Into the Maelstrom

by alexandertheII

An interloper from Harry's home, the inherited responsibility for a group of Alderaanian refugees and the Outer Rim's usual scum and villainy are here for our heroes, scoundrels and Arden to contend with in this third installment of my The New World series and the sequel to Shadow of the Consortium.

4. Chapter 4: Bedside Manner

Disclaimer: The Star Wars and Harry Potter copyrights lie with their respective owners, should any of them have any problem with my story being shared, I will comply with their wishes and remove it from circulation.

Please do not copy this work or any part of it.

Chapter 4: Bedside Manner

"What?"

Hermione's voice, right at that moment, could have cut glass.

"Harry James Potter, I hope you didn't just ask me why I'm here?"

Harry was about to respond that it was indeed what he had asked, and with good reason, as far as he was concerned, but once Hermione got going, it was hard to get her to stop.

"I came because my best friend, the man I consider the closest thing to a brother I will likely ever have, even though I will never know how it actually feels to have a brother, went missing. Right in the middle of his duel with Tom Riddle, just poof, and he's gone…"

"What about…" the wizard tried to get a word in, someway, anyway. He was unsuccessful.

"Riddle is dead, so that's good, but Harry Potter is gone. For a while, everyone worries, as well they should, for a while everyone does what they should. Convict Death Eaters, clean up the Ministry, all those things that didn't happen the last time around. They're even searching for the bloody Man-Who-Conquered…"

"I really don't kn…"

"But then, it takes about three, maybe four 'just something to think about' articles in the Prophet for people to begin asking whether all these quite obviously evil people really are all that bad. We do still need them around for their knowledge and bureaucratic abilities, never mind that they used those very skills to send uncounted numbers of muggleborns and political opponents to their deaths. Any opposition? That would be nice, but unfortunately, it seems wizards can only do things if someone tells them to do those things, especially if it is about doing the hard, the right thing. The general populace is already forgetting the horrors of Voldemort in power, while those who suffered the most don't have any political power, anyway…"

"Hermione, I really…"

"And after two years of searching for a somewhat, even approaching reasonably safe way of following him, he asks me, why I ca…"

"HERMIONE!" Harry was close to screaming at her now, and the witch reacted as if she had been slapped in the face. "Hermione, what are you talking about? There was a version of me right there with you I… I saw… it…"

He had petered off with his last words, remembering a question he had once asked an ethereal headmaster: "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"

"A version of you?" Hermione questioned, clearly aghast. "If you were here, what in Merlin's name would give you the idea there would be some version of you living what should have been your life back home?"

"Because I… I saw it all, and…" he was struggling for words now; how could he explain what he had lived through, or rather not lived through, but nevertheless seen, to someone who had nothing to compare it to. "It was like seeing past and future… not really predictions more like… possibilities that might be. I even learned some of the magic I saw, and it worked, so I thought…"

"Visions?" his best friend scoffed, before visibly pulling back on her own reins. After all, they both knew Harry had a certain history with visions that had the unfortunate tendency of becoming true. "Sorry. Tell me everything."

And that he did; from the moment his and Voldemort's spells collided in the Great Hall of Hogwarts to the terrifying discovery of suddenly appearing in a hostile jungle. Halfway through, Hermione pulled out a notepad and pencil and started furiously taking copious notes.

"You're saying you've been using some of the spells you witnessed?" she eventually questioned, now hopelessly lost in research-mode, and for the first time, Harry had an idea how it had to feel for a book to be eyed by one Hermione Granger. "Which ones?"

"Uhm… a mix of transfiguration and charm to reshape objects, some combat spells, a few wards, a bit of technomagic…" he petered off, wanting to give her some time to continue taking her notes. The glare he received in return told him the pause was not being appreciated, however. "I used Fiendfyre to destroy something that reminded me a lot of a horcrux… oh, and I found a way to cast the Killing Curse without that entire hate thing."

That, more than anything else, gave Hermione pause. "You cast the Killing Curse? The curse that killed your parents?"

