Revenge of the Wizard (HP x Star Wars)97.50%

Chapter Thirty-Nine: A Pillar of Fire

Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover

A/N: As a working father and husband, my weekends are rarely my own. This one is worse than most, so I apologize for not having time to do my normal review responses for the previous chapter. It came down to doing that, or posting the final chapters of the story. I know which I'd rather have, and guessed the same for you.

I have posted both this chapter, and the concluding 40th chapter, simultaneously. So keep reading.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: A Pillar of Fire

"Oh bugger me!"

Potter's voice cackled over the com unit, but by then Han was too busy trying to manoeuvre the Falcon away from the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen. The fire had the diameter of a small moon, and in the middle of it, he swore he could see Palpatine's face.

The fiery…thing… lashed out with pillars of impossible flame that consumed star destroyers whole. And with each ship destroyed, the fire grew stronger. Over it all was a feeling of dread that seemed to hang on Han like a weight. He thought he heard a voice in his head, howling out, Unlimited power!

The Imperial Fleet, despite the utter impossibility of the situation, was simply too well-trained not to react, even if they had no idea what to do. Star Destroyers fired their entire complement of missiles into the flame. They fired turbolasers and ion cannons and every other weapon at their disposal, but nothing seemed to faze the living fire at all. If anything, the weapons just made the fire stronger.

"Chewie, get Rieekan."

"I'm already online, Solo," the General's voice piped through. "What's happening?"

"General, the whole system has gone straight to hell. Don't get any closer. There's a planet-sized ball of fire with the Emperor's face eating kriffing star destroyers like they were Bantha pops. I'm not joking here; it's the damned scariest thing I've ever seen!"

"What about…"

"Force Eclipse and Executor are both destroyed. More'n half the Imperial fleet is gone, because the damned Pyro-patine is EATING HIS OWN KRIFFIN' FLEET! Stop our fleet and do not enter the system!"

Han rolled his eyes. "Generals," he muttered in disgust.

Chewie roared his agreement as they continued to try and escape the impossible situation they found themselves in. Neither mentioned Solo's own rank, however new it was.

~~Revenge~~

"This is not even remotely fair," Harry said, throwing his hands up in disgust. "Damn it, why can't the bastard just die already?"

The sky overhead burned with a second sun, one that projected only a feeling of darkness and despair. It felt as if the Dark Side had ignited in a Supernova that lit up the whole system, and was steadily consuming everything around it.

"What do we do, Harry?" Leia asked.

"I have no bloody idea!" Harry raged. "Merlin's balls, first he blows up my planet, murders my people, then he builds that big, bloody-assed ship and then steals our magic, and now he won't die! I have no idea what to do!"

"Harry, wait. You said he stole our magic?"

Harry paused mid-pace and stared first at Leia, then back up at the burning sky, before finally sinking his eyes back to the three ward stones of Adega. Of course, nothing else around them remained due to the power of the super laser. The air all around shimmered from the molten stone of the destroyed mountains all around them. It was a miracle the mountain top they were on hadn't collapsed just as collateral damage.

"He did steal our magic," Harry said as he stared at the giant, glowing crystals. "He's taken the Hallows in, just like the two of us."

With movement made tense with a sudden decision made, Harry grabbed a rock from the ground and quickly enchanted it as a Portkey. "We need to get Luke out of here," he said. With the rock enchanted, he tossed it lazily toward the still unconscious Jedi. The moment it hit, Luke disappeared.

"So what do we do?"

"We're going to have to break the stones."

Leia nodded. "Okay. How do we do that?"

"No bloody idea," Harry said, though he had a frantic grin as he said it. "But if nothing else, I'm good at breaking things. Come on!"

~~Revenge~~

Bill and Fleur could only stare up in horror at the impossible sight. Around them, terrified mages were running toward the rebel assault shuttles, cramming their way in as best they could. It was a terrible truth of the battle that there was so much room for the refugees, but the question was really whether they would have time.

