Chapter 16 – Battle At Hogwarts

Harry was on his way to Vader's office one evening when he encountered Threepio in the corridors, moaning and complaining quite loudly. The droid had evidently had a run-in with the students and come out the worse for it. The stinking remnants of Dungbombs plastered his entire body, and what spots of his formerly gold plating could be seen through the mess seemed to have taken on the appearance of soft yellow fur.

"I seem to be made to suffer," Threepio whimpered. "It's my lot in life."

Artoo bleeped in reply, trailing slightly behind his afflicted counterpart. Unlike Threepio, the astromech looked perfectly normal.

"Well, it's certainly not my fault," Threepio retorted. "I was simply trying to befriend the students as Master Dumbledore asked us. How was I to know that those Weasel twins would see fit to amuse themselves by tormenting a poor droid?"

"That's Weasley twins," Harry corrected, drawing his wand. "Scourgify."

The Dungbomb mess cleared up, but the fur that covered Threepio's plating remained.

"I dunno how to fix that," Harry told him. "You'd better find a teacher."

"Well, thank you anyway, young man," Threepio told him gratefully. "You know, I don't think we've been properly introduced. I am See Threepio, human-cyborg relations, and this is my counterpart, Artoo Detoo."

Artoo whistled cheerily, rocking back and forth.

"Harry Potter," Harry replied, shaking the droid's furry, metallic hand. "So where's the rest of the Rebellion?"

"The Rebel Alliance is currently residing in the dungeons with the rest of Slytherin House," Threepio explained. "But at the moment I suppose they're at drills or whatnot. There's still a war to be fought, you know."

Harry nodded. "Yeah, I know. Which reminds me, I've got to go. I need to see Vader…"

"You and everyone else in this museum, kid," a voice just behind Harry grumbled. He turned to see a man in snug-fitting black trousers, white shirt, and black vest standing behind him, his brown hair as untidy as Harry's and his face good-looking without straying into Lockhart territory. The man looked familiar somehow…

"Han Solo?"

"One and only." Han's mouth quirked in an amused smile. "What happened to Goldenrod?"

"Oh, it was horrible…" began Threepio.

"Never mind, I don't want to know," Han protested, waving him off. To Harry he said, "If you want to see your Dark Arts professor, get in line. Dumbledore's with him, and Luke and Leia are waiting to see him." He shook his head. "Kid finally told us the Sith was his father. Kind of a shock, actually. Wouldn't ever have guessed. How he could have that scumbag…"

"Professor Vader's on our side now," Harry defended.

"I know," Han countered. "Just kind of hard to remember that when he froze you in carbonite and sold you off to a bounty hunter, who happens to also be fighting on our side." He shook his head. "This whole partnership thing is going to take a lot of getting used to." He strolled off.

"Don't mind Master Solo," Threepio advised. "He's rather… difficult."

"I couldn't guess," Harry replied sarcastically. "Professor McGonagall's office is just down the hall. She can probably help you out."

"Thank you, Master Potter."

"Just Harry."

"Thank you, Sir Harry."

"Harry."

The droids moved on, and Harry continued on his way. Han was right – this entire situation was going to take some getting used to. Already he was missing life before the Empire had taken over the wizard world. The small things – Hogsmeade weekends, Quidditch matches, being able to leave the castle without a bounty hunter dogging his steps, packages from Mrs. Weasley – suddenly seemed to be important parts of his life at Hogwarts. Though he would never miss Malfoy, of course – Malfoy could just stay gone, for all he cared.

Dumbledore was just leaving Vader's office when Harry got there. He smiled and motioned for Harry to enter.

"Luke and Leia have been most anxious to meet you in person, Harry," Dumbledore told him.

"Did Vader tell them… that Leia… you know…"

"All three of them now know that they are family," Dumbledore replied. "I made sure they knew everything. Even the prophecies."

Harry felt his gut clench. Not that Vader had no right to tell his children about his link with Harry, but he'd hoped it would stay quiet for a little longer. He hadn't even told Ron or Hermione yet.

"Go on in," Dumbledore urged. "I'll be right behind you."

Harry nodded and went in.

The three Skywalkers were sitting in a corner, talking softly. Leia's eyes looked red, as if she had been crying, and Luke seemed a bit moist-eyed himself. Vader looked the same as ever, of course, but Harry imagined he was smiling under his mask.

"Have a seat, Harry," Vader offered. "We were just discussing you."

"I know." He pulled a chair closer and flopped down in it.

"Harry," said Luke, "we want to thank you for all you've done for our father."

