(Tellemicus's Note) This is a major rewrite of The Lightsaber. We am taking what ideas worked in the original story while combining them into a new story that'll have a completely different plot. This means that while a lot may seem familiar, don't be surprised when something suddenly changes.

If you don't like what we're doing here, stop reading. Or, better yet, I CHALLENGE YOU TO WRITE YOUR OWN VERSION! Show me you can do better!

Resurgence of Sorcery
By: Tellemicus Sundance
Co-Authored by: Fiori75
#01 – A Film called Star Wars

June 23, 1994
Number 4, Privet Drive, Surrey

"—luminous beings are we! Not this crude matter!" Yoda explained to the exhausted and forlorn Luke. "You must feel the Force around you. Between you, me, the trees, the rocks, everywhere! Even between the land and the ship."

Harry's expression was every bit as thoughtful as the one on Luke's face as he watched the old film play on Dudley's new telly. It was early in the day and it was already proving to be one of the best of the summer already in Harry's opinion. For today, he had the house all to himself. This was a very rare occurrence that had happened due to several factors lining themselves up just right for Harry.

The first being that it was his dearly beloved cousin's birthday and his relatives had decided to spend the day in London, doing all manner of activities that Dudley deemed fun, accompanied by his gang of friends. And this directly led into the second reason of why Harry was left at home. Neither Dudley, his parents, nor his friends had wanted Harry around on this special day for their very special boy. However, because of a lie the Dursleys themselves had created and spread around several years ago, none of the neighbors were willing to look after a boy who was apparently attending the 'St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys'. Harry had found it indelibly ironic how that lie came back to bite them in the arse now. And the final nail in the coffin was that Harry's usual babysitter, Ms. Figg, had suddenly come down with a bad illness just a few days prior. So, with strict warnings to not break anything, cause any kind of 'freakish things' to happen, to not set foot outside or be seen through the windows by the various neighbors, and to not touch even a pinch of food, Harry was allowed to stay behind.

Only minutes after the car had pulled away from the driveway and disappeared around the corner, Harry had immediately gone upstairs and started rifling through his cousin's things. It wasn't because he wanted to steal anything. It wasn't that he was looking for anything in particular. Or even because he wanted just a tiny bit of vengeance for all the times that Dudley had barged in on him for any number of reasons while they were younger. No, the reason that Harry had gone into his cousin's room was because he had always had a lot of interesting toys and knickknacks which were old birthday presents that were left discarded, unused, and forgotten. Once, that giant pile of 'trash' had been stored in what was now Harry's bedroom. But with Harry's relocation and the cupboard beneath the stairs being too small, Dudley had been forced to either throw away a lot of that stuff or move it into his own room. And while Dudley had childishly tried to hold onto as much as he could because it was his, in the end he had been forced to sort through it and only keep what actually struck his fancy. Normally, Harry would have gone digging through his own school things, work on his summer assignments, and review old material, but such things just hadn't had much appeal to him today. Plus, he'd finished his summer assignments just a few days after he'd left Hogwarts anyway.

As he'd sorted through the different comics and browsed the large bookcase that was overflowing with video cassettes instead of books, one particular film trilogy had caught his eye. He'd heard of it at primary school growing up, it was impossible to not have given how popular it was. Still, he had never been allowed to watch it since (as he now guessed) his aunt and uncle had feared that the sight of 'space magic' might give him some ideas about his own freakishness.

"I would love to have been a Jedi," Harry said quietly to his dear owl friend, Hedwig, who had been nestled comfortably on his shoulder for the duration of the two films thus far. "Being able to travel, help people, use magic without a wand, fight bad guys with laser swords! How fun and exciting it must be!"

He watched in horrified fascination as the truth of Luke's past and heritage was revealed to him. The battle between the fallen father and the young son had been so incredible, it really showed just how incredibly strong and talented Luke was in the Force to have been able to almost match his dark nemesis after so little training. But Harry had been horrified at how Vader had cut off the hand of his own son in a fit of rage before finally calming down. Harry had been far from surprised when Luke rejected Vader's proposal of joining forces with him to finish his Force training, kill the Emperor, and rule the galaxy. Honestly, Harry would've most assuredly done the same thing. Maybe not dropping himself down a chasm as Luke did to escape Vader, but he'd still have tried to escape in some manner.

Ejecting the cassette after it finished playing, Harry quickly switched it with the final episode of the trilogy. As the tape started rewinding to the beginning, he sat back against the side of Dudley's bed as he started thinking and daydreaming. He saw visions of himself standing tall atop his own spaceship as his friends inside it flew it slowly through the air, the winds sending his dark clothes and cloak billowing, with him wielding a blue lightsaber in one hand as he prepared to jump aboard a nearby flying battleship. It was a grand image that stuck strongly in his mind, putting a wide and yearning smile on his face.

'I wish I could be like that in real life.' As that thought passed through his head, a seed had been planted. He knew it, he could feel it. He wasn't sure what it was, only that it was important. It was as he was watching the scene of Luke standing over the Sarlacc Pit, about to be executed by Jabba the Hutt, and Artoo launching a lightsaber into the air towards him that the seed started to grow. But it was with the ignition of Luke's new green lightsaber and of him deflecting blaster bolts with it in the ensuing fight that caused the sprouting seed to suddenly bloom into all its glory.

"I could make a lightsaber!" he gasped out, jerking forward slightly as his eyes widened in excited realization. He was no longer truly paying as much attention to the film anymore, his mind racing faster than his Firebolt at the possibilities, needed magical requirements, and the technicalities of how he could build it.

Stopping only long enough to shut down the VCR and telly, Harry was fast to vacate Dudley's room and rush to his own, Hedwig hooting indignantly as she struggled to maintain her perch on his shoulder. Once he was back in his room, she was quick to leap off and make her way back into her open cage. Not that Harry noticed as he was already digging through his school trunk, pulling out his spellbooks, a notebook, and several pens.

He had some research to do.

Little Hangleton, Albania

"No…" a cloaked man uttered in horror. He stood in the threshold of an old house, gazing around at its interior. Despite the dark hood that threw his face into shadow, the horror and anguish that the man was feeling was plainly evident in his body posture as he stepped weakly inside, the door closing behind him as if by magic. "My Lord, no… It can't be…"

He was kneeling upon the broken and rotted floorboards of a decrepit old family home. The house had been abandoned for years after its previous residents had mysteriously died. Since then, it had stood dormant and foreboding, the nearby families and town residents had quickly started whispering that it was haunted or cursed. It just gave off a vibe that resonated darkness and pure evil that made even the most foolhardy and ignorant among them reluctant to ever dare trespassing upon its land.

