Chapter 35 – New Friends & Old Enemies

Harry Potter, The Jedi That Would Not Die

Chapter 35 – New Friends & Old Enemies

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a re-post, taking into account several reviews I got about Harry's restraint during this chapter I realised that something I had not thought through properly when posting this chapter the first time and other things I had thought I had included I had unfortunately only included in this chapter in my head, so here is the repost that hopefully explains Harry's reluctance to go all out, sorry for the first draft of this chapter.

"So what's Harry like as an apprentice?" asked Cho.

"Excellent," replied Aayla, "One of the best in the Order."

The pair were sitting together at the main table in the Sanctuary, the others had distributed around Hogwarts either assisting in the various tasks, getting tours or reminiscing.

"Are you just saying that because he's your apprentice?" Cho asked with a smirk.

"Not at all," replied Ayala, reaching for her glass and taking a drink, remembering the odd taste of the pumpkin juice from her first visit. "He's one of the very best fliers amongst the padawans and with a lightsaber he's as good as some of the knights. He's so good that he is even getting trained by Master Windu, who's one of the greatest swordmasters in the Order."

"Do I detect a bit of a boast there?"

"Can you blame me; I can't help but be proud of him."

"What about in his other training?"

"Average to above average in all subjects," she replied proudly.

"I'm guessing Hermione's results are above that?"

"And you'd be right except in lightsaber mastery and flying."

"The latter does not really surprise me," chuckled Cho.

"She seems to be ok most of the time, she can fly the Raven well and she's about average for a padawan in dog fight simulations, it seems to be whenever she has to fly in something with no canopy or an open cockpit that she has trouble."

"It's a bit odd, maybe it has something to do with being able to feel the wind," Cho theorised. "How do they balance using magic against using your lightsabers?"

"They tend to use their lightsabers more I've observed, that's not to say they don't use their magic, they definitely do and we make sure to include it in their practice duels, it can be a lot more efficient than Jedi Force techniques at times, but I think there are reasons for them favouring their lightsabers."

"Such as?"

"Well for one we don't have anyone to teach them magic, they have a lot of books of course but it's not the same as learning from someone who actually knows."

"That's true enough; our Defence Group had trouble with that too."

"Also they only have each other to help teach them magic, no one else at the Temple has been able to use the Force the way they do, and believe me we're tried, it didn't go well."

"What happened?"

"Well several of us tried to levitate objects using Harry and Hermione's wands but all it resulted in us doing was either nothing, imbedding things at high speed into walls or in some extreme cases making them exploded instantly. We decided to stop when the last attempt left Harry's wand smoking heavily."

"It almost sounds like you were using the wrong wand," Cho guessed. "Wands have to be paired with the wizard or witch so that they have the best chance of getting the most out of them."

"Hermione theorised that maybe the materials that made the wand needed to be connected to them in some way at a more basic left so as to allow their magic to flow effectively. Like how all the components in Harry and Hermione's wands emanate from this planet, they are on a biological level connected through their DNA even if it's very remotely as they all evolved on this planet. As none of the jedi that tried to use the wands are from this planet the materials would not work for them properly."

"It does sound plausible, the way you say the wands reacted to your attempt at spells definitely indicates that some magic is being channelled, it just sounds like it's not conducting properly. Something that might be worth taking up with Ollivander the wand maker after this is all over. He's normally the first to advise young witches and wizards that 'the wand chooses the witch'...or wizard. We can use other people's wands but they will never work as well for us as a paired wand."

"I noticed that," nodded Aayla, "There was an occasion when duelling that Harry and Hermione were paired off against Coleman and I. Hermione's wand got knocked from her hand and Harry threw her his but her attacks did not seem as powerful."

"Yes, that definitely sounds like the effects of a mismatched wand."

"As their magical education is not as advanced and their main instruction has been in the Force techniques and the use of lightsabers it's more likely to be their default defensive instrument of choice."

"I can see how that would make sense, though I can't imagine not being able to defend myself without my wand, especially now."

Aayla furrowed her brow for a second before turning to her and asking:

"Can you still fight…I mean no offence but, how can you do that blind?"

