Harry Potter, The Jedi That Would Not Die
Chapter 50 – Padawan Help Thyself
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've made some minor changes to the end of the last chapter in response to some reviews that I got in an attempt to fix some plot holes I inadvertently made. I'd recommend re-reading the part of the last chapter after the line "Harry!...Harry wake up!", so basically once they hit the surface.
I've also re-written this chapter after some readers reminded me that the form of a wizard's animagus transformations is not chosen by them and is a reflection of themselves. I recall read that the Marauders chose their forms and that stuck in my brain as cannon; to quote The Harry Potter Wiki:
"'Padfoot' and 'Prongs' were large enough to control Remus (Moony) during his monthly transformations and 'Wormtail' was small enough to get past the Whomping Willow's defences so the group could get to the Shrieking Shack"
You can understand reading that why I believed they chose their forms, it's a little bit misleading.
Enjoy…again.
The planet that Hermione and Harry had crashed on, which they nicknamed 'Knowhere' (as they knew where there were but they had no idea where that was) was not exactly a holiday destination, they had crashed fairly close to the inland sea which provided a vital supply of fresh water as well as a source of food other than their rations in the form of the fish that swam within it. There was also a reasonable sized cave system in the cliff they had crashed into, within which was a small stream which led down to the sea.
Their attacker had been buried a little way from the cliff. As he had died while stunned he had never woken to tell them who he was or why he wanted Harry dead. They had kept his lightsaber for identification when they did eventually get back to Coruscant, hopefully there the mystery would be resolved.
The pair had tried to repair the main power line conduits, but the dense and layered construction that allowed them to channel the power coming out of the core was too difficult to replicate with magic; a Repairo was accurate enough for restoring hull plates, consoles and the like but anything that required incredibly strong bonds at an atomic level was at a level beyond what they could be achieved with magic.
Nonetheless they had tried using the repaired conduit; the core did not even finish its start-up sequence before the line ruptured causing major damage to the compartment, though thankfully the area affected was limited by the precautions they took and neither of them was hurt.
They set up camp within the cave system as the mostly metal ship got unbearably hot under the midday sun. They had levitated several of the separated hull plates into the cave to make into makeshift shacks giving them shelter.
It had been made into a reasonably nice little home and they spent most of their days repairing what on the Raven could be repaired, exploring or practicing their skills, both magical and jedi. The exploration provided a good test of their apparating abilities, both using Side-Along, chain-apparating (apparating to the end of line of sight then repeating) and long distance.
Harry was becoming quite adept at meditating in a way he never really had before. He had started to love the side of it that allowed him to open his mind up to the force and feel the life that was around him. One instance that stuck in his mind was when he was sitting on the sand feeling the Force around him and he noticed the energies of a battle going on; frantic fighting, injured and dead life forms falling. He had immediately opened his eyes and gone for his blade but had seen nothing to cause him alarm. He then opened himself back up again and watched the battle, it raged for hours and the faint lives that were making up the battle were dropping like flies, he began to wonder if he was feeling a battle a long way off but it was not until he felt one of the combatants touch his leg that he jumped back, opened his eyes and for the first time perceived what it was he had been sensing.
In front of him on the deserts sand was a single ant like creature that had a moment ago been about to climb up his leg and just beyond them he could just about see, almost camouflaged against the sand, two groups of these ant like insects engaged in some kind of battle, presumably for territory and prey. It was in that moment that he was first able to perceive the true wonder of the Force, as well as the fact that perspective itself had a sense of perspective. From the ants point of view they were fighting a battle for survival but to them they were likely not even aware that he was there, they had no concept of the scale of their world. To him their battle was tiny but it was life and death to their colonies, their societies and in the grand scheme of things his life was nothing.
For the first time he though he knew and saw the Force in all its wonder.
Harry had enjoyed spending his time like this, this activity that he had once hated became something that he revelled in, but as the weeks ticked by thoughts began to develop in their minds and after the pair had been there a month the realisation hit.
