Chapter One:
Good Luck In Green
Obi-wan Kenobi
I
Anakin Skywalker came sauntering into the Senate three days after Kenobi received the Holocall from the Chancellor. Obi-wan spied him from the upper floor balcony, lounging by a pillar idly talking to the Togruta Senator's assistant, who was being primed to take over the Togruta seat in a few years, Ahsoka Tano.
He must have been fresh from his fly-over, Obi-wan thought. His robes, decorated in the beiges and golds of Tatooine, still had a fine sprinkle of sand dusted on their hems. Yet, the rest was new. His hair was longer since the last time Obi-wan had seen the Senator, the youngest to ever take a seat at Senate, and there, down the corner of his left eye, was a scar. How long had it been?
Two years?
Three?
At least the Tatooine representative had finally gotten rid of the horrendous braid.
Obi-wan made his way down the winding lobby stairs, into the foyer, and across the grand entrance hall to the two talking at the pillar's edge. Hands folded before him primly, he stopped only a few feet away. This early in the morning the foyer was, thankfully, quite barren.
No eavesdropping then.
Good.
"You've changed, Senator Skywalker."
The man in question, for Anakin was a man now, not the little boy training for a seat he was too young to have, trailing Qui-Gon's robes, tall and sharp angled, whittled bronze by the blazing sun of his home-world, turned to face him. Anakin's gaze swept down and up, a keen sort of sweep, before a brow popped high.
"And you've gotten slow in your old age, Senator Kenobi."
They stand there, him and Obi-wan, in this calm, desolate foyer, simply holding each other's stares waiting for the training droid to drop, and-
The smiles broke out on faces, cheerful and bright, and the distance was effortlessly contravened as the two fell into an easy embrace.
Two years, three years, seventeen years, and Anakin, as troublesome, migraine inducing, hair-greying as he was, would always be, perhaps, Obi-wan's closest friend. A brother, truly. They had been through too much, shared victories and old hurts, dreams and nightmares, for it to be any other way.
"It's been too long, friend."
Anakin gave a thump on his back, a clap of easy-going rapport, before he pulled back.
"And who's fault is that?"
The affront came swift to Obi-wan's face, perhaps a little more blatant than a Senator would like to be.
"If you should have learned anything by now, Anakin, it is that a Senator's work is never done, and I have been busy these last few cycles… Primarily cleaning up your messes. Your negotiation tactics make Bantha's appear delicate."
Anakin's grin only swelled.
"Perhaps, but one day, Obi-wan, you will have to come out of your cosy office for more than two clicks and mingle with the rest of us mere mortals and our indelicate sensibilities."
Ignoring the barb, knowing how fruitless it was to argue with someone as obstinate as Anakin, Obi-wan instead turned to Ahsoka, bowing his head in greeting.
"Lady Tano."
She had been on Tatooine with Anakin, the last Obi-wan had checked. Strengthening Togruta and Tatooine relations on Senator's Shaak Ti's orders. Primarily, Obi-wan thought, because, apart from himself, Ahsoka was the only one capable of keeping up with Skywalker when he, inevitably, prodded someone too far, or dug his nose in a little too deep, or was... Well too Anakin.
She crossed her arms over her chest, bracing her feet hip-wide.
"Oh, I am a Lady now? Do you hear that? Lady Tano. You were right, Anakin. We've been gone for far too long."
All the momentary delight at seeing the pair promptly fled Obi-wan in a gust and a lingering eye roll.
How he could have ever missed these two, even but for a second, was now quite clearly beyond him.
Ah, there it was.
A twang to his temple.
A headache on the way in.
Record timing, even for these two.
Anakin, fortunately, tugged on his outer travelling robe and straightened out.
"Now, what can you tell me about these Wizards?"
II
Anakin Skywalker and Obi-wan Kenobi walked across the Senate courtyard, between the lush green and speckled marble, a data padd in the latter's hands, and a concerning glint of… Something, trouble, it was always trouble Obi-wan thought, in the former's eye.
"I can't say they are an imaginative bunch. They called their home world dirt."
Grinning, Obi-wan nodded.
"And their sun, Sol, which translates to sun in one of their ancient vernaculars. Even their moon, which they named Luna, means moon in one of their root languages. Perhaps they are a literal sort of people. Something to make note of for their arrival this evening."
