Chapter Twenty-Four: Home

Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover

A/N: Chap 23 review responses are in my forums as normal. Thanks for reading!

Chapter Twenty-Four: Home

By the time the duel finished, almost forty minutes later, it had attracted a crowd of thousands of witches and wizards. The enterprising magi conjured stands to see better, while some hovered on precious brooms taken from Earth, until by the time Harry finally managed to separate Luke from his saber and bind him, the whole affair had taken on the atmosphere of a Quidditch match

Harry's respect not just for Luke, but for Leia rose exponentially, because he knew Leia had beaten Luke at least three or four times in their duels. The young man was extraordinarily powerful in the Force, sharing a connection with it comparable to Harry's connection to his magic.

What won the fight wasn't skill or power; it was Harry's experience. Harry knew for certainty that Luke would gain in that area over time. Trembling from exhaustion, Harry made his way over to the young Jedi and undid the binds before handing the saber back. "I'm glad you're on my side, Luke," he said.

Luke, drenched in sweat and just as exhausted as Harry was, could only nod. "Yeah, me too. I didn't know you could do some of those things. How do you make the animals do what you want after you make them?"

"It's in the intent of the creation itself," Harry said. "You know they're not real, they're just shaped to look like the real thing." He hefted the younger but older-looking man up to his feet and the two walked back to the others side by side. Harry noted that Tim and Yoda's other Padawans were staring in slack-jawed shock, while Leia was eyeing Harry in a way that made him slightly uncomfortable.

"Were you holding back?" Luke asked.

"Only on the lethal stuff," Harry told the young Jedi. "And frankly not even much there. Those transfigured animals could have killed you. You're just that damned good."

Around them, witches and wizards applauded. At various points during the match, they were either cheering on Harry or the foreigner whose name they didn't know, but now that the duel was over they started to break up and make their way back to their homes.

Fleur and Rosmerta remained behind, speaking softly to Obi-Wan. When they reached the gathering by Yoda's hut, the little green Jedi said, "Agree with Obi-Wan I do. Knights you and your sister are. Even among Jedi, remarkable it is how fast you have learned."

"And what am I?" Harry said, slightly offended at being ignored, though not surprised.

"Not a Jedi," came the snappish reply.

Harry sighed to Leia. "See what I have to put up with?"

Leia smirked. "Yes, I've been talking to Councillor Delacour about what you've had to put up with."

That made Harry pause. "Oh?"

"Don't worry, 'Arry, I said nothing bad," Fleur said. She then gave a frankly assessing look at Luke. "I like your young friend, here."

Being eyed by a Veela was enough to make anyone blush, Jedi or not. Luke started to stammer, but Fleur laughed it away. "You will have to join us for dinner. Charlie found a large species of bird that I swear tastes just like chicken! He captured two dozen and clipped their wings, and already they are making eggs for us!"

"So will we get to see your home, Harry?" Leia asked.

Harry blinked, thought a moment, and then said, "You know, I don't actually have one. I've been living aboard ships since we landed, although I did stay with my godson once or twice."

"Ignore him, ma cheré," Fleur said to Leia. "He has a very nice house. He has just not seen it yet. Really, 'Arry, after all you've done you think we would not build a home for you? It is spacious enough for all your guests. Come, I will show you."

"Master Yoda?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Tired, I am. Remain here I will. Padawans, meditation time it is. Come, come." He walked back into the dome.

"It was great to meet you," Tim said. The two younger kids waved before all three disappeared.

"Yoda feels they are not ready to leave the safety of the planet," Obi-Wan said as they began walking back to the larger colony. "They are powerful enough to get the Emperor's attention, but not yet trained enough to defend themselves."

"Are Luke and Leia really that much more powerful?" Fleur asked, having tagged along.

Strangely, though, it was Harry who answered. "Fleur, from what I understand, these two are like the Harry Potter of the greater galaxy."

"What?" Luke asked.

"'Arry means you are children of prophecy." Fleur explained. "Of destiny. 'Arry, here, he is the most powerful of us. He was always destined to be a hero and a champion, and Magic saw fit to give him the tools he needed. This Force of yours has done the same for you. You and your sister are very powerful, but the Destiny ahead of you requires you to be."

"A remarkably Jedi-like philosophy," Obi-Wan said. They walked alone in silence for some time until they reached the newly crafted neighborhood that had risen up near the crops. The houses were not uniform, but as varied as the personalities of the magi who crafted them. Most were either brick or adobe construction with limited use of wood where necessary. Even so, they were surprisingly large.