What the fools didn't realize was that they were completely correct. The land and house really were cursed. Cursed to any and all who did not possess magic, specifically dark magic, within them and would have them suffer unbearable pain, poor fortunes, and/or a grisly death for trespassing, depending on how 'deeply' that intrusion was made. The protections of these curses upon the house and the fear they helped to instill on the populace is exactly what the house's true owner had wanted. He had wanted to turn the house into an untouchable landmark to commemorate his origins. Origins that he had done his damnedest to keep secret from his underlings, even killing them if they knew or suspected the truth.

And while the exterior of the house had been left to the whims of nature, which were overgrown and decaying, the interior had once been as pristine and glamorous as even the greatest of manors from the richest of the Purebloods. But now…now, it was just a hollowed, rotting corpse of its former self. The interior had clearly been looted not long after the Dark Lord's fall since all the priceless magical artifacts, donated heirlooms, and extravagant furnishings had disappeared. The floors were rotting, the walls moldy and peeling, the ceilings sagging and even starting to split in places, and all the windows were filthy and broken.

Moving into the dining hall, the man saw that there was only one item within that hadn't been stolen. It was, perhaps understandably, the Dark Lord's personal chair that had once stood at the head of the long table. Although, 'chair' was a bit misleading since it was more comparable to the word 'throne' than anything else. Seeing his lord's chair, the only item to stand the test of time, standing as proud and tall as it did before that fateful day thirteen years ago, the cloaked wizard felt himself overcome by a potent sense of hopelessness and collapsed limply to his knees just a few paces away from it.

But to the Dark Lord's underlings, all they knew about this house was that it was their Lord's most favored safehouse during the early days of their reign of conquest and terror. As such, if ever there was a chance that his lord had survived, this would've been the first, last, and only place he'd have gone to for healing, rest, and recuperation. And no matter what the state he might've taken after his fall from power, his Lord would never have allowed his home to have fallen into such shambles. So, to see this once majestic and great house reduced to this… The horrible rumors that the Wizarding Community had been spreading for more than a decade suddenly seemed so much more…truthful than he'd wanted to believe.

The great and terrible Dark Lord Voldemort, his mentor and leader, a man among men, the greatest wizard since Grindelwald or even Merlin, was dead. He was really and truly gone. The current state of his headquarters left no room for doubt in the man's mind.

His dear lord was, truly, dead.

The hope he'd clung to for the past decade. The long and mind-wrenching struggle he'd endured and only recently overcome. The faith that his Dark Lord could never have been beaten by a mere toddler, and a filthy Halfblood at that! All of it had been for naught. He could see it now. Everything they'd worked for, struggled to build, the careful plotting to cleanse their world, and having certain victory nearly within their grasp despite the futile resistance of Dumbledore and his 'Order'. All of it had come crashing down because of one ignorant child!

"No…" he uttered, his voice little more than a growl as a deep frown and a furious flash of raw rage set the man's eyes slightly aglow. "It shall not end! It won't! I will not allow it to!"

Rising to his feet, a new determination and sense of purpose filled the man as he gazed upon the throne. "I swear to you, my lord. You may be…gone, but I won't let them win. I swear to you, I will finish…what you started."

He bowed lowly to the throne, as though his Lord were actually seated upon it. After he stood back up, he turned and silently departed from the household, his mind awhirl as he started to plot how he would achieve his lord's dream.

July 6, 1994
The Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley

"Okay," Harry said quietly, speaking more to himself than the self-writing quill that was floating over a large, blank textbook behind him. "Project Hilt: Model 3.3.1 now beginning." Using his wand, he floated a specially designed and crafted metal hilt into the air in front of him. "I am now using all six unicorn hairs from the previous two attempts bounded together as the Hilt Core. The previous two attempts have caused inconsistent results, which I am starting to believe is due to the lack of concentrated power. My hope is that by weaving the hairs together, the magical power will be more dense and focused. Which should also help to reduce the…damages that most of the earlier experiments caused upon activation."

As he was speaking, a line of faintly glowing horse hairs floated up to the hilt. With a casual flick of his wand, the top portion of the hilt detached itself to reveal a hollow opening inside the hilt. Floating down inside the hilt with an air of absolute precision, the bound hairs tucked themselves into the length of the hilt. Once inside, a series of wooden supports inside the hilt gently slid out of their ready positions and took firm holds of the hair, securing the bundle tightly in place. Following this, the top portion of the hilt rapidly returned and screwed itself back into place.

"Activation of Model 3.3.1 shall begin in 3…2…1… Now." At that signal, a small button he'd installed on the hilt was depressed. This button caused a small system of levers inside the hilt to raise a pinch of fairy dust upwards and bring it into contact with the unicorn hairs. The dust and hairs were both highly reactive to one another, causing a burst of raw magic to ignite inside the hilt. This raw magic was then focused down a series of crudely-made but functional inlaid runes to gather up into the emitter at the top of the hilt. From there, the magic was projected upwards and outwards, blasting up into the air in a concentrated stream of pure light that rapidly shifted and shined in all colors of the rainbow.

"Model 3.3.1 is yet another failure," Harry stated with absolute disappointment in his voice as he gazed up at the ceiling. Flicking his wrist, the ignition button was released and the magic laser beam instantly died. As it did, it revealed a small, perfectly cut circle that had been burned into the ceiling, through the roof, and had likely shot high up into the sky.

"I wonder if this experiment accidentally clipped any satellites in orbit this time?" Harry wondered aloud as the hilt dropped limply to the floor. Shaking his head, he continued speaking his thoughts as the quill continued rapidly writing and sketching everything. "While Model 3.3.1 is another failure, it has shown a marked improvement from all previous experiments. My hope on weaving the unicorn hairs to help concentrate the power seems to have been correct. Rather than sending a spray of laser bolts in every direction upon ignition, which would be far more helpful if I could aim the blasted things, the concentrated power was focused into a single beam. However, any and all attempts to shorten the beam into an actual manageable blade continue to fail. I…I am beginning to think that I need…that I need to ask for help from others."

And wasn't that a bitter pill to swallow, since he wanted to make this weapon all on his own. Not that he wouldn't ask for help if he had to, the mere existence of his lightsaber trumped all. However, that didn't mean that he didn't want to do something on his own. Something that was solely his and his alone.

It had already been several weeks since the mad idea of building his own lightsaber had taken hold of him. And Harry's enthusiasm had actually begun to wane as he'd reached the Model 3 series. Sure, the Series 1 and 2 had both had their hiccups, but each failure had taught him something new. The 2's had even shown that he was roughly on the right track. However, the 3 series, while providing him a measure of what he wanted, was absolutely failing to stabilize. The continued attempts at which were actually starting to dampen his spirit worse than his initial speed bump before he'd actually been able to dive right in.

