Chapter 28: The Hutts and History

Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover

Chapter 28: The Hutts and History

A/N: edited for typos with thanks to goku90504

51 BBY

3,602 ATC

Nar Shaddaa

Fucking hell, thought Neville, I'm so tired.

The leader of the Magi had spent the last two weeks running, hiding and running again in this cesspit of a world and even though, thanks to his natural magical ability as well as his blood rune tattoo, he looked like a man in his early twenties he currently felt all of his seventy four years.

He was tired, often wet, ached all over and felt like he had a great big drenched and somehow angry sandbag in him where his mind should be.

After all of this time Harry was still more than just a leader to the man but a dear friend and, after spending so long together, they had formed not only a good working relationship but also managed to deepened their friendship so much that they even occasionally thought alike.

That, he mused, is in a nutshell why I am here.

Like Harry he wanted to take as much of an active role as possible and not be constrained by the bureaucracy of his work as much as was feasible. He also didn't believe in shirking work so every now and again he would assign himself as part of the Magi's contingent on the Ferries for a change of pace.

The Ferries were what they had come to call the ships that took those people that wanted to join the Commonwealth to their new lives from both the Republic, the Outer Rim and Hutt space.

Thanks in no small part to them as well as the occasional ship that came from Earth (though they were dying off) the Commonwealth had just entered the tail end of its first expansion phase. Given that their home had only started with a single solitary system the fact that they were now responsible for over three thousand worlds was both astounding and created a lot of work.

The Knights of the Silver and the Magi Order had grown too.

Given that neither order subscribed to Jedi celibacy or the Sith's penchant for both hoarding power and killing their own what had started with Harry, Luna and a few hundred Magi both of the groups had really blossomed.

There were now over 105,000 Knights spread (with 14,000 that were in some way directly trained by Luna, Harry or their original padawans) over the settled worlds with some of them even being second generation Knights.

For all that was very impressive there were now almost ten times the number of Magi as there were Knights as the latter still hadn't finished the monumental task of going through the list of all those that wanted to be trained and were found to be suitable for the demanding work.

Still this meant that the Ferry teams, though obviously becoming rarer, were now also formed of a team of five with two Magi, two Knights, and a pilot to each group unless more were needed like if it was considered hostile territory.

To his current detriment this journey had not been.

They were obviously wrong about that and he well remembered how the Council initially had been concerned how the Cartel would react to people leaving their space in such large numbers as, in many ways, Hutt space functioned on the ruthless exploitation of its own populous.

By this point however there had been eighteen runs already to Nar Shaddaa let alone other member worlds and they therefore hadn't been expecting trouble especially as the Freewing (a Dynamic class freighter that had been runically expanded) would only be taking just under two hundred people on the long flight back into Commonwealth space.

As Neville thought about this he hid in a dingy corner of the slums while simultaneously pulling his stolen jacket around him and slowly pouring a small amount of his precious and ever depleting vial of phoenix tears (thanks to a scavenged medkit) on a deep wound.

It was a blaster shot that a very lucky Bounty Hunter had managed to tag him with and he realised that they should have been more careful and someone should have seen this coming.

The fact that the entire team that he had been sent with was dead illustrated that point very effectively as did the fact that he was hiding here pretending to be a beggar rather than being treated in a hospital and then sent home.

It had seemed so easy at first and that alone should have been a warning sign as nothing was ever easy with the Hutts even slightly involved. More than that the standard bribes (simply a cost of doing business in their space) were not even negotiated all that much which was more than a little unusual for the money grubbing slugs.

They had managed to arrive a day early because of that and, using the perfect clarity of hindsight, he now realised that it was by design.

Rather than risk exploring such a dangerous and lawless place as Nar Shaddaa they had made the sensible (and as it turned out far too common) decision to stay on their ship. The thought was that they we allowed in but it would serve no purpose to make waves with the volatile Hutts in charge.

There must have been an open bounty on them that had been kept very quiet for Nic's spy network not to pick it up or it was very new as it took time for information to travel after all and the first sign of true problems illustrated how much trouble they were in.

It seemed that hundreds of ships belonging to Bounty Hunters had spewed men and stormed the ship. Although some of the defensive systems had activated fully others required activation manually as they were not automated in a 'safe' harbour for fear of hurting bystanders or, more likely in this planet's case, refugees or beggars.

Before they could fully wake, let alone move, they had been boarded and fell under a swift vicious attack that clearly had no intention on taking prisoners.

The pilot had died before he had even managed to grab a weapon and leave his room. He hadn't even gotten a chance to defend himself and the last thing that he saw, through his own blood, were more and more enemies seeking to kill his friends.

Similarly one of the knights had fallen while summoning his lightsaber to his hand and the look of pain that he had was etched eternally on his dead face.

Neville was, to this day, haunted by the piteous choking sounds the man had made while trying to instinctively close the hole that had been made in the man's throat as he had died.

The two Magi could have left the ship of course but they would never have done so.

Aside from apparition being incredibly risky in the middle of battle at the best of times (without specific training and many years of practice) neither was able to spare the few moments that would have been needed to focus enough to take any of the others with them.

So he, Knight Jessica Orion and Magi Heather Greenglass fought on despite the odds.

They were very well trained, especially in the tight quarters of their own ship, and they had killed many. They cut down enemies like wheat and with a cold calculating clinical precision that should have made their foes pause but, for every single one that they dispatched, it seemed that three more snarling and bloodthirsty Bounty Hunters stepped up to take their place.

Even with the help of an accomplished Knight of the Silver and a Charms Mistress they soon realised that they had no chance of winning the fight as things stood.

