Coruscant

Sitting on the cold marble steps on the upper level off 500 Republica, the most prestigious and exclusive residential tower located in the Senate District of Galactic City, a small red headed girl was watching the setting of the distant sun. A few hours ago she had arrived back home from her expensive boarding school of the planet Naboo and was now waiting for Palpatine to arrive. This term had finally ended and she hoped that her scores would make her grandfather happy or at least, slightly approving. She had not wanted to go to this blasted school on that planet as she would have preferred to stay with him, but unfortunately for her she needed to learn how to make connections or she would be unable to do her duty as his apprentice. Due to his connections she had her very own schedule at school as she could spend some time on Coruscant and other time at Naboo. For the time when she was not on Coruscant and her guardian had no time for her the assassin droid took over her training in the hidden cellar under Palpatine's house in Theed. It was very difficult to get his approval although she was top of all her classes and even had jumped a few because of her dedication. She loved her grandfather dearly, because he had taken her away from the horror of her "family" and trained her how to be strong. That had been two years ago and she had become stronger and much angrier. She loved her anger.

Cloaking her Force abilities had been the first thing he had installed in her. He had not wanted the Jedi to steal her away as he had put it and therefore had pulled some strings to have her midi-chlorean count disappear off the records. Her time of healing had not been easy because she had to catch up with the other students her age, the different languages and dialects and wealthy children from Naboo were drilled in learning as soon as they could walk. He had run a strict schedule with highly paid tutors while he was off working in the senate and had never been content with the amount of material learned. He even had installed an assassin droid for her combat training when he had been away on senatorial duty or training sessions with his master which she hated most of all. The training with him personally had been harsh and she had mentally cursed her grandfather beyond the unknown regions, but after some time even she had begun to see some progress. Now she was able to run faster and jump higher than any of her school mates, but she had to be careful to not reveal herself or attract the attention of the cursed Jedi. One day she would kill a Jedi to make her grandfather proud! She now knew how to kill effectively with several kinds of blasters, swords and other weapons now, but she did not know if she really would be able to take a real life again. In self defence yes, but beyond that. Probably not. It was a weakness that did not sit well with her guardian and although she knew how to handle a lightsaber she had not received one as she had to "earn" it. She had tried to kill an animal on Naboo, but the thought of extinguishing the beautiful light surrounding it, had made her stop. When she had reluctantly told Palpatine this his control had slipped and he some force lightening had escaped his long fingers. It had been a terrifying moment, but she had caused his anger after all.

Unfortunately for her he had soon forced her to correct this flaw. Her grandfather was very impatient, although he was good at hiding it with colleagues. How he was able to put up with those stupid cretins and her was beyond her. Only once or twice she had made sufficient progress to receive a small praise. In one break between semesters her grandfather had been too busy negotiating some trade treaty and had therefore just dropped her off a planet in a neighbourhood of the Naboo System in order to learn to survive.

Force, had she been terrified! She could have died there! That blasted planet had had a large wild jungle with even wilder beasts and poisonous plants. For weeks she had been hunted as the prey of these large predators and some local hunters laughing about her. And she had the overwhelming sense of something or someone dark shadowing her every move. Had she not been clever she would probably not have survived long in the wild, but in the end her fury, hunger and frustration had turned into rage and with the help of the Force she had been able to partially control them but the largest beast had tried to bite a chunk out of her and she had killed it swiftly ripping out his heart with the Force and wailed afterwards for taking a life. The ability to control others now came naturally to her and although she knew that it was probably morally wrong to use it, she practised on her most annoying classmates and sometimes on her teachers when they wanted her to slow down. When she had been picked up again, she had angrily, yet relieved ranted and vetted about it, while smashing furniture in his shuttle and her grandfather clad in his dark cloak had only smirked proudly, patted her hair and told her that she had performed beautifully. He had recorded her entire ordeal! But she had finally received her own crimson lightsaber. After that he had her clean up her own mess. Yes, life was not easy with her grandfather, but she had to admit he knew what he was doing and she would not miss one chance to stay at his side.