Anakin chuckled, stole the padd from Obi-wan's fleetingly slack hand, and began scrolling through the reports.
Not that he would find much useful.
Obi-wan had been through them thrice, and was only more confused by these seemingly contrary peoples.
"It says here that they celebrate an annual festival where they dress their younglings up in costumes of things they consider evil and let them loose to prowl the streets and gather food from strangers. If the food is not given, or it is not liked, the younglings take to assaulting the estate of the giver."
Kenobi stalled in his meandering walk, forcing Anakin to halt a few steps ahead, and glanced up to the sky above.
A clear calming blue.
The only calm to be found for a long while, Obi-wan had the worrying notion.
"I rather enjoyed the line where they described telling their children that there are sprites that come in the night to steal their bones."
Sighing deeply, Anakin jutted his arm out, offering the padd back to Kenobi. Shutting the device down, Obi-wan slipped it home in the folds of his shirt.
"These reports are useless. They tell us nothing but conflicting anecdotes."
Dragging his stare away from the sky, down to the earth, back where things were complex and dangerous and squared in lines of chess, Obi-wan regarded his friend and hoped, for himself, for Anakin, for them all, that he would be ready for what may come hurtling their way this evening.
"Conflicting anecdotes, I am sorry to say Anakin, is all we have. The Wizarding representative keeps running our men off before they can gather anything remotely valuable."
Anakin eyed him acutely, perhaps just now realizing this would not be another straightforward charm and cheer his way to what he wanted, and when that did not work, to plant his feet and refuse to budge until the other side had no other choice but to capitulate.
He tries the latter, Obi-wan thought, with this Wizarding representative, and, possibly, they would find the answer to what happened when an immovable object met and unstoppable force.
"And so, the task falls to us."
Kenobi wilted, echoing his friend.
"And so the task falls to us."
Kicking back against a post, waiting for the security droid to pass and their conversation to become private once more, as private as any conversation on Coruscant could be Obi-wan mentally added, Anakin frowned over at him.
"I do wonder why the Chancellor chose us. There are many Senator's planet side who could have been selected."
Kenobi chuckled in response.
"Perhaps he hoped your… History of not doing what you are told will refrain you from leaving if the Wizarding representative dismisses you. Conceivably you can annoy her into the proposal."
Anakin's frown rolled to a half-hearted glare.
"And perhaps he hopes your steadfast, incessantly calm demeanour will win her over. If not, you can always sass your way into getting her to sign the treaty. Either way…"
Obi-wan finished the thought.
"We have a long few days ahead of us."
Anakin, for once, could not argue Obi-wan's point.
III
The time of arrival had come, and Anakin and Obi-wan had spent the rest of their day combing through the reports, as little as they had helped, readying the rooms in which the Wizarding councils would be staying in, the topmost floor of the Hyperion Tower, granting access codes to select levels and clearance for the docking bay and, slowly, dread that came creeping higher, and higher, and higher.
Precisely what and who would be getting off that ship and greeting them?
The lift to the landing bay dinged, and the Senators disembarked, along with Ahsoka Tano who had tagged along somewhere between the security hub and the ride up, out onto the landing strip of the Hyperion roof, where they were scheduled to meet the Wizarding delegation.
The main ship, a small transport vessel which would transfer the delegation from the larger ship holding position in the atmosphere, had not arrived yet.
In fact, the roof was empty, all but a small little skipper, possibly part of a larger ship, a transport vessel, parked up in the corner.
Parked up with a lone person standing beside it, on the edge of the roof, perilously close to the edge, staring out at the city before them, back highlighted to an obscure blur by the sun haloing them.
Kenobi made way towards them hastily.
"Hello there! I must ask that you leave immediately. This dock is off limits for the time being until the Wizarding delegation has arrived. If you could-"
The figure stepped back from the edge, and turned to face him, Anakin, and Ahsoka bringing up the rear.
It was a woman.
A young woman.
A short young woman.
A short, young, rather lovely woman.
She was a patchwork of colour, was Obi-wan's first impression. Hair curled and as black as soot, skin like moonshine, and eyes the colour of summer grass and where wild things were.