By mutual and unspoken consent they had slowly begun to retreat back further towards the cockpit of the ship and the communications array.

They were well prepared for this by the several hundred hours of sparring and training they had taken as Padawan (the Knight trainees) and Initiates (the Magi trainees) as they not only dueled/sparred against their own but each other as well as HP droids often in mixed groups.

Sometimes Neville regretted being both a Herbology and Transfiguration Master as the first would be of no use to him here and the second, unlike charms, was always very power intensive when you used it. For lack of a better term it was sloppy and a great deal of energy was lost in creating the effect and it was especially true in combat which was why only the very powerful attempted to use it regularly in a fight.

"Hold them off!" Knight Orion had called as she ducked into the security room by the cockpit and, almost as soon as she was there, the two Magi could hear her cursing as she failed to bring the security systems online. "There is either too much damage from errant fire or they purposefully wrecked the systems when they came on board" Neville heard the Knight call.

He had then felt more than heard the return of the Knight but, he remembered, that he couldn't have looked back at that point as the small hallway leading to the cockpit as the corridor in front of him was filled with both the enemy that were fighting so hard and an ever increasing amount of the dead and dying.

Then things had gotten even worse as, it seemed, that throughout the entire attack these people had actually wanted to take some of them alive despite their brutal attack only to come to the realisation that they were not worth the trouble.

Neville remembered with an eerie clarity and distant horror that, with his adrenaline spiking and his wand hot in his hand from the excess magic running through it, he had seen the enemy roll a grenade to the feet of his small and beleaguered group.

Then, as if by some miracle, he had felt himself violently thrown back (by the Force he later realised) and away from the blast hitting the back seat of the cockpit chair just before there was a great blast of heat and sound.

As he had groggily moved back to the fray, possibly with a concussion and surrounded by the screams of the dying, he had been greeted by the visual confirmation that Heather had not been so lucky.

Shards of the frag grenade had landed in the poor woman's eyes making not only a bloody mess and blinding her but also, due to their length, killing her even as the explosion tossed her body around like a ragdoll.

Knight Orion wasn't much better as the honorable woman had used almost all of her focus in that split second before the explosion to save Neville. She was littered with shards like a bloody and managed porcupine but was miraculously still alive.

She was bleeding sluggishly from a particularly nasty wound in her throat and stumbled more than a little but still seemed alert.

Though neither had spoken of it, from the moment that she and Neville had met there had been an attraction between the two and Neville remembered having the absurd thought that even here and in that state she looked beautiful as well as the idea that he might never find out if she preferred chicken or fish because he might never get to have dinner with her.

Still the explosion had given them a second, if only that, before the battle began again in earnest with Neville's wand hurling his grief, anger and rage towards his enemies even as Knight Orion did the same with her golden lightsaber.

Their eyes met for a moment. Though it was only for such a short time Neville felt almost as if an eternity passed in that instant and he felt all of her sorrow, her strong sense of duty, her affection for him and her iron resolve.

"Go" she had said softly even as he saw her move carefully back towards the security room and the failsafe that was hidden there even. Neville had felt the hairs rise on his body no doubt a subconscious reaction to the buildup of Force power in Orion.

He then followed her instruction and blindly appariated and found himself gasping for breath being thankful for an instant that he was both alive and somehow hadn't splinched himself.

He had found himself on a fairly distant rooftop looking down upon the landing pad and the ship that he had so recently fought in. From this distance the Bounty Hunters still swarmed around it like so many black ants over crumbs at some horrid feast.

Then, as he expected, he watched the ship explode killing many of the Bounty Hunters outside and all of those in the ship itself. A wave of grief had hit him then as he took a moment to fully embrace the feeling and remember the people that he had just lost.

A wave of grief had wracked him almost physically then as he had picked himself up off the ground. As much as he sometimes hated to admit it they had all sworn themselves to a life of service and they all knew, deep down, that an end like this was always a possibility.

He also knew analytically that they couldn't have allowed any information or proprietary knowledge belonging to the Commonwealth falling into an enemies hands which was, after all, the main reason for the failsafe.

Even when they left droids for the Goblin's on Earth (as they were somewhat allied with them) they had gotten their magically bound word that they would not copy, back engineer or (in the case of those from the Commonwealth that individually chose to fight) disseminate their technology.

To do so even in a small portion of a society that was not ready for it could easily lead to disaster and ruin for those involved. The history of the Republic was littered with sad examples of destroyed civilisations that hadn't heeded that simple lesson.

The people that they had to protect (and by extension the welfare of the entire Commonwealth) had to come first in all things nor would anyone be happy to have the death of so many others on their collective consciousness through such a carelessness or inept mistake.

After he had taken a moment he put aside his grief for now and, with all the speed that he could muster, was off into the darkened recesses of Nar Shaddaa. He would obviously come back later to salvage anything useful that he could (the engineers of the Commonwealth took great pains to make anything useful look like junk and breakdown without either a simple charm or the proper application of the Force being applied) but, in that moment, it was far too busy and would have attracted too much attention.

Eventually he had found an old and half forgotten communications relay and, using some of the last of his nearly depleted magic, almost literally charmed his way inside.

After that it was a fairly simple matter to send out a distress call. The systems inside had been so eroded and antiquated however that all he could send safely was a simple S.O.S. on the Commonwealth's preferred emergency frequency.

If he had tried to do more he had no doubt that, overlooked equipment or not, his position would have been given away and he couldn't risk trying one of the newer and more advanced ones that had superseded it as they were normally heavily guarded.

