Chapter Twenty-Eight: Déjà vu Miss Me?

Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover

A/N: Chap 27 review responses are in my forums as normal. Thanks to everyone who reviewed!

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Déjà vu Miss Me?

Given the late hour reported by their chronometers, the three Jedi and Harry elected to stay a second evening in the cavern. Harry for his part agreed because he was physically and emotionally exhausted from his vision of the colony's past; the others because their quest for their crystals took hours and hours and left them numb with their own exhaustion.

Harry didn't tell the obviously curious Obi-Wan what he saw, only that he had a vision of the ghosts of the old Jedi library and temple. They ate a simple dinner of Imperial ration packs since Harry wasn't up to cooking, and the others lacked the wands necessary to make the tent's magical appliances actually work.

They sought their beds in separate rooms, though Harry had to smile when Leia joined him without hesitation. It wasn't something either of them even thought about any more—they belonged together.

"So what was it like, when you found your crystal?" he asked her when they were finally under the covers of his bed.

Leia sighed as she snuggled next to him, cleaving closely to his body. "It was like finding a part of me I didn't even know existed. When I found it, I felt complete, somehow."

Harry nodded and held her close; a minute later she poked him in the chest.

"What?"

"Are you really going to make me ask?" she demanded.

With a sigh, Harry said, "The Jedi here were not victims of Sith, or the Dark Jedi, or whatever. They were slaughtered by the Jedi Order itself because they were different."

Leia propped her head up on her hand to look at him better. "What do you mean?"

"From what I understand, the early Jedi were philosophers. They studied and tried to learn from the Force. But at some point, Jedi theories and belief became a religious liturgy—an orthodoxy. And once a belief stops being based on observation and reason and instead become based on religious fervor, it becomes inflexible and intolerant. The Adega Jedi were experimenting with facets of the Force that the Orthodox Jedi disapproved of. And, I'll admit, some of it was wrong. They were using the Force to alter their own children."

"By the stars, into what?"

Examining this incredible woman, Harry said, "On my world, there were dozens of magical creatures. You've seen a few of the surviving stock we have—hippogriffs and what have you. But there were also sentient magical beings like Fleur—Veela, centaurs, goblins and giants. Beings that had many human traits, but were magically imbued into something else. According to the vision I saw, those beings were created here, on Adega."

"What…"

"The magical races of Earth are the descendants of the fugitives who chose to flee Adega instead of fight," Harry said. "The first true witch was born here, on Adega. Her name was Hekate, which I suppose was the origin of the witch-goddess of my own people. And the Deathly Hallows I carry—they are the keys to the ward stones that protected the Adega Jedi library and temple when the Jedi fleet bombed the world into ash. Those ward crystals are still here, and because I have the key I'm going to be able to use them. I'm going to be able to reactivate them and take them with me back to Avalon, where we can use them to protect the children of their creators once more. So, instead of a lightsaber crystal, I'll be getting ward stones of unbelievable power. A fair trade, all in all."

"It's so hard to believe that Jedi would do that to other Jedi, though," Leia whispered.

"Is it? What did Obi-Wan tell you about Anakin and your mother?"

"That they kept the marriage secret." Leia thought of her own answer and nodded. "Yes, I understand. If the Jedi had accepted his marriage and helped protect her, there was a chance Anakin would never have fallen."

"Yoda is a powerful Jedi master, but his mind feels like crystal. Brilliant, definitely light, but hard and unyielding. It is impossible for him to accept new ideas. He does not approve of us, but he and Obi-Wan are both convinced the future lies with Luke. They've essentially written you off as a Jedi because of me. In fact, back on Yavin he seemed to be suggesting I try to get you to run off with me. Would have simplified his training with Luke, I bet."

"Harry, I don't believe that. Obi-Wan has trained me as much as Luke."

"But which of you carries Anakin's lightsaber?"

"Harry…"

"Leia, when I was a little boy, a powerful old wizard saw the scar on my forehead, and, with a prophecy in mind, decided that I was the only one who could defeat the wizard who killed my parents. My entire life was designed to create a martyr who would have both the courage to sacrifice, and the lack of self-worth to think the sacrifice worth it. I'll give this to Obi-Wan—at least he's teaching Luke to fight. But you should know that he had no intention of telling you who your parents were. It was Luke's instinctive recognition of you, and me telling him it wasn't his secret to keep, that you were brought into the fold. But at the end of the day, it was Luke Obi-Wan chose to stay close to on Tattooine. That's because, at the end of the day, he and Yoda believe it is Luke who will face your father."

"And you got all this from Yoda's mind?"

"No, I got all this because the same damn thing happened to me."