"Harry."
"Yes?" he asked whilst cooking a fish over a fire, just because it was different than cooking it using either magic or the meagre power that could be pumped to the cookers on the Raven.
"They aren't going to find us anytime soon are they?"
He did not answer for a moment before sighing and putting his fish aside.
"No…Probably not."
"That either means that we need to find a way of signalling them or we need to find a way off world," she continued.
"Well out communications just need more power but I don't think we could give them enough by ourselves. I don't think this planet has a molten core so geothermal is out. Solar and tide?"
"Possible," she replied. "But it would take a long time to collect enough energy to power even a brief burst of communication, and as we don't know where we are the burst needs to be powerful enough to reach the galactic core in order to reach a republic planet."
"Well we can't apparate," he contributed.
"No."
"And the ship is currently K.O. so I don't think we have any other choice."
"Not really…but I…I think I have another idea."
"I'm listening."
"Well, as you said, we can't apparate but maybe we can travel for help without the ship."
"I don't follow," he replied puzzled.
"Well you know some species can exist in space and others can enter hyperspace naturally without the need for a ship?"
"Yes, but…" he started before he caught on. "Hang on, do you mean animagus transformation? You do remember that you cannot control what creature you want to become?"
"Yes, but I was going through some of the books that I have digitised on the pad. When it first occurred to me that we might be hear a long time I thought that we are going to need some way to keep us occupied other than just practicing what we already know and I came across a chapter on animagi."
"I'm listening."
"Well, originally I didn't see any particular point in learning it but I kept being pulled back to that chapter so eventually I read it; there is a spell that shows you what form you can assume and I cast it upon myself."
"…And…" he urged.
"Well I was shown an image of an oswaft."
"Aren't they sentient being a bit like the Neebray Mantis?"
"In looks and abilities yes; it occurred to me that if I can transform into an oswaft I can exist in space, enter hyperspace and go and get help…What do you think?"
"It's possible," he replied after a few moments thought. "Obviously learning to transform will not be a quick process especially into something that large. Is it even possible to transform into something that large, or into a non-Earth species or a sentient species come to that, I can't remember anything about it in Transfiguration?"
"I've been thinking about that too," she explained. "The image did not show the scale of the oswaft but there is nothing to say that my form is going to be a full adult, young and older oswaft look the same; assuming that the data that the Temple had on them was accurate. There is also nothing that says that I cannot transform into a sentient species, there are very few animagi on Earth and even fewer sentient species compared to the non-sentient, and as most wizards look down on non-humans that might explain why there have never been any animagi in those forms. In theory it might even be possible for a person to be an animagus to another species of humanoid."
"I thought the form was dictated by your personality, it being a reflection of your inner self?"
"That's true, but I think that's were perspective comes into play, to the wizards and witches on Earth their magic only had the knowledge stored in their brains of how they interpreted different animals to draw upon. They never knew about non-Earth species so those were not open to their magic, whereas ours are. It's also about how each person perceives an animal."
"I don't follow?"
"Well for example let's say we are talking about Luna Lovegood, if for example her form were a cat that might mean different things to different people. E.G: I might think cats are loners, have strange habits, unsociable, don't get on well with others, etc, whereas Luna might interpret them as being mysterious, aloof, curious, loyal, caring etc."
"I think I follow you. So the obvious question is what does an oswaft mean to you?"
Hermione paused for a second to think, her cheeks going slightly red at having to describe how she saw herself.
"Well, an oswafts brain can take up up-to two thirds of its body so they are very intelligent, they are able to solve logical and mathematical problems easily which is how they are able to calculate hyperspace routes. They are also a bit reclusive, friendly if approached but not that good at interacting with other species."
Harry said nothing for a moment.
"Is that how you see yourself?" he asked a bit confused, his tone making Hermione uneasy, not quite sure where he was going with that statement. "A very intelligent logical person who can be a good friend but doesn't socialise well."
