Chapter Six: Explanations

Damien held his breath and slowly opened the door to the bedroom where his targets were sleeping. The Padawan moved slowly and silently into the room, thankful that the room was still dark enough to hide in the shadows despite the time being 6:30 in the morning.

He shifted to the side of the bed and stood, looking down at the two people lying peacefully entwined with one another, not knowing of their coming fate. He reached into a pocket of his pants and withdrew a small item. Before he could use it though, he found himself frozen in place, unable to move.

"Hmm, we have an intruder love" the male target said sleepily as Damien fought to free himself. He would not like the consequences of returning to the Council and saying that he'd failed in his mission.

"What should we do with him then?" his female target enquired of her husband. The first speaker shrugged before Damien found himself lifted in the air and then hovered over top of the bed.

"I suppose we could let him go, but he did interrupt us" came the amused sounding voice of his primary captor.

"Yes, well, lower him down here then and we can properly punish him for waking us up."

Damien was abruptly dropped onto the bed where he found himself pinned down and nimble fingers were suddenly tickling him, finding all his ticklish spots with unerring accuracy. Within a few minutes the thirteen year old was reduced to a limp giggling heap on the bed.

"Ah! Mercy!" he finally cried out. The tickling stopped but his captors looked at each other, considering his request.

"Should we stop?" one of them asked. The other shrugged. "He looks like he's had enough. Let him go."

Harry shrugged and then released Damien from the Force binds that had held him prisoner before pinning him down with one arm across his chest.

"Had fun Padawan?" he said with a grin.

Damien snorted. "I was supposed to prank you and Ginny and I failed. Master Windu and James will be disappointed, not to mention Master Kenobi."

Ginny laughed. "Did you think we were unaware of your presence Damien? We knew you were in the room from the moment you opened the door."

Damien stared at the woman that he secretly considered to be like his mother before asking, "H, how?"

Harry answered with a chuckle, "You need to practice shielding your Force presence more Damien. You shielded it well, but not quite well enough. Plus you shielded the bond which is a sure sign that you're either not well or you're up to something that you don't want me to know about."

Damien blushed; he hadn't known that he was that easy to read. Shaking his head Harry moved his arm, allowing Damien the chance to shift position from where he was trapped between Harry and Ginny. As he rose from the bed, Harry enquired, "Why exactly are you up this early anyway?"

"Because you promised that explanation today" Damien exclaimed. Harry looked at the time before looking at his apprentice incredulously and then unceremoniously dumped him off the bed and onto the floor.

"It's too early, go back to bed" he muttered before promptly rolling over and going back to sleep. Damien stared at him in disbelief before taking a chance with his life and climbing back on the bed, squirming up the middle and generally trying to keep Harry awake.

The roar of "DAMIEN KYRAL YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT!!!!" was heard up and down the corridor of the part of the Temple that housed Harry's apartment. James and Mace, along with Obi-Wan who were waiting outside to hear the outcome of the prank looked at each other and grinned, just before a disheveled Damien came running out the door at top speed, still in his pyjamas, and followed by several water balloons that were held aloft and in motion with the Force.

At their enquiring looks Damien shrugged and said, "He wanted to go back to sleep so I dropped several water balloons on both him and Ginny, and then on the bed itself."

James and Obi-Wan exchanged looks before choking on laughter at the mental image. The water balloons chasing Damien finally caught up to him and Damien sighed as he was rendered dripping wet.

"I'll see you later when Master Harry decides to finally give that explanation. He mentioned something about telling you lot as well" he said before moving towards the door. Just before he got there James said, "Tell Harry that it was our faults about the prank."

Damien shrugged and agreed before disappearing into the apartment. Four hours later, when all the occupants of the apartment were showered, dressed and fed, the meeting about the events of the night finally took place.

Harry, Ginny and Damien were sitting on the couch; Padme was sitting with Anakin on the opposite couch that Harry had absently conjured, while James, Lily and two Council members, namely Obi-Wan and Mace were sitting on other chairs grabbed from round the table that served part of the dining room. Once they were seated, Anakin started the meeting by telling them of his meetings with Palpatine.

