Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Star Wars. They belong to J K Rowling and George Lucas respectively. I am not making any money off this so please don't sue me. This is the only disclaimer that I will be putting up for the entire story.

Phoenix Rising

Chapter One: Reluctant Rescue

Harry and Anakin were in the middle of a dogfight the like of which they'd never seen before. General Grievous, the leader of the Separatist Droid Army had done the supposedly impossible, he'd come right into the heart of the Republic and made off with the Chancellor. Now, Harry and Anakin were leading the rescue mission and dealing with some very heavy resistance along the way.

"Three on your right Harry" Anakin snapped through their headsets. Harry looked that way briefly and replied, "I see them, Anakin, let's see if we can't get rid of them."

With that Harry sent the Marauder into a sharp corkscrew spin, flying through the worst of the fighting that was going on between the Republic and Separatist ships in the upper atmosphere of Coruscant. Anakin followed him, flying so close in his own modified ship that they seemed to be one. Indeed the two Jedi had flown together so often over the years that the Clone Wars had raged that they were able to predict each other's maneuvers as well in flight as they could in a lightsaber duel.

The three pursuers failed to follow closely enough and were blown apart by turbolaser blasts from a Republic cruiser. Harry looked round for General Grievous' command ship which was where Chancellor Palpatine was being held.

"Harry, the General's command ship is dead ahead" Anakin said, before rolling to the side to avoid enemy fire. Harry took a look at their target and groaned.

"Anakin you do realize that it's positively covered with vulture droids?" he asked. Upon his former Padawan's cheerful confirmation of that fact the Jedi Master growled in annoyance. "Anakin this is not FUN!" he snapped when he heard the Knight's comment of the upcoming fight being where the fun began.

The two Jedi executed a series of aerial maneuvers that most would call suicidal in an effort to shake off the droids that came at them. The clone troops that followed them, known as the Griffins in honor of Harry's animagus form held off most of them, until one fired a quartet of missiles at the formation.

Harry, Anakin and the clones let the missiles, and the buzz droids that flew at them pass between their ships, only to discover that the clone ships were destroyed by the droids and the missiles were firmly fixed on the Jedi fighters.

"Let them do their jobs Anakin, we have to focus on ours" Harry snapped when Anakin wanted to go help their comrades. Anakin shook his head but then paled slightly when he saw what the missiles had locked on to.

"Uh Master, I've got two missiles locked on me, one on each engine and the other two are locked on you. We need to deal with them."

Harry frowned. "I agree Anakin and sooner rather than later. I can get myself out of this; do you have a plan to get rid of yours?"

Anakin thought for a second before grinning and replying, "Yup, engaging it now." He then started his ship spinning so the missiles came closer and closer to each other, finally hitting in a blaze of fire. Stopping the spin he grinned and called out, "Mine are taken care of how about yours?"

Harry had been pulling all the tricks he knew to shake his off. Finally he slowed down a bit and then just when the missiles were about to hit him he abruptly moved out of their path. The deadly explosives hissed past his ship and hit another droid ship, releasing more buzz droids which latched straight onto the Marauder.

"Get off my ship you blasted pieces of junk!" Harry snarled as the droids started to efficiently take his beloved ship to pieces all around him. He then heard a welcome voice over the comm. system.

"Move to the right Harry, I'll have a clear shot" he heard Anakin say. Harry felt like retorting, "A clear shot at what?" but didn't. He found out anyway as Anakin's lasers shredded the two droids on his left wing, and unfortunately took the wing as well.

Anakin winced as a howl of outrage came through his earpieces. "ANAKIN!" Harry yelled. "My ship was already in bad shape did you have to mangle it further!"

"Sorry Master, at least it got rid of the droids" he said defensively. A sigh came over the comm. and then Harry muttered, "Yes but you'll be paying for repairs. Where's Grievous' ship?"

"Dead ahead Harry, we're almost there" Anakin replied. Harry looked straight ahead and then said calmly. "Have you noticed, by any chance that the shields are still up? We'll be pulverized if they're not taken down in the next few seconds."

