Harry Potter, The Jedi That Would Not Die
Chapter 9 – Windmills of the Mind
When Harry awoke at the crack of dawn as he was used to, both from cooking the Dursley's breakfast and from getting up for classes, he quickly washed, dressed and made his way to the kitchen and started to make breakfast. He had long since finished his, put Aayla's back to be kept warm and was busy practising his Force exercises by the time his master awoke and almost ended up completely flashing her your apprentice as she wandered out of her room to the bathroom unclothed before remembering at Harry's inhalation that she no longer had the apartment to herself.
After some profuse apologies from both, her for not remembering he was there and him for seeing her even for a brief second like that, they both got over it though still highly embarrassed about it and made a joke that how quite a few of the other Jedi might be quite jealous of Harry if they found out he had seen her like that.
After washing, dressing (properly rather than in the bathrobe she had been wearing since just after the embarrassing incident), eating her breakfast and tidying up her plate and cutlery (Harry had already done his much to her annoyance), she then noticed for the first time why Harry had said not to bother cutting Hermione's hair yet.
"It's grown back!" she exclaimed out of the blue.
After a second of wondering what she was talking about Harry replied, "That's why I didn't tell you Master, I thought you might not believe me unless you saw it for yourself."
"You're right, I wouldn't have believed it," she sighed, dropping down into the opposite sofa to the one he was in and leaning over to feel his hair to make sure it was real. "At least you still have your braid although you can hardly see it now. Do you want me to call Master Coleman and let him know the reason why you asked him not to cut Hermione's hair yesterday?"
"Yes please Master, I think even cutting her hair would have hurt her a bit emotionally, she really likes her hair."
When her master had hung up from speaking to Aayla, he turned to her.
"Now I understand why Harry asked me not to cut your hair yesterday," he acknowledged. "It would have been a waste of time, it looks like you will be the only padawan with long hair...Well if we cannot cut your hair we will have to think what else we can do with it as its likely to be a bit awkward during some aspects of your training, we don't want it getting cut and burnt by a lightsaber do we."
"No master," she nodded. Not understanding what exactly her master had spoken to Aayla about but she didn't feel inclined to ask as it seemed somehow Harry had done something to allow her to keep her hair so she was not going to ruin it by saying the wrong thing. "I could tie everything not in my current braid into a ponytail or one larger braid?" she suggested.
"I guess that will have to do," he nodded. "Yes, you had better do that for when we go to practice your lightsaber skills later, for now we have more important things to work on."
This was a highly unusual feeling for Harry, having someone making Force connections into and from his mind was incredibly odd. The only thing he could compare it to was the training he had received thus far on how to sense things through the Force, every connection that was made heightened his ability to passively feel his master and to sense what she was feeling.
Can you hear me Harry?came a voice in his head.
"Master, did you just-"
Yes I did, think your response back and I will hear it.
Testing, testing?
Yes I can here you Harry. Good, that is the bond between us now established. At the moment your telepathic abilities are limited but later on you will be able to communicate with other Force sensitive beings like this without such a link.
Yes Master.
At the moment Harry I hear everything you think and a sensitive Force user like those on the Council could easily read your thoughts if they wanted to without entering your mind as you have no shielding of any kind other than your natural defences, which is why we now need to work on your mental shields.
What followed was a long mental conversation as to how to go about creating a mental landscape and after a few experiments at creating and destroying progressively larger and more detailed landscapes he was ready to try building the one that his memories would be built around.
Now remember Harry other than your memories which are by far the most awkward things to sort, you also need build from the inside out as you need to put your conscious mind in a protected place as well, that is by far the most important part of you and must be in the safest place you can possibly put it in as the difference between attacking your memories and attacking your conscious mind is like the difference between someone shouting insults at you while rifling through your possessions and having their hands around your throat.
Thankfully Harry had spent plenty of time last night before going to sleep thinking and part of this morning researching on his workstation terminal about the best way to construct his landscape and had come to the conclusion that there was one major flaw in the ways both Aayla and Master Coleman constructed theirs and that was that designing it around a temple which was a structure whose blueprints could be accessed without too much difficulty made it one step easier for an intruder to get into his mind. If they already knew the structure of the building he was designing his around they could already guess and find their way to some of the places where he was keeping the more secretive memories.
