Legacy of Darkness, Bane of Light Chapter 1: Prologue, a Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover fanfic

Disclaimer: The following story is a fan-made creation. I do not own Harry Potter, Star Wars or any other established fandom that may or may not occur. Please support the original material.

"Peace is a lie." Speech.

'There is only Passion' Force Ghost/Flashback/Alien Language.

"█▄██▄▄█▄▄█▄" Inarticulate/Creature Roar/s.

"With Passion I gain strength!" Holo-comminication Speech.

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A/N: so this, with the exclusion of 'a Relict to Remember' which is still undergoing research and development, is the last of our projected stories to be released for your viewing pleasure. We are changing Harry Potter Canon so as far as the HP-verse is concerned this is severely AU. Fair warning, do not grow attached to anyone on this planet that is not Harry Potter. If you chose to do so regardless...well, I take no responsibility for your decision :D

read. REVIEW and if you are up to it, provide us with thoughts and feedback. We love those. Flames will be ignored without reservation along with us considering the flamer to be the biggest idiot since Jar-Jar Binks.

Usually, when one looks to their own past; their childhood, they smile fondly with the remembrance of anecdotes of wide eyed enjoyment, laughter and love.

For one known as Harry Potter; he was one of the tragic few with little to smile about. In the years before he had found control over his own life he had nothing; growing up in that house of misery, and following that? Well he had far more important and grander things to concern himself with than fun.

That's to say he didn't enjoy himself. Far from it, he enjoyed himself immensely in spite of the dangerous locale. He had achieved feats that none before him could even hope to match with the time, resources and 'environmental concerns'.

Harry had achieved so much, more than he had hoped in his time on Earth. He had come so far and become so much.

But once, there was a time when he had none of those things.

A time when he had no achievements under his belt, no power to keep him strong and safe. Nothing.

Once, there was a time. When he was just…

XxxX

"FREAK!"

The stairs shook violently, dust cascading down to shower upon the sole, unfortunate occupant of the cupboard.

A resigned breath was released from the frail, six year old child that called that cramped, dusty hole he called his home.

Harry Potter, unwanted orphan, live in servant and declared 'freak of nature' eased himself to a seated position.

His eyes opened, staring at the 'ceiling' of his cupboard, ignoring the dust falling from it as Vernon stomped down the steps; most likely deliberately for this very effect. He didn't waste the effort to raise an arm to block the falling dust; simply turning his head to the side and closing his eyes as it hit him. He could not remember a room outside of this one. His bed had always been the moulded blanket that he was laying on with only a moth bitten sheet to cover him. His clothes, his toys, everything that he had to call his own were, well, practically non-existent. He couldn't even call the building he lived in his own home. It was not, it was the home of the Dursley's.

Their home. Not his. He was often reminded of this crucial difference.

It caused a small measure of resentment in the boy. He wanted to belong. A home. A family. While he could not see the familial connection he could feel some kind of connection between the members of the Dursley family. He wanted that. They would not give it to him.

And however well he hid it, buried the feeling beneath the veil of weakness and timidness, he hated them for it.

He rolled over to his stomach and pushed himself to his knees; chest heaving and lungs burning from the effort. It took a moment to regain his breath as he leaned against the door of his cupboard for stability. He had always been weak, frail. That his relatives refused to provide him with any real food of substance wasn't helping, but that aside he was small and sickly. He never seemed to be able to put on any weight, be it muscle or fat, instead growing to look more and more like some deathly pale imitation of a living human being. Skin and bones with a pale almost completely white complexion. His skin-tone had little to do with the overall health of his body and more to do with the fact that he saw very little natural sunlight if any at all. Any chores assigned to him that required going outside where he could be seen had been ruled to be done after dark; to lessen the risk of the neighbors catching sight of his unnaturalness.

His body jolted when the door he was leaning against shook; kicked harshly by Vernon as he stomped by. Forcing his body to move and enduring the lingering pain that he was still feeling, Harry fumbled for the latch and pushed the door open, crawling out of the cupboard and pulling himself to his feet by holding onto the door itself.

Dudley charged by as he found his feet, whining when he missed shoulder charging his feeble cousin when Harry allowed himself to stumble back and out of the way. The raven haired child afforded himself a tiny, near invisible smile at the tiny, meaningless victory over his whale of a cousin before he was roughly grabbed by the shirt and pulled bodily away from his cupboard.

"What took you so long Freak?! Stop day dreaming, your aunt has chores for you, I'll not have your freakishness wasting her time today. Understood?" Vernon snapped at him, his grip twisting at Harry's collar and tightening it against his throat.

Harry nodded silently. Not wasting time to bother to verbally reply to his uncle. Even on a good day it was hard to tell if him speaking; even in agreement, would placate Uncle Vernon or only serve to increase his anger. He had long since learned silence was safer.

