Author's Note: This chapter is fully up and ready to view. Let me know of any writing errors in it, and please review.


Chapter 2

Ascending the Stairs

Year 1 - Hagrid's Hut/Hogwarts Castle - Earth

After nearly everyone had departed from the inn that evening, Harry, Josh, and Hagrid all sat down together around a table and quietly chatted with one another, mostly about things concerning the state of the magical community at the present time and what'd happened in the ten years since young Potter's absence from the world in general, but also of the events relating to the night in which both of Harry's parents, Lily and James, were cold-bloodedly murdered by a certain dark wizard, of whom everyone in the entire magical community were absolutely terrified to either say his name out loud, or to even mentally think it for that matter.

"What- What was his name? This… Dark Lord you mentioned?" asked Harry as he momentarily sighed under his breath, recognizing full-well that Hagrid wouldn't know that he was already completely aware of the identity of Voldemort due to his conversation with Sirius at the Jedi Temple earlier.

Hagrid knew this was going to be very, VERY difficult for him to say as he took in a deep breath after clearing his throat. "His name was V-" He sighed, realizing that it was going to be even WAY harder than he initially thought. "His name was V-"

Both Josh and Harry exchanged brief glances at each other; their expressions communicating back and forth between themselves about whether or not they should just come right out and tell Hagrid of the fact that the little boy already knew the Dark Lord's name, but also whether or not they should tell him about Sirius Black as well, with little Harry finally deciding after a few brief and tense moments that he was going to tell the half-giant that he already knew of Voldemort's identity, as well as the fact that Sirius Black had primarily been the one who was looking after him at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant over the last ten years.

Potter then exhaled a heavy sigh under his breath, preparing to speak. "It's alright, Hagrid. You don't have to tell me," he gently stated at last. "I already know."

The half-giant's eyes widened in absolute surprise and confusion upon hearing Harry say that. "Blimey, Harry! What do you mean you know? How?"

Harry glanced behind him for a quick moment at the few remaining people who were still in the bar, before turning back around to face Hagrid again, signaling for the half-giant to lean in a bit closer so that the little boy could whisper into his ear.

"I'll tell you. But not here. We need to go somewhere else that's much more private," he softly whispered into Hagrid's ear. "Do you know of anyplace else we can talk?"

The half-giant nodded in response. "Yes, there is, Harry. Come along now," he uttered solemnly, and then promptly stood up from the table with both Harry and Josh following suit.

As the trio walked towards the exit, the bartender expressed a sincere farewell to both Harry and Josh, who both conveyed a fervent goodbye to him in turn.

"Good-evening, Hagrid! Next time, I presume?" the bartender called-out towards the half-giant.

Hagrid turned and nodded at him with a small smile in reply. "Of course! See ya, Tom!"

Once the three individuals stepped outside, closing the door behind them, Harry turned to face Hagrid directly and looked up at him. "So, where are we going, Hagrid?"

"We'll go to my hut. It's located on the Hogwarts grounds, near to the castle," the half-giant replied.

Harry looked rather confused. "Where's the castle located, Hagrid?" he asked curiously. "We didn't see anything that resembled a castle anywhere nearby when Josh and I arrived."

Hagrid smirked as he glanced down at the little boy. "That's because it's many miles away from here, Harry," he answered. "It's also well-hidden by protective enchantments."

Potter nodded understandably just as Hagrid reached into his coat-pocket and suddenly pulled out what appeared to be a rather tiny object of some sort, which looked exactly like the toy version of a motorcycle, with a VERY tiny sidecar attached to it from what Josh could see, and put it on the ground a number of feet away from them. Then, upon taking out what looked like an umbrella from inside his coat, Hagrid pointed it directly at the tiny motorcycle and sidecar, which then all of a sudden to both Josh and Harry's astonishment quite literally began to grow in both scale and dimension as the half-giant stepped away from the objects after placing them on the ground, until they were both precisely the exact size that was required to accommodate for someone of the his physical stature.

Upon examining the objects a bit more closely for an instant, Josh immediately realized that it was most definitely a real motorcycle and sidecar that had simply been shrunken down to pocket-size. "Hmm, well, impressive!" he exclaimed with sheer amazement.

"Eh, it's nothing really," remarked Hagrid. "Merely a simple charm is all."

As Hagrid got on the motorcycle, he gestured for Harry to climb into the sidecar next to him, and as Potter climbed inside he immediately looked over at Varner who shook his head before promptly levitating himself up off the ground and hovered in the air just a few meters above them.

