Harry Potter, The Jedi That Would Not Die
Chapter 25 – Arguments & Acceptance
They day had been mixed for Harry, he was still not happy about being stuck with Alema by the Council who were supposed to help him out of this mess and he was even less happy about being told off by his Master just because he was not happy about the situation, but as she was feeling far worse than him right now he was going to try not to make her feel worse for punishing him.
Because of this when Alema insisted on helping him cook (she had originally tried to insist on doing all the cooking but he had refused to let her) he reluctantly put up with it, especially as he wanted to keep them both out of the way of his Master and Master Quinlan Vos for a while.
Master Vos was odd even by Jedi standards, he had been his Masters original Master before they had both lost their memories, thankfully his Master had managed to regain hers because of the advantages of having lekku which store memories. Unfortunately her Master being a Kiffar did not have the same advantages and never regained his memory of his life before and so had had to rebuild his life from scratch which was why her apprenticeship had been transferred to Master Tholme who was Master Vos's old Master until she was granted the rank of Knight.
Master Vos was odd, not just because of his lost memories but also because he had psychometric powers which enabled him to read memories off of objects which made Harry slightly nervous when he thought that all the Master would need to do would be to touch an object that Harry had touched and he would know what was happening at the time Harry had touched it. He wondered what going to the toilet must be like?
He had seen the change in his Master the instant Master Vos had arrived; she talked more freely and was much more relaxed than she had since before their last mission began, he was definitely glad the Master was here.
Master Vos in some ways reminded Harry a bit of Sirius. He seemed a bit like he was moving through a building of ghosts but whereas in Sirius's case it was the memories of his life before prison and his friends, for Master Vos it was the memories he should have of everything around him that he had lost. Their personalities were also similar; serious and reserved but with a quite sneaky sense of humour that often involved sly smiles. Very few people could make them truly open up, in Sirius's cases it was only Harry or Remus and in Master Vos's his former padawan Aayla. He genuinely seemed to care about his former padawan although Harry knew for certain he could not possibly remember the time he spent training her, it was still evident that he had the feelings of deep caring for Aayla that Sirius had had for him. A child whose early years they had missed and who was as close as they were ever likely to get to true family.
Harry had tried to keep himself and Alema away so as to allow them to talk, only making them sit with them during the meal that they shared in which Harry managed to keep his great curiosity about his Master's Master reigned in so as to allow the older Jedi more time to talk and only answering questions when directed at him. Thankfully this was made easier for him when the adult Jedi decided to go for a walk around the Temple after the meal and left Harry and Alema alone which went ok until Harry decided that while Alema was scrubbing the kitchen so clean that even some of the everlasting non-stick coatings on the pans were under threat (her idea not his), that he would try to catch up on some of the sleep he had missed on the stressful trip back to Coruscant.
He had started heading into his room before he remembered his Master's earlier instructions about his new sleeping arrangements and after a slight grumble to himself threw himself down on the sofa and very quickly started to nod off.
As Harry slowly awoke from his sleep he felt a warming sensation covering him and something soft brushing slowly across his face and through his hair. He automatically tried to snuggle closer to it and lean into whatever was brushing across him before realising that the thing whatever it was, was too heavy to be a sheet of some kind and appeared to have legs.
Snapping his eyes open he saw a pair of bright blue eyes set is a snow white face staring back at him.
"Alema! I-" he tried before a lekku that had been running its way down his face moved over his lips.
"Shh Master, there is just the two of us here, no one will bother us."
She shifted slightly so that one of her legs that had been lying on his was brought up so that it was beside his stomach and allowed her to shuffle closer, her hands never leaving his hair and her lekku never leaving his face..
"Alema noMMMHHH," he tried moving his head away from her lekku only for them to be met with her own lips for a few seconds.
"Don't worry Master, I will make it good for you, I am very experienced, you will enjoy yourself," she injected into a pause into her forced kisses, rubbing herself against him as she did so, one of her hands travelling down his body as she did so whilst she leant on the other and started opening his tunics.
Only then did Harry hear the chime of the door.