His statement made her flinch slightly, a bit hurt by his summing up.
"Well…yes."
"Oh Hermione, you are so much more than that."
"What else am I?" she asked uncertainly.
"Well yes, you are logical, highly intelligent and a good friend, but you are also caring, benevolent, willing to put your own happiness and wellbeing on the line in order to help others, your honourable, loyal, intuitive, curious, methodical, adaptable…but most of all…you are the best friend a death-prone wizard/jedi with the worst luck for getting himself in to live threatening situations could ever have."
Hermione said nothing for several seconds, looking on in stunned silence, before suddenly throwing herself at him and hugging him tightly.
"Thank you Harry," she cried, her voice breaking slightly as she said it.
"I speak only the truth Hermione," he replied.
They stayed like that for several minutes before Hermione pulled back and wiped her eyes that had got more than a little wet before continuing.
"So…So, do you think it will work?"
"The theory is sound."
"I freely admit I have not studied it in detail," she added. "But it has to be worth a shot. Even if it does take months or years, at the moment that might be faster than a rescue."
"Well we know it does take a long time to learn but then I don't imagine that most people would spend more than an hour or two a day doing nothing but learning, you would be able to spend almost all your waking hours doing so. It's worth a shot."
"Do you want to know what your form is too so you can learn at the same time?" she asked.
"I really want to," he replied after a moment's thought. "Ever since I learned about my dad and Sirius I have wanted to…But at the moment I should be working on our backup plan of getting a signal to Coruscant. If I know what my form is it will distract me."
"Ok then, so I'll work on one rescue plan and you'll work on the other."
Time passed slowly for the padawans; Harry set about the task of assembling make shift solar panels using the ships own hull plating, energy collectors, capacitors and an awful lot of charms to get the energy connection working correctly, it took him about four weeks just to get the first one working then an extra week for every one that he added to the network. He had the problem that the metal got so hot during the day that it could not be handled which meant that a large portion of the work had to be done at night. The charging was horrendously slow despite the tremendous day time temperatures as a lot of power was needed for such a powerful broadcast and the heat transfer system was not very efficient.
Harry spent the days exploring the surrounding area, and started travelling even further once the majority of the panels were in place, which had taken several months. Exploring much more widely around the area he wanted to learn what sort of wildlife, if any, was native to the planet, other than the ants, and if they could find anything to help them survive.
Harry spent about two months wandering far from the landing point, using his apparation to move hundreds of miles a day but despite this he found very little of use for several weeks though he got the shock of his life when he apparated and appeared nose to tail with a bantha surrounded by more than two dozen others. At least there was some life larger than an insect on the planet, possibly an alternative food source too if they felt so inclined.
The only other exploration trip of note occurred when Harry apparated onto a high hill and saw what appeared to be a settlement on the edge of a small oasis. Apparating to the edge of it he discovered what could only be described as a ghost town. The architecture was pretty standard, the same as you would find on any temporary base, nothing old or traditional, though it was horrifically damaged. Large structures had holes, tears in them not to mention gouges that looked like bites, but what was weirder was that they seemed to come from underground or floor level.
He explored more of the complex and soon realised that it had been abandoned for years, dashing his momentary hope that he may have found them a way off world. It also likely belonged to smugglers as there were a large quantity of differently shaped and sized cages in one of the largest rooms, most of which had labels still attached and a few still contained skeletons. He idly wondered if one of these creatures had caused the disaster as one of the larger more reinforced cages, which annoyingly had no label, was open, as were several of the smaller ones, though the larger one seemed to have been broken out of from the inside.
He kept exploring the structure, hoping that a ship might be present, but other than a few interesting items of small tech, there was nothing much of interest until he felt something on the edge of his senses.
As he came around the corner of one building he paused as he felt something living nearby. Not in any way aggressive but he could feel a level of intelligence beyond simple instinct. Standing still he slowly started rotating his head, scanning the area with his eyes, trying to find the source of the intelligence…He saw nothing. Using the Force he felt for the direction of the being and then turned in that direction and tried again.
