Chapter 18 : Differences

Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover

Chapter 18 : Differences

1350-1355 to 1900 AD

Earth

When Harry, as Roland Vauquelin, graduated Beauxbatons Academy of Magic he did so both quietly and well.

He had received straight O's in all of his O.W.L.'s and had then taken Runes, Dueling (with both magic and a blade, the latter of which he had to tone down so as to not astound his teachers with his skill) and Blood Magic as his electives. He worked hard at them and had achieved mostly O's with a smattering of E's in all of them as well as his core subjects and that, in turn, had led him to reflect on the differences between the time he was from and the time he now found himself in.

First, from the few references to it that he remembered, in the time that he was from Blood Magic was largely illegal and yet here it was taught as a class. It was seen as an effective but morally grey option in most circumstances given that the major powers of the day were often in skirmishes if not outright at war with each other.

It helped that it was incredibly useful as using it powered a great many runes that could otherwise need years of charging from wild magic and there were even spells designed to work solely through the shedding of freely given blood. It powered certain wards, as one extreme example, that could be not only extremely strong but also made to be bloodline specific.

The reason that it was dealt with caution by many (and most likely outlawed later for that matter) was its possibility for misuse and abuse in casting and runic form as well as rituals.

The damage and evil a person could do with either unwilling blood or that of an enemy could not be understated. Beauxbatons only accepted students in it on a case-by-case basis regardless of their grades due to this fact.

Given what Harry now knew of the art he was almost grateful that Voldemort had only used his blood for the purposes of resurrection.

Blood magic was a much different school of thought than almost any other bar perhaps Ritualistic Magic and was arguably the oldest form of magic with its history stretching further back than wizards had recorded.

Where normal magic bent the rules of the world to its purpose both rituals and, to a lesser extent, blood magic, moulded them like wet clay and created something that could not otherwise ever work and from it many horrors and wonders of the ancient world had been born especially when they were used in conjunction with each other.

Arguably that was how both the Veela and, in a darker example, Vampires and Werewolves came into being in the first place. While Harry personally thought the second was by accident he had little doubt that the other two were by design.

Thus, in terms of what could be done, Voldemort's resurrection was a very minor use of both blood and ritual. Harry had no idea why his enemy had not done more with what he had as, if he had, Harry would never have lived long enough to travel through the Veil or have been, at absolute best, irrevocably bound to the Dark Lord's will.

It simply could have been the fact that the magic was now illegal and scarce or it could have been that Voldemort was more concerned with securing his immortality and hadn't given thought to or been trained in the more inventive applications.

Regardless of the truth Harry was extremely thankful that this was the case.

Also that schooling and power structure of wizards in this time period was inherently different to what he knew. For one thing there were currently no Ministries of Magic as wizards instead answered to nation specific council's that were, in turn, answerable only to their respective monarchs.

In Beauxbatons case that happened to be King John II of France as although Calais (as well as the rest of France) often was contested between the English and French crown the wizards recognised, in general, the French claim above the English. This could simply be because the English claim came from William The Conqueror who, due to being a French Duke at the time, was arguably a servant of the French Crown but Harry was more than a little fuzzy on that.

This meant that magic, both good and bad, that was banned or redacted by the future Ministry of Magic was not only in use but was actively being taught. In some senses it lead to situations of almost unending wonder and in other circumstances it lead to the possibility of deep bone chilling terror.

Thankfully, much like the Republic, it seemed that the Wizarding World was slow to improve itself and (in most cases) the standard of education differed very little from what he could remember though obviously the skills that he was allowed to learn were much more varied than before.

Perhaps the most startling differences to Harry in comparison to his past were the easiest to explain.

The main exception to the similar teaching quality was Potions Classes.

It was perhaps Harry's most hated class once but, although it still was in some senses, Potions Classes as he understood them were still in their infancy compared to the small amount that he had managed to learn in his native time. It appeared that the lessons for it had improved vastly with age as, instead of being its own separate class, it was now a part of Herbology and a minor part at that.

Harry had managed to learn from the Goblins that most potion advances that were being made (and Harry assumed the earliest steps for what he considered modern potions) were actually even now being discovered by the Potter family.

Though he never intended to tell Snape about any of this he did find it funny, in a way, that the Potter's were pioneers of his enemies art. It was also fast becoming the backbone of their now impressive wealth and they appeared poised to soon become more than simply wealthy because of it.

Dueling was also taken much more seriously, with most of his classmates being 14th century nobles, it was much less of a simple pastime and much more of a life skill that they would legitimately need. That was also why they included fighting with a sword rather than just a wand as, before the creation of the Statute of Secrecy, their opponents in the nobility were just as likely to be muggles as they were to be wizards and honour dictated that they fight with the same weapons as each other.

He was also very grateful to find that there were no Unforgivable Curses as, if he remembered his history right, they were crafted in the early days of the Great War as a response to not only a mass of combat trained muggles but also advances in weaponry.

After all even if a muggle had a weapon that could shoot incredible amounts of bullets (think of a gatling gun) in a split second, as they had finally realised, they couldn't use it if they were dead from a spell that could kill them if it touched them anywhere and did so instantly.

He now had a better understanding of why no-one had developed a way to block these curses. They simply hadn't had the time to figure out a way to do so especially considering the dangers of creating new spells and the general bureaucratic ineptitude of the Ministry of Magic.

There were still many spells however, not all of them of the Dark Arts, that could kill quite efficiently and effectively in the time period that he found himself in.