He had saved her and although he was not the warmest of people she believed that he liked her. He was her family now. There was no one else. Finally spotting the nearing of the familiar sleek grey- metallic shuttle of one Sheev Palpatine, although he hated his first name, Elizabeth eagerly jumped up to greet him.

Slowly nearing his spacious apartment suit through the slow nightly traffic he spotted the little red-headed girl anxiously sitting at the entrance waiting for him. So far his investments had paid off as she was ambitiously soaking up any kind of knowledge like a Dacian sponge. Even on Force matters she was increasing her abilities and her dire need for his appreciation made her easy to be manipulated. Her power had doubled in just a few years and Plagueis was keeping a keen eye on both him and his granddaughter. Contrary to what he did with Maul, he hardly gave her any indication at how pleased he actually was at her progress. Maul had become arrogant because of his skills and his praise, but his granddaughter adored him and soaked up any smile or sign of appreciation he showed her. He only used his grandfatherly persona on her when it suited him and she did not even know that he did not care about her one bit. Force! She had even started to hug him early on and he did not like to be touched at all! The first time it had happened he had pushed her away. But if this helped to secure her allegiance then he would endure it. The only thing bothering him was her draw to the light side of the Force. Plagueis was repeatedly winding him up in telling him that he was raising a Jedi. But she was not a Jedi! She was an acolyte and she was his granddaughter! She was everything that he could have wanted in an offspring. She will be at his side when the time comes. He just needed to train her properly. She knew how to kill as she destroyed all her training probes with vigour, but never had been able to even kill a bug! The assassin droid he had found on Malachore, which had also proved to be useful as he did not have as much time to train her as he would have liked. He had remedied her path by grounding her on the wild planet for discovering her darker side and it had helped as she had finally killed one of the fiercest predators by ripping out his heart. It had been enjoyable for him to watch that part of the recorded feed. Her anger was welcome too as she had finally touched the dark side and she was now using it more often; especially when she gave into her anger. To say that Maul had been unhappy playing babysitter was an understatement. He would have preferred to hunt and finally kill a Jedi and Sidious had warned him that everyone had to play their part if the Sith eventually wanted to rule and he needed another powerful dark force user. Preferably, a female who would turn into a woman one day. Maul had shadowed her and set off the predators to attack the girl as he could not stand her light side. It had become clear that she had a strong will to survive and also revealed some hidden powers as she had been able to disappear at one place and reappear somewhere else or she had froze them completely. According to Maul the creatures had been completely stiff. A useful ability if he was able to learn how she did it. It would help him to surpass his master.

Her teachers at her school where complementing him at her fast learning skills, but also warned him that she might be too hard on herself as she hardly slept, kept reading until the early morning, even sometimes skipped nights altogether. Or when she decided to dissappear for some hours, where she would train in his house in Theed. But only he knew this. He naturally feigned concern, but knew that she was up to her task. But they never were able to stop her doing it because for some reason they turned away as soon as they tried to stop her from not going to sleep, but he suspected that she was practicing mind control on them. Another thing they found worrying was that she was not a very sociable person. She kept others at a distance and hated group works. During group activities she was one of the people refusing to work with others as they were only slowing her down or if she was forced to work in groups or pairs then the little girl took the lead and forced the others to keep up which they normally were not able to do. When practicing rhetorics she literally talked others into the ground with her arguments, but froze when she had to give presentations in front of elders at apprentice legislators trainings sessions.

He needed to remedy that if she should follow him into politics. Only sociable people were seen as politically skilled even though sometimes they were not. The only other person which was able to get through to her was a very persistent Naberrie, who had persuaded Elizabeth to join the apprentice legislators two years ago. The more Elizabeth had pushed her away by saying hurtful things which played on the insecurities of her, the more persistent the other girl had become until they reluctantly had become "friends". Well, it seemed the Nabarrie girl considered Elizabeth a friend, yet he was not sure about his granddaughter. Elizabeth seemed to use her more as a puppet as she was pulling her strings. He was not yet sure if this "friendship" was advantageous, but he would have to wait and see. The next few days would be spent in the hidden sublevels of their Coruscanti home for training sessions before he would depart to a meeting with his master.

