Harry Potter and the Force Awakens
by Roff
CHAPTER THREE
"You have done well in just two years, my apprentice. I imagine it has a lot to do with your magical training from such a young age. Plus, there is no doubt you are powerful with an amazing connection to the Force. Let's begin shall we?"
With that, Bane began to educate Harry in his own way about the Force. Harry realized at times that Bane was a bit biased when it came to using negative emotions to augment his Force power. Harry had no trouble using emotions to get better results, he just wasn't agreeable with Bane's political views and refused to get lost in those emotions, especially anger and rage. Harry knew how to use them, but he then let them go easily when they were no longer needed.
One of the first abilities Harry asked to learn was Force Telepathy. He wanted to be able to understand Z3 and to be able to learn languages using the Force. Bane obliged but quickly got Harry back on using the lightsaber. After all, that was the one area he needed the most work.
He had Harry use it with one blade and then two to see which style he preferred. In the end, Harry could use it either way but he had a slight edge when using both blades. That was mostly due to his expertise in using a quarter staff when training in Krav Maga.
After training all afternoon, evening, and the next morning, Harry and Jojo had lunch then prepared to go on their trip. Once they had everything ready and Harry explained to Bane what was going on just before he packed him away, they walked out the front door so Harry could turn on some special wards.
Turning, Harry picked up a small rock and tapped it with his wand. The rock glowed blue for a second.
"I'm going by portkey, Jojo. I'll call you after I arrive."
Jojo just nodded.
With another tap on the rock, Harry disappeared. A moment later Jojo heard Harry call and followed after.
When Jojo arrived, he appeared inside some sort of large metal thing, he was thinking. He looked around nervously.
"It's alright, Jojo. I'll explain everything in a minute," Harry assured him.
"You're back!" exclaimed D4 in English. "Who is this you have with you?" he asked looking at Jojo.
"D4, I would like you to meet my house elf, Jojo."
Jojo just bowed to the droid.
"Jojo," D4 greeted him.
Z3 came over and Harry introduced them too. Z3 was pleased when Harry understood him and translated for Jojo.
"Jojo's one of those magical species native to my planet," explained Harry. "They typically bond to a family, a house, or a person in servitude. They love to work and maintain their magic through the bond. Jojo bonded to me when he was just one year old. His parents had been killed and I rescued him. He's still young for a house elf, so he will need to stay with me."
"It is nice that you have joined us, Jojo," stated D4.
"Jojo, this is a space ship," instructed Harry. "You can clean it but make sure you don't change anything or do anything that messes with the instruments or wiring of the ship. They will be flying in this ship to a different planet. It needs to continue to work as it was designed to do."
With a salute to his master, Jojo walked off excitedly to explore the ship.
"He will obey my order without question because of our magical bond. It's also in his DNA."
The droids just turned and watched the little elf walk away to explore. They were quite curious about him.
Harry decided to return to the facility and see what he could figure out.
Turns out the facility was a scientific station placed there over two thousand years ago so they could study the inhabitants of Earth and learn their languages. Earth was off by itself, located in the western area of the galaxy, at one of the farthest reaches, which was part of the Unknown Regions. The scientists didn't feel the people of Earth were ready to be exposed yet to advanced technology. They were still too primitive and fought among themselves way too much. It was believed that a planet's population needed to come together more to participate in the greater galaxy of planets and the Galactic Republic.
The Republic visited the station rarely, letting time pass so they could see how Earth was progressing over long periods of time. It had been almost a hundred years since their last visit but they received electronic updates from the station whenever anything major was reported in the news. They also managed to update the technology at the station on each visit over the years.
They were pleased when the people of Earth were able to get out of their own atmosphere for the first time and even when they were able to put a man on their moon in July of 1969. They were also aware of the failed launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. These were great milestones in Earth's technological advancement. They just needed more time before they would be ready.
Harry had gone down to the facility and checked out more of it since he could now read what was written and learn properly. If he had problems understanding any of the technology then he would ask D4 or Z3 for some help. Then he found some training programs that worked like the language ones. It basically placed all the knowledge in your brain in a way for you to know it when needed.
