A/N: Something I'm writing for a commissioner. Figured you guys might enjoy it. Chapters 2-5 are already written and will go up here eventually if there's enough interest. In the meantime, you can always find all of the other chapters on Questionable Questing dot com under the same story name as this one.

-x-X-x-

As cliché as it sounded, the ritual was performed on a dark and stormy night. Not that it truly mattered, the ritual itself was being worked up inside of a secured and fortified manor home. There was no chance of the wind or rain or lightning seeping inside. Not even the cold could reach the hooded figure as they worked to draw the lines of the ritual circle with bloody fingers, sliding around the ritual centerpieces at the edge of said circle as he went.

Circles within circles within circles. The ritual took up the majority of the floor in this not-so-small room, and it was clear that the hooded figure had been working on it for hours, if not longer than that. The ingredients that made up the ritual's centerpieces, splayed out all across the massive design, were rare and valuable to the point of impossibility in some instances.

If a wizard or witch of some knowledge were to see this ritual, they would no doubt comment on its insane complexity, as well as the immense power needed to fuel it. They would claim it was a beautiful piece of art, but completely useless for any sort of practical magic. Truly, one would need a nigh limitless source of magic in order to fuel it. Where would anyone have that kind of power just lying around?

If a goblin with some knowledge were to see this ritual, they would no doubt call it the most expensive waste of time in wizarding history. The goblins, greedy little bastards that they were, had no care for art or human magic. It would bother them that the ritual was nearly impossible to power, simply because the components of the ritual were some of the most valuable things on this world. They would covet the ritual's ingredients and they would seek to steal them.

It did not matter though. Neither witch nor wizard nor goblin was there to see what the hooded figure was doing. The heavily warded, fully secured manor home was completely empty save for the ritual's creator. And as far as powering the thing… well, a very special ring sat on a bloody finger as it drew a perfectly curved line. A very special wand rested in the grasp of the hooded figure's other hand, clean as it was.

And across the room, making a coat rack nearly unseen, a very special invisibility cloak was hung up, imperceptible to the naked eye. The hooded figure comes to the end of the final bit of the ritual. He finishes up one last bloody circle and then leans back. The light of nearby candles illuminates his face and the young features of one Harry James Potter smile as he looks upon what he's wrought and finds it to be good.

Slowly, the wizarding world's savior, more times over than he can count now, stands up. Licking his lips, Harry vanishes the blood from his hand using the Elder Wand. He pulls back the cowl of his cloak and stares down at the ritual. It's taken him far, far too long to get to this point. Sometimes he wonders where he could be now, if only he'd started earlier.

But there's no point in imagining what if's. For Harry James Potter, Master of Death, what ifs are worthless. In the end, he started preparing for this when he did because it was the right time. Any sooner would have been wrong, any later and he might not have gone through with the idea at all. Harry let out a shuddering breath as he closed his eyes, resting them for a moment.

He'd not had a bad life on this world. He'd married, he'd had children. They in turn had had children of their own, who had in turn had children of their own. After Voldemort's Final Defeat, Harry had not suffered tragedy or sorrow or loss. There's certainly been ups and downs, bad days and good… but ultimately, he'd enjoyed his time as husband and father and the like.

The problem was, it did not end. He'd united the Hallows not once, but twice and though it'd taken Harry a long time to accept the consequences of his actions, he'd ultimately been forced to do so by the passage of time. The Hallows had given him a chance at first. He'd squandered it. When he'd first taken the powerful artifacts up at the tender age of seventeen, they'd given him a bit of an out.

He'd never held all three at once after all, so though he'd inherited his invisibility cloak from his father and the resurrection stone from Dumbledore, as well as won the elder wand off of Draco, he had been allowed to set the artifacts aside when all was said and done. He'd done so gladly.

And then the next threat had come. The next Dark Lord had risen up and Harry, believing that only he could stop them, had gathered up the Hallows to go to war. Wielding the Elder Wand while wearing the Cloak of Invisibility and the Resurrection Stone set in a new ring, Harry had easily won that battle. The Wizarding World had been saved… for a time.