"Come on, love, we have to go!" Bill said, only to stumble as another body appeared via Portkey. The first body to have appeared, the dreaded Darth Vader, was in one of the shuttle cockpits under guard, though he was obviously badly injured.

This, however, was not an evil cyborg, but rather the intimately familiar form of their resident Jedi, Luke Skywalker. It was to Bill's great misfortune that his youngest daughter happened to be with them. "Luke!" she cried in dismay as she rushed to him. Her wand was already flashing over him in a series of well-executed diagnostic charms.

"Take him with us!" Bill ordered. "We can't stop!"

"Oui!" she shouted, unconsciously mimicking her mother. She levitated the fallen Jedi and ran after her parents with Luke floating at her side.

~~Revenge~~

"Ow!" Harry shouted.

Leia blinked at him and lowered her lightsaber away from crystal she'd just struck with it. "What?"

"That hurt!" Harry declared. "Didn't you feel it?"

Overhead, the Fiendfyre Sith lord burned the whole sky. They could see clouds beginning to evaporate under the horrible heat he projected, as if he were indeed a second star.

Curious, Leia walked to another stone, raised her blade, and swung.

The second the lightsaber hit, she dropped the blade and cried in agony, dropping to the floor. Harry overcame his own pain and rushed to her side. "Leia!"

"I don't understand; how can we destroy the stones?!"

"I don't know," Harry said. "We've never actually had them before, I'm not sure how they're supposed to work! Wait a sec…" He straightened from his kneeling position beside her and approached the second stone she'd struck. Placing his hand on it, Leia gasped. "I can feel that," she whispered.

Enthralled, she stood herself and moved to the first stone, caressing it and noticing how Harry stiffened. "Harry…we are the stones."

He stared at her, his mind racing to catch up to hers, until as one they turned and stared at the third stone in the triad—the one farthest from them. "You know, he'll come after us," Harry said.

"I know."

"If we destroy it, we might destroy ourselves. At the very least, we'd destroy the Hallows that made us…different."

She turned toward him. Her hair was dishevelled, her white armoured uniform torn, dented and bloodied from battle, and at that moment she was the single most beautiful creature he had ever seen in his life. "Whether we have forever or just the next five minutes," she whispered, her eyes gleaming. "So long as it's with you."

"If I were raised a prince, think I could talk that good too?"

"Nerf herder."

"Spoiled brat."

"Brave eopie dong."

"Beautiful midget."

She sobbed as a tear ran down her cheek. "I love you, Harry."

"I love you too. More than I ever thought I could love anyone again, I love you so much."

Their hands moved together, clasping together like magnets. However, their other hands they kept on their respective stones. They formed a circuit between their two stones and themselves, and with narrowed eyes, began pumping the power not just of the Force and their magic into the third stone, but the power of the Adega crystals themselves.

~~Revenge~~

"Ahhh!" Han screamed in a high-pitched falsetto that he would deny to anyone who asked for the remainder of his life. He jerked wildly at the controls of the Falcon as the Emperor-shaped ball of angry fire jerked abruptly as if struck.

"What's it doing?" Han cried in a slightly more manly tone.

Chewbacca growled back an answer, but by then Han could see for himself. The fiery…thing began to billow out toward Avalon, its face scowling angrily. If, Han amended, that planet-sized storm of raging fire could be called a face. He clicked his consol. "Bria, if you're down there, get moving! That thing is heading right toward the planet!"

"We kinda noticed, lover!" came the shouted response. Han could hear screams over the line, and knew everyone down there was panicking.

Han shook his head, desperately trying to think of anything that could possibly stop the fire. Finally, he gave up trying to decide. With a sure hand, he brought the Falcon back around. "Chewie, fire everything we have left."

Fortunately, the Shyriwook word for stupid, crazy asinine human was too long to say, so Chewie just roared at him.

And then fired everything they had.

The living fire didn't notice the laser canons, seemed to feed on the proton torpedoes, and the ion canon blasts did nothing. However, the fire billowed away from the blast of the seismic warhead in one of the missiles. The fire broiled back, angrily snapping out as if to destroy its unseen target even while the greater mass billowed toward the planet.

