Note: The concept is the same as in the original. Not quite a crossover, Harry Potter wishes to become a Jedi in order to give the Dark Lord far more trouble than just a fifteen-year-old wizard could provide. He learns about the Jedi from a book, but learns the skills he needs to become one from non-fictional sources. But he will not find letting go of his anger or impatience so easy, and he will find himself facing his own dark side, not just that of Tom Riddle.

I hope this story will better fulfill the promises of the original, which I had to abandon due to its clunkiness and over-reliance on J. K. Rowling's original text.

*Text inside stars is quoted directly from the Star Wars Trilogy.*

Chapter One

Number 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, 4:30 AM, 5 July, 1995. . .

* For an evanescent moment, looking into the bonfire, Luke thought he saw faces dancing—Yoda, Ben; was it his father? He drew away from his companions, to try to see what the faces were saying; they were ephemeral, and spoke only to the shadows of the flames, and then disappeared altogether.

It gave Luke a momentary sadness, but then Leia took his hand and drew him back close to her and to the others, back into their circle of warmth, and camaraderie; and love.

The Empire was dead.

Long live the Alliance.*

Harry closed the book and set it down on his nightstand, then leaned back against the pillow and the wall, thinking. He knew that this story was just that—a story. And he knew that Hermione had given him the book, The Star Wars Trilogy: A Special Tenth-Anniversary Omnibus Edition, to give him the story of the victory of light over darkness. But he wondered if the rest of it were not also possible. Could magic behave like the Force? Could he learn how to use it that way, learn how to be at least somewhat of a Jedi?

And could doing this help with the nightmares? Cedric's death weighed heavily on his mind. He supposed that was to be expected but knowing that did nothing to help when he came awake with a scream in his throat and Voldemort behind his eyes.

He pulled out a sheet of parchment from his trunk, along with a quill and bottle of ink, then set about making a list. First, it was obvious that he would need to be fit. Physical training seemed to be part of how the Jedi accessed the Force, disciplining both the body and the mind. Plus, that would need to be a part of how to train with a sword. That was the second part—learning how to use a sword. It might never be a lightsaber, but having a physical weapon would still be a shock to someone expecting a wizard's duel. With that training would be martial arts, and he would need to decide which form that would take, and perhaps find himself a teacher.

And finally, he would need to learn how to discipline his mind and emotions. That was one thing that he was truly worried about. He had no idea how to do that. The physical stuff he could at least start from reading books. But what kind of book would teach him something like that? He decided to find a book shop. One or two were close enough in Surrey to walk to. Hopefully, even if they didn't have anything he needed, they'd be able to direct him to the right resources. He also thought he might find that kind of resource in the wizarding world. He put on his list to write to Flourish and Blotts and ask for any appropriate books on the subject, along with an owl order form.

He quickly composed the letter to Flourish and Blotts, and one to Gringotts asking for twenty Galleons from his vault to be exchanged for pounds and sent to him with the fees for that service to be taken from the vault, sending the letters out with Hedwig, who was quite happy to be sent. She didn't like it at the Dursleys' any more than he did. The money from Gringotts would allow him to shop for books in the Muggle world.

That done, he decided to get an early start on his day. He slipped across the corridor and took a shower, carefully drying himself in the tub to prevent drips on the floor. He put the towel in the basket which was there for the purpose, quickly dressed, and headed down the stairs to get started on breakfast for the family. A full English, of course.

Once he had finished his chores for the day, Harry left the house, heading for the park in Little Whinging. He had often come here, just to be alone. It was a fairly nice little park, with playground equipment, grass, trees, and a small fountain with stone benches around it in a circle. It also had a concrete running track around the border that measured half a mile precisely. But even though it was nice, and well maintained, most of the kids in Little Whinging weren't the sort who wanted to play in the park, instead gathering in each other's homes and playing video games. When they did go out, they were usually up to no good. That meant the park was usually empty, which suited Harry fine.