Like it or not at that moment he was alone, injured, and almost completely exhausted both magically and physically. He would have been easy pickings to his hunters if he had done something so foolish as attempt to access the newer communications systems as matters had stood then.

The only reason that this older one had not been torn down years ago was that each piece of useful technology was (generally speaking) owned by an individual Hutt or their families and therefore unlike other systems that were more unified old technology had a tendency to fall through the cracks of the often sinister Cartel's political system.

Added to that Hutt's liked money and as long as something worked, if barely, they were unlikely to send someone to replace or repair it.

He had known that even using the dilapidated equipment that he had was a risk but at this point in time everything had been. Using the old transmitter he knew that his message was sent but he had no idea how long it would take to go through the greater network on the planet let alone travel back to Commonwealth space.

It was after all a very long journey.

Then he had, after quickly scavenging what he could from the wreckage of his lost ship (using several low powered glamour charms and the cover of night), found the nearest out of the way bolt hole he could and fell into the sleep of the truly exhausted with his magic empty.

Which, he thought snapping back to the present, brings me to now.

Having only the emergency gear that all Magi carried in shrunken belts (as that was all that he could find in his ship though he was still grateful that he had found it as in his rush he failed to put it on) he knew he was in trouble.

Inside the nondescript and shabby looking belt was a shrunken battered looking medical kit, collapsable goblin short sword (disguised as a clunky belt buckle), a disassembled blaster with a grappling hook that was a simplified knock off of Harry's and a charmed sheet of fabric that would double as a survival tent and, thanks to the charms in the weave, a locating beacon .

He also had his wand and his curicass though he had them on him during the fight so he hadn't needed to search for them.

Sadly he had needed to move on from bolt hole to bolt hole as the Bounty Hunters had somehow realised that he had managed to survive.

Glamours didn't help him very much either as these people (though reprehensible) were not stupid and had, after their first encounter, employed D.N.A. scanners to see through them. He hadn't after all had the time to cast the standard spells that were normally used to obscure his D.N.A nor did he have the Force or the training in it to use the Silver Knights method to do so.

It would have looked more than a little odd for a Bounty Hunter to come across a shabby man waving a stick and muttering while they were looking for him after all.

That had been over a week ago and he had been unable to get away without a fight on four separate occasions and given that it seemed like they were tracking him down twice a day he thought that it wasn't too bad of a ratio.

He couldn't even sneak aboard another ship and just leave as someone powerful had managed to close down the skyports (at least temporarily). He also couldn't even disillusion himself as there were far too many people around to use it effectively.

Every single time that he moved they grew better at finding him and he had less time to discover bolt holes to use and he was smart enough to realise that they were doing it systematically to herd him into a trap.

Not that he could do much about it.

At this present moment he was between places though thankfully not fleeing so much as stealing money to get food. The only good thing about a Cartel world was that there were plenty of disreputable characters, such as those that sold death sticks, that he could surreptitiously useda summoning charm to take stacks of credit chips from without feeling guilty.

He did it this way mainly because he needed the majority of his energy to survive combat and hope that he didn't die during the chase, truly get trapped or pass out from exhaustion while awaiting rescue.

Walking down the dark and dingy streets he went looking for a target he headed into the Sunrise Cantina and began to watch the crowd covered by a ratty and second hand robe that he had bought on a previous trip with yet more ill gotten gains.

He watched like a hawk from the bar and with his face obscured for a few drug dealers to rob and then, through them, hopefully some way to fill his empty belly.

Soon enough he found one a rather grimy looking fellow who was honing in on a lost looking woman at the corner of the bar and Neville was just aiming his wand while shaping a spell that would allow him to call the dealer's pouch to him from the man's hip (which hopefully contained a few credit chips) when all hell broke loose.

The main doors to the cantina burst apart in an explosive barrage of blaster fire and from the burning wreckage (that was now looked rather huge hole in the wall rather than a door) stepped a large group of Bounty Hunters.

Great, thought Neville, more Bounty Hunters….Duros this time by the look of it.

Reacting on instinct he dived behind a heavy table with the smell of drink soaked something strong in his nose even as he pulled it down as he went making a shield for himself and landing heavily behind it.

As soon as did land his wand became a blur of motion turning a table to his left into an enraged brown bear and the right into a snarling timber wolf that charged at his foes seeking flesh and bone even as the crowd screamed and almost literally flew in panic in a myriad of directions.

While he knew that they would be swiftly taken down by the blaster fire that his foes were shooting into the crowd (what did they care about civilian casualties after all) he began to get creative.

A well placed shot of his turned a belt of one of the hunters into a boa constrictor that began to squeeze and he conjured several small birds to harass and distract his attackers drawing fire away from the bystanders.

He also, with the ease of long practice, took half a moment to assemble the blaster that had been hidden on his belt though it did help that they were specifically designed to be snapped together from four large pieces.

Then, while his foes were momentarily distracted, he turned several glasses that were left rolling around the bar and hadn't by some miracle been shattered in the commotion into knives and banished them at his closest enemy skewering the distracted sentient before he had a chance to move.

That left at least four of the first wave who had managed to deal with his animals. The boa had simply been shot killing its target as well as the beast. The wolf had been dealt with in a similar fashion having had it's head blown off and the bears victim, knowing he would die from the grievous wounds inflicted, had opted to shove a grenade down it's throat even as he was blown to death.

Worse Neville knew that there were more on the way.

Neville tried to move to bring both his wand and blaster to bear but after a few seconds of running and weaving found himself diving again consumed with trying to make himself a harder target to hit while still keeping at least a reasonable line of fire.