"So, where does that leave me?"

Harry leaned over and kissed her freely. "It leaves you free to live how you want, to be the greatest Jedi ever, or to be the president of the Federation or Alliance or whatever you want to call it. It means the future is yours. I just hope you let me be a part of it."

"Well, you did help get me my crystal, so I'm not sure what good you are to me now," she said with a grin. "But if I think of something, I'll let you know."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

It was still there when they went searching the next morning.

Harry stood at the crest of a pile of scree that had fallen from the edge of the cavern over the past seven thousand years, his breather straining with the cloud of pumice dust in the air, and stared at the ward crystal.

With absent waves of his hand, he cast a series of banishing and cleansing spells that made the air breathable for the three Jedi who came up the dangerously unstable slope behind him. But he had only eyes for the ten-foot tall crystal. When he first uncovered it, the crystal looked to be a dusty, dull shade of red. But just like Leia's and Luke's lightsaber crystal, the ward crystal began to pulse with the beating of Harry's heart the closer he climbed, somehow sensing that he carried a part of the crystal within his own magic.

"I don't think that would make a good lightsaber crystal," Luke noted.

Harry was so far gone in his fascination with the ward he could not tell if the young Jedi was being sarcastic or literal. Given that Harry's stated goal on the trip was to obtain a lightsaber crystal, perhaps he was trying to be helpful.

"Lightsabers are for Jedi," he echoed absently as he carefully scrambled down into the pit he dug with his magic. The crystal continued to blink with its own brilliant light. Somehow knowing it was necessary, Harry lightly cut his palm, and when his hand was coated in blood he placed it against the crystal.

He felt the drain immediately, as if a siphon suddenly sucked every erg of magic he possessed from his core. He gasped and collapsed to his knees, but did not break contact since beside him the blinking light suddenly shone a solid, near-blinding red. The crystal pinged like a giant bell that echoed through the cavern.

"Harry!" Leia cried in alarm.

"It's okay, it's recharging and attuning itself to me." Harry shouted as if trying to be heard over a storm, though it was a sound only he could hear. He had no choice but to open himself to the Force. As the energy began pouring back into his body, the crystal pulled it out again just as quickly, until Harry's body became nothing but a conduit for the powerful crystal.

In the farthest corners of the dim cavern, two echoing red stars suddenly burned free of their debris, illuminating the whole space.

"Force," Luke whispered. "Ben, can you feel it?"

Harry certainly could—the energy pulsing through him began to burn like Fiendfyre, flowing faster than his magic core could process. He was channeling energy originally intended for three others each as powerful as he was, and he realized with a shock that, Master of Death or not, it was killing him.

It was at that point that Leia pulled her own Harry Potter—something at once astoundingly brave, utterly selfless, and completely and uncharacteristically stupid. She jumped to his side and jammed her hand against the crystal, cutting her palm on it and initiating another power channel, while at the same time grabbing his hand, as if somehow she had shared his vision of the Adegan Jedi.

Then she too screamed as the power began to flow from the wounded Force of the planet into the crystal through her body as well as his. Just reducing the load by half allowed Harry's core to begin processing the power flow better. With the power and the very essence of life pouring around them, Harry could not see with his eyes.

He saw with Power. He saw the power ripping through Leia's body with the same fierce intensity that it did with Xoxaan, Hekate and Corduna Pall seven thousand years ago. And just like then, he saw her body respond in an effort to save itself. Her very soul began to build a buffer within her body, a field that absorbed and processed the raw, destructive power that poured into it in a way that protected her flesh and her life, but still allowed the power to flow back out.

He realized with a numbing shock completely outside the agony of his own channeling that the ward stones were doing to Leia exactly what they did to Hekate, the penultimate mother of Earth's magical races. It was turning Leia into a witch.

The flow finally began to slow. The stone they selected was pulling power not just for itself, but for the entire ancient ward matrix. Even so, all three of the crystals were finally nearly empowered. With the reduction in the flow of power, he became aware of Leia's agonized gasping and the hard, crushing grip of her hand in his.

He felt new shards from the other two crystals flying toward them, completing a new key to the ward scheme that complemented Harry's own. Though he could not see it, he knew the first shard key was already within Leia. The other two metaphysical shards plunged into her chest like non-corporeal bullets, wracking her body with spasms as they sank into that newly formed Force-buffer that Harry's people called a magical core.

Abruptly, it was done. The Force stopped flowing, and in its stead only magic remained. Leia moaned and collapsed on top of him, but he was too exhausted and injured to do more than cushion her fall as he fell too. Luke and Obi-Wan scrambled closer, but Harry managed to hold them off.