Unlike what he really wanted to do, Harry didn't jump straight into the creation process of building the lightsaber from scratch. Instead, he'd first had to sneak away from Privet Drive and visited the book store in Diagon Alley. Though that part was more perilous than tedious as the Knight Bus made travel…interesting. There he had partaken in the dread task that would have had Ron gasping in horror and Hermione cheering in delight. Harry had to research and read, with no one to prompt him to do so.

He'd combed Florish & Blott's, searching for any legends in the wizarding world that might've pertained to 'swords of light' or any such equivalents to lightsabers, to see if wizards have done such a thing before. He found plenty of references about enchanted blades, swords made of magical metals or through magical means, and even some swords that could shoot various types of magic or spells, but nothing quite like what he wanted. Lightsabers didn't exist, at all.

Once he was sure that he was indeed venturing into uncharted territory, Harry began his shopping spree through the Alley before renting a room in The Leaky Cauldron to be his laboratory. He rented the room because he realized that this was a nifty little loophole in the underage magic law. Namely, he was surrounded in an environment of dense magic usage with a large number of witches and wizards around him. If the Ministry of Magic could somehow locate him in all this magical miasma, he would be very impressed.

His first attempt was extremely crude, and it didn't surprise him at all when it failed. Though that it failed almost immediately was certainly discouraging. His idea had been simple, he' started by basing his project off what he knew of wands. So, the first attempt (Model 1.1.1) was a simple wooden handle with a phoenix feather merged into it through a simple First Year transfiguration spell. The hilt burst into a fiery inferno and badly burned his hand once he started channeling a bit of magic into it. Once he'd gotten the fire under control and his hand healed, he started researching what must've gone wrong. Learning that while wood was generally a good conduit for magic, when said magic was trying to take the form of a laser, wood proved to be a bad conduit for what he was trying to achieve.

From then on, he started crafting his hilts from metal pipes and rods. And, of course, these had their own share of pitfalls such as the first three after that failing to do anything, the following financial costs of finding out why, then the financial problems of discreetly getting ahold of enough copper, silver, gold, and even platinum to make multiple hilts, the difficulty of figuring out how to get metal magically-conducive like its wooden counterpart, the dilemma of getting yet more books to figure out how to successfully integrate a magical core into metal. Most importantly, he came across the challenge that phoenix feathers were truthfully quite hard to get a hold of.

Which was when he'd needed to start in on the Model 2 series and having to utilize dragon heartstrings as the core instead. If not for the simple virtue that dragon heart strings could be bought in bulk or even in raw form if one was willing to actually buy a full heart, which considering that by this point Harry was half convinced that he could simply add his own name to the bookshop's storefront title, considering how much of their stock he'd ended up buying. But frugalness won over compatibility.

Thus, began the Model 2 series, which had been something of an angry problem child intent on burning down The Leaky Cauldron. Much like the Model 1s, the early Model 2s had a tendency toward conflagration. However, unlike the phoenix feathers overwhelming their casings with simple heat, the heartstrings posed problems all of their own.

The damn things were just so fussy.

Each heart string woven into the saber, had to, had to, absolutely had to come from the same type of dragon. If for even one moment he thought about mixing in the heartstrings of a Norwegian Ridgeback into a weave of Chinese Fireball, then you were asking for the test saber to go up much like it's donor's name. Even then, you had to get the balance just right even with heartstrings from the same dragon species or you'd face some new issues as well. Too many from any single dragon and the residual magic might gain a minor consciousness and rail and rage when it noticed the residual bits of 'other dragons' near it. However, if he diversified too much, then the power would fluctuate as the differences in the various dragons would play merry hell with power flow. Either option typically ended in explosions… That was if the device was feeling generous that is. If it wasn't, some of the more vicious effects included tongues and gouts of flames, outright explosions, and/or summoning up Ashwinders. The Model 2s had been just as unruly as the beasts that had donated their cores.

But Harry had figured out so much from those experiments that he could easily forgive the unruly things. He even had the Model 2.7.9 still on his person. A device that was (on a good day) a breather of dragon fire and indiscriminate death towards whatever he pointed it at, or (on a bad day) might summon an unruly and angry snake made of living flames. Either way, Harry felt he'd come out ahead of whomever he felt the urge to point the device at. However, even with the success he'd found after getting the exact perfect weave of heart strings, Harry had needed to scrap the Model 2s as a dead end. Not a single one could be classified as anything less than a simple flamethrower. Deadly and powerful flamethrowers that might actually be able to spit fire endlessly, yes, but flamethrowers nonetheless.

Thus, had begun the start of his Model 3s and already the summer was marching towards its zenith.

On one hand, Harry was almost thrilled of the chance to go back to Hogwarts. There lay one of the biggest libraries in the country, and he wouldn't have to purchase a damn one of the texts himself. If there was any place that could help him solve these issues, then it would have to be there.

However, Hogwarts also came with certain restrictions. Restrictions like responsible adults and people who might be concerned if he stumbled out of a room covered in soot and smoke after a loud bang had emanated forth. People like that, while lovely to be around most of the time, would only get in the way of his dream, and may even question why he might want a laser sword in the first place. Such people might even try and stop him and get him 'help' in the form of sleeping potions and calmness draughts to quietly disable him while they disassembled his lab. All in the name of keeping him safe and healthy. Which, to be fair, was sort of an issue, as the desk receptionist at St Mungo's was starting to recognize him on sight the same way Madam Pomfrey did. Considering he'd needed to regrow his hand and several fingers multiple times now, this was actually a point against continuing. But then, of course, there was Snape to consider. He who would only care as much as to note that Harry was interested in something before banning it out of simple spite.

And if Snape thought Harry shouldn't do something, then clearly it was a sign to press forwards and damn the consequences! Such was the conclusion Harry had reached after Model 3.1.5 had exploded and produced a rainbow-colored fog that had made him somehow taste the color purple, see pixies riding little unicorns floating through walls, and argue with himself in the mirror for several hours. An act further complicated by the mirror occasionally weighing in for either his ID or Super Ego, depending on which had been winning at the time.

Yet despite a rather in-depth look at his own psyche that he prayed the mirror would keep quiet about, Harry was left no closer to his goal than he'd been before. And as of now, Model 3.3.1 was in need of tweaking to see if he could get it working as he wanted it.

However, before he could begin his process of tweaking the runic inlays to modulate the size of the beam, and hopefully keep it from firing off into orbit, Harry's body reminded him that he'd not actually eaten in the past few hours... if not outright days while he'd been working on this latest model.

Food, Harry realized, would probably be a good thing.

With that thought in mind, Harry made the few checks he'd come to learn were necessary if he didn't want a worried populace to call the Aurors about someone attacking a national hero. A few quick scourgifies to clean off any soot that might have been clinging to him from a past explosion and a check in the mirror to confirm that he actually still had eyebrows this morning, Harry found himself sitting in a corner of The Leaky Cauldron, awaiting his shepherd's pie and going through his note-tome.