He cursed himself for not practicing more with the blaster as he missed more than he hit with the unfamiliar weapon.

He took a deep breath and firing wildly now that the crowd was clear he waved his wand turning two chairs into four eagles that sped towards the enemy with a cry. Next a large and gaudy light fixture turned into a panther that growled and attacked mauling one Bounty Hunter who screamed in fear.

He even threw six or seven blasting curses into the mix to press his attack but, unfortunately for him, by this point reinforcements had finally come and were streaming in faster than he could effectively counter.

A shield flared to life ( a Fortis shield that acted far more like a bubble of force around him rather than the large slightly curved disk of a Pertego) and his wand became so fast that it burned his hand with the power that was flowing through it even as more targets of his wrath streamed in.

The strain that the now constant blaster fire was taking on his shield was immense and he felt every hit sapping his strength knowing that if something didn't change soon his core would empty and then his protection would either render him unconscious or draw on his very lifeforce to stay active killing him all the quicker.

The surge of adrenaline that he had felt at the beginning of the fight was starting to wear off and he felt his magic begin to sputter under the ever increasing barrage.

The weariness and mind numbing emptiness began to seep into his bones and he knew it was only a matter of time now before he made a mistake or killed himself simply trying to stay alive.

He felt his legs start to turn to water and fell to one knee as even standing was a struggle for him as more and more of his power was taken from him and spun by his will into his protections.

There was another option he knew, thanks to the Elves and their oral history, the scraps of knowledge and spells of long lost Atlantis that he had learned as Grandmagi could help him here. There were a few obvious problems that which, even in his tired state, made the application of such power a herculean task.

The first was simply his own strength. The spells would use every single scrap of power that he had and, if he didn't have enough, like his other choices it would kill him and simply fail to work. Given that they normally used every iota of power from a normal wizard the chances of him pulling it off, even with his above average core, were low at best.

At least that would be instantaneous, he thought with dark humor.

Secondly even if he did survive everyone within the radius of the cantina as well as the businesses either side would die as he could only think of one Word of Power that would help in this situation.

Then there was the side effect of using them. No matter what you did magic required a rough balance and the Words of Power were the ultimate expression of that. He would cause an unnamed (mostly because he couldn't recall the exact price in his current state) problem and maybe even a disaster somewhere else on the planet.

After all if they were easy to use they would have never been forgotten nor would Neville have to steal for food as he simply could have created it. The price for that he clearly remembered as it violated one of the fundamental laws of magic and he never learned the Word as it caused a famine to sweep another part of the world that he was on to provide him a feast (obviously the steep price reflected why you shouldn't break a fundamental law of magic as all he would get was food enough for a day).

In short, he thought, I am going to die here mostly because I'm not ruthless enough to destroy anyone to survive. He mentally shrugged before adding in his mind that there were worse reasons to die….a lot of them.

Then, even as at least eight Duros closed in on him from all sides and his advanced shield began to crack under the strain the fissures in the magic flaring like jagged lightning that cycled around the shield trying to heal, like a blessing from Mother Magic he heard the distinctive sound of a lightsaber flaring to life and several new blasters began firing as Harry led a small team of droids to his rescue.

With the element of surprise and the fact that the first volley hit the Bounty Hunters in the back and with Neville launching the occasional blaster bolt from the front through his one way shield the battle was soon over.

All Neville could then do was to half collapse very gratefully into his friends arms as, despite his current location, all he wanted to do was sleep for at least a week.

"Hey Nev" said Harry with calm understandement "you called?"

"The Hutts...they…" began Neville tiredly.

"Easy mate...lets just get you back to the Patience and get you healed up and then we can talk all about it".

"How did they know Harry?" Even as he asked Harry half walked and half carried him out of the bar before even more Bounty Hunters were attracted to the battle. "What about the people that we were sent to get?"

"The people are dead" began Harry answering the second question first "they died long before you even arrived to pick them up by all of Nic's accounts".

Then he grinned darkly before he continued "The Cartels secure communications network isn't really that secure when compared to ours. They seem to have a external and annoyingly well hidden ally and I can only assume that's how they knew you were coming".

"The Sith?" Neville asked even as they slowly walked down the street.

"Maybe...but I don't think so. The Hutts as agents or pawns are quite unpredictable especially the Ruling Families and, from my own memories, I can tell you Banite Sith love to know the outcome of their plans before they even start".

"So what should we do?"

"Funny you should ask" Harry responded "I need a favour".

-LAFA-

Two days later Neville was mostly healed but not only hadn't the Patience left but a great pleasure ship had entered orbit around the planet.

Officially the Ruling Families were on a tour of their holdings but they were actually there for another reason entirely. The Hutt Ruling Council never did anything so magnanimous (for them) as that without another purpose however.

More often than not these trips to show their 'care' were actually more about revelling in their supreme power and a decedent need to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh as well as everything that went along with it.

Zambel the Elder was very old for his kind at over nine hundred years and as such was truly deserving of his title as leader of the great and powerful Ruling Council of the Hutts. This was not just because of his age but also because of the hedonistic cunning that he had shown in not only rising to his position but also managing to keep it for the greater part of his life.

Zambel was excited to know that justice would be done and it was a pleasant bonus that he also got to look at beautiful dancing slaves and drink his favourite alcohol as well as keep an eye on those that might take his position one day.

Although the growing cancer that was the Commonwealth had paid the appropriate bribes to enter Hutt space they had found out that they were taking the Cartel's property away without paying for them.