"For what?" he asked. "Teaching him to do a Patronus Charm?"

"For not giving up on him." Luke reached out and clasped his shoulder. "You and Dumbledore let him know he had alternatives to serving the Empire, and even though he didn't see it right away and brushed you off, you kept at him. Your efforts helped him see that he could rejoin the light."

"I'm not sure I'd have done the same thing in your position," Leia added.

Harry squirmed a bit under their praise. "I didn't do anything special."

"You helped an old, tired, stubborn-as-hell man see the error of his ways," Vader told him with a chuckle. "That takes a special kind of power, Harry."

"It takes being stupid and stubborn," Harry countered. "Not a special power."

"I beg to differ," Dumbledore put in. "Harry does have a special power – one that all of you possess, one that can overthrow both the Emperor and Voldemort."

The four of them turned to stare at the Headmaster, bewildered.

"Remember the prophecy of your birth, Harry?" Dumbledore inquired. "That 'he will have powers the Dark Lord knows not?'"

"Yeah," he replied unsurely. "But I haven't got any…"

"There is a power," Dumbledore replied, "that is at once more terrible and more powerful than death, Harry. It is a power that drove you and Ron Weasley to save his brother from the cruelty of Voldemort, a power that drove Vader, as a youth, to rescue his mother from the Sandpeople, a power that drove Luke to Bespin to spare his friends from pain. It is the power that your mother unwittingly invoked when she sacrificed her life to save you… a power that Voldemort has no understanding of and has always, to his detriment, underestimated."

Luke's eyes widened in understanding. "It's love. The power of love."

Vader snorted. "If love is so powerful, why did the Jedi of old forbid it?"

"Because even the Jedi of old were by no means infallible," Dumbledore answered. "Many have misjudged the strength of the heart, assuming it is merely a setback or a liability. The Jedi and the Sith have many differences, but the one thing they have in common is that both see a bond of love as a weakness, something a foe can exploit." He gave them a grave look. "But it is only a bond of love that can defeat the machinations of the Empire."

Harry gaped at the Headmaster.

"I'll leave you alone now," he concluded, turning to go. "Don't keep Harry up too late, he has classes in the morning."

And he turned and left the room, leaving the others to discuss just what he had meant.

Break…

The morning of March fourth dawned clear and cold, with a brisk wind adding an extra bite to the already-frigid air. The chill brought a flush of scarlet to the faces of the Rebel soldiers as they gathered outside in the deep trenches dug around Hogwarts, preparing for battle. X-wing fighters rose from the Quidditch pitch and screamed into the hard blue sky. Rumbles and groans issued from the castle's towers as heavy portable guns were set up and readied. Stormtroopers joined the Rebels in their ranks, a golden H painted across each trooper's breastplate to define them from their Imperial foes. The entire school seemed to hold its breath in anticipation.

All-Terrain Armored Transports had been sighted five miles south of Hogsmeade just this half-hour past. They could expect the first Imperial offensive any moment now.

Inside the school, all students and Muggle parents were directed to the kitchens and the dungeons, judged to be the safest places in case the school was bombed from the air.

"This place smells like a sewer," grumbled Hermione as he flinched away from a slimy wall. "Honestly, how could Malfoy stand it down here?"

"Maybe it smelled like home, I dunno," Ron replied.

"Why can't we stay topside?" demanded Fred.

"Yeah, we didn't learn advanced spells in Defense Against the Dark Arts classes for nothing, did we?" George put in.

"Those spells were intended as your own personal protection, Weasley," McGonagall informed them. "Pray that you will not be required to use them."

"This stinks," Fred grumbled as the dungeon doors shut. "We don't even get to help with the final battle."

"Yeah, what a ripoff," George added. "This is going to be boring. I say some of us sneak out…"

"If you think it's a thrill to get shot at, go ahead and sneak out," Hermione snapped. "But don't blame us when someone takes a shot at you."

"You're a killjoy, Hermione," Fred told her. "We'll be fine. We've been modifying some of our Weasley Wizard's Wheezes products to do battle."

"Yeah, and you should see some of the booby traps we've got set up," George added. "Remember the statue of the one-eyed crone? Now anyone that walks by will get a load of Zonko's Itching Powder dropped on them."

"Too bad we can't see it happen," bemoaned Fred.

"Not fair," George replied. "Harry gets a first-hand look at the action, and we have to stay here."

"But who said life was fair, brother?" asked Fred.

"I dunno, but he was a liar," George shot back.

