Revenge of the Wizard (HP x Star Wars)95.00%

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Atop a Lonely Mountain

Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover

A/N: Chap 37 review responses are in my forums like normal. Thanks for reading.

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Atop a Lonely Mountain

Carlist Rieekan commanded the Rebel Fleet from on board the Mon Cal heavy cruiser Liberty, one of the handful of capital ships that survived the disaster at Endor. While the crushing defeat hung heavily about their heads, the entire crew of the warship walked around on edge, nervously awaiting word of Avalon.

Rieekan was one of the last of the flag officers of the Alliance to give in to the chaos that Potter brought with him. Really, it wasn't until Potter left his people under Rieekan and went to train with the Jedi that he began to appreciate just what a mage could bring to the operation. So when Potter raised the question of helping Avalon, and painted the dire picture of what could happen if the Emperor captured the mage race, he agreed they had to help.

"Sir, gold channel communication from the Millennium Falcon."

Carlist blinked away his thoughts and stepped into the holotrasmitter alcove. Han Solo's bust was already there. "Solo, this is Liberty. Go ahead."

"General, you're not going to believe this," Solo began. "The Imperials are firing on each other!"

"What? Did Potter's people take the Force Eclipse?"

"That's just it, they didn't! According to the princess, one of the Imps tried a coup, and now the fleet is firing on each other! The Executor is going toe-to-toe with the Force Eclipse. But it's already stripped away Avalon's protection!"

Carlist reared back, trying to absorb everything. A coup? "From the ashes of defeat," he whispered. Then: "Solo, stay in visual range of the fleet engagements. Let all parties know we are in bound."

"Roger."

The connection ended, but Carlist was already calling another. "Lieutenant!" he shouted. "Get me De la Rosa on the holocom now, and order all ships to make way to Avalon at best speed!"

~~Revenge~~

Han let the connection terminate and continued to watch as the two giants, the Executor and Force Eclipse, continued their deadly dance around each other. The larger ship was constantly attempting to bring its primary weapons to bear on the super star destroyer, but the Executor's captain was wily enough to keep the ship in constant motion away from either the superlaser or the ion pulse cannon.

Smaller ships darted in to attack the Executor, but Vader's squadron was nothing if not superbly trained. His own star destroyers intercepted, often with lethal results, all attempts to get to the Executor. They did not break and attack on their own, but rather formed a protective globe around their super star destroyer.

All the while, the Executor fired continuously at the Force Eclipse, which in terms of standard capital ship weaponry was evenly matched and fired back in kind.

Finally, though, something changed. The Force Eclipse abruptly stopped its motion to track the Executor to its starboard side and abruptly began spinning to its port side. The sudden shift caught the Executor by surprise and shocked Han as well. A manoeuvre that abrupt in a ship that big could have sheared it in half. In fact, he saw a billow of flame from one side of the Force Eclipse, made miniscule in comparison to the ship itself.

The Executor desperately tried to change its own trajectory, shearing up from the horizontal plane of the engagement while launching a fusillade of concussion missiles. But whatever effect it had on the Force Eclipse, the manoeuvre brought its weapons in range. The blue ion pulse cannon pulsed once, twice, and then fired the tell-tale blue disk of energy toward the surging Executor.

The Executor's desperate manoeuvring was just not enough. The ion pulse struck the super star destroyer amid-ship, and suddenly the giant began to list as it not only lost all thrust control, but also all altitude control engines. It continued on momentum, bringing the ship further into range of the Force Eclipse's other weapon.

"Oh kriff," Han whispered.

Chewie roared his agreement, but then both reared back as a thick, green pulse of energy speared out from the tip of the Force Eclipse and stabbed at the Executor. The explosion that resulted was so gargantuan that the Falcon's canopy automatically reverted to a shade-out to keep its crew from being blinded. When the brilliance eased, Han could see multiple flares all around the dying ship as its squadron was caught in the explosion.

The massive Force Eclipse began to swing about again, much more slowly this time, to bring that terrible weapon to bear on the planet. "Come on, Harry," Han whispered. Not even he could have said who or what he prayed to.

~~Revenge~~

"We can't put the fire out!"

Captain Gilad Pellaeon frowned in consternation at the holographic image of the warrant officer's head. "Have you not evacuated the atmosphere for the affected areas?"