"I'll follow alongside you," Josh declared, motioning with his right arm for the half-giant to get a head-start.

Nodding in response, Hagrid revved-up the engine on the motorcycle and just a few moments later, both he and Harry were soaring through the evening sky with Josh gliding along beside them as the three made their way towards the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as well as to the half-giant's hut.

After several minutes, the trio finally reached their destination point, with the motorcycle ever so slowly and gracefully descending down onto an exceedingly long walkway that stretched far across the castle grounds in many different directions, stopping just a number of yards away from a moderately-sized, part tepee, part cabin-like structure that was comprised of primarily stone and wood, which sat near the border of a gigantic thicket of large trees. And once Josh slowly lowered himself to the ground immediately after Harry and Hagrid had landed on the walkway, they all casually approached the hovel just as the noise of a dog that promptly started barking loudly could be heard from directly on the other side of the entry door.

"Oh, shut up, you silly mongrel!" Hagrid yelled at the animal as he swung the door wide-open to reveal a massively large interior, which to both Harry and Josh's first impressions, appeared to be far more spacious in scale on the inside of the hut than it did on the outside.

"Wow!" exclaimed Harry in astonishment, upon stepping inside the hut and looking all around him at it's massive interior. "This place is huge!"

Casually striding over towards a kitchen area, Hagrid proceeded to fill-up a teakettle with water, before placing it on a stove to get it ready to boil. "Tea, anyone?"

Both Josh and Harry graciously accepted the offer before Josh strode over to Hagrid. "Here, let me get that for you," the young Jedi politely voiced as he placed his hand on the kettle, and a moment later, it began to hiss rather loudly, indicating that the water had reached it's boiling point.

Looking rather surprised for a minute, Hagrid then gathered up some tea leaves which were carefully stored away in one of the kitchen cabinets, and placed them into the boiling water through the opened top of the kettle before closing the lid, and after several minutes of allowing the leaves to steep through into the water, he then poured both Harry and Josh a nice and steamy-hot cup of tea into some teacups that he had placed on the dining table, before pouring a cup for himself.

"Oh, careful, Harry!" exclaimed Josh before the little boy was about to take a sip after the trio sat down around the table. "It might be too hot for you right now. And I don't think you'd wanna be burning your mouth or tongue off."

Harry nodded understandably in agreement before turning to look directly at the half-giant. "Anyway, the reason I wanted to talk in private with you, Hagrid, is because of, well…" Potter suddenly found it a little difficult to say what it was that he wanted to tell the half-giant, knowing that he probably considered Sirius Black to be entirely guilty of whatever crimes that the little boy's godfather had been wrongfully accused of committing.

Hagrid stared curiously at him, quite unsure of just what it was that the little boy was trying to say. "What is it, Harry?"

Potter glanced over at Josh for a brief instant, who in turn nodded at him assuredly, before turning his gaze back toward the half-giant again. "It's about Sirius Black. You see, for the past ten years or so, he's primarily been the one who has taken care of me."

Before Hagrid could either respond and/or react to this stunning revelation, Harry immediately began to explain to him the course of events surrounding the last decade of both how and why Sirius Black was looking after the young Potter boy and that it was actually him who told Harry about Voldemort, including the identity of the man, Peter Pettigrew, who was in fact the one who had both sold-out the Potters location to Voldemort as well as framed Black for murder, following-up with Varner subsequently filling in the blanks concerning his involvement, telling Hagrid that it was the will of the Force that Sirius Black was meant to go with his godson to Coruscant and become his primary caregiver, adding that if it wasn't meant to be that way, then Josh most likely would never have had those visions of him to begin with.

Once the three of them had finished drinking their tea, Hagrid cleaned the dishes off before putting them back into the cupboards in the kitchen area, and then the trio went directly to the office of the school's Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, inside the castle. As the half-giant led the way through it's many halls and corridors, Harry noticed to his great surprise that all of the paintings which adorned many of the castle walls were in fact moving, almost as if they were somehow alive.

Upon approaching a large gargoyle-looking statue, Hagrid instructed both Josh and Harry to step through the archway into the space where the statue was located, and once both Jedi had promptly entered the narrow gap, the half-giant then turned to stand directly facing in front of the gargoyle statue.

"Curly Wurly," he uttered at once, and suddenly the gargoyle began to slowly turn round clockwise as it rose up into the air, revealing a hidden stone staircase within the floor underneath it that gradually ascended up through the constrictive space of what appeared to be a rather tall high-rise tower just above Harry and Josh's heads when they both glanced upward after stepping through the archway, until the statue finally halted it's climb to the very top of the tower, which in turn revealed another archway that lead straight to a large door at the far end of a short corridor.