"What do you mean, Harry gets a first-hand look at the action?" demanded Hermione.

"Well, you don't see him hanging around here, do you?" asked Fred.

Hermione and Ron scanned the dungeons. All the Gryffindors, half the Ravenclaws, and the last of the Slytherins were present, milling about and talking or engaging in half-hearted games of wizard's chess or Exploding Snap. Harry was nowhere to be seen.

"Maybe he ended up in the kitchens with the Hufflepuffs and rest of the Ravenclaws," Ron theorized.

"Not likely," Hermione replied worriedly. "Maybe Dumbledore has him hiding someplace else. He's the most wanted student in Hogwarts, after all."

"Then why is Professor Vader fighting with the Order of the Phoenix?" asked Ron. "He's just as wanted as Harry. Why isn't Dumbledore making him hide?"

"Vader can take care of himself," Hermione replied testily. Her opinion of Vader had somewhat improved over the past several weeks, but that still didn't make her entirely accepting of him.

"That's right," Hermione's dad said enthusiastically. "A man who can stop a blaster bolt with his bare hand should be able to handle a few crazy dark wizards…"

"Dad, you're embarrassing me," Hermione muttered.

The entire castle seemed to shudder. Everyone went silent.

"What was that?" squeaked Neville.

"Sounded like a bomb," muttered a Ravenclaw sixth year.

"There it is again!" a Gryffindor first year shrieked as the walls rumbled again.

Mr. Granger paled.

"Imperial walkers approaching," he told them, a grave expression on his face that told his daughter that he was, at last, taking their situation seriously.

Break…

Harry watched from Gryffindor tower, his hands clammy with fearful sweat, the back of his neck prickling as his hair stood on end. The four enormous machines lumbering toward Hogwarts through the Forbidden Forest were unlike anything he had ever seen – huge, impossibly strong, their "heads" bristling with guns. With every step they covered at least two dozen feet, trees snapping beneath their "feet" and creatures screaming with terror as they fled.

Vader stood at Harry's side, watching silently. He was familiar with AT-ATs and their destructive power, but that didn't make him any more comfortable with their approach.

"How are we going to stop them?" Harry asked.

"That's where we come in," Vader replied. "There are wizards stationed at every tower and window. On Professor Flitwick's signal, we fire. Use the Impediment Charm."

Harry nodded, his mouth too dry to speak.

"Harry, have courage," Vader advised. "Dumbledore would not have allowed you to fight at my side if he had no faith in you."

"How does he expect us to defeat Voldemort with love?" Harry demanded. "If someone shows love to Voldemort, will he shrivel up and die?" He entertained the bizarre mental image of someone embracing Voldemort and the dark wizard screaming and melting into a puddle at the contact.

"I doubt that's what he meant, Harry," Vader replied. "I think he meant that, because we're fighting to protect our loved ones, we will do battle with a stronger sense of purpose than those who are fighting for the sake of conquest."

A spray of red sparks issued from Ravenclaw Tower.

"That's the first signal," Vader informed him. "Wand ready?"

Harry pointed his wand at the leading AT-AT. The machine was firing at the Rebel trenches now, causing earth and turf to blast upward in dirty fountains.

Another jet of sparks, these green, came from the tower.

"Impedimentia!" Harry and Vader shouted together.

Dozens of spells blasted forth from Hogwarts, as if the castle itself were firing upon its attackers. The lead walker glowed with an eerie red light, then went completely rigid. It lost its balance and toppled to one side with a horrible crash.

"Good work!" came Dumbledore's voice, magically amplified to reach every corner of the school. "Now set your sights on the next one!"

The second AT-AT was felled in a similar fashion. The third went down of its own accord – well, not entirely of its own accord. An enormous form had reared above the trees, roared its anger, and grabbed the machine's right front leg, snapping it off just above the "ankle." Harry gaped as the creature ran for the last walker, laughing in mad glee.

"What was THAT?"

"'That' would be Hagrid's half-brother, Grawp," Vader replied.

"Hagrid's… what?"

"Hagrid visited the giant country over the summer," Vader explained. "The giants will have nothing to do with wizards of any sort, but Hagrid felt obligated to bring back his half-brother to spare him from the bullying of the rest of his kind. From what I have heard, Dumbledore met Grawp while he was organizing the creatures of the Forbidden Forest for the oncoming attack, and he has decided to recruit the giant to our cause."

Harry shook his head. "This keeps getting weirder and weirder."

