What’s a Sith?
Harry is lucky that Mayva finally seems to catch on to his increasing panic, and goes right on to excusing the group to her folk and ushering them back up the lift.
He is unlucky, however, the moment after, as Fee practically ambushes them while Mayva is herding them to the mismatched collection of couches, beanbags, fluffy rug and giant cushions that now populates the common area. The other youth practically wrests Teddy from him, too!
But then that rude lump takes deep breaths, eyes closed and swaying gently. And, slowly but surely and freakily, a sense of calm-peace-safe-home-well-unhurt seeps into the air like a subtle, subtly comforting fragrance. And, with that, Teddy stops crying and coos delightedly instead.
“What did you do?” Harry breathes, alarmed but in a distant, somewhat foggy way, even as Mayva pushes him and Kan down into one of the giant cushions and piles smaller cushions round and nearly on top of them.
Fee settles opposite him with Teddy, soon after, and sends him a rueful, apologetic smile. `I have no idea what you exactly said, but I think I got the gist of it from our bond. I…. This is…. I apologise, Harry, for never informing you of this, and for not gaining your permission before I tried to calm us all down. This is… a defence mechanism, for me and my people,` the lump says. `We feel people’s emotions, if they are not shielded, and feelings like what you experienced just now hurt us, because of their intensity and negativity and endless loop. I was too out of sorts during the lift ride, and it would have taxed me severely, all the same, if I tried to do a projection like this for the entire trip. But now you seemed to need it even more, and – I hope! – it is a temporary bout, so I… did this. It will fade naturally in a little while, and we will hopefully be calmer in the wake of it.`
Fee is nervous, Harry distantly notes. The other youth is apparently more formal even in thoughts when nervous, and it is… somewhat amusing, and a smidge alarming, and rather interesting.
And, above all, it’s the interest – the curiosity – that drags Harry into the present, back into himself, up into the surface of his own mind.
Given the topic and the trigger, he is unsurprised with himself that his first coherent words are, `Your folk is the prim-and-proper type, then?` Because Aunt Petunia is – was? – one such, in his own experience, and Sirius’ parents likewise, judging by the stories the man told him, and Professor McGonagall was always trying to instill it in her students, and he knows that such expectation leaves marks, whether good or bad.
Well, some not-so-positive snippets of experience may have leaked along with the words, too, for Fee sounds appalled when he rebuts, `No! My people are…. Many of them are diplomats. I was raised to be… diplomatic, although it has relaxed much in these three years, and I chose not to be a diplomat after my… coming-of-age ceremony.`
Harry frowns, puzzling the explanation out, teasing into the meaning behind the words, chasing down the wiff of lonely-bitter-resigned Fee exudes again at the end, even as Kan snuggles in his lap, apparently deep asleep, soundly defeated by the feeling in the air that has thankfully dissipated by now.
He picks one, at length, and expresses it while Mayva hands him a cup of warm, strong, slightly sweetened tea before doing the same to Fee. `Your people… they aren’t just your family, aren’t they? It’s a community, with all that entails, am I wrong?`
Another of the rueful smiles makes an appearance, now tinged with wary acknowledgement, and Harry can’t help but crow to himself.
Well, crow and chase it down further while he sips at his tea for comfort and fortification, since now he is suddenly, painfully aware that he still knows so little of Fee while he has essentially invited the other youth into his home and even his private, personal sanctuary in it.
He refuses to be caught off guard so badly by some revelation, too. Not after what has happened twice with people who are supposed to be his in the first place.
So he asks, `What are you, if not a diplomat or something like it? A magical-anomaly hunter? And what do they want with your findings by sending you down here?`
It’s not a good indication when Fee mentally clams up, even as he squirms, looks away, floats his teacup onto the bit of flooring just outside the cushion nest, and floats Teddy to a spot beside Harry.
In response, Harry gives him McGonagall’s patented “piercing, disapproving, Disappointed, reproving (PDDR) – as George put it – look when discussing her within Hermione’s vicinity, and sends it along mentally for good measure. Then, when Fee ducks his head and hunches into his shoulders, the tired, disappointed, irritated, worried host points out, while clutching his cup tightly, `I welcomed you into my home and even my private quarters, fed you, clothed you, will let you go freely if you wish it, though after you’ve promised you won’t tell on us in any way, and make my own way upwards. But will your people give me the same courtesy? And if not, why?`
If he were by himself, just a single individual from earth stranded here, with or without resources, especially the latter, he might just follow Fee without much thought. But he has lots of people depending on him, here and now, and at least three of them are children, with one being a baby still, so he can’t just do that.
