Blasters and Wands, Chapter Five

Harry lost his grip on his mental shields, and found himself seeing through Voldemort's eyes. The man, well, thing now, was very unhappy.

"Fine. Since my followers have proven themselves incompetent, I will go to the ministry of magic myself. When I return, I will have the prophesy in hand. Wormtail!"

The sniveling coward trembled forward. "Y-yes my l-l-lord?"

Voldemort sneered. "I want you to sneak into the Ministry of magic and set a notice up on the board that the building is to be cleared from five A.M to six A.M. tomorrow."

"Y-y-y-yes m-my l-l-lord." Wormtail turned to leave.

Voldemort hissed. "Did I give you permission to leave wormtail? CRUCIO!"

Wormtail collapsed on the ground, screaming and twitching.

"Now get out of my sight you sniveling wretch!"

Wormtail bowed, and left.

"Good. Things are finally coming together."

Harry ripped himself from Tom's mind, shrieking.

Adali was at his side in a flash. "Harry, what's wrong, speak to me!"

Harry grimaced, and did some mental calculations. "I have a permanent mental connection to a dark lord on my home planet. He's planning something bad on my planet, and I have to be back by tomorrow, which means I have to leave in…" he looked at his chrono "an hour."

"Well, we'd best get packing then."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "We?"

Adali smirked. "Yes, WE. Can't have you hogging all the fun, now can we?"

"I'm serious. This guy is no pushover. In fact, even if I get there and manage to stop him, he'll probably leave only because I keep him from getting into the area he wants to go in the time limit he has, as opposed to me actually injuring him. And even if I do injure him, it'll be a long drawn out battle before I manage to do so."

Her face grew grim. "Well, if he's as bad as you say,"

"Oh, he is." Harry interjected.

"Then you'll need all the help you can get. And I intend to be there, helping you."

Harry smiled. "Well, thanks. But we need to get out of here. A Lambda class shuttle has a nice hyperdrive, that ought to do the trick."

"Sounds good, just let me get my stuff first."

"You're sure?"

"Quite. Now come on!"

As they ran back to where they had parked their speeder, Harry turned to Adali and said, "You know, this seems a bit anti-climactic. Eight months of stakeout, and the guy is finished by a body-bind charm and a blaster bolt, and we raid the man's corpse."

"Yeah, well, no one said it had to be a climactic lightsaber duel either, and if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not take a lightsaber through the head."

"Agreed."

Adali opened her mouth, said something about biomechanical limb replacements, and then ran smack-dab into the speeder. Harry almost fell over he was laughing so hard.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. But we only have forty minutes to get into hyperspace."

Harry instantly sobered up, and jumped into the pilots seat. Adali got into the passengers seat and strapped herself in.

"Let's see what this thing can do, eh?"

Harry responded with a grin. "Why Adali, we're pressed for time! I'm going to break any speed limit we come across, and if that means dangerous acrobatic maneuvers, then why we'll be doing those!"

"Sounds good to me!"

The speeder trip back to the newly rebuilt Jedi Temple was hair raising to say the least, but luckily Adali shared Harry's views on fast speeder rides.

"Well, that was exhilarating!"

"Yeah, bit scary if you're in the passenger seat, but was that loop the loop really necessary? " Adali asked, an amused tone in her voice.

"Well, now that you say it, no, it wasn't. So what? Life isn't life without a hair raising acrobatic maneuver or three."

Rushing into the temple, they ran all the way to the new council chambers, where Yoda, Sidious, Skywalker and Kenobi were talking.

Harry and Adali spoke in stereo, "Masters…"

Adali took over. "We got Kelan! Someone, we're guessing a victim of one of his crimes, shot him with a portable rocket launcher. He absorbed most of the blast with his lightsaber, but he jumped out a window after it, and we followed."

Harry cut in, "We split up, Adali found him, but he manged to get the jump on her, and had her trapped. I sunk after him under my invisibility cloak, hit him with a body bind charm, and placed a blaster bolt between his eyes." Most of the council winced at this, only Skywalker, or Vader in public, showed no sign of wincing, although that was mostly because of the suit, Harry supposed.

"After that, I received a vision. Masters, Voldemort is planning something. I have to get back to my planet in time to stop him, which means I have to be out of here in half of a standard hour."

Sidious spoke. "Yes, we'd been meaning to talk to you about that. Apparently, Tarkin found out about your planet, and decided to get in touch with Tom."

