Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling and Star Wars belongs to Disney.
"Normal Speech"
"Thoughts"
"Mental Speech"
"Other Language"
*Hologram speech*
-Writing-
"Taris? The planet's all one big city…" – Carth Onasi
Chapter 25 – The Thoughts of a Jen'ari
(36,431 TYA / 978 ARR / 1994 A.D)
Astronomy Tower, Hogwarts School
The Dark Lord of the Sith sat on the Astronomy Tower, observing the faraway sunset, and as the students of Hogwarts left the interior of the castle to head towards the courtyards. It was a thought that had appeared on his mind, strange but persistent: would he still be the same person had he not been taken by Kreia? Probably not, but nevertheless, he would have had a rather difficult childhood with the Dursley family, considering what he knew about them, and he would probably be dead as well, considering that they had an accident few years ago.
But from that question, came another one. What would have happened to him if Dumbledore had not forcefully convinced his parents to give him to the Dursley family? Would have him grown up in the shadow of his brother, become the unfavourite child of the Potters? Or perhaps he would have grown in a loving family, much like he did during the few years he spent with his adoptive family, the House of Thul? But such thoughts only confused the Sith Lord, as the only people he loved, and still did were his wife and son, Bastila and Vaner. The others had died long ago, the only thing that remained of them were the descendants. But now, the thought of Bastila and Vaner made his mind react in an anxious way. He had not seen then for more than three thousand years, and the fact that Bastila had just awoken from her sleep had begun to make him uneasy. He was glad that she had gotten out of the stasis with no health issues, but he had received reports that his son had not woken up yet, and his hibernating body was being taken care of by the Hand.
He had spent nearly four thousand years forging a powerful and stable empire from two other, and now with the new war against the Republic and the CIS, and the Sith Empire at its peak, the galaxy would finally be united under a single banner. Yet the current Sith Empire was the same from the one that had been founded by Ajunta Pall millennia ago, only the structure, organization and territories had changed with the years. Even the empire he had founded, the Sith Empire of the Star Forge, had been technically absorbed by the remnant of the Ajunta Pall's Sith Empire, and now he held under his control the most powerful force in the entire galaxy, the Imperial army and the Infinite Fleet at his command. Yet on the whole of the galactic play, he worked on the shadows, only a few members of the Dark Council knowing his true identity, not counting the whole body swap he constantly did, not only to clones of himself but to other unsuspecting beings. In fact, excluding the remaining members of the Ebon Hawk crew, and others belonging to his own power base, no other being in the galaxy had seen his original body, which was rather old in appearance, considering that he began to use Essence Transfer a few decades after he discovered the technique, and he still had to practice its use on other beings, to make sure that he would not do any mistakes when he performed the force power on himself.
But standing on the front of the whole politics of the galaxy was his personal project: Onderon. On a personal scale, the Japrael system had been where the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders had begun their campaign of conquest against the Galactic Republic and also the place where they had been driven back before the Battle of Malachor V. On a greater scale, it had been the planet which Freedon Nadd had conquered after he left the Jedi Order, and since then his descendent had ruled the planet for thousands of years, until the first usurper, Ramsis Dendup had arranged for the deaths of all the members of the royal family. And so, with the death of both Ramsis and Sanjay, he had taken for himself the vacant throne of Onderon. Yet Onderon was just the core of his little personal empire, as he had many other worlds which he had taken for himself over the centuries, the very Republic unaware of such a thing. Manaan, Telos, Taris, Umbara, Vena, Zeltros and many other worlds in the Mid Rim and the outermost Inner Rim. Rebuilding Taris after Malak had turned it into a pile of rubble had been a good challenge, and despite the major lack of survivors, he had succeeded in making the whole Tarisian thing work as he intended. Establishing a monarchy in the old ecumenopolis had been easy, but turning it into a self-sustaining power house had been rather difficult. Under the guidance of the great king "Tenraul Hord", one of his former avatars, he had brought Taris back into the galaxy. And so today, behind a lot of "successions", he was ready to assume the mantle of Tarisian monarch, after the "death" of the current one.
The other ones had been a matter of politics and backstage conquest, over the last centuries. However, those were under the jurisdiction of the monarch of Taris, therefore when his "father" died he would inherit all those, paving the way for the new empire, and the destruction of the Galactic Republic from within. But he had still much to do. Not only with Onderon, but with the Sith Empire as well.
Yet he was drawn out from his thoughts as he felt a strange and familiar presence approaching him. The one who approached him was silent, but with the Force even silence spoke louder than words. He turned around, and his eyes fell of the paling figure of one of his younger brothers. He kept his face in a neutral expression, not allowing any emotion or sentiment to be reflected.
"Which one of the twins are you?" he asked.
The young Potter was taken aback by the question.
"W-what?"
"What is your name?" asked the Sith Lord.
"I-I'm Ethan." he answered nervously.
"You came to see me." stated the Emperor "Now tell me, why?"
"I…I…they thought I couldn't do it…." he mumbled.
The Emperor nodded slightly in understanding.
"What is your house?" he asked.
"Gryffindor." was the answer.
The Dark Lord of the Sith could only roll his eyes at the whole bravery bets from the Gryffindors, and the fact that one of his siblings had been stupid enough to fall victim to one of them. Would have he been that idiotic had he been a simple wizard instead of a Force-sensitive?
"Did you came here for anything else or just to prove something to your peers?"
The boy seemed to squirm under the pressure.
"I-I wanted to ask you why you did that to Professor Dumbledore."
Revan turned around, his eyes falling into the faraway sunset again.
"That man did things that would have possibly turned my life into a living hell." he said "He claimed that I was a squib and compelled our parents into giving me up. Had it not been for my former Jedi Master, I would have possibly lived as the human equivalent to a house elf on the home of the Dursleys. They despised all things related to magic, and I was one of such things."