The final thing that shocked him was that the school year did not end as such and, due to their noble status, this was not only expected but required.

In this time the children were treated almost like miniature adults and soon enough, just as their parents did, most of them will be required to join the Kings court or (in the case of the girls who generally only stayed to sit their O.W.L.'s) be married off to improve the standing and wealth of their families.

Rightly or wrongly this enabled Beauxbatons to administer the O.W.L.'s in three years and the N.E.W.T.'s two years after that. Due to 'numerous' other obligations very few teachers were female and few students, male or otherwise, were able to (or chose to for that matter) continue their education beyond that level.

Harry was of course the exception to that rule as he had no other obligations then to learn as much as he could. By utilising meditation rather than sleep and employing both Occlumency and Jedi Cantrips to increase memory retention and learning speed he stayed for three further years.

He had finally left with two Masteries, one a Mastery of Runes and the other a Mastery of Charms, and though not the youngest to do so in the schools history he was very nearly so.

Unbeknownst to his teachers he had self studied in transfiguration and believed himself roughly around the same level as his other courses but never went for the mastery exam to be sure as no one had attempted or completed three Masteries back to back in recent memory.

Roland could be brilliant and studious and he could even be exceptional for his age. He could not be truly remarkable or a world renowned prodigy however as that would not serve his purpose here.

Harry, after his education was complete, somewhat mirrored Tom Riddle as he faded happily into the background and obscurity by buying a bookstore (or what would more accurately be known as a scriveners in this time) and then retreated to his heavily warded home.

He called it Bluestone.

The primary reason that he had bought a French bookstore was the illusion of purpose.

Everyone on the planet, immortal or not, tried to build something. They tried to make sense of their life and they worked everyday to build something and leave their mark. Just because his true purpose, the idea of going home and protecting his friends, spanned centuries it didn't make him any different. That did not mean that anyone should know his true purpose and made his purchase mainly an elaborate smokescreen.

That did not mean that he had no other reason however. With it he was able to buy, or have made, as many books on complex magic that he wished without raising the suspicion of others and the fact that the Goblin Nation, through intermediaries, was managing it and almost literally making money hand over fist was simply icing on the cake.

It wasn't that the needed much money as wizards in general, aside from creating food on the spot, could use their innate gifts to make or drastically improve almost anything given enough training and time but, if anyone was to question his growing wealth, he could point to a very successful bookstore. More than that the Goblins were already planning several financial maneuvers (outside of England of course) to diversify, invest and grow, his now much depleted assets.

He had allowed only two private tutors into his well fortified home and even then only temporarily. One of them taught him apparition as that skill was not only beyond useful but Beauxbatons did not teach the skill at that time as it was still too new and considered untested for younger witches and wizards.

The other taught him the Animagus Transformation.

The first skill took only a few weeks with the second taking two years of intensive his perseverance paid off as he could reliably pop around the country almost silently at will. He also ran around the grounds of his modest warded home in his green eyed and coal black winged lion form. The only splash of colour that it had, other than his eyes, was his snow white wings and he found it exhilarating to run, pounce and fly.

He spent the next three years almost constantly studying and he spent as much time as he could learning as many runes and rituals as he could get his hands on.

Rituals were, in the main, a bust either requiring other people's deaths or could possibly affect either his aptitude with the Force or the unique chemical makeup of his blood. Without the advanced machinery normally available to him he simply could not work out how it might affect him as none were designed for someone of his unique circumstances.

He did manage to find one or two that could be of use down the line however.

Runes was much more helpful in comparison however as he found updated rune schemes for the ones that he knew and a few others that could be of use, not only in his immediate fight with Voldemort but, in the greater and wider Galaxy as well. The heat conversion runes were of particular interest to Harry and, in his idle moments, he started to draw out some plans for them as well as a few other things.

His personal life was non-existent in this time as, aside from meeting the Goblins every few months to learn more about the Potter histories to date (they felt that as the future Lord Potter he should be well informed) he had made no friends.

He had done this on purpose and as he held himself apart from others he gained a reputation for aloofness and also competence in combat when some tried to take 'advantage' of his loner status.

On reflection, Harry thought, it had made him somewhat cold. That was the horrible thing about immortality though.. a long life not only gave you the gift of more time but enabled you to see everyone you cared about die.

Rationally he understood that the people around him now and the people that would be around for a very long time had, in one sense, been dead to him for centuries. That logic did not help him however when it came to combating his growing loneliness and all he could do was hold to his original purpose as he had to stop Voldemort and return home to Luna and the others.

He was also aware that he had changed a great deal and she may not feel about him as she used to but, to his mind, that was beside the point. If he could learn enough and do enough to save her and others from the fate that Voldemort had in mind then she had a chance to be not only alive but happy.

He wanted her to be happy.

Still, the past or not, the world moved on and he was very thankful that he was a wizard given what was going on in the world at the moment.

The Black Death had struck and it had struck hard.

It was killing many and it was only due to the fact that he was a wizard (with their crude but still effective potions) coupled with his new reclusive nature that enabled him to avoid a horrible death that was sweeping not only the countryside around his home but the entirety of Europe at this time.

Far fewer wizards than muggles died of course but it was not due to any great skill or revelation on the wizards part, but rather, it was the fact that the disease had to first exhaust the magical cores of the wizards that it attacked before it affected them.

Despite that (and the many potions that they had to hand) a great many wizards died and it had begun to sour muggle and wizard relations as those powerful men and women without magic demanded a cure that they were unable to give.