As the two individuals walked slowly towards the door just ahead of them, both Harry and Josh could almost clearly make out two elderly-sounding voices, one male and the other female, on the other side of the large door.

Using his supremely enhanced sense of hearing, Josh focused in on the voices and was now quite clearly able to discern what they were both saying.

"I know you're worried, Minerva. I am as well. But there's simply no way to know for sure until he actually arrives," the male voice uttered calmly.

"But the Sorting is only a few days away, Albus! A new gathering of first-year students is about to take place at Hogwarts this year, and if he's not among them, then I'd be absolutely certain that something most awful has happened to him!" the female exclaimed a bit frantically.

Upon approaching the door, there was a brief moment of silence from what Josh could tell before the male voice spoke-up again.

"Well, perhaps- Perhaps they came back for him. Maybe they both thought the danger was finally past and thus decided to retrieve him. Maybe even…both of them, you think?"

"Highly unlikely, Albus. You and I both know what he said. He was adamantly clear as crystalthat it was for the best. They both were; that it was the only way to keep their children safe."

Sporting a look of utter confusion for a brief moment, Josh stepped directly in front of the large door and gently knocked on it a few times, promptly alerting the two individuals within the room on the other side to his presence.

"Yes, come in."

As Josh slowly pushed the door wide-open, both he and Harry stepped through the doorway and into what appeared to be some kind of a strange-looking office. It was a large and beautifully decorated circular room, and the walls were adorned with many different forms of live-motion portraits. On opposite corners of the room, a number of curious silver instruments rested atop spindle-legged tables which were placed up against the far walls; everyone of them whirring and blowing out small puffs of smoke. At the very center of a raised platform which was flanked by a few short steps, sat an enormous claw-footed wooden desk and a huge lavishly-carved wooden chair.

The two individuals who stood talking with each other promptly turned around just as both of the Jedi slowly approached them.

"Who- Who are you?" the woman asked, looking rather startled at first, until she noticed the lightning-shaped scar above Harry's eyebrow. "Potter?!"

The little boy nodded to her in response. "Are you… Minerva McGonagall?"

When the woman nodded at his question, Harry reached into his robes and produced the acceptance letter which he had received back on Coruscant via the owl. He was about to hand it over to her, when she politely and gently stopped him from giving it back to her.

"Keep that with you, Potter. You're going to need the list of supplies that I provided another with that letter, now."

Harry nodded in reply. "Okay." He looked up at McGonagall once again after stuffing the letter back into his robes. "Um, about that, where do I go to get these supplies from. And… how am I going to pay for them? I haven't any money to buy this stuff with."

"You're money's at Gringotts, dear," McGonagall stated softly. "That's the Wizarding Bank which is located in Diagon Alley. You're mother and father both left a rather substantial fortune to you prior to them… passing away."

Harry slowly walked over to her and gently placed a firmly comforting hand on her lower arm, as McGonagall looked like she was getting close to having an emotional breakdown upon mentioning the little boy's deceased parents.

As Minerva knelt down to be at eye-level with Potter, the little boy smiled ever so kindly, yet sadly, at her. "It's okay," he said gently. "I can understand how much you miss them. I do, too."

Josh then gradually stepped closer toward the two elders. "I suppose that it's come time to explain things to you both concerning where Harry has been for the last several years," he declared solemnly, though only after formally introducing himself to them.

Dumbledore nodded in agreement, and upon retrieving his wand from inside his robes, conjured up two couches that sat facing each other in an empty area of the room. And once all four individuals were comfortably seated, with Harry and Josh both sitting directly across from Dumbledore and McGonagall, Varner first went into great detail about where Harry had been living for the past decade, as well as who the Jedi were, what they do, what the Force was, and so-on and so-forth. He then went on to explain how Harry had in fact come to be rescued by him all those years ago, and Minerva quite literally whirled on Albus in a fiery rage the instant Josh finished telling her of how Potter had been abandoned on a deserted side-road and left for dead.

**WACK!**

Albus was immediately jolted back up again his seat in absolute shock and dismay upon getting slapped across the face by a decidedly livid Minerva; a motion that almost caused his half-moon glasses to go flying clean off his nose, and even made Harry and Josh both jump back in complete surprise.