He sat on the swings, looking out across the neighborhood. Unbidden, images from the events following the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament came forward in his mind. Cedric Diggory lying there, dead without a mark on him; Peter Pettigrew digging his knife into Harry's arm; Voldemort standing up out of the cauldron; the Cruciatus Curse. His hands shook, and he ruthlessly clamped down on his magic. It wouldn't do to have a repeat of the Blown-Up Aunt Marge Incident.

He sighed. This tended to happen lately any time he stopped thinking about other things. He couldn't seem to escape the images and emotions of that night. He supposed that was normal for someone who'd been dealt a lot of shock and trauma at once, but that was cold comfort to having to actually deal with it. He honestly needed help, but he didn't know where to get it, and the thought of telling someone was just so. . . embarrassment, shame, shock, grief, and tons of guilt at failing to protect Cedric threatened to overwhelm him. A single tear rolled down his face, and he wiped it away angrily. He was a mess, and he couldn't be having all of these emotions while he was trying to become a Jedi.

That was the other thing. Yes, he thought it was a good idea to learn what he needed to become the Earth version of a Jedi Knight. But what if he fell to the dark side? What if he gave in to his emotions at the wrong time? What if he became just like Vader? Like Voldemort? Just the thought of that sent a cold shiver down his spine. No. He refused to become like them. If it was a choice between having the advantages that Jedi training would afford him and becoming just like Voldemort himself someday, he'd just drop it and fight like a wizard.

But something was telling him not to give up. Not yet. There had to be something he could do, some way to learn what he needed to learn. Some way to overcome the pain, guilt and anger so that he would not become the very thing he was fighting. After all, other people had to have dealt with this kind of thing before, hadn't they? Soldiers in other kinds of wars who lost people had to feel this kind of thing, too. Maybe someone had written something along the way, something he could use.

Even if he didn't become a Jedi, it would be nice not to feel so guilty all the time.

The next morning, Harry received the requested withdrawal from Gringott's in the form of one hundred quid, and a book list and owl order form from Flourish and Blotts. Two other owls dropped letters and left. One was Errol, the Weasleys' sadly ancient bird, and the other didn't stick around. He looked at that letter first, and realized it was from Hermione. She was somewhere in the wizarding world, then. He opened that one, and it said,

Dear Harry,

I have been invited, along with the Weasleys to join Professor Dumbledore at a Secret location since my home isn't securable. We can't say much in writing, lest our owls go astray. But when we meet later in the summer, we'll have plenty to talk about. I hope you're doing okay. I know that the end of last year was not easy for you, and I know that I can't possibly understand what you are going through, other than understanding that you are hurting. I can only hope that between working on homework and reading the story I gave you, you have been able to gain space from those events, and time to heal from them.

Hoping you are well,

Hermione Granger

Ron's letter, and Mr. Weasley's, both carried by Errol, both said that nothing could be told to him through the mail, for the same reasons that Hermione gave, though she at least told him that they weren't at the Burrow. She had also obliquely told him that they were under the Fidelius Charm by the way she capitalized Secret.

It made Harry think. How could he communicate with Hermione without risking the information? There had to be something!

He left later that morning to go shopping. He went to the local bookshop, named Rooster's Books. He bought a book on physical conditioning, one on a martial art called Tai Kwon Do, and one on the use of the Japanese sword. They would help him to get a handle on his physical training method. He also bought a book on the psychology of mental trauma. But he wasn't able to find any on mental training that weren't incredibly kooky or religious in nature. He also took out a subscription to the London Times. He already had one to the Daily Prophet, though that only told him what Minister Fudge and Rita Skeeter thought about him and Professor Dumbledore. He wanted to know it if the Death Eaters started wreaking havoc in the Muggle world again, and surely there would be symptoms of such actions that would show up in the paper.

But later, after he'd smuggled his purchases back into the Dursleys' house and had a chance to look at the Flourish and Blotts list, he found a book titled, Occlumency: Discipline for the Magical Mind. That sounded like what he wanted. He ordered that one, as well as a blank leather-bound journal with a lock and key, authorizing the purchase to be paid for by his Gringott's vault.