He started, and started was definitely the word with constructing the Jedi Temple, at the moment this part of his landscape would remain mostly incomplete as he had only seen certain parts of the temple, he decided that he better get his master to show him as much as possible so her could construct the rest of the building otherwise intruders could just follow the constructed parts.
Once he had this built he placed a door inside part of the temple like his master had described, with the intention of hiding the door as something else later and placing it were it would be hardest to find once he had the full layout of the temple in his head.
Inside this door he built a second structure and in the most secure part of this building he placed his consciousness.
It took him a good three hours to sort through his current memories and to erect some defences around them which was he though the easiest part of the whole experience as the rest of the process was quite draining.
Master, my landscapes not finished yet as I do not have the full layout of the temple inside my head, but could you come and have a look to see how I did.
Wait Harry, if it's the full layout of the temple that you need to complete your mental landscape, let show you around it first so that you can finish it.
What followed was the most comprehensive tour of the Temple many of the residence had ever experienced accompanied by a running commentary by his master as they went. The tour helped as it not only gave Harry the rest of the picture that he needed, it also gave him the chance to rest for a bit and eat before completing his mental landscape which was surprisingly exhausting. After another two hour in their quarters he called for his master to ask her if she could test his defences and see if she could suggest any improvements to the layout.
As Aayla entered her apprentices mind she found her mental self standing on the landing platform beside the Jedi Temple. Looking around she could see he had also constructed most of the landscape surrounding the Temple, she could even see the Senate Building in the distance. She also noticed which she thought might have been an accident of mental creation, the Radiant VI on the landing platform behind her.
Turning back to the temple she walked towards the main entrance, whilst being on alert for any defences that her padawan might have put in place. As she reached the main doors and walked across the threshold she was quite surprised to find herself standing in front of the senate building. Doing a double take she looked around, in the distance she could see the Temple on the horizon.
"Interesting," she thought before she felt something change around her and instantly found herself back at the Temple.
She jumped in shock when her padawan appeared beside her.
"I brought you back to the Temple Master as this first trick could take you quite a while to get around, especially as you would have to travel back to the Temple on foot before continuing each time."
"Not necessarily Harry," she countered. "I could always leave and re-enter."
"I'm counting on anyone trying to break into my mind being to intend on getting in to think about going backwards. To speed this next bit up I will show you the way inside," he said before turning around and instead of heading for the Temple, he headed for the Radiant VI.
Puzzled Aayla followed him as he climbed into the ship and went down the corridor towards the escape pods, she continued to follow him as he climbed into one and instructed her to follow him then press the release, something which seemed to be very silly considering the pods would try to blast their way through the landing platform.
As soon as she did so the world spun again and she found herself in the holding cells that were in the Temple whilst setting off a loud claxon which Harry rapidly silenced.
"I got the idea from when you said you could move between the different landscapes of your mind if you got to the right place in one. I thought why make them it too easy to get into."
Nodding she drew her lightsaber and tried to cut her way through the wall only for it to fall away when she finished to reveal a combined ray and deflector shield behind it, Harry really had been studying the Temple if her knew about them.
"Master, do you remember where the button is to activate the shields around the cell on the wall outside?"
"Yes," she nodded.
"You just need to turn it off using the Force."
Growling to herself that she had forgotten something so obvious she used her abilities to shut off the cell and was instantly transported to the Entrance Hall of the Temple.
"Harry, this place is making me awfully dizzy," she said, slightly annoyed by the constant zipping back and forth.
"That's all part of the idea, I'm trying to make anyone that breaks in angry so that they don't think as clearly, which if I may say so Master worked rather well with the cells."
Nodding in annoyance that he was right, she continued on. Now she was actually inside the temple she could actually see memories, in his mind they appeared as large, usually over three feet across bubbles of water that floated along the corridors with images of the memory flickering across the surface with a muffled audio. All the memories she encountered seemed to be just miscellaneous items, most of which were of the last two days inside the temple or of the time on the Radiant VI.
Realising he must have sorted his memories away quite well she began exploring parts of the Temple, she found the memories of what he was currently doing being created in the Council of First Knowledge chambers, which she found strangely appropriate as well as very sensible, they were not filled away but as soon as they were created they were already behind several levels of protection. She also found his memories of how to cook being stored in the cafeteria, including some that she assumed where off his former home, she noticed that a lot of the audio was removed and that clips were cut together so that you only ever saw what was in front of him not what or who was behind him.