"None taken and I won't pretend that it's easy," she replied, "It's nearly impossible in a group fight, but it's amazing how loud some people are when they duel, you just have to listen for the feet sounds and spell cast and movement noises."

"How long did it take you to learn to do that?"

"Months, it took me a few weeks just to learn my way blind around this place without tripping over everything, but as almost every room in the castle has stone floors it was really easy to identify where other people were, at that point I could start casting defensively during a duel but getting accurate enough to cast spells offensively at targets meters away, that took a lot longer to even get off the ground and is still very much a work in progress. Either way I'm still at a serious disadvantage against anyone who realises how I fight, not least of which is because if I am trying to dodge a spell I have to wait for it to be almost on top of me before I can get its position accurately enough to dodge."

"It's still a great achievement, even jedi have trouble if and when they go blind, but we at least have the Force to help us, you don't have that advantage."

"Well it's not perfect but I can now at least make my way from here out to the forest by myself if I really need to, though needless to say I have only tried that a couple of times, and Hogwarts herself does help me along if I take a wrong turn... Are you okay, you just went very quiet and your breathing changed slightly."

"It's Harry," Aayla replied, noting the clever way Cho's hearing had picked up her reaction. "I'm feeling his emotions down our link; he's trying to come to terms with what's happened."

"He always did take too much upon himself; do you want to go to him?"

"No, he'll be ok, he's not alone."

Harry sat on a wall looking down at his feet and the hundred plus foot drop to the ground beyond them.

"How are you feeling Master?" asked Alema as she climbed the last few steps and crouched down beside him.

They were currently on top of the remains of the astronomy tower, though the current top was actually part of the middle of the old tower before the top had been taken off during the battles, where before there had been a seemingly never ending spiral stair case that eventually led out on to a wider platform now there was just a spiral staircase that ended along with the rest of the stone work allowing you to walk straight out onto the remains of the towers outer wall.

"Ambivalent," he replied, very briefly wondering if Hermione would be impressed by him even knowing what the word meant, let alone using it correctly. "I'm pleased to be back, back at my old school seeing my old friends, back on the planet that I called home, but so much has happened that might have been avoided if we had been here; the deaths of Dumbledore, McGonagall, Remus, Fred, Katie, Mr Weasley, so many dead that should not have been, but then again I am happy that so many have survived; the Patils, the rest of the Weasleys, Nev, Cho, but then so much bad has happened to them and we weren't there to help them with it. We could have made a difference, we could have helped stop the attacks, we could have come back sooner and stopped Voldemort before all this happened, before Cho lost her sight, before Hogwarts was destroyed, but then I am so proud of everyone, my friends for setting up an organisation to teach themselves DADA, for rising to the occasion, for fighting for what is right and defending those that could not defend themselves...I really don't know what I should be thinking."

"I know I am not one to advise you well on this Master," she replied, sitting down fully and swinging her legs over the wall so that she was in the same position as he was. "But I would say that everything you just said is good and right to be thinking except for your guilt, you did not owe those that were left here anything. Yes they were your friends but you did not owe them anything, you were still a child and you had every right to leave and never look back. You also take too much upon yourself, you assume that had you been here you would have been able to stop all this, just because you are good at that sort of thing that does not mean that the weight of the world should always fall on your shoulders, it fell on the shoulders of those who were older and wiser, who had a choice in all this and that unfortunately paid the price for it. Who's to say that had you been here you would not just have been an additional casualty, and what do you think would have been worse for your friends, seeing you die and watching their hope die with you...or knowing that somewhere out in space you lived on, trained and could eventually come back as you have done with help and give them more hope. You put too much pressure and responsibility on yourself; you have done for as long as I have known you. You are only one man, only one jedi, and not even a fully trained one at that...and if you still feel the weight of the world on your shoulders then make up for your imagined slights and put your efforts into helping defeat your nemesis again."

Half way through the long speech Harry had turned to Alema in shock as her lecture continued and he continued to sit in stunned silence after she finished speaking for several long seconds.

"I never would have thought you would be able to break down my problem so easily Alema."

