I do not own anything to do with Star Wars and Harry Potter, rights are currently held by Disney and Warner Bros respectively.

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Observation

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Lucy sat in the extraordinarily comfortable chair, cradling the cup of tea in her hands as if it were the only thing keeping her alive. Around her, the other nineteen members of the Themyscerans sat in similar chairs with the beverages of their choice in their hands, all of them focused on the impromptu stage before them where a Wolfalorian who had introduced herself as Sirena had just finished her presentation.

"So," Lucy said in a shell-shocked voice. "To summarise, magic exists, as you proved with that odd trick of yours, and is used in a hidden society, the Tales of the Old Republic are totally true, even though it's now apparently an evil empire and yesterday someone seized control of the Earth in a manner that would resemble a Sith Lord's wet dream?"

"A crude, but not inaccurate summary." Sirena shrugged, not commenting on how her wolf-transformation had been almost disregarded as an odd trick. "Now you know."

Lucy cradled her head in her free hand. "What the hell are we going to do?"

"Lord Black wishes for you to join the War Council." Sirena replied. "We are discussing how to take down the thing that's sending out the control spell, but we don't really have much in the way of information about what it is and how it works. And before anyone suggests it, we can't simply drop a rock onto it. There are too many innocent people who would be caught in the blast radius, even assuming it would penetrate the barrier."

"Human shields." One of the Themyscerans muttered with distaste and Sirena nodded.

"Yes, and probably more of them once the field reaches its full power and they start directly controlling people. We're still trying to work out how to block it, but we aren't having any luck. At the moment, only the Jedi and the Lycans seem to be immune to it. Fortunately, that is what our little army is mostly composed of."

"Plus those who have mastered Occlumency." A voice said and Lucy's eyes widened as an elderly man wearing the most garish robes she had ever seen entered the room. With a base of star-spangled purple, the robes boasted pictures of unicorns and pheonixes that Lucy swore were actually moving. "Good… morning, I think. I am Albus Dumbledore and I am honoured to meet all of you."

"Old man's a charmer." One of the Themyscerans murmured, just loud enough to trigger a wave of hastily-muffled giggles as Albus smiled at them, his eyes twinkling.

"Occlumency?" Lucy asked once the chortling had died down and Albus' smile widened.

"Occlumency is the art of organising and protecting your thoughts. It also helps with preventing your emotions from getting out of control."

Lucy nodded. "I assume from your clothes that you're a wizard?"

"I am indeed." Albus twinkled. "I used to be the headmaster of a school for witches and wizards, at least until I realised that I was losing sight of that which was important and moved aside to let the younger generation take over. Learning when to do that was possibly the hardest lesson I have learned to date, but it is one which I do not regret learning in the slightest."

"When do we meet the Jedi?" Another Themysceran asked and Albus turned his attention to her.

"At this time, there are only seven Jedi, perhaps eight if you count Miss Ventress, and they are in the simulators learning to fly their new fighters."

"Hold on a minute." Sirena said, spinning to face Albus. "Their new fighters? They're not using the Delta-6's?"

"Delta whats?" Lucy asked curiously.

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"Longbottom Manor." Lucius gloated as he led his handpicked group through the front gates of the aforementioned building, through the wards that Augusta Longbottom had deactivated at his command. "Alright everyone, get ready. Remember your missions."

"Looking forwards to this." Walden Macnair grinned, testing the edge of his double-bladed axe with his thumb. "Hope that those werewolves of Black's put up a struggle, I need a new wolfskin lining for my robes."

Several of the group looked slightly nauseous. Lucius noted with some amusement that none of the former Death Eaters were amongst that number and neither was Umbridge.

Lucius idly wondered why she hadn't joined the Death Eater ranks during Riddle's reign of terror.

"Augusta, take us to the place that controls the wards."

Mrs Longbottom nodded and regally swept down the hall, leading the procession into the depth of the Longbottom Manor. Soon, Lucius found himself facing something that he didn't recognise. Looking round, he saw that not a single one of his allies recognised it either.

"What is that?"

"That is the central computer." Augusta stated and Lucius blinked as his confusion increased.

"And… what is it?"

"It is a programmed collection of rune-enhanced electronic componants that can store, retrieve and manipulate data." Came the reply. Lucius shook his head.