There were many training programs that helped him understand the new technology, how the computers worked, how ships worked, sublight speeds, hyper speeds, hyperdrive engines, hyper lanes, and many of the other advanced technology used in this new world. There were even educational programs to teach all the basic subjects like math and science. Harry learned quickly but he always spent time with Bane's holocron every day to learn more about the Force and how to use the lightsaber.
After three days of good meals cooked by Jojo and lots of learning and training, Harry decided to check on the droids. Jojo had started using the facilities kitchen since it was bigger. He occasionally popped back to the Potter manor to grab something. He also went up to visit the droids in the ship sometimes. They enjoyed the little elf.
Harry had put Jojo in the chair and had him learn Galactic Basic right after he arrived in the facility. Now they were all using the same language.
When Harry checked on the droids, he found that the ship had been moved a little. Turns out the cave had fuel in another section of it. Once they got a little in the ship, just enough to move it, Z3 moved it next to the station so the hose would reach and it could be filled up all the way.
Harry asked them why they had not been able to leave yet.
"We realized how long we have been gone," answered D4, "so much has likely changed in our absence. Now, we believe we are more obligated to you, Harry. We decided to stay until you are ready to go with us."
"Go with you?" he asked with incredulity.
D4 and Z3 nodded knowingly.
Realizing he had nothing that was keeping him here on his own planet, he replied, "I will endeavor to learn quickly then."
A year later, Harry was sitting down in the pilot's seat of the ship, ready to go on an adventure to another world. He had taken lessons in the facility so was fairly confident in his ability to fly the ship. He also had Z3 to help him when needed.
The day before, Harry had been back at his manor where he wrote a note to Kurlig, his account manager. He explained that he would be gone for years and would be out of touch during that time. He instructed Kurlig to continue increasing his finances as best he could while he was away and then informed him that his home would be on lockdown. Next, he called one of the owls that lived on the property to deliver the note for him.
After the owl was on his way, Harry checked around for anything he might have missed that needed to go with him then activated the house stasis charm. After he was assured he had everything, he then stepped outside the front door. Jojo was waiting there for him. Raising the Elder wand, Harry cast the secret Potter family spell to lockdown the manor and activate the full defenses. Only a Potter or Potter descendent with Potter blood would be able to unlock it.
When the final maintenance was done on the ship and nighttime had fallen so they could leave without being seen, Harry sat down in the pilot's seat ready to go.
It was no surprise that Harry was now fluent in many languages. After Bane had taught him Force Telepathy, he not only taught Harry the sub-ability to comprehend speech, he taught him how to pull languages out of people's minds so he could learn them in seconds using the Force. Harry then went on trips to different countries and practiced using that ability to learn their languages. He became very proficient at it.
Harry used Force Cloak to hide the ship, then sitting in the cockpit with Z3 helping him, he took the ship out of the cave and into the atmosphere. He loved every minute of it. Flying was definitely one of his favorite things.
It was quite a sight to behold, especially when they exited the atmosphere and out into space. It was a first time experience that Harry and Jojo would never forget. The ship then picked up more speed after Z3 entered the coordinates into the NaviComputer.
Harry had told them that one of his favorite past times was flying on a broom, so they understood his joy of flying. Of course, Harry had to describe the broom too. Eventually, he showed them a broom he brought with him. It wasn't his Firebolt he brought. No, that one was hanging up in his manor as a decoration under a strong Stasis Charm. Sirius bought that for him and he wanted to keep it in good shape as a memento.
The broom Harry showed them was the next one in line after the Firebolt. It was called the Lightningbolt and was somewhat named after Harry. It was even faster than the Firebolt with better handling. It was given to Harry as a gift from the broom company and they even monogramed it for him. He had many additional brooms he brought with him. They were all stored at the moment. Most of the Quidditch teams tried to get him to play for them and nearly everyone sent him a new broom as an incentive, but Harry was not interested in any additional attention by his fans. Not to mention, he wasn't in the mood back then.