Panicking even more than he had before he struggled to get her off him that only resulted in him knocking the table beside the sofa over. When he went to push Alema off of him she pulled him with her and rolled them onto the floor, they landed with a bump, their faces less than three inches apart.
Before Harry could react both her arms and lekku had curled around his body and head.
"Don't worry Master, I am not being forced to do this, I want to do this with you and for you, you can give into your desires with me."
She then pulled him tight against her and encircled him with her legs.
He was already panicking madly before the one voice he really did not want to hear called out.
"Harry James Potter! What are you doing with that girl?"
Both Alema and Harry froze. After a second he managed to pull his lips away from hers and they both looked towards the door and saw Hermione brandishing her lightsaber with a look somewhere between shock, fury and outrage on her face.
Looking back at the position they were in Harry rapidly came to realise what Hermione was thinking; he was lying on top of Alema, her legs and arms wrapped around him and at the time when the door opened she had been trying to stick her tongue down his throat, not to mention the fact from her position all of Alema's clothes were concealed behind him so it looked like she was naked and he was about to be as his tunics were partially open.
Then Alema said possibly the single worst thing she could have said.
"Oh, I'm sorry Master; I did not know you already had a mistress. Would you enjoy watching me pleasure her first?"
Both Coleman and Aayla had been attracted to the latter's quarters by the heated emotions rolling along the links from their Padawans minds and although they knew they were not in any danger there was a very heated debate going on between them as they could hear their voices through the walls.
Quinlan Vos had come back with Aayla as he wanted to see for himself what had caused such a shouting match.
As they opened the doors they took an involuntary step back at the amount of energy radiating from those inside.
Harry and Hermione were standing opposite each other firing words at each other whilst radiating enough Force energy to make lesser beings run and hide. Alema who looked quite afraid of the pair had taken shelter and was looking around the door frame of the kitchen nervously.
"What were you thinking Harry? Slavery is one of the most appalling things that you can do to another person!" Hermione shouted accusingly.
"She's not my slave!" Harry countered.
"She said she was your slave! She also has a name!"
"I know she has a name and just because she considers herself my slave doesn't mean she is my slave!"
"Oh and what is she then? A servant without wages?"
"She is getting wages and technically she is my ranger!"
"That's just a nicer way of trying to avoid saying slave!"
"It was not my idea to keep her!"
"Keep her!...Keep her! She is not your property Harry, you cannot keep her!"
"You know that's not what I meant!"
"Then what did you mean?"
"She wants to be my sl...My ranger, bu-"
"So you accepted?" she interrupted.
"No. I said no many many times!"
"Then why is she here then?"
"The Council agreed that we could not send her away so she had to be allowed to do what she wanted!"
"So you accepted her as your slave!"
"Yes. I mean no, I mean..." he said tripping over his words. "Look, the Council told me to!"
"And just because they told you to you just rolled over and accepted it?"
"It's the High Council Hermione, what was I supposed to do? Refuse their orders and get thrown out of the Order for it?"
"You could have objected!"
"They all knew very well that I did not want her to stay with me!"
"Yet here she is!"
"It was their decision Hermione, Merlin knows I never wanted a slave or a ranger."
"Well that still doesn't explain what you were doing when I came in here!"
"I wasn't doing anything!"
"You were partially undressed and were kissing!"
"She undid my tunic and in trying to roll her off of me onto the floor I got pulled down with her!"
"She was lying on the floor practically naked with her legs locked around your waist whilst trying to take your clothes off!"
"I didn't want to do that, I was having a nice sleep when I feel her on top of me!"
"I bet she still would have been if I had not come in when I did! And what she said when I came in the door...I've never been so shocked or outraged in my entire life!"
"I didn't make her say it!"
"Just what have you been telling her about us Harry James Potter?"
"I haven't told her anything about you at all Hermione Jane Granger!" he countered.
"Oh, so you never even mentioned me! Well that's nice isn't it, not even mentioning your best friend to your new slave!"
The three adults in the doorway looked on in amusement.
"Are they normally like this?" asked Quinlan.
"No," replied Coleman. "In fact this is the most I have ever seen them fight since they joined the Order."