"But still, I was found by Kreia, my Jedi Master, who took me with her to a world where I was adopted by a disgraced family, an Alderaanian noble house. Yet my adoptive parents took care of me as if I was their biological child. I remember how they were kind to me, and in turn, years later I repaid that kindness by bringing back the House of Thul to its former power and glory."
"But you still fell to the…dark side."
"Technically I never fell." said the Emperor "My mind was dominated by an ancient Sith Lord, far more ancient that I, who had once been called Vitiate. He was my predecessor as both the leader of the True Sith and as the main Dark Lord of the Sith. He used me and Malak as tools to find an ancient artefact, but the two of us managed to free ourselves from the Emperor's grasp."
"I do admit that even during the Mandalorian Wars I already was delving too much into the possible nature of the true Sith Empire and their ways. Even before the Battle of Malachor V, I had already felt the power of the dark side deeply entombed inside an old academy on Malachor, and I was drawn to it. It was in Malachor that I was led towards Korriban and the other Sith Worlds inside the Esstran sector. My path had as its destination the control of the galaxy, so that I could prepare it for the eventual invasion by the True Sith, but I was betrayed."
"You told us that. It was your apprentice, right?"
The Sith Lord nodded.
"Malak thought that he could usurp my position, but his success proved to be merely temporary." stated Revan "Yet I was captured by the Jedi and they reprogramed my mind. I may have regained my memories from before my capture, but the Jedi essentially killed the original Darth Revan."
Revan turned around again, now face-to-face with his brother.
"Tell me brother, why do you think that I don't like when people interfere with my life in such ways?" he questioned "Unlike Dumbledore, what I do is not to attain power, as I already have it. I do what I do to change the galaxy to the better. I do admit that sometimes I let my emotions get the better of me, but such instances are rare. The majority of my actions are simply means to an end."
"Can I…can I ask you something else?" said the young boy, receiving a nod from his older brother "Are you angry at mom and dad for what they did to you?"
Revan took a deep breath.
"I've had many years to think about it. When I was younger than you, I resented…no, I hated them for it. But as the years passed, I learned that even I could not hold a grudge for eternity, especially after I became immune to death. Before that, the rage I felt, the anger, the hatred, I used them in combat until I reached a point where I felt nothing more. Today, I only ask myself if my life would have been the same if not for their actions."
The Sith Lord could sense the confusion in the youngster, who was perhaps not used to such a set of ideas.
"But do not forget that it was Dumbledore who forced them to do that." he stated "And he already has paid the price for it."
And he had made it sure that the old man would not forget it until his dying breath, which would come sooner than many people expected.
Little Hangleton, England (U.K.)
If someone looked at the only occupied room at the Riddle House, then they would be very confused. On an old armchair was what seemly resembled a disfigured baby, while in front of it, was Alastor Moody, keeling. Except that it was not truly Alastor Moody, but one of the creatures own servants, and next so him was a man who was supposed to be dead.
"Barty," it said in a raspy voice "what news do you bring me?"
"My Lord, it seems that the two older Potter twins are against Dumbledore."
"The older Potter twins?" questioned Voldemort "Wasn't the other a squib?"
"It appears not my Lord." said Barty "He claims to be something called a Force-sensitive."
"Explain."
"The younger of the twins, Harrison, possesses a power far greater than magic itself, and claims that magic is but a minor version of that power, which he calls the Force."
"Continue." said Voldemort in a tone of curiosity
"My Lord, forgive me, but I feel it would be better if you looked into my memories."
Without restraint, the dark wizard used his skill with legilimency to observe Barty's memories of the past weeks. For a while, the room remained in silence, until Voldemort stopped his intrusion. But he was now very confused and afraid as well.
The two Potters were not servants of the light, and the youngest seemed to hold a colossal power over that strange thing called the Force. But the fact that he also claimed to be immortal was concerning to the dark wizard. The kind of immortality he described was far more useful than the one he had, considering that he did not require any kind of…anchors to keep his spirit on the mortal realm.
But one thing that interested him the most was the fact that Harrison, or Darth Revan as he called himself, apparently controlled a vast empire in the stars and was a "Dark Lord of the Sith". The fact that he had conquered Earth, both in the muggle world and the wizarding world, was irritating considering that that had been his objective all along.
But out of all those things, it was the fact that Dumbledore had become a muggle that amused Voldemort to no end. And soon enough, the old man would meet his end one way or another. But still he still needed to find ways to get the blood of Daniel Potter in order to recreate his body. He could only hope that the younger of the twins would not disturb his plans.
The Palace, Taris
Laying on a bed was the body of Cortous VI Hord, former monarch of Taris and the other world which were under the control of the Tarisian monarchy. Observing the corpse was none other than Darth Revan, or in this case, Harrison Hord, the "heir" to the throne of Taris. However, what people did not know, was that Cortous VI Hord was nothing more than another identity of the ancient Sith Lord, dying so that another would take its place.
Looking down of the body of his "father", Harrison left the room and headed towards the throne room. As he entered it, Harrison sat on the throne, and activated the holographic transmitter across all the worlds under the control of Taris.
"Citizens of this world and the others, I am Harrison Hord, the son of Cortous VI Hord, our great monarch. It is my unfortunate duty to announce to you that His Majesty died in his sleep last night, leaving me, his only son, as the new leader of the Tarisian monarchy."
"As some of you may know, I am also the King of Onderon, and with the death of my father, two great societies had been united under a single ruler. From now on, as my main throne is Onderon, I declare founded the Empire of Japrael, and with me as your first and new Emperor, we shall be brought into a new golden age."
And for moments, his eyes became golden.
"A golden age that the galaxy shall never forget."