Potter Manor

Great. His parents were fighting again. It seemed that all they were doing nowadays was fighting. He hated it when they did that. Their favourite topics were: Dumbledore, him, his lost sister, Dumbledore and the public. While his dad backed everything the old man said, his mother questioned him all the time ever since Harry found out that he had a twin sister, who was now missing. Uncle Padfoot was supporting James, while Remus tried to mediate between the two, but was not successful at all. One day after Christmas the Headmaster had rushed into their home demanding to know why they had not heeded his warning and gotten Elizabeth back to the Manor. But there was none he knew with that name. His father had been perplexed and asked him how he had gotten this idea. His mother's eyes had turned to scarily darker shade and had dangerously slowly advanced towards the old man, the lights flickering and wavering; Dumbledore had even stepped back from her.

"Why do you think that we have her?" she had hissed. "What happened?" Taking another step back he had gulped and answered. "The wards around the Dursley's house just fell moments ago. I assumed that you got her back."

"You assumed wrongly!" his mother had screamed tying to storm out of the house, but Dumbledore had stopped her, by "petrifying" her.

His father, coming out of his stupor had tried to intervene and protect Lily, but Dumbledore had just told him that it was for the best and that he would find their missing daughter, but her knowing about Elizabeth missing would put considerable psychological strain on her mind. His father had reluctantly agreed. Harry had still been too young to comprehend what they had done to his mother then, but he knew now that they had obliviated his mother about this moment.

Two years later his mother had come back one afternoon with an expression on her face that had been hard to read. She had been crying uncontrollably one minute, thrashed the furniture the next minute and had looked shocked the next minute while murmuring "Elizabeth", "father", and other words which he could not make out. Had his mother been talking in another language? Harry had been sure that Elizabeth just had to come back to the family and everything would be well again.

He hated Voldemort for doing this to his family. Dumbledore was tutoring him so that he would be ready to face the dark wizard a second time, but he wanted to have his sister with him. He needed her. He did not know how he knew it, but he just did. Where was she? Did she think about them? Did she miss them? He hoped so. Would she reappear when the Hogwarts letters came? Although Dumbledore insisted that she had lost all magic, his mother was putting all her faith in the Hogwarts letters and his mother was usually right.

He slowly turned around and walked back up to his room in order to shut their fighting out.

Hogwarts

Dumbledore was pacing in his round office surrounded by all previous headmasters before him. Everything he had done so far was moving towards the wrong direction. The Potters were divided, Harry was not progressing as fast as he would have liked to and it seemed that his mother's contempt had been passed on to him. He questioned more things than before and had also gotten in between fights with his parents.

On James' and Sirius he could count, but Lily had developed into a wild card. She kept Harry away from the publicity of being the Chosen One and was careful in selecting his friends. To James' dismay Harry had even been enrolled early in a muggle primary school as Lily had insisted that he needed a normal life and also a basic understanding of the world outside of the magical one.

She had also "persuaded" the ministry to let her tutor pupils, who wanted to stay or get in touch with the Muggle world, in Muggle subjects, so that they would be able to write their homeschooling exams after the Hogwarts exams. Some in the Wizengamot had laughed at that ludicrous idea; the pureblood fraction being a majority lead by Lucius Malfoy had been categorically against it and a small margin had at least been mildly interested. James and Sirius, had to Lily's dismay not used their voice in her favour. When they had tried to turn her down, even though she was the mother of the saviour, Lily had lost her temper, while her eyes had turned darker and the lights wavering and everything lying on their benches, pens, papers, paperweights, quills, ink, and the minister's gavel rose from their places. She did have everyone's attention then. The air had been tense and you could have heard a pin drop and Lily calmly, but passionately pleaded her case again while explaining it as if talking to toddlers. The Wizengamot eventually gave their consent in the hope of not been trashed by things flying above their heads. Malfoy had been uncharacteristically squirmy in his seat when he had spotted his own normally hidden dagger flying just above his blond head.

Going behind his desk again he looked at the specific Hogwarts envelope Minerva had brought him as ordered. Each envelope appeared the day a wizard or witch was born and was sorted in the boxes carrying the year they would come to Hogwarts. The addresses magically changed when they moved. Only the Headmasters and their deputies knew about this system and he was not going to reveal it. Just as James' wife had predicted, there was one for her daughter, but he had no idea what the address meant or where this place could be.