"How long do you think they will continue if we don't interrupt them?" asked Aayla.
"Well considering the way they are going at it I think it could go on for quite a while yet," remarked Coleman with a smile.
"Do you think we should break them up?" asked Quinlan.
"Might as well," replied Coleman, before turning to the room and in his most intimidating and influential council voice shouted, "SILENCE!"
The room was reduced from being one of the loudest rooms in the Temple to being one of the quietest in a matter of seconds as both the verbal combatants output of Force stopped and they turned to the adults standing in the doorway.
"Better," remarked Coleman. "Are you two aware that we could here you both two corridors over?"
They both remained silent and looked down at the floor, embarrassed about their private argument being apparently quite public.
"Now we heard some of the argument, but I want to hear from you what that was about...Hermione?...Would you like to start?"
Hermione looked decidedly uncomfortable as she went to speak.
"I came to see if Harry was back from his mission, when I got here I heard a thump and crash from inside and thought something was wrong so I used the Force to open the door only to find Harry and his new...slave," she said, trying not to sound so angry at the last word. "Rolling around on the floor, wrapped around one another with their tongues down each other's throats."
"We did no-"
"Aaa!" interrupted Coleman, silencing him with a gesture before turning back to Hermione. "Now Padawan, I admit that I do not know the full details of this situation but while you were freshening up the Council told me about Padawan Potter's situation and it is through no fault of his own other than the fact that he hates to see others in pain that he landed himself in this situation. It was the Council who agreed this solution so unless you are suggesting that Padawan Potter should ignore the orders of the High Council I do not know what you are suggesting he does."
Hermione stuttered for a moment, not really knowing what to say to that.
"As for what happened with Padawan Potters ranger, I suggest we ask her...Explorer Ani, would you mind telling us what happened to cause the argument?"
The still worried Alema nervously came out of the kitchen but only just, standing directly in front of the doorway so she could make a quick exit if required. Looking to Harry for permission she began at his nod which did nothing for Hermione's anger at the situation.
"After my Master's Mistress left with her Master, my Master went to catch up the sleep he lost last night when he..." she stopped and glanced worriedly at her Master then at Aayla as she realised she was about to reveal what happened between them on the Wayward Son. "When we were on the ship, I finished the cleaning I was doing and thought it was about time I thanked my Master properly for what he has done for me."
"Than-" Hermione began, only to be silenced by a look from her Master.
"Any you intended to do that by?..." he said trailing off.
"Giving him pleasure," she replied without any hint of embarrassment, despite the fact that both of the padawans started turning deep shades of red.
Even the adult Jedi had to pause for a second before they could compose an answer to that one.
"Explorer Ani, did Padawan Potter return your...advances?"
"No Master, he tried to push me off but I knew it was because he thought I was doing it because I thought I had to as his slave," she replied, whilst Harry sent a look at Hermione that said 'I told you so'.
There was another pause.
"Explorer Ani, with very few exceptions Jedi are supposed to be celibate."
"I'm very sorry Master but I do not understand that word, what does it mean please?"
If Coleman had looked over at his fellow Jedi Knight and Jedi Master he would have seen both Aayla's and Quinlan's mouths twist into amused smiles at the situation he had found himself in.
"It means...that Jedi are supposed to avoid relationships and marriage as well as not engaging in...sexual...intercourse."
Alema looked at him shocked.
"Not at all Master?"
"No," replied Coleman, relatively happy with the way he had answered the question, it could have been much worse, but unfortunately Alema was not finished yet.
"Then how do Jedi satisfy themselves sexually?"
It just got worse and the other two Jedi had to hold back their laughter with sudden bursts of coughing.
"They...don't," he replied slowly, thinking carefully about his words now so as to try to avoid digging himself even deeper, why had he not let Aayla deal with the situation, these were her quarters after all. "We meditate to focus ourselves and to make us more at one with the Force."
"It sounds very inefficient Master, the Council should allow you to relieve yourselves as well or else you could end up very sexually tense like my Master and his mistress Hermione."