Harry's eyes widened. "Oh. Shi- great. So in addition to his usual army of evil creatures, we'll have to deal with storm troopers."

Kenobi winced. "Well, that and battle droids."

Harry's eyes widened. "Come again?"

"Battle droids. Tarkin found an abandoned factory on Geonosis and fired it up. He's turning out CIS weapons at an extraordinary rate, probably incase the stormtroopers decide that what he is doing is treason and he has to replace them."

Harry shook his head. "I can't worry about that now, I just have to get back to my planet and deal with Tom. I can deal with battle droids and their ilk later."

Skywalker spoke up. "Feel free to commandeer my shuttle, although I daresay you'll want your fighter."

"Harry's going up against a force that could tear him apart," Adali said, "and he needs all the help he can get, so I'm coming with him. Quite obviously, we can't both fit into his fighter, so we'll be commandeering your shuttle, Master Skywalker."

Every master blinked, well, Harry couldn't tell with Skywalker's mask, but he assumed he had blinked as well.

Kenobi was the one to express the general feeling of the council. "Well, that's… unexpected, to say the least. Might I ask why?"

"Partners don't abandon each other."

The council dismissed them, saying that troops were unable to help them, and they'd have to go it alone.

As they left, Adali looked at Harry and said, "Do you get the feeling they're testing us with this?"

"Of course! No troops, just ol' voldie and us. I can smell at test from miles away!"

With that… comforting knowledge in mind, they gathered what essentials they needed and departed for Earth.

On the long hyperspace trip, Harry thought back to what his master had told him about the species in the galaxy.

"There are many sentient species in the galaxy, my young apprentice, and humans are just a more common one. Many species have similar DNA to human DNA, leading to fertile offspring that are half human and half blank. Other species with similar roots, like the Duros and the Nemoidians can produce fertile offspring. Add that to the fact that with today's technology you could probably do just about anything with DNA, you could probably have a half Gran half Duro child." The galaxy was a complicated place.

After about thirteen hours, the alarm began beeping to kill the hyperdrive. Doing so, Harry switched on the cloaking device, and began to descend into the atmosphere. They landed in a secure area near the ministry visitor's entrance, and lowered the boarding ramp.

Harry checked to make sure his blaster pistol was set to blow-the-hell-out-of-anything-in-your-way mode, and that the lightsaber of Exar Kun was hidden in his cloak, and disembarked, followed by Adali.

"Stick close Adali," Harry murmured, "I don't like the feel of this."

"Agreed."

They crept over to the phone booth that housed the lift to the Ministry of Magic, cramming in. Harry would have been uncomfortable in any other circumstances, such as being crammed into the booth with Ron, but Adali's closeness seemed to make him want to just get the battle over with so he could snog her senseless.

Harry blinked, and wondered where that thought had come from. Then he remembered. 'Oh, wait. I'm a teenager. Goddamn hormones.'

Harry punched in the numbers 6-2-4-4-2 into the phone. A cool, female voice rang throughout the booth.

"Visitor to the ministry, please state your name and purpose at the ministry."

Adali answered. "Adali Niamara and Harry Potter, we're here to stop Voldemort from attaining whatever it is he wants to attain."

"Very well. Visitor, please take your badge and attach it to the front of your robes. You are required to submit your wands for inspection at the desk at the far end of the atrium."

Harry snorted. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, can we get on with this?"

Harry passed Adali her badge before he looked at his, and when he did, he let out a bark of laughter. The badge read:

Harry Potter

Futile Attempt to Stop He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named

From Attaining an Object He Wants.

The lift descended to the Atrium. Harry barely had time to marvel at the statue in the center before Adali pushed him to the far end, where they took their places. Harry heard the telltale crack of apparition, and ignited his lightsaber, noticing that Adali did so almost at the exact same time he did.

Now imagine you're Voldemort. You've had a reasonably good day, stripped the flesh off of several people who've failed you, and you're about to get the one object that will clarify just about everything that's happened since you've tried to kill the Potter boy.

You're expecting the building to be nice and clear so you can get in and out with no problems. So imagine Tom's surprise when he sees two people holding glowing green and blue sticks, blocking his way into the ministry.

Before the battle began, Harry couldn't resist one last crack.

"Visitor to the ministry, you are required to submit your wand for inspection at the desk at the far end of the atrium."

And then battle was joined.

