"Chapter 4"
A/N: All right, here's chapter number four—just to say, I really have no idea how long this story is going to be. I have key moments written down on paper, but everything else I just fill in, so I don't know how long I'll have this by the end. Thank you so much for your reviews, and saying that this is an original storyline—I hoped I'd accomplish that. Enjoy!
When Harry woke up, he found he was settled on a comfortable, rather long sofa in a suite. Morning sunlight streamed through large windows that really acted as the walls, supported by beams, spilling across his face gently, and the smell of something cooking permeated the room. For one split second panic rose in his throat as he looked around, but then with difficulty he forced it down, knowing it wouldn't help. He sat up quickly, then realized he was going to aggravate his wounds, and almost cringed in anticipation of the pain—
But the pain he expected never came. The dull ache of the Cruciatus Curse remained, but his body did not erupt in fiery agony like it had before, Confused, he looked down to inspect himself, and his jaw dropped. His chest and stomach were not riddled with the deep wounds from Voldemort's Cutting Hexes; indeed, there was nothing to suggest that he had been injured in the first place—his skin was smooth and unmarked, not even a scar remained. What the hell-?
"Ah, Harry. Good, you're awake."
Harry leaped up from the couch, instinctively reaching for his wand before remembering he didn't have it, and came face to face with Luke. The blonde-haired man stood with a raised brow and an almost amused look in his eyes. Harry felt his face burn.
"Sorry," he muttered embarrassedly.
"It's all right," Luke assured him quietly, moving closer to the couch. "I'm not surprised you reacted like that."
"How long have I been here?" Harry asked abruptly, in no mood for pleasantries. He couldn't call enough shame up for his rudeness—he'd been through too much the past few days, especially with Sirius… Hastily he shoved those thoughts aside, unwilling to think about that, but nonetheless he felt the gloom settled around him deepen.
If Luke had caught anything of his thoughts, he didn't show it. "Almost four days," he answered, and this time he really did smile when seeing Harry's shock. "I had placed you in a healing trance so your wounds would heal faster—it seems they didn't take that long at all. Even a Jedi wouldn't have been completely healed until a week had passed."
"It's because wizards heal more quickly than Muggles—er, non-magic folk—do," Harry said absently, and caught Luke's frown of confusion. "Wizards, it's what we call ourselves. People who can do magic. Men are called warlocks and women are witches."
"So like the Witches of Dathomir," Luke said softly, nodding his understanding.
Harry frowned. "The Witches of Dath- Datho-"
"Dathomir," Luke said, grinning. "A planet that is really run by large clans of women who are all Force-sensitive. Over the centuries, however, they forgot about the Force and now believe their abilities to be born of what they call "magic". I've had a few of the Witches of Dathomir at my Academy—not least of all Tenal Ka, the Chum'Da of the Hapans. Her mother had been born and raised a Witch. The planet holds some… rather interesting history for me and my sister Leia and her husband Han. And for the Jedi of the Old Republic."
Harry stared at him. "Do I really want to know?"
Luke shrugged. "Depends. If you want the long or short version—oh wait, there is no short version. No, you probably don't want to hear about it right now."
Harry's mouth twitched in the beginning of a smile, and he took a step forward—but nearly had to sit again when a wave of dizziness hit him. He took a moment to steady himself and in that moment realized how hungry he had somehow become.
He heard Luke's low chuckle. "It's normal for you to be hungry and light-headed after a healing trance," he explained. ""It's nothing a good meal won't fix."
Harry sent him an irritated look. "Are you reading my mind?" he demanded. It reminded him too much of the disastrous Occlumency lessons with Snape during his past year at Hogwarts, who had ridiculed and insulted and shouted at him for not trying and for "being weak".
Luke frowned. "Not really," he answered slowly. "See, everyone belongs to the Force—it's the factor that holds the universe together, and everyone, whether you have access to it or not, has a presence in the Force. Force-users like the Jedi can sense emotions from people because their Force presences change due to their emotions." He shrugged. "Sometimes a Jedi can pick up a thought or a memory, but that's rare. I can pick up your emotions well because I'm naturally better at sensing someone's feelings. You haven't learned to control what you broadcast through the Force, so naturally the Jedi are going to sense your emotions."