In front of him was a couple of buildings but the being felt closer than them, all that was left was a stretch of lightly undulating sand. He briefly wondered if the creature was subterranean before he spotted what he had previously thought looked like a pair of small stones in the sand. Now he realised what they were…They were eyes.
The shock of seeing them made him flinch.
As he locked eyes with the creature it realised it had been seen and bolted. In that second its fur changed from sand yellow to grey as it dashed away.
Taking off after it, he chased the small creature around the corner of a building; it was quick and very agile. He got a few second look at it as it ran along a street before diving into a building. It appeared to resemble a heavily built cat, stocky build, slightly larger than a regular cat but with large floppy rabbit-like ears and a long bushy tail. It was the oddest thing, seeing the face of something that looked like a cat but with ears so wide and long that they could be tied under its chin.
Following the creature into the house he barely he got through the door before the creatures scampered out between his legs and ran off down the street. Turning he gave chase and ran down the street after it. The creature now had a lead on him, he could easily catch it with the Force if he wanted to hut he was more interested to find out what it was than to catch it.
Once out of the two legs sight around the corner of the building the creature had intended to duck down a side street but suddenly it sniffed and stopped.
It was back.
From beneath it devourers.
Turning tail it tried to escape but the ground tumbled and the tentacles extended out.
This time it had her.
Harry rounded the corner just in time to see a funnel shape depression in the sand form in the middle of the street and a beak like mouth extend out of it surrounded by many tentacles.
"Sarlacc!" he swore as a pair of tentacles wiped towards him. Sending a Force Push at them, he deflected them long enough to draw his lightsaber and cut the two thrashing limbs.
Hearing a cry he turned and saw the small creature he had been chasing being dragged along the ground towards the creature's maw by one of the smaller tentacles.
Drawing is wand he fired off a cutting curse, severing the tentacle, giving the small creature a chance to untangle itself and dart for cover.
In that moment of distraction a pair of tentacles grabbed his legs and coiled around them, tying them together and began dragging him forward. Swinging his blade he cut the limbs but not before he crossed into the small three meter wide funnel in the ground and began sliding into it.
Timing it carefully he landed his feet on either side of the creatures beak and swung his lightsaber around him in an arc, severing all its remaining tentacles.
The creature screamed and started to retract into the ground.
Scrambling up the sand, Harry managed to Force Jump out of the funnel that was rapidly become and sand slide that threatened to bury him.
Landing on the sand he could hear as well as feel the sarlacc moving through the desert. He remembered that the younger once good chase down prey. He could watch the slight shift of the sand as the large creature moved around its subterranean world. He idly wondered if this was what Kevin Bacon's character felt like in Tremors.
Almost as expected he saw the slight shift in the sands as the creature circled then came back towards him. Just like a sharks fin, the shifting sands stopped as the creature turned in for its attack, indicating that it was going deep to right itself before surfacing.
Seconds later he was not surprised when the sands beneath him began to shift. Instinctively he thrust his lightsaber into the ground another scream came from the creature before the ground went still as the beast retreated. He had no idea where a sarlacc's brain was but he imagined he had just down it quite a lot of damage that would take a long time to repair.
Stepping onto more stable ground he replaced his lightsaber and wand before sighing in relief that that sarlacc had only been a youngster, he doubted he could have got away from a larger one so easily.
Now he suspected he knew what had happened to this settlement. They were probably pirates trading illegally in exotic creatures like the small mammal and the sarlacc. One of the creatures, most likely the sarlacc, escaped and managed to hunt down the pirates or chased them off world before going after the rest of the creatures.
The sarlacc was not at fault, it had likely been taken from wherever this one's home planet was then transported here on way to an auction of similar. It had probably not eaten much since it had gotten here, the bantha, even the youngsters, were too big for it and he had seen nothing smaller that would sustain it, he would likely have been the biggest meal it had had in years. Hopefully it would recover and find a new source of food.