That was not to say he was uninterrupted in his solitude at Bluestone however as the world rarely gives people what they want and, if Harry had learned anything, it was also rarely fair.

While he had made no friends in his school days partly due to the fact that he would have outlived them all and partly due to the losses that he had suffered he was not completely cut off from the outside world (especially as he owned a thriving business in magical quarter of Paris) and couldn't afford to be if only because if he did not have any idea of what was coming he could not make a plan to deal with it.

He was aware that one of his major flaws was not being able to let things go but the loss of Hakk still hurt after all this time.

The Hundred Years War was in full swing and magicals were being conscripted on both sides for the conflict or being required to pay exorbitant amounts of money to one or both of the Kings to stay out of it all together.

Beauxbatons was currently under extreme pressure from both sides as, though the majority of French wizards had aligned with the bloodline of King John II of France, some wizards had defected to the 'rightful' King of France Edward III of England and it did not help in the slightest that Calais was currently under English rule and looked to be for quite some time.

This meant that the school became much more integral to the war effort for both sides as even a trio of well trained and prepared wizards could decimate an unprepared army in minutes. This was a power that both sides coveted and were more than determined to have for themselves.

Beauxbatons took no official side in the war as they argued that they were simply a school, a place of learning, not a war machine or a place to simply turn out expendable soldiers on a whim.

Knowing that this would soothe neither King's ire they had, during Harry's time there, enlisted all N.E.W.T. level students in its defence.

They were required to donate one day of their time per week and as much magic as they could channel without exhaustion setting in as well as their very lifeblood to fast charge and improve the wards at an astounding rate.

This was fortuitous as there had been sixteen attempts alone, during Harry's time as a student, to conquer the school and each time the wards had held and afterwards been further strengthened.

The plus side of this was that Harry could feel Beauxbatons like a second heartbeat if he were to close his eyes, almost as if he was a compass and a school was North as his very blood was a part of the school and a bedrock for many later improvements.

Still, there was a war on, and Harry could not be completely invisible without cutting himself off from the world entirely. It was because of this fact that Harry had two sets of troubling visitors figuratively or literally knocking on his door in as many weeks.

Harry was busy putting the final touches on his latest pet project. It was a thin staff that was a full head taller than him and on the top sat no great crystal orb or massive priceless ruby but one of the smallest (and the most perfect) diamonds that he had in his possession.

Although he was no great carpenter he thought that it did look remarkably good even almost completely covered in pulsing runes.

One end of the wooden staff was capped in iron (which was also covered in runes) and the other split almost like the fingers of a hand to grasp the small diamond nestled within it's wooden palm. If he were to hold it like a quarterstaff then where his hands naturally rested he had placed his lightsabers.

Admittedly this side project was not finished and had started as a way to conceal his lightsabers as well as break the monotony of time. He often missed the utility of his bionic arm and without that this was his attempt to conceal his lightsabers near where they could be of use and it had grown from there into something more than just that.

He had learned from his studies that directly tapping into a leyline was utter suicide as the last wizard to do that was Merlin himself and it, most likely, had cost the man his life. Regardless of whether the famous Enchanter was alive or dead (it was unclear) he certainly hadn't been seen since.

All of that remained true and yet there remained the temptation of almost infinite power churning away literally at Harry's feet as a small sub leyline ran down the middle of his property. He also knew that some gems could store wild magic, at least in theory, and diamonds could store more magic than any wizard could ever produce in his entire lifetime and could certainly store more than the most advance runestone that was crafted simply for that purpose.

So Harry, at first as an intellectual exercise, began trying to solve that particular conundrum by making this staff and hoped that it would safely charge from and channel the awesome power of the wild magic beneath his feet. After all if the Geological Forge could take in wild magic he saw no reason why the staff couldn't (at least to a limited degree).

Though unfinished and untested the staff before him was the culmination of this work. Many wizards had tried this of course and all had failed miserably and had given up seeking the answer to this problem for a variety of reasons.

Harry believe he knew where they went wrong. Spell magic carried the intent of the user, even power absorption spells, and as such they had their rules but much more importantly their were limited by the parameters of the spells themselves (or the runes) and as such when they were overloaded or otherwise broken they failed miserably.

Instead of trying to force magic into the staff he was going to let it soak (for a lack of a better term) in the wild unstructured magic of the leyline itself. He planned to do this for a few days as a simple test to see if it was even possible to make it work. Either the staff would explode or it would charge and be usable.

He was also aware that, in theory, the greatest downside to using wild magic was that he could not use conventional spells. His will and focus would be the key for not only using it but not dying in the attempt.

Harry was fine with that risk as the rewards could help him immensely in what he had to do and besides that the staff that he currently held was only meant to be a proof of concept not a final product . It was also a way to get the annoying idea out of his head as it would not leave his brain until he had at least tried.

He still had more rune work to do however (he estimated three days possibly four) as he was aware that no one had ever use runes in quite this way or in this particular combination.

He was quite happily sitting down to finish off his work when his wards alerted him to eight men approaching, of which two were wizards, and all were armed and so he quickly grabbed his wand and headed towards his front door.

Edward Longfellow was a self-important, self made and arrogant man.

He was born a baker's son who had little hope of being anything else. After all he knew that as the son of a peasant he was expected, even required, to join his father's business but to say that he was unhappy about his situation would have been a gross understatement.