"Magic changes construction styles," Rosmerta noted, being the lead builder as well as Prime Minister. "We can magically create cement from local material that will last just as long as real concrete. With magic to reinforce it, these houses will likely last for centuries. There is yours, Harry."

It was Potter Cottage; or enough like it as to not matter. The sight froze Harry in his tracks. "How…?"

"The plan was in your autobiography, remember?" Fleur asked. "Hermione made sure to include it."

"I never actually read the book," Harry admitted. "It just seemed weird reading about myself. And I trusted her—Hermione was there through it all anyway."

They stepped into a mudroom with a newly fashioned storage bench just inside the door. The walls were an unadorned white plaster, and the furniture was sparse. The floor were stone tiles, sturdy and easy to clean and just asking for rugs. The large living area held only one wooden bench.

"There are a few artisans at work now," Fleur said. "We are producing flax, so soon we will have workable linen. And the Wookiees have found a tree that produces huge piles of cotton—one tree produces as much as a hectare of cotton plants. They did not like it, but when Charlie told them we would use it to make clothes and fabric, they agreed to harvest it for us. It is now our second most common trade item with the Wookiees, beside wood."

"I don't mean to insult, but it seems odd that your people would be so amiable toward Wookiees," Leia noted. "Especially considering your recent history."

"The Wookiees are magical," Fleur said. "On our old world, there were many creatures with magic in them. Among them was one called a Sasquatch who was much like the Wookiees—shy, intelligent creatures whose fearsome appearance inspired fear all too often. Since they are magic, and remind us of home—and because they are genuinely kind creatures—we have formed a close friendship. I do worry about them. I have learned the Wookiees do not breed quickly. A female may only produce once child in a century. And so many of them have been killed…"

With a sad smile, she continued showing them around the cottage. It was a wholly magical home, but considering the lack of resources Harry had to admit they did an amazing job. "Thank you for this, Fleur," Harry said when they finished in the first floor up the stairs. "This is more than I could have imagined."

She hugged him, and said, ""Arry, you are family. You will always be family, and we will always love you. Now, you will come and have supper with us. Bill is cooking."

"Bill?" Harry asked, amazed.

"It appears he learned more from his Mama than he admitted," Fleur said. "I have tried for many years to cook, and his food is always better. It is not fair, but c'est la vie."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

Watching Dominique Weasley flirt with a flustered Luke was the highlight of the evening, and one of the most adorable things Harry had seen in years. It was almost as fun as watching Hermione and Ron's daughter Rose flirting so blatantly with Draco Malfoy's only son, Scorpius. Watching the two families meet to discuss the engagement was like watching a war fought with words and expressions. Ron almost came to blows with Malfoy on three occasions, and it was only Astoria and Hermione that kept it from being an all-out disaster.

Harry personally wanted to hate the boy, but how could he hate a kid who despised his own name so much he went by "Pius" instead? Scorpius was the Sirius of the Malfoy family, and loved Hermione's daughter to distraction.

They never did have a chance to marry.

"She's very pretty," Leia said. Despite being a royal born, even Leia was eyeing the youngest Weasley daughter with something approaching awe. With true porcelain skin, a disgustingly cute sprinkle of freckles across her nose, and rose-red hair, Dominique Weasley was truly the most astonishing combination of her father's coloring and her mother's beauty Harry could have imagined.

And for all her flirting with an only slightly older Luke, the young Jedi was not averse to flirting back, albeit clumsily.

The Weasleys lived at the state school. They used an array of expansion charms on the administrator's personal quarters and turned it into a spacious living suite. The Jedi were intrigued by Harry's use of a portable Imperial barracks as a school, but Bill was more than happy to explain the necessity of it. After all, almost a third of their population were under-age orphans.

It was a large gathering, Leia noted. Bill and Fleur had all three of their children with them, and their eldest daughter's husband who Leia leaned was Harry's godson. Bill's brother was there as well. The Prime Minister joined them not as a politico, but as a family friend judging by the easy banter between them.

Most of the evening, though, was spent with Obi-Wan and Rosmerta exchanging stories about their lives, and the events that occurred within them. Leia noticed the wistful smiles on the faces around her when Rosmerta mentioned certain names, and she began to sense that for all of the size of the gathering, it should have been much, much larger.

Eventually, they broke up and Harry walked them back to his house. As they walked under a sky cast in a brilliant purple from a relatively close nebula, a creature made of sparkling fire shot into the sky with a numbing roar, only to explode into a firework display like nothing she'd ever seen before.

"What is that?" Luke asked.