Hearing a slight shuffling behind him he slowly turned and saw the odd cat/rabbit sitting atop an old packing crate watching him thoughtfully.
He turned and they stared at each other for a moment, before Harry decided to fall back on something he had learned at Hogwarts.
Placing his arm across him stomach he bowed to the creature.
"Hello," he greeted. He had no idea how intelligent this creature was but it was definitely at least semi-sentient and so would hopefully understand that he meant no harm. "My name is Padawan Learner Harry James Potter of the Order of the Jedi, I mean you no harm."
The creature gave no sign of actually understanding what he had said but it jumped down from its perch and slowly crept towards him, just as a puppy or kitten would cautiously approach something new.
Harry slowly knelt down and extended his hand as you would for a cat to sniff.
The creature slowly approached until it was within centimetres of his hand. Giving him a couple of experimental sniffs it then brushed its head against his hand.
"There you go," Harry smiled, taking that as his cue and beginning to stroke the creature's neck and head. "What shall we call you?"
He thought for a moment. He had heard thousands of names since coming to the Republic, some short, some long, some weird, some not even pronounceable. The best thing he could think to do was to pick one randomly.
"Let's call you…Asani."
The creature continued to nuzzle his hand before seeming to catch a scent and moving closer to his body and sniffing his belt.
"You can smell my rations can't you?" he stated, opening the container and taking one out. Breaking it in half he ate half himself and held out the other two the creature who sniffed at it for a second before grabbing it with its forepaws and rocked back onto its hind legs to eat, giving it the effect of sitting.
Harry studied the creature while it ate; its fur that originally had been sand coloured, then greyish was now closer to white, although it had a good length of fur it looked far too thin around the stomach, if a cat was a good judge of similarity, and in dire need of a good feed.
As the creature finished it fell back onto all fours. Pausing for a moment it ran around behind him then ran up his back so that it laid its head and forelegs over his shoulder.
Harry made a decision.
"I think it would be better for you, and possibly me, if you come back to my ship. If you understand me you might want to hang on; this could be a little strange."
Back at the ship, Hermione had just finished cooking dinner, she had experimented with baking today's catch and it had turned out quite well. The fish were currently in stasis, keeping them hot and just cooked awaiting Harry's return.
Hermione had progressed at a much slower speed on her project than Harry; she thankfully kept a digital copy of all the books that had come from Hogwarts on a pad shrunk on her person so they were safe during the crash. She initially had to do a lot of research as the books were not great at helping work out how to turn into an animagus. She had done more research on how easy it was to turn into creatures of different sizes; all the animagi that they knew of either turned into similar sized animals, such as deer and dogs, or smaller ones like cats or rats. In the end there did not appear to be anything magically against a significant increase in size so she began practicing. The books mentioned practicing by focusing on their alternative form and then trying to channel their magic towards it. It was slow work, she had to slowly change parts of her body to make sure that she was capable of transforming but each time she tried whether it be changing her hands into wing tips or her skin beginning to turn translucent, it was like a crushing weight dropped on top of that part of her body but she thought maybe it was a natural process of learning to transform.
Eventually after many weeks of transforming little bits of herself she got to the point where she felt comfortable in attempting a full transformation and as soon as Harry returned she would give it a go.
There was a pop on the other side of the cave as Harry appeared.
"Baked catch of the day?" she asked without turning.
"Enough for three?" he replied moving towards her.
Turning at his words she looked at him and saw the small creature on his shoulder.
"Where did it come from?...And what is it?"
"I found it at some sort of deserted pirate or smugglers camp," he explained sitting, the creature examining Hermione from his shoulder, its ears raising as if listening to her words. "If started being friendly after I saved it from a young sarlacc."
"And where did you find a sarlacc?" she asked disbelievingly.
