After a tedious long day of negotiations and discussions in various comities Palpatine finally arrived back at his luxurious apartment at upper level off 500 Republica, the most prestigious and exclusive residential tower located in the Senate District of Galactic City. A few months ago he had taken the small girl with him with the intention of raising her but it he had not anticipated how much attention the small vermin, living with him after her recovery, actually needed. Too much for his taste and trying to appear to like her was extremely tiresome.

The medical droid in his shuttle had worked hard to bring her fever down and stabilize her. As he had not dared to take her further to the galactic City without her dying he had taken her to his home planet in the Mid-Rim and brought her to the hospital almost immediately. There the medical personal had been shocked that any child could be at such a state. Especially as children on Naboo were cherished. What had even surprised them more was that this little girl was a relative of the nice friendly Senator who had already suffered several tragedies in his life: The disappearance of his elder wife and the loss of his entire family, including his siblings. They were constantly reassuring him that she would be fine in time and that she was in best hands as they mistook his worried face for concern about her. He was, however, not worried that she died, but that he would lose someone with her high Force potential which she had clearly inherited from him, or that the Jedi were informed about her Midi-Chlorean count. The last thing he needed was them getting her on their radar. He had to leave her at the hospital for recovery, but only after making sure that no record of her Midi-Chlorean count existed. He had been pleasantly surprised that she had started to learn the Nubian variety and Basic from Protocol Droids as the healers were quite smitten with the shy little girl and some were even sacrificing their free time to make her comfortable. The holo-news had naturally soaked up his little story that he never given up hope to find his "dear" missing wife and family that he had unfortunately only found his abusive step-daughter and his granddaughter from a daughter he had never known and therefore he had not been able let her suffer further as she was the only thing left of his dear wife and family he never had been able to live with. His polling results had skyrocket shortly with this admission. When he had contacted her after a few weeks from the core world he played naturally the grandfatherly role and this had brought pure admiration to her face. After all he was the one who had taken her away from her abusive life to a "magical" place as she called it.

He hoped that she would be sleeping already as his master Darth Plagueis was due to arrive any moment and he was already regarding the little girl with open disdain. Especially, as she seemed to have a weird obsession with the Jedi Temple which she was able to see from her large bedroom. He had luckily gifted her with a Sith necklace which hid her force signature from any other Force user, at least until he would be able to teach her how to hide it from the Jedi. Even Plagueis did not know her full potential and he planned to keep it that way.

"Grandfather!" he heard the little girl happily shout as she sped through the grand salon towards the turbo lifts where he stepped out of it. No. She was definitely not sleeping and she would certainly hug him in a few seconds. To his dismay she had started to do this whenever he returned home and he did not like to be hugged and had to keep him from pushing her away from him, but for the time being he would play along. "Good evening, Elizabeth. It is way past your bed time. You should be in bed!" he patted her unruly red hair, but unfortunately she did not let go of him. It even seemed that she hugged him even tighter. Annoying little prat. Something must have been upsetting her. "There is a large monster in the living room." she whimpered shivering. "There are no monsters in my apartment, Elizabeth!" he said in a calm voice, but he suspected who she meant. Walking with her holding his hand, towards their large spacious living room with perfect view over the nightly panorama of Corscant he saw an all too familiar tall and gaunt humanoid with thin body and elongated head. His Muun master was early it seemed as he was casually lounging in one of the larger seats.

"Seems that the girl is not used at finding strangers in your apartment, Senator" his master chastised him. "Being a monster is only a matter of perspective, little one" he fixed his hard stare at the trembling girl who ducked behind her grandfather and only dared to peek from behind his senatorial robes.

"Please forgive her. She is not yet used to see many different species. So far she has only seen a few Gungan on Naboo and a few Twi'leks on the holonet as she has not ventured out of the apartment." Palpatine explained.

"Then I hope for your sake that she was watching holofilms appropriate for her age and not certain channels which are often preferred by your species." the muun sneered.

"Elizabeth. Meet Magister Hego Damask of the InterGalactic Banking Clan." The little girl carefully looked at the person in question one more time and mumbled:"Hallo" But the Muun remained silent and Palpatine finally sent her to bed as her private study schedule for the next day was quite full indeed and he planned to introduce her to the "cave" down in the lowest levels of 500 Republica where no person dared to venture.

"You seem to have a habit of picking up pathetic life forms, apprentice."Plagueis snapped darkly with raised eyebrow: "First the night brother and now your granddaughter. What will be next? A Jedi perhaps? "

"Maul, as deadly as he is, is unable to blend in with the crowd." Palpatine explained. "The girl, however might be the better option to work as an undercover assassin. I am certain that with time she can be molded to do our bidding. Who would think about an innocent apprentice legislator working for the common good, being a deadly assassin?"

"Are you sure that is the real reason? We could make good use of Anzatis for the assassinations. You could have left her on the same piece of rock as the night brother and yet here she is, openly living with you in your apartment. Are you sure you have not become attached?" he asked fixing him with his unreadable gaze.

That was preposterous. The little girl was clingy and asked too many questions, but once he would start her training she would hopefully know when to shut her mouth otherwise he would make good use of his force lightening. "No, she is a means to an end and nothing more. I assure you."

Standing up the Muun admonished his apprentice:"We will see about that. Rest assured that if I find you secretly training her beyond what is necessary I will take her from you and use her for my own research."