That was probably going to be my fate, he thought, if not for the French pretenders denying King Edward (Edward III of England) his God given right to the throne of France.

He remembered very well the day that his life had changed.

It had started like any other boring Friday with him waking up with his father well before the sun rose in the sky and slowly getting ready for another monotonous day.

He had done his jobs such as making the dough and helping his elderly father in shaping the mornings bread before they placed it into the oven to bake. He had then placed the leftover bread from the day before at the front of the store and encourage every single customer to buy that first. He even smiled and joked with the customers as they came in but that bright smile did not reach his eyes.

Throughout the entire day he was not only bored but hoping against hope that something would save him, at the age of seventeen, from this being all his life could ever be. He was tired of baking, tired of the same routine and, most of all, he was tired of his father's incessant demands that he find a wife given his lateness in finding a partner.

Then his life had changed for the better when the Royal Army recruiter had visited Colchester. He hadn't even thought about the danger or what his father would think as he signed up in an instant more than eager for a change.

His father had been so furious, he remembered, that they had argued loudly and long into the night about it. His father had been of the mind that, having lost both his wife and two other son's to the Black Death, he was not eager to lose his one remaining child to foreign war over the French throne. They were bakers, he remembered his father saying, not princes and should stick to making good bread and leave politics for the high and mighty.

Edward was not to be dissuaded though as he wanted to be one of the high and mighty even if his father did not understand.

He had argued back, citing patriotism and the fact that the 'French Pretender' was not only denying England's legitimate blood claim to the throne but was also insulting it as well. He had spoken passionately about the glory that would be his and how he would be serving a greater cause than simply making bread by enforcing the true Kings right to the throne.

His father's face was full of disbelief at that argument. He knew that his son had never cared about such things before and he knew, they both did really, having watched the majority of his family pass that there was no honour or glory in death. His despair knew no bounds as he realised that all this time he didn't know his son at all... not enough anyway.

Edward just wanted to leave and because of how he left it they had not spoken since.

It had not taken Edward long to pack his meager belongings and soon he was being shipped, along with many others, to France and the 'glory' of the battlefield. He was never more grateful for the longbow training every peasant boy received growing up as he was sure that it would save his life in this deceptively peaceful looking land.

He was proven right fairly quickly as, almost as soon as they had arrived, his regiment of longbowmen were attacked in a cowardly french ambush.

He remembered the sudden rush of fear as if he was going to die any second and he recalled how his senses had come alive and the blood seem to rush around his body with extra speed even as time seemed almost slow as he registered the sudden appearance of his enemy.

He had killed five men that day. He had killed two with his bow and three with the long knife that was the standard issue for bowmen when the enemy got too close. He found that their death's did not bother him and he was fine with that as he saw it as a stepping stone to the riches that he wanted out of life.

Fortune was with him as one of those that he killed was a traitorous French Count. He had raided the bodies for loot swiftly and found, in coin alone on that particular corpse, more than his father had made in three months working non stop in the bakery.

He had also been 'rewarded' for his bravery and skill as well. He had hoped for some money, a transfer to a more prestigious unit or maybe even a small parcel of newly liberated France.

Instead the Black Prince had commanded, through his chain of command of course, that he (along with a few others) guard some magicians as they rounded up some of their hiding and traitorous brethren so that they may be pressed into honorable service for their country and their true King.

That was how he and five others found themselves escorting two loyal magicians around France and they were more than effective as they had already 'convinced' fifteen magicals to join their cause.

He understood, from one of the magicals in their group, that although they had a comprehensive list of graduating students from the last ten years at Beauxbatons so too had the enemy. He had also heard (though he hadn't seen it yet for himself) how effective they could be on the battlefield.

It was a race then, even he understood that much, and it was possible that the winner was whoever had the most wizards and witches and that they, in turn, would help decisively win this war and prove the English right to rule.

This all explained why he was charging around the countryside with six others instead of making his name on the true battlefield. He personally hated this assignment but he would do his duty.

His distaste for his assignment was not purely from a selfish desire to advance himself through combat though, there was another reason as well. In the short time that he had known the wizards that he was protecting he had realised that he hated them, all of them, with a passion.

Everything was unnatural about them, he thought, they wasted their devilish gifts on selfish desires rather than in service to the King and everything about their way of life was unnerving.

Worse they could not plead ignorance as they were better educated than anyone else he had ever known. One example of that, in comparison to him, was that they could read and write while he could not and he was aware of how useful that skill could be and how much the nobles looked down on others who could not.

They could do almost miraculous things and, although he was called Longfellow due to his exceptional height (5 feet 11 inches), almost all of them equalled or eclipse him in that, and it added insult to injury to his already wounded pride.

They didn't even try to hide their differences, their... abnormalities. He had seen their homes and they were just a strange to him as the people that lived in them.

Some of their houses on the outside, looked like little more than a two room single storey whereas some others looked like beautiful soaring homes that seem to put the Royal Family themselves to shame. Worse then that, with the use of something called expansion runes and stabilising charms, they could be larger on the inside and rise even higher than the tallest natural building that he had ever seen.

He disliked them so much in fact that he had not even bothered to learn the names of the people that he was protecting as to him they were not even people... just a means to an end.

The house that he stood in front of was modest in comparison to some that he had seen and oddly he hated it all the more for that. It's seeming normalcy hid the wicked nature of the person that lived within.

He stood there ready to call out the next wizard from his home and thought about the next target on his list. As if to prove his thoughts the house was four storeys tall with Arches so thin and Windows so clear that they must have been made and reinforced with magic. He was told it was called Bluestone though he had no idea what that actually meant.