"He seems very interested in turning me away from the Light side" Anakin commented at the end of the retelling. The senior Jedi scowled and Damien said, "Well he won't succeed though. He's got all of us standing in the way."

Chuckles greeted this statement and Anakin fondly ruffled Damien's hair to indignant growls from the Padawan. Damien waited until the chuckling had died down before turning to Harry.

"Master, you promised an explanation of why current events mirror the Umbridge situation when you were at Hogwarts" he said, his tone making it clear that he wanted the explanation now with no stalling. Harry raised an eyebrow at the tone but leant back in his seat and stared at the ceiling.

"Get the Pensieve" he requested. Damien jumped up and retrieved the bowl from where it lived, noting the silvery mass inside it. Harry had spent a few hours combing his memories of his fifth year to show Umbridge in as similar a light to Palpatine as possible, not that that was hard. Almost every memory was included, from the speech at the welcoming feast, to the educational decrees, to the end of the year and the inquisitorial squad. He hadn't got to bed till 1 am which was why he had been so unimpressed at Damien's early wake up call that morning.

The bowl was placed on the table and the group entered the memories. When they returned there was general shaking of heads at what Harry and Ginny had lived through and then Padme muttered, "There have been rumblings of new Constitutional Amendments being made, although nothing has come of them due to Palpatine's inability to make the Senate agree. Now though, with those new emergency powers of his, I don't know what's going to happen. They may very well come to pass."

"What about those that help to end the war? Won't they be beneficial?" Damien asked. Harry smiled sadly. "Maybe Damien, but the thing is Palpatine could turn from giving beneficial decrees to behaving like Umbridge, having decrees against anything he doesn't like. That could cause problems and push the Republic into a dictatorship rather than the democracy which has served us well for so long."

"And a dictatorship is a bad thing right?" Damien questioned. Emphatic head nodding from the adults present told him the answer before Padme gave him the verbal one.

"Yes Damien it is a bad thing, it would mean the loss of freedom for the galaxy's inhabitants. That is always a bad thing."

"How is the arguing I saw last night better though?" the Padawan asked. He was confused; he thought one person making decisions rather than the arguments was better. Harry shook his head. "The "arguing" as you put it Padawan, helps keep one person from making bad decisions. If a lot of people strongly oppose something then in a democratic system which is what the Republic is, it is likely that that issue won't become a reality. In a dictatorship, the leader, or dictator, can tell people that that is what will happen and they don't have any choice about it, even if it is something that is ultimately going to hurt them."

Damien still looked confused so Harry tried to clarify the matter by relating it to a concept that Damien understood. "Think of it this way, the Council decides together who to send on missions right?" A nod from Damien signaled his understanding so Harry continued, "If enough members disagree on the choice of who to send then a new team or person is chosen. That is democracy. If it were a dictatorship then either, hmm, it would either be Master Windu or Master Yoda, could tell the rest of the Council what to do and they wouldn't be able to argue. See the difference?"

Damien thought for a few minutes before he nodded. Harry nodded back and then smirked before leaning towards Damien and saying "If the people don't like what happens though they can rebel. Remember the pool incident?"

Damien looked at Harry in shock. The pool incident had been because Harry had been given a job he fundamentally disagreed with by Mace. He'd done it but had got back at Mace for making him do it. No one was quite sure how he'd done it but he'd managed to put enhanced green food colouring in the pond where Mace liked to swim occasionally. The pond was in the garden reserved for Masters and Mace was the only one that really used it regularly so Harry had been pretty sure of getting his intended target.

Harry took a look at his friends who were laughing hysterically. Technically it had been food colouring enhanced with a few spells to be long lasting, and it had been the work of Harry and James not just Harry but it was still funny. Mace was spluttering and vowing to find a suitable payback method.

Harry brought back the seriousness by saying, "Palpatine and his Constitutional Amendments, and Umbridge and her Educational Decrees. Is anyone else is getting a sense of déjà vu here?"