But he himself had been forever changed. Trying to put the Hallows back in their resting places had not worked. They'd returned to him each time. He'd even gone so far as to let himself be disarmed of the Elder Wand. Control of it had not transferred to the 'victor' as it should have. In the end, he'd become Master of Death, for better or worse.

That had come with consequences. After Voldemort, Harry had ended up hitting it off with a young woman he'd never even looked twice at before that day. Daphne Greengrass and he had been married within a few months of the Battle of Hogwarts. This had alienated the Weasley family something fierce, because of course it did. And amusingly enough, Harry had long since realized that Daphne had seduced him in order to keep her family safe from prosecution.

Yet, she'd never forced him to do anything. There'd been no love potions or spell work done to make him fall in love with her. The Slytherin girl had used her body and her mind and her wit to seduce him to her bed. She'd married him, initially to protect House Greengrass, but by the time Harry had realized the reasons behind it, their love had become real. He and Daphne had spent many years together and Harry had fathered several children.

However, when he'd taken up the Hallows again, when he'd finally, truly united them… he'd stopped aging. In the middle of his twenties, Harry was regarded as a handsome, powerful young wizard, a rising star in the Aurors. He'd had plans to reform the Ministry of Magic alongside Hermione. The two friends had spent many a night talking about what they could do to change things.

Harry was proud to say that all this time later, they'd succeeded in doing quite a lot in the way of reforms. There hadn't been a Dark Lord in decades and while equality was not yet fully won, it was on the way. Harry had faith that his descendants, and Hermione's as well, would continue the hard fight that they'd begun.

He himself had departed from the public eye a long time ago though. He'd stayed with Daphne until her dying breath and even at over a hundred, the witch had been beautiful, but in the end, only he was truly spared the ravages of time. And that was why it was time for him to leave. Pulling himself from his thoughts, the old wizard with his youthful face once again focuses on the ritual in front of him.

It's time for him to go now. But then, it's been time for him to go for a long while. The blood is dry. The ritual is prepared. Shucking off his cloak, Harry tosses it to a far corner and then whirls around to pull the Cloak of Invisibility from its rack. It settles onto his shoulders like it's meant to be there and Harry lets out a low sigh as he steps into the finished ritual, moving towards the center of the massively complex design.

Once there, he touches the tip of the Elder Wand to the still-beating heart atop a pillar that sits in the middle, lines of blood running down its sides to connect the heart to the ritual itself. It's not human of course. Neither is the blood. Harry is no monster. Still, when it comes to rituals, Harry has long since learned that many require a bit of a… kick in the pants if you will. Sacrifice is necessary to get things started, but it is not enough to keep things going. No, at that point you need magical power to make the ritual flow.

That's what Harry is giving now. As Master of Death, he's never found a limit to his magic. If one were to imagine a well or a font of power, Harry's would be bottomless, or so he assumes. Perhaps this ritual will be the one that proves him wrong. Perhaps he will finally find the bottom of his magical well. More and more magic flows from Harry into the ritual. The lines of blood, curving this way and that, circles within circles within circles, begin to glow with his power. The glow originates from the pillar of course, and spreads out to the outer rims of the ritual.

The items used as centerpieces for the massive design light on fire as the magic reaches them, even if they are not particularly flammable. The flames are red rather than orange. After a moment, they become blue and despite the sheer durability of some of the items that Harry has procured for this, all of the ritual's centerpieces burn up, one by one, in the order they lit on fire. The aforementioned nonexistent goblins would no doubt be clawing their eyes out and screaming in horror at this point as items worth far, far more than their weight in galleons quite literally went up in flames.

Regardless, Harry continued to feed magic into the ritual, long past the point that the centerpieces were burnt up and the entire array was glowing brightly. More and more and more, until finally it did begin to feel like Harry was scraping the bottom of a barrel. The ancient, eternally youthful wizard was a bit shocked by this discovery, but he quickly recovered his equilibrium and pushed on all the same.

And then that bottom broke and he was pulling something else, something far beyond his own magic. It felt like an unfathomable pit of darkness was welling up inside of his soul. Yet Harry kept on pulling. He could no longer see the walls around him. The ritual was in full swing and everything was a whirling spiral of glowing colors as the magic began to finally, FINALLY take shape.