He scanned the house, with envy in his heart, and seeing no wizard coming out of the building he out of nerves checked his leather armour and gripped the fine iron short sword that was issued him and was the only perk of this job that he actually enjoyed.

He nodded to the closest wizard who he privately called wizard one in his mind as they, at least to him, deserved no true designation or recognition. The wizard to his credit knew just what that meant and he (along with his partner) took out several specially prepared wardstones and slowly, with a lot of effort and cursing, began to take down the protections on this home.

They were using something called runic sappers to offset the lack of magical power in the wizards outside as opposed to the wards that protected the home. Edward did not pretend to understand any of what they were talking about when they tried to explain it to him. He did know that whatever it was worked quite well though.

"Hello lads" Harry said after opening the door and taking the situation in at a glance.

The two wizards looked haggard and drawn out as no matter the preparation and no matter what they used to bring the protection down it was still no easy feat to take down the Nation's workmanship. "You could have just knocked you know?" The sarcasm in his voice was almost palatable.

Edward took a good look at the man before him and he immediately detested what he saw.

The man was 6 foot 2 inches tall and was dressed in clothes fine enough that Edward doubted the King could afford them (let alone himself) and he seemed to radiate the unnatural power of all wizards to a rather alarming degree.

More than that, though Edward had no unnatural yearnings himself, he could tell that the man was breathtakingly handsome. From his startling green eyes and his artfully messy hair to his excellent cheekbones and facial structure he seemed to mock everything that Edward was merely by existing.

"Open in the name of the King!" Edward commanded and he felt protected not only by the wizards at his side but also by the brigandine armour that he wore made of leather and steel and emblazoned with the Kings Crest proudly displayed on his left breast (it was a quartered crest with the first and fourth quadrant displaying the French coat of arms and the second and third the English one).

"Which King would that be exactly?" Harry mocked while eyeing the peacock of a man dismissively.

"The rightful King" hissed Edward in response and Harry could only snort at that "King Edward III of England and France".

"There is no rightful King of France at the moment. The crown is contested" replied Harry calmly while giving Edward a look as if he was the slowest person in the entire universe. Over Edwards protests and the angry shouts of the group of soldiers before him he smiled before continuing "If it wasn't contested you wouldn't need those two and all their little toys to take down my wards muggle. You would simply need the King's permission to take them down and perhaps a vial of his blood. These wards are built on the lands of the King and if he withdrew his permission they would simply collapse. It is called the Royal Prerogative and is well known amongst my own kind".

"King Edward is the rightful King of France" said one of the wizards as the wards began to fail, one after the other, in an increasing cascade failure. All the men paused for a moment as there was a sound like a thunder clap and a bright light as the the remaining ward's all failed at once.

"Magic disagrees with you" Harry shrugged with his wand in hand "Although I do admit he may one day be recognised by magic as King of France assuming, of course, that he wins this war".

"Regardless" snapped Edward " you are Roland Vauquelin trained at Beauxbatons Academy for Magic and your rightful King requires your services". Edward's hand gripped his sword tighter with the threat clear in both his body language and his voice. " You will serve the true King or you will die the painful death of a traitor".

"Let me guess...You couldn't breach the schools wards and press gang the student body so your superiors decided the next best thing was to go after the recent graduates? How predictable".

Now Harry was openly sneering and he also had a random and very idle thought as he did so. I seem to be sneering a lot more lately... I don't remember doing that before I began this old adventure. I hope I don't get sneer lines.

By the end of this conversation the two wizards seemed to have recovered themselves to an extent and one of them turned to Harry. He was a bear of a man who, in a different time and profession, would not have looked out of place in a building site directing men and threatening them with his physique. His partner was the polar opposite as she was slim, willowy and had delicate features and barely topped 5 ft.

"Your wards are broken. You are outnumbered with not only us but master Longfellow, two crossbowmen and another three soldiers of the King's army with swords drawn. We have no desire to spill any magical blood or waste your talents but you will serve our cause or you will die as we cannot allow you to serve the French".

Harry knew that he could not flee even if he hadn't felt the apparition ward's snap into place while the wizard was talking and keeping him distracted. The flushed look on his partner's face would have been a dead giveaway as to what she was doing even if he senses had not been scanning for threats and changes.

Harry took a deep breath and a small second to evaluate his options.

Charms were immediately dismissed. Though they were low power and fast cast they rarely (with the notable exception of those dealing with animation) affected more than one person or object at a time. Added to that, given his history in Charms, these people might be expecting him to rely on them and, if so, could have prepared contingencies against that in advance.

Runes was also out. Not only would they expect that as well but he would have needed time to set them up as even temporary runes took between five and ten seconds to cast and Harry doubted that they would leave him alone that long.

Blood Magic was a possibility but, as he had no stored blood on hand he would have to injure himself and that was not a good idea in any combat situation. Also if the enemy wizards managed to get hold of his blood it would be absolutely disastrous.

Apart from all that Blood Magic worked best when enhancing one of the other disciplines such as, quite commonly, runes and wards or even certain aspects of dueling one-on-one.

That left two branches of magic (as the Dark Arts was not classified as a separate branch until the end of the Great War) that Harry was comfortable with...Transfiguration and Conjuration. These were considered the most difficult branches of standard magic to master not because of any great difficulty of concept but rather the struggles with application.