At first that was not so much of a problem as they simply increased the price of the bribes to enter their space and, admitted or not, every society had a portion of their population that was deemed worthless so they had turned a collective blind eye

The numbers however had become intolerable as the amount of people leaving had begun to severely damage the economy and by extension the Hutts comfort levels to an insufferable degree.

It galled him that the Commonwealth had been so successful at taking their property. The ungrateful slaves simply didn't know all that the Hutts did for them, he thought, so perhaps it was time to tighten restrictions and let them know what life will be like without my generosity.

In all fairness they had not even noticed the impact right away as the Hutts were not cooperative by nature and even, as individuals, took advantage of each territories temporary labour shortage to increase their own power over their fellows.

As befitted a being of his stature (in his mind at least) the immense albino Hutt was not only overly obese even for one of his kind but had both one Twi'lek attendant and three dancers to amuse himself as well as six bodyguards.

All of them were an even mixture of the many races that lived in the Cartel's space and equipped with the most destructive weapons that money could buy. They were also completely amoral cold hearted killers but that was to be expected.

Though the Hutts were by nature both genders each one ended up showing a preference for one or the other after a time and all of the other Council members, both male and female, had the same amount of bodyguards as he did and realistically this was to prevent their own murder at the hands of another.

There were revells planned aplenty and all but one member of the Council (Chejel Loc) were actually here in the flesh which was a feat in itself as they hadn't met like this in close to a century.

When it came to 'dispensing justice' she hadn't wanted to miss it and would be appearing by hologram to watch the show even if she wasn't actually there physically.

Thinking of the judgement to come brought a smile to his bulbous face and he licked his lips slowly in anticipation of seeing an enemy being launched into the void of space to the sound of thunderous applause.

The Bounty Hunters had finally captured their intended target and had done so with it alive and that group of Gand Findsman had done their job very well and had already been paid very well for their efforts.

As this was (supposedly) a secret part of the meeting between the Hutt Ruling Council they all had to do without the rest of their usual sycophants, hangers on or creature comforts.

The few waiters serving copious amounts of food and dancing girls didn't count of course as they were Hutts after all and doing without them would be like a human having his skin turn purple spontaneously.

Besides the slaves would be killed at the end of the meeting anyway as they would have served their purpose.

At length the other members of this ruling elite were all brought in to sit with him, with a great deal of ceremony, to lounge attended as he was on a raised dais looking down on anyone else that entered as they believed was their right and even the missing member was up there in a flare of blue holographic light.

Still Zambel was uneasy. His disquiet had little to do with the prisoner that was to be brought before them and far more to do with the other Hutts in the spacious room.

As much as he was eager for this meeting he was also wary of it. The politics of the Hutt Ruling Council were cutthroat, often literally, and given that they were a very long lived race (as well as being universally arrogant) to gain power and prestige often required more than a little sprinkling of murder.

Not that such initiative was in any way discouraged. All Hutts owed a good portion of their power to such methods along with amassing wealth, bribery and of course all round good old fashioned backstabbing.

The unwritten rule of Hutt justice was not do no wrong but rather do not be caught. If, for example, Hutt A arranged for Hutt B to be killed in an explosion then they were quietly applauded even if every other Hutt knew that they had done it.

If on the other hand they were exposed by an evidence trail or by survivors that they left then they were swiftly either forced to serve those that exposed them or killed outright and their clan plummeted into disgrace.

All in all it meant that any meeting between even supposedly allied Hutts was tense to say the least and the stakes never got higher than the Ruling Council.

"Bring in the prisoner" called Zambel.

Two mercenaries armed with disruptors and stationed at the entrance as guards moved to one side opening the double doors as they did so.

The figure that was escorted in was bound with chains on both his hands as well as his feet and had obviously been beaten. The figure of Neville Longbottom should have been a sad one and even pathetic as he was escorted in by a guard on either side.

Some might think that shackling both his arms and legs so he could barely walk at a shuffle was overkill but given the three trigger happy chaperones that were just behind him (for a grand total of five) as well as the amount of death and damage he had caused before his capture the Hutts clearly did not.

As Neville approached the highest body of the Hutt Cartel his face showed no fear which irritated the immense beings that were waiting to judge him.

As they watched him draw slowly closer they were perturbed by the fact that his body language did scream defiance despite being chained (which they would have both understood and enjoyed breaking him of) but rather as if they were completely unimportant.

To their mounting rage the human was actually looking around around as if he had all the time in the world to see everything that they had to offer and was not in fact in peril of his life.

He seemed to have the air of man that was slowly savouring a beautiful spring day and one of the guards beside him, who had the backpack that he was captured with held loosely in one hand, looked absurdly more like an attendant than a jailer.

Needless to say they were all extremely irritated and when he had finally stopped walking forward and could easily be heard and spoken to by the Hutts before him the dancers stopped as the quietly retreated to one corner of the room.

The furthest Hutt to left, a female named Isub, began by voicing their collective displeasure through her translator and beginning the proceedings.

"You are here" she began acidicly with her attendant/translator mimicking her tone perfectly "to answer for…"

"Nothing" interrupted Neville with cold steel in his voice and showing that he understood their language even if he could not speak it. "Nothing except allowing those of your people who want it a better life away from you".

Neville's voice, pitched to carry, was clear and powerful. It reached every corner of the room effortlessly and was highly offensive to the Hutts before him.

Unbeknownst to them his slow walk and nonchalant attitude hadn't been just to piss them off as he had been taking note of the positions of everyone (and every weapon) in the room.

Neville's finger almost imperceptibly twitched and inside the bag one of four small pieces of metal, all hidden cunningly inside parts of the lining, broke free and began to move towards the others that were also revealing themselves hidden by the bulky backpack.