"Yes," Harry replied simply, only to suddenly have to focus his eyes inward to keep track of the wand pointed at his nose. "Hermione, what the hell?"

"Prove it's you!" The sudden, chilling coldness to the witch's voice was truly horrifying, the entire experience a real up and down of emotions. "The Harry I know wouldn't cast the curse that killed his parents and then talk about it so… dismissively. So, either you've changed more than I thought possible, or you're an impostor."

For a few moments, Harry wracked his brain for an answer that might just save or doom his friendship with Hermione, or at least put it on very shaky legs; that was beyond the immediate worry of what she might think up for someone she believed to be impersonating her best friend.

"Back in first year, you told me it wasn't books and cleverness that made a great wizard, but friendship and bravery," he rushed out, hoping the reminder of earlier, simpler times might appease the roaring beast; unfortunately, his plan did not quite succeed the way he thought it would. Losing some of the tension in her shoulders, Hermione re-holstered her wand, before looking back up at him. Her expression spoke of such disappointment, it felt like a blow to his solar plexus. "Hermione, would you please…"

Without even listening to what he had to say, though, she was gone.

"…listen to me."

OOOOOOOO

When Leia stormed into the infirmary, she was not quite sure, what to expect. Her boyfriend, ecstatic to see her? Possibly devastated by the self-inflicted amputation of his hand? Maybe Hermione was already there, as she had much less to do overall, only what she herself decided to spend time on. Whatever it was she had been expecting, what she found what not that.

There in the bed sat Harry Potter, shell-shocked, cradling his stump almost as an afterthought. She might have been wrong, but it did not seem like the loss of half his limb was what had triggered his current state. Regardless of his surprising detachment, there was little that would keep him from reacting to her presence, she knew, and whatever it was that had him look like this, so forlorn, was not enough of a distraction, either. With a wide, if somewhat subdued smile, he spread his arms, and there was no holding her back anymore.

At speed, she crashed into his embrace, almost knocking him back onto the bed, the side of which he was currently sitting on. Not content with merely feeling his presence, gratifying as that was right now, she kept her arms around him, while pulling back her torso and head to look him over. Pink, unblemished skin, still looking completely fresh, right out of the bacta tank. Not even scars remained of the horrific burns he had suffered from the bedding his own curse had set aflame. Convinced he was indeed, barring the loss of half a limb, fine, she returned to the hug, relishing in their closeness. Under the tender ministrations of her warm, gentle fingers on his stiff back, his muscles began to relax, though a certain tenseness remained in his posture. Leia would have been exceedingly happy to hug said tightness away, staying like this as long as it took, but she eventually noticed his shivering. Determinedly, and against his protestations that he was completely fine, she manoeuvred the stubborn man first out of the diaper-like device used for the bacta bath and into a proper pair of pants, then under the covers. After shucking off her outer layer of clothes, she followed, curling up next to his warm body.

"Love you too," Harry said, silently and with the press of a kiss against the top of her head. Yet, despite the heart-warming nature of the general situation, something was bugging her; that tightness, the tense muscles in his shoulders and neck, were still there.

Loathe as she was to push the issue when she was feeling so lovely, lying here in his arms, she questioned quietly, "What happened, Harry? I thought Hermione would be here, too?"

When he tensed up at the name of his friend, Leia knew her guess had been right. The witch had been… hard-pressed to deal with all the changes even an unconscious Harry had represented, to hear that things had come to a depressing climax with him now regaining consciousness was not overly surprising. And even though part of her really, really wanted to go after Granger now, she was content, for the moment, to listen to her boyfriend recount their conversation. Even just that seemed to help though, and once he got past the emotional end, he seemed to sink into the cushions, relax onto the mattress, and only minutes later, he was deeply asleep.

For a moment she pondered going after his so-called best friend now, but it was just so warm under the covers, and everything smelled so… Harry. Before she really knew what was going on, she had followed him into a deep slumber.

"Oh, come on."