Catching his breath from the ordeal with his uncle, Harry made his way into the living room and too the kitchen as quickly as his body would safely allow, ignoring the mocking laughter of Dudley he was limping around the living room in a parody of his own movements.

Aunt Petunia was already in the Kitchen collecting all the things needed to make the mornings breakfast by the time he made it there. The pan was already on the stove top heating up far too much oil for any health conscious individual to allow and several stacks of thick cut bacon were resting on a plate next to it.

"Your stool is waiting boy." Petunia said coldly as she glared at him out of the corner of her eye as she started on a fresh pot of coffee. "I'll not have you spoiling Vernon or Dudley's meal understood."

Harry nodded silently as he walked over to the stove, climbing up the steps to stand atop his stool. Petunia was not as cruel or sadistic as his uncle or cousin. But she was not kind. Aunt Petunia it seemed was the only one to acknowledge the fact that he was frail and sickly and allow some measure of patience in dealing with him. Beyond that she was harsh, without pity and unforgiving. She made no illusions or falsities in her detest for his existence.

Ignoring the still jeering noises from his cousin and the threatening growls of his uncle who seemed to be trying to glare a hole into the back of his head, Harry set to frying the veritable mountain of bacon.

While time wise it wasn't all that long for everything to be done and the men of the Dursley family to dig into the food like a couple of well dressed pigs. But for Harry it had felt like an age. His skin felt burned from the close proximity to the heat of the stove and his arms ached from the movements and positions he had been forced to hold them in while cooking.

His own breakfast consisted of thankfully a glass of water that was like the nectar of the gods for him at that point and a slice of plain bread.

From there the day proceeded as expected for him. Aunt Petunia gave him his list of chores. In two parts naturally; the first to be done during the day that consisted of household tasks ranging from polishing the floors and dusting to sorting and cleaning each of Dudley's broken toys in his second bedroom. Part two of the chores was the outside work that was meant to be done after dark. Mainly lawn maintenance and weeding Aunt Petunia's flower garden.

Dudley went to school much to his complaining while Vernon went to work, leaving Harry and Petunia behind at Number 4. As expected it took Harry all day to get the first part of his chores done. His body didn't allow for strenuous activity which meant Harry had to force himself to work through the agony of his lungs leaving and limbs feeling like they had shattered long ago. Without Vernon's presence Petunia's temperament improved toward him. She allowed him free access to water and allowed for, although not often, regular bathroom breaks.

The six year old finished the indoor portion of his chores roughly an hour following Dudley's return from school. The rotund Dursley child had lied to his mother about homework in favor of leaving the house to play with his friends affording Harry some measure of additional quiet. With the period that sat between his two portions of chore work, Harry returned to his cupboard to rest. Or at the very least, attempt to do so. The burn of his muscles, lungs and skin from the days work forced his mind away from rest in turn forcing Harry to lay there and endure his suffering as quietly as possible to avoid attention to his 'lazing'.

It was here in the darkness of his cupboard, in the haze of his pain and suffering that against all odds Harry found some measure of tranquillity in his life. In this state the harsh and tormented life of one Harry Potter didn't exist. Vernon and Dudley didn't exist. The cruelty of the world and his body didn't exist. There was only the throb and ache of his own existence.

'It hurts….doesn't it.'

Harry's eyes snapped open as the door to his cupboard shook violently from a pounding fist.

"FREAK!" Vernon bellowed. "Get outside! you've chores to finish!"

The boy in question breathed out a silent sigh of frustration; the world in all its pitilessness flooding back to him.

Reaching to the side, he grabbed one of his most valued possessions. A simple cylindrical wooden block; formerly belonging to Dudley from when he had been a toddler, and shoved it into his mouth, biting down to smother his moans of pain as he forced his battered body back up.

Surprisingly, the list of chores to be completed outside in the darkness of night was Harry's favorite. The best part of his day. The chores themselves, not so much. They were more examples of work sadistically imposed upon him with the full knowledge that his body was not suited or built for the tasks in question. He hadn't the body strength to push the old, rusted manual push lawn lower Vernon had bought specifically for him to use under the claim 'so it wouldn't disturb the neighbors.' nor could he easily pull the weeds from Petunia's garden, or the height to dust, organise and clean Vernon's gardening shed.

But, regardless of all that, Harry still loved the night chores best of all. It was the nighttime sky that did it for him. That open field of black dotted with sparkling lights and the beautiful glow of the moon that provided him with his main source of light given Vernon's refusal to 'waste electricity leaving the porch lights on.'