Wild.
Yes, wild, like the forests and jungles and marshes of Obi-wan's home world that he only had fuzzy memories of. There was a stretch of feral in her features, eyes slightly too cattish, grin a little too sharp, she seemingly appeared too much for her own flesh and bone, as if Kenobi was trying to see a woods from a pine needle, or a bayou from a puddle, or the sun from a beam of light through a curtain.
And she was smiling, large, toothy, dimpled and keen.
A smile that said come and play.
"The wizarding delegation? Oh, they should be here soon. I flew ahead."
She strolled closer, away from her ship and the rim of the roof, and Obi-wan noticed her dress, black, all black, something scaled that glinted in the setting sun like armour. Sleek over her like an oil spill in the ocean.
Kenobi blinked, stunned, suddenly voiceless.
Anakin, thankfully, gained his baring's first, swiftly, coughing into a fist before replying.
The cough sounded strained.
"Flew ahead? You're a part of the delegation?"
Her grin grew like roses in scrublands.
Thorny too.
"Couldn't help myself. Have you seen this?"
She nodded over to the ship, but then waved her hand flippantly at her own assertion.
"Of course you have. Look at this place…"
Motioning to the horizon over the roof, still smiling that thorn-tricky smile, she watched the rushing speeders and soaring towers and the blinking lights of Coruscant waking up for the night.
"This is a George Lucas wet dream if I ever saw one."
Kenobi did not know what a wet dream was, though it did sound rather unpleasant, or who this George Lucas was, a hero of her people perhaps, but he did not have the time to contemplate either much further as Anakin cut in.
Twenty-three, twenty-four, Obi-wan would guess as her age.
Nearly thirteen years younger than himself.
Which, of course, was a pointless observation. What had gotten into him and-
"But you flew here? How did you get through the security pilots with no access codes?"
Anakin gave a good question.
A good question that Obi-wan should have been asking, not… Not whatever it was that had suddenly tied his tongue into Dathomir knots.
"Ah, that's what those other ships were… I lost them somewhere over that way."
She pointed in the general direction of left, and Obi-wan finally found he could speak.
Speak and splutter.
"You outflew our security network?"
She only smiles at him, almost pleased at the notion.
"I'd be a pretty bad Seeker if I couldn't fly now, wouldn't I?"
Anew, Kenobi did not know what a Seeker was, or what it had to do with out-flying a squadron of security personnel, possibly he did not want to know right then with so much happening at once.
Ahsoka, the last inhabitant of the roof to have stayed silent until then, finally interjected.
"So you are a part of the Delegation?"
Yes.
That's it.
Obi-wan saw this woman before him.
She was good, he would admit, dodging questions by diverting attention. Yet, she could not so easily divert it again. Instead, her sharp brow slanted high, almost mockingly, as if she thought them a bit slow.
In truth, Obi-wan did feel slow, a bit breathless too, palpitations in the heart and a sheen of sweat dampening his palms and-
Had he come down with the Rakata flu that was going around?
"I thought that was obvious by the mark on my head. Did you not get the reports?"
The mark-
The scar, a strange thing, crackling, old, pale pink and shaped like lightening on her forehead.
Why would the scar matter?
Nevertheless, Anakin, taking the question as a poke to his abilities, frowned, sore at the prospect of seeming unqualified.
"We studied the reports well, if that is what you are asking."
The woman rolled her lip between her teeth, dimples straining in her cheeks as if she were biting back her words, her merry charge of you've missed something big here.
And Obi-wan knew that.
Something here was missing.
Something was not adding up.
Something-
"And these reports you have that the other Senators took… They had no physical descriptions? No photos? No images?"
Kenobi folded his arms over his chest, slipping into the comfort of his duty and far away from the confusing reaction this exasperating-
And she was exasperating, he realised, woman was wringing out of him.
"We have the names listed. However, any images taken of your people came out distorted due to the technological malfunctions our people experience around your own."
The smile she was biting back came bursting forth in resplendent brilliance.
"Brilliant. This is bloody brilliant."
She crossed the last stretch of distance separating the two factions, grinning all the while.
Obi-wan must, after the Wizarding delegation arrived and he had settled them in, book himself into an appointment with a healing droid.