Stormtroopers poured out of one of the fallen AT-ATs, looking like white-shelled ants from this distance. Screams and odd rasps and honks could be heard throughout the Forbidden Forest as the troopers fought their way to the castle. Some time later Imperial soldiers began trickling out of the forest, albeit far fewer than had exited the AT-ATs. Vader hadn't been joking when he'd said Dumbledore had convinced the denizens of the forest to protect Hogwarts.

"Don't let up your guard," Dumbledore informed them. "We don't know what else they have planned…"

An ominous thrum made Harry look upward. An Imperial shuttle was swooping low, surrounded by TIE fighters. At the rate it was coming, it appeared the ship was aiming to land directly on top of the school. Cannon fire rang through the air, but the shuttle's shields seemed to deflect it easily enough.

His scar seemed to explode. He cried out and clapped both hands over his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. Voldemort was aboard that shuttle… and he fairly pulsed with sadistic glee. He wanted Harry and Vader dead, he would stop at nothing to personally assure it, he would not, could not fail this time…

Vader's hands clamped onto either side of his head, and a weird jolt of power snapped through his skull like static. The pain shattered and evaporated instantly.

"Thanks," Harry groaned, still rubbing his scar.

"The Emperor is aboard that ship," Vader said balefully. "He has brought Voldemort and his closest followers as well."

More green sparks flared from Ravenclaw Tower, and they joined the Order of the Phoenix in firing Impediment Charms at the shuttle. But the spells deflected from an invisible barrier and streaked off in every direction, taking out a few TIE fighters on their way.

"What the stang!" exclaimed Vader. "Shields aren't designed to block spells!"

"Maybe it's new technology," Harry theorized.

"Or maybe it's that the Emperor and Voldemort together are far more powerful than we could ever have guessed," Vader replied.

The shuttle floated toward the castle, its wings folding up as it prepared to touch down.

"All wizards move into the castle!" Dumbledore shouted. "The enemy has entered Hogwarts!"

Break…

Dudley Dursley dropped down from the fallen AT-AT and jogged through the forest, his blaster ready. He'd spent the last few weeks training hard to become a stormtrooper, and he'd made it into the ranks just in time for the attack on Hogwarts. Now, at long last, he'd be able to make a name for himself as something other than a spoiled fat kid with a weird delinquent cousin.

Branches rattled against his white armor as he ran. For the first time he felt somewhat thankful for his aunt and uncle forcing him to diet for the past year-and-a-half. Though he was still nowhere near average size, he was at least able to fit comfortably into the largest size of stormtrooper armor available. And he could now keep up a brisk pace without hyperventilating afterward.

"TK-250, your position!" his commander barked into his comm.

"I can see the castle!" he replied, cresting a small knoll and spotting the towers of Hogwarts in the distance. A strict regimen of Clarity Draughts had been made mandatory for every stormtrooper, and though Dudley was more than a little squeamish about ingesting anything prepared by a wizard, he'd complied with the order.

"Can you be more specific?" the commander requested.

"I'm surrounded by forest!" he protested. "It all looks the same!"

The commander muttered something about Earth humans being dimmer than rocks before continuing. "Keep going in a straight line to the school, then. Meet up with your squadron once you've cleared the woods."

"Yes sir."

He plunged deeper into the trees. His father had almost burst with pride that Dudley was going to be fighting to protect England from the treachery of the wizards, but Dudley couldn't care less about England. The only thing that mattered now was that he was fighting – not just pounding some snot-nosed pain-in-the-neck with his gang or chasing Harry up a tree, but actually acting out the battles he'd played on so many video games. He wasn't pushing buttons anymore; he was wearing the armor and firing the weapon, living the life of a stormtrooper…

An arrow struck him in the back, glancing off his armor with a harsh twang.

"Hey!" he screamed, turning and firing.

His aim was particularly bad – instead of hitting the thing that had shot at him, he only managed to set a tree on fire. The creature that had attacked him gave a derisive snort and stepped out of the trees to confront him. Dudley couldn't identify it off the top of his head, but it was a weird mix of human and horse that he remembered seeing on that weird Fantasia cartoon.

"Surrender, human," the man/horse ordered, "and you'll live."

"Over my broken bleedin' body!" Dudley shouted, and he fired again.

The creature reared and shouted in pain as smoke plumed from his withers. Dudley had no time to celebrate his victory, because hands grabbed him from behind. His gun was wrenched from his hands, and no matter how much he kicked and punched the arms wouldn't let go of him.

"Take him to Magorian!" shouted a wild-looking black beast. "Let him decide how to dispose of him!"