He should’ve asked more right from the start, and he didn’t. So, in a way, he’s already endangering everyone, including the however many new ones Mayva has just introduced him to, and he can’t afford more endangerment.
Speaking of whom….
He turns slightly without looking away completely from Fee, thanks Mayva quietly for the cups of tea for him and his guest, asks her to return to “the others” until he calls for her, “And close the trunk when you go down, please, if it’s possible. I’ll keep it safe.”
She frowns worriedly at him and insists just as softly, “Are you in danger, my lord? Please, let me guard you. I am not incompetent at defence. Or I could ask at least a few of the others who are specifically trained for such situation to guard you.”
He shakes his head, ignoring – for now – how Fee peeks up and apparently tries to watch discreetly. “No. I will be able to concentrate if I don’t have to guard other people. I’m… not used to having people with me, when I’m facing situations like this. Hermione calls it the Spearpoint Strategy? Well, I’m the spearpoint, and you’re all the shaft and the power driving it, so, let me work?”
His smile is wan and probably unconvincing, so he is not surprised when she… frowns severely… at him.
He is quite taken aback for more than one reason, though, when she – in a forcefully level and steady tone that he suspects hides so many things – lays out, “I am grateful that Lady Granger reached out to us right on the first day of the preparations, so all of us could prepare for ourselves and follow you here. However, I would beg your attention to note that, as of now and with my people as well as your immediate wards included in the count, you are in charge of four thousand three hundred and thirteen individuals. We need you, my lord; to give us aim and direction, to rule and judge us if necessary, to be there so that we know what we do matter. You were barred from us, but now you are here, and we have been doing so well because of it, although we are no longer on Earth. There are problems, and you have been addressing them, like we never did, we never could, as different as we are sometimes to each other, as equal as we are to each other despite our different Houses.”
`And this balance would break apart soon after my death, if I died too soon, and the cold war we went through that time about the werewolves would break into a true war indeed,` Harry continues to himself for her, when she has fallen silent but keeps staring at him, dignified in her wordless plea. `And it’s a dig at Mee for the Spearpoint Strategy, isn’t it? Without ever wording it, so she won’t be blamed for being angry and upset and all with my friend. Clever… and just like me with the Dursleys. Damn.`
And then reality sets in. ` Shite – four thousand people! How did it become so big? How did her folk put a city into a trunk, however big the trunk is? Were those greeting me even a tenth of the entirety? And I am in charge of all those?!`
He sighs, slumps in place, and nods reluctantly, grudgingly, ruefully at her.
And only then does she excuse herself with a courtsy towards him and vanish into the storeroom.
But, sadly for him, he still has to contend with the bystander of their… conversation. And the said bystander speaks up – tentatively but somehow tenaciously – right after Mayva is gone, `I never sensed them. Where did they come from? Why can’t I sense them, now? Are they… your employee?`
`Answer my questions first,` Harry retorts, unimpressed. And then, after likewise putting down his cup just outside the nest, he blatantly gathers Teddy into his arms, joining Kan, and does his best to ignore the hurt leaking out of Fee’s presence in his mind, looking at the implied distrust he’s deliberately showing.
But, well, he’s not quite successful, in that.
He knows – and acknowledges – that he really should’ve asked much earlier, before he decided to come along unasked for, before he shared a miserable lift-ride and a stroll in weird all-metal corridors and his home with this stranger. This moment, then, is as much his fault as Fee’s.
`Okaaaay, I’ll give him one chance. A provisional good word to everyone, too, if both parties ever meet, not just Mayva or perhaps Nada. But that’s all he’ll get.`
And how thankful he is that Fee does cave in, at length, with shoulders hunched over again and eyes downcast but mentally conveyed words sincere.