He was sure hearts should not be able to flip as suddenly, or as strongly, as his own did just then.
IV
"Oh, yes, I am part of the delegation, but I'm only the… Coffee girl."
Ahsoka's head tilted to the side curiously.
"Coffee girl? I'm sorry, but we do not know what that is."
The woman seemingly debated her answer for a moment, until her face dissipated to something small and sad and lost.
"It's a bean drink. The Wizards live off it. I'm tied to the kitchens and forced to crush the beans with my own hands and feet day in and day out. It's long, hard work, and I'm missing two toes now. Soon, the third will be gone."
Kenobi's gaze slipped to her boot clad feet, the dread of this morning and afternoon pitching higher, the thought of medical appointments long lost.
"That is terrible."
The woman nodded calmly in agreement.
For missing two toes, she had extraordinary balance to have been standing on the edge of the roof as she had, to walk as sleekly as she did, nearly prowling in her natural gate, and-
Well, they do not know these Wizards, do they?
Nothing in the reports were worthwhile, and they had, in Coruscant's long history, seen and heard more bleaker tales.
"Aye, terrible indeed. I get sent ahead to make sure coffee is there waiting for them. If not… Well, when Harriet Potter doesn't get her coffee, she resorts to drinking the blood of babies. So, it's for the best for everyone involved if I do my job right."
Ahsoka blinked owlishly.
"The blood of… Babies? She drinks Younglings blood?"
The woman, anew, solemnly nodded.
"Can't get enough of it. It's why the Wizards have such a low child survival rate. Harriet keeps eating them all. So does Draco Malfoy. Poor Lovegood…"
Ah, a name.
Something helpful.
Obi-wan interposed, grasping at the hook dropped.
"Malfoy is listed on our manifesto. Is he another representative?"
Something kindled in her eye, something lively and light and daring, and her dimple quivers.
"Yes. Malfoy is Potter's second in command. He's ruthless and… Half dead. Part ghost."
She stole a step closer, voice dropping low, pitched to ash.
"It's why he's so pale."
She pulled back and clapped her hands together.
"In fact, you should make mention of it when you see him. It's an honour where we're from-… Better yet, address him as Ferret. As much as you can, wherever you can. It's his childhood nickname, and will brighten up his day hearing it again."
Ferret?
Was that a kind of animal?
A town?
Some sort of endearment?
Ahsoka pulled out her own data padd, typing away her observations.
The woman chuckled happily at the sight.
"Good idea! Take note of what I tell you. It is extremely important."
Kenobi, however, frowned deeply.
Something was not adding up here.
"If these are so important, why are they not included in the reports? Why are you telling us only now?"
The woman turned sheepish, but, Obi-wan thought, he spied some steal below the surface, a daring-do not so easily masked.
"Your other Senator's failed, didn't they? They were sent off after three days. It's Harriet Potter… She scared them off before they could learn this and use it. I tried to talk to one or two but… I only have a dog left, and I don't want him eaten as well."
As well.
Dear Force... Terrible indeed.
A tilted head, a dare.
"You don't want to be like the other Senators, right?"
Anakin cut in.
"If it means securing this treaty, then no."
And that, apparently, was exactly the answer the woman had wanted.
"Good. I want this meeting to go as well as possible too, so I offer everything I know free of charge. You'd be quite stupid turning your noses up at it. What else do you have? A few tales scribbled on a computer… Not much to go on at all. I, however, live with these people. Know who they are and what they do. I can make this go smoothly, if only you listen very, very closely. In the end, you don't have to take my advice. What harm could it cause?"
The woman was right.
They had nothing else.
She knew it, they knew it, the Chancellor knew it.
Desperation made many a man a fool.
Finally, Obi-wan nodded, and the woman paced to the left, three steps, to the right, three steps, glancing their way every now and again.
"The delegation will contain seven people. The first is Minerva McGonagall. She turns into a cat-… A feline, so you only need to feed her kibble and milk. Nothing else. Her rank in the army is called Minnie, so only address her as that as she's earned it and it shows respect to her age."
Her steps lingered in the route, a brief halt to stop and think before she was off again.
She seemed the type of person to always be in movement, always doing something, always three steps ahead.