"DAMN YOU, ALBUS PERCIVAL WULFRIC BRIAN DUMBLEDORE‼" she practically shrieked in the old man's face; her eyes piercing him like ice-cold daggers. "I warned you that it was a very bad idea to leave him there…with those horrid Muggles!"

Varner himself was particularly stunned into near shock at seeing McGonagall's terrifying expression at that very moment, and rather briefly considered making a direct beeline for the office's main door. Literally nothing in the wider galaxy had the capability to petrify him, even in the slightest, to the point at which the look on Minerva's face had just now done so.

'Holy shit!' the young Jedi Knight immediately thought to himself. 'I sure as hell wouldn't wanna piss her off!'

**Knock. Knock. Knock.**

All of a sudden, there was a rather sharp and partially loud knock on the office door, which in turn snapped Josh out of his sense of shock, and alerted everyone in the room to the presence of another as yet unknown visitor.

"Come in!" McGonagall shouted towards the door of the office, her tone still very much aggravated and fierce.

The office door slowly creaked open and a short woman with reddish hair cautiously stepped through the doorway into the room.

"Hello? Am I interrupting anything at the moment?" she asked warily, just as everyone promptly got to their feet, with Albus quickly replacing the half-moon glasses he was wearing correctly back onto the bridge of his nose again.

"Uh, no. No, of course not. Please, come in, Mrs. Weasley," Minerva replied calmly.

As the woman steadily approached the small group, she all of a sudden halted in her tracks when she caught sight of both Josh and Harry as they turned around to face her direction.

"It can't be," she uttered aloud to herself, as she crossed over to personally greet Harry and shake the little boy's hand gently. "Oh, my goodness! It is you! Harry Potter! I can't tell you how joyously wonderful this is, meeting you here!"

"Hello, um, Mrs. Weasley, is it?" replied Harry respectively.

"Oh, please. Call me Molly, dear," Mrs. Weasley insisted kindly.

"What can we do for you, Molly," asked Dumbledore.

Molly nodded to herself, wanting to get right to the point of the matter as to why she had come to the Headmaster's Office in the late evening hours.

"Actually, the reason I was coming round here was because it has something to do with Harry himself, actually," Molly claimed a tad frankly.

Harry instantly looked a little surprised upon hearing that. "Me?" he asked curiously. "I don't really understand. What does this have to do with me? Josh and I both just arrived here on Earth earlier today."

"Oh, not to worry, dear," Molly assured him softly. "It's just that the little one whom we've been looking after has recently been calling out your name, both while she's asleep at night and also while she's awake in the daytime. It's only been going on for roughly no more than a day or so now, and at first Arthur and I both found it a bit strange that she'd be saying the name of someone her didn't even know. But now, it would seem to be something more than we thought, given that you're here now, Harry. Though, for the life of me, we still can't figure out why she would be saying your name to begin with."

"How is she doing, by the way?" asked McGonagall.

"She's quite well. Thank you, Minerva," Molly answered.

As Josh stepped closer towards Mrs. Weasley, curious to know who it was that she was talking about, the redhead glanced up at him, and upon the two of them making eye-contact, she instantly recognized the young Jedi Knight as being the same individual who had once saved her son from the deranged psychopathic witch, Bellatrix Lestrange, a decade prior. And even though Varner had fully grown into a rather hansom young adult, she knew at once that it was him. It simply had to be.

"YOU?!" she exclaimed frantically.

Josh momentarily looked rather taken aback by the redhead's exclamation towards him. "Yes?" he responded in a supposedly confused manner, though he was obviously trying to hide the fact that he knew right away that the woman clearly recognized who he was from ten years earlier.

Molly immediately walked over towards McGonagall and Albus. "Professor Dumbledore, that's him! The young boy I told you about ten years ago. He's the one who saved Ronald as baby from being taken by Bellatrix Lestrange, I'm absolutely sure of it."

Josh couldn't hide it any longer as he lowered his head slightly and a broad smile curled across his lips. He exhaled in absolute defeat, knowing full-well that she clearly remembered him, before raising his head up to look at her directly.

"Hello, Mrs. Weasley," he expressed warmly. "It's good to see you again."

She nodded in reply. "Oh, by the way, I didn't catch your name last time, dear," she stated bluntly.

Josh slowly approached her, reaching out to shake her hand in greeting. "I'm Josh. Joshua Varner," he replied.

"Well. It sure is nice to meet you, Mr. Varner," Molly declared happily. "Oh, and thank you so very much for what you did for us."

The young Jedi Knight casually nodded in response of her gratitude towards him. "Glad I could help."