"Captain, the fire doesn't just burn air, it burns everything," the tech shouted. A strange, bestial roar made the connection hard to hear. "If we evacuate the air, it still burns. It's consuming the depleted neutronium armour. It's not normal…aahhhhh!"

Pellaeon had the distinct displeasure of seeing what looked like a fiery animal swoop down over the poor man as if eating him. The connection terminated.

"Bring up a summary of affected areas of the ship!" he said sharply to another tech.

The holographic depiction of the Force Eclipse blinked with hundreds of such fires all over, and even as he watched they were spreading like a fast-moving disease. Frowning deeply, Pellaeon contacted the admiral.

"Yes, the fire," Thrawn said calmly. "I've encountered the mage's flame before, both on my ship, and in records from the Death Star. It can only be contained with level five magnetic shielding. You'll have to isolate each affected area completely and encase it completely in magnetic shielding."

Pellaeon tried not to gape. "Admiral, the ship is not equipped with internal magnetic shielding like that!"

"You'll have to employ assault shuttles and turbolasers to cut the affected areas out."

It took an act of will for the captain to keep his face straight. "I understand, Admiral. We'll begin at once. We should have firing solution in less than three minutes."

"Excellent," Thrawn said with a nod. "It will be a glorious day for the Empire, my friend. At last, the New Order as it should have been will have its day."

With that, Thrawn terminated the connection. Pellaeon began the arduous task of ordering his own assault shuttles to begin to fire on and cut away the odd, magical fire.

~~Revenge~~

Luke flew with a straight face despite the recent events with his father. Harry sat in a tense silence, checking gauges and switches but otherwise too spent physically and emotionally to speak. He felt Leia's hand over the shoulder of his seat and took it wordlessly, grateful for the touch.

Ahead, the world of Avalon beckoned. "We're not going to make it in time," Harry said at last. "He's already to the stones."

"I know," Leia said. "I can feel it."

"We both can," Luke assured them. "We're still going to have to stop him."

"We will," Harry said. Outside the viewport, the shuttle bucked as it entered the atmosphere at full burn, heading toward the most prominent mountain ridge.

~~Revenge~~

Maria Delarosa grinned at the sexy young Rebel pilot and winked. "Here we go, menino bonito."

The young man had no idea what she said, but he understood the tone well enough. They reverted to real space, both their small intelligence ship and the frigate that was loaded with enough explosives to crack a moon in half and slaved to their controls. It was a good thing both ships were under the Fidelius, because they would have exploded immediately when they ran through wreckage. The system looked worse than the chaos at Endor, only this time it was Imperial-on-Imperial. Nor was the fighting done.

She could see Star Destroyers still firing on each other with terrifying, powerful guns. But what caught her eye was the monstrosity in their midst—the Force Eclipse. She tried not to even think about the fact that Avalon was perfectly visible in the sky around the battle.

As they got closer to their target, Maria whispered, "Ai meu Jesus Cristinho! Potter, you and your blasted Fiendfyre!"

One entire span over two kilometres long was burned away from the outer edge of the ship. A swarm of insect-like assault shuttles and support ships were somehow containing the fire in open space, depriving it of any substance to feed on. But in the meantime, doing so had exposed the inner skeleton of the ship.

It took Maria only a moment to realize that the fire had opened a door. The original plan had been to just ram the frigate directly into the primary weapon. But she was staring at the unshielded innards of the best itself. "Bonito," she whispered, having never even learnt the pilot's real name, "that's our target. Send the frigate there. Chastings, you awake back there?"

"Aye!"

"Get ready to remove the Fidelius from me. Dorra, you prime the warheads on that ship. This is it, people!"

~~Revenge~~

The stone temple Harry crafted from the mountain top below the crystals was gone, crushed under the weight of the Emperor's personal shuttle. It was the only place to land anywhere near the crystals themselves.

Luke did not hesitate even for a moment and opened fire as soon as they came in range. They did not want to use proton torpedoes for fear of destroying everything, but the laser cannons were enough to destroy the powered-down, unshielded shuttle. Luke kept firing until the burning wreckage tumbled over the edge of the steep mountain top and into the cloud-enshrouded depths below.

"We're cleared for landing," Luke muttered.

Harry was unable to tell if Luke was joking or not, and for some reason that bothered him. Luke never told jokes, and yet that sure sounded like a Schwarzenegger-esque one-liner if he'd ever heard one.