After a quick flip through the sword book, Harry realized he needed to get his hands on a Bokken, the traditional Japanese wooden sword that was basically a katana made out of oak. But until he could, he thought he could use an old Muggle broomstick. He could wrap the handle end with scraps of denim and duct tape, which would keep him from accidentally flinging it across the park or getting splinters.

On the seventh of July, Harry did his chores, getting them done by lunch time, and then left the house to go to the park. He was, of course, the only one to be out in the heat. England was suffering from a drought, and the use of hosepipes had been banned until the weather was more agreeable, so there wasn't even anyone outside to wash their cars or water their gardens. Therefore, there was no one to witness Harry begin to run.

Harry had read the book on conditioning all the way through, and following the recommendations for beginners, he ran one lap around the park, just half a mile. He could have gone further, but he was instructed to build up his muscles gradually. This was training, not a race, even if he was on a slightly accelerated schedule due to the threat of Voldemort. He needed to get ready, but he didn't need to tear any muscles or ligaments. He would add another lap after three days. Sundays were a day of rest. He also did calisthenics, again starting slow, and with these, he was glad he had, because if he had attempted to jump into the deep end he would surely have died of exhaustion. To these he added the first few kata from the martial arts book and the sword book.

When he got back to the Dursleys, he got a shower before cooking dinner, making sure to keep a small portion for himself as he always did, then washed up the pots, pans and dishes after everyone ate. Then he headed upstairs to do his homework and check out the book on Occlumency. He was tired enough that he didn't read any further than the opening paragraph before he had passed into sleep from exhaustion.

After the nightmares woke Harry for the fourth time, he started reading the Occlumency book. It began with teaching the reader how to meditate. He gave it a try, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his room, breathing slowly, and thinking, to begin with, only on his breathing. He was meant to become fully aware of his entire body, and then his mind and emotions, and then his magic. Then he would be able to organize his thoughts and hide them from any who could perform Legilimency, or the art of reading people's minds.

At first, though, it was so strange that he had trouble focusing on his breathing and not letting his mind wander. The slow breathing almost put him back to sleep again, until the nightmares started flitting around the edges of his consciousness again, bringing him fully back to awareness. He forced himself to stay through it for the full thirty minutes. Then he got up and left the room to do his chores.

He got into a routine. Meditation and learning about psychology in the morning, followed by homework and chores, then breakfast, more chores, lunch, then heading to the park to condition and practice martial arts, then back to the Dursleys' for a shower, dinner, and more meditation.

After two weeks, Harry started to keep his meditative state while he did all of the other things. The only time he wasn't engaged in meditation was when he was reading, working on homework or sleeping. The nightmares grew fewer as this continued, because he was able to meditate on the events that were causing them and come to terms with them. He was able to see how the results of that night were not his fault, because he didn't have all the tools he needed. There would come a day when he could defeat Voldemort, but that day was not today.

After three weeks, Harry touched his magical core for the first time. It was like a natural reservoir of light held inside his mind. And that reservoir was fed by a massive river. He could see it. So he reached out and touched that, too, swimming in the light of the magic around him. He saw other presences in that magic; tiny ones belonging to animals, small ones belonging to the Muggles born blind to it, a slightly bigger one down the street that was only near-sighted, and two larger ones, one in the back garden that was young and light, and one in the front garden that was old and dingy.

He was tempted to do more than touch his magic, but he didn't quite dare to do that now, while he was inside the Dursleys' home. By the articles that found their way into the Prophet he knew that there was a concerted effort by the Ministry to paint him as a lunatic, and if they could get him out of Hogwarts by the simple expedient of expelling him for underage magic use, they would. He would have to bide his time. But he could work this new ability to touch magic into his workouts and studies.

