Disclaimer: Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling. Star Wars is owned by Disney. I am neither a British woman nor an animated mouse. Thus I do not own nor do I claim ownership of either Harry Potter or Star Wars, and I am not profiting in any way through the writing and publication of this story.

Holocron

XIV

Friday, September 1, 1995

Harry was quietly reading his Transfiguration textbook while he waited for his friends to arrive at Platform 9 ¾ and join him in his compartment. He was always one of the first students to board the train since his relatives were still anxious to send him off to school as quickly as possible each year. Transfiguration wasn't really his favorite subject, but the reading helped pass the time.

He was suddenly shaken out of his thoughts by a thunderous presence that was storming its way through the Force. He leapt to his feet and his instincts screamed at him to draw his newly-fashioned lightsaber, but he recognized the presence that was coming, and realized that doing so would only make things worse.

Hermione was coming, and she was pissed.

That was not good.

"HARRY JAMES POTTER!" she roared as she burst into the compartment before slamming the door shut behind her. She reached back and swung her arm forward, slapping him hard across the face. "Do you have any idea what you put me through this summer?! Do you?!"

"Hermione—" he tried to interrupt her but failed.

"Of all the stupid, hair-brained, imbecilic things to do! How could you run off like that?!"

"Hermione—"

"Dumbledore was going spare trying to find you after you slipped away from your guards! And no one had any idea where you went! And did you think of maybe letting me know what you were doing? NO! Of course not! Harry Bloody Potter can't be bothered to let his best friends know that he's running off like an idiot!"

"Hermione—"

"I'd expect an immature stunt like this from Ron, but I thought you knew better! The only reason you're still breathing right now is that I could sense that you were alive and unhurt!"

"Hermione!"

"WHAT?!"

"Hermione, you're angry."

"Of course I'm bloody angry! Caught on to that, did you?!"

"No, Hermione… listen to me. You're. Angry."

"Are you trying to make me angrier, Harry? Because you're doing a marvelous job so far!"

"Think, Hermione! You're right of course, I'm a complete idiot. I'll let you beat me to a pulp in just a second, but please, you've got to calm down. You know better than this! I know that I deserve your anger, but you don't deserve what it's going to do to you! You're a Jedi! You know what this will lead to if you let it control you!"

Hermione snapped her mouth shut, cutting off whatever she was about to say next. She glared at him for a long moment and exhaled a long breath through her nose.

"Bloody Harry Potter always being bloody right…" she grumbled as she closed her eyes.

Her body visibly trembled as Harry felt her embrace the Force and release her anger into it. She lingered in the meditation for a long moment, calming herself and bringing her emotions under control before she opened her eyes once again.

"Better?" Harry asked.

"Quite," she replied.

Harry slowly sat down and Hermione did likewise on the seat across from him.

"I'm sorry I slapped you," she said after a long, quiet moment.

"S'okay," Harry answered as he lifted a hand to rub against his stinging cheek. "I deserved it."

"Yes you did. But you're right. I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have let my anger get such a strong hold on me. I'm normally better than that. I thought I knew myself better than that."

"We all make mistakes every once in a while."

"Yes, but we can't afford to make mistakes that could lead to the dark side. I didn't even realize how close I was getting…"

"But you didn't," Harry said. "You stopped yourself in time. That's what matters."

"You stopped me."

"Friends don't let friends fall to the dark side."

Hermione smirked at that.

"You're still a prat of a friend for what you did this summer."

"Yeah… I didn't quite expect my… errand to take that long…"

"Errand? Harry, you were missing for a month."

The compartment door slid open and Ron stuck his head in.

"Am I interrupting something?" he asked.

"Come on in, you," Hermione answered. "We were just discussing what a bloody prat Harry has been over the summer."

"Hermione!" Ron laughed. "Language!"

The witch in question dramatically stuck her nose up in the air.

"My choice of language is entirely appropriate to the context."

Ron turned to look at Harry while he sat next to the brunette witch.

"You've really bollocksed it up this time, mate, if Hermione thinks swearing is warranted."

"She's probably right," Harry replied.

"So what are we laying into the Boy-Who-Lived for, then?"

"His amazing disappearing act that he pulled over the summer."

"Oh right," Ron said. "Yeah, me mum went right spare when Dumbledore flooed looking for you."

Hermione nodded in what Harry took for agreement with Mrs. Weasley's reaction.

"So where did you run off to?" Ron asked.

"Well, err… The Force kind of had a… quest… for me."

"The Force is giving out quests now?" Ron asked with a smile.

"Shush, Ronald," Hermione admonished him, "or I'll slap you too."

"She bloody slapped you?!"

"That's not important right now," Hermione quickly answered. "You were saying, Harry?"

"Right. Well, you both know what happened in June." Harry's two friends nodded. "Well, it seemed like it was time for me to step things up to the next level. If Voldemort's gonna come after me, I've got to be able to defend myself. And I'll never be able to match him with a wand, so I'll have to do it as a Jedi."