It had once been a notebook, but the constant addition of pages had quickly necessitated a change in names. Within this tome were numerous pages dedicated to every single thing he'd learned from his project. Some pages were copied faithfully from various textbooks for quick reference, and these ranged from runic arrays to Arithmetic tables. Others were in a messy scratch decipherable only by Harry, Hermione, school teachers, and doctors around the world. These detailed his schematics, every design, every runic array and pathway, every strand of silver and copper, every ounce of gold and platinum used to create the casings, and every primary arithmetic equation to compensate for etheric flow from wand core to power emitter and then flash transmute raw magic into pure energy to create a single beam of pure light. Page after page, he'd filled with diagrams and writing. Every failure catalogued, and every breakthrough and new discovery highlighted.

It was there, as Harry sat down and began to fiddle with the outer casing of Model 3.3.1, preparing to tweak the runic arrays in such a fashion to restrict the primary oddic flow from the tertiary mana roots to narrow the etheric back-flow and maybe narrow the beam for Model 3.3.1, that a familiar voice tore him from his notes and tinkering.

"Harry? Is that you?" a familiar voice asked from behind Harry. And, sure enough, upon spinning around in his seat excitedly, Harry beamed up at his most favorite Defense professor. The haggard looking man returned his smile with one of surprised relief and confusion. As he hurried forward and swept the boy up into a hesitant hug, he asked, "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you still be at home with your relatives? How've you been?"

Harry's smile faltered a little at the mention of the Dursleys, but he shoved them out of mind as he answered, 'To bloody hell with the Dursley's. They're not here, so they can't ruin this!' "I've been great!" Harry answered more honestly than he'd ever answered such a question about his summer than ever before, and quickly continued, "The Dursleys and I have an agreement. As long as the chores are done and so long as I get home before dark, they don't care where I am or what I do! So, I've been spending a lot of time here!"

"Really?" the man's voice was carefully neutral as he studied the nearly 14-year-old's face. "Not getting into trouble, I hope? Or spending all of your money on toys or fancy brooms, are you? That money is meant for your school supplies and textbooks. You do know that, right?"

"I know, I know!" Harry said with the casual annoyance and dismissal that all teenagers showed when faced with unwelcome facts. "But I'm not wasting it on toys." He couldn't help uttering moodily under his breath, "Though with the number of bloody books I've bought some of it very well might be a waste." But then he quickly returned to his normal voice and expression as he continued, "I'm smarter than that! I've been working on a little project, and I've needed a lot of books and stuff for research to make it work!"

"Oh?" Remus said, looking genuinely interested. "What kind of project, Harry?"

At this point, Harry felt the need to look cross-eyed at his former teacher. As wonderful a man as he was, what with being a link to his parents and a competent teacher to boot, Remus Lupin was still one of the 'responsible adults' that might try and steer him away from his dream. If not because he thought it was dangerous like so many others, but because it would be dangerous to Harry personally. Merlin and The Force help him if he learned about Harry's trips to St. Mungo's earlier this summer!

He was the exact sort of responsible adult that Harry should have been left with, furry problem notwithstanding. And because of that, he was the exact sort that should be kept far away from his research, lest he act responsibly and confiscate the dangerous weapons project from the thirteen-year-old. That he was almost fourteen likely wouldn't help him as it was still a weapons project and he was still underage, no matter how much closer to seventeen that extra digit made him.

However, as he continued to eye Lupin up, as if considering the best way to dispose of the body and have no questions asked, the older man began to laugh uproariously. Drawing a few looks from the crowd that soon morphed into looks of understanding and even a few fond smiles.

As Harry's look turned from contemplative to confused, the bedraggled older man held his hands in front of him in helpless defense as he tried to explain through giggles, "Oh Merlin, Harry...Hehehe… It's just that look from her eyes on his face… Hahaha… Oh Merlin, you have no idea how good it is to see both James and Lily alive in you, Harry." Remus explained with a laugh as he looked Harry up and down once more, this time in consideration rather than in parental worry. Even as Harry cocked an eyebrow in confusion at the very loose definition of an explanation his former professor had given.

"Right," the werewolf coughed in hound-ish fashion, that only now with the knowledge Harry had about the man's affliction did he realize why it had always reminded him of the way he'd seen Marge's dogs cough. "It's just your mother once gave me that same look when I ran into her right around the same age you are now. In almost exactly the exact same circumstances too. Let me guess, you were going to drop me in the Thames?" Remus smiled knowingly.

"…" Harry mumbled an answer, even as he turned red for being caught.

"…'Feed me to Marge's dogs'? Who is Marge?" the man asked with a laugh, having easily heard and understood what the boy mumbled. As this was happening, Harry's meal was levitated over to the table. Along with a lamb stew and pint glass of something brown and hoppy, which placed themselves in front of his former school teacher.

"…My parents ever tell you that that's not fair?" Harry glared as the man looked upon him smugly, even as he began to dig into the wonderfully cooked meal in front of him. Not quite up to Hogwarts or Mrs. Weasley's standards, or even his own to be honest. But there was a pleasant warmth that came from knowing that he didn't have to cook the meal himself which made it taste all the better. It almost made up for the smugly grinning wolf that sat before him preening in his hate.

"James said it all the time, Lily I rarely gave need to mutter angrily about me because… she… she tended to back up her dark mutterings." Remus replied happily at first, before looking at Harry's sullen look and quickly comparing it to the time he'd found himself as a fully functional female for a month after he'd tried to give sympathy to Lily whilst she was in the midst of one of her spells. She had not taken his fifteen-year-old self's words of comfort too well. Harry's eyes looked frighteningly closer to hers. And he was also here working on a project, much like she had been back then.

'Best not to tempt fate too much more, lest he be too much more like his mother than his eyes suggest,' Remus thought to himself quickly and tried to turn both their attentions back onto something that was far less likely to end in his misery. After all, he hadn't brought Padfoot to see Lily's son and if he was going to suffer, then Sirius was going to suffer. Because there was nothing quite like seeing a Black run in terror from an enraged and vengeful Evans, no matter who the participants or what the circumstances.

"So, Harry, this project? It anything like your mom's?" Lupin asked quickly as he tried to look at the messy scratches and twisted diagrams that from the reversed angle. But even with his somewhat experienced eye for deciphering such writing, it seemed to form eldritch script and non-Euclidian shapes that almost hurt the brain to look at unless he crossed his eyes and looked at them sideways.

"Uh, probably not," Harry answered hesitantly, weariness still clear in his voice and expression as he watched the man stare at his tome. "I saw something on the telly and wanted to try and see if I could create an actual real-life version of it. Not having much luck with it just yet...What did my mum try and make?"