"It's my job to know how to help your Master," she smiled back.

"You are right though," he added. "I need to be thinking about how to make it up to everyone, how to defeat Voldemort...again!"

"Err, Master...I think we have a problem."

Harry turned to look at her before followed her line of sight and seeing a group of around twenty people enter the grounds from the direction of Hogsmeade. They were dressed in black uniforms, not too dissimilar to those of aurors but Harry pretty much guessed that they were Death Eaters.

"Harry Potter!" came a shout from behind them as Sir Nick passed upwards through the last steps of the tower. "Inquisitors and Auror Reserves have entered the- Oh, you've seen them."

"Yes," Alema replied. "Do the Headmistress and the Heads of House know?"

"They will do in a moment," he replied. "The portraits are informing them and your colleagues. They will want you down in the Sanctuary, if they don't know anyone's staying here and everything looks as it did last time they will leave in a couple of hours."

"That might be a problem there Sir Nicholas," remarked Alema, looking out towards the grounds.

"What's that Miss Ani?" asked the ghost confused as Harry followed her eye line and realised what Alema was referring to.

"Because there is a large mass of Republic metal sitting in the middle of the lawn," he sighed dejectedly, looking down at the Raven which has just got the attention of the Inquisitors.

"Oh blast," the ghost swore, "What shall we do?"

"Let the others know, we'll get down there and keep them entertained."

"But Harry, there are only two of you; there are twenty of them!"

"Half of them are heading for the castle, which leaves only ten around the ship."

"Still they out number you five to one."

"I know, it's almost too easy isn't it," Harry nodded with a smirk. "But we can't really wait for the others to turn up; if they head out to call for backup we will be in real trouble."

"Understood," nodded the ghost in shock before disappearing back down the stairs as Harry retrieved his shrunken broom and invisibility cloak from his jedi robes, returned them to their normal size and jumped onto the former. "Hop on Alema."

"I really don't like this form of transport Master," she objected as she climbed on to the back of the broom and did her best to cover them and the broom with the cloak as they descended towards the grounds near the ship that ten of the twenty inquisitors were now wandering around poking at the shield and casting the odd spell against it. The spells obviously weren't very powerful as the auto-guns were not deployed.

"Nor does Hermione, but I will be bringing us in slowly quietly amongst them so it won't be too difficult to stay on."

Despite his apparent confidence Harry was nowhere near as sure of victory as he made it sound, while he was much better trained than he had been the last time he had fought a wizard and although he had fought against Alema using spells so she knew what to expect, these inquisitors would surely have much bigger repertoires of spells and skills than he or Hermione did. As such he was not taking any chances and would utilise another weapon in this fight.

Raising his right arm with his comlink on it Harry hailed the ship.

"R2-E5, change defence mode to ten meter perimeter enforcement."

He got the beeped response back from the droid before the guns deployed out of the bottom of the ship causing the inquisitors to take a step back, but not far enough as the guns opened up upon them.

"Master, why not tell the ship to attack them?"

"We need to leave some of them alive to interrogate them, we don't know how long it will be before they are missed and if we kill them all we won't get that answer."

The inquisitors began falling over themselves to retreat away from the ship as the blaster bolt warning shots started landing around them

"Can't you set the autoguns to only wound them or to leave some alive?" she asked as they changed direction from the mostly vertical to a more horizontal flight.

"I can adjust the autoguns power but not from out here and even if I could get into the ship it would take several minutes to complete that modification and by that time some of them would have fled. As for leaving some of them alive, the auto-guns targeting systems are not that advanced, they can enforce a perimeter, incapacitate or kill, they are not designed to show restraint."

"Won't some be left alive anyway, blaster bolts aren't necessarily lethal?"

"The autoguns are military grade Alema, designed for attacking soldiers in armour; these inquisitors have no armour that can survive that force and will not likely survive a direct hit."

By this time Harry and Alema were only fifty feet from the inquisitors who had just stumbled outside the range of the guns and had their attention firmly fixed on the ship. At this range Harry could see there were actually two distinct but similar looking uniforms in the group. By far the more numerous were the auror robed figures with a smaller number of the other robed figures.