The queen had no idea, how much time had passed, when she was awoken by the voice of Mercer Fenwick, echoing through the infirmary.

"I suppose I'm going to be hexed for this, too? This is a communal area, you know?"

Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, Leia did a quick bodycheck: only underwear, that was suboptimal; just a short pair of panties and a bandeau around her chest was not exactly how she wanted to deal with Mercer. Still, her state of undress had made her stay under the bedding, even unconsciously, so maybe there was a silver lining to the unnatural cool places like this tended to have.

"Nice to see you too, Mercer," Harry's voice rumbled through his chest to her ear. Still somewhat scratchy, but strong. That was good, she decided.

"Might be seeing a bit much of some people…" his second-in-command interjected, though for the life of her, Leia could not tell, whether he was joking or not; he had that ability, to sound completely serious, even if he was as far from being it as was humanly possible.

"Nothing you haven't seen in the showers, before," the wizard reminded his friend. Her too, really; sometimes the most basic things slipped your mind, like the fact that the men had communal showers in the training areas, too. There were a good few ship classes that did not even afford the luxury of separate facilities, especially the smaller ones. "Can you wait outside for a few? Give us some time to get dressed?"

If Mercer answered, Leia did not hear it, though the whirring of the sliding door was enough of an indication, anyway. Good thing, too, as it gave her the opportunity to talk with her boyfriend, in private.

"You're not getting up," she declared, her voice brooking absolutely no argument, despite the childish pout that immediately filled his face at hearing the words. "You're barely out of the bacta after amputating your own arm and burning up every single foreign thing in your body. After what that put us all through, you can deal with a day in the infirmary. You can even let Mercer bore you with incessant details regarding future plans and recent developments while you wait for the prosthesis the medi droids are going to install later on. I think Arden's had some input on the design."

Reminded of the loss of his arm, Harry looked down at the stump once again, seemingly only now truly realising the gravitas of his actions. "I… really cut off my own arm," he mumbled, somehow shocked by something he himself had done. "It was just… so painful, and thinking of ending up like those monsters in the caves…"

"Sounds like you had good reasons for what you did," Leia agreed, despite how incredibly shocked his actions had left her. Losing control over your own actions was a fear she understood all too well, as it was one they shared. Shared with most determinedly self-reliant people, probably. "Don't worry too much, though. Medical technology, especially prosthetics, made a huge leap during the Clone Wars, and you have the money available to afford the best of the best. Unless our Dathomirian friend went completely crazy on her modifications, there won't even be much of a difference to your old arm."

Lightly caressing his unblemished right forearm, she added, "You'll even be able to feel, sense touch and warmth and vibration. No idea about casting spells, though, it's not like anyone could test that ever before."

She had barely finished both her sentence and her efforts at dressing in her old clothes from the night before, when the sliding door swished open once more, this time admitting not only Mercer, but also Arden and Famet Palestro, the Wroonian former weapons trader, who had once been responsible for furnishing his fair share of Alliance teams with weapons. Obviously, the Empire had not approved, and the man had been in deep trouble when the crew of the Lightbringer had extracted him and the Rebel spec-ops team that was holding off the troops sent to capture him. Since then, he had basically been tinkering to his heart's content on Sanctuary, and the queen would not be surprised if he had actually set up a new shop either on the planet or in the asteroid base one system over. In his hands, likely the newest product of his workshop, the blue-skinned near-human was holding a box.

"I don't really need to see this thing being installed on you," Leia admitted, feeling suddenly queasy as she looked at what would soon (hopefully) hide the fact Harry had ever been without a left forearm.

"Then go, do something to distract yourself," he encouraged her, using his good hand to poke her in the side lightly. Not exactly a shove, but enough to underscore his point; he did not want to have her see this procedure, either. It was likely less bloody than he seemed to expect, but she had once seen how painful it could be, when the synth-net neural interface was connected to the damaged nerve endings. Had he not sent her out, she obviously would have stayed, but this way sounded decidedly better for her already frayed state.