"Oh." Harry wasn't sure if he was assured or not—he supposed it was a good thing that these "Jedi" wouldn't be able to see his memories, but his emotions were bad enough. He fought the resentment that rose up inside of him, knowing that among these people he was vulnerable, and instead distracted himself by looking around at the large room. It was airy and lit both by the sunlight and overhead lights. The carpet, which looked and smelled clean and new, was a deep red with delicate white strange floral patterns designed in it. It certainly looked expensive, but wasn't fancy. There was an easy feeling to it, like it was well lived in, unlike his aunt and uncle's stuffy and upright house on Privet Drive. Sighing to himself, knowing that that was at least one place he was not going to miss, he moved forward again, fighting back the dizziness it brought, and followed Luke down the long hallway into the kitchen quarters, where he saw Luke's wife, Mara, standing at the stove making breakfast. She looked irritated, and when she turned to them it was with a huff and a hand on her hip.
"Skywalker," she said with a glare, "you know I love you dearly, but this is the last time you talk me into cooking breakfast."
He smiled innocently as he motioned Harry to take a seat. "We all have our shameful little secrets, Mara," he replied, a sly note underlying his words.
She pointed the cooking utensil in her hand at him like a finger. "Shut it, farmboy," she warned him with a slight smile. "This meal very well may be your last."
"Yeah," he deadpanned, "with your cooking it probably could be." Laughing, he dodged the spatula she threw at him. Harry watched in open-mouthed surprise. The two adults were acting like a pair of playful teenagers, not like the calm and collected adults they had introduced themselves as. Strange. It almost made him smile, thinking it was odd but also a good thing.
Unable to keep from laughing herself, Mara turned the heat off and dumped the nerf sausage into a bowl, then grabbed a jug of blue milk and carried them both to the table. Harry looked at the different foods curiously, wondering where they all came from. He watched Luke and Mara take their seats, and then, led by his growling stomach, decided to forgo stubbornness and filled his plate.
"What's this?" he asked, motioning to the crumbling brown meat that he was setting on his plate.
"Nerf sausage," Mara answered with a glare at Luke, who merely grinned back.
"Nerf?" Harry repeated with a raised brow. "It sounds like something you'd call someone when they're being stupid."
Luke surprised him again by chuckling. "I think Leia would have to agree with that," he remarked quietly, grinning. "A nerf is an herbivore from an Outer Rim planet—the word, however, can be used as an insult, like calling someone a "nerf-herder"."
"Or you can embellish it and call them a "stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf-herder"," Mara added with a smirk.
Harry looked between them. "I'm missing something, aren't I?"
Luke laughed again. "Some thirty-odd years ago, Leia called her future husband that, all what Mara just said. Of course, Han being Han, he just replied with "Who's scruffy-looking?" and brushed her insults off." He shook his head in exasperation. "He should have gotten on his knee and proposed to her right then and there. Everyone could see they liked each other except for them."
Harry's mouth twitched into a smile again and his Force presence flared slightly with a wave of humor—but then it was gone, drowned by the coldness that was wrapped around him. Mara, having caught it, felt disappointed and wondered what it would feel like to sense pure humor from the boy, without any sarcasm or bitterness accompanied with it.
"Sounds familiar," they heard him mutter as he looked down at his plate.
"Oh?" Mara asked. "Why is that?"
Harry took a tentative bite of the sausage before deciding whether or not he was going to answer, pausing slightly when the taste of the meat's rich spice filled his senses. It really was excellent, better than even regular sausage. "I have a couple of friends who are exactly like that. They bicker and fight all the time, have whole weeks full weeks where they won't speak to each other, and yet it's so blaringly obvious that they like each other you just want to slap them both and tell them to kiss already."
Luke and Mara looked at each other with identical grins. "Yep," Luke remarked, "that definitely sounds like Han and Leia before they married." He motioned to the boy's plate. "Eat as much as you want, all right? It costs the body a lot of energy to heal itself through a trance—you'll need to eat a lot."
"Otherwise you'll be light-headed all day," Mara added, speaking from personal experience.
Harry's face flushed. "I couldn't do that," he objected, talking about the food. "I'm just a guest. Besides, I… I don't usually eat a lot, anyway."
His hastily-muttered words caused the two Jedi to glance at each other again, and then Luke shook his head. "Guest or not, Harry, you need to eat. We have more than enough food for the three of us and many more—"
The buzzing of the comm caught their attentions, and Luke stood from the table to activate the speaker. "Master Skywalker speaking," he said, and motioned for Mara and Harry to continue eating.
"Master Skywalker," came a vaguely familiar voice Harry thought he knew.
"Kenth," Luke frowned. "What is it?"
"You need to come to the Temple right away, Luke. We're having some… some issues with the Head of State."
Luke rolled his eyes, but didn't allow his opinion of that ripple through the Force. "Very well, Master Hamner. I'll be there right away."