"Leggo of me, you freaks!" he screamed.

"Hold your tongue, Muggle human, or we'll cut it out for you!" a gaunt gray creature barked. "Count yourself lucky that we don't kill you here and now…"

Blaster fire ricocheted off the trees, and the creatures dropped Dudley and scattered, some pausing to take parting shots. Two stormtroopers had come to his rescue, and one fell to the ground with an arrow lodged in his neck. The other picked up Dudley's blaster and handed it to him.

"What took you so long?" he demanded.

"And you're most welcome," his rescuer said sarcastically in a definitely female voice, her words flavored with a lyrical Hispanic accent. "We would have been quicker, but we had to run from a giant before we could get to you."

Dudley stared at her. "You're a girl?"

"The Empire needed soldiers fast," she replied. "They couldn't afford to be choosy." She touched her chestplate. "Name's Silvia Banderas, no relation to Antonio."

"Dudley Dursley, no relation to… to anybody, I guess," he replied.

She laughed. "Let's go, amigo, before the centaurs come back." She strode off.

"So that's what they were, centaurs," he replied as he jogged after her.

"This forest is crawling with them," Silvia told him. "They kidnapped our whole squadron except TK-490 and me, who knows what they're doing with the others… then we had to get past that loco magic car… then the giant attacked us…"

Something hideous rasped beside them, and they turned and opened fire on the huge spider that emerged from the trees. Dudley forced back a scream of terror, not wanting to embarrass himself in front of Silvia. This thing was the size of a car!

More spiders closed in, their jaws clattering eagerly. The two troopers fought valiantly, but for every spider they shot, two more seemed to take its place.

"Get ready to run," Silvia ordered, yanking her thermal detonator from her belt. She punched the buttons and hurled it at the largest spider, an elephant-sized beast with white eyes.

The ensuing explosion pelted Dudley with splintered wood, globs of dirt, and chunks of matter that he tried not to think about too hard as he and Silvia ran for it. The spiders were screaming in pain and scuttling about madly, wailing something that sounded suspiciously like "Aragog!"

"That was close," Dudley panted as they stopped to catch their breath. "Ah… thanks."

"No problemo," she replied. "Once you quit hyperventilating, look up. We're at Hogwarts."

"Whoa," he whispered, looking up. The castle was much more impressive up close.

The trenches surrounding the castle were seething with pitched battle as stormtroopers emerged from the forest and engaged the Rebel troops. Dudley stepped forward to help in the battle, but Silvia's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Got a plan, amigo?" she asked. "Personally, I'd like to survive to tell my parents about this."

"Uh…" He stared back up at the castle, where the Emperor's shuttle was making a landing. He had no desire to get himself killed either. But concocting a survival plan was pretty taxing on a mind unused to having to make decisions for himself.

Then it hit him – Hogwarts! If they could get inside the school, not only would they be safe from the Rebel soldiers, but they could probably do something heroic in there and make names for themselves! And maybe he could track down that good-for-nothing cousin of his and get some payback for what had happened this summer…

A twig snapped, and he turned, half-expecting a centaur. But instead a strange black animal that looked like a mad scientist had crossed a horse with a dragon stared at them with glowing white eyes. The sight of the creature made him shudder… but it also gave him an idea.

"We'll ride that," he told her.

"Ride what?" Silvia demanded.

"That horse thing," he told her, pointing.

"What horse thing?"

"You don't see it?" Was he seeing things? But when he blinked his eyes several times, the creature was still there. It was even approaching, its nostrils flared to catch his scent.

"I don't see any caballo, amigo," she said exasperatedly. "So stop playing games… Madre de Dios! What was that?"

For the beast had begun licking Silvia's armor, its wide tongue lapping up the spider gunk that covered her.

"That's the horse thing I was talking about," Dudley replied, happy to be proven right.

"Well, how come I can't see it and you can…" She smacked her helmet. "Thestrals!"

"What's 'thestrals' Spanish for?"

"No, this thing's a thestral! I overheard some of the wizards talking about them. You can't see them unless you've seen death."

"You mean you haven't seen death?"

"Not yet."

He was about to ask about her comrade TK-490, but then he realized she'd had her back to him when the centaurs had shot him. She had seen him alive and she had seen his corpse, but she hadn't actually witnessed his death.

"Here," he told her, and he helped her onto the thestral's back. He climbed on behind her and kicked the beast's ribs.

"Giddap!" he ordered. "Fly to the castle!"

The beast snorted and took to the air, largely unnoticed by those on the ground.