While travelling, D4 explained to Harry more about hyperspace lanes and the ship's hyperdrive. You just needed the lanes in order to take advantage of the speed, he explained. Without the lanes then you were subject to sublight speeds. The ship they were in was a modified VCX-100 Light Freighter.
The ship had two powerful main engines and two secondary engines. The hyperdrive was a Class 2.0 originally but had been upgraded to a Class 0.5. The Class 2.0 hyperdrive was now being used for a backup. It was 43.9 meters in length, 34.2 meters in width, and 14.5 meters in height. It was equipped with 1 dorsal laser canon turret, 1 nose laser canon turret, 1 Taim & Bak MS-2B twin laser canon, 1 Taim & Bak KX4 dorsal laser turret, and 2 proton torpedo launchers. It was also complemented with a VCX-series auxiliary starfighter.
Another modification was to make the ship faster at sublight since they knew the trip was going to be a bit longer and hyperspace was not always going to be available. They were basically able to double the speed. The ship had plenty of armaments and firepower that was native to it, so was okay there. It could also handle 6 passengers which was more than enough for what they needed.
The cargo bay was just big enough for Harry's training but the starfighter took up some of the room. Harry got some ideas on how to increase the size to make it even better. He was going to have to use that copy of the Potter library he brought with him in an expanded trunk. He just needed to look up a few things then he would be able to do it.
He wasn't worried anymore about magic interfering with the technology. From all his studies, he discovered that the technology they used was far more advanced than anything on Earth. All of it was heavily protected from magic or in this case, the Force. The Force and Magic were the same thing, they were just used differently, so this advanced civilization knew to protect all their advanced technology from it.
By the time they were two days into their journey, Harry had the cargo bay expanded to five times its size in all directions. This allowed him to use his Force powers more extensively. Bane was quite impressed with that ability and the droids were confused since it was illogical. However, Jojo appreciated having more to clean. He had the whole ship sparkling as it was.
The other thing Bane was impressed with was Harry's use of wards to protect the ship's walls from damage. While learning about the Force and how to use a lightsaber, Harry spent some time with Bane explaining more about magic and the differences between it and the Force. Harry also showed Bane some more magic. Transfiguration was the most exciting for him, especially when it came to conjuration. He was very impressed with that.
Harry showed Bane his wand and explained how most magic users depended on it as a focus to do any magic. Apparently, you had to be extremely powerful to perform magic wandlessly. However, since he added the Force, Harry noted he could do wandless magic just fine, since he supplemented his magic with the Force.
Bane went over the normal rules for an apprentice in the Sith Order early on in Harry's training, then explained how he would be relaxing them while working with Harry. The main reason was Harry was already a 22 year old adult, 23 now, and he had learned a lot on his own already. This likely had to do with his mastery of magic and his close connection with the Force.
Plus, since Bane was teaching Harry all about the Force and Harry was teaching Bane all about magic, they decided to forgo the title of master for either one. Bane was also growing quite fond of Harry and saw great potential in him as an apprentice with amazing extra abilities. It was exciting to see the young man learn things so quickly. He really did have a very strong connection to the Force and an uncanny ability with the practical side of it.
The only problem Bane had with Harry was his lack of a dark side. He wished he could get him to succumb to the dark but the young man had an amazing ability with controlling his emotions. If he wanted to get angry he would. He just never allowed it to turn him dark.
Harry's martial arts training and prowess with a sword allowed him to pick up the lightsaber fairly quickly. Bane loved to make him fight several training remotes all at the same time. They would zap him if he missed blocking any of their attacks.
He started with one but after a couple of months in that facility, he was having to fight as many as twenty at the same time. Having the extra room in the cargo hold also helped in that regard. He had more room to get away from those blasted things.
Harry had not learned all the different Lightsaber forms yet but he was working on it. Bane was noticing that occasionally Harry would show glimpses of his own style emerging. Normally, Jedi and Sith learned the seven forms, or most of them, until they were mastered. Then they incorporated the different forms together depending on the situation or, in some cases, there expertise in a certain style or styles.