After wandering around for another few minutes, she decided to check the Intelligence Division and was quite surprised when she got there to find the entire hallway filled with layers of shielding as well as multiple blaster cannons. It took her quite a while to get around these, in the end she had to use her own mental powers to break down the shields and her lightsaber to destroy the blasters. She was presently surprised though when she finally got to the door of the room to find that the first layers of shielding were being repaired by an astromech droid, which meant his defences were self repairing and maintaining, that was something she might have to try implementing herself, it was a very clever idea.
When she got to the door and forced it open she saw nothing but darkness inside except for a spotlight far into the room which was illuminating several floating memories.
Being cautious, Aayla lit her lightsaber and threw it into the room, allowing it to light the floor between her and the memories, as she suspected about halfway into the room the floor disappeared.
"Well done Master," Harry smiled as she turned to him and grinned before walking into the room. As soon as she did so she immediately turned around and marched back out.
Slightly stunned she tried again only to get the same response.
"What is that Harry?" she asked after a third unsuccessful attempt.
"Do you remember me telling you about the Unforgivable Curses Master?" At her nod he continued. "That was one of them, the mind control curse or at least my experiences of it recreated to the best of my ability. On my planet it's illegal to use it on any other living person but as it is technically being used on an area of myself, in this case my mind I'm not even breaking wizarding law. I you wait here for a moment Master and then when I say run in you can get passed it."
He then proceeded to walk to the area immediately before the floor stopped and gestured for to enter.
This time as she did so at a run she felt the spell acting upon her but the spell seemed to only be on the area immediately behind the door because as she was running she felt the need to turn around dissipate within a second, but it was then immediately replaced by a desire to run at full speed.
Harry grabbed her just before she would have run straight on to the nonexistent part of the floor to fall down to only Harry knew where.
"Remind me never to get on your bad side Harry," she breathed at the narrow escape. "If this is how well you guard your memories I would hate to fight you in a battle of wills."
"We have barely started yet Master," he smiled, gesturing for her to jump to the central platform where the memories were floating.
Force leaping the distance she briefly examined the outside of the memories and they all appeared to be of his Godfather Sirius Black, the other Triwizard Champion Cedric Diggory and of his other friend Ron, notably she noticed their deaths were not amongst them.
Slightly confused that she had got through all that security only to find everyday memories she turned to him in confusion.
"If this is where you are putting normal memories where are you keeping the really private ones."
Smiling he then led her out of the room and through several more sets of similar traps that were surrounding the High Council Chamber, inside of which were the memories of their meeting with the Council yesterday. He explained that any mission briefings or similar would be placed here before leading her on again, as he continued he explained how he would follow hers and Master Coleman's examples and put classroom memories in the appropriate classroom. Their quarters she discovered contained memories of their interactions, which made sense to her and was the last place in the Temple he showed her before he led her down into the Archives, through the security doors that protected the Holocron Chamber. Aayla had never been in here and neither had Harry, but the blueprints of the rooms layout matched what she was seeing. Huge tall structures filled with rows upon rows of holocrons that seemed to continue off into the infinity. Harry walked along the rows counting under his breath before stopping turning and pulling out a holocron.
"Open it please Master," he asked, handing it to her.
Nodding at his unusual request she started the process that opened the device, as it fully changed shape its gatekeeper appeared in the form of Harry.
"Password?"
"Padfoot," Harry replied.
"Access granted," replied the gatekeeper before they once again found themselves relocated but this time they were at Hogwarts standing in the middle of the grounds.
"How many layers of defences do you have Harry?" she asked in shock at the continued complexity of these defences.
"This is almost the last level, there are three locations in the grounds that hold important memories, I used the same sorting system for here as in the temple for classes and other memories, some like before are just random memories. One set of memories that I want kept private are behind moderate defences behind a rather dangerous tree on the grounds and also have a few creatures standing in the way. All the memories I don't want to remember are in the woods defended by a few thousand acromantulas and some centaurs and the memories that are top secret I have hidden in a place inside the castle where only I can go."
She was led into the castle, this time there was no changing locations as they tried to go through the doors but she did notice that the castle itself was being patrolled by dementors which almost caused her to draw her lightsaber.
"Do not worry, there are three password I could have given to the gatekeeper, each one allows access to one of the locations around Hogwarts by making the non passive defences ignore you. Just ignore the feeling they give you and follow me quickly."