"Don't touch us just yet," Harry said tiredly. "We're probably charged up enough to kill you."

"What happened?" Obi-Wan demanded.

"Leia saved my life," Harry said. "The wards needed three to activate, I wasn't enough. The two of us were, if just barely. She's now as keyed into these ward stones as I am."

He didn't mention her new magical core—Kenobi had his secrets, Harry felt no need to share all of theirs. For in his mind, Harry had no doubt at all that Leia and he were a single unit now. More than a unit...

"Harry?" Leia whispered. Her voice was as hoarse as it was after her Death Star torture sessions.

"We did it," he whispered. He hugged her close in trembling arms. "Thank you, Leia. You did it. You saved me. You probably just saved our people."

She was too exhausted to pick out the choice of pronoun.

Obi-Wan, however, did notice.

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

Luke kept looking at the ten-foot tall, brilliantly glowing red ward stone that floated down behind them like an obedient dog. Harry and Leia walked hand in hand, shoulders slumped with exhaustion, uncaring. Harry could feel the other two stones approaching them at the same pace—the structure of the ward matrix required that the stones maintain a fixed shape and distance. When powered, if one moved inward, the others moved in at the same time to maintain the general triangular matrix shape.

No one spoke, for which Harry was intensely grateful. His whole body thrummed with pain, and he knew Leia was hurting even more than he did. Moreover, she would not be able to figure out why she hurt because she did not grow up with a magical core, so she had no idea how to identify what she felt as magical exhaustion.

He gripped her hand, and she gripped his, and they walked back through the vast black emptiness of the cavern to the small point of light that was their tent followed by the floating embodiment of a planet's soul.

Luke hung back more and more from them, his hands held flat at his side as if he was trying to feel something under them. Harry and Leia couldn't afford the energy to wait, though Obi-Wan lingered between them. All Harry knew as that the tent was ahead, and with it a bath and food.

When finally they reached the tent, the two other ward stones hovered just twenty feet away, glowing so brilliantly they seemed to illuminate the whole cavern. The one that followed them stopped as well as Harry and Leia tiredly walked into the tent.

Neither hesitated to step into the bath which was instantly filled with hot water. Harry helped Leia peel back her slightly singed clothes while she helped him from his battered uniform, and the two slipped into the water with barely enough energy to wash the accumulated pumice dust from their skin and hair.

Once that was done, they collapsed into bed without a word, food forgotten, and were sound asleep seconds later.

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

"The planet is dead," Luke said softly as he and Obi-Wan arrived at the tent just as Harry and Leia were finishing their bath. "They drained the Force energy from the whole world."

Obi-Wan nodded as he pulled his beard with more force than necessary. "During the Great Sith Wars, the Jedi Council learned that the first Sith Emperor had essentially made himself immortal by draining the life energy of an entire world in a similar fashion," Obi-Wan said.

The implications hit Luke like a rock. "Are you saying what happened was of the Dark Side?"

"My young friend, the taking of energy from one being to another is one of the basic tenants of the Dark Side of the Force. From what I learned while there, the Avalon Colony uses wards they buried in the ground that take the life energy of the planet itself to create protective barriers. Harry's people think nothing of this—it is perfectly normal to them. But the Force must be in balance. You cannot take without replacing."

"Harry doesn't feel dark, though."

Obi-Wan simply nodded. "No, and neither do his people. But think about what their magic does, Luke. They can create matter from nothingness. And yet instead of helping the normal people of their world like the Jedi did, they instead hid away from them and never shared their abilities for the betterment of the greater race. They delved into powers the Force itself screams against. And have you considered what it means that Harry was able to tune himself into one of the greatest crimes ever committed by Dark Jedi?"

"Master?"

Obi-Wan sighed and regarded the tent where Anakin's daughter was even now sleeping with the subject of their discussion. "Though it was known only by the High Council, the fact is that the Jedi on Adega formed a Dark Cult and were destroyed by the Jedi Order. It was Jedi born and trained right here that later formed the Sith Empire. They were using the Force to pervert life itself, committing crimes so heinous the old Order called them sins. Yoda and I suspected, when we first encountered Harry and his people, that they were not a separate race that developed magic, but the product of the Dark experiments done here which warped their ability to use the Force. After all, the same thing happened on Dathomir.

"It was when Harry discussed Veela that we knew for sure, for those creatures were created right here and were recorded in the archives of the Jedi temple. The witches and wizards of Earth are the perverted offspring of the Adegan's Dark Jedi—the same people who also founded the Sith Order."

Luke's blue eyes bulged in horror. "What can we do, Master?"