Hermione raised one questioning eyebrow at him.

"So, what does that mean?" Ron asked.

"Hermione? Can you ensure us some privacy?" Harry asked.

She regarded him for another moment before she drew her wand and cast several spells at the door, locking it, silencing it, sealing it, and tinting the windows until they were completely black.

"Right then," Harry said as he stood up. "I'm going to defend myself with this."

He summoned his lightsaber with the Force and it flew out from under his robes and into his waiting hand.

"What's that?" Ron asked, "one of them, what are they called? 'Lectrick torchies'?"

Harry didn't respond, instead he just thumbed the activation switch. The blue energy-blade burst into existence with its sharp snap-hiss. He spun it around in a couple of careful circles and let the weapon thrum as it cut through the air.

"This is a lightsaber," Harry proclaimed to his shocked friends. "It's the traditional weapon of the Jedi. Armed with these, they were able to keep the peace throughout the galaxy for thousands of generations."

"Bloody hell!" Ron shouted.

"Language…" Hermione absentmindedly admonished.

"Oh, now we're worried about language?!" Ron replied. "Harry's got himself a bloody magic sword and it doesn't deserve even a little bit of swearing?!"

Hermione hesitated for a second before replying.

"Fine," she eventually said. "But no more."

Harry chuckled.

"Anyways," he said, "like I was saying, this is a lightsaber. The blade can supposedly cut through just about anything. And it has so far on everything I've tested it with. Went right through a steel bar like it was nothing."

"Wow," Hermione said. "The strongest Cutting Curses have difficulty getting through hard metals like that."

Harry smiled.

"Yeah, and it can apparently do more too. But I've still got more testing to do with it."

"Why didn't you tell us about these things before?!" Ron nearly cried. "We could've been learning how to use those things this whole time!"

"What do you think we've been learning?" Hermione answered while Harry could see the wheels spinning in her head. "You didn't think we spent so much time swatting at acorns with our staffs for nothing, did you?"

"That was lightsaber training?"

"Yep." Harry answered.

"Huh."

Harry released the activation switch and the blade shrank back into the hilt. He moved to reattach it to his belt, but Hermione stood and stretched out her hand.

"May I?"

Harry gave her a playfully questioning look.

"You owe me, Potter."

"Indeed I do," he replied as he handed it over.

Hermione immediately drew in a sharp breath.

"Harry!" she cried, "Oh my! That's—! Did you…? It feels just like you! It's like it's part of your Force-presence!"

Harry smiled.

"It is."

"But how?"

"Well, that gets back to me being such a prat over the summer. In order to build a lightsaber, a Jedi needs to go on a sort of Force-quest to find the most important part, the kyber crystal. At the heart of every lightsaber is one of these Force-sensitive crystals, and the crystal needs to be… well, maybe attuned? Or bonded to the Jedi? I'm not really sure of the right word. But it's like how Mr. Ollivander described wands—"

"As in, 'The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Weasley'?" Ron asked, managing to do a decent impersonation of old Ollivander in the process.

"Exactly," Harry replied. "Ten points to Gryffindor, Mr. Weasley."

The snap-hiss and electric thrum once again filled the compartment as Hermione activated the saber.

"This is amazing…" Hermione murmured as she gave it a few careful swings. "I've never seen anything even remotely like it."

"Give it here, woman!" Ron playfully demanded.

"Watch it, you!" she responded. "I'm sure this would have no trouble cutting through a Weasley, no matter how dense you are!" But she deactivated it and handed it over nonetheless.

"Oh har har," Ron said as he took his turn inspecting the lightsaber.

Eventually, he finished and the saber was once again tucked away beneath Harry's robes.

"So, you pulled your disappearing act so you could go off in search of the crystal you needed?" Hermione asked.

"Yep," Harry answered.

"Why did it take so long?"

"I've no idea, really. I just followed the will of the Force until it lead me to the crystals. Probably the only bunch of them on the whole planet…"

"Really?"

"Yeah. Still, I don't know why it took so long. I was on my Nimbus the whole time. After I found them, it only took me about four hours to fly back home. I don't know why the Force led me around in circles for a whole month to get there."

"Well that only leaves one question," Ron stated.

"What's that?"

"When you gonna show us how to make ours?"

Harry smirked at him.

"You think McGonagall will let you skive off school for a month?"

"Shite…"

"Language!"

OoOoO

OoOoO

Saturday, January 13, 1996

Seamus Finnigan threw his copy of the Daily Prophet down on the table in front of him in disgust. He was sitting with Dean in a corner of the Gryffindor common room while the other boy finished his homework. There were only a few of their housemates around at the moment. Ron and Lavender were sounding like they were getting into another argument on the couch in front of the fire. Ginny was chatting with a few of her friends near one of the other couches. And Romilda was over with some fourth-years by the windows. But other than that, the room was pretty empty.

"I still can't believe it," he said aloud.

"Believe what?" Dean absentmindedly asked.