They jogged quickly up a couple of floors and ran down a corridor.
"May I ask what the other passwords are Harry?"
"Of course Master, I trust you," he replied smiling back at her. As he did so it became clear to her how much he meant to her already and how much those words affected her. "The other passwords are Prongs and Moony. They are a reference to Sirius, my father and Remus Lupin who had those nicknames to describe the animal they would be able to transform into. Moony when he turned into a Werewolf stayed behind the tree to make sure he could not hurt anyone, so that is the password for those memories. My dad Prongs could turn into a deer, and you normally find deer in a wood or forest so the memories in the forest require that password and as a dog Sirius belongs inside so he is the memories inside the castle. I have set a couple more passwords that allow you in but will not get you passed the defences."
As Harry came to a stop Aayla looked around confused.
"Why have we stopped here?"
"This is the last place Master anyone would expect me to put my most secret memories," he smiled turning to the room behind them and going inside.
"A girls bathroom?" she asked.
"Can you think of anywhere you are less likely to find a guy Master?"
After thinking for a moment she realised she could not and followed him inside, only to find a large opening forming in the floor around the sinks.
"We jump down Master, it's essential that when you see the side pipe off to the left that you take it, do not under any circumstances take the main pipe."
"Understood," she nodded before he jumped down the pipe shortly followed by herself.
The pipe which she was thankful was clean twisted and turned for a few seconds as she slid down it before she saw the opening up and to the left, using the Force she propelled herself up into the pipe before continuing down that one after Harry who she could just see ahead of her.
They ended up exiting in a room with a large metal door which was sealed by snake shaped locks, in front of the door came the biggest shock of the day as standing there was none other than Voldemort.
"Password," he hissed.
"I am Lord Voldemort," Harry replied, causing Voldemort to bow and move out of the way allowing Harry to open the door using some kind of hiss. As the door opened the entered a large room filled the carvings of snakes with one extra large carving at the end of the room of a man with long flowing hair, in front of this hung several memories and surrounding them was coiled a massive serpent.
True to his word, the serpent made no moves towards them as they approached. Glancing quickly at the memories as they passed Aayla recognised them as the deaths of Ron and Sirius, a conversation between Harry and Dumbledore, part of the memories of yesterdays dinner, a star map location which appeared to be that of Earth, a memory of Hermione where she was dressed in a rather pretty pink dress and standing atop a set of steps and the last memory which caused her to blush slightly was the memory of her accidentally flashing him this morning. At least she knew it was almost impossible for anyone to be able to break into see that memory.
Harry made a rapid move when he saw the memory of Hermione and flicked his hand causing it to disappear. At her questioning glance he spluttered out.
"I err...must have filled that wrong...didn't belong down here," before moving around towards the large stone head.
Grinning to herself Aayla put two and two together and came to a conclusion about Harry's feelings for Hermione, she had suspected as much but she was not one to talk about such things, especially not with her shared feelings for Kit Fisto. She had little time more to think about it as Harry was determined not to let her dwell on it by keeping them moving.
Reaching the head harry laid his palm on the statue causing the mouth to slide open to reveal a small tunnel, gesturing her to follow as well as he climbed in.
The tunnel was very short and within three meters she was standing beside Harry in front of a vast water like bubble with what looked like electricity flowing over it that was almost too big for the small room they were in.
"My consciousness," he explained. "Do you think it's well enough protected Master?"
Turning to him in disbelief she replied.
"Harry, there are probably Jedi Masters who have less mental protections than this, I have never heard of such extensive defences. The problem I have now is that I am going to have to drastically increase my own mental defences in order to keep the structure of your defences secret."
"That's a relief, I thought this might not be enough."
Laughing at her students thought, she let him guide her back out of his mind before watching him raise several shields around the temple and additional shields around their link.
As they finally came back to their bodies a though occurred to Aayla.
"Harry, what were the memories of last night's dinner doing in your top security area?"
"They were the parts of the meal where you and Master Coleman discussed your mental defences Master," he explained. "I didn't want your defences to be compromised by me allowing others to see my memories."
"Also Harry, although I am flattered that your memory of this morning has earned a top security rating, you did not need to provide it with that much security, I am not that worried about it getting out. I doubt any Jedi would be willing to brave battling through all your mental defences to get to it."