"At the camp, I think they were trading in illegally caught animals. The base seemed long abandoned so my best guess is that the sarlacc got lose, killed or scared off the pirates and other creatures and only this one survived. I think she's quite intelligent as she ran from me until I saved her and chased the thing off."
"I can't leave you along for even a day can I?...What do you intend to do with her?"
"Keep her I suppose," he replied. "I've already named her Asani. She looks half-starved and it would be nice to have more companionship than the two of us and a load of ants."
"Well, regarding that," she said uncertainly. "…I think I'm ready."
"Ready?" he asked, opening the fish and cutting off the tail for the Asani who jumped off of his shoulder and gratefully took the fish and started devouring it. "Ready for what?"
"Ready to try transforming fully," she replied.
"Oh," he gasped. "Ok…When do you want to try?"
"When we've eaten?" she asked.
"Ok," he nodded.
An hour or two later in the dying light of the day the pair were standing under the cloudless sky.
"Are you sure you are ready for this Hermione?"
"As I'll ever be."
"You remember the plan?"
"Yes; transform, fly into space, use my oswaft brain to calculate our galactic position. If possible relay that information to you, then jump into hyperspace and head for Coruscant and the Temple and get help."
"Correct…you good to go?"
"Yeah…give me some space; I'm going to get very big."
Harry backed up about forty meters towards the ship were Asani was currently sitting in the shade watching the two humans with interest.
This was the first time that Hermione had tried transforming fully, every time she tried to transform part way she always felt this pinch, this squeezing feeling but she was not sure what the cause of it was but it was always very uncomfortable, she just hoped it would not get any worse transforming fully.
Focusing on the image of an oswaft she concentrated on all she had learned about animagus transformation and channelled her magic. Kneeling down she began to grow, to change.
They already knew that to change into something so large that she would likely have to draw on the planets energies to do so, so reaching out with the Force she began to channel the energy around her as her body began to change.
From Harry's point of view, things were going well; Hermione was changing shape and was a lot more translucent, she was also growing a lot…
10 meters
20
30 meters
It was then that things started to go wrong.
Hermione began groaning, the way an oswaft did and her legs (what remained of them) gave out, leaving her lying on the sand.
"Hermione?" he asked concerned.
Her groans turned into cries of pain until a maser bolt leapt from her mouth and struck the rock bolder in front of her, making it explode in a shower of debris.
She began to convulse and writhe and Harry realised he had no choice; drawing his wand he cast the same spell that Remus and Sirius had cast on Wormtail years earlier to get her to reverse her transformation.
He drew on the magic within and around him, forcing her to return to her normal state.
The reversal was quick; she rapidly shrunk down to her usual size.
"Hermione?" he asked panting with exertion as he ran to her side, Asani jumping down from her post and ran over as well. "Are you alright?"
"…Gravity," she gasped out.
"What?" he asked confused.
"I didn't understand before," she explained, sitting up awkwardly. "Oswaft, they exist in space, not in atmosphere. The gravity was crushing me. I also couldn't get airborne with my increased mass."
"Then this isn't going to work unless we can get you up to the edge of the atmosphere and hold you there while you transform," he sighed. "You can't apparate, by the time you have finished transforming you will likely have hit the ground, and if it does not work you will need a way to get you down safely."
"This isn't going to work," she sighed.
"It…might," he said slowly.
"How? We just proved it wouldn't, I've wasted all this time, not to mention my animagus form is a creature I can't use."
"All we need to do is get you to altitude and hold you there while you transform, then you can fly away."
"Yes but we have no way of doing that," she countered.
"Not yet," he replied. "You remember that spell you used to identify what form you would become?"
"Yes, but how wi-"
"Humour me, cast it upon me."
She sighed in resignation, not seeing the point but cast it nonetheless, a ghostly image forming before them which slowly refined into a known creature.
"Is that a duinuogwuin?" she asked, looking at the long winged serpentine like reptilian form in front of them.