The shuttle settled in to the smouldering ruins, and as soon as they settled Harry, Luke and Leia rushed to the loading ramp. He saw Madine standing with a squad of tired rebel soldiers and mages.

"General," Harry said. "Get back to the settlement and evacuate as many mages as possible, just in case."

"I saw Imperial guards and Stormtroopers with the Emperor, Potter," Madine noted.

"So, it's a target-rich environment," Harry said with a shrug.

Madine looked to Leia, who merely nodded and squeezed the man's shoulder before following Harry down the ramp. Luke arrived a moment later. They barely made it to the edge of the rocky footpath before the shuttle lifted off. As soon as they appeared from the shuttle's Fidelius-charmed interior, Stormtroopers on the far side began firing on them.

Harry looked around at the rubble until he spotted a few promising rocks, and in minutes a herd of hippogriffs were flying toward the confused troopers. "Leia, can you Apparate?" he asked.

She nodded firmly. Harry took Luke's arm, and in a blink of an eye the three of them were on the far side of Harry's transfigured walkway, right in the middle of the Emperor's personal guard. Luke reacted first, unleashing a numbing Force-push that blew four of the lethal, red-robed warriors so far off the mountain there was nothing for them to try and arrest their fall. Leia had her sabre out and had already engaged another, while Harry went about casting blasting charms at anything in armour.

He couldn't say if it was their training together on Avalon, or the fact that the three of them were now family, but they worked in such a seamless way that for the briefest moment Harry forgot the pending horror they faced. Luke and Leia fought the guards and deflected the blaster bolts from the Stormtroopers while Harry's conjured creations continued to thin out the guard, and he himself danced around, between and through the twins until, in just moments, the three of them stood alone on the cliff face near the crystals.

Sheer exhilaration ran through his veins. But then he heard a high-pitched, ancient voice crying in pain and felt a surge of magic that made the hair over the whole of his body stand on end. He spun, with Leia to his left and Luke to his right, and stared in horror as the third key to the ward stones was formed.

The Emperor stood, head and arms thrown back, as waves of energy poured through him. Corresponding energy flowed through Harry and Leia, ironically giving the old Sith the buffer he needed to survive the transformation.

And just like that, it was done. The Emperor collapsed to his knees, grunting in pain. "Luke, now!" Harry hissed.

The young Jedi did not hesitate. With the Force as his ally, Luke vaulted into the thin mountain air with his green sabre held aloft, a look of pure determination on his face.

With a dry chuckle, not even moving from his knees, the Emperor flicked a hand in Luke's general direction.

"LUKE!"

Harry stared in shocked surprise as Luke blasted backward through the air, as if a giant beater's bat had struck him. It took only a moment for Harry to realize that the Emperor had blown his future brother-in-law so far off the mountain he could not hope to survive even with the Force.

Harry reacted instinctively, Apparating to mid-air just over Luke's insensate, falling body. He dove down into the cloud cover until he grabbed him, and then pushed with all his magic until their descent stopped.

A moment later, he Apparated back to the mountain top with the still unconscious Luke in his arms. Leia quickly felt at his head to ensure he was alive and nodded with a relieved sigh before she looked back at where Palpatine was rising to his feet. The old Sith's cackle wheezed, and yet Harry could hear the unrestrained glee in the sound.

"So much power," the Emperor said, moving his hands about his face as if he'd never seen them before. With the hood of his black robe thrown back, Harry could see his lumpy, misshapen head of pale, sickly-white skin. His orange eyes glowed so brightly orange that they were visible even in the reflected sunlight from the snow and ice that covered the mountain. "Unlimited, eternal power!"

With a roar, he reached up a hand and the sky exploded in shower of lightning that made both Harry and Leia stumble back in shock. The air warped around him, as if nature itself was so abhorred by his presence it did not even want the air to come in contact with him. Display complete, he turned his glowing eyes on Harry and Leia, piercing both with a deaths-head grin.

"And now, my young disciples, it is time to learn the true power of the Dark Side."

~~Revenge~~

"Admiral, the primary weapon is on target at the coordinates provided."

Thrawn did not smile at Captain Pellaeon, but he did nod. "Thank you, Captain. I have firing control."

"Yes, admiral."