They twisted together under his will as he seemingly stared defiantly at the Ruling Council's faces until they connected and locked in place forming one single piece.

"You take our slaves" began Zambel after a moment to collect himself "and you hurt our profits".

The ancient Hutt paused for a moment before his face morphed to one of both confusion and an intense hawk like study of his prey. "You are not afraid of our judgement?"

Though technically asked as a question from the way he spoke it was clearly more a statement of fact.

"Far from it" replied Neville even as his face and body began to ripple like the after effect of a stone hitting water even as his jaw tightened clearly fighting great pain.

"I think" he continued with a voice that was deeper and greatly changed along with everything else "that you should be afraid of mine instead".

Instead of looking at a captured and beaten Neville Longbottom as they expected they were now face with a cold eyed and hard faced Harry Potter.

"Kill him!" Isub screamed even as Harry's chains melted into warm water to splash at his feet and the ring that he wore (that they all had thought was ornamentation) glowed briefly.

The three men behind him were blasted off their feet and thrown far back from him even as their weapons clattered to the ground ripped from their owners grasp.

A small green shoto lightsaber burst from the backpack at the same time activating as it did so and it easily bisected the guard holding the backpack as it did so.

The guards behind him (including those thrown to the floor as they had backup weapons) fired blaster bolts at him and, using the Force, he deftly used the remaining guard on his other side to 'catch' half the shots even as he began to deflect the rest at their owners who soon fell bleeding or dead to the floor.

Note to self, thought Harry, the small shoto that Nic designed for undercover Knights (housing a synthetic crystal) works quite well even if I would have preferred my own blade.

Deciding to impress on the Hutts the monumental nature of their mistake in attacking the Commonwealth he not only systematically and brutally cut down his enemies he also used magic to reinforce the nature of their folly.

Five of those that were attacking him had their own blasters turned into wolves that fell upon their former owners straight away and began to rip into them savagely even as the other guards were dealing with their own problems.

One fell to a Force Scream with his brain liquified into soup before the man hit the ground even as more fell to his lightsaber or lightning. One even turned, midstep with his weapon brought to bear, into stone with a casual wave of Harry's hand.

The Hutts were horrified by what they saw as far as they knew what was happening was beyond what a Jedi should be able to do.

There had been some strange whispers coming from Commonwealth space but they had not believed them. There were always rumors and strange stories that came from all over space and, they had thought, a Jedi (even a strange one) was a known quality.

Then Harry turned another to stone but this time the spell was obviously designed to be slow. The man's face was etched in permanent terror and he bagan screaming like a wounded and crazed animal as he watched his body turn slowly to stone inch by inch.

Those screams of panic would remain seared in the Hutts collective consciousness to the day that the last of them died. Though it shouldn't have been possible the man's voice, though understandably growing more hoarse, didn't stop as the stone reached his heart and his final look was of fear as he tried to more his neck in a vain attempt to stop the stone from killing him.

Outside of the room the Hutts heard blaster fire as there were clearly more surprises than those simply coming from Harry. It was also clear that he had not come alone and the great and powerful Hutt Ruling Council were not only caught flat footed but were beyond frightened.

"Don't worry about the others on this ship...as if you ever would…" said Harry almost conversationally even as he easily decapitated the last guard. "Now let's discuss your killing and attacking my people as well as who put you up to it".

"Such impu-" began Isub indignantly only to stop abruptly.

Then again a flying lightsaber going through an eye tended to stop most arguments and before any of the other Hutts could move Harry was among them.

One died with a dry crack as their neck was broken from a Force Choke, one from lightning and another found its lungs inexplicably being filled with water.

Zambel even noted, despite his own fear, that the distant blue form of Chejel Loc was being riddled with blaster bolts and he found himself absently wondering when that attack had even started. In his defence there had been a lot going on here and it was more than likely that her screams of panic had melded into the other screams of the dying.

Soon enough though the only people left alive in the room were Zambel himself, his translator and the Silver Prince. All of their guards, even everyone else on the ship it would seem, was dead and the silence of that was deafening to Zambel.

Though, in Harry's defence, he didn't kill the dancers or the waiters the guards had done that in some of their many attempts to kill him.

"Now" said Harry pleasantly while gesturing and settling into a comfortable chair that used to be a dead body. "Let's talk a new deal….one that we can all live with and will stop any more…unpleasantness..."

"You slaughter us and now you want to discuss a business deal?" Zambel gasped disbelievingly.

"You could look on it as a slaughter" conceded Harry "or you could look at it as an abject lesson and an opportunity. As I understand it Hutt politics involves a lot of stabbing, poisoning and general treachery and, as it so happens, there are now four openings on the Council. More than that... if you move fast enough not only can you appropriate the majority of the former members personal wealth and assets and, if you use your cunning mind, you can decide who joins the Council and have at least some of them in your debt".

Harry allowed Zambel a moment to think of the possibilities and was amused by the look of naked greed and avarice that stole across the Hutt's face as the slug realised he was unlikely to be killed. "Added to that you would be famous throughout the Cartel as the Hutt who negotiated with the Commonwealth that has been hurting your profit margin so much despite your own grievous losses".

"Speak" spat Zambel and Harry smiled as if the Hutt had given him a great compliment rather than barely resisting the urge to tell him to jump out of the nearest airlock.

"One hundred credits a head" Harry stated simply.

"You would bankrupt us!" stated Zambel before countering "fifty thousand credits per head or merchandise of the same value to be decided by us" to which Harry snorted and Zambel felt that he had to defend his demand. "They are prime merchandise after all".