As the broom passed within the perimeter of the group in a flick of motion both of them jumped off the broom, Alema remaining under the cloak as Harry did a forward flip through the air and landed, lightsaber bared.

"Ambush!" shouted one before the invisible Alema kicked the auror in the chest, knocking him backwards to the ground unconscious as his colleagues began firing randomly in his direction trying to hit the invisible enemy.

As he deflected a cutting curse Harry spun around and was about to fire his own back at the attacking aurors throat when at that moment two sets of recent memories came together to form a conclusion:

FLASHBACK

"There was a mass exodus as Muggleborns went into hiding or fled the country, only those that agreed to turn in other Muggleborns or those that agreed to serve as reserve aurors were spared from Azkaban."

"Inquisitors and Auror Reserves have entered the- Oh, you've seen them"

END FLASHBACK

The smaller group amongst the ten must have been the inquisitors, which meant that those in the auror uniforms must be the reserve aurors that Sir Nick had spoken off. That also meant that they were likely not acting voluntarily, having been to Azkaban and knowing the fear the dementors created in the Wizarding World it's no wonder that many chose conscription rather than prison and that unfortunately meant that some of them at least were likely to be victims.

At the last second he redirected his shot down towards the reserve aurors leg; the spell hit carving through a muscle and dropping the man to the ground, the wound was serious but with treatment not life threatening.

Realising that they could not kill them meant that they were now at a distinct disadvantage as the pair could not go all out in their attack, in fact it severely limited their options; blasters and lightsabers were designed to severely injure and kill, it took much more effort to incapacitate than it did to kill with them. The aurors at least they would have to knock out or incapacitate 'gently' in case they were innocents.

He saw as he deflected a pair of spells that Alema had obviously seen his hesitation and had understood that he didn't want to kill them as although he had heard the unmistakable sound of a blaster power pack being slid into place he had not as of yet seen a single blasterbolt be fired and instead saw another man go down under a hail of invisible blows.

It was then that Harry realised that he could use their ignorance of the Force against them, as he spun around again to deflect the next spell harmlessly out of the way he subtly used the Force to push one of the inquisitors to the ground, as expected the others thought it was another invisible opponent and began firing randomly in that direction not knowing that Harry had the ability to move people from afar without a spell.

Harry used Force Pull another to the same results, not knocking them out but enough to cause chaos within the inquisitor and reserve auror ranks. Swinging his blade around again at an auror who was being particularly aggressive and was therefore less likely to be an unwilling accomplice Harry caused the first lightsaber injury to one of his opponents by cutting through a wand, causing the weapon to explode burning the hand severely and destroying several of the fingers before Force Throwing him back into the ships shields knocking him unconscious.

Over nearer the castle he was just aware of the other group of ten engaged in combat with the other jedi and the castles residence as a lucky bludgeoning hex made its way through his defences as he was dodging another curse and threw him to the ground, at the same time he heard a gasp and looked around to see that Alema had just taken the first inquisitor down but this one had managed to grab her invisible leg as fell pulling the cloak off of her which resulted in two wands ending up at her neck and her hands bound with conjured rope.

"Stay down or we kill you for attacking ministry employees on official business," commanded a voice as Harry rolled to his knees and prepared to re-enter the fight, only for the voice to stop him dead just as the twins had earlier in the day.

He looked up, straight into the face of Draco Malfoy who also as they locked eyes realised for the first time who he was fighting. He was obviously older, his hair was longer and pulled behind his head into a ponytail down onto his inquisitor robes, he was about the same height as Harry and his face had aged in the same way, that included his eyes which were no longer the eyes of a boy who hated him and acted without thinking, but now bore the age that only time in Azkaban can impart, that was something Harry was all too familiar with.

"Potter!" he gasped in shock, before quickly recovering. "Finally decided to crawl out of your hole after all these years, last I heard you were a convicted criminal on the run."

"Malfoy, last I heard you were a convicted criminal rotting in Azkaban," replied Harry, clipping his lightsaber to his belt and standing so that he was opposite Malfoy who was flanked by three other inquisitors. "I see their security is as good as ever."