Not all Force users were great swordsman. Some managed just a few styles or only one and managed with that. However, the really good ones with a lightsaber not only learned all the forms, they developed their own style using a combination of the seven.
On rare occasions, you ran across those few who could develop their own personal style that was separate from the known forms, but was often used in conjunction with the forms. Harry was shaping up to be one of those.
However, it was his strong force abilities and magic that would really give him the edge over opponents.
He was super quick, his connection with the Force was amazing, and along with that Krav Maga martial art he mastered, it all combined to be the likely cause of his innate skill, at least that's what Bane believed. Harry also moved naturally and fluidly. He flowed like water from one movement to the next and he appeared to move into the next stance as if it was the most natural thing to do.
At this rate, Bane was wondering if Harry would complete his initial lightsaber training by the time their trip was over. If not, then he wouldn't take much longer. He was a natural and spent nearly every waking hour working on it, constantly improving on what he already knew.
He never saw Harry make the same mistake twice. Bane would point out the mistake, Harry would correct it, and then Bane never saw the mistake again. If only he could have trained an apprentice like that when he was alive, Bane thought to himself.
Once past the initial phase and after he has learned all the basics of all the forms as if it's second nature, then he will be able to start learning more on his own and developing his own style more. Plus, there's a lot he would be able to do with that double-bladed lightsaber.
Since Harry was the only live human on the ship, the Captain's quarters were given to him to sleep in and stow his things. When he got a chance, one of the first things he did was pull out a matchbox sized wooden object. He then tapped it twice and it expanded into a large armoire. He put it up against the only blank wall in his quarters.
Next, he opened the tall door on one side and stepped inside.
Harry brought his special armoire along because it had everything he needed. He bought it at the same shop in Diagon Alley where you buy trunks. The armoire was something new the shop owner was offering but it was very expensive. This was not a problem for Harry and he thought it might come in handy someday. It had everything you could want in a piece of furniture.
It had seven good sized drawers on the left side going from top to bottom. On the right side it contained a door that also went from top to bottom. However, when you opened the door you could step into an entryway that then opened up into a very large house or manor with everything you could ever want in a place to live as a witch or wizard.
It contained both a formal lounge and an informal one. A large restaurant style kitchen with a kitchen table in the nook of a window that showed a nice green back garden outside with a picket fence and a large meadow beyond with mountains and some woods in the far background. It also contained a large formal dining room for whenever you had guests.
There was a massive library that contained a copy of all the books from the Potter library, except for a few old manuscripts. Next to it was a good sized office with a nice, large wooden desk and padded executive chair to go with it. Downstairs in the basement, there was an expanded training room for magic and melee fighting with an impressive, fully stocked potions lab off to the side of it.
It contained five bedrooms upstairs – one master and four guest rooms. The master was almost as nice as the one he had at Potter Place. It had a king sized four-poster bed with matching bedside tables with lamps and large walk-in closets. The bedroom also had other furniture for sitting, plus French doors that opened up onto a balcony that viewed the back garden.
Harry had fully furnished the armoire himself after he bought it. It also had a control feature for the runes to resize and customize the rooms as needed. The nicest feature though was what you saw and could fully use when you exited the back door that was next to the kitchen. The back garden was real, along with the meadows, the woods, the streams, and the mountains. The weather was also changeable for the outside but it's default setting was a pleasant, sunny day. There was even a hammock in the back garden, hung between two large elm trees.
The armoire could not be moved or locked from the outside by anyone but Harry. It was also charmed against damage and wear and tear.
After he showed Bane and the droids the armoire, they could not believe what they were seeing. Turns out the magical outdoors was just what Bane and Harry needed to get a break from the monotony of space travel, although Bane sometimes went back into his holocron to do something else. They even used the armoire on occasion for training when the wide open spaces came in handy.
Jojo had brought a lot of food along so did some cooking in the kitchen or Harry did whenever the two of them were hungry. They, of course, were the only ones on the ship that needed to eat.
It took almost eight weeks to reach their destination, but they finally did. The only problem is they had to choose a different destination. The droids were complaining about the Jedi Temple not responding on Coruscant and then they got excited and worried when they realized something called the First Order had taken over everything.