"For the Galaxy, and all our children," the Chiss grand admiral whispered as he fired the Force Eclipse's primary weapon. He watched in satisfaction as the immense beam of destructive energy lanced out toward the mountainous region of the largest continent. It was only from the corner of his eye that he saw something out of place in the distance. Blinking, he leaned forward and stared at the sensor reading as a five hundred meter long frigate just appeared out of nowhere less than five hundred meters from where Pellaeon had to cut away a large portion of the outer hull to contain that section of Potter's cursed fire.

"Oh, well done, Potter," the Chiss whispered.

The Rebel frigate, bereft of the Fidelius charm, slammed into the exposed superstructure of the Force Eclipse at full sublight. The frigate ploughed into the unprotected, unshielded portion of the massive ship four kilometres away from the largest hypermatter reactor ever built in a ship. Shielded and heavily armoured, with powerful thrusters, the rebel frigate continued to plough its way further into the belly of the leviathan, killing thousands, until the powerful superstructure stopped it.

And, just as Thrawn realized it would the moment he saw it, that's when the two hundred heavy assault concussion missile warheads inside the ship detonated. If the missiles had struck the outside of the ship, shields and armour could have withstood them with moderate but reparable damage. But from within, the very armour meant to protect the Force Eclipse increased the pressure wave of the explosion exponentially. Thrawn could only watch as the centre of his precious weapon ballooned out under the terrible force of the internal concussion wave, blasting fire and plasma into space.

The whole ship shook violently from it, so much so he lost his balance momentarily. If the blast wave reached the hypermatter reactor, they were all dead. The grand admiral felt helpless—a feeling he neither liked nor had a great deal of familiarity with. However, despite the rebel's best efforts, it appeared that their attempt was going to fail. The concussion wave appeared to be falling short of the hypermatter reactor in the ship's core. He had no doubt the ship's primary weapons were offline, but it could be repaired with time. So long as he lived to guide the Empire when The Others came, his mission would still be a success.

However, as he picked himself up he saw a strange flicker on the sensors. He magnified and resolved the sensor output and felt his stomach sinking. All along the path of the concussion wave, orange flickers of flame began to spread like plasma, as if consuming the weakened superstructure like swarm of chitinia bugs on a field of grain.

The fire suddenly took shape, and to Thrawn's horror a giant serpent rose up from the shattered surface of the Force Eclipse with a silent roar before diving down and burning through the hull directly over the hypermatter reactor.

"Potter!" he hissed angrily, a moment before the Fiendfyre burrowed its way into the heart of the ship.

~~Revenge~~

Harry and Leia stepped back as the Emperor walked toward them, eyes alight and blue energy flickering about his hands. "Serve me, and together we can bring true peace to the galaxy," he said.

"Really?" Harry completely forgot himself for a moment. "You really expect us to believe that shit?"

"No, Potter. I expect you to…"

They all felt it, even Harry. It was a feeling of increasing weight, as if the planet's gravity had suddenly doubled. All three looked up and saw the clouds blast away in concentric rings as the superlaser speared through the atmosphere. The instinct to survive overrode all other considerations, and the three keys merged with the three ward stones of Adega. Just as their distant ancestors had, they summoned a shield of power not seen in the galaxy for eons. Pitted against that great power was the terrible destructive energy of a superlaser.

Harry could not hear Leia's screams over the roar of the destructive energy that lanced around them in a perfect dome. The neighbouring mountain top where they landed was vaporized, as were surrounding mountain tops—not by the superlaser itself, but by the power released by its deflection.

Worse yet, even in the midst of it, Harry realized it was the Emperor's ridiculous power that formed the core of their shield, over-shadowing both Harry and Leia's powers combined. How could they possibly hope to fight him when he dwarfed their combined abilities?

The superlaser's power abated after five seconds that felt like an eternity. Harry's knees collapsed and deposited him on the rock, where Leia collapsed next to him. Of the three, only the Emperor remained standing. He no longer cackled in glee, perhaps realizing that Thrawn had betrayed him.

"It is of no significance," the Emperor said, as if reading Potter's mind and dismissing it out of hand. "With this power, he shall be dealt with shortly. But first, children, you will…"

"Yeah, I get it," Harry said tiredly. He held Leia's shoulders in his arms and met the monster's eyes squarely. "You win. Spare my people, spare Luke, and you can have us. Leia and me both."

Leia pulled away, her face torn in an expression of horror. "Harry, what are you…?!"

"Did you feel his power, Leia?" Harry said earnestly. "By Merlin, did you feel it? We can't fight that, Leia. We can't, not together, not with every mage on the planet. My mission has always been to save my people, and those I love. And if the price is slavery, then it's a price I'm willing to pay. It wouldn't be the first time I was a slave to the Empire."