The first thing Tom did was toss two killing curses their way, which were promptly blocked by lightsaber blades. Harry let loose a force lightning blast, which Tom absorbed by creating a large silver shield on his arm. The lightning hit the shield and made a loud gonging noise, but caused no physical damage.

Tom flicked his wand at Adali and she, caught unawares, was flung back to the area surrounding the visitor's entrance. She hit the wall beside the entrance, and slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Seeing her slam into the wall like that sparked a fire in Harry. Rage became clearly visible on his face, as his visage twisted into an expression of pure hatred. Dark side power crackled on his fingertips, begging to be used.

Harry unleashed a stream of force lightning so powerful it melted the shield Tom held up to block the lightning, and coursed through Tom's body. How long Harry held Tom under the lightning Harry didn't know, but eventually Tom managed to get a Killing Curse at Harry.

Harry put up his lightsaber to block, but underestimated the power of the curse. It hit the lightsaber blade full on, the influx of energy overloading the power cell and shutting the lightsaber off. The kinetic energy tore the lightsaber from Harry's hands and smashed him into the wall behind the desk.

Tom stood up, panting. "Impressive, Potter. A shame that such an impressive display of magic cannot save you, and without that blade you cannot block my killing curses. Avada Kedavra!"

Harry ignited the top blade of Exar Kun's lightaber, and blocked the curse, staggering to his feet. Several broken ribs ground against each other, and he held his left arm gingerly.

Tom blinked. "Impressive. I'm surprised you're even able to get up with such injuries."

Harry looked up at the thing with hatred, and decided to borrow a line from Anakin Skywalker. "You'll find I'm full of surprises."

"If I might ask, why did you not use that blade before?"

Harry shrugged, suppressing the wince the came because of the pain. "Well, the blade hasn't been used in god knows how long, probably over two millennia. I never did get the dates for that right."

Harry suddenly swapped the lightsaber to his left hand, ignoring the pain, and pulled out his blaster. Harry put a bolt into Tom's shoulder, his aim clearly impaired by the pain.

Tom snarled. "Foolish child, you dare to harm me!"

Harry swayed slightly on his feet. "Yes, yes I do."

Tom looked about to cast the Avada Kedavra again, when people began apparating in. He grimaced, and apparated out. Behind him, Fudge and several aurors stared in shock.

Fudge had been having a bad week. More and more people were starting to believe Dumbledore, and crying out for the, Fudge sneered, Boy-Who-Lived to be found. Fudge honestly didn't care if a dragon had eaten the boy, as he was causing an upset. So imagine how poor old fudgy-poo felt when he apparated into the ministry, hoping to get an early start on some paperwork, and found Harry Potter fighting he-who-must-not-be-named in the atrium.

Adali regained consciousness in time to see Harry shoot Tom. She tried to clear her head, but the stammerings of Fudge and the aurors about Voldemort didn't help. Her brain cleared up pretty fast when she saw Harry sway and collapse onto the ground after turning off the lightsaber.

Adali, already worried about Harry, shrieked, "Harry!" and ran over to him. Whatever Fudge and the aurors were expecting to see, it wasn't a blue teenage girl with prehensile head tails running across the atrium.

She kneeled down by Harry's prone form, lightly slapping him across the face a couple times to wake him up.

"Harry don't die on me, please."

Harry cracked his eyes open. "Don't worry Adali. It's only a couple of broken ribs. Well, and an arm. And some severe bruising, but a couple of days and some bacta, and I'll be fine."

Adali smiled tearfully. "Still the same old Harry at least. I don't think I can ask for any more than that."

She cradled his head in her lap, and Harry, exhausted from fighting and the amount of force lightning he used, succumbed to the pull of sleep.

Fudge approached, now that Harry, the only person known besides Dumbledore to have held his own in a duel against Voldemort was unconscious, and rudely asked Adali, "What are you?"

Adali glared at him. "I am a Twi'lek, not that it matters now. Call healers! Harry's in a bad state!"

Crumbling under the glare of Adali, Fudge yelled to his Aurors, "Call healers! Harry Potter's badly injured! And call Dumbledore too! No doubt he's wondering where Harry is!"

Harry woke up three days later, Harry woke in a hospital bed, with the faint odor of bacta hanging around. He also saw someone slumbering in a chair next to his bed. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed to be Adali. She was sleeping like a droid without a power cell, and if the tear streaks on her face were any indication, she was profoundly worried about him. She had a chair right next to his bed, and had apparently fallen asleep in it.