"If that's the other name for a star dragon then yes I believe it is," he replied. "That's better than I hoped."
"Harry, please explain what you are going on about?"
"Well I was hoping I would be something like a hippogriff or a gryphon but this is even better. I was thinking that if we were lucky enough for my form to be something that could fly and that is big enough to carry you, at least for a while, we could strap an oxygen mask around my forms head to allow me to fly higher then I could carry you to the edge of space and hold you there while you transform. It seems we are even luckier than I hoped as star dragons can survive in space and are bigger so I can take you even higher and I can hold you there for longer…Simply put I could be your launching pad."
"Like the booster stage to a rocket," she nodded in understanding. "You would only be getting me to the edge of space where I could breathe but also fly and transform without gravity crushing me…it could work."
#Aayla, this is Coleman. Anything?#
"Nothing yet," she replied over the comms inside her fighter. "I heard from Alema yesterday, she's having no luck picking up any sign of the Raven in her quadrant."
#How long have we been searching now?# came the Master's voice.
"Seven months," she replied wearily. "But I refuse to quit until we find them."
#As do I Aayla,# he replied. #As do I.#
"How many other searchers remain?" she asked.
#Other than Alema, we still have five other jedi searching,# he replied. #But we do not know how long they will be able to continue before other duties call on them.#
"They will stay as long as they must!" shouted Aayla. "We will not allow them to stay lost!"
The revised plan was decided, Harry was going to transform into a duinuogwuin, also known as a star dragon. Comparing the two species that they were going to transform into was a strange experience; they could hardly be more different.
Oswaft were sentient space-born species that spent their entire lives in space. The jedi had no idea how long they lived as they were very reclusive and normally kept to one nebula in the Centrality, an independently governed area outside the Republic. The creatures themselves were vast, reaching hundreds of meters across and long and resembled neebray mantis or the manta rays of Earth. They were almost completely translucent and the vast majority of their body was made up of an immense brain which was so powerful they could use it to calculate hyperspace coordinates and plot hyperspace jumps which they could perform naturally without the aid of a ship. The only two downsides that they had come up with were that they could not communicate in galactic basic and could only communicate at all using a modified maser beam, which was also how they defended themselves. The second downside, as they found out, was that they were not designed to survive in a planet's gravity.
Duinuogwuin by contrast were very different; they too were sentient but they were long and thin, similar in shape to the style of dragons depicted in East Asia on Earth, in that they were very serpentine. There were several different varieties or sub-species having a different combination of head shapes, number of and size of wings and limbs, but the one Harry was gaining the ability to transform into was about ten meters in length with the head like that of a dragon on Earth, its body was divided into segments like that of a millipede but each segment was about a meter long and each one had a pair of legs and three of the segments also had large bat like wings that could either operate separately or be moved as one extra deep pair of wings. The wings were strong but despite this the bulk of his body was too much to be lifted by them alone. Similar to a flying squirrel on Earth they would only permit him to glide. This though was not a problem as although his wings were not strong enough to lift him; his form was also equipped with natural repulsors lifts which allowed him to fly without his wings. Harry guessed that the wings were now an evolutionary relic which had become redundant since the creatures developed the repulsors. The dragon could also crucially survive in both an atmosphere and space and could in fact travel for long periods of time through space, though at sublight speeds.
When Hermione had asked Harry about what he saw the star dragon as representing the conversation went:
"Well they are reclusive creatures, not really fitting in with the galaxy as a whole on a species wide level, only on an individual basis. They were often loners who did their own thing. They are benevolent and strongly moral. They often appear in the histories of other races as heroes come to help others. I suppose I cannot help but compare that a bit to how the Wizarding World expected me to help them while they did not act against Voldemort. Their history is a bit of a mystery, not knowing much about my parents I can relate to that. Also some of their number are Force sensitive, my strong connection to the Force might have had some influence there. Also I think most significantly when the Republic first encountered them the scout's fear of their appearance they assumed the worst about them which resulted in conflict until peace was brokered. That more than anything else reminds me of how the Wizarding World reacted to me, both just hearing my name, meeting me or interpreting Daily Prophet articles."