Both Transfiguration and Conjuration had the same upside as well as comparable faults and it made sense as they were both quite similar to each other. The upside was simple as they were the magical arts that required the least effort to learn in regards to nonverbal casting and they both had little to no wand movement. The difficulties (and why they were considered some of the hardest magics to learn) we're just as simple and somewhat connected to each other.

They were both power hogs for one, with Transfiguration requiring the least amount of power of the two, as creating something from nothing or reordering the structure of the universe (even on a small scale) was not something that could be reliably done by weak wizards.

The second reason that they were difficult was also the last and it was simply a problem with visualisation. More than any other magical art you needed a clear image of what you wanted to create or transfigure. A poor image would be worse than nothing as it would either be inferior than what you needed or worse it wouldn't work at all and either way you have then expended a lot of your own power to make it happen.

Despite his disgust for what Dumbledore had done to him Harry was well aware that the man must have been both powerful and very strong willed to be able to become a Transfiguration Master. Although even he used Charms more than Transfiguration and reportedly hated Blood Magic with a passion.

All that being said Harry was unclear how true that was as it appeared that he had used it to great effect at Harry's aunts and uncles home and Harry had once wondered how much that hatred was due to people's misuse of the art until he had decided that it simply did not matter.

Harry privately mused, when he had mused about it at all, that the slapdash nature of it as well as its ability to bend (sometimes) what was 'known' about magic simply offended the old man's sensibilities.

Dumbledore was nothing if not a planner and Harry reckoned that the fluid nature of Blood Magic would offend such a disciplined mind more than anything else.

Regardless, the disciplines of Transfiguration and Conjuration seemed to be his best choice. After all, he had the power to spare at the moment where his enemies did not.

Seeing that his opposition was spread out roughly in a semi-circle he whipped his wand quickly in a harsh and sudden movement from left to right creating, from thin, air fifteen rubber balls that immediately moved to pummel all of his opponents at almost bone breaking speed.

He did this to try and not damage the timeline too much as he was unsure what might happen if he actually killed one of them. For all he knew one of the wizards made up a part of Malfoy's ancestry and he, knowing his screwed up luck, would have to impregnate Narcissa to create Draco if that were the case if he accidently killed them.

As he had the disgusting thought of Draco being his child in his head (he was less concerned with impregnating Narcissa, if only as an abstract concept, as she was a fine looking woman after all) he found himself grateful that he had learned silent casting as he threw up a little in his mouth and that would have impeded him saying any spells while he reflexively swallowed.

In his defence however the image of becoming Draco's relation or somehow, Merlin forbid, his daddy was almost too much for him.

As expected the muggles in the group moved away from the fast moving projectiles while the wizards simply shielded (though they did so verbally) and that fact that they responded with dark variants of the cutting curse showed that they were not only unconcerned with his life but well trained given the relative newness of the charm.

Harry called on the Force to speed up his body and definitely spun out of the way. He was also grateful that the fast moving balls made the two crossbowmen drop their weapons as, even now, they were only just starting to reach for their swords.

This meant that he was not shot at while he moved to get a better position for his next attack.

However the sword wielding soldiers, to their credit, had continued to advance. This was where Harry's next step came in as he quickly turned two of the balls nearest the wizards into snarling panthers and they, in turn, quickly leapt up and buried the pair of wizards under their flesh while biting down on their wand arms sharply.

While the animals were otherwise occupying the magic users he met the swordsmen head on. People who were aware of them often forgot that the seven lightsaber forms could easily be adapted to be used in hand to hand combat.

Edward was embarrassingly unfamiliar with his new weapon and tried to use it more like a crowbar and that, combined with the fact that he was closest, meant that he went down first to a quick and brutal punch.

Thankfully for the timeline he went down in a boneless and unconscious, but not dead, heap.

With a skillful flick of his foot Harry brought the iron sword spinning through the air and managed to land it softly in his hand just in time to meet two blades coming down directly for his head.

Thankfully none of his remaining opponents had been trained by the Sith or the Jedi and so, within a few seconds, he had all three knocked out by the hilt of his borrowed sword. It was child's play for him from that point onwards to mop up his remaining muggle enemies.

"Hmmm...good balance" Harry muttered and then looked down on the knocked out cold Edward. "Now what do I do with this Percy Weasley wannabe?" He asked himself conversationally.

Coming to a swift decision he quickly subdued the two still struggling wizards although, in all fairness, the fact that they were still struggling with the panthers did help the situation a lot.

He then cut each of their palms and quickly, with a small click of his fingers, conjured a tiny paintbrush and painted runes of forgetfulness and confusion on the back of each person's neck. They glowed a soft red and then faded into the skin of his victims as if they never were and only then did he quickly heal their hands of the cuts.

Taking his cue from how Hogwarts hid itself from muggles Harry then implanted the idea that when they came upon his home they found a ruin and simply got lost on the way to the next name on the list. The fact that these two wizards barely understood the mechanics of apparition and the fact that there was a heavy storm last night helped these false memories seem real.

Harry was grateful, in a sense, that there had been as the Memory Charm was one of the few that he had come across that he still had not fully mastered (if only due to a lack of practice) so he had to whisper the incantation and, to be sure that it took, he also used his wand rather than his ring.

Then and only then did he wave his wand over the list that he had found on one of the wizards.

He couldn't destroy it lest the wizards become too suspicious but he could (and did) alter the names and places on the list. It may stop them from finding others for a while, it may not, but he did at least buy his unknown brethren some time.