Rather than answering in clumps of words addressing a point each, though, the other youth tells Harry about his early years being the son of a pair of farmers, about how someone who could feel what others feel like him came and brought him away from the empty farmhouse where his parents had died, and how she – a… tree person? – introduced herself as a “Jedi”, and he would be a “Jedi” as well until he no longer wished it. He grew up as a “Jedi” on Coruscant, then, learning what children the galaxy over would usually learn, but also studying “Jedi” things, such as training on “lightsabre” – laser-blade that can be turned on and off – and meditation, which is purportedly “communing with the Force.” Quite religious-like, really, and marshal-like, like the Buddhist monks Harry has heard about and glimpsed in the kung-fu films Dudley sometimes watched the reruns of. Still weird, though. Because, who’d communes with magic like with God or some equivalent deity?
Fee claims that there are other “Force-using” cultures or even religions out there, not just the “Jedi Order”, when some of Harry’s wondering must have reached him. But, since the conception of the galaxy-spanning republic many millennia ago that still stands until now – `Whoa! A republic that consists of planets instead of provinces! And millennia–!` – the “Jedi” Order is regarded as the foremost expert about “the Force”, as well as “guardians of peace” in the Republic. One of their mandates is investigating “Force-anomalies” and “Force-artefacts” as well as possible and apparent threats to the Republic, whether internally or externally, and the natural follow-up is to guard it and its constituents from such “Force-nexus”, “Force-artefacts” and threats. And all children raised as “Jedi” grow up learning this, expecting this as part of their future, whatever they might end up doing or being in the said future when it comes.
`Peace-keepers, police, soldiers, security force, curse-breakers, artefact hunters, magical orphanage runners, magic-experts, magic-monks, probably leaders’ advisors too?` Harry summarises shortly, torn between feeling overwhelmed, scared out of his wits and simply confused.
`So much power, in one single body.`
He grimaces, and gazes seriously at Fee, who doesn’t refute any part of his summary.
And, when the other youth meets his gaze, he asks-states-accuses, `You mean to bring me in front of whatever authority panel among your people to be judged if I’m a threat or not, don’t you?`
Oh, how bitter he feels when Fee now looks away and exudes guilt like an odour.
But they are not finished. The topic is not yet exposed fully. So he forges on, `Am I allowed to defend myself? Am I allowed to keep my children, my people, my possessions, my life, my freedom? Is the trial just a formality?`
The farce of a trial before his fifth year flashes across his mind, still vivid in the helter-skelter of emotions he felt at that time, chief of which were the hopeless, helpless terror of being judged guilty for defending himself from a fate worse than death, to be either cast out of the only home and family he knew with no memory of the said home and family, or sent to live out his no-doubt very short life in a very dreaded prison with creatures he’s so allergic to.
And the hopeless, helpless terror is making a comeback. Plus bitterness from the betrayal of someone he has begun to accustom himself with, has begun to like.
Betrayal that he is not supposed to feel. Because, he has brought this upon himself, hasn’t he? He has been too reckless, too hasty to trust, too blinded – again, Andy would claim – by the first kindness of a stranger he receives in a new, unknown universe.
The horror Fee exudes when a run of the “trial” that Fudge dragged a helpless, clueless fifteen-year-old into is transmitted to him doesn’t mollify Harry any.
He just feels so damn tired.
And heartsick, admittedly, which just makes him feel even more bitter, and in the end just piles on the exhaustion.
`Yet another endless loop,` he sighs to himself, acknowledging the self-made trap he is always so readily falling into.
Just like the trust he either so easily or too easily gives to certain individuals.
Which makes him doubt everything, and feel more wretched because of it, and… well, given all that, he is so grateful when Mayva returns, this time trailing three people behind her: two men in two different army uniforms with a pistol holstered at the hip of each, and a demure, petite, barefooted woman clad only in what looks like a sheet of rich brown, intricately painted fabric round her body from under the armpits to just above the knees.
And of all the additional individuals, Fee is alarmed and wary of the woman.
Especially… her bun? Or the thing – the… handle of something? – used to roll the said bun?
`Huh.`
Before he can say anything about any of his observations, though, the three new individuals spread out and take position surrounding the common area – by the front door, by the row of living quarters, and by the kitchen area – and Mayva approaches him, her outstretched hands bearing each a transparent cdisk, one filled with swirling, silvery memories and another clear of anything.