Maybe she would have time to go have a talk with Hermione, in the meantime.

OOOOOOOO

Harry, meanwhile, was faced with the disapproving glare of one Arden Tla. More so than either Famet or Mercer, the witch was fixing him with a look that spoke of pain to be had in the future, and he was suddenly dreading the idea of getting re-acquainted with his temporarily weakened body. Oh, she was sure going to offer her help, but it was definitely going to hurt.

"Ah, so yes, Captain Potter, I have here for you, with the help of your… lovely companion, modified a standard Mk. VII CyberArm, BioTech Industries' flagship model at the moment," the Wroonian broke into the awkward silence, pulling the lid off the box he was holding in his hands and showing the contents to the prospective patient, which proved to be a somewhat disconcerting sight. An arm with just the same coloration as his own skin was not exactly something Harry saw every day. "As you can see, the outside is standard synthskin, nothing special there, with a neurosensory integration suite that accurately conveys sensation, just like a biological limb would."

While he himself would never consider things like 'synthskin' and a 'neurosensory integration suite', whatever in Merlin's name the latter was, nothing special, growing up somewhere far less technologically advanced, the wizard was certainly not going to complain about it at this point. Not only getting the use of his arm back, but even the sensory input restored, was nothing short of marvellous. Well, magic could probably do it, too, but even if he had the knowledge crammed somewhere inside his head (which was actually rather likely) he would still have to go looking for ingredients for any potions he might use; he certainly was not planning on running around with a silver hand like the traitor, Wormtail, as much was certain. And if Arden had added some modifications, that could only mean magical ones. After all, she was not exactly known for her mechanical prowess.

"I had to destroy your magical ring." As if called upon to speak by him thinking of her, the Dathomirian had begun talking; she sounded cool, distant, as if she was trying to back away from the situation, while also showing she was still rather unhappy with him. "Most of what I found in those scrolls and books from the laboratory was evil enough to make a Nightsister blush, but the parts that dealt with getting technology to run on alchemical energy I could use."

"Unfortunately," she continued, sounding like she found whatever had happened anything but unfortunate, "I needed a focus, one I already knew would fit you. I had a feeling you would miss the ring least of all."

Seeing no sense in arguing with his friend as long as she was still majorly pissed, therefore unwilling to listen, Harry merely nodded his acceptance of her words. "Oh, and Famet replaced the internal structure with phrik parts I formed from what we had left. Might be more difficult to just chop this one off, so…"

"You're going to stay and watch me suffer horribly as a weird form of atonement, after which you'll forgive me?" the wizard ventured, hopefully. It sounded like something Arden might do.

"I'm going to stay and watch you suffer horribly as a very fitting form of atonement," she replied blithely, looking at him for the first time since they had begun talking. "After that, I'll consider forgiving you."

"I'll take it," Harry grumbled, not sure, whether he wanted others to hear him, or not. "It's not like there were any alternatives."

Apparently, Arden had heard and did not appreciate his words. "NO ALTERNATIVES? No alternatives? Well, for one, you might want to let a surgical droid do something like this, then your girlfriend would not have had to wake up next to you screaming your lungs out. Next, maybe there's an alternative to cursing your own body to burn everything it touches. Yes, the curse did not burn you, but surprise, a burning bed actually can. How's that for some alternatives?"

"Uhm…"

"Yes, uhm," she mockingly imitated his less than articulate response. "You have hundreds of people around you here, all of them worried; your friends were worried, and you did not think to include any of them!"

Harry was just beginning to call, "I didn't want anyone to wo…" when for the second time since he had been pulled out of the bacta, someone stormed out of the room in quite the huff.

"Don't take it personally, Boss," Mercer commented after a few moments of silence. Tense, awkward, weird, and a whole host of other adjectives, silence. "She was really worried for you, hasn't been sleeping right since you were hurt, I think. Almost bit off some poor tech's head yesterday."