"They are malnourished organic beings not brand new speeders" Harry rebutted "and the state that your kind leaves them in aside from that means that they are far outside their prime as well".

"Twenty five thousand then with a discount of half on the damaged ones" Zambel said with a negligent air as if he was doing Harry a great favour.

"One thousand a head is more than fair" Harry said and just like that the almost jovial tone of the conversation ended as Harry clearly would not bend any further. Given the damage that Harry had so recently done Zambel had no desire to push him any further.

It did help that a thousand Credits a head did add up to a fair amount of money.

"Fine a thousand credits or the appropriate amount of goods that the Cartel wishes to cover the cost...plus the usual amount of bribes".

"Agreed...but the exact nature of the goods will be decided on by both sides" said Harry having no desire to initiate a war with the Hutts nor (if he won) to administer two large tracts of space so far apart "though if they are impeded in any way…"

"You won't pay as much" interrupted Zambel.

"No" Harry said smiling coldly "I'll start killing Hutts".

Zambel sighed. Sometimes it was so very annoying for him to deal with humans, especially the ones in power, as they were often so tediously direct. It was also (to his mind) crude and lacked the finesse and cruelty that any self respecting Hutt would have done in the same situation. Very few humans understood the art that was cruelty to his mind.

"Fine" said Zambel even as Harry stood up brushing his clothes free of nonexistent dust and nodding at the ancient Hutt.

"Oh...and one more thing...who exactly encouraged you to meddle in my business?" Harry asked.

"I was hoping that you forgot about that little detail" stated Zambel to which Harry raised an eyebrow. He had done his research (or at least Nic forwarded his) on the way to helping Neville get home.

"I'm sure you were" Harry said "now who?"

"I only know what she called herself...the Lady...the Dark Lady of Shadows" Zambel replied at length.

"Could you be more vague?"

"We never knew her as anything else" said Zambel "only that she helped us with money and promised troops if you ever arrived in force".

"Well that worked out well for you didn't it?" Harry asked rhetorically "Fine. Why did she target me?"

"Not you. She was after someone else though I have no idea why".

"Who?" Harry pressed.

"Princess Luna Potter" said Zambel and Harry felt a shiver go down his spine.

Needless to say Harry was quickly moving as fast as his legs could carry him and without a backwards glance and already trying to raise Luna on his personal comm having slaved it to the much more powerful array on the ship that had transported the group of droids that cleared the ship.

When he was finally able to raise someone it was not Luna as he found that he was already far too late.

-LAFA-

"What the hell do you mean she has been taken?" Harry asked angrily aboard his current ship and staring into the face of the apologetic face of the Commonwealth's Spymaster.

Even as he said it Chime flamed in and landed on his shoulder and, before he could say anything in anger that he might later regret, she began singing a soft beautiful melody. Harry felt the effects straight away and found himself stroking the bird's feathers while taking comfort from the song before he was truly aware of what he was doing.

"Just that I'm afraid. She was travelling back from helping an outbreak of plague on Boros III when her personal shuttle was attacked and overpowered. The shuttle was left a drifting wreck in space with every other member of the crew dead and accounted for".

"Attackers?" asked Harry trying to process the information as analytically as possible while being aware that his great and growing anger was only being held in check by Chime's gentle song. It would simmer beneath that song though while growing all of the time just waiting to be released.

"Mostly human though there were a smattering of other races judging by the corpses left behind. By their wounds and their number Princess Luna acquitted herself very well indeed" said Nic.

"Strangely" interjected Harry "I don't care care about that fact at this moment. What else can you tell me?".

"Only that a message was left. Find her where it all ended".

"Well that's not cryptic" said Harry scornfully.

"Or a trap" added Nic.

"Oh no" Harry agreed sarcastically "so not a trap". Harry then turned to Chime briefly nuzzling his cheek against the bird's body before continuing "Do we know exactly how long she has been missing?"

"Eight days at a minimum. That was the time, after all, that she was supposed to meet up with the Hope".

"Maximum time?" Harry prodded.

"Two weeks" Nic admitted grudgingly.

"Can you find her?" Harry asked but didn't direct his question at Nic but rather at Chime instead.

She crooned softly in reply and it took Harry a moment to fully grasp and understand what she meant. She was not Chime's bonded and Luna hadn't called for her (or been stopped from doing so somehow) though Chime was able to send a blurry mental picture, quite incomplete, of the planet that Luna was on thanks to the simple fact that Luna was bound to Harry and he to her through their marriage vows.

It triggered a memory in Harry one that still brought him pain given what precipitated it and, broadly speaking, it did fit the clue. He quickly described the image to Nic and then said "Bespin...Luna's on Bespin".

"That could be hundreds of worlds, possibly more, how can you be sure this is where you're supposed to go?"

"Because that's where my old life as a Jedi ended and my new life that led me back to Luna and becoming the Silver Prince began. It was also a very painful experience for me as it will always be connected with losing someone I cared about and I suppose the symmetry appeals to whoever it this is".

"They would have to know a lot about you for that to apply" Nic added.

"Yeah...it's more than a little unsettling" conceded Harry.

"Well if you're right I can have…" Nic stopped talking as, with a nod to Chime, Harry disappeared in a flash of fire "...Jedi Killers to go with you. I hate when he does that". The last sentence was said to a now empty room and Nic grumbled even more as he closed the connection from his end.

Harry meanwhile landed in Bespin a few miles from where, centuries before, he had faced Set Harth even as with a second flash of flame Chime reappeared in a second ball of fire with a bag full of Harry's gear.

