AN: Shadowwolf on the space battle's forums brought back to mind a few ideas I had about Veil ending up in the HP verse from back when I was just beginning to write Rogue Knight. In the last few days the concept wouldn't let me alone, so here's a snippet.
The general idea is that this time around Delkatar has no intention of taking a central stage. He'll train his apprentice while concentrating on uplifting Earth to have some half-decent tech for convenience sake and enjoying his vacation. At least 2/3 of the story will be centred upon the shenanigans of Harry and his friends. From Veil's POV it has been a very long time since he saw anything about HP, so he would be of no much help as far as out of universe future knowledge goes.
Further, I'll intent to play with various concept for the sake of world-building and trying to gain inspiration for my other HP stories, which have been on ice for years now due to my muse not cooperating.
I've been fascinated with the fannon of ancient houses and family magic in particular, however there are just a handful of stories that handle those in a way that doesn't make most people in the verse look either malicious or as idiots; the primary reason is when and how they're introduced - usually during or after third year or the tournament, something that tends to grate and bring down even otherwise decent stories.
Thoughts on how to make those work?
Disclaimer: I don't own either of the Star wars or Harry Potter franchises. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not written with commercial purpose in mind. I make no money from it. It is not for sale or rent.
The Sith's Apprentice, Book I: The Apprentice
=TSA=
Prologue: A long overdue vacation...
=TSA=
A grey void not dissimilar to a nebula, extending as far as my senses could reach?
Check.
Me, floating in the middle of it?
Check.
The seductive whispers of the Dark Side that were my constant companion for what felt like an eternity now fallen silent because I could no longer access my power?
Check.
"Did I get myself killed, again?" I sighed mentally.
I've been here before – more times than I cared to recall and there was no point of speaking aloud.
"For once, you actually didn't." A heart-warming lilting voice whispered in my ears. Soft, warm breath caressed my back when the entity I've been working for what felt like an eternity made her or should I say, its, presence known.
"Here to make me another offer I couldn't possibly refuse?" I asked bitterly.
As a Dark Lord of the Sith, once upon a time I used to be one of the most powerful beings in a whole galaxy – yet even at the height of my power, I was as helpless against my "patron" as a babe in arms presented to the Sith Emperor on one of his bad days.
"Oh, you can refuse this one, though then I'm sure I can find you something to do, my knight." A sense of amusement washed over my whole being.
I had no illusions about the kind of relationship we had – even if it wasn't as bad as it could have been. At best I was a trouble-shooter to one of the closest being to a God that I've met. At worst – I suspected she was forging me into a weapon for a task that when it came I wouldn't survive... and I had no real recourse but accept; once upon a time, when I was at the height of my power as a Sith Lord, my patron allowed me to get a glimpse of her true self – let's just say it was humbling and left it at that.
"What new hell I should be dealing with this time?" I groused.
"Why, my knight, you'll be going to one of the closest places to home, you'll ever be able to visit!" She announced cheerfully.
Home? I scoffed at that thought. What was home now? Once upon a time, that used to be the version of Earth that I was born on. Eventually I began to consider such a few worlds in a universe most people would call Star Wars, but even that was a long time ago. Now? The closest thing I had to home was the world I was dumped last, due to memories not my own.
"You're getting a vacation!"
A bitter chuckle escaped my lips. I remember my last supposed "vacation" - I ended up stuck in a medieval hell-hole that I couldn't get up to an acceptable tech level before finally kicking the bucket, buying the farm... well, you get my drift.
"I mean it!" My patron pouted – at least that was the sense I got from her. It wasn't like I've ever seen her real face. The one time I did glimpse a part of her true self, it nearly drove me insane. "All I want from you is train an apprentice – he'll be doing the heavy lifting on this one. Otherwise, you're free to kick back and relax on this one!"
I snorted. It was never that simple with her.
"Try to have a bit of fun!" My patron cheerfully bid me farewell.
The grey expanse rippled and I was thrown in yet another world...
=TSA=
11 December 1996
north-east from the British Isles
It's been more than thirteen years since I spared a thought about my patron – besides the odd curse now and then. Technically speaking, she was right – compared to the usual shenanigans I had to deal with, this time around, it was a vacation. Usually. Most of the time.
When my idiot of an Apprentice didn't fuck up by the numbers that is... or his accursed Potter luck didn't act up – which tended to happen with a distressing regularity.
I grumbled a curse under my nose and looked around. High waves did their best to overturn the boat we were sailing in. Freezing spay carried by piercing wind slammed into enchanted armour and thankfully was a mere inconvenience instead of a real danger. On what passed for the horizon in the middle of the night during the next best thing to a torrential rain in December in the middle of the North Sea, I could see the vague outline of our destination – the Island of Azkaban. For more than a month my idiot of an apprentice was stuck there, for a crime he most definitely did commit – in the great hall of Hogwarts in front of hundreds of witnesses no less. I still wasn't sure what was at fault – the Dark Side, the fact that he was a bloody teenager or if the sorry excuse of a pink Neimoidian I was unfortunately acquainted with really had it coming. Nevertheless, even if the Under-secretary of the British Minister of Magic really had it coming – which for the record she actually did, I had no idea what possessed my Apprentice to deal with her in such a foolish way.
Teenage hormones? The Dark Side? Being a suicidal idiot? Bah! Kids these days! I was still half-tempted to let the young fool stew in his cell for a couple of months, but my wife simply wouldn't hear anything about that...
"Five minutes sir!" Our driver said over the comms – it wasn't like we could properly hear each other otherwise with the sea doing its best to drown us like a pack of rats.
I just nodded and glared at the fortress of doom we were fast approaching.