By the time the fits of laughter from Aayla and Quinlan had come back under control and the almost glowing red faces and stunned looks of both the padawans and the Vurk Master had worn off, the scolding the two padawans were going to get from their Masters had pretty much slipped everyone's minds.
Instead the Masters decided it was best to see if they could settle the disagreement by getting the two padawans back on the same page so to speak. To that end after both Harry and Hermione had apologised to Alema for scaring her half to death with their Force augmented argument, Hermione was sent off to talk to Aayla about the Alema situation.
Finding a nice quiet corner of the Temple Aayla sat down and instructed Hermione to sit beside her.
"So Hermione, please tell me why your opposition to the Alema situation was even stronger than both mine and Harry's, despite how much we detest slavery?"
Still obviously upset about the situation Aayla watched Hermione take a breath before speaking.
"When we were back on Earth did you happen to see any of the House-Elves?"
"Small creatures, appear out of thin air, about as tall as Master Yoda and Master Yaddle?"
"Yes, they have a similar appearance as..." Hermione trailed off as something occurred to her and she turned to Aayla. "You...You know that knows one actually knows were Master Yoda's species comes from and what they are really called other than members of the species themselves...You don't suppose that House-Elves could be?..."
"Unlikely," Aayla replied with a smile, "Their skins the wrong colour for a start and I am sure that Master Yoda or Master Yaddle would have said something about them or asked about them even subtly if they were from your planet. Besides Master Yoda's species is very long lived, I think Master Yaddle is over four hundred and Master Yoda over eight hundred. Do House-Elves on your planet live as long?"
"I don't believe so," she replied, "I'm sure that would have been mentioned in my research."
"We are getting off topic," reminded Aayla. "What have these House-Elves got to do with this situation?"
"House-Elves live in slavery to the Wizarding World, most humans consider them to be lesser beings and therefore not deserving of the same rights as humans. They are forced by means of magical bonds to serve either families or persons and they cannot disobey even if they wanted to. Their 'masters' can beat them, torture them, order them to hurt themselves or do anything they want and the must obey as their bodies will force them to. They got no wages, got no time off, even slaves of the Republic are treated better, they at least have control of their bodies."
Aayla nodded, her reaction was more understandable now.
"Go on."
"There was this one House-Elf called Dobby that belonged to our main rival at schools family, he was treated terribly but despite the laws that controlled how he could act he did whatever he could to protect Harry from his Master before Harry managed to free him. Then there was another elf called Winky who was dropped from the service of another family and she had a breakdown because she felt as if she had been subjected to the ultimate disgrace of disappointing her master. I took it upon myself to do what I could to help them so I created the Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare to try to free them...
Meanwhile back in Harry's quarters.
"...but S.P.E.W. was a resounding failure as no one wanted to join but mainly because all the House-Elves at Hogwarts are treated very well and therefore found it highly insulting for anyone to want to free them. The only two free elves that we have ever seen were Dobby and Winky and while Dobby wanted to be free he was an exceptional House-Elf in that ninety nine percent of them found him to be extremely weird and almost a traitor to what it meant to be a House-Elf is which is so serve a master unquestioningly. Winky had a much more typical reaction and resorted to drinking heavily and ended up having a nervous breakdown because of it."
"Does Hermione know of this?" asked Coleman.
"She knew about Winky and Dobby, but what she did not know was that because she kept leaving clothes around the dormitories in the hope of the Elves accidentally freeing themselves and because all the other Elves at Hogwarts loved working for Wizards only Dobby would dare to go in there and so had to do the cleaning of all the Gryffindor Dormitories all by himself. We never had the heart to tell Hermione that. She never seemed to understand that they wanted to be slaves and could not handle or cope with being free."
"Hermione you say that the Elves served Wizards because they wanted to?"
"Yes, but only because they did not know any better. It would be much better if they were all free."
"Why?"
She paused and turned to look at Aayla.
"Why?" Hermione questioned.
"Why?" confirmed Aayla.
"Why what Knight Aayla?"
"Why would it be better if they were freed?"
"Well its better than slavery," she replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Ok, so you free them all. What now?"