Harry looked up, tears in his eyes, and said, "That's our way of thanking magic that we're alive. We're celebrating the fact we're still here."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

Leia stretched luxuriantly the next morning and turned to find Harry starting intently at her, a small smile on his lips. "Good morning," he said as he leaned down and kissed her forehead.

"I could get used to this," Leia said. "You don't even snore!"

With a chuckle, Harry said, "That's because there's a charm for that. My best friend snored like a pair of kettledrums. His very smart wife, after putting up for it for five years, created a charm that stopped snoring."

"How?"

"No idea. She was a lot smarter than I was. I just know it works."

She hugged him close. "I miss my family too," she admitted. "But this…this helps, Harry. Thank you."

"We can't stay, as much as I'd love to," Harry said. "I had to come just to make sure everything was okay, and I'm afraid by coming I gave the Empire a clue to breaking the Fidelius. I'm not sure we can come back."

"We'll come back," Leia said, and a sense of certainty filled her. "We will."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

Despite Luke's faint blush, Obi-Wan had the tact to merely greet the two lovers with a "Good morning," and nothing more. Breakfast consisted of eggs—or rather, one very large egg with a shell so hard Harry had to use magic to crack it. However, once fried up in a conjured pan using salt gathered from an ocean not fifty miles away and herbs Charlie and the Wookiees found in the forest, it made for a delicious and filling breakfast, complete with toast and Imperial-stock caf.

Harry magically sealed the house, keying it only for Fleur, Bill, or his godson, and the four of them split up—with the Jedi to pay their final respects to Yoda before leaving, and Harry to meet with the Wizenmeet one last time.

He found Rosmerta speaking in quiet tones with Adriana Melo, but the rest of the chamber was empty. "What are you two talking about?" he asked as he walked in.

Rosmerta started, and Harry knew in an instant they were talking about him.

Fortunately, Rosmerta was practical enough to know they were caught. "Fine, we were gossiping about that space princess of yours," Rosmerta said.

Harry waved her away. "Yeah, Maria already got to her."

"She's good for you, Harry," Rosmerta said, no longer smiling. "Last night was the first time I think I've seen you happy since doomsday. I'm glad you let us meet her."

With a shrug, Harry sank into one of the simple wooden chairs of the hemispherical desk. "Well, she is pretty amazing."

"We also have a gift," Adriana said. She removed a hand-mirror from her professorial robes, since it was a school day and classes would be starting soon. "Lady Sofia was the only person left alive who knew how to enchant two-way mirrors, and she taught several of us how to do so. She can't do it herself anymore, but her mind is still very sharp."

Harry took the mirror and saw Jorge looking back. "Ahh, it works!" the speaker of the Wizenmeet said. "We shall have to see if it works over a great distance!"

"It should," Melo said. "Magic is not like light, at least not at its core. Sympathetic magic has been proven instantaneous, so distance should not matter. This way we can call you if we need assistance, and you can keep us updated as to what is happening abroad."

"This is fantastic, thank you," Harry said. "I can't say for sure when we'll get back, but I will return. That much I promise. And I'll bring back our people who chose to remain to fight."

"We know, lad," Rosmerta said. "You keep that space princess of yours safe."

"Have you seen her with that laser sword?" Harry asked. "She's the one who's going to be keeping me safe."

The two ladies laughed, and with that parting Harry took his leave and Apparated to the shuttle. He was in time to see the three Jedi making their way back to the shuttle as well. Harry noticed a wistful look in the older Jedi's eyes as he walked aboard, but said nothing. "The interdictors are going to be waiting for us," Harry noted.

"Undoubtedly," Obi-Wan said. "Would you be offended if I suggested Luke pilot?"

"Probably," Harry said. "It doesn't mean I won't agree to it. Luke?"

If it were anyone else, Harry's pride might have kept him from doing it. But Luke was just the type of kid it was hard to dislike, no matter how much one tried. Luke even managed to be graceful as he sank into the pilot's seat. "Are you sure you don't mind?"

"If this was a broomstick, you wouldn't have a chance," Harry assured him as he sank into the co-pilot's seat. "Spaceships are your thing. Hey, does this thing have any weapons?"

"It is a fully armed Imperial assault shuttle," Obi-Wan said. "It houses four twin laser cannons—two at the fore and two at the port sides, with a hard-mounted forward turbo-laser cannon and a proton torpedo launchers."

It took a moment of accessing another man's memories to determine what that meant. He whistled, and said, "This thing's pretty well armed for its size, isn't it?"