=TSA=
High Security wing
Location: Unplottable
Azkaban Prison
Cold fog seeped in his cell and snap-froze when it got near the door where a pair of Dementors greedily ate any positive emotion he ever had. Charms, curses and enchantments anchored by powerful runic arrays surrounded the whole level, yet most of their power was centred upon Harry Potter's personal slice of hell. For the first week of his imprisonment, he did his best to shatter the chains that bound him to the wall across the door. They were thick and heavy made from enhanced Goblin steel and despite all the fear and fury gripping his heart, Harry couldn't make a dent in them.
A place like this – the closest one to hell upon this Earth, should have been a tremendous fuel to his non-magic powers. It was in a sense – Azkaban was a prison where people had been suffering in utter despair for hundreds of years. The Dark Side was powerful in this place. However, the effects the Dementors had on Harry's mind combined with all the protections meant to contain him were more than enough to keep him stuck in his cell recalling his worst memories.
The only small consolation he had was that he could hear his mother's voice when his mind replayed again and again the night when he was orphaned all those years ago. The memories of his five years with his relatives, well, that was worse. The worst of the training with his Master made the highlights too...
His master, that madman... Where was he anyway? Was he trying to get him out legally? Did he abandon him to this hell? The man did promise that Harry would get just one chance to fuck up by the numbers and still get help... and he did that more than a year before losing all semblance on control in the great hall...
Harry shuddered when that thought brought a different memory to the forefront of his mind – the very reason he ended up in Azkaban. His fury was hot enough to push away the chill caused by the Dementors and replace it with the all encompassing frost of the Dark Side. For a moment Harry felt a tremendous surge of power – he almost believed himself unstoppable, which as a lie. If that was a case, he would have already escaped hell.
He railed against his bonds and the cell he was locked in. A powerful surge of the Force slammed in the surrounding walls for all the good it did – it merely chugged all the dust inside in the air making Harry sneeze.
"Merlin damn it!" Potter spat.
He was cold and tired. All he could hear was his mother begging for his life and Riddle hissing the Killing Curse.
=TSA=
The Island of Azkaban
Location Unplottable
"This is too easy..." A mercenary muttered.
He was one of six who just landed on the shore of the island where possibly the most infamous prison in the world stood. They were all wizards and witches – either Muggleborn or Half-Bloods and every single one of them expected to at least face monitoring charms long before they could reach their destination. If there were any, none of them managed to detect them – despite the two dedicated curse-breakers on the crew doing their best to do so ever since the island appeared on the horizon. Still, that didn't stop two more of their number from keeping up various concealment spells on top of those layered upon their ridiculously expensive hand-crafted equipment.
"By all accounts, even after Black made himself scarce, the primary defence here are the Dementors." Their boss said. His voice was distorted by the comm-unit that was built in everyone's helmets, giving it an impersonal electronic inflection. "If our intelligence is right, there should be only eight people here besides us and the prisoners."
Ah. The prisoners, Ignatius Vance thought. They were here to spirit one of them away and assassinate the others stuck in the high-security wing – something that should have been unthinkable. No one broke in or out of Azkaban... until a couple of years ago, when Sirius Black let himself go.
Well, no one had their equipment, Intelligence nor their boss, who was leading the raid. Ignatius had been working for Veil for more than a decade now and he still didn't know what exactly the man was. Oh, the man who paid his very generous pay-checks was a wizard – an utterly average one as far as power went, however he had something more – a power the ageing mercenary hadn't seen before. That was saying something – in his decades long career, Vance had fought in every conflict of note across the world since WWII.
Ignatius knew his boss – the same was true for his colleagues. They trusted him and his expertise, which was the real reason they agreed to take part in this particular insanity. The generous pay-day did help, but in the end it was secondary – you had to be alive to spent your money after all and there were precious few people alive Vance would believe had a prayer of waltzing in and out of Azkaban if they put their minds to it.
"We're clear. I think." Their chief curse-breaker muttered. "I'm still getting nothing."
Veil tapped Ignatius on the shoulder and the soldier of fortune nodded.
"Move up, carefully." He ordered. His eyes scanned the jagged cliffs leading up towards the castle on the far side of the island. Enhanced lenses stuck in night vision goggles, which were part of his helmet illuminated the cloudy, moonless night almost as bright as a day and as an added bonus ensured that sudden bright sources of light wouldn't blind any member of the mercenary group.
Vance shouldered his battle rifle and followed behind the rest of the unit – another rifleman was on point, wand waving curse-breakers a few steps behind followed up by the pair of witches busy keeping various concealment spells up. Ignatius along with the boss kept the rear covered.
He couldn't help but worry. Even this far out of the prison itself, despite the sealed armour and the various enhancements layered upon bleeding edge armour, the mercenary could still feel chill caused by the presence of all the Dementors of the British Wizarding World.
=TSA=
One of the Dementors skulking around the outer edges of the Prison of Azkaban sensed something. It was hungry after being stuck outside as a punishment detail after going after those tasty morsels at the castle it got stationed a few years ago – as if one of its kind could not go after such a feast!
It wasn't fair! It almost got its hands on the best meal ever!
The Dementor would have pouted in gloom if it could, then it perked up. It's hooded head snapped to the south and it sniffed with senses no mortal had. There were souls approaching! It could finally satiate its eternal hunger!
Without waiting for an order or bothering to report to the nasty souls that kept it under a semblance of control, the starving Dementor surged through sheets of torrential rain. Many of its brethren noticed its departure and froze in an attempt to figure out what was wrong. It took them mere moments to sense the approaching prey before more than a hundred of them flew south desperate to be the first to reach the tasty souls coming to serve themselves for dinner.