"I'll do my best not to poke the beast," Harry promised dejectedly; he hated worrying his friends with his injuries and maladies, even more than he hated being confined to the infirmary. He was about to continue talking when one of the medical droids stepped up to his bed and began shooing away the visitors.

"Operating at maximum efficiency involves a removal of distractions for both staff and patient, as well as possible contaminants," it recited as if reading off a prepared list; with droids, there really was no telling of maybe it actually had one of those saved in one of the myriad memory banks this model was bound to have. "Do you suffer from anxiety, panic attacks or any allergies?"

"Uhm, not that I know of…"

"Satisfactory." The monotone of the surgical droid was truly beginning to become disconcerting now. "Your anaesthesia during surgery will be provided by a plexus block applied directly above your clavicula. Should you feel the need to panic, please refrain from doing so; it increases the rate of complications."

"Uhm…"

"Great, another inattentive one," the surgeon bot complained, though still in that creepy, expressionless voice. "It is always the same with soldiers; they get hurt, don't much care about their exact medical care, and then expect us to fix them without them having to lift a finger."

Then, as an afterthought, it added, "My apologies; I realise how difficult it has to be for you listening to me like this, talking about lifting fingers. Rest assured, you will soon have ten fingers to lift again. You do want ten fingers, right? Had ten of them before you lost your hand?"

"Yes, I want ten fingers," Harry replied, perplexed. Who had programmed this droid's bedside manners? At least the other one, the tall cylinder with the menacing, round head, was silent. He could only guess the two were somehow communicating silently, electronically.

"Satisfactory; a clear answer. Follow my assistant to the surgical table. I will be with you shortly."

Unsure how to react in the face of two seriously creepy mechanical beings, the wizard actually found himself missing Madam Pomfrey's no-nonsense attitude; yes, she had always been strict, maybe a bit too strict from time to time, but she had been able to actually empathise with her patients. These two were clearly either not programmed for that, or they had somehow been damaged. Still, he was hoping to soon be able to grab things properly, again, so he followed the surgical assistant droid into a compartmented area off the main room. As he stepped through the force-field, it was immediately apparent he was now in something like an operating theatre.

"Undress to remove unnecessary contaminants."

The script suddenly appearing on a viewscreen to the back of the room was bold and green; throwing a questioning look at the droid that had guided him in here, Harry searched for clarification. The droid itself did not react, but more words appeared.

"Now. We do not have all day; more patients are always waiting."

Staring back through the small door at the completely empty infirmary, the wizard only just managed not to point out the blatant ludicrousness of that statement. There were simply no other patients to see right now, not if these droids were averse to making house calls. Somehow, he was quite sure they were indeed averse to making house calls, especially if people did not need them. As far as he remembered, the population of Sanctuary was entirely made up of young, reasonably healthy people, all of them having passed muster by the Imperial Navy, so treating patients at home was unlikely to be needed in the near future.

"Hurry up. The operating room is being blocked for the procedure."

"Alright, alright, I'm on it," he protested, shucking out of the light, flannel-like pair of sleeping pants he had been wearing. The droid picked it up with one of its manipulator arms and tossed it into a bin labelled 'INCINERATOR'. More green script appeared on another monitor.

"Fire is the most reliable disinfectant of all. Ha, ha, ha. Now step through the decontamination arch. I promise, it will be over very quickly. Ha, ha, ha."

"Please don't try to set me at ease with humour," Harry pleaded as he cautiously set foot under the arched doorway the surgical assistant had pointed out. Luckily, it was only some kind of mist that sprayed down on him; unluckily, no one had warned him and some of the burning liquid got into his left eye. Cursing loudly, he stepped out on the other side and into the operating room proper. "Next time, instead of making fun of me, tell me about the sudden shower."

Silence.

More and more trepidatious, the wizard stepped up to the low chair in the middle of the room that was mounted on a set of rails leading into a side room. He could only hope those were intended to change the type of furniture available and not dispose of any uncooperative patients; with the combination of these two droids and the Empire's disregard for personal safety among its soldiers, nothing would surprise him anymore.