"Of course, Master Skywalker," Kenth replied, to which Luke grimaced. "Over and out." There was the click of the comm, and Luke sighed. He picked up his plate and put it on the counter drinking down his glass of blue milk as he did so. "I'll be back shortly, Mara," he told her, pulling an overcoat on.
"Take your time, Skywalker," she replied, smirking. "We'll be just fine here. I think Jaina will be stopping by later."
"Good. Is she bringing Jacen along?"
"I believe so. They're getting the apartments ready for when Han and Leia get back."
Luke nodded. "I'll make this quick, then." He leaned down and kissed her swiftly on the lips, grinned at Harry, then was gone.
Silence fell thickly, so thickly that a knife could have cut it. Mara went back to eating, and Harry followed suit. Neither of them spoke until, finally, Mara lost patience with the teen's brooding silence and laid her fork down. "You know, kid," she remarked, "I've met a lot of stubborn teenagers who refuse to speak about anything, but you should know that Luke and I didn't take you in just to have you ignore us."
Harry looked back up at her, and his eyes were hot. "I didn't know that healing for four days was "ignoring" you," he retorted coldly, as coldly as she ever could.
She sighed. "No, it's not," she conceded, "but you don't have to keep up this cold demeanor around us, Harry. We're not going to hurt you."
"Didn't stop your husband from going after me with a weapon," he snapped.
Mara struggled to keep from snapping back. It would do neither of them good if this became a shouting match. Besides, he had a point. "We weren't planning on killing you," she told him finally, having restored her calm. "We weren't even trying to harm you, either. We were hoping we could subdue you enough to calm you down so we could talk to you."
"And yet you still came after me violently," he answered her snidely—and then she abruptly noticed the sly look in his eyes, and she realized he was playing her. She almost cursed her stupidity: his anger was real, but he was gauging her reactions, testing her truthfulness—and how well she checked her temper.
She sighed, realizing he was going to take a lot to get through to completely. "Only for defense," she countered gently. "Just as you use that stick as your defense. We Jedi use the Force and our lightsaber in battle—you wizards seem to use magic and…"
"Our wands," he said, and he seemed to reach for his before realizing that he didn't have it. "Where is it, anyway?" he demanded, looking at her with a hard gaze. He seemed almost nervous about the fact that it was gone. Mara could easily understand the feeling to be stripped of a weapon. What was more, she began to realize that a wizard's relationship with his wand was similar to a Jedi's without their lightsaber—it didn't feel right not having it, even for a moment. It made you feel vulnerable.
She sighed again. "Skywalker has it," she admitted, almost reluctant to say so. "When you were in the medcenter, the droid looking over you gave it to us."
"I don't suppose I'll be getting it back any time soon," Harry sighed, looking disheartened.
Mara shook her head. "Probably not," she conceded. "none of us really know anything about you, and we can't take the chance of you being an enemy. Besides, you'd probably try to escape, and getting lost on Coruscant is not something to test. There are lots of things in the sub-levels that would not hesitate to harm or kill a teenager. You aren't prepared to be alone here on Coruscant."
"Is that why Luke took me in?" he asked expressionlessly. "He didn't think I can take of myself?"
"Don't be thick," she scolded him. "When you first came here, you took on the best Jedi Masters there are. You stood your ground and did a damn good job of it, too. But that doesn't mean that we weren't and still aren't concerned about what happens to you. You are still rather young to have been through what you said you went through. Actually," she added thoughtfully, "I really think Skywalker's beginning to care about you."
His reaction was not one she was expecting. "Do me a favor," he snapped, suddenly very white in the face. "Don't." He made to stand up, to leave, but Mara reached out and grasped his wrist.
"And why not?"
He paused, looking as if he was struggling with what he should say, and she felt his Force aura grow cold with guilt, an overwhelming guilt that nearly shocked her back in her seat. "Because anyone who's ever cared about me has ended up dead," he finally answered in a dead voice, and when Mara's grip on his wrist slackened, he tore it away, standing stiffly, and turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Mara stared after him in open amazement, her mouth threatening to drop. As a former Emperor's Hand, and an experienced Jedi Master who had been witness to a lot of guilt, she had been taught to prepare herself for any excuses for feelings and reactions. Never before, however, had she heard such a declaration stated with such open anguish and cold self-loathing. It had become very clear to Mara in that instant just how hurt Harry was. Where so much of his cold aloofness came from. And she began to understand just how right Luke had been when he'd told her four days ago, "He's lost and he's hurting." He was a boy with a world-heavy amount of guilt on his shoulders, and in a dangerous phase of identity-crisis as he struggled to understand who he was.
She sat back in her seat, very glad that Harry couldn't sense her sudden upwelling of turmoil.
