The young ruler of the planet of Naboo, Padme Amidala, was despondent and downhearted. She sat in silent sullen contemplation as she waited her captain to prepare the ship wherein she would return back to her home world. She had arrived at Coruscant with great hopes to enlist the help of the Republic Senate against the Trade Federation felonious occupation of her planet. All her hopes now lay shattered.

The Senate was not she had thought it was. It was bogged down by cumbersome procedures and apathetic bureaucrats from whom she had received no support. But she refused to just stand by and let her people suffer. She had said to the senator of her sector earlier in the day that her fate shall be the same as her people and she meant it and so she prepared to fight the Trade Federation on her own.

Loud knocks on her door interrupted her dark musings.

"Come in," she said primly.

It was Quarsh Panaka, a security forces captain who served the Royal House of Naboo as the Head of Security. "There is someone who wants to meet you, your highness."

She had little patience to entertain any bureaucrats at the moment and she could think of no other who would want to meet her. She had half a mind to outright refuse to meet anyone but her curiosity prevailed. "Who is it? Is it a senator?" Her distaste clear in her voice.

Captain Panaka looked decidedly uncomfortable. "No your highness. He is a businessman. . . . . Padme's face unsurprisingly contorted with repugnance and Captain Panaka winced but pressed on . . . . Perhaps I should have turned him away but his words made me pause."

Padme said nothing waiting for him to elaborate. Taking his queen's silence as cue to continue he iterated the man's words, "He offers to aid Naboo against the Trade Federation."

Whatever it was that Padme had expected, it was certainly not this. Trade Federation was a powerful interstellar shipping and trade conglomerate whom even the Senate had not dared defy openly and yet here was a lone businessman willing to tread where the Senate dared not go. He definitely had her interest and despite herself she could feel her hopes stirring.

Yet there was a part of her that whispered dismaying thoughts. Perhaps, it was all a trap and this man was just another puppet of the Trade Federation sent to hollow her from within. Perhaps, he was. But they were in no situation to discard such an offer out of hand.

"What do we know of this man?" Padme asked after a long silence.

"He is the owner of Merlin Merchandising Ltd based off Bracca in Mid Rim," Panaka started.

"But is Bracca not an inhospitable junkyard planet," Padme interjected, recalling what she knew of this mid rim planet.

"It was and some parts of it still is but in last eleven years this man had single-handedly to quote the words of Galactic News Network 'enacted a miracle'. He had cleared vast parts of the planet surface of centuries of junks that he had adroitly repaired and sold to greater galaxy amassing great wealth. But that is not the true miracle that he had enacted. If words are to be believed he had somehow reversed the centuries of damage inflicted unto the environment of the planet that had made it inhospitable and now there are beautiful domed cities dotting the planet's surface.

Padme was listening rivetingly, eager to know more of the man who had proffered help against the Trade Federation where none had.

"But what lend weight to the claims of this man to help us against the Trade Federation are the incidents of couple of months prior. He owns two star systems and dozens of habitable worlds that were previously under the ownership of Trade Federation."

Padme was stunned speechless. "What? How?"

"No one knows. The details are all shabby. But there are rumours. Interesting rumours. Just prior to this shift in ownership, Merlin Merchandising Ltd had a huge cargo loss during shipment. It was so huge that some say it almost crippled the company. No one knows for certain. The rumours have it that the Trade Federation offered to purchase controlling shares in the company to help it wade through the crippling times. Merlin Merchandising accepted and one of the members of the Trade Federation Directorate himself visited the planet to broker the deal. What happened next as they say is history.

"The directorate member returned back to his home world, transferred all his assets – to the very last credit – to the Merlin Merchandising and vanished, never to be heard from again. When the rest of the directorate learnt of this, they were flabbergasted and furious and left no stone unturned to take back what they claimed he had swindled from them. But supposedly everything was foolproof and nothing they had done had helped them reclaim the ownership of the star systems they had lost."

"Wow!" Padme said breathlessly.

"After perusing his history with Trade Federation, I believed he might just be the man we need."

"So it would seem," Padme said, more hopeful than she had been for the past days after she had left the Senate building, "What's his name?"

Panaka raised his hand, a holoprojector upon it. He pressed a button and hologram of a man appeared above it. "Harry Potter, your highness."

Padme looked at the hologram of the man admiringly. Here was a man who had not only stood up to the Trade Federation but also supposedly given them a taste of their own medicine. He was a man whom she could respect.

She would meet this man.

"Send him in," Padme said, hope nestling in her breasts.

Few minutes later Panaka returned with a man trailing behind. Dressed in finest of silk he stood tall and proud. Midnight black locks framed his handsome face.

Their eyes met and she felt her stomach flutter. His emerald eyes were the most beautiful thing that she had ever seen. He smiled lopsidedly and she barely restrain herself from swooning. She felt as if she had died and gone to heaven.

Damn these teenage hormones. Why he had to be a young handsome man and not an old wrinkled methuselah. Its goanna be so very complicated.