"Take a seat," the blinking, scrubbed surgical droid ordered as it came in through a different door. "Your arm will need to be fixated for the surgery; my assistant will then apply the anaesthesia, before I reopen the wound on your arm to facilitate optimum connectivity between prosthesis and body."

When Harry stayed silent for more than a single moment, the surgeon continued, "Satisfactory." Before the wizard knew, what exactly was happening, the assistant had joined its 'boss', and was now fixing a number of straps to his shoulders and upper arm; thusly secured, unable to move either shoulder or clavicle joints, let alone anything anymore distal, he looked at the surgeon expectantly.

"Now this might sting a little."

And without any more preamble, the droid pushed a large deep tissue injector through skin and muscle; almost immediately, the skin on his entire arm (or what was left of it) began tingling like a horde of ants was crawling all over it, tiny, barbed feet skittering over the tender flesh. Either unaware of, or uncaring about, the pins-and-needles all across his limb, the surgery droid watched dispassionately as the assistant pulled forth the prosthesis from its protective casing.

"A most unusual modification to the standard model," it observed before, once again without any forewarning, poking Harry's stump with a long, pointy needle; not that he felt it, obviously, but he would still have appreciated a warning. "Organics often consider this process to be disconcerting; I would advise for you to avert your eyes."

In a sick kind of fascination, the wizard pointedly did the exact opposite; he did not know, whether it was because he had trouble trusting the surgeon, or simply a case of not being able to look away. Regardless of the reason, he was treated to the questionable sight getting to watch his own stump be… re-opened, as the freshly created tissue, painstakingly grown over days in the bacta bath, was stripped away, leaving behind raw, bleeding red flesh. Fortunately, he remained rather calm, leading him to think there had to have been more inside that injector than a simple local anaesthetic; for sure, he had seen some weird stuff in his young life, but having the skin on the stump of an amputation stripped back surely should have made more of an impact. Surely, at the very least, when the surgeon started… cutting back some of the stump, he should have wretched all over the carefully maintained sterile area.

"Neuro-net for three centimetres below the cubital joint."

There was no reaction from the assistant droid but the quick, efficient placement of some high-tech gizmo against the now once again fresh wound. The edges of said gizmo were lining up almost perfectly with the lower layers of skin, as far as Harry could see, and from what he had heard, he could only assume this small part was what would actually make the prosthesis act and feal like a real, flesh-and-blood arm.

"Flex your wrist." Out of the blue, the surgeon had talked to his patient once again; for a tiny moment, he wanted to reply with a scoff, asking which wrist, but he swallowed that mad urge. Instead, the wizard did as he was told, flexing a joint that was no longer there. "Extend your wrist."

Harry did.

"Rotate your lower arm inwards."

Harry did. Well, he tried to, thought it was pretty much impossible against the bindings.

"Rotate back outwards."

He followed the last, seemingly pointless order.

"Preliminary calibration complete. Fine motor calibration requires presence of prosthetic."

This time, it had been the assistant that had spoken, drawing Harry's attention to where it was monitoring the, at least to him, completely meaningless readings on some viewscreen. At least he assumed it was the assistant, even though the cold, emotionlessly tinny voice had come from a set of speakers in the wall. Still, something being complete sounded good. Really good.

Just like whatever he had been given to make him feel so mellow. So really, everything was good; well, not everything, he was still missing his left lower arm. And Arden was mad, that was not good. Besides that, everything was good; everything but Hermione being mad at him. But besides Hermione and Arden being mad at him, everything was good.

"Reduce anxiolytic dosage for future procedures."

After that, things were mostly just a blur to him until he was lulled to sleep by a surprising amount of exhaustion, given that he had mostly been sitting, with one half of his body restrained. Oh, and the drugs, obviously. The drugs probably helped with the entire sleeping thing.

OOOOOOOO

AN: Hi all,

My apologies for the delay, I was off, doing the family thing. Back to the schedule, now!

Greetings,

alexandertheII