“My lord, if it would please you, we would like to bargain for knowledge about the stranger’s language for all of us, should it be the international language here, and trade it with knowledge of English,” she says, then, without any preamble but with a deep, bowing courtsy towards him. “We would offer you memory crystals of topics you might need that we have, as well, my lord, and blank crystals for topics that we do not yet have in our crystal library, should you wish to source out for other pieces of knowledge or have us do it.”
And all he can do at first is to gape.
And glance at Fee, who now gawps at the filled disk that is assumably the memory crystal, then the clear one, then back again to the filled disk.
A deep, deep sigh is all he can muster as an answer in the span of a long, awkward pause, in which Mayva keeps her posture. Then, in a voice strangled by bewilderment, frustration and a smidge of humiliation, he confesses, “I don’t even know about the memory crystals, so how do I explain it to Fee? And get up, please. You don’t have to do that to me.”
Besides, Fee is now frowning at… the bowing courtsy? and pulling away from his mind, and turning surprised-wary-hostile towards him again, and he finds it severely unpleasant.
It’s somehow different from what the Dursleys and a few neighbours would show him in a daily basis while he was growing up, or what his schoolmates and other people from the Wizarding world would do for that matter, but he doesn’t know what’s different about it, or why Fee’s suddenly doing this to him again, or what he can do to make it stop. So, for now, he can only gawp at Fee in turn while Mayva straightens up, prim as you please, and tucks the disks away.
`Does he want me to tell him about my own life?` he wonders to himself. `At least he might understand me better, then?`
Before he could offer it to Fee, though, the other youth sends in words that would have been clipped if they were voiced aloud, `Are you – do you – what do you know of the Sith?`
“The… Sith?” Harry mumbles aloud, even more flummoxed than before and consequently more upset. “You mean sidhe? I think I heard it once. From my primary school teacher. When she was telling one of the stories she liked. She never told it or anything like it to us after that, though.”
When both Fee and Mayva give him odd looks, he belatedly remembers that he was speaking aloud, and his bond with Fee is now so thin as to be easily breakable, so he must purposefully send words to the latter, instead of Fee glimpsing his thoughts like earlier. So, with resigned frustration with not just their latest misunderstanding but also the language barrier, he raises a stopping hand to Mayva and repeats what he’s just said to Fee.
And he can’t help but feel vindictive when Fee sends back a very similar feeling of frustrated bewilderment as he has been feeling.
Just, sadly, the vindication is snuffed out long before he can wallow in it, because it triggers fresh hostility from the other youth, and it’s back to the stupid mix of betrayal-indignation-bewilderment-fear for him.
But, this time, Teddy is waking up, and stretching makes those little legs jab into Kan, who wakes startled and frightened and instinctively claws and bites at their perceived attacker.
Teddy wails in pain, Kan chitters in hysterical shock a moment after, and Harry can barely hear it when Mayva excuses herself to fetch a healer and Nada.
He spares Fee only a brief glare before shifting Kan a little, tucking them into his side and letting them cling. Then he racks his brain frantically for the few spells he knew for healing and, lacking any other option to stem Teddy’s bleeding legs, he pours Episky after Episky into the cuts and single but deep bite mark.
It’s humiliating, when the purported healer’s thundering footsteps come near with an accompanying squeaked, distressed plea for him to please stop mangling the baby further. But it’s also relieving, because now Teddy is figuratively in better hands, and literally so when he hands the crying baby over.
And it’s even more relieving to him, when Nada tells him in her usual quiet fashion that Mayva told her a theory of how he has been talking with Fee, and confesses that she is also able to converse with other beings mind to mind like what the theory said, and offers to continue the conversation with Fee from here. He wonders if this means that the distress of his wards are second to his own distress, if he is then a bad, selfish guardian, and how he can fix it, but the fact remains that now he can retreat physically as well as mentally and emotionally from dealing with Fee, at least for now.
And he does take the chance: trotting away and down into the trunk that holds the townhouse he and his little family spent some rest time in so recently, carrying a very upset Kan, trailed by the healer carrying a crying Teddy, looking forward to at least a little bit of peace in his assigned room there.
Distantly, he wonders if this makes him a coward, on top of it all.
But, for now, he can’t care less about it.