"She said she was trying to compare potion making and the ingredients with muggle...kemsty? ...To see how similar or different they were from one another. Trying to put a 'scientific perspective to a magical art' as she'd put it. The project consumed practically all of her attention during her Fourth Year summer, but I don't think she got very far with it. She came back to Hogwarts with a very...upset look about her."

"Using Chemistry for Potions?" Harry clarified, eyes wide at the thought. Then, a slow smile started spreading across his face at the realization that his own project was actually quite a bit closer to what his mum had tried to do than he'd first thought. "Yeah, I can see how that would've gotten her interested."

"So, this project?" Remus asked lightly, smiling a disarming grin that he hadn't used much since he'd graduated. "I take it that it's a bit closer to her project than not? Must be a real challenge if you're still trying to crack this nut open."

"Heh," Harry couldn't help grunting in good humor, Remus's friendly expression and demeanor quickly wearing away his reluctance. "In more ways than one." He continued even as he turned the book around so that his former-teacher could look over his notes, with the vague hope that the former part would keep him from commenting on Harry's spelling. Never mind the long losing battle about his scripts' neatness.

As Remus began to page through Harry's notes, following the insane and myriad disorder that was Harry's mid-page reference guide to theorems and diagrams about why his spell work and rune weaving should work. Harry himself began to tuck into his meal, after he'd quietly switched the contents of Remus' beer with a passing witch's Ginger Ale while he became engrossed with the notes. No words were exchanged for several minutes as they both went about their tasks, though Harry wasn't sure if the engrossed silence that further delayed Remus from his revenge was a good thing or not.

Finally, the older man looked up and asked him a question, just as Harry suspected he would. "Blimey, Harry, why didn't you take Runes and Arithmancy as your electives?"

"Hey, it wasn't really my fault!" Harry answered, his voice sounding a bit whiny and cracking slightly. "Ron said that Divination would've been easy. And I really like Care for Magical Creatures!"

When he heard that, Remus rolled his eyes slightly as an annoyed sigh left him. "It figures," he uttered in helpless tone of voice. "You get your brilliance and talent from your mother, but your work ethic from your father."

"What?" Harry asked, eyes wide as a slightly frantic, hungry expression crossed his face. "My dad was...lazy in his studies? Really?"

"For the most part," Remus acknowledged, turning a wan smile on the boy. "Oh, he had his few talents where he shined, like Quidditch and Transfiguration... but he more used the latter to shine in pranking more than anything else." Remus laughed lightly, "Though he did start getting his act together about midway through our Fifth Year, when he REALLY started trying to impress Lily." Gesturing back to Harry's tome, he said, "But back to this, would you like some help or advice on it? I'd be happy to help when and if I could because, unlike you, I actually did take those classes. And as a graduate, I likely know a little bit more than you do at this point." He finished boastfully as he gestured to a page. "Like here, why are you using lightning wards in these things Harry?"

The page was of a sketch from the model 2 series when he'd tried to experiment with using an alternative to linking the things to himself by covering the things in his blood for hours at a time. The Model was Harry's first and only attempt at making the lightsaber battery-powered…and the third time he'd blown off his left hand…and the first time he'd met an Ashwinder.

It was a skirt of the laws on muggle artifacts, and with the help of a modified ward schemer he'd found that converted lightning into magical energy to give the larger ward scheme and enchantments protecting the house. It would usually need to be woven into the primary rune scheme in concert with the runes used to project the wards. But in Harry's case, he'd only really needed to modify it a little to account for not needing any other runes on the copper wires he linked betwixt battery and emitter. Of course, that had resulted in fire, pain, and the sudden existence of a snake made out of said fire that had gone on to attempt to burn down The Leaky Cauldron as it tried to eat his owl.

Hedwig won, quite decisively actually.

The design and idea had been scrapped once Harry had figured out that the energy conversion effect of the runes was too efficient, converting all of the battery's energy at once in a blast much like his Model 1s. However, the rune scheme lived on in his later models, though in this case working in a reverse fashion to help convert his magic into a laser.

"Because electricity is nifty, and I needed it to generate the laser," Harry replied flippantly between bites of his pie, feeling moderately defensive of his designs even if they were explosive failures.

"Elect—what, Harry?" Remus replied in confusion.

His bafflement actually surprised Harry enough to cause the teen to pause in his eating and look at the man inquisitively.

"This may surprise you, Harry," Remus said in a low, but still rather contrite voice as he saw the boy's disbelieving stare. "But nearly all wizards stay as far away from muggles as they can and they have absolutely no interest in learning about anything about them. Just because I may know how to live and hide among them doesn't mean I automatically know how certain things truly work within the muggle world." Seeing Harry's continued gawk, Remus just sighed as he leaned back in the chair heavily. "I get the feeling this is going to be a long conversation before we even get to what you're playing with here… Okay, please explain to me, in little words mind you, about 'elec—trici—ty', what it does, and why it's important."

"Well, er, it's the stuff that makes everything work. Without it, London, no, the entire world as we know it wouldn't have become what it is. Practically everything runs off the stuff in some way or another." Harry stumbled, slowly realizing that while he might know that electricity made things work, he didn't know much more than that.

It was with a shock that he realized that his scientific knowledge, and the entire process he'd been trying to base his own project on ended very abruptly at age ten and had never really progressed past that point. At most, he knew that if he took a pair of wires and attached them to the positive and negative ends of a battery, and then if the other ends of the wire was attached to a lightbulb, you would get light. But the exact why's and how's of the process were as limited as his knowledge of wandcraft had been at the very start of the project.

"That is very interesting, Harry, but what precisely does that have to do with the lightning wards?" Remus asked, his voice pulling Harry away from his sudden revelation. Momentarily halting the realization that he would need yet more books, as Harry tried once more to process the sudden display of ignorance from the normally astute older man. But with the realization that Remus hadn't even known what electricity was in the first place, his further ignorance could be explained.

"Because, Moony," Harry replied puckishly, happy to have at least some control of the situation back. "Lightning is electricity. Naturally occurring, and rather powerful too. Sorta why lightning wards are standard issue if your intent for any of your construction projects to be long-term when it comes to wards."

"I knew that about the wards, Prongslet, but – " Remus snapped back grumpily.

"Don't call me that," Harry reflexively replied to the nickname, interrupting the older man before the former school teacher could build up into a true lecture.

"Become an illegal animagi before your seventeen and show me your form so you can earn your own nickname and then we'll talk. Till then, you're Prongslet…or pup, depending on the mood of the Marauder," smiled the former prankster, using the flawless and insufferable logic of annoying uncles everywhere as a reason to justify treating someone as a child, before continuing with his lecture unimpeded. "I knew lightning was powerful. Hogwarts hasn't had to have the wards personally recharged in ages because of their own wards drawing power out of any stray lightning strike to any of its towers. Merlin, Azkaban's wards actually attract lighting from all nearby storms for leagues around it. But you're saying the muggles have harnessed lightning to power everything out there?" Remus asked gesturing towards the exit from the Cauldron out into London proper.