"Kriffin' hells," Han whispered. "Get me Rieekan. I know we have more of those babies in the fleet!"

~~Revenge~~

"Harry!" Leia screamed, her voice laced with agony.

Harry held her hand fighting back his own scream. "I know!"

It wasn't the direct agony of damaging their own stones, but rather a feedback of the magic from the third they attacked. Overhead, the sky boiled red as the Fiendfyre-Palpatine reacted to his own pain. The wind howled around them with maelstrom force, disturbed not just by the heat of Palpatine's presence, but by the disruptive magic caused by the stones.

"Look!"

With effort, Harry focused his eyes and saw what she saw—the third stone had cracked, if only a fraction of an inch on its surface. Overhead, the fire jerked abruptly and the Force itself screamed with his pain.

"Keep pushing!"

~~Revenge~~

"General, Potter's doing something to fight it!" Solo said while frantically trying to steer the Falcon around bulge of flame larger than star destroyer. "You can tell just looking at it. We've got to give him more time. Seismic charges are the only thing it even notices!"

"Solo, you're insane!" Rieekan responded.

"So what? Just fire the damned charges!"

The Rebel fleet emerged from hyperspace on the far side of the planet, capital ships and fighters in a tattered battle formation—a third the size of the fleet they took to Endor. But every ship fired every seismic charge they had.

~~Revenge~~

Lady Sofia Consuego Ramirez hobbled slowly from her home as her fellow witches and wizards ran about in a blind state of panic. Despite the best efforts of their allies, she knew there would not be room to evacuate everyone. She understood why so many of the younger people ran about in a terror—she herself did not wish to die. But if it came down to a choice between a seat for herself, or a child, she knew she would remain.

The sky burned red with the massive, living ball of fire in the sky. Though Sofia had lost much of her magic creating the Fidelius charm which they had since lost, she remained incredibly sensitive to magical energy. She could feel a dark, demonic energy pouring off the flame in the sky above them and knew that somehow the Emperor had fused his spirit with Fiendfyre, something unheard of.

More important, she could feel a pulsing light magic fighting desperately against the darkness. It was a small point of brilliance in the far distance, but it was nearly drowned out by the flaming rage of the demon their enemy had become. As strong as Potter and his bride were, Sofia knew they could not win, any more than the colony could have crafted the Fidelius charm without Potter.

"Lady Sofia, we must flee!" She turned to see Jorge DeVilla trotting toward her, his hair mussed and his cheeks stained with dust.

"No, Jorge," she said. "We must stay and fight."

He blinked. "How can we fight that?" He pointed without looking at the nightmare in the sky.

"By helping those who can," she said, looking him in the eyes. "Can't you feel it? Potter and his wife fight for us. They stand against the darkness, but they are weakening. We must help them, my friend. As many of us who can, we must go and help them."

He stared at her for a long moment as their people ran screaming pointlessly around them. "You are sure of this?"

"Gather as many as you can," she said. "And prepare Portkeys. I have little magic left, but I can still help. Go, my friend. Go."

~~Revenge~~

The seismic warheads, mines and torpedoes pushed the flame back, but Han could see in the first thirty seconds of the engagement that they were in trouble. Seismic charges were very flashy, but a heavy concussion missile or proton torpedo could do a lot more damage. Not surprisingly seismic weapons were not the most heavily stocked by the Alliance.

They ran out of ordinance after the first two volleys.

Pyro-patine, as Han had dubbed the creature, lashed out in response to the attack immediately. An arm—like protrusion of fire ten kilometres in diameter shot out and consumed one of the precious few Alliance capital ships so quickly it barely had a moment to flare before it disappeared.

"We can't defend ourselves against this!" Rieekan said. "All ships, fall back!"

"General, what about…" Solo began. He stopped when a second Alliance ship died, so abruptly its crew didn't even have time to make a signal. "Never mind." He pursed his lips. "Good luck, Potter."

Chewbacca howled his agreement.