"For now? Nothing. We can do nothing until the Jedi Order is strong again. But we must remember who and what these witches and wizards are. We can never forget."

Luke nodded, subdued and frightened by the lesson.

In the tent, Harry stirred, his dreams disturbed by memories of genocide long past.

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

Harry felt eyes on him. Blinking blearily, he turned his head and saw Leia staring at him, her lips parted and her hair a fright. She wore no cosmetics and her eyes were caked from sleep and days spent in a cavern filled with pumice dust. Within the tent she did not need her breather, but she looked exhausted even after a long day and night of sleep.

She looked so beautiful he felt a pulling ache in his chest just looking at her.

"I'm different," she said softly. Her sonorous voice sent a chill down his back. Whatever thoughts he had the previous day of not telling her fell out a window. Of course this brilliant woman, trained in the Force, would detect her own magical core.

Wordlessly, he nodded.

"Is this…is this what happened to that woman you told me about?"

"They were prepared to give their lives to power the wards," Harry said softly. "Do you remember the friends I told you about on Earth, the ones that stayed behind? They keyed their magic—their very souls—into the wards to give them the power to protect the school. The three Jedi I saw did the same. Each of them was gifted a shard from the crystals, but the two that decided to fight gave them to the third—a woman named Hekate. On my world, she was regarded as the patron goddess of witches and magic. It's because she herself was the mother of witchcraft and wizardry."

"What I feel? It's magic, isn't it?"

"You have a magical core now," Harry said. "Ordinarily you'd get a wand, but the ward keys act as wands, at least mine do. You could learn magic just like I do it."

He watched as her mind processed his words, and the whole eternity of implications within them. Slowly she reached up a hand and rubbed his cheek. "I'm like you now," she finally said.

"Yes."

Her kiss was fierce and hungry, and he barely had time to register it before she swung a leg over and mounted him, loving him with a ferocity that left them both sweating and boneless. Finally, collapsed on his chest, she spoke in a deep, throaty voice. "What are your intentions regarding me, Mr. Potter?"

"Well, I feel compelled to do the honorable thing, Princess Leia," he said. "But I'm not sure your biological father will give me permission for your hand. We didn't get along well during our first meeting."

Leia's laugh billowed out of control, a hysterical release of pain, desire, hope and sadness. By the time she gathered herself, there were tears in her eyes and a smile on her red, swollen lips. "Would you?"

"I am, right now," Harry said. "I have the biggest damn engagement stones in the universe right outside. Marry me, Leia."

Leia laughed again before resting her head on his chest. "Oh Harry, oh stars above, I love you. After Alderaan, I didn't think I could love again. But I do. Yes. A thousand times yes."

They showered again, and after Harry cast cleansing charms they dressed and packed their things for the return. When they left their room, they found Obi-Wan meditating in the living area. "Good morning," he said simply.

Leia's cheeks pinked, and Harry understood why. Whether the old Jedi heard anything they did or not, he and Luke almost certainly felt it through the Force. After all, Harry might have known Occlumency, but Leia did not.

Fortunately, Obi-Wan was tactful if nothing else. "Your brother reminded me that Master Yoda asked for additional crystals for his students, and so he has gone out to seek additional crystals."

"Oh, that's a good idea," Leia said. "I'll join him."

She fled the tent, leaving two men who were not so far apart in years, if not in appearance. "Are you recovered, then?" Obi-Wan asked.

Harry snorted and went into the kitchen for a ration kit. "Recovered enough," he said, when he returned with the meal. He sat on the couch and began to ravenously devour the processed food. Even as he ate, though, he regarded the old Jedi. "So, have you and Luke been having fun talking about us behind our backs?"

"Why would we do that?" Obi-Wan asked with one elegantly raised brow.

Harry snorted again and put aside the now empty meal. "You knew about this place, didn't you? It's real history. You heard of a lady named Xoxaan?"

"If memory serves, she was the Marchioness of the Dark Jedi's Black Legion and one of eleven Dark Jedi exiled from the Republic following the Hundred Year's Darkness. Later history would show those eleven made their way to Korriban and founded the Sith Empire. History records that she, personally, murdered over forty Jedi knights."

"They murdered her daughter," Harry said with a shrug. "The Jedi started the fight because they were intolerant."

Harry noted the older man's back stiffen. "When it comes to the Dark Side of the Force, Mr. Potter, there can be no tolerance."

"The problem comes with who defines what's dark and light, doesn't it?" Harry said. "Sometimes the line isn't so easy to draw. I'll admit what the Jedi on Adega were doing was wrong. That type of experimentation was as illegal and vile in the magical world as the Jedi found it back then. But we did not try to slaughter the products of the experimentation. It might have been an imperfect balance, but eventually magicals learned to live with the sentient species around us."