"It's not what it once as I understand, though I have you to thank that. But regardless my sentence was overturned by the Chief Warlock," Malfoy snarled. "He and the Minister knew that I had the best interests of the Wizarding World at heart."

"Really?" Harry laughed, "How do you justify that?"

"The most powerful and influential Wizarding Family needs an heir so that we can continue to help guide the Wizarding World."

"In other words, the spoiled brat of an inbred mongrels was horny and frustrated and couldn't get a girl without resorting to attempted rape to get some," countered Harry, being much more venomous and insulting than he usually would in an attempting to get Draco to lose his temper and bite, "So that he and his arse kissing farther could continue to bow down before a pathetic little man with repetitive death issues who constantly loses fights against babies and teenagers."

"Mock all you like Potter," grinned Draco, causing Harry's eyebrows to rise in shock at his failure to react the way he used to. "What...surprised?"

"A little," he nodded, "And also as much as I hate to admit it slightly impressed, back in the old days you would have lost your temper by now and done something stupid."

"Yes well, we all do stupid things when we are young. A few months in Azkaban helped me to see how stupid some decisions could be, even if there are a lot less dementors there now than there used to be."

"Was one of those stupid decisions deciding to make me your enemy?"

"Oh no Potter, that was your decision and that was definitely the right thing to do after you refused my offer of an alliance, I just went about it the wrong way, I should have tried to destroy you public and privately before doing so physically. Making you the public's enemy and stripping you of your friends and loved ones, that way no matter what the outcome I would have been the hero and you the villain and even if you beat me you would still have lost."

"Wow, that almost sounded impressive Malfoy, almost like your father, it's about time you picked up on some of his intelligence," he bantered taking a step around Malfoy in the direction of Alema and the other two inquisitors.

"Thank you, and I am also intelligent enough to spot that you are trying to get close to your little albino wench and if you take one more step Marcus there is going to cast a redactor right into the base of her skull."

Harry stopped and turned to fully face Malfoy.

"Also I am well aware that unless you have become very chatty during your long absence that you are trying to stall until your friends can reach us."

Harry mentally cursed himself; Malfoy was nowhere near as stupid as he used to be and mentally kicked himself for making that assumption; he'd changed so it's only natural that Malfoy would have to. This fight wasn't turning out as easy as it was supposed to; he couldn't kill most of them and their leader was more intelligent than he had anticipated.

"Well...go on then," encouraged Malfoy. "Do the heroic thing and either offer your life for hers or try to release her without getting yourselves killed."

"You're not the only one whose changed Malfoy, many things have happened to me since I left, I could tell you things about the universe that could make your hair fall out."

"You're assuming I would care about them," returned the inquisitor.

"You should Malfoy; some of the cultures look even more harshly against sexual criminals than we do."

"I already told you that that sentence was overturned," snapped back Malfoy, the first hint of annoyance on his face.

"Yes, but you could not have just been let off could you, there had to be some sort of token punishment to appease the masses. Was it what you're doing now? Community service, doing a boring old patrol of your old school in charge of a load of conscripts?"

"Something like that," Malfoy grinned. "If you can call doing something I love doing like hunting down Mudbloods a service…Besides today it's nowhere near as dull as it usually is."

"I just love the fact that a fellow Pureblood who was your downfall," tried Harry again, thinking that he might be able to exploit Draco's anger at his punishment to unsettle him.

"Greengrass was just lucky her family were Purebloods or they would have been killed for what they did to me and my family," he returned hotly.

"You did it to yourself Malfoy, and Neville still got one over on you I hear including getting your girl."

"He was lucky I was distracted and she was a slut that deliberately went out of her way to create the situation, it's easy for me to see that now. They will both get theirs in time, him when we capture him and she when I can find a way to justify having her executed. Probably for collaboration with a known-"

Harry started moving in the middle of Malfoy's sentence, using the distraction to his advantage. Briefly activating the powerful electromagnet within his artificial palm he aimed it at Alema without looking and was reassured when he heard the sound of two shocked people stumbling; Alema when her belt and the metal equipment on it pulled her off balance and to the floor in response to the magnet and Flint as he was holding tightly to her.