"Not… quite?" Harry half asked as he struggled to remember his history and science. "A while back over, the pond in America, there was a muggle man who figured out that lighting was electricity and since he'd already been playing with it, he came up with a something to mitigate the damage of lightning-strikes. That then laid the foundation for everything else muggles eventually figured out about electricity. But, I don't think they harvest power from storms like wizards do." Harry frowned as he tried to remember the American's name. It had been someone from the colonial rebellions, someone who was also really important to the founding of the eventual country the colonies had evolved into. Thomas Lincoln? George Jefferson? Benjamin Bush, or had he been a recent president?

'How much have I actually missed in the past three years?' Harry actually wondered.

"So how do Muggles use Elect-trix-ity then?" Remus asked with a frown, glancing down at Harry's book, towards the sketches of Model 2.4.9. and as Harry joined him in looking at the page he started to wonder if the reason the design had failed might have had something to do not only with his limited understanding of the runes and wandlore, but of muggle science as well?

"You know, I'm not sure, but I think I'm gonna try and find out," Harry declared with a smile as a thought occurred to him. 'Star Wars and lightsabers are a muggle creation, after all. Maybe magic alone isn't going to work. But…maybe the muggles will have a better idea to how this could work? It certainly can't hurt to look… And if what I remember about muggle libraries holds true, hopefully it'll also be cheap.'

July 9, 1994
Diagon Alley

"How interesting," Harry mumbled as he shuffled his reading between the various articles and science books he had clustered around him on the table. Around him were several science books he'd borrowed from a nearby muggle library that focused their subjects on lasers, electricity, plasma, and scientific theory. But he also had numerous newsletters and journals written by both amateurs and professionals on several theories behind how a lightsaber would be able to work based off the science they knew.

What he was finding was that it was less of a 'laser sword' and more of a condensed plasma blade, contained by powerful magnetic frequencies. Which was why it could also block the blaster bolts since the magnetic fields from both would send any incoming beams bouncing off the sabers own. The Jedi were just precognitive badass enough to turn it into a deadly combat style. Or at least that was a working theory in many of the theoretical journals some of Star Wars more scientifically-minded fans had come up with.

Harry had been profoundly surprised at the difference between lasers and plasma, and how it translated to his project. A laser, which he could produce with some level of fluctuation, was simply a condensed type of light, and would react accordingly. Plasma though, Harry had come to learn that plasma was something called the 'fourth state of matter' and he still wasn't quite sure what that meant. So, to ease potential future headaches on the matter, he just decided that he'd call plasma 'liquid fire'. As he continued to dig deeper into the realms of science, Harry discovered that the creation of plasma was nigh-impossible for muggles because it required a very high degree of power and heat. And until they could somehow synthesize a metal that was strong enough to not melt at such high temperatures, as well as how to focus and contain the plasma in a blade form, the likelihood of building a lightsaber solely from science and technology was as unlikely as he was finding it to be from magic.

"But if I add in heat-resistant runes to the interior, or even just use bits of dragon bone to compensate for the raw heat." Harry said, his new floating quill once again capturing his words. "That means that the hilt won't melt or explode in my hand... However, that still leaves the problem of power. How could I, or Merlin anyone really, power such a thing? I've been using my own magic to power nearly all of my models before now. But if the text is right, which I think it is, then the amount of power needed to generate so much heat and energy to even create the plasma would be nothing short of overwhelming. To say nothing of the magnets needed to contain the ruddy stuff. Merlin, I doubt even Dumbledore could do such a thing!"

As he was turning his thoughts over, trying to merge what he knew of magic with technology, a thought suddenly occurred to him. "Maybe what I need to do is find or make a runic sequence that could contain and recycle the flow of energy once powered? A self-perpetuating sequence to focus and control energy. Could I even do that?" He let out a heavy sigh. "I wish I'd joined Ancient Runes class instead of Divination."

Looking over at his book, Harry took his wand and started transferring pages from the various texts and articles into the book through copying everything with magic, even if they didn't entirely pertain to the subject he was interested in. He could always go back and refine it later. Despite how much of his experiments and thoughts had already been recorded, as well as the new inserts, less than half of the large volume had even been used. Plenty of space for him to add in a few chapters on how to create, inscribe, channel, and use runes in various forms. "I suppose I have some more book shopping to do before I go back to Privet Drive."

August 25, 1994
Stoatshead Hill

"Now we just need the Portkey," said Mr. Weasley, replacing his glasses and squinting around at the ground. "It won't be big… Come on…"

They spread out, searching. They had only been at it for a couple of minutes, however, when a shout rent the still air. "Over here, Arthur! Over here, son we've got it!" Two tall figures were silhouetted against the starry sky on the other side of the hilltop.

"Amos!" said Mr. Weasley, smiling as he strode over to the man who had shouted. The rest of them followed. Mr. Weasley was shaking hands with a ruddy-faced wizard with a scrubby brown beard, who was holding a moldy-looking old boot in his other hand.

"This is Amos Diggory, everyone," Mr. Weasley said, looking back over at his group. "He works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. And I think you know his son, Cedric?"

Cedric Diggory was an extremely handsome boy of around seventeen, the Captain and Seeker of the Hufflepuff House Quidditch team at Hogwarts. Looking around at them, the boy said simply, "Hi."

Everybody said 'hi' back, except Fred and George, who merely nodded. They had never quite forgiven Cedric for beating their team in the first Quidditch match of the previous year.

Seeing that everyone was gathered, Harry discreetly turned away from the group and pulled out a small pamphlet-sized booklet which he started reading from. The pamphlet was actually his research tome for his lightsaber, which he'd asked Mr. Weasley to shrink down to a more manageable size once he'd arrived at the Burrow. Swiping back to a very specific page, he started rereading what the science article on plasma once again. This little distraction of his had become a rather common occurrence, even while he was with the Weasleys, so none of them spoke up on it if they even noticed. He'd pull it out when he was either bored or there was nothing interesting happening and would quickly get lost back in his research.

"—it was an accident," Cedric's voice cut through his thoughts. "Sorry, Harry, I—what are you reading?"

Looking up, Harry flinched back in surprise at how close Cedric had gotten so quickly. He reflexively closed and pulled his tome away, trying to hide it from sight. But, seeing Cedric's questioning and somewhat amused gaze, he let out a slight sigh before he held it up slightly. "Just a little…summer project of mine."

