Galactic Wizardry

Chapter 1

Harry Potter opened his eyes and only saw white. There was nothing to see. No sky, no ground, no houses or buildings, nothing. He blinked a few times trying to pull his thoughts together. He couldn’t exactly remember what had happened. He remembered feeling poorly and going to sleep early.

“Your heart gave out moments later,” came a chilling voice. Harry gasped and turned around as quickly as he could, which wasn’t very fast considering his age. Harry saw a cloaked being made of black rags and shadows. Immediately, Harry began to see his breath as the area around him became chilled. Oddly enough, the cold didn’t bother him. The being said that he had died, and Harry believed him.

“Are you here to take me to the beyond?” Harry asked, ready for his next great adventure.

“Not exactly,” the being rattled out. “You collected my three relics. You are my chosen one,” he explained. Harry frowned.

“The Hallows?” he asked and suddenly they were in his hands.

“Yes … what you wand wavers call the Hallows.”

“What do you mean, chosen one?” That name rankled him. He remembered being called that in his youth.

“I need to bind myself to a living being. Long ago, I placed those items amongst the mortals. Since then, they have been joined many times. You are the latest to have done so.”

“What does that mean?” Harry asked. He had a feeling that he wouldn’t like the answer.

“It means that I am bound to you, and while I am, you are unable to die,” he clicked out a death rattle.

“Ever?” Harry asked with dread.

“No. I will now take possession of the relics once again and place them amongst the living. When they have combined once again, you will be free.” Harry sighed in relief. He didn’t like the idea of never seeing his loved ones again, assuming that he was able to once he passed on.

“How long will that take?” Harry wondered, looking at the being.

“It has never been less than several hundred years. It has often been several thousand,” Harry was told. He winced, and the being chuckled.

He snapped his boney fingers, and Harry instantly felt better. “You are now twenty-five Earth years old and will remain that age until we meet again.” Harry touched his face with one hand. He felt smooth skin once again. At the age of two hundred and twenty-three, Harry could hardly remember what it felt like to be young. He had to admit, it felt great!

“I will now take the relics, but as payment for our binding, you may choose three rewards. I will grant them if it is in my power,” the being said, gliding over to him. The cold chill followed him over.

Harry sighed. It wasn’t like he could argue against all of this. It was going to happen no matter what. He had long since learned to go with the punches and make the best of bad situations. He thought about his rewards for a moment. He suddenly had a crooked smile on his young face.

He held out the cloak that once belonged to his father. “I wish to be sent to a place where I can spend my time alive exploring and going on adventures.”

Harry decided that if he was going to go through with this, then he at least wanted a fresh start. He had long since outlived his friends and family. His grandchildren were old and dying off, and he didn’t often see his great or great-great grandkids. He may as well try to enjoy his new life instead of trying to hold on to the past.

“I know just the place. Granted!” he hissed and the cloaked turned to smoke.

Harry next held out the stone. “I wish to be an extremely fast learner.” Harry figured that was a good wish. He may need to learn a new language or two.

“Granted!” he hissed and the stone turned to dust.

Harry finally held out the wand. “I wish to be able to fully use my magic without a wand.” That was a no-brainer, Harry thought.

“Granted!” he hissed and the wand rotted into nothing. Out of nowhere, Harry screamed and dropped to his knees as it felt like his body had caught on fire. Every inch of him burned, and the pain lasted only a few seconds, but to him, it felt like hours. Once it ended, he shakily got back to his feet, breathing heavily.

“What the hell was that?” Harry asked, angry.

“Your magical pathways needed to be widened. Be careful what you wish for,” the being chuckled gleefully as Harry glared. “Until we meet again, Harry Potter.” The being snapped his fingers, and Harry felt like he was falling.

For how long was he falling? Who knew? Certainly not Harry. Time seemed to blur for him. It felt like an eternity and like no time at all before he was spat out.

“AAAAAARGH!” he yelled as he appeared fifty feet above the ground. As he was about to hit the ground, he waved his hand and slowed his descent. Softly he touched down on the hot, yellow sand. Immediately, he threw up a cooling charm. The temperature was ridiculous. Harry made sure to check himself over. Once he saw that all of his parts were attached and that he was wearing his normal wizard robes, he spun around to see where he was.