Anakin rolled to the side to get a clear shot at the shield generators and pumped several laser blasts into them. As the shields dropped, a large door started closing swiftly and the two Jedi only just made it in before it closed fully.

Harry crash landed his ship on the floor, as did Anakin before both leapt out and started destroying the battle droids that were waiting for them. In 2 minutes they were finished and walking towards the lift.

"Sorry about the Marauder Harry" Anakin said as they moved towards the lift. Harry glanced at him and then snorted. "It's had worse Anakin, but I meant what I said, you will be helping repair it, and paying for it too. Now let's go get the Chancellor back."

They walked into the lift, and destroyed a few more droids who thought they could take on two fully trained Jedi Knights. Needless to say, they couldn't and Harry and Anakin were soon on their way up to the observation platform at the top of the ship.

Having reached their destination with only a minor hitch, they walked into a large room where the Chancellor was discovered sitting in a black chair with only two wrist cuffs to hold him prisoner. Harry frowned.

"Anakin be wary. Something's not right here." His former apprentice looked at him in concern. "What is it? Is it your scar?" Harry blinked, before replying softly, "Partly yes, it's itching like mad, and burning slightly, but something's out of place with the general picture here. Do you see any droids? The Chancellor is sitting there, relaxed as you please, watching the battle outside. Where's Dooku as well?"

Anakin frowned, his master had always been able to sum up a situation like this pretty well, and it did sound very fishy now that he thought about it. Shrugging he replied, "Lack of droids means an easy rescue and as for Dooku, well, if he's here then we shouldn't have much trouble, he's got 3 robotic limbs thanks to you remember."

"Don't underestimate him Anakin, he's still a formidable opponent" Harry warned as they walked up to the captive Chancellor.

"Hello Chancellor, it's good to see you again" Harry said pleasantly as he released the cuffs round the man's wrists, frowning as his scar flared with intense pain. They turned to leave and saw Dooku standing there waiting for them.

Anakin gently pushed Palpatine back so he was sitting in his seat and then joined Harry in slowly circling the Sith Lord.

"Get help, you're no match for him he's a Sith Lord" Palpatine said. Harry frowned, his scar was burning now, and he didn't know if it was because of Dooku or Palpatine. The way that Palpatine said they were no match also bothered him, the man seemed almost eager for a fight between the three. Looking back he smiled coldly and said "Chancellor Palpatine, I specialize in taking down Dark Lords such as him."

Anakin chimed in with, "Yeah, Dooku's three robotic limbs are courtesy of Harry." Dooku frowned at this reminder and then the battle was on.

Dooku was fast; Anakin had to admit, even with his droid limbs. He and Harry held him off though, until Dooku managed to kick Anakin away and then send Harry flying into a railing at top speed. This enraged Anakin but he controlled it, and used it to fight Dooku even more fiercely than before. As their blades locked, Dooku tried to sway him to the Dark.

"I sense fear in you Skywalker. You have hate, you have anger, but you don't use them." Anakin growled and disengaged his blade before replying, "No, I don't, because I've learnt a better way of dealing with them than going down your path."

Dooku snarled and fought back, but Anakin was too good for him, and with a lightning quick move he severed both of Dooku's hands at the wrists and caught the Sith's lightsaber hilt as it came down. The young Knight then brought the two blades down so they were crossed at Dooku's throat.

Palpatine smiled coldly and then said, "Good Anakin, good. Kill him." Both Anakin and Dooku looked at him in shock. "Why?" Anakin asked. Dooku looked at him in hope, appealing to the Jedi's sense of honor. Palpatine frowned.

"He's too dangerous to be left alive Anakin, he needs to die now" he said. Dooku locked his eyes on Anakin's silently pleading with the younger man to not do it. Anakin looked between him and the Chancellor and didn't like the look in the Republic leader's eyes.

Lowering the blades slightly he said, "No. It's not the Jedi way Chancellor, I won't take the life of an unarmed prisoner and he could give us valuable information on the Separatists."