As they researched what they could find in all the information that was available, they discovered that the First Order wasn't the first ones to take over while they were gone. The Sith had somehow popped up seemingly out of nowhere and slaughtered nearly all the Jedi using clones and a very powerful Sith, Darth Vader, who chased them down and killed them. The Galactic Empire was then formed with Darth Sidious as the Emperor. However, once Darth Sidious was defeated along with his apprentice Darth Vader, the Empire basically fell apart.
The First Order then developed out of the ashes of the Empire stepping in to take over the operation with Supreme Leader Snoke at the head. The First Order was even using the same ships the Empire used.
Since Coruscant was now not a good place to go, the droids re-routed to a different destination that they were counting on still being neutral to either side in any war. The new destination was the planet Takodana. There they would find Maz Kanata's castle, a watering hole full of interesting clientele. The droids were hoping it was still there and still operating.
Maz was a humanoid species who lived for centuries and could always be counted on for good information. Right now the droids had no idea where they were supposed to go. And, if the droids didn't know then Harry certainly didn't.
The planet looked a lot like Earth although it was more of a mixture of equal land and water instead of large oceans and mostly large continents like on Earth.
When they reached the castle, Harry landed the ship way off to the side away from everything and far from where other ships were parked. He then cast a strong Disillusionment charm on their ship to help hide it. They then made their way to the castle. Harry started to suggest that Jojo stay with the ship for now, but changed his mind and had him tag along so he could see more of this new world for himself.
Jojo, of course, was always happy to go wherever Harry went.
They entered through the front door of the castle and was immediately surprised at the amount of creatures, not to mention the variety, that inhabited the place. Both Harry and Jojo had seen many strange magical creatures on their world back home but the beings in this place were as odd and different as any could imagine. What was even more interesting was that they were all sentient beings of higher intelligence, just like humans were on Earth.
It also looked like nearly everyone in the place was armed with a weapon.
Nearly all of them in the place turned and looked at Harry when he entered. They noticed his lightsaber through his open coat but he didn't dress like anyone from the First Order or anyone else they could think of. Harry was dressed in black dragon hide boots that came up to just below his knees, black dragon hide trousers, a charcoal gray shirt, and a black dragon hide coat that hung past his knees.
They figured he was likely a bounty hunter if he was coming to this place. They also noticed his droids and the small creature that followed meekly behind him.
Harry heard Galactic Basic mostly being spoken but some were speaking in their native tongues. D4 spotted Maz but she was busy at a table with some people talking. D4 pointed out who Maz was to Harry so he would know her by sight.
Maz was very short with goggle type glasses on her face. Even though she was small, she had a strong presence about her. Harry then looked at the people she was talking to. They looked to be human in this sea of non-human oddness.
There was an older white gentleman, a young white woman who had a very pretty face, and a young black man sitting there with Maz. He also noticed a round white and tan droid that was with them. It appeared to roll its body like a ball when it moved around.
Harry found a table for himself and Jojo, then they both sat down while the droids remained standing. Jojo had to climb up into his chair because of his short stature. Harry then ordered a drink for himself to see what it would taste like. After a bit the black man left their table and went to talk to two others across the room. The woman followed after him a little later and they spoke again before he left through the door with the two he had been talking with at their table.
Harry used his force hearing to pick up their conversation. He was curious about the woman who he sensed was strong in the force.
By listening, he found out the man's name was Finn and the woman's name was Rey. He could still sense Rey's force presence, but nothing with Finn. Finn was wanting to leave because he didn't want to fight but she didn't want him to leave. Harry was wondering if they were together as a couple or just friends. He would guess friends if Finn was willing to leave without her.
After Finn left, the woman seemed to get distracted by something else and went down the stairs with the little droid following her.
Harry was curious about Rey so enhanced his eyesight to see what she was up to. He saw when she found a room at the end of the hall and lifted the lid on a small chest where she discovered a lightsaber.
She touched the lightsaber and suddenly she seemed to go into a trance. Harry sensed she was experiencing troubling things but could not see or sense what she was going through.