"What do you mean, 'what'? Azkaban! You-Know-Who breaks his bleedin' followers out and you act like there's nothin' going on!"

"Calm down, mate," Dean responded without looking up from his essay.

"You're a bugger," Seamus answered.

"Yeah, well, your mum would know all about that."

"Oi! You leave me mam out of this, you little—"

But whatever he was going to say next was interrupted by the shouting from near the fireplace.

"What's it going to take for you to understand, Ron?!" Lavender yelled.

"Come on, Lav," Ron answered, "you know you liked it!"

"That has nothing to do with it! It was a mistake! I don't know why I was okay with it before, but I shouldn't have said yes!"

Seamus along with the others that were in the common room were now all shamelessly staring at the argument that was unfolding before them. Good entertainment was hard to find after all.

Lavender looked really worked up, he thought. She looked like she was ready to break out into angry tears at any moment. Ron would do well to shut his hole before he got hexed something painful.

"Don't be like that…" Ron said.

"No, Ron! You're not listening!" Lavender shouted. "You never listen! I told you it's not going to happen again! I'm sorry. But I was confused. I don't know what came over me last time. But it's not happening again and that's all there is to it!"

"You're not making any sense! All I want is to—"

"I bloody well know what it is you want, Ronald Bilius Weasley!" she yelled as her tears ran down her cheeks. "It's the same thing that you pigs always want! It was a mistake, okay? I don't know what came over me, but I'm just not ready for that. Stop trying to convince me otherwise!"

"I don't know why you're being such a bloody bitch about it…"

The loud smack of Lavender slapping Ron across the face reverberated through the silent common room.

"Weasley!" she tearfully shouted. "You are the single biggest asshole that has ever stepped foot inside Hogwarts! That's the last time I'm ever going to touch you and I'll see to it that no other witch is dumb enough to make the same mistakes I did either! We're through!"

She turned and fled from the common room and up the girls' staircase.

Ron just stared after her for a moment before he realized that the argument had drawn quite a bit of attention. He glared at everyone in the room, obviously furious.

Seamus was wondering what the berk would say to defend himself, but Ginny ran up to him and practically dragged the git out into the corridors.

Good. Seamus thought. He knew that the fiery witch had a sharp tongue and was quick with her wand. Maybe she could curse some sense into her older brother.

"I wonder what that was about," Seamus asked.

"Dunno," Dean responded. "You think Weasley actually managed to get into Lav's pants?"

"Nah," Seamus answered. "Not a bloody chance."

"Either way, doesn't look like he'll be anywhere close to her after this."

"Nope."

"I hope Ginny tears him a new one. Just not right to treat a girl like that."

"Oh, like you're such a gentleman, Thomas."

"Shut it, Finnigan."

Dean went back to his essay and left Seamus to his thoughts. He smiled.

Looks like Lav's gonna be looking for a rebound…

OoOoO

OoOoO

Later that night, Harry found that sleep was eluding him.

Ron had been surly when he finally came up to the dorm, mumbling about problems with Lavender. Harry hoped that they'd finally broken things off. He had no idea why they'd stayed together as long as they had after the Yule Ball – they had absolutely nothing in common.

Not that he had any experience in dating himself, what with his one date, and that had been with Hermione. He supposed that he just didn't understand why other people did the things they did.

He tossed and turned for another moment, but eventually gave up on getting any rest. The Force was agitated, and he wouldn't find any relief until he spent some time in meditation. He couldn't do it in the dorm, though, his roommates were all snoring away and he didn't want to wake them with the inevitable whirlwind.

So he trudged down to the common room and was relieved to find it empty. He sat down on the floor and closed his eyes, reaching out into the Force with his senses.

He felt the agitation right away. It was like a new, boiling layer on top of the familiar, old disturbance that had been present in the Force for years now.

Voldemort, he thought to himself. It has to be. The disturbance had to've started with his preparations to return, and now that he's freed more of his Death Eaters, it's only getting worse.

Harry deepened his foray into the Force, searching for meaning or understanding or whatever the Energy that bound all things together desired to show him. He let himself drift in the steady current until all other sensation left him.

Everything went dark.

All went quiet.

There was only the Force.

And then there was a sharp snap-hiss!

A glowing, red blade flashed before his mind's eye for an instant and the Force screamed in agony.

The electric hum cut through the air and filled his mind with pain and death.

And then there was another snap-hiss and a second thrum was added to the darkness.

They clashed together in fury.

There were bursts of static and flashes of light.

Palpable hatred went to war, hell-bent on destroying everything before it.

Bright sparks exploded from the angry clashes of sizzling blades.

Harry opened his eyes and saw the familiar common room.

Another vision.

Voldemort. It had to be Voldemort.

Harry needed to prepare more. If Voldemort made himself capable of something like that…

He needed to talk to Ron and Hermione. And probably Dumbledore. They had a lot of work to do.

AN: Thoughts?

Thanks for your reviews, and thanks for reading!