He couldn’t tell. It was nothing but sand dunes as far as he could see. Since no one was around, he spent a few minutes testing out his new magical abilities. He could indeed use all of his magic without a wand. Harry smiled to himself. Not only that, but it felt as if a foggy veil was lifted off of his mind. He felt smarter. This must be how Hermione always felt, Harry thought. Harry concentrated and slowly rose up and hovered high in the air. Looking around, he spotted what looked like a city or town in the distance. He couldn’t tell from so far away, but it looked like the buildings were made of the surrounding material. They all were the same color and had domed roofs. Turning himself invisible, he concentrated and apparated to the edge of the city.

As soon as he appeared, he had to jump out of the way from a flying far. That made him stop short. Looking around, he could see that all of the vehicles were floating a few feet off of the ground. Back on Earth, there were similar vehicles, but they used mag-lev technology. There were even cars that could fly, but they used lifting fans. If that wasn’t strange enough, he could see life-forms of all different types. There were humans like him, but also beings that looked incredibly strange. There were even giant animals that looked like mammoths with curly horns walking around. Harry had said that he wanted an adventure, and it looked like he had gotten his wish. Making sure to avoid the piles of shit on the ground, he slipped into the city.

His head was on a swivel the entire time. From up close, he could see that the buildings were made from some type of adobe. The further he went in, he could see that many shops sold mechanical parts. When he saw flying ships landing and taking off, he guessed that they were parts for those types of vehicles. Eventually, he made it to a place without any shops. Judging from the people doing plain, everyday things like cooking and cleaning, he guessed that this was a residential area. Spotting a lone man walk into his home, Harry quickly followed him in. Glad that no one else was around, Harry stunned the man. He caught him and gently lowered him to the floor.

“Now let’s get some answers,” Harry said. He was never an expert at Legilimency, but through practice, he had become quite adept at it. “Legilimens,” Harry whispered and placed his hand on the human’s head. Answers flashed into his mind. The planet that he was on was called Tatooine and the city was Mos Espa. The ships that he saw leaving and arriving were spaceships. Harry’s heart was beating a thousand times a second. Tatooine was just one of the thousands of inhabited planets, moons, and spaceports situated around the galaxy. With a spaceship, Harry could visit them all. Trying to calm himself, Harry took a deep breath. Concentrating again, he learned that the area was ruled by gangsters called Hutts. Apparently, the planet was a safe haven for criminals and scum. The man and everyone else in this area were slaves. Slavery was very common on this planet. Harry sighed. It seemed that no matter what, there would always be places with slavery. The sad thing was that there was nothing that Harry could do about it. It would take a force of millions to take down an illegal enterprise of this size. For every criminal he took out, another would quickly appear. For every slave that he freed, another would be captured. It was a sad truth and was the same back on Earth.

Crime was so rampant because Tatooine was far out in the Galactic Rim. Some useful information that he retrieved was that water was especially valuable on this planet and what types of food that he could safely eat. He also pulled two languages from the man, Basic and Huttese. If you were a serious criminal, then you had to speak Huttese. Waking the man up, Harry watched as he got to his feet and shook his head before going back to work. Harry sat in a corner while his mind processed the information. Trying to learn languages like this was difficult. Before, Harry wouldn’t have been able to do it. He just wasn’t that good of a learner. Dumbledore learned many languages this way. His mind worked much better than Harry’s did, and his skill at Legilimency was far greater than his own. But now, Harry had evened the odds a bit. Harry sat there for the rest of the day and most of the night with his head pounding. Doing two languages at once was probably a bad idea, but Harry pushed on. His enhanced learning ability was far beyond anything that he had ever heard about. He could feel his mind tearing through the information. Unfortunately, it was making his head feel like it was being split in two.

Staying under the protection of his invisibility, he used his Occlumency to dull the throbbing in his mind until finally, it had faded. Standing up and stretching his aching legs, he saw that it was once again daylight. How long was he out of it? He didn’t know. At this point, it didn’t matter. He could now speak both languages as well as that man could. Harry wouldn’t be in a rush to do that again. Hearing his stomach growl, he left the small home to find something to eat.

Close by seemed to be some kind of market area. There were quite a few stalls that sold food among other things. Walking up to a stand that sold fruit that he knew that he could eat. Hitting the man with a silent Confundus, he grabbed a few pieces of fruit before he could shake it off. Leaving the scene of the crime, Harry stowed them in his pocket while munching down on another. Having never eaten this weird fruit, he found it quite pleasant. It wasn’t very juicy, but it was nice and sweet. As he ate, he tried to figure out what to do with his life.