With the ease of long practice he quickly placed all of his equipment in his favourite places while looking around the dingy alley that he had been flamed into. Sighing lightly he shook his head at all the interesting places that Chime took him to.

Ten Days Earlier

Luna was screaming. She didn't know how long she had been screaming and often forgot that it actually was her screaming often enough as the pain from the almost continuous stream of Force Lightning had shattered her sense of time long ago.

She would have tried to crawl into a ball or to escape but unfortunately she was very tightly bound and unable to move at all.

Worse yet, whoever had her knew of magic's existence and had created a concoction to block it. It had been shot into her by way of a dart often enough that it had completely blocked her magic. It was like there was a heavy wet blanket tied around her core blocking it from being accessed at all.

All she was able to feel whenever she tried to form or cast a spell was a muddy headache as if she had a high fever and she found herself unable to focus on anything as the thoughts in her mind were too slippery to hold onto.

Her torture wasn't constant and was always varied with yesterday being poisons and today being lightning day. Her torturer didn't want her getting used to it and building a resistance to the pain after all.

As it was she had begun to hate the moments when she was not being tortured as that momentary respite, that time of peacefulness, hurt all the more because she knew that it could be taken away at any moment.

She survived all of this only by design but she had no space to think about why even if she wanted to because she found it difficult to concentrate on anything at all until the current dose of the drug was nearly completely out of her system.

At length her torturer stopped using the lightning on her and Luna slumped against her bonds involuntarily in relief and against the wall that anchored the shackles and helped keep her caged.

Her torturer was always the same and Luna had to wonder if she had ever met the woman before (by her frame it was clearly a woman) but even if she had it would have been next to impossible to tell under the woman's dark and obscuring full robe.

The most Luna had seen of her face was a strong pale chin and an almost constant mocking smile that only seemed to widen in true pleasure hearing Luna's screams of agony. She detested that smile more than anything else that she had been put through.

"This is the great Silver Princess?" her torturer mocked speaking for the first time in ages and the tone alone was so acidic that it made Luna flinch as if she had been struck. If it was really acid it would have eaten her in seconds "See me tremble! Oh I'm so afraid".

"You should be. Even if you don't fear me you should fear my husband" replied Luna as calmly as she could manage. Aside from the torture she had not been allowed more than a few hours sleep and the drug made it almost impossible to meditate.

All of this meant that she had no idea how long she had been here as to her it could have been hours, days, weeks or even months by this point though she doubted that it could have been years..

"Don't talk about Harry Potter to me. I know him far better than you ever could" snarled the woman and her outburst coincided with a renewed burst of even stronger Force Lightning.

Lunas screams entered a new pitch even as her throat began hoarse with the strength of them. She payed for true relief from her pain or even death. She babbled, cried and begged and she could feel the edges of her sanity beginning to fray.

If this continued she knew that her mind would be lost and from that, whether she survived or not, all that she loved as well as all that was loved about her could be destroyed.

When it stopped again, eternities later, Luna finally saw the face of her tormentor. Heavy lidded eyes with a striking violet colour greeted her balefully, the nose that was perfectly proportioned and the cheekbones was nearly so.

If her dusky face was not twisted with absolute fury and marred by the Dark Side Luna could see how she could have been considered a very desirable woman.

"You know my husband?" Luna asked at length.

"Far better than you" the woman responded both unhelpfully and scornfully with an insane gleam in her eye both seeming to focus on her captive and twitch almost as if she heard other voices in the air.

"He is my husband"

"And he never should have been!" Snarled the woman.

"Who the hell are you?" Luna asked at her wits end and testy from her pain.

The woman smiled coldly at Luna and with a small holoprojector that she produced from a pocket in her robe showed an image of a sleeping face. It was her own and Luna was not so addled that she couldn't realise that she was looking at a clone of herself.

It was not however one that she had made (she could tell that at least) as the little bit of the tube that was in the background showed a completely different architecture than hers and none of the ones that she made, as far as she knew, were nearby.

"Pretty soon he will either be lost to you or I will be you and you will be dead" stated the woman with cold certainty.

"What have I done to you that would cause you to do this?" Luna asked the clearly mad woman.

"You stole everything from me! It was always you!" The woman was screaming so much and had gotten so close to Luna that the bound woman tried to turn her head (to little effect) so she could avoid the spittle that was now hitting her in the face.

All she could really do was to scrunch her eyelids tightly closed and she wished that she could hit her enemy but the bonds that held her were still too tight for any action even one a futile as that.

"Soon" the mad woman gloated "you will be nothing more than dust and shadow and I will take might rightful place at Harry's side".

"You could never be me" spat Luna with cold certainty.

"I will be better than you" the woman said with equal certainty.

"Still" said Luna snarkily "if you are to steal my life I think I should at least know your name".

"Does the cattle know the name of the butcher or the bug know the name of the owner of the boot?"

"I am neither the cattle nor the bug. You will tell me your name" demanded Luna as if she were not bound and helpless but still the princess she had become.

"I suppose it would be of little consequence if i tell you as you are, after all, nothing or soon will be. My name is Selene of Nar Shaddaa".

The mad woman, now identified, tilted her head like a bird as she seemed to be studying Luna's very being right down to each individual cell and whatever she saw was clearly lacking if Luna judged her expression correctly.

"It may sound like a line from a bad movie but my mother's name was Selene" said Luna softly.

"Why would I care?" Selene snapped back and, after another moment of study, the torture began again and there was no more conversation between them.

It was going to be a long and painful night.