"They were twisting the Force to warp their own children into monstrous shapes," Obi-Wan said. He spoke with tight enunciation.

"Yes: Veela, centaurs and giants. I saw them, what they designed. They were looking for ways to make more effective fighters to fulfill the role of peacekeepers. As I said, it was wrong. I'm not going to justify what they did. What I condemn is the Jedi's heavy-handed response to it. Xoxaan begged the Jedi delegates to spare the children already born. She promised they would stop, because they did not want conflict. Know what the Jedi Council said? They told this mother that it was the will of the Force that they learn to let go that which they feared most to lose."

Harry could see the words impact Obi-Wan like a blow, and in that instant he knew. "And that's what Yoda told Anakin, when he came to seek counsel, isn't it?"

"How could you know that?" Obi-Wan demanded.

"I spent almost a year training with the hypocritical little troll. He told me all about Anakin Skywalker. Those were Yoda's exact words. And how did that work out?"

"You don't understand…"

"I understand that in your arrogance, in your close-minded faith in yourselves and your own orthodoxy, the Jedi pushed yet another brilliant, talented Jedi into darkness the same way your predecessors did to Xoxaan, Carduna and Arjuna Pall, and my ancestor Hekate."

The words were out, and Harry could see Obi-Wan's mind working with the same speed and brilliance as Leia's. "Is that what you saw?"

"It's what I felt. The Deathly Hallows are the key to those ward stones. That's why I was able to activate them. The Jedi who could not bear to fight their brethren fled, while Xoxaan and the others fought to cover their retreat. And it should be noted, Obi-Wan—Xoxaan only began to fight after the Jedi destroyed Adega. It was the Jedi Council itself who started the Hundred Years Darkness."

"You cannot know that, Mr. Potter," Obi-Wan said. "Your entire perception is based on a limited point of view."

"The dead cannot lie, Kenobi," Harry said. "Not when in my presence. I saw it happen. I saw the Jedi Council members condemn the children of Adega in front of their faces. You can't argue point of view there, old man. Not this time." Harry took a deep breath to calm down. "My people welcomed you into our arms. Tell me now, and know that I am scanning you for the truth. Do you and Yoda consider my people Dark Siders?"

With as much pride and nobility as the Jedi could muster, Obi-Wan said, "We fear that is a possibility, yes."

Harry sighed and stared intently at the old man. "And you've shared that fear with Luke, of course. Turning siblings against each other—what a quaint old Jedi tradition. Get up, we're leaving."

Harry spun and left the tent while fighting with every ounce of control he had not to lose his temper. He waited only long enough for Obi-Wan to clear the tent with his back before summoning the rest of their belongings out and then packing the tent up. Luke and Leia were just returning, each with a back of crystals slung over their shoulders.

"We're leaving?" Luke asked in surprise.

"Yeah, I've had enough," Harry said. Ignoring the others, he stepped to the ward stone and placed a hand on it. Since it was fully powered he didn't have to worry about it pulling anything. Within the stone he felt a strange, alien presence—a sentience at once wildly alien and yet familiar. He envisioned the interior of the assault shuttle as if he were about to Apparate, and with that silent communication all three stones suddenly disappeared.

"What happened?" Luke asked, startled.

"They teleported themselves to the shuttle," Leia said.

"How do you know?" Luke asked.

"I felt them," she said with a pretty little blush.

"Come on," Harry said brusquely. To take the edge of his tone, he held out a hand for Leia. Though questioning his suddenly dark mood, she took the hand in hers and they started back up the long stone path.

Given how quickly a wonderful morning went to hell, and given their track record, it should not have surprised Harry at all when they found Darth Vader at the top of the tunnel waiting for them. But it did.

Harry, first out, only had time to shout an alarmed warning before he felt himself in a powerful Force-grip that pulled him up from the cavern mouth. He tried to Apparate, but felt again the now familiar dampening effect of gravitons interfering with his magic, and so had no way avoid the slashing red saber.

It moved so fast…he hit the hard, jagged black rock of the peak with a wizard bounce and looked down in shock to find both legs and one arm simply gone, only burned stubs to give any indication he once had limbs. In the distance, Leia screamed his name even as she shot out of the cavern mouth. She had no lightsaber, but she wielded the Force. Luke emerged behind and he did have a saber. And behind them came Obi-Wan.

But Harry didn't care. "Bugger me," he muttered as the pain finally hit, along with the realization he had literally been dismembered.

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Author's Note: Yup. Yup, I did. 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.