"Harry, you can't! It's the dark side of the Force, you…"

"The Jedi accused my ancestors of being dark," Harry told her, eyes narrowed. "And look what happened. Dark or light, the only thing that matters is survival." He took her hands despite her effort to pull away and stared deep into them. "Think, Leia. This is your only chance to save Luke. Please!"

"Yes," the Emperor said as he approached. With the most casual wave, he levitated Luke from his position on the mountain top and carried him until he floated over the abyss below, which still burned with the after-effects of the superlaser blast. "Only by serving me can you hope to save your precious brother."

Leia stared at Harry with tears running down her cheeks. "Harry, what are you doing?" she whispered.

"I'm doing what I always do," he told her earnestly. "I love you, Leia. No matter what, I love you. Please remember that."

With effort and groaning muscles, Harry pushed himself to his feet and turned to face the Emperor, before slowly kneeling back down. "Spare my people, and I will serve you willingly. I will teach you true magic—not just how to possess the power, but how to fully use it. Teleportation, unaided flight, the transfiguring of one material to another, and the conjuring of objects from nothing. Your power is so great not even a thousand Jedi could ever be a threat to you—I know this now."

"You are not enough," the Emperor declared.

"Leia will serve, as will my people," Harry said, lowering his head in defeat. "Better to serve than die. They will agree. I will even show you the magic to take you directly to the Force Eclipse."

"I can sense your lies, boy," the Emperor said. Luke flew into Leia like a bullet, sending both tumbling, while the Emperor lashed Force lightning at Harry.

There was no defence—it was as bad as Voldemort's Cruciatus curse. Harry did not bother to hide his screams. Nor was the Emperor feeling merciful—the barrage lasted so long Harry could not even breathe. When it ended, he collapsed gasping to the stone.

"I can't beat you," Harry whispered through snot and tears he could not have helped even if he wanted to. "I know I can't. Whatever you want…"

"Your teleportation," the Emperor declared.

Gasping through chattering teeth, Harry whispered, "The three Ds. Destination, Determination, and Deliberation. Know where you want to go, be determined to get there, and be deliberate with the use of your power to take you."

It took Harry a seven hour lesson and five tries to Apparate for the first time on his own. It took Leia merging her mind with his, and a deep, abiding love. It took the Emperor a short phrase, and with a laugh he suddenly Apparated to the other mountain top and back. The thin, cold air puffed away from him with loud pops.

"Ultimate power!" he screamed in animalistic joy. "Thrawn, your torment will know no bounds!"

With that, the Emperor Disapparated into space.

In the absolute, terrifying silence that followed, Leia called out, "Harry?"

"Watch, love."

"But could he have…?"

"Oh, he made it," Harry said. "Not much could kill that old son of a bitch. But look up."

She did so, and gasped as a brilliant orange light enveloped the sky. The hypermatter reactor of the Force Eclipse had finally blown up. "What…"

"A combination of Fiendfyre and our secret weapon," Harry said. "Didn't you feel it in the Force?"

"You mean…he's dead?"

"Merlin, I hope so," Harry said tiredly. "Because we couldn't beat him in a straight fight."

Leia left her brother's side and walked to him, sitting down with a groan. "You mean all that was just to try and trick him?"

Harry shrugged. "Magic is dangerous, Leia. I was going to try and get him to splinch himself, or mess up a Portkey, or eat conjured food and poison himself…I was sure I'd be able to get him somehow."

"It's just so…"

"Anti-climactic?"

"I was going to say sneaky."

Harry shrugged. "I always did have a sneaky side. Don't let it out often, but I…"

And then she was on him, kissing him soundly. Unfortunately, her com began beeping before they could get very far. Wincing with exhaustion, Leia tapped her wrist-com. "This is Leia."

"Princess," came the dry voice of Han Solo, "I don't know what the hell you two did, but you probably need to look up."

They both did, and Harry's stomach dropped. The huge ball of orange flame in the sky looked even larger. "The Fiendfyre," he whispered.

"Yeah, that fire's eating the whole Imperial fleet and looks like it's reaching for the sun," Solo said. "Any idea what'll happen if it reaches it?"

"The whole star system will die," Harry whispered. "Oh bugger me!"

Author's Note: As always, 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.

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