Ginny snuggled up to him before replying, "Yes Harry. You forgot to show our rebellion though. Go on, it might amuse them."

Harry thought for a moment before shrugging. "I'll use the memory movie spell though" he said, referring to the spell that James had used on the trip from Tatooine to Coruscant when James, Lily and Ginny first joined the Jedi Order. The rest of the group shrugged and then watched in amusement at the school-wide rebellion against the toad, as Harry referred to her. Once the memories were finished, Padme looked thoughtful.

"Any chance of that being useful here?" she finally commented. Ginny smirked. "I don't think portable swamps and wildfire whiz-bangs would work here Padme, but if you're referring to the rebellion part I suggest going through legal channels first. Try petitions to get him to see sense if he starts doing things you don't like. If those don't work then start making plans. Let's see what Palpatine uses these powers for before we actively start working against him."

Nods from the group signaled their agreement with the sentiment before Anakin stood up and headed for the door, his comlink vibrating with a message from the Chancellor's office. Saying farewell to everyone he headed off for yet another meeting with the guy he was coming to loathe while Harry and Damien prepared for their first mission together, as Mace had not only come for the explanation of the Senate decision but also to tell the pair that they were scheduled to leave for Adumar the following day to help quell a Separatist uprising.

The rest of the day for Harry and Damien was spent packing and researching the layout of the planet as they would need at least a cursory knowledge of the geography before heading into a battle. Harry was saddened by the fact that Damien's missions with him would more than likely be war related but it couldn't be helped at this point in time and it would give Damien practical battle experience that he couldn't get inside the Temple.

That night, several people stayed awake for most of the night. Anakin was turning over his latest meeting with the Chancellor and trying to analyse his possible plans, the Chancellor was trying to think of a way to break the still powerful bond between Harry and Anakin so he could have the Chosen One to himself, while Harry was wishing that he could keep Damien at the Temple, where it was safe, and then acknowledging ruefully that he was feeling what Dumbledore must have felt when it came to himself. Damien on the other hand, despite his excitement at finally getting to go on a mission fell asleep almost instantly.

Plots within plots, wheels within wheels, the war continued as the almost invisible web of deceit and darkness stretched over the giant chessboard that was the domain of a certain Sith Lord with various conflicts being played out over the galaxy, all drawing closer to what the Sith considered an inevitable conclusion. There was one thing standing in his way though, one anomaly that could disrupt the whole game.

Harry's scar twinged with pain as Sidious malevolently hissed "Potter!"

Author Note

Ok, some of you may have noticed alerts pertaining to my as yet unposted story Memoirs of a Dark Lord. I did begin to post it during the time that review/story alerts were down but then decided to remove it pending rewriting the first few chapters. I'm sorry if this caused any confusion but it now will not be posted until I'm a) happy with it and b) have totally finished with it. I will also be completely rewriting Chronicles of the Chosen One. The main premise of the story will be the same but it will be cleaned up and hopefully a better series than it currently is. I will be leaving the old series up until I have the revised series done, and then I will take down all the old series and repost the new one. You never know I might decide to turn it into one gigantic story rather than leave it at 7 separate ones, or 8 if you count the prequel. Let me know what you think of the two options, combining them all into one story or leaving it at 7 (or 8) separate ones. This time round I have a beta for it, Khadon who will help me keep it in the realms of the believable which I think I left at times when I first wrote the series. Given that it was my first attempt at fanfic, and the lessons I've learnt from WANP and DA I think I can change it to a much better story. Hopefully. Anyway, in order of importance my stories go, WANP, DA, Memoirs, Chronicles rewrite. Oh and there's a 4th story as well called Revolution which is more of an idea at present than an actual story. I've only got 1 chapter for that one and I'm not sure whether I'll scrap it, turn it into a completely different story or whatever. If anyone else wants to take it over, feel free to message me and I'll give you the rough outline I've got for it. Just tell me when you'll post it and the name of it should you decide to change it.

May the Force be with you

Padawan Lynne