Ms. Elizabeth Potter

The Red Bedroom

500 Republica Top Penthouse Suite

Ambassadorial Sector, Senate District, Galactic City,

Coruscant

He had never heard of a place called Coruscant before and Mrs. Figg, his personal spy, had not been able to understand much of the screaming match between Lily and Petunia. But from what she had been able to gather was that Elizabeth was now living with her grandfather. Her biological one. He had never known that the man Lily had called father had only been her step-father and he always knew every little detail about his students. Could it be that Lily was not a muggle-born, but a half-blood? He hated not knowing, especially as he had no idea if this man was a threat to his plans. Did he have a temper like the saviour's mother was displaying lately? It seemed that her temper was getting worse every year. He had met Lily's mother and she had been an intelligent, kind yet slightly unusual woman. He would take the address to Petunia. Perhaps she knew how to contact the little girl. If not he would obliviate her.

After a particularly difficult training session Elizabeth could not wait to head into the refresher as she tried to catch up with the fast pace of Palpatine, heading back to their apartment. But she would use water this time to ease her sore muscles. Her grandfather had never been easy on her and today had not been any different. She had lost her temper several times and he had only told her to use her anger to fuel her attacks, but whenever she fuelled her attacks with them she did become stronger, yet less precise. She needed to work on that, but how. The only time she was able to train properly was when she was with her grandfather, that stupid assassin droid only attacked her and hardly told her how to improve her style. It was not enough and she was curious why he regularly visited an old factory in the industrial district. Was he training a replacement for her?! She hoped not. He was family, he could not replace her.

He would be gone for a few days after tomorrow to train with his master, which she did not like one bit. He scared her. No terrified was probably the more appropriate term, but as long as they needed each other they would not kill each other.

When they finally reached their apartment they were stopped by a protocol droid who informed them about an incoming transmission from Earth. Palpatine had hidden a long range transmitter in the little system to be able to receive Petunia's transmission. His little girl was in for a surprise.

Instead going to her refresher she reluctantly followed Palpatine in his office where he activated his transmitter.

"This better be important, Petunia" he said sternly seeing Elizabeth stiffen at hearing her aunt's name.

"You!" she angrily growled while joining her grandfather in the visual field and Palpatine basked in her anger which made her delve deep into the dark side, but he held her back from destroying the transmitter as he sensed that they still needed it. After all Petunia must have a reason to contact him after all those years. Eying her niece verily Petunia said with wavering voice:" I… I… I'm sorry to disturb you, but, but Professor Dumbledore, from Hogwarts forced me to contact you. He wants to know if she is alright."

"Of course I'm alright! No thanks to you!" Elizabeth snarled in Basic and basked in the shuddering of her aunt.

Palpatine mentally smiled, but assuming that this Dumbledore was watching he scolded his little girl.

"Of course she is alright." Palpatine smiled using the face of the friendly elderly senator. Now was not the time to show his true power if he may still need the person from Hogwarts, where, if he remembered correctly, his daughter had learned magic. Magic, which he would need to eventually defeat his master.

The trip to Petunia had been enlightening. He had stood by and watched as she had contacted Lily's father with trembling hands.

An elderly, friendly looking man, who had seemed happy to see Petunia had appeared. But Dumbledore had been around enough "Purebloods" to see that this was a front. Elizabeth seemed to have severe anger management issues, but her Grandfather seemed to have her under control. Could he risk bringing her back to Hogwarts?

Petunia was terrified of the man and the little girl. Why? He had seen Lily's father in the "hologram" Petunia had called it, but it had sparked more questions than answers.

At least they knew that she would be invited to Hogwarts in a few years time and the elder man had seemed very enthusiastic, while the girl had scoffed. But apart from that he had not been able to find out more about her whereabouts. The means of contact had surprised him and he was sure that although the Muggles had some interesting technology, this seemed a bit beyond their skills.

He would not inform the Potters of this visit, but he desperately needed a way to get the control over Lily and her son back. It was for the common good.