For Harry's birthday, he chose not to work out, opening birthday gifts and letters from his friends and taking kind of a lazy day, though he still practiced his meditation. He thought he would be able to begin actual Occlumency by the end of the week, as it was an art which did not require a wand and would not set off the Trace. It was entirely in the mind, you see, and did not affect the outside flows of magic, but only those within.

Hermione got him another book. He'd told her that he'd really enjoyed the Star Wars book, so she had hunted down a few resource books for him. One was very interesting in that it contained an alphabet that was used in the Star Wars movies. Grinning, he promptly used it to write her a quick note, asking if translation spells would work on it. If they didn't, then they would be able to communicate much more easily.

Ron, Fred and George had chipped in together and gotten him a holster for his wand made of Hungarian Horntail dragon hide, as a nod to his out-flying the one from the First Task. Hagrid had sent him some rock cakes, which he decided to give to Dudley. Mrs. Weasley sent him more snacks, ones he could actually eat, so he didn't have to try and eat the rock cakes. They stored nicely in his trunk, too. Sirius sent him a book on advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts.

The next day was Sunday, but Monday he was back at his routine, even though there were more people out and about than there had been at the beginning of the summer, due to boredom more than anything else. He heard rumors about Dudley and his friends beating up on younger kids in the neighborhood, but he paid them no mind. It wasn't that he didn't believe them. They just didn't change the way he saw his cousin. He was a bully, and while Harry was his favorite target, he was hardly the only one.

Harry knew he needed to find out if using magic wandlessly would set off the Trace or not. If it wouldn't, then he would be able to use the ambient magic, as if he were using the Force, more openly. He would be able to use it to defend against Dudley's thugs. Not to mention the possibility of defense against other, darker opponents.

Harry was finishing his routine by kneeling on a cushion of dormant grass and meditating while his body calmed and cooled from training, when a group of presences impinged on his senses. He recognized them easily; Malcom, Pierce, Gordon and Dudley. He kept his eyes closed, maintaining his focus, but keeping quiet attention on the boys in case he should need to react to them.

After a while, though three of the boys headed for home, Dudley approached the meditating form of his cousin. "What are you doing there, Potter?"

Taking another deep breath and slowly letting it out, Harry answered him, "Meditating."

"What's that? Some kind of funny business?" He meant magic, of course.

Harry smiled slightly. "Not really. Meditating is just a very focused and active kind of thinking. It can help with what you call funny business, but you don't have to be my sort to do it. It can also help with regular homework, because it helps you to organize your mind." He didn't add that it also helped to protect it against intrusion.

Not expecting Harry's lack of defensiveness, Dudley decided to try and push a different button. "How're the nightmares, Potter? I used to hear you all the time, moaning in your sleep. 'Don't kill Cedric!' Who's Cedric, your boyfriend? 'He's going to kill me, Mum!' Where's your mum, Potter? Is she dead?"

Anger threatened to obliterate Harry's meditative calm, but he took another breath, gently pushing the anger away. He was getting better at that. "The nightmares are getting better. Thanks for asking. How about you? Beat up another ten-year-old? You and your mates?" Not that he was perfect. Calm down, Potter, he told himself. Dudley was hardly worth losing all his progress over.

"This one deserved it."

Harry opened his eyes, one eyebrow raising in patent disbelief. "A ten-year-old deserved four to one odds? Against teenagers, no less?"

"He cheeked me."

Harry just shook his head. "You're a bully, Dudley, and a coward. Honestly, I feel sorry for you. It must be terrible to feel as if you needed three mates to beat up a child."

That got the larger boy's hackles up. "That why you're wearing a stick on your back, Potter?" Dudley asked, talking about the broomstick Harry was using for a Bokken. "Think it'll stop me turning you into paste?"

But as Dudley was about to start pummeling Harry, both stopped as the atmosphere changed, becoming suddenly cold. In fact, frost began forming on the dead grass. Not knowing why, but spooked, Dudley's friends ran off. Scared, Dudley said, "What're you doing, Potter?"