Harry couldn't help but grin a maniac sort of wide, wild eyed grinned. It was going to work! He was going to do it! The wizard let out a shout of pure emotion as he stabbed the tip of the Elder Wand directly into the beating heart before him, continuing to feed magic into it, until finally everything simply EXPLODED around him.

And then it was over. The colors vanished and Harry was no longer standing in the middle of a cleared-out room of his manor home. Instead he was floating. In space. The Master of Death had all of half a second to react to this sudden change in circumstances. The air around him had come with him, but the vacuum of space was already pushing in.

Reacting almost entirely on instinct, Harry crosses his arms over his chest and taps the Elder Wand against the underside of his chin. Magic coalesces around him in a visible display, just as the last of the displaced air rushes away and the unlivable conditions of outer space finally rush in. It's this instinctive action that saves him, but it also puts him in a magical coma. As a deep sleep falls over the Master of Death, he stares out at the stars all around him and thinks but a single thought.

Well… fuck.

-x-X-x-

Goror was nothing but a junk collector. Still, he'd been across the galaxy and back once or twice and he'd seen some odd things in his collecting of the universe's trash. Nothing like this though.

"The hell do you think it is Captain?"

Grunting, Goror looks to the only other man on the ship, his navigator, Flock. He then looks back at the 'object' they'd just brought aboard. The thing is glowing and while it's not hot to the touch, it looks fucking unnatural.

"Damned if I know. Something special though, that much is for sure. Hopefully neither side of the war is out there looking for this…"

"If they are, don't you think we should just space it now and be done with it Captain?"

Goror shakes his head at that.

"Nay… we'll just leave nice and quiet like, dump it off at the nearest trading depot and take our creds and go ho- what the fuck…"

The junk collector cuts himself off, the expletive leaving his mouth as he watches the glowing cylinder suddenly break down the middle. Both he and Flock immediately pull out their blasters. Not the best equipment, but they'll fire at the very least. Slowly, the face of a young man and his hands are revealed… and nothing else. There's a face, there's his hands, and there's a ring and a stick. The rest of it is just empty air.

"I don't… I don't get it Captain. What are we looking at here? It's a boy… or parts of one, yeah?"

Goror just keeps on staring. He doesn't say what he's thinking, that now he does kind of want to toss the thing back out the airlock. This is no longer a payday, now it's become far, far more complicated. Before he can muster the will to get rid of the strange face and hands, the eyes set upon it fly open and pierce him and his navigator with their verdant green irises.

I can hear you, you know. You're not putting me back out there, neither of you are.

The voice is inside of his head and judging by the way Flock stiffens up beside him, Goror imagines that his navigator heard it as well. Slowly, the face and the hands rise up out of the glowing cocoon. It looks down for a moment, and then slowly pulls back the veil that was hiding the rest of its body. Goror is shocked. In the end, a young man stands before him wearing strange clothing. The cloak that had made most of him invisible moments before is now silvery and shimmering, draped over one arm while he points a stick at them with the other.

"Apologies. It's rude of me to pry, but you're both broadcasting your thoughts so very loudly. Flock, I wouldn't suggest pulling that trigger."

Goror glances to the side just in time to see his navigator panic and fire his blaster pistol at the unnatural young stranger. The energy bolt lances across the cargo hold and disappears into the tip of the stranger's suddenly glowing stick. Goror is in turn galvanized into action by this event. He raises his blaster as well, and both of the junk collectors fire repeatedly at the intruder on their ship.

Nothing seems to stick, all of their shots either miss and leave blackened marks against the walls, or they disappear into the stick. Finally, the strange young man sighs. He doesn't move his lips, but his voice is back in their minds. This time it's overwhelming.

Unfortunate.

Goror screams as he falls to his knees, his hands on his head. He distantly hears the sound of Flock landing on his knees as well, but all he can focus on is the agony. And then there's nothing, pure darkness as the junk collector and his navigator fall to the ground, lifeless.