Then he summoned all of his attackers together, double checked all of the spells that he had cast, and then placed a sleeping charm on them before muttering a simple "Portus".

With a muted flash they were five miles away and were soon to wake up confused and groggy. They would be utterly certain that Roland Vauquelin was either dead or had fled the country due to the war and, more than that as the home was a ruin, there was nothing that could be requisitioned for the war effort.

Harry wanted to be left alone and so he swiftly contacted Gringotts. Harry was privately amused that, at this time, the Fidelius Charm was a closely guarded secret and vastly out of the price range of most wizards.

They had informed him that they would install it in one week as they were quite busy. War was good for business after all and until then Harry would return to his reading and his side project for as long as he could.

Two days before the charm could be put up the French army came knocking but, this time, it was just three wizards and they actually had the decency to magically 'knock' on his door.

Harry thought that was a nice touch especially as it had taken him the better part of a day to repower the wards that the English had knocked down (thankfully that was all they needed as the runestone was still intact and not overloaded by the cascade failure).

What was not a nice surprised however was that when he went to open the door the wizards before him were led by one Alexander Malfoi.

Alexander Malfoi was, aside from being a wizard, almost everything that Edward Longfellow wished he could be. Though not titled he was exceptionally wealthy, classically handsome, urbane (to a point) and was currently one of the most eligible bachelors of his time outside of the Royal Dynasties themselves.

He was also full of overwhelming pride, stubborn and more than a little narcissistic.

That, coupled with the likely fact that someone from his line eventually produces Draco is why I have always strived to have as little to do with him as possible, thought Harry, deeply wary of the man.

He knew that this man was of the French line rather than the (relatively recently established) English one but, given the pureblood habit of breeding with close family members he couldn't Harry sure that it wouldn't affect the timeline.

When Harry stepped out to meet them he was very grateful that, in the intervening time since his last unexpected visitor, he had not only managed to complete the staff but that he had also managed to remember to carry it out with him as well.

"His Majesty King John the Good wishes to see you" began Alexander in a tone that brooked no argument against his, or the Kings, will.

"No" Harry said. Still despite Malfoi's tone denial is exactly what he got and though the brief look of surprise that flitted across the mans face was entertaining to Harry it did not last long.

"Be reasonable. If you do not come willingly we will tear down these wards and take you to him in irons". Malfoi was using his best politicians voice now and Harry could almost feel the oiliness of it slither over his skin. Although it was a good tactic to manipulate people it was nothing compared to what Harry had felt from the Sith so long ago.

Sagging his head in apparent defeat as he did not want his wards broken again (it had after all been an utter pain in the arse to fix them the last time) he began to move towards the ward line with an exaggerated limp. Malfoi's eyebrows raised at that and at the staff that he carried.

"A horse kicked me last week" Harry answered the unspoken question with a quick lie "what with the unrest from this conflict I haven't been able to see a healer about it yet".

"I am sure that we can arrange one" replied Alexander magnanimously in a silky smooth tone of voice. After all why shouldn't he be magnanimous, as far as he was concerned, he had won. "I see that you have runes arranged around the stuff but I can't quite make out…. oh concealing runes. Very clever that". The patronising tone at the end of his sentence was so strong that it was almost a living thing.

"You didn't really expect me to use any old branch like a common muggle did you?" Harry replied with a false sneer.

"Of course not. We are wizards after all" Malfoi responded with a sneer of his own but, in his case, it was genuine. The only muggle that Malfoi respected was the King of England but he was, as a King, hardly common and to his mindset power trumped all...even a lack of magic.

The very instant that Harry crossed the ward line his eyes turned cold and the staff almost seemed to slam down on the earth beneath his feet. Even as the ground shuddered and buckled beneath him a great wave of colourless magic rushed out and Malfoi and the two other wizards were thrown high into the air already unconscious.

Before he could celebrate however Harry realised that he was in a deep amount of trouble.

The entire staff was glowing and the runes were almost as bright as the sun even as they pulsed ominously.

Harry felt a deep pain as his hand was quickly and heavily burned as if he had stuck it into a raging inferno and held it there for at least a minute and he knew he did not have a lot of time.

More than the pain he was feeling however, he was objectively speaking, disappointed. It appeared that his staff side project was a failure and, more than that, a complete waste of time. When he held it and used it he had felt the difference between the wild magic and the magic deep within his own core.

He did not know why but he did sense that the Force was more aware, for lack of a better term, than magic.

The Force could actively guide whereas magical seers could only gather fragments of the future and the Force sometimes allowed itself to be commanded so, in some senses, it could be argued that it was as alive and conscious as Harry himself. Magic however was very different.

He did not know if it was that magic was less 'evolved' or even simply a younger force of the universe but, instead of a gentle voice or servant, magic was much more like an animal. The magic in his core was much more like a puppy in that it was, not only willing but, eager to be used and it was so playful and energetic as well as full of a deep sense of connection to him.

Wild magic however was as different from that as the light side was from the dark.

If his core was more like an eager puppy full of tamed and playful magic then wild magic was instead it's snarling and wild wolf cousin. It raged with almost alien, though simplistic, desires and had no attachment to him at all.

More than that however it did not like to be trapped. All it wanted was to be free.

As he looked down at the shaft Harry got a great sense of foreboding and, knowing he had no time left, he threw the staff high into the air. With a scream of utmost desperation he poured everything he could into the Force and his magic pushing it up and higher away from the ground.