Harry, though, recognized the sensation. Dementors! In Little Whinging? "I'm not doing anything. We're in danger. Dudley, you feel that, right? The cold? It's being caused by a kind of demon called a Dementor. There's two of them and they're close. You're going to need to run!"

Dudley was very scared now, but he was too used to blaming Harry for everything. "I don't believe you! Stop it, whatever it is you're doing! I'll tell Dad!"

Harry shook his head. They didn't have time for this. "They'll be here any second, Dudley. I don't like you, I never have, but that doesn't mean you deserve to lose your soul to those foul things! Now run!"

Convinced that Harry was serious, Dudley turned around to run toward the gate of the park. But they had wasted too much time in arguing. The Dementors were right there, and they descended upon the boys to eat their souls!

For weeks, Harry had been training to sense and listen to the magic in the air around him, and to use the wooden sword strapped to his back. Rather than pull the wand he had hidden in his wand holster on his wrist, which was charmed with an anti-Muggle notice-me-not charm, he pulled the makeshift sword. He braced himself against the sadness and pain the Dementor was shoving at him, the memory of his mother's death, and thought of the image that the Mirror of Erised had shown him in First Year, himself surrounded by people who loved him, and cried out, "Gladius Patronum!" And this was what listening to the magic got him; a lightsaber made of Patronus stuff. Time to find out if it worked like one.

The Dementors weren't chased off by the blade, but they seemed to grow cautious. They'd never seen anything like this. But the fear of the bigger boy was too much of a delicacy for them to forgo, and one of them descended upon him with frightening speed. Harry had not been idle, though, and the magic (the Force?) led him to swing his blade upward and to the right, slicing through the middle of the Dementor's body. It fell out of the sky in two smoking halves, quite dead, and landed on the ground in front of Dudley. He screamed, able to see it once it was dead, and started running in earnest.

The other Dementor screeched, and tried to come at Harry, flying through several aborted attempts from different directions. Then it broke off, trying to catch up with Dudley instead, but Harry caught it in the foot, causing it to scream in pain and turn back around to destroy its tormentor. Harry spun away and beheaded the demon on the return stroke. The body dropped to the ground, just like the other had done.

Harry didn't immediately let his guard down. He stood for a few moments, extending his senses outward into the area around the park, feeling for any further disturbances. He felt animals and birds, several of Mrs. Figg's cats, Mrs. Figg herself rushing toward them worriedly, and several unconcerned people in their homes. But there were no other wizards, and most importantly, no other Dementors. He let go of the energy of the Patronus, and the lightsaber closed down, revealing the wooden broomstick beneath it. Harry could see that the image of a stag, of Prongs, had burned itself into the wood just below where his hands had gripped the handle. He took a second to put it back onto his back and calm his mind, then turned around to check on his cousin.

Dudley was staring at the head of the Dementor, wide-eyed. Harry said, "Are you all right?" He didn't say anything, still just staring at it. "Dudley!" The bigger boy looked up at him sharply. "I asked if you're all right?"

"No. I feel like I'm cold. Sad." A tear rolled down his cheek. There was frost on his nose. "Why am I so sad?"

Harry took his arm. "Let's get you home to some hot chocolate. That'll really help you. Dementors destroy anything happy that they come across, desiring fear and pain above all else. They'll eat your soul if they're not stopped. But chocolate will put you right again, I promise."

It was at that moment Mrs. Figg reached them. Her steel-gray hair was escaping from her cap, and her house shoes had nearly come completely off of her feet. She shouted at him, "Where is your wand, boy? What if there are more of them out there? I am going to kill Mungdungus Fletcher!"

Note: Well that's it for the first chapter. My hope is to make this new version less reliant on the cannon text, while not letting Harry's personality change quite so drastically or quickly as I originally had. Feel free to let me know how I've done in the comments. That doesn't mean, however, that some things won't still come out of the book.

I also want to thank everyone for their expressions of sympathy at my father's passing. It's meant the world to me, and certainly encouraged me in my writing life.

I made a couple of adjustments to this chapter. Hopefully that fixes a few things.