-x-X-x-

Harry stands there, staring at the two dead men for a long moment. Their memories are now his memories and he regrets, very briefly, that they have perished. Then, he's moving past their corpses to the cockpit. This ship cannot be easily flown by one man as he's learned from the one who was called Goror, but Harry is no normal man and he's always been a natural flyer. Having the knowledge of both the ship's captain AND its navigator crammed into his head makes getting things underway all too easy.

It also tells him where he is, at least the basics. This universe he's managed to send himself to… it's vast, far vaster than his own. Well, that's not entirely accurate. As far as he knows, it's more populated and more connected than his own. Back on Earth, even after his centuries of life, humanity was still bickering over the slowly diminishing planet and while there were colonies on other worlds in the Solar System, the magical communities had swiftly discovered that magic itself did not expand beyond Earth.

Here, it was different. Harry could feel both his own magic and the magic of the universe all around him. The space of this galaxy was not quite so empty of wonder and mystery as the outer space of his had been. There was a font of power here that Harry could tap into and so he did, luxuriating in the sensations that washed over him, a smile on his face.

The smile fades after a moment as he looks at the navigation map with eyes that had no right to the experience behind them, trying to decide where he wished to go next. Unfortunately, one downside of this new universe was that it was at war. A war between clones and machines, if the memories he'd taken were to be believed.

Harry wasn't sure what to make of that. Millions upon millions of one man, fighting and dying against armies of automatons? It sounded insane. More than that, it sounded completely asinine. Harry had fought enough wars in his life time. He had no desire to get drawn into this one, but if the dead men in his cargo hold were to be believed, it was growing harder to avoid.

The ancient, youthful wizard's hands finally move across the controls in front of him as he expertly plots a course with the dead navigator's hands guiding him. As he does so, he grimaces. Once everything is laid in, Harry stands up and walks back to the cargo hold. A few flicks of the Elder Wand in utter silence sees Goror and Flock properly prepared by the burial rites of their people, or as best as he could gleam from their minds.

The two humans were not the best of men. One could not even call them good men. But they had not deserved to die in the agony he'd inadvertently put them through. For that, he was sorry. Sliding them into cargo containers and making a mental note to deal with their remains once he found a planet to bury them on, Harry turned back to the ship's cockpit and was soon settled back into the pilot's chair.

After another moment of quiet contemplation, the wizard brings up the holonet. Goror and Flock had used it almost exclusively for porn of course, with the odd smattering of news every once in a while thrown in their faces, keeping them partially informed of the state of the galaxy.

Harry couldn't afford to be only partially informed. He needed to know everything that was happening in this galaxy. And eventually, he'd have to decide what his goals were here. Harry could have had peace and quiet back on Earth, if that was all he wanted. No, he'd wanted more than that. And being in a universe so filled with life and with magic… it made him yearn for adventure all over again.

Perhaps he'd end up drawn into this war sooner than he thought, heh.

-x-X-x-

Two months later, Harry guided his stolen ship down towards the planet below. It was apparently called Queyta and though Harry knew not why, it had been calling to him for weeks now. He'd ignored the call at first, but ultimately when it'd become strong enough to disrupt his sleep, Harry had finally set course for the volcanic world.

To be fair, Harry had felt a number of calls like this one since his arrival in this galaxy. None were as insistent or constant, but more than a few cries for help had reached his mind. There were many, many beings across this galaxy that could feel the magic of this universe. Though, from Harry's travels and his trawling of the holonet, the man had found out it was not called magic here. Instead, the majority of sapients called it the Force.

An energy field that bound all living things together in one never-ending galactic tapestry, or so Harry's studies of what information he could find had told him. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He was sure how he felt about these so-called Jedi though. He wasn't a fan of what they preached, their message of 'emotions leading to darkness'.

Harry had lived in darkness, he'd even thrived in darkness. But emotions were not inherently dark. At least it was only the Temple Jedi who apparently thought this way. As far as Harry could tell, though records were sparse, many groups existed across the galaxy that used the Force. Even some Jedi went out of their way to leave the Temple on Coruscant behind in order to live nomadic lives, outside of the view and authority of the Temple Jedi.

