"It was an exhausting day," Harry said honestly. "I almost lost my own droid."

"We know. Come, the colonel is waiting."

The two men left the officer's quarters and walked briskly across the compound to the ten-story command centre. Even with Holdig's memories, the place was a mystery, since the lieutenant had only been in it a few times. The building was crawling with perfectly human people, men and women, in a variety of grey or black uniforms, depending on whether they were army or navy. They reached a lift and soared to the top floor in a second, before reaching a wide, well-lit hall lined with glass walls. Behind the glass were spacious offices for the senior administrators of the base.

It was one of these offices that the lieutenant led Harry, before nodding and leaving. Harry stepped just inside, snapped his heels and saluted. He felt absolutely ridiculous doing so, but Holdig's memories were very clear regarding Imperial military protocol.

"At ease, Lieutenant."

"Sir, yes sir!"

Colonel Halabern Nadist sat behind his granite-topped desk and stared with a downturned expression at the datapad. "Last night, Refinery Droid Three had a critical nuclear reaction. Captain Haldern had the night shift, and before the refinery blew reported that he was unable to deactivate the droid despite the best efforts of himself and his crew."

Harry said nothing. Nadist put the pad down and looked up at Harry. Like the other officer, he did not seem to recognize Holdig, and so had no reason to question the differing appearance. "Haldern was not line material, but he was dependable. If he couldn't do it, then it was extraordinarily difficult. Imagine my surprise, then, that while investigating what happened I found out you had the same issue with your refinery droid and was somehow able to stop it. I've looked at your record, Holdig. Frankly you're not that good. So what happened?"

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Oh, this should be good," Nadist said, leaning back in his chair expectantly. "Go on."

"Sir yesterday scared the hell out of me. I've always let my Wookiees handle the work and just lazed around. Suddenly there was a crisis the Wookiees couldn't fix for me, and for the first time in my life I had to step up and do my job. Honestly, sir, I think I was as shocked as anyone that I was able to do it. I remembered things from the Academy I never even thought I knew, and I got the job done. Well, mostly.

"Despite my concerns about the issue, Captain Markus only gave me and my crew ten minutes. So with that we got the droid running. However, the root issue remains. We need to shut the droids down, take the siding off the intake vents and clean them down to the filters. Most likely we'll need to change the filters as well. I'm sure, though, that if we do that we can increase the efficiency of each machine significantly."

Nadist did not move as Harry spun his tale. He considered using magic on the other man, but thought better of it. He remembered Shewtalla asking if he was a Jedi, and felt cautious regarding the unrestrained use of magic for fear of finding these Imperials had their own practitioners of it. However, Harry was also a former department head who had commanded witches and wizards in open battles. A glance at Nadist told him the colonel was not only a reasonable man, but a decent officer, slaver tendencies aside.

"So you're saying you actually grew up?" Nadist finally said.

"I'd like to think I at least made a start, sir."

Nadine snorted. "Let's find out. I want you to take a team of technicians out to the droids and clean out those vents. You have my authority to stop production as long as necessary for each unit. Those droids cost as much as a frigate, and this project is already four years behind schedule and four hundred billion credits over budget. We're not getting another refinery droid, so we're going to have to make the ones we have work better."

"I'll get it done," Harry said resolutely.

"Good. Congratulations on making full lieutenant. If you want to rise any higher, prove you're worth it."

"I will, sir. Thank you."

"Dismissed."

Harry left the office with his thoughts swirling chaotically. Saving the droids would, at least initially, save lives. Now he had to figure out how to save the rest.

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Author's Note: Once again I just wish to stress again just how much I appreciate Teufel1987, JR and Miles for beta reading yet another of my stories. As always, they make everything better.