He was just in time as he staff exploded in a wave of white light that almost blinded him and, if the others had been conscious like him, they too would have had the sudden urge to grab their ears and fall over and vomit.

Harry stood slowly and shook himself clear of that spectacular display (as well as vanishing the vomit) as he had no time at the moment to dwell on it. Instead he set about dealing with the French much as he had with the English.

Two days later the Goblin Nation came by and hid Bluestone from the world as effectively as they knew how. They were even generous enough to make him the Secret Keeper of his home.

Harry did not let on that he already knew the charm (having learned the particulars from Hermione on one dreary evening in the study of Grimmauld Place) as, in this time, it was a closely guarded secret in the Nation and as it needed at least two wizards or other magic users to make it work as one would cast the spell and the other would be the Secret Keeper it was mostly useless to him.

Harry assumed that wizards bought the knowledge of it from them at some point in the future or discovered it independently. Harry never did ask where the origin of the spell came from and, at the time as now, it hardly seemed important.

Regardless, at this moment in time, it was currently a well guarded secret that Goblin Nation offered, at great expense, to certain valued customers and protected it with layers upon layers of secrecy spells.

Needless to say, as there was a war on, business was booming.

Two weeks later Harry had come to a difficult decision.

He stared at the empty cryostasis tubes wondering if he really could afford to do this. The fact of the matter was that he really had no choice as, no matter what he did here, he risked changing time if he interacted with anyone else.

He could rationalise his decision in any number of ways but it was more than that, more than any simple rationalisation, if he was being honest with himself and over his very long life he always tried to be honest with himself even if he couldn't be honest with everyone else.

His long life was the very problem that he was considering as, although he looked like he was in his early twenties, he was nearly seventy years old and he felt like it. He knew that that feeling would only get worse and, although his new younger bodies health and hormones blunted some of the effects, he was still much closer to his mental age than not.

He could feel himself falling into the trap that sometimes comes with advanced age and that was the idea that great age went hand in hand with wisdom.

The sad truth of it was that it often didn't and that, because people believed that it did, great errors were sometimes made in the name of wisdom as detached surefooted older generations made sweeping changes to the world around them even if they never would have to live with the consequences of their actions.

If he lived through the next several centuries, he wondered, would Luna recognise him? Would he even be able to recognise himself after all that he had done and would do?

He was smart enough to realise that knowing Luna after all of this time would be more than an uphill battle at this moment without adding several centuries of life to the mix.

It would be hard enough to catch her up on his life up to this point (though he had some ideas of how to do that) let alone the centuries that he would experience while he just waited for her to be born with nothing else to do but study and, hopefully, he would not go mad from the loneliness.

He did actually have several things to do, protect the timeline, prepare for his visions of the future and defeat Voldemort chief among them at the moment but it would all mean nothing to him if she no longer recognised who he was.

What was the point of a long life, he wondered, if in living it he was forced to live his life alone with no chance of having her?

He knew intellectually that his chances of being with her now after all this time were slim but, in his heart, he couldn't shake the feeling that if he didn't do what he planned that any chance he had left would be gone forever.

Wasn't love supposed to be the point of life? And if it was not what was the point of living a long life at all? What was the point of any of it? He wondered.

"Are you sure about this Master?" Asked GE3 with a note of concern in it's androgynous synthetic voice. "The opportunities to learn more are almost endless after all".

"As sure as I am about anything my friend" Harry replied quietly. "Remember to wake me briefly every fifty years so that I can use the chair".

"Of course Master" said GE3 indignantly as if he was offended by the very idea that he would not. "I will of course also remember to wake you fully in the year 1900 A.D." the droid continued preempting Harry's next reminder couched as a question.

Harry smiled softly and took a long look around his ship before nodding his head and stepping into the cryotube.

He had been a Jedi too long not to trust his feelings and so he began his very long sleep.

Far away and on a distant world Darth Ruin growled in barely restrained anger.

The sudden financial crisis and subsequent weakness of the Republic should have been music to the Sith's ears but it wasn't as their cause was suffering just as much as the Republic itself.

The reason for this was as maddening as it was simple. Darth Bane's plan for the destruction of the Jedi and, coincidently, the downfall of the Republic required time and a great deal of maneuvering that would take centuries to complete. This was one of the main reasons why the ultimate progenitor of his Order had instituted the Rule of Two in the first place.

This crisis however had not been of their design and it had begun so quickly that they (he and his Apprentice) hadn't even been in a position to benefit from it in the slightest and were now backpedaling to save as much as they could.

In short they had been caught with their proverbial pants down.

They had lost money, more companies than he could count and found that some of the most valuable assets (especially people) had been bought and paid for or otherwise neutralised by Potter Industries.

Potter had shown his teeth and the cowards had run in abject fear and no Sith liked either being upstaged or having there natural weapon, even indirectly, turned against them he mused.

Potter would pay, he thought, the memory of the Sith order was long and he had interrupted (if only for this brief moment) their grand plan of ascension to the masters of all that they had always deserved to be.

William Potter may currently be untouchable but his descendants were not and soon enough, he daydreamed, they would feel the wrath of a Sith.

The Sith were nothing if not forward thinkers and, with that decided, Ruin returned to his damaged financial dealings and uncertain allies sure in the knowledge that, one day, the Sith would rise once again. The next time though, he vowed, nothing and no one would stop them.

After the Jedi, Ruin decided with relish, Potter and everything he loved or ever could have loved would burn.