"I see what you mean about the comparison between you and the Wizarding World and those of the Republic and Duinuogwuin. I also see what you mean about mysterious or unknown histories and your morality. But do you really consider yourself a loner or reclusive?" she had asked a little concerned.
"Not completely so, more like…like I like to stay with those I know and trust, I'm not one for large crowds of acquaintances but being around those I consider close friends and family that's something I prefer."
"I think that's something most of us prefer Harry, but if that inner opinion helped shape your animagus form, I cannot help but be thankful that it is something that can help us."
It had taken Hermione about six months to learn how to transform, thanks to the magical library that was held on her pad and spending almost all day every day learning, though not having transformed fully yet she was not willing to commit to being referred to as an animagus yet.
Harry, with Hermione's guidance, was picking up the transformation faster, it still took months and four had passed even before they realised. It was at this point that they started to have an unexpected problem.
"Harry, have you noticed the change in the temperature over the last few weeks? Hermione asked.
"Well now you mention it, it does seem to have gotten hotter, why?"
"Well I've been doing some calculations on my pad and from my results the temperature has been increasing by about a degree every week for the last five."
"What are you thinking?"
"Well, I don't remember a lot of the sensor readings from before we crashed but I think I remember this planet having an elliptical orbit. I'm thinking what we have had for the last eleven months was this planets Autumn and Winter."
"Are you serious?" he asked. "It hasn't been below thirty five degrees centigrade during day time since we got here."
"Unfortunately yes," she replied. "And if we assume that the planets year is around eighteen months long, I'm only guessing on that. Then we are going to have three or four months of temperatures over fifty, possibly even over sixty."
"Thankfully we have cooling charms," he remarked.
"Yes we do, but we have a different problem, the outside of the ship can easily handle temperatures triple that, but parts of the ships internals are not designed to tolerate temperatures that high for extended periods of time, especially as the metal of the ship will likely get even hotter. It's possible that the cooking equipment, the limited power we have and the wiring supporting the solar array could all start to melt, fry itself or breakdown."
"So we might lose what little tech we have?"
"Even worse, I compared the level of the lake today to where I remember it being last week and the lake has started to shrink, I think we might soon lose that as a food source if fish migrate or die as the water goes. That would leave us with only the rations."
"We can survive on those."
"But the sort we have are not designed for extreme temperatures they will start to go off, even if they are sealed."
"We could keep them in stasis, cast cooling charms on the electronics?"
"Yes but in these heats they will need recasting several times a day, and on that many items we are going to be run rather ragged. That plus the fact that if the lake starts to dry up, our fresh water stream is going to do so too, means we are going to be exhausted at the same time as we start to dehydrate. I don't think even with our jedi powers that we'll be able to survive more than a few months, maybe weeks."
"We need to start stockpiling water," he nodded.
"Agreed, but we also need to step up our escape plan," she concluded. "How long do you think before you are ready?"
"I think we must try almost immediately. Tomorrow," he stated. "If you are right we need to push ahead at speed, especially as we do not know how fast your hyperspace travel will be, it could take you weeks or even months to reach Coruscant and that will eat well into the summer. Asani and I will need to hold out until you return."
"I don't like leaving you in these conditions Harry…but I know it's the only way."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry, guys that's now two chapters I have had to rewrite because of canon mistakes. One of the perils of reading so much fanfiction is that made up facts occasionally get labelled as canon facts inside your head. Hopefully that won't be a problem for the rest of the story.
If anyone looks up Star Dragons/Duinuogwuin there are a few pictures of them, which look quite different from one another, some have dog like heads, others dragon like, some have one pair of dragon wings others have multiple pairs of insect like wings so I cherry picked the bits I wanted as a sub-species, of which there are believed to be several.
Enjoy.