"The next is Hermione Granger. She will be the one with the big hair-… We call hair nests on my planet. She hides weapons in there. It's why there's so much of it. Make sure you ask her to brush that nest of hers out before she enters the building. That leaves the last three."
A swivel and a grin.
"Kingsley will be the biggest fellow. Where he's from, loosing one's hair is a sign of honour. Ask to rub his bald head before he settles in, as this is customary when wishing for good luck in the following negotiations. In greeting Bill Weasley, bark at him like a canine. He's from the Northern wolf tribe, and appreciates a traditional welcome. Now Ron… He… He has stomach issues. He'll ask for food as soon as he arrives. Don't give him any. I'm talking projectile vomit… With… Acid. Yes. Acid. Burns everything it touches. So unless you want your pretty building looking like swiss cheese, no food no matter how much he complains."
Anakin grimaced.
"And this Harriet Potter? Any traditional welcomes or dietary requirements?"
The woman winked at him, and Obi-wan noticed the flush of red crawling along a sharp angled cheekbone.
"Don't listen to a single thing she says. She's a marauder through and through. If she thinks, even for a second, she can trick you, she will, and she'll laugh about it when you're not looking… Or when you are looking. Depends on how gullible she believes you are."
Marauders and acid and Ferrets-
Too much.
Almost arranged too much.
Obi-wan took a step closer, gaze assessing.
"This all seems a bit… Extreme, yes? Surely-"
"Are you calling me a liar, Senator?"
Obi-wan blinked, but the woman did not let up.
The smile was gone. Wasted. Only unyielding determination left.
"Because starting a treaty off by lying would be a very, very bad move, wouldn't you say? By offering one thing, say… A home to rebuild in for a lost and broken people, and yet concealing something else entirely behind that offer would be… Well. That would be nefarious, wouldn't it? Positively wicked."
It's a trap.
A trap Obi-wan couldn't clearly see, yet there was something deeper there in the question mark lingering between them.
An accusation, really.
Which there couldn't be.
Chancellor Palpatine had surely informed the Wizarding delegation of the… Tumultuous times the Republic was facing. He must have informed them of their role in the war to come if they were to agree to the accord. He could not very well hide the Separatist conflict until… What? Until the Wizards signed the pact, and it was too late to back out?
No.
Definitely not.
Then why did Obi-wan have a sudden sinking feeling in his gut, as if he were a boy again, a boy who had been found with his hand in the Jambuk jar?
No.
The woman was simply goading him… Somehow.
And since when had the imperturbable Obi-wan Kenobi been so easy to provoke?
Since you saw this woman haloed in the setting sun, an unhelpful little voice in the back of his mind added.
A voice Obi-wan staunchly pretended not to hear.
"Of course."
The woman nodded, but the grin on her face seemed stretched, less warm, less happy.
"I'm glad we're on the same page, then. Right. I should be off."
Before anyone else could speak, the woman was marching around them, towards the lift of the docking bay.
"Aren't you going to wait for the rest of your people-"
The woman waved a hand, shouting back.
"Gotta get that coffee ready! Don't worry! The security inside already knows to let me through!"
She slipped in the open doors, turned around, and pressed at the holopad and-
Grinned and waved, voice singing along with the sunset breeze.
"Good luck!"
The doors clipped shut and she was gone.
A.N: I will just say Harriet is doing something and not just winding up people for the fun of it (although that is partially the reason too lmao). She does have a trick up her sleeve and a plan, which will become apparent in the next chapter. Plus, you can't tell me the daughter of James Potter, goddaughter to Sirius Black, wouldn't pull some shit if they were given the chance on Coruscant. Marauder blood is thick, boys, thick with this one lol. Additionally, it will be fun to see Anakin scrambling to keep up with someone instead of them trying to keep up with his trouble for once lmao.
Poor Obi-wan is going to need a long nap after all this is done XD.
Well, here it is, chapter two! I hope you all liked it. Now that Harriet is planet side, trouble is not far behind, and things really hit their groove next chapter. Thank you to everyone who followed, favourited and reviewed. Your kind words meant a lot this year, which I am sure has been pretty terrible for all of us, and I hope you enjoyed reading this even as half as much as I enjoyed hearing from you all.
Until next time! ~AlwaysEatTheRude21