"That's right" Harry said as he walked up behind Dooku. He raised his eyebrows as he saw Dooku's hands on the floor and Anakin shrugged in response. Harry reached inside his belt pouch and withdrew a shrunken pair of Force nullifier cuffs. He enlarged them again and swiftly bound Dooku's arms behind his back, casting swift pain relief charms on the man's severed human wrist. He normally wouldn't do that but he didn't want his prisoner suffering more than he had to. He looked between Palpatine and Anakin, before saying, "Shall we go then?"

The small group was heading down the corridor towards the hangar bay when Harry's danger sense kicked in. He stopped abruptly, found a reasonably heavy piece of debris lying around and tossed it a few feet in front of them. Immediately ray shields snapped into place round the debris and a host of droids came out of the doorways nearby. Harry quickly disillusioned his group and they waited while the droids looked round.

"What do we do now?" Anakin signaled, in the abbreviated form of sign language that he and Harry used for communication when talking was a bad idea.

"Either go round them or through them, we have to get to the hangar bay."

Anakin nodded and they drew the droids' attention by causing a commotion further down while remaining invisible in their positions. As soon as the droids had moved down the corridor Harry acted. Swiftly and silently they made their way to the hangar bay, dodging droids and other security features along the way. Finally they made it to the hangar bay and Harry moved to check his ship.

"It's still flyable, just. Let's get on board and get out of here." Harry said while escorting the Chancellor on board. Anakin tapped his ship with a finger and said "Shrink" to it, while thanking James for installing automatic shrinking and enlarging charms on both his ship and on Harry's although the Marauder didn't really need them. With his ship in his pocket Anakin ran to the Marauder and got on board, just as Harry lifted the ramp. Palpatine strapped himself in securely as Anakin joined Harry at the controls, slipping into the co pilot's position easily. They lifted off and flew out the other side of the ship, through the shields, which permitted objects to go out but not come in. They got out just in time too as the ship was hit with a heavy blast of gunfire and exploded soon after.

"Hope Grievous died" Anakin muttered as they watched bits of the ship rain down on Coruscant. Harry shook his head. "I don't think he did Anakin, I saw the escape pods launch minutes before the explosion, and he'll have been on one of them for sure. He's not the type to have no escape plan if things go wrong."

Anakin nodded before looking uneasily towards the common area where their passenger was sitting. "I need to talk to you once we're back at the Temple. It concerns the fight with Dooku, and what our passenger said to me when I had Dooku at my mercy" he said in a low voice. Harry frowned, before replying, "Of course Anakin, once we've given our report to the Council come back home and we'll talk."

Anakin nodded in acceptance and the two relaxed, concentrating on flying the damaged ship back to the Temple, from where Palpatine would be picked up and transported back to the Senate, with a Jedi escort. It would not be them however, as they needed to report to the Council and get cleaned up after the mission. Once Palpatine was at the Temple, their job was done and it would be up to Jett and Syra, now both Jedi Knights themselves, to safely escort the Chancellor back to the Senate.

As Harry guided the Marauder down to the Jedi Temple landing platform and shook hands with Palpatine, accepting his gratitude for rescuing them, he couldn't help noticing the sharp stab of pain in his scar, nor could he shake the feeling that it might have been better if Palpatine hadn't been rescued at all. He immediately chastised himself, a Jedi was not supposed to think that way, but he couldn't help it. He got a very very bad feeling from the leader of the Republic and what Anakin had to tell him only made that bad feeling grow.

'And what's worse is that I don't have any solid proof to back up my suspicions!' he thought to himself later that night. 'All I have is theories and my scar reactions which won't stand up in a court of law, and the Jedi Council won't make a move without solid proof no matter whether they believe me or not.'

Alone in his office, Darth Sidious was also pacing round and round, thinking furiously. 'Skywalker was supposed to kill Tyranus for me thus leaving the way clear for him to be my apprentice! Damn that Potter, he's trained him even better than I thought. And now both of them are suspicious of me, how the hell am I supposed to turn the Chosen One now?' Sinking into his chair he snarled out "Damn you to the deepest levels of hell Potter!"