The Alliance fleet backed away, accelerating as fast as they could away from the impossible nightmare of fire and death. Suddenly freed of distraction, the moon-sized ball of fire turned its eyes—pits of darkness surrounded by flame the size of cities—to the surface. Potter, a silent voice boomed in Han's head, and likely the minds of everyone in the system.

~~Revenge~~

"Harry!"

He barely had time to register Leia's terrified scream before she tackled him to the ground. He felt a familiar swell of magic and seconds later they reappeared on the very edge of the mountain. What had once been a steep, rocky slope was now a sheer drop of thousands of feet where the deflected superlaser energy had sheared off part of the mountain. The stone looked as if it were made of glass, while far, far below he could see the red swell of molten rock.

Leia had done a side-along Apparition. His back still hurt from where she tackled him to the rocky soil, but he was alive. He just didn't understand why she did until he felt in the air what she'd felt in the Force. Glancing over her shoulder he saw a massive pillar of fire descending from the heavens. The heat of it was so intense he unthinkingly cast his strongest flame-freezing charms on both himself and Leia.

It was enough to keep them from spontaneously combusting from the proximity of the pillar of fire, but only just. He could feel the skin on his hands and face blistering, and knew Leia suffered as well. The power of it burned not just skin, but his magic itself.

The pillar continued to pour down onto the rock between them and the ward stones, like water poured from a pitcher, only a pitcher the size of Mercury. Even as he watched, though, Harry saw a shape beginning to form where the fire and stone met. The whole process seemed to take ages, and yet when the fire finished pouring down from the sky above, Harry knew it couldn't have been more than a minute.

The mountain trembled. A figure rose up from the ground where the fire had coalesced and condensed, but it was not human. The figure stood at least three meters tall and shimmered with a deep, black roiling flame just under its surface. It looked humanoid but only in the sense that the fire had shaped itself to a human-like mould. The air shimmered, and every step it took toward Harry and Leia created a pool of melted granite.

I AM A GOD. It was not a voice, nor even a thought. It was a declaration of being that reverberated through the world around them, making the Force itself tremble. YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME.

And Harry knew it was right. The truth tasted bitter, but Harry knew he could not win against this creature of darkness and rage. He pulled Leia close to him, closing his eyes. "I'm sorry," he whispered to her.

"Don't be," she told him. When he opened his eyes, he saw her staring at him so close their noses touched. She leaned forward and kissed him.

Harry closed his eyes and pulled her as close as he could, waiting for the final blow. Instead, the Force reverberated. WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE?

Confused, Harry and Leia both opened their eyes to see the Lady Sofia standing between them and the monster that used to be Palpatine. She leaned heavily on her cane, fragile and grey beyond her years, and ten feet away from a towering creature of fire and evil she appeared almost childlike.

"So you are Palpatine, I see." She peered up at him with feigned curiosity. "Very powerful. A worthy god, I suppose, though you are dying already."

I AM IMMORTAL!

"You are energy held together by will." She nodded, tapping her chin. "Your will is great. In all my years, I've never encountered anyone with a will as strong as yours. But without a shell, not even your great will can overcome entropy. Can you not feel it? Even as I've stood and spoken to you, you've lost two inches in your form."

WHO ARE YOU?

"Me? I am a foolish old woman. A mere schoolteacher."

Harry, astonished by the sheer bravado of the woman, struggled to his feet with Leia right beside him. "She's the Lady Sofia Consuego Ramirez," he shouted. "She's the oldest, wisest witch alive. It was her knowledge that allowed us to harness the stones that swept away your picket fleet before Endor. It was her knowledge that placed the Fidelius charm on this world."

SHE IS AN INSIGNICANT INSECT.

"Yes, compared to you, perhaps I am," Lady Sofia admitted readily. "You could no doubt kill me, but if you do so, you would guarantee your own demise. That is the secret of ward stones, you see. It is the secret of all magic. The magic cannot exist without a shell—without a body to host it. Our strongest magics must be framed in physical objects. Our strongest magics can only be performed by living wizards, not by the ghosts of our departed. And you, Emperor, have no physical body. For all of your mighty will, you are dead. You are a ghost. And only I know the secret to let you reform your body."