"Anyone understand that?"

A chorus of negative replies answered his question and Lucius glared at Augusta.

"Does this… thing control the wards?"

"Yes."

"Good." Lucius breathed. "Does it control anything else?"

"It is responsible for ensuring the proper supply and distribution of generated magic."

Lucius rubbed at his forehead. He just knew that it was going to be one of those days.

How could he control the world if he didn't understand half of what was happening in it?"

"Umbridge, make a note." Lucius sighed. "Due to how advanced the muggle world has become, muggle studies are to be overhauled as soon as possible."

The pink-clad woman looked as if she'd bitten into an apple and found half a worm, but she nodded anyway.

"Yes, Lord Malfoy."

"Walden, take… all except you four, and go find that Rune Door. Secure the far side of it, but no further. Now." Lucius said, turning his attention back to Augusta as Walden led most of the task force out of the room on his new mission, "How do you control this, and what can it do?"

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"Movement… multiple."

The first Wolfalorian paused as he double-checked the icons in his helmet display, then he frowned.

"I just got visual from the remote, there are almost two dozen of them, and none of them are Madam Longbottom."

"Dammit." Cursed the second one. "Means that she is in trouble. Pity, I like her."

"She hexed your ass." The first one half-protested and the second one chuckled.

"Yeah, but to be fair, she apologised afterwards for interrupting her grandson's combat training. If she were twenty years younger, I'd be wooing her."

The first Wolfalorian somehow managed to give him a deadpan look despite the all-concealing helmet he was wearing, then both of them turned their attention back to the portal they had been assigned to guard.

"They should be entering through that door… now!"

The door at the far end of the room slammed open and both Wolfalorians stepped through the Rune Door and opened fire with their blasters. The barrage of stunning spells came as a total surprise to the attackers and half of them fell before the rest managed to get behind cover (even if it was behind the bodies of the ones who had fallen). As the first blasting and slicing hexes sliced past them, the two armoured lycans retreated, then the second one hit a button mounted on the side of the door. A bright flash of light briefly lanced through the dome, then the Door cracked and collapsed into a pile of splinters and kindling.

"Well." The first one said after a long moment. "At least that's that threat axis blocked."

"Yeah." Said the second. "But what about the other areas? I mean, there's the Cove, that place isn't shielded. Who's at the Cove?"

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Hu's at the Cove."

"That's what I was asking. Who is at the Cove?"

"Yes, he is."

"What?"

"No, Watt's in the WolfDome."

"…who's in the WolfDome?"

"No, Hu's at the Cove… why are you looking at me like that?"

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Nara Hu looked up at the rising crescent moon, his coffee temporarily forgotten.

"Why do I have the feeling that something troublesome is going on?"

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"..."

"Look, it's not my fault! I think that Alpha Remus arranged the schedules just so that that would happen!"

"…."

"Yeah, I think he's been watching too much Abbott and Costello."

"…I wonder how many others got caught up in similar conversations?"

"Never mind. Let's turn in our reports."

"To who?"

"No, he's at the Cove, remember? Ow! Stop hitting me!"

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"Lord Malfoy, I was wondering…" Umbridge simpered from behind him, causing Lucius to roll his eyes, "Do you really think that what Slytherin's portrait is correct about the lumos thing? It just seems… silly to me."

"I thought the same, so I did some research on it." Mafoy said, watching as Augusta used the computer to print out the schematics of the ward arrays. "The Aveda Kadavera curse only really gained its infamous reputation a couple of centuries ago. I think that before the Founders Portraits vanished, everyone knew that lumos could defend against the killing curse, and so the curse itself fell out of use, appearing only in certain family grimoires. Everyone forgot the spell existed and thus how to defend against it, so when someone started to use it after finding it in an old book, all the normal shields proved useless and no-one remembered the lumos phenomenon."

"That… would make sense." Umbridge noted after a thoughtful pause.

"Of course, now that the lumos counter is well known again, the killing curse will fall out of usage once more." Lucius noted absently as he picked up the sheet of printed paper. "Wow, these notes are incredible. I can see how easy it would be to track down and fix a problem with these."

"Lord Malfoy… we kind of hit a problem." A voice said from the door.