The Temple Jedi preached that passion was a weakness. Harry would never agree with that. A passion, a lust for life… it was all he had going for him at this point. His desire to see, hear, feel, EXPERIENCE new things, it was what he clung to. He would certainly not be answering this insanely loud siren call drawing him to this outer rim planet if he did not have a desire to see what could draw him across such large distances.

Harry smirks as he carefully lands his hips and disembarks, heading in the direction of the call, his magical senses spreading out before him, feeling what's in front of him. He doesn't dare apparate directly there, not on a volcanic planet like this one. But he does begin to perform short apparition hops as he continues on, always twisting and teleporting to a place within eyesight.

Finally, he arrives at the spot where the pull is the strongest. It is good that he took his time coming here. The place is surrounded by lava and the ground beneath his feet is slowly sinking even as he lands. Eyes narrowed, Harry looks around, preparing to apparate away in an instant if necessary. Why has his magic drawn him here? Why has this galaxy's mysterious Force brought him to this place?

"Y-you… who are you?"

Harry spins around at the sudden voice. It is feminine and ethereal, and he sees why a moment later when he gazes upon the woman it comes from. He didn't see her at first, laid out behind some rubble as she was. But she has leaned up now and stares at him through glazed over, bleary eyes. Judging by the burnt holes in the front of her robe that go all the way through to the other side, she is dying, slowly and painfully.

Though of course, the lava would have made that a moot point in a few more minutes anyways. Frowning, Harry moves towards the fallen woman. Her presence is muted in an odd way. He can tell that she is a powerful creature… usually. Right now however, she is so depleted that he can barely even feel her life force.

Kneeling beside the woman, Harry barely takes note of her elven ears, even as he clasps one of her hands in his own and automatically feeds her some of his magic. A sharp intake of air and then a gasp later, and her eyes are no longer quite so glazed over. Harry smiles down at her.

"My name is Harry. Harry Potter. And who are you?"

She blinks dumbly for a moment before answering him in a raspy voice.

"I am Jedi Master Fay, of the Jedi Order… why have you come here, Harry Potter?"

Truthfully, Harry is both surprised and at the same time not. He can certainly believe this is a Jedi, given her well of power is growing even now, filling with the energy he is giving over to her. Yet at the same time, he's shocked that one such as this could be one of the Jedi that he's read so much about. Through the magical bond that is currently forming between them, Harry can feel Fay's emotions and they run deep, far deeper than any Temple Jedi should ever allow, according to the texts.

She feels passion, she feels love, she feels everything. It intrigues him more than he would care to admit. And at this point, his purpose on this world is clear. Smiling, Harry reaches down and wraps an arm around the weakened woman's waist, pulling her up into his arms. Their faces are inches apart and so are their lips as his emerald eyes stare down into gray pupils.

"I suppose I came to save you, Fay of the Jedi Order."

She smiles weakly and he can see her fading, not in a fatal manner, but in sheer exhaustion. Her life force is being replenished and her wounds are being healed, but the female Jedi Master still needs to rest her physical form in the end.

"That's… that's good. I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep my eyes open. I think I shall close them now, Harry Potter."

And she does exactly that, fainting in his arms. Harry just chuckles, admiring her exquisite beauty for a long moment, enjoying the feeling of her warm soul pressed up against his own as he continues to revitalize her magical presence, or her force presence, whatever they call it in this world.

Then, a particularly strong lava surge explodes around ten yards away from them and Harry is reminded that they're still sinking into the massive lake of lava that he'd apparated out into the middle of. With a twist, Harry is back on the shore with Fay still in his arms. He stares for a moment at the sinking ground, upon which he can see a ruined structure of some sort, blown to smithereens by some massive explosion.

He can't help but wonder what the story behind that is. Perhaps Fay will tell him later. Turning away, Harry begins to the process of returning to his ship. The pull he was feeling is with him now, in the form of this beautiful Jedi Master. He happily leaves the volcanic planet Queyta behind, no longer feeling the loud, piercing siren call to go to it.

Harry wonders just how… alive this Force truly is. Its guiding him for some reason, guiding him to save Jedi Masters from the middle of lava lakes. And now that he's bound to this beautiful woman, what does it want him to do next? Harry doesn't know yet, but somehow, he's sure he'll find out soon.