"What do you mean 'She is gone'?" Lily asked her sister dumb folded. Finally after years she had built up enough courage to visit her daughter for the first time only to discover that she was not with her family.

Standing opposite to Lily and next to her husband Petunia looked at her defiantly:"The little brat is gone and will never come back!"

"Petunia, where is my daughter?" Lily asked again with trembling voice and slightly shaking hands. Had she died? Had she given her away? Sold her off to someone? Had she given it to remaining death eaters?

"She is either on Naboo or Coruscant. I don't care!" she hissed slipping into Basic, her childhood language making her husband jump back a step in surprise.

"What do you mean? Those where stories, mama told us, nothing more!" Lily insisted but felt that there was more to it.

"No, those weren't just stories. I never said anything, because I thought you would eventually figure it out. But you always were as stupid as a binary droid! Why do you think I have no birth certificate? Why we are talking two different languages which do not exist on this godforsaken piece of planet? I wasn't born on this pitiful rock. You were!" She pointed at her sister with her index finger. "Your father's family was the reason why we were grounded here!" Petunia ranted with blazing eyes.

"What the hell are you talking about? Where is Elizabeth?!" Lily pleaded not believing what she heard.

"She is with your freak of a father!" Petunia stumped her feet not realizing that her son and her husband carefully slipped out of the room to avoid the screaming match between the two sisters which seemed too explosive for their taste. None of them had seen her angry before. "He came to look for mama and took your brat with him.

Lily's heart jumped, while her feet gave way and she needed to sit down on the soft cushioned yellow sofa. Her father had been here and she had not known! He had taken her daughter to god knows where and with it every chance to see her daughter again. To tell her how much she loved and missed her. She should never have listened to Dumbledore to give her away. Even James had not wanted to part with their little sunshine that night, but she had blindly trusted in the old headmaster and ripped her family apart. When would she finally do what her feelings told her to do! Her feelings were always right.

Looking sadly at her sister she carefully asked:"Could you get in touch with him? I would like to know how she is?"

"Of course I can, but I won't do it! I never, ever want that freak or your daughter near my family again!" Lily jumped up again with renewed hope "Petunia. Please I beg you get me in contact with my father! I have so many questions and I need to know about Elizabeth's welfare! Did she have outbursts of magic?"

"Don't say that word in this house ever again Lily! About a month after you've brought her she started to cause mayhem and almost killed my Dudders! Nobody harms my child! Not even my niece. Things were exploding, flying around and toys chasing my little boy." Petunia screamed while hitting her right hand on her breast and caused her red haired sister to tear up.

"Petunia. I did not know that she was still able to do magic. I was told that she has lost it permanently and would never regain it. She is my daughter. I need to know if she is alright." Lily pleaded.

"Then why did you not keep her or contacted us earlier! What kind of mother are you? Like father like daughter!" Petunia snapped knowing full well that her harsh words would hit her sister harder than anything else. The moment Lily had heard that she had a different father she had enquired about him but her mother had been tight lipped, except that he had been much younger than her, highly intelligent, passionate, handsome and from a well-off family. Her mother had always gotten a glassy look in her eyes and Lily had felt how much she had loved him. But she had never answered the questions about his whereabouts. Stories about Naboo, Coruscant, had always sounded so foreign to Lily that she had never believed that they were technically aliens. But now that she knew them to be true, she was looking for a way to get in contact with him.

"How can you contact him? What does he do?" Lily asked.

"I don't know what he does, but he has little time and little patience." Petunia answered with her hands crossed. "He gave me a long range communicator, but I do not know if I will be able to contact him with it. Definitely not without a relay satellite and I seriously doubt that he has one near our system. "

"Then try it! I need to know!" Lily beseeched her sister but she could feel fear radiating of her at the thought of contacting him. But why?

"Why are you afraid of him? Does he have magic as well?" It must have been the only explanation she could think of at the moment.

"Magic? Force? I don't know and I don't care." Petunia hissed. "His family is the reason why I lost my future on Naboo the moment they grounded us here. Now I have to play good housewife although I have much better understanding of physics and electronics than taught on this planet.

"Force? I remember mother talking about it." Lily murmured touching the necklace hidden under her pullover while trying to find at least one of the few instances their mother had taught them about it. You think that is the same thing?"

"How should I know! I don't have it."

Elizabeth was panting heavily as held her upper body forward to get some air back into her lungs. What had she done now to deserve to be treated that way? Every muscle in her body was twitching from exhaustion, but it was not enough apparently. Her grandfather had told her in the morning that he would begin her training and had brought her down to the secret cave under the huge building they were living in, but her excitement had soon diminished. He was not very patient and the sabres they were training with were heavy and she soon cursed her grandfather, who only chuckled darkly. It looked as if he wanted her to be angry at him. From the training probe she had already received several stinging bolts when she had not ducked out soon enough until she had angrily destroyed it although she had no idea how she had done it and had carefully looked at her grandfather who to her immense relief was not angry for destroying it. Quite the contrary actually. Palpatine had let her run several rounds at full speed and she would have to do this every morning and evening now, together with the sparring routines he was mercilessly running her through. She could barely stand, but she dared not to ask for a pause because she somehow knew that it could probably be worse and he had told her to make her stronger after all. She certainly hoped so. At least he had not beaten her yet and she would make sure that he would not have reason to do so. No. She vowed be a good apprentice and to learn everything he was throwing at her. No matter what.

The last part of her first training will be expanded.