"Must be some project," Cedric remarked, his brow quirking slightly in surprise and good humor. "You completely missed out on some Quidditch talk, and I know you love Quidditch."

"You were apologizing," Harry pointed out as he stuffed his tome back into his pocket. With a slight grin, he continued, "Maybe it was good thing I missed it."

Cedric blinked before an answering grin spread across his face. "Yeah, you're right. Maybe it was a good thing."

"Harry, Cedric!" Mr. Weasley called, urgency clear in his voice. "Time's almost up! Get over here!" As the boys approached, Harry couldn't help looking questioningly at the strange scene of a large group of people gathered around and clutching a manky old boot in the growing dusk. Seeing his slight confusion, Arthur hurriedly said, "Just touch it! Quickly!"

Harry had just barely finished putting a finger on the boot when he felt as though a hook just behind his navel had suddenly jerked irresistibly forward. His feet left the ground and he joined the group as they vanished in a blur of motion, spinning at blinding speeds towards the hidden World Cup arena.

August 27, 1994
Azkaban, North Sea

It was amazing how quickly the thunderous roar of crashing waves against the beach and tower could become so monotonous. The walls were always cold and damp, with the barred cell doors letting in even the smallest breeze, all of which were as frigid as the icy water surrounding the island. The sky was always overcast in shades varying from black to deep gray, never any brighter. The air was icy cold thanks to the proximity of the Arctic Circle, but that wasn't the only reason. The sensation of hopelessness and depression hung heavy in the air, increasing the coldness by several degrees. Floating and drifting through cold winds like smoke and leaves were creatures so foul that even the darkest of wizards were hesitant to approach.

'I swore I'd never come back here,' the hidden wizard thought as he pulled his black cloak tighter around his body. 'But there's no choice now. I need my Lord's most faithful servants.'

The man had arrived early in the evening the previous day and had spent the late-night hours scouting the prison and island. He had been searching for weaknesses in the prison's layout, hiding places in the island's craggy landscape, watching the patrols of the Dementors and Aurors, and contemplating how to go about his mission with his vast array of spells. After a long while, he finally settled on what was perhaps the easiest route to achieve his goal.

Rising from his hiding place, the wizard pulled a new cloak made of what seemed like shimmering silvery water over his shoulders. As the new cloak settled upon him, the wizard vanished from sight, protected under the cloak's invisibility. Once sure he was safely hidden, he moved forward towards the prison. However, he was careful to avoid approaching the only entrance from the front, instead walking up to it from the side. It was overly simplistic, but very effective. Azkaban never had any visitors or explorers or tourists, being an island prison dominated by Dementors. The only people who arrived were convicts being escorted by Aurors, or prisoners being released and escorted by Aurors. And they always used the only path on the entire island that led from the entrance to the small shack by the shore that served as the specially warded Portkey waystation. And those visits were infrequent at best. Thus, there was no guards watching over the entrance, the path, or even the island itself.

'Better to error on the side of caution,' the wizard mused to himself as he reached the entrance unopposed.

Casting a subtle revealing charm, he saw that there was only one guard within the gatehouse. Holding back a sneer at the man, the wizard slipped forward and inside the gatehouse. Leveling his wand on the man, the wizard easily dredged up all of his hate and anger, directing it into his wand to help him focus his desire of dominating the sleeping man as he quietly uttered, "Imperio!"

Yet just as he uttered the phrase, for all that surprise was on his side, for the environment masking his approach, it was also his undoing. As he carried forth the motion to fire his spell, the ground and rocks he stood upon suddenly shifted. This unexpected shift threw off his balance, causing his arms to reflexively flail about upwards as he fought to regain his footing. As a result, his curse shot high above its mark, immediately attracting the guard's attention. Though probably not realizing just what spell he'd been spared from, he instantly realized he was under attack and reacted admirably, whipping out his own wand and lunging to the side, dodging the invisible wizard's follow-up curse.

"Who's there?!" the guard demanded, glaring around in the general area that he'd seen the spells coming from. "Show yourself!"

"Depulso!" the curse shot an invisible wave towards the guard in an attempt to knock him off his feet. However, now that he was actively paying attention, the guard had heard the curse's incantation and raised a shield charm in defense. While the guard was busy absorbing the attack on his shield, the attacking wizard was already moving, sliding as stealthy to the side as he could manage. This proved quite a good thing for him as the guard had immediately launched a large fireball in the area where the attacker had been moments before.

Crouching low to the ground to help evade the fringes of the sweltering heat, the wizard saw his chance as the guard's defense dropped ever-so-slightly as he watched the fireball, clearly anticipating seeing some kind of reaction or revelation as to who his attacker was.

"Imperio!" Instead, he was wholly unprepared for a new curse to come flying at him from a slightly different angle. There was a long moment of silence and stillness as the curse took effect. But once that moment passed, the guard turned to look at the wizard in an almost questioning manner.

"Find all the other human guards and cast the Imperio on them. Have them to help you. Return here with them once you're done," the wizard ordered. It was a sign of the Imperius Curse having taken total control when the man turned and marched off to fulfill his assignment without even batting an eye to the orders given.

But the wizard paid no further mind to his new slave as he departed. Instead, he turned and walked out of the gatehouse and down the path. After about twenty paces in front of the prison, he stopped, throwing off his Invisibility Cloak, and looked up into the sky, watching the circling specters in the air and waiting for one of them to approach. Sure enough, he spotted one of wispy silhouettes peeling itself away from the group and come floating down towards him.

As the creature drew up level with him, in a voice that was faint, delicate like smoke, and yet steeped in so much despair that it caused a reflexive shiver to run down the wizard's back, it spoke, "Whhhooooo aaaaarrrreeee yyyyoooouuuu? Whhhhaaaatttttt dooooooo yoooooouuuuuu waaaaannnntttt, daaarrrrk ooooonnnnnneeeee?"

"Voldemort is gone," the wizard said simply, his voice coming out with a slight muffled, reverberating tone due to the iron mask he wore. He spoke bluntly, knowing that these creatures were all listening through the ears of this one. He kept himself under perfect control, refusing to shiver as the Dementor's despairing aura nestled down over his shoulders. This was a moment of absolute necessity where he needed to show strength. "But I intend to revive his work. To do that, I want his true followers at my side."

"Whhhyyyyy sshhhoooouullldddd weeeee allllloooooowwww thhhhaaatttt?"

"Because I'm offering you a chance to…expand your menu," the masked wizard stated. "Let me have those wizards and witches and, once I control the Ministry, you will be allowed to feed on as many muggles and mudbloods as you desire."