He did not need to turn around to know she would use the unexpected stumble to escape his grasp as he thrust both his arms forward and knocked Malfoy and the other two inquisitors off their feet before launching his wand into one hand and a shoto into the other.

Spinning around he deflected the first spell that headed his way up into space, before bringing his wand to bear and firing off a pair of body binds at a pair of reserves, both of which were just dodged though the second set were not.

Turning back quickly he aimed his wand at Alema as she kicked Flint into unconsciousness and rolled to her feet, turning her bound hands towards him holding them away from her body while dodging fire from Flint's friend. One quick cutting spell later and a shredded pile of rope dropped to the floor.

Of the ten opponents they started with, all but three was now able to fight thanks to being revived by their colleagues during the lull, though some were sporting bloodied noses and cracked ribs from Alema's punches and kicks. Flint and the auror who was standing next to him had rapidly joined the ranks of the unconscious thanks to Alema's renewed and angry attacks and she was now dodging and exchanging fire with two others, attempting to hit their legs or arms with her blaster so as not to cause fatal wounds to anyone other than Flint who was sensible enough to use the auror reserves as shields and shot over their shoulders.

Harry levelled his wand at another and succeeded in blasting the aurors arm so hard that he spun twice as he dropped to the floor grasping his bleeding arm. He dodged a nasty looking hex before turning to Malfoy and the other two who were evidently not stupid henchmen as they were not doing the stupid thing of staying together and rapidly spread out to surround him, removing his chance of taking them out with a few well aimed hits. This resulted in him constantly dodging and leaping as spells flew at him, not having a chance to do more than deflect spells back at them, most of which they were able to dodge or deflect thanks to the constant range they kept from him.

The few times he managed to close on them to strike they raised shields against him and kept turning so that he could not get around them while the others bombarded him with fire. Thinking he could use their own spells against them he then tried Force Jumping directly between them then ducking as their spells flew at him, but each time he did the inquisitors simply raised reflective shields and the spells flew back at him doubling his chances of being hit. After several minutes he managed to distract one of them by rebounding two spells; one off of his shield and the other off of his lightsaber at the third inquisitor who was forced to the ground in order to dodge giving Harry the chance to throw his shoto at him so that when he stood he got a lightsaber dead centre in the stomach before Harry summoned it back to him in time to deflect the next curse leaving only Malfoy and an auror against him.

Turning back to the remaining two he made the mistake of thinking that he had them now but he never had a chance to expand on this as the ground under his feet liquefied as Malfoy fired a transfiguration curse at the ground and his left leg instantly sunk in as far as the knee before the ground solidified around it again, making him lose his balance and have to support himself with his arms as he adjusted himself onto his other knee, but in the process of doing so he was hit by a pair of disarmers and his wand and the lightsabers on his back, hip and in his palm were ripped from him, he felt a jerk in his artificial wrist as his remaining shoto tried and failed to escape him before the inquisitor and the auror moved closer to him after freeing the aurors who had been bound who joined the others around him while the remaining three continued to distract Alema.

"Very well fought Potter, you obviously learned some interesting fighting techniques from those off world friends of yours, but obviously not enough to prove useful against the superior skill of Pureblood opponents."

"Strange Malfoy it seemed to take three of your superior Purebloods to keep one of me engaged." Something in Harry's mind clicked as an idea came to him, Malfoy might have grown up, but he probably still could not resist the chance of showing off. "And if that's what you think then duel me, magic versus magic, one on one, Half-blood and Pureblood."

"Do you take me for a fool Potter; I have you defenceless and at my mercy, I'm not about to give you your weapons back so you can try and defeat me."

"You really have grown up," Harry replied.

"Unfortunately for you," Malfoy replied, before turning to the other three with him, "Knock him out and get him back to the Minister and the Chief Warlock, the others will cover our retre-"

As Malfoy said it his feet were knocked out from under him so he and the others near him landed flat on their face.

"Now that felt really good."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I hope this re-written chapter more accurately reflects people expectations of the chapter and the way Harry and Alema would have dealt with the situation.