He was twenty-five again and would likely remain so for the foreseeable future. He had an entire galaxy at his fingertips, and Harry wanted to explore every bit of it. For that, he needed a ship. To get a ship, he needed money. So how could he earn enough for a ship? Harry shook his head after remembering something important. He didn’t even have food or a house. He could already think of a few ways to earn some coin but put that off for the moment. From the guy’s mind, he remembered a shop that sold junk ships on the outskirts of the city. He wanted to check it out first before deciding anything. If he could find an old ship that he could fix up, maybe he could stay in it until it was ready and kill two birds with one stone.

Mos Espa was quite big, and Harry didn’t want to waste his time and energy walking to the opposite side of the city in the desert heat. So he once again turned invisible and floated high into the air. Seeing the junkyard way off in the distance, Harry used his magic to fly over there. He kept things slow since he had to look out for flying ships. When he arrived, he lowered himself to the ground and became visible when no one was watching.

From what the man knew, the owner of this junk pile was a little purple alien … a Dug if Harry remembered correctly. The Dug didn’t own this land, only the small plot that held his home and shop front. That meant that anyone could come in and steal anything in the junkyard. Of course, they’d be gambling with their lives. Nothing in there was too valuable, and Dugs were known to be rather violent.

Harry didn’t bother checking in before going into the graveyard of broken-down ships and seeing what was available. He really didn’t know what he was looking for. The man wasn’t very knowledgeable when it came to spacecrafts. All he knew was that he was going to use his magic to modify it to his liking. He had done several cars back on Earth, so he had some experience with this sort of thing. He spent over an hour checking the dozens of different ships that were rotting in this pile of scrap. Some were nearly completely destroyed while some were in half-decent shape. It wasn’t until he reached the far back corner of the junkyard that he saw something that caught his attention. The ship was large, but not overly so. It kind of looked like a triangle that was cut in half, and the two halves were held together by some kind of space-aged cargo container. Harry could see why it didn’t fly anymore. One of the “wings” had a hole torn right through it. He walked up to it and rubbed away some of the layers of dirt that covered it.

“A good choice,” came a voice of accented Huttese. Turning, Harry saw the purple Dug walking up to him with his hands.

“What can you tell me about it?” Harry asked. In his opinion, the ship looked badass and would look even more so when he was done with it.

“Very old. From the Old Republic. A Fury-Class Interceptor. Three hundred Peggats and it is yours.”

“For this pile of scrap?” Harry scoffed. “One hundred Peggats,” he countered. It really was a pile of crap, but Harry would get it running after a whole lot of TLC. After some back and forth, it was agreed that Harry would pay the equivalent of two hundred Peggats worth of freshwater. In return, he would take ownership of it and would be allowed to live on it for the span of one year. If he needed more time, he would have to pay another one hundred Peggats for another year. With the agreement in place, Harry left and waited until dark. Not many beings visited this area of the city, even during the daytime. When he was sure that he was alone, he conjured multiple large barrels and filled them with fresh, clean water.

Harry wouldn’t sell water very often. He knew that there were a lot of very poor people that lived their lives as moisture farmers. He didn’t want to harm them when he could do other things for money, but right now he was a bit desperate. Harry sat down beside the containers and used his Occlumency to pass the time and refresh his body and mind. Once the twin suns had risen, he knocked on the door and met with the Dug. The little alien greedily took possession of the water and in turn transferred ownership of the scrap pile to him.

Harry happily made his way to this new ship. Before even going in, Harry cast a powerful ward around it. Anyone visiting would only see the ship as it was now unless they crossed the wardline. With that done, he walked up to the area where the ramp doors were. It took a few minutes to find the button underneath layers of dirt, but eventually, he did. Unsurprisingly, pressing the button did nothing. A quick Alohomora later and the ramp door unlatched but didn’t extend all of the way down. It was likely full of sand and grit from hundreds of years of inactivity. Using his magic, he cleaned the area completely and had to jump back when the ramp quickly lowered. After going inside, he found that it was much the same. Everything was old and dirty and nothing worked. He guessed that it needed a new power core. Not only did he not have one, but Harry guessed that any that he could get would not fit a ship this old. The ship would have to be updated and modified to be able to utilize modern technology. He certainly had his work cut out for him. Rolling up his sleeves, he decided to start by cleaning up.