"Weeeeee haaaavvveeee annnn aggggreeeeemmeeennttt wiiitthhh ttthhhhheeeeeeee Miiiiiiinnnniiissstryyyyyy," the Dementor countered, its aura of despair growing stronger with each passing word, pressing down on the man almost like a physical weight on his shoulders. "Whhyyyyy sshhhhoooouuuulllllldddddd weeeeee thhhrrrreeeatteeeennn ttthhhhhhaaaaat fffooooorrrrrr oooonnnnneeeeeee mmmaaaaannnnnnnn?"

"Because," the man said slowly, fighting valiantly to remain upright as his knees started shaking involuntarily. "I am offering you…your freedom from this place… I just need a…few of the prisoners…to get my plans started."

There was a long pause as the Dementor contemplated this. Would it be worth it to risk bringing the ire of the Ministry down on them? This wizard was offering a very similar deal to them as what the previous Dark Lord had. And while this man clearly didn't have the same raw power and strength of will, as demonstrated by him not being able to fully handle the depression aura, he clearly had the conviction. What he was offering was what the horde had been desiring for centuries. So much so that…yes. Yes, they were that desperate to get out and away from this island. They wanted the opportunity to feast on souls and happiness as they once had a millennium ago, before those accursed four rose to power.

"Vverrrrryyyyy weeellllll," the Dementor said after a long moment. "Spppeeeaaakkkk. Weeee shhaaaalllll llliiiisstttteeeeennnn."

September 1, 1994
Hogwarts Express, northbound

Laughing once more, Malfoy beckoned to Crabbe and Goyle, and the three of them disappeared. Ron got to his feet and slammed the sliding compartment door so hard behind them that the glass shattered.

"Ron!" Hermione barked reproachfully. She pulled out her wand and muttered, "Reparo!" and the glass shards flew back into a single pane and back into the door.

"Well…making it look like he knows everything, and we don't…" Ron snarled. "'Father's always associated with the top people at the Ministry.' …Dad could've got a promotion any time…he just likes it where he is…"

"Of course he does," Hermione agreed quietly. "Don't let Malfoy get to you, Ron—!"

"Him! Get to me?! As if!" Ron said, picking up one of the Cauldron Cakes and squashing it into a pulp.

As Ron turned to glare moodily out the window, staring off into the gathering darkness, Harry could clearly see that any further conversation was going to be strained and awkward. Sighing slightly, he stood up and dug into his trunk, pulling out a familiar tome. The sight of Harry pulling out a book wasn't an uncommon sight, but the fact that the tome was absolutely massive in size and weight, that was something worth drawing his two friends' attentions.

"Blimey, Harry, what's that?" Ron asked, some of his bad mood clearing up in his slight confusion. Since he was seated next to Harry, he was able to look over his shoulder and easily see what was on the pages. Most of it was covered in scribbled text he recognized as Harry's handwriting, along with drawn sketches and inserted pictures from other books, as well as what were clearly copied pages of other textbooks and pamphlets pasted in the tome. While he could see it, he couldn't make sense of any of it from just the passing gaze he was giving it.

"Oh, ah, just some notes for a summer project I've been working on at the Dursleys," Harry admitted, looking up and flushing slightly at seeing his friends' interests.

"'Just some notes'?!" Ron repeated, gawking with a horrified expression on his face. "That looks like something Hermione would read in her spare time!"

"Ron!" Hermione said, her voice split between a reproachful bark and an embarrassed whine. Shaking her head, she turned her attention to Harry and asked, "What kind of project was it, Harry? Did you finish it?"

Harry sent Hermione a slightly crooked grin since he knew she'd probably understand what he was about to reveal, unlike Ron. "I was watching a muggle film and got inspired to try and build my own version of a weapon that was shown in the movie. I want to build my own lightsaber!"

"Wha—lightsaber? Are you serious?!" Hermione asked, her eyes widening slightly before she rolled them in exasperation. "Argh, a lightsaber? Really, Harry? I mean, really?! You do know that's impossible, right? With either magic or technology!"

"Really, Hermione, so lightning storms don't happen over Hogwarts?" Harry drawled with a smirk.

"Of course they do, Harry, but what—!?" Hermione stopped talking, just as Harry suspected she would, as her brain made a very crucial connection that all other muggleborns had missed. If magic messed with electricity, how then did lightning still behave normally near such a high concentration?

"A light…saber?" Ron repeated slowly, testing out the strange word with a contemplative look on his face. "What's a light-saber?"

"A fictional weapon in a film saga called 'Star Wars' that is very popular among the muggles," Hermione answered automatically, though her mind was clearly elsewhere. "It's basically a magic sword that can cut through anything and is used by exclusively by a group of warrior-wizards who fight to protect goodness and light."

"Not a bad comparison, Hermione," Harry said, nodding his head agreeably. "I take it you've seen the saga?"

"Yes, I have, once," she admitted. Then, muttering almost too quietly for either boy to hear, she said, "Star Trek is way better, though." Despite herself, Hermione flushed somewhat at seeing Harry's slightly disappointed and disgusted look as he gazed at her pointedly with a raised brow.

"Star what?" Ron asked, glancing between the two of them in confusion.

"Anyway, can I see what you've already got?" Hermione asked, gesturing inquiringly towards Harry's tome. Harry nodded and handed it over to her.

Taking the tome, Hermione opened it at the first page and rapidly started reading over. Soon, she was skimming over Harry's notes and theories, studying his diagrams and experiments. After several minutes, Harry slid over to sit next to her, so he could help share and explain certain thoughts. Hermione had an increasingly widening look of surprise and burgeoning respect as the two of them continued.

But as she reached the second half of his tome, where he had started gathering information on relevant muggle technologies along with his theories and notes of how magic might be able to aid in the construction, her expression changed to one of utter fascination. She had never even considered the possibility that perhaps the long-held belief of technology and magic working in tandem was an impossibility was in fact completely mistaken due to wizards' long ignorance of technology. The fact that some of Harry's first experiments with joining the two opposites showed promising results was truly mind-blowing and revolutionary for her.

Needless to say, she and Harry were locked in an intense discussion on these new ideas for the remainder of the train ride.

Meanwhile, Ron had seen the direction that the two of them were heading and had quickly lost interest. He soon turned and started glaring out the window again, quickly going back to sulking and simmering over Malfoy and being left in the dark of what was happening at Hogwarts by everyone. Heck, now even his best friends were excluding him from the discussion! The fact that they (and he) knew that he wouldn't likely understand anything of what they were talking about was pushed to the side in his mind as he continued to brood angrily at everyone.

(Tellemicus's Note) Not much more to say on this chapter. Just that it's already shaping up to be very, very different from The Lightsaber.

Fiori75 AN: So here I am, Tellemicus has finally done it, he's managed to convince me that writing a fanfic for Star Wars is a good idea, even if it is a very round about cross over. May the Force be with us, because god damn it STAR TREK IS TOTALLY THE BETTER SERIES!