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked again.
"Well how are they going to support themselves? How will they find shelter? How will they buy food?"
"Well...people would help them of course."
"But you said that people treat them like slaves so if they treated them like slaves before why would they all of a sudden decide to provide them with all of the above?"
"Well...Human decency," she replied uncertainly, Hermione seemed to realise that she should have come into this argument better prepared.
"But they are free now, why should the Wizarding World pay for beings who could earn their own keep to be kept at their expense?"
"Because it's the right thing to do."
Sighing Aayla hung her head for a second.
"Hermione you have been a Jedi for several years now, you know as well as I do that the beings of this galaxy do not do things just because it's the right thing to do. If they did then we would be out of a job."
"Regardless, it's wrong for anyone to own a slave and now Harry who knows how much I hate what happened on Earth, has one of his own who is willing to wait on him hand, foot and...other things," Hermione tried, not accepting defeat.
Aayla sighed again before speaking.
"Hermione, while we were on that last mission I was handed a very large...How would you say it...reality check I suppose. Alema offered her servitude to Harry, he did not take it willingly, in fact he got so angry about it he made her run away crying."
"She cried about being rejected as a slave?" Hermione gasped in shocked confusion.
"Yes, I went to talk to her and she explained why she had run; she had been a slave all her life, she was raised as one and like the House-Elves you told me that work at Hogwarts she was well treated for most of it. As a result of this she had grown up liking and accepting her servitude, in fact it took me quite a while to talk her into understanding that we did not free her only to take over as her masters and when I went onto explain about the idea of being her own master she got so terrified that she begged me on her hands and knees to help her do anything to stop Harry trying to free her. I think she was more afraid of not being a slave than I was of being one."
"Bu-"
"She needs to be a slave Hermione, her whole mindset is built around it. It's like taking away a devout persons religion, she needs that element of stability in her life and may well have a mental break down if she loses it."
"Bu-" Hermione tried again.
"Hermione, do you really think that Harry would treat anyone, especially a woman badly?"
"Of course not."
"Then there is no problem, Alema gets what she needs, Harry and I get some help around the Temple and on missions once she had trained and as she is an Antarian Ranger now she will get wages, time off and holidays. You need to accept this Hermione otherwise it is going to cause a lot of tension between Harry and yourself and right now both Harry and I need you to be on our sides."
Hermione looked at her curiously after she said that, obviously realising that there was something important that she was missing.
"Knight Aayla, what ha-"
"Please don't ask Hermione," she replied closing her eyes for a second, trying not to think about the last few days. "Many more people than I want to know already know and I would rather no one else, not even you found out but Harry and I are going to be having some time off in the near future to allow us to heal and we will need all the support we can get."
Hermione was obviously desperate to know but just nodded her acceptance leaving them sitting in silence for about a minute.
"I suppose I should go and apologise to Harry now?"
Aayla smiled lightly.
"Yes and make sure he apologises to you too, it takes two people to have an argument."
As the doors to his quarters opened to reveal a guilty looking Hermione, Master Coleman got up and took his leave and took Alema with him for a full tour of the Temple, leaving the two padawans alone with each other.
They both stood there silently for a moment before both went to speak.
"A-"
"I'm-"
"Sorry."
"Ladies first."
"I'm...I'm sorry. I jumped to conclusions about Alema, I didn't know all the facts and I should have known better than to think you would willingly take anyone as a slave."
"I'm sorry too, I should have known that you would not know the circumstances and I should not have got angry with you as I know your feelings on slavery ad me shouting back only made things spiral out of control."
"Friends?" she asked tentatively, to which he replied by moving over to her and pulling her into a tight hug that lasted several long seconds before they partially separated and Harry pulled them down onto one of the seats.
"So how was your mission?" he asked.
"Quite interesting, we had to broker a treaty between the Wookiees and the Trade Federation but the Trade Federation though it would be a good idea to try to kill us all with hundreds and hundreds of gundarks."
"Oh fun," he replied with a smile, "How did it go?"
"Well one Wookiee and I ended up on the run outside of the colony and we ended up having to invade and take over the Trade Federation base."