"This shuttle is the size of a typical transport," the older man said. "It is not surprising that it is more heavily armed than many smaller shuttles. Are you thinking we may have to fight our way out? They cannot physically interact with this ship, and attacking them might reveal more than you intend."

Harry shrugged. "I just like to keep my options open."

Luke's hands slid over the shuttle controls as if he were born to it. In moments, they rose gracefully into the air and began the ascent. With the internal compensators, Harry barely felt a tingle in his stomach as Luke angled the shuttle up sharply and accelerated. "So, we go to Kuna's Teeth first for fuel, and then to Adega?"

"Yes, I believe so. We have only two working lightsabers among five padawans and yourself, so this trip will not just be for you, but for Yoda's current and future students. "

"Did Yoda tell you what type of crystals to get for his Padawans?"

"No," Obi-Wan said as he tugged at his beard. "But I've a fair idea. Tell me, Harry, how accepting are your people of the Jedi?"

"Really? Yoda came in and showed them that Squibs—one of the saddest aspects of our society—can have magic of their own. Plus he looks like a house elf, and since none of the house elves survived Earth, he reminds them a little of home. Why?"

Solemnly, Obi-Wan said, "Master Yoda will not leave Avalon. Nor is it likely he will see the completion of his Padawans's training."

Harry merely nodded. "He is declining quickly," Harry said.

"He's dying?" Luke blinked in surprise. "But…but…he's nine-hundred years old! How can he die?"

"I'd say nine hundred years was enough to kill almost anyone," Harry said. "I'm assuming he asked you to return to Avalon to take up the mantle?"

Obi-Wan nodded. "Yes. While I am not old for a Jedi, I am not young either. And the Order will never survive without new blood."

"If you want the Order to survive, you're going to have to change it," Harry said bluntly. "Yoda's mind felt like crystal. It was set and intransigent. He's no more capable of change than a rock. But the Order must change."

"I know," Obi-Wan said with a smile to Harry. "And it will, my friend."

"We're clearing the atmo," Luke noted.

They turned and saw the thin blue line of Avalon's atmosphere fall behind, revealing the black of space, and the glint of sunlight off dozens of grey hulls. "Oh stars," Luke whispered.

Harry lost count of the ships at forty, but knew there were at least twice that many. He did not see any of the massive star destroyers, but he saw plenty of interdictors, frigates, destroyers and smaller yet still deadly ships hanging in orbit. The moment they broke the gravity well and the protection of the planetary Fidelius charm, the ships began to swarm toward them, honing in on the ion trail of their exhaust.

"There are grav wells all over the place," Luke said. "They're actually slowing us down."

"I thought…never mind. Can they actually stop us?"

"No," Luke said. "But they can force us to continue at full burn to escape, and they can keep us interdicted forever. Those ships can go as fast as we can."

Harry growled in frustration as ships fell in around them, so large it seemed as if they were fully encapsulated in light-grey hulls. Once in a while a ship would fire an ion cannon to no effect, but though the Empire could not hit them, neither could they really escape. Without hyperdrive they would be essentially stuck in system. Even if they left, the Empire obviously had the resources to follow them even into deep space, switching ships until Harry and his people starved, or the shuttle ran out of fuel and power.

"Thrawn is good," Harry muttered.

"Indeed," Obi-Wan said. "But I think he has failed to take into account one thing."

"Oh?"

"We are Jedi. Luke, cut the thrusters. And then all of you, you too, Harry, reach for the Force and channel it to Luke. Luke, use the Force to propel the shuttle."

"But how?"

"You will know, Luke. The Force will be with you."

Harry tried not to be jealous of how easily Leia slipped into the Force-trance and started funneling an obscene amount of Force power to her brother. Their link was deep, powerful, and instinctive. Twins, Harry forced himself to remember. He lowered his own Occlumency shields and dipped his magical core as Yoda taught, and then mentally projected it at Luke.

The shuttle, buffeted by artificial gravity fields, had slowed so much it was in danger of being pulled back to the planet. Now, it surged sideways and artfully slipped between the hulls of two dreadnaughts without any type of traceable trail or exhaust. Luke continued sideways for another thousand kilometers before pulling the shuttle up sharply.

The cluster of Imperial ships were slowing, likely using their best calculations to predict where the shuttle would be. The space around them was still heavily strewn with capital ships, but Luke closed his eyes, and using the Force alone, propelled the ship free of the intensive blockade.

"Well done," Obi-Wan said.

Luke blushed, but then sank forward a little with hunched shoulders. "That was hard."

"Yeah, but we did it," Harry said. "Let's get the hell out of here."

sp

sp

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