"Where's McNair?"

The wizard shifted. "Ummm, he was caught in the ambush. We're trying to revive him, but the stunner that hit him was rather… odd."

"And the Door?"

"Broken, sir. Just a pile of kindling."

"Dammit!" Lucius snarled. "I'll have to find another way to reach them. This place can't have been their only link. Black's not that stupid!"

"He was a prankster back when he was a student at Hogwarts." Umbridge said and Lucius shook his head.

"I remember some of the pranks they pulled. They were very good at planning ahead, it was only when things happened that they hadn't predicted that things went wrong for them."

"But where would they have connected to?" Umbridge queried. "I mean, everyone knows about the Gringotts Concourse and that the so-called Potter Alliance have sealed their Gate…"

"But it was Lily Potter who developed the Rune Door." Lucius countered, recalling a comment he had overheard. "They have her notes, who knows how many Rune Doors they could have made? They could have hidden one on Diagon Alley for all we know. Admittedly, that's unlikely as they have a Gate at Gringotts, but my point still stands."

Umbridge nodded and Lucius returned to reading the sheets of printed paper.

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"… and at this time, the Hogwarts Door remains undisturbed while there is no sign that either the Cove or the apartment have been discovered." Remus finished, looking round. The meeting was being held in the Council Chamber of the still-under-construction Jedi Temple with most of the council chairs being used. Two of the chairs had been pushed together to allow Sirius to whisper translations for Asajj Ventress. "Despite the instruments deployed in the Cove, we have yet to fully ascertain the arithmancy formulae for this modified Imperius. Until we do, creating a counter will be impossible."

"So we're stuck up here." Lucy stated from her chair. "Damn."

"For now, yes." Remus said with a shrug. "We are still trying to ascertain whether it is being Force-sensitive that provides immunity, or if it is the actual training of being a Jedi. We have deduced that the process involved in turning a werewolf into a Lycan confers full immunity to the Imperius, an immunity that carries over to the field on Earth."

Virtually everybody reflexively looked out of the main window at the hanging sphere above the horizon, almost as if they could somehow see the magical field that was slowly enslaving all of humanity.

"So." Ahsoka said after a few minutes. "We have access, to a degree, we can still resupply and we can… what the Sith?!"

Ahsoka lurched from her chair, staring at the shape that had dropped down from the stars to silhouette itself against the backdrop of Earth. Remus looked at the dark form and chuckled nervously.

"Ah, yeah. I forgot to mention… we now have a craft that can carry larties from the moon to Earth. We kind of jerry-rigged it using Asajj's ship as a base plan, using the technology we were accumulating for our planned starships, it should hold together for a mission or two…"

The growing shape started to show details and Asajj freed herself from Sirius' one-armed hug, joining Ahsoka at the viewport, staring out almost meditatively.

::That looks like the half-built spawn of a Bartoz freighter and a Sabaoth destroyer. What does… are those hatches in the sides? Did they copy the Narec's Memory and then strap on launch bays?::

::Looks like they did…" Ahsoka said slowly, her eyes picking out the details.

"The larties are held vertically and racked for storage, ready to drop." Remus supplied. "The Pack Runner can carry up to twenty larties and simply release them at a high altitude."

"Well." Sirius said as he resumed his position by Asajj's side, letting her rest her head against his shoulder, "This could be useful."

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Draco sat down in the office and met his godfather's gaze.

"Uncle Severus, if I remember right, you are a trained Occlumans?"

Snape nodded. "Does this have to do with the spell that seems to be trying to press down on me? The one that feels like the Imperious?"

"It does." Draco said, gathering his courage. "I am currently immune, in fact, I have been given the power to command others once the field reaches its full strength, but I feel that… it's just not right!"

Severus tilted his head slightly.

"Damn it!" Draco cursed. "I wanted to prove myself, to show that I deserved the best, and dad took it all away from me! I could easily have a harem like the one he's got, but if I do, I want it to be because they want to be with me, not because I ordered it!"

"I… see." Severus said, leaning back and steepling his fingers. "So, what did you plan to do about it, and how can I help you?"

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Author's afternote :- Yes, I did just reference both Abbott and Costello as well as Naruto.