Harry gently stood up, thanking the doctors of wherever he was for having the sense to not take off his limbs. He set about collecting his belongings from around the room, and once he had done so, he sat down in a chair in the corner of the room, and waited.

He didn't have to wait for very long, as after ten minutes, a nurse strode in, bedecked in garishly purple robes. Her eyes widened in surprise at seeing Harry up and around, and then she remembered he was one of two people to have dueled Voldemort to a standstill, and lost any feeling of surprise she had.

"Well, Mr. Potter, how are you feeling?"

Harry's mouth quirked at the right corner. "Like I could kill an Acklay with my bare hands."

The nurse raised an eyebrow. "And an acklay would be…"

Harry groaned. He missed traveling. "Let's just say it's a dangerous beast, and leave it at that. Am I free to go?"

The nurse glanced at some charts she had on a clipboard. "Yes, you're free to go. That substance your, ah," she seemed to be hesitating between the words girlfriend and friend here, (Harry smirked in amusement, how he wished…) "friend brought back worked wonders, healed you right up. You probably want to wake your friend and go, so turn left in the corridor, and go down the stairs to the bottom. Check out at the main desk, floo is on the left."

Harry smiled, thanked her, and began trying to shake Adali awake. This was a difficult task, as she had somehow wedged herself deep into the confines of the very squishy chair in such a way that it was very hard to shake her. Harry somehow managed it by poking her in the shoulder until she woke up.

By the fifth poke, she jolted upright with her beloved lightsaber in hand. Harry jumped backward, well out of lightsaber range.

"Woah! Easy there, miss high-strung!"

Adali grinned sheepishly. "Sorry."

"s'alright. So…" They began walking down the corridor, "what did you tell them?"

"everything."

Harry blinked. "Everything?"

"Yes."

Harry laughed. "Well, at least it saves me the trouble of explaining everything to Ron and Hermione."

Adali raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Harry snorted. "You've clearly forgotten everything I've taught you about the wizarding press. They don't know the meaning of restraint."

The rounded the corner into the lobby, and were blinded by the flashbulbs of about thirty cameras.

Harry blinked once or twice, trying desperately to get the spots out of his eyes.

"Augggh! Stang it all! See what I mean Adali? We're in a hospital for crying out loud!"

He turned on the press, subjecting them to a glare almost worthy of a basilisk.

"Have you people no shame! We're in a hospital! You're disturbing the patients!"

When none of them moved, Harry gave them all a strong force-push.

At a display like that, they left, muttering, through the floo or apparition.

Harry turned to the receptionist, a fake smile plastered on his face.

"Harry Potter," he said through clenched teeth, "checking out."

The receptionist instantly brightened. "Oh, Mr. Potter, what an honor to meet you! I've always wanted to meet the man who felled the dark lord, I…"

She began to ramble. Harry held up his hand, dropping the fake smile. When that didn't stop her, Harry began developing a nervous tic in his right eye. Adali, ever watchful, noticed this almost immediately. Instead of helping him like Harry expected her to, she stuffed her fist into her mouth in a desperate, if futile, attempt not to laugh.

"Madam." Harry growled. When she didn't stop talking (further fuelling Adali's laughter) Harry said it again, louder. "Madam! I am just checking out. Kindly perform whatever tasks you have to perform, and be done with it!""

Adali abandoned all pretense of composure, and curled up on the floor, laughter shaking her thin frame. Harry rolled his eyes and stared at the chagrined receptionist.

"Yes sir, right away Mr. Potter."

Harry sighed in relief. "Thank you. Now Adali, if you have finished making a scene in the lobby of St. Mungo's, I think it's time we contacted the masters."

Adali composed herself quickly, a surprising feat for one who had been crying with mirth just seconds before. "Already done."

Harry blinked. "…Wow. You don't waste time, do you?"

"You were asleep for thirteen hours Harry. I was only asleep for three of them. Well, so far as I know."

Harry looked at his chrono. "Yup, you're right. Five o'clock is the time. Hey! It's Christmas Eve! We have to get to Diagon Alley at once!"

Harry pulled Adali along by her hand to the fireplace, with Adali wondering what in the force was going on.

AN: Well, Another chapter. Took me long enough, but there you are. Feel free to review, and don't get hit by a bus.

Update: For those of you that have been paying attention, this chapter appeared to end rather abruptly. This was not on purpose. Something made the chapter go screwy. As you can tell, it has been fixed.