"I'm just trying to do what right Master?" he asked uncertainly, suddenly sounding less like the formidable fortress builder she had just seen and much more like the young boy she had rescued and apprenticed.
Leaning forward she pulled him to her and into a tight embrace.
"Thank you for protecting my honour Harry," she smiled, kissing the top of his head.
They sat there for several minutes before Aayla thought she could ask another question,
"Harry, may I ask what that conversation was between you and Dumbledore that was also in your top security area?"
"It was to do with what he told me after we had got back from the graveyard and before my imprisonment, he explained to me a lot about what was going on that year and other things that had happened since I was born. He told me about a prophecy that..."
Voldemort was not happy.
He had got quite worried when Potter started reorganising his mind, he was sure he was going to be discovered and he was not ready for that yet.
Somehow he had managed to stay undetected and had managed to follow Potter and his blue skinned master as they penetrated deep into his mind and walked onto the Hogwarts lawn.
Knowing he would not be able to hide himself inside of Hogwarts whilst still following them he decided to hide in the Forbidden Forest until he was able to enter Hogwarts and find where Potter was hiding all his darkest and most secret memories, what better place to grow strong, in the heart of one of his archenemies minds.
But no sooner had he entered the forest than he was set upon by hoards of acromantulas. Roaring in rage he started firing curses at the creatures, only a few hit before he was grabbed and promptly bound from head to foot before being dragged off back to their nest.
AUTHOR'S ESSAY: Blimey you guys respond quickly to my posting, less than two hours after updating the last chapter and I already had five reviews.
I'm not really happy with this chapter, I loved coming up with the ideas for Harry's mind but when I proof read it I found it rather boring but I cannot think of a way to improve it so here it is.
Forgot to answer something in my last little essay, one of you asked why when doing the demo for the Council Hermione did something as obvious as a levitation charm rather than a jinx/hex or something more original. I chose a levitation charm because the Council members had never seen any use of Magic prior to that and I was using what I hoped was Hermione logic and demonstrating how a wizard would do something that the Jedi are able to do another way so as to best compare the differences between the two forms of Force control.
In response to the last chapter someone asked if Harry would be able to withdraw the texts that Hermione would be giving to the Archives and the answer is really that it does not matter as although only a very limited number of people can remove the originals any Jedi can take a copy with them from the library unless they are classified.
For those that do not know a holocron is a holographic recording device usually in a uniform shape like a cube that can only be opened using the Force, they are used extensively by the Jedi and are kept under the utmost security, I cannot recall if its only the Jedi Council members or Jedi Master that are permitted free access to them.
Someone mentioned that Harry and Hermione might not be 100% human as wizards can interbreed with Giants, Goblins, Veela etc which makes them incredibly fertile. In response I would say that all the above species including what I shall term Earthling Humans evolved on Earth (let's not talk about their ancient origins no matter where they originally come from) as such they will be much closer related to each other. Also I do not recall it being said anywhere that Republic Humans could not breed with the Near-Human species that populated the galaxy like Twi'leks etc though I cannot admit to have researched the area very much. In addition saying Human is a VERY broad term, humans have evolved on dozens of worlds and no two are going to be genetically the same (despite the fact they will be been crossbreeding with other humans from other worlds since interstellar space flight was invented by each individual group of them), biologically the humans from different worlds could be as similar as modern humans from Europe and those from East Asia which have physical differences but are the same species or as diverse as Homo Neanderthals, Homo Sapiens and Homo Floresiensis all of which were supposed to be able to breed with each other despite being distinct species and looking quite different. Blimey that was a much more detailed answer than the one I was planning to write.
A.S.A.L.A. I can't believe I have never heard that one before, that's a very appropriate term for the speed of writing.
About including things like Parseltongue and Metamorph abilities, well Parseltongue made a brief off screen appearance in the chapters inside Harry's mind but I don't think it will really appear anywhere else at this time, or at least I am not planning to include it, it really all depends on whether Harry encounters any snakes and if Earth Parseltongue is understandable by Galactic Snakes. Metamorph abilities, I don't think will come into it, I don't want Harry to have EVERY wizarding ability under the suns as that can kill a story if he gets everything, though I am debating whether to make him an animagus as I would wager as we have encountered at least five of those in canon and only one metamorph that that skill is likely to be more heavily documented in the books Hermione brought with them.
And that's another monster of an Author's Essay.