"You what!" he shouted, making her flinch backwards slightly.
"Well we had to do something Harry, the Wookiees were being overrun and when we discovered that the Trade Federation were behind it and that we could not get through to my Master on the ship we realised that only Chewbacca and myself were going to be able to do anything about it. We had no choice but to try to stop them."
"You're telling me you managed to take over an entire Trade Federation base of thousands of battle droids with just one wookiee to help you and you did this without suffering a single injury?"
"Well no, we had to sneak into the base, Chewbacca got shot in the leg and I broke my collar bone when we fell off the walls of the Wookiee colony."
"Hang on," he interrupted. "You engaged on a very dangerous mission with only one wookiee for backup while sporting a broken shoulder...You're supposed to be the logical one! I'm the one who is supposed to be heroically suicidal, not you!"
"Oh, and I suppose you did nothing stupidly heroic and suicidal on your mission either?" she asked crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow.
"Well of course I did, but it's expected of me, you're supposed to be the sensible one. The one that gets me out of trouble, not the one who gets into it herself."
"And pray tell what did you do that was stupidly heroic?"
"Err...well..." he paused realising that he could not get away with not telling her the basics of the mission.
"Harry," she said firmly, glaring at him under half closed eyelids.
"Well I sort of freed hundreds of slaves, stole a fleet of ships from slave traders, launched a rescue mission aboard a rusty old freighter, stormed a Death Watch fortress on one of Mandalore's moons with only a few Rangers for backup and rescued another hundred or so slaves including my Master."
"Harry!" she shouted, much louder than he had. "You have the gall to tell me off for doing a mission with a broken bone while you enrage and steal from slave traders and then conduct an even more dangerous mission against the Death Watch no less, the group who lost you your arm in case you have forgotten..." she wrapped her fingers against his arm to make the point, "...and who also have a strong grudge against Jedi and you in particular...Is there anything else you want to tell me before I ask your Master?"
"Well I..." he began, but she was already ahead of him.
"Hang on, I know what's missing. You are incapable of doing any sort of heroic deed without getting badly injured, maimed or otherwise incapacitated, what was it this time?" she demanded.
"Well...I might have sort of...died." He had the good sense to be ready to wince when he said it, he knew what was about to happen.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER!" she bellowed, leaping to her feet. "You stupid heroic selfish thick headed prat! Why is it that you are incapable of doing anything without getting injured."
"I didn't deliberately die; I assure you I would much rather not have. It was either that or watch Ayala and Alema die."
"What happened?" she demanded.
"Aayla was chained up and unconscious, Alema and the two other slaves were in no position to fight and Vizsla and-"
"Vizsla! Harry, do you go out of your way to try to find the most dangerous people to your health?"
"At least let me finish!...Vizsla and four Death Watch soldiers started firing at them from only a couple of meters away all at once and I had to block the shots. They got me several times and I started to bleed out before the Rangers brought the freighter in and strafed the room with its guns before the Mandalorian security turned up and got us out."
"Well," she huffed, "At least I know what's going to be in that message I saw waiting for me from Satine now."
"Oh, I had forgotten she was going to be sending you a message."
"I hope she gave you a good telling of too."
"She did, we had to be moved into a private room in the hospital because she was making such a disturbance."
"Good...at least you got what you deserved," she said which she followed up with a slight grin which he returned. "Let's go and find my Master?"
"He will have Alema with him," he reminded her.
"I know that's why we are going to go and find him. If she is going to be around for a while I should at least try to get to know her," with that she turned and walked towards the door before turning back to the stunned wizard. "Shall we?"
AUTHOR's NOTE: Here is a question for the Star Wars experts out there, can someone tell me when we think Tholme, Quinlan Vos and Aayla SHOULD have been born, not what they would be in this story but what they would be in EU if I had not made Aayla quite a bit older than she is supposed to be. The reason I ask is that since Quinlan Vos just made an appearance and as there is now the possibility that he might reappear again even if it is just a cameo I want to get their corresponding ages roughly right as well as being able to balance other historical events?