Harry tensed, gipping Leia so tightly he could feel her trembling. The oddly human features in the towering construct of fire sneered. YOUR WORDS ARE EMPTY. I DO NOT NEED WORDS OR PROMISES ANY LONGER. WHAT I WANT, I SHALL TAKE!

It lifted an arm, only the arm suddenly shot forward like a hose until it touched the Lady Sofia's forehead. Her agonized cry echoed over the mountain in one sharp, gestalt sound of death, before the protrusion of the Emperor's will consumed her body whole.

Its face, however, grew dark as it somehow absorbed Sofia's thoughts. NO, IT CANNOT BE! I AM IMMORTAL! I AM A GOD!

The being that was both Fiendfyre and Palpatine turned and erupted in an arc of dense fire that behaved almost like a liquid as it suddenly poured into the third crystal, flowing through the small crack that Leia and Harry had made.

Abruptly wizards and witches popped into being around the ward stones, guided by Portkeys or Apparition. Among them was Jorge DeVilla. "Potter, we must bind the spirit!" he shouted as he ran toward the three stones.

"Harry?" Leia asked, confused.

Harry, though, could only blink in shock. "Bloody hell, she tricked him! That brilliant old witch tricked him! Come on!"

Harry and Leia joined the circle of twenty witches and wizards who were already chanting in Latin a simple, spiritual binding spell. It was a spell learned in seventh year Charms, designed to help limit or control malicious or spiteful spirits by permanently binding them to a physical object. Leia held Harry's hand and followed along as best she could. He opened himself completely to her and through that connection she quickly learned the words. Within the third stone, he could feel as much as see the fiery essence of Palpatine rage at being tricked.

There was no outward display of power; no flashing runes in the air or circles in the stone. It was solely a binding of spirit, but within the Force he could sense the rings of power shackling what was now the darkened, destructive spirit of Palatine. They did not lash its being to the ward stone—they merged it entirely.

Harry stumbled and Leia actually fell to her knees when they finished the last verse in a loud scream. Around them, the other witches and wizards—all of them over sixty—fell to the ground in exhaustion at the release of so much spiritual energy.

What have you done to me?

Palpatine's voice was still not physical, but rather a spiritual projection. He suddenly stood before them not in his towering body of flame, but as a translucent shade of the withered, hooded figure he was in life. Release me! Release me or I shall destroy you all!

"Harry, what happened?" Leia asked. She ignored the spirit entirely.

"It was Lady Sofia's idea," Jorge explained from where he sat on the rock. "She sensed the magic and saw the fire, like all of us. The rebels trying to evacuate us told us that Palpatine had become a great monster of fire. A being of spirit."

"And spirits can be bound to objects," Harry said. "But…"

"But he would have to enter the stone willingly," Jorge said. "And he would only do that if he believed her information was to his benefit. So she came, knowing very well that it was her death. Despite her weakened magic, her mind was strong, and her Occlumency second to none. She created a memory and a chain of knowledge that would convince him she was correct, and with her last breath let him steal it. And now he is as you see—a bound shade."

Harry chuckled tiredly as Palpatine's shade glared at him. "So, what you're saying is he had phenomenal, cosmic power, but an itty, bitty living space."

A few of the others who caught the reference laughed aloud. Release me! Release me or my vengeance will last ages! Palpatine raged.

"You know what?" Harry asked aloud. "Today has really sucked. I'm tired, I smell bad…"

"You really do," Leia volunteered.

"…and I'm hungry. Let's go home, shall we?"

"Hear, hear," DeVilla agreed.

The exhausted circle of witches and witches climbed slowly back to their feet while Harry conjured and then enchanted a Portkey rope. In seconds, the entire circle disappeared with a pop of displaced air.

Don't you dare leave me here! Release me! Release me before you feel the true power of the Dark Side!

But no one remained to hear the ghost of the old Sith Lord, whose voice was lost to the rushing wind through the stones he had coveted with his dying breath.

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.

Last Chapter Next Chapter