It was for this reason, the night sky, and for this reason alone that Harry took as much time as he did to complete his chores. He endured through the suffering his feeble body was forced through with the work, tolerated the sharp pains and bouts of nausea that washed over him when his breathing would falter. All for the sake of being able to look up into the night sky just that little bit longer.

But as with all things, priorities and necessity trumps desire and want. The knowledge of await him in the day to come saw Harry complete his work and return to his little pocket of darkness and solitude. To rest and recover.

XxxX

There were no chores now. At the rate things were going, it would seem that for Harry, he would never have to endure another chore ever again.

As with the norm of his life, days blended together into weeks and then months. No day was any different or more important that the next. Or the next. The chores and tasks given to him to complete differed accordingly, but in the overall scheme of things, it was all more of the same.

And then, it changed.

He remembered overhearing Vernon boasting about it from within the confines of his cupboard during dinner. The 'breadwinner' as Vernon liked to call himself at times, had shoved him into his cupboard the moment he had finished plating up dinner; shouting at him that he 'wouldn't have his freakishness ruining their evening.'

That dinner Vernon had boasted and regaled his family with the story of his day at work and that he had been rewarded with a week long holiday at a company retreat in Italy. Vernon had spent most of the talk debasing the Italians as a people and scoffing at the very idea of stomaching their food and culture, but both he and Petunia were all for the opportunity it presented to indulge in their favorite activity; being better than everyone else.

And so, they went.

But not before Vernon, in all his gleeful sadism, locked the door to Harrys' cupboard. With the six year old in question still inside.

That had been two days ago.

Harry had tried to get out several times after Vernon, Petunia and Dudley had left. When he found the door locked from the outside he had tried to force it. He very nearly broke his shoulder in the attempt. He tried everything he could think of, regardless of what it would do to him in his condition.

In the end he passed out from the pain of his efforts.

After a day he tried to lose himself in his world of pain and the darkness of his cupboard.

After two. He realised, he was going to die.

'Death is nothing to fear. There is no weakness or shame in the end.'

Harry turned his head weakly to the side, staring into the darkness of his cupboard and toward where he heard, felt, the voice coming from.

'But I must ask. Is this your choice? Do you wish for your death to come this day?'

Blinking wearily, Harry saw the darkness shift and a soft glow take shape. Within moments the glow had properly formed into an appearance that had Harry faintly believing he was beginning to become delirious with hunger and weakness.

A man. Bald and clad in heavy robes and large to the height of imposing, it was impossible for someone of such a stature to be able to fit within the tiny confines of the cupboard but there he was, seated somehow a few feet from him as if meditating.

'I have watched you, young one. You endure, you survive. I have witnessed the deaths of thousands of those like you who suffered but a fraction of the pain you have come to know and accept. Their deaths came swiftly yet painfully. But you, you have shown a capacity to endure your torment. That you still live despite this pustule of a world is itself remarkable. You have lived beyond that which you should. And for that, there is no shame in your death.'

Harry heard the words. He saw the ghost of the man who spoke them to him. Comforting in their meaning and yet delivered with an almost cold detachment. Was that it then? Was he dying? Was it really okay to finally...end?

And like a rush of fire, Harry's eyes narrowed and his teeth grit when his very being answered his doubt. No.

No. he couldn't die here. He didn't want it to end where it would mean that he had finally lost and the Dursley's had won. Even if he could live just long enough to meet his end far from his wretched relatives that would be enough. Better to die in a gutter than here.

'Ah. Another that the countless others did not have that I see in you. Passion.' The Ghost commented with a faint smirk, leaning forward to lock his eyes onto Harry's own. 'You deny death. Is it fear? No, not fear. Hatred? No, not quite that either.'

The Ghost rose to his feet and approached the prone child, the blackness that surrounded him spreading as he drew closer to wash over and erase the muted surroundings of the cupboard. Reaching the frail and weak child, the Ghost crouched down, leaning over Harry like the very spectre of Death to peer at him closely before his eyes widened almost imperceptibly and the smirk on his face grew slightly larger.

'Ah I see it. It is not fear or hatred that pushes your death away. It is defiance. You do not fear the inevitability of your end. You simply desire only to meet it of your own accord.'

Harry licked his lips and coughed, a futile effort to clear his throat. "Not here."

The Ghost raised a solitary eyebrow at the raspy, near silent voice of the child.

"I don't want to die here, because of them."

'You wish to live?'

Harry managed a nod, no longer with the strength to speak any further.

'And if it should be only moments longer? To live now only to die later?'

Harry simply shrugged. He was only six but he understood the truth of the matter. Everything ends.

'Perhaps then, you have what I and so many before me did not. Perhaps, you have what it takes to Live.'

'Know my name then child. Know the name and face; of Bane.'

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side-note: We would like to point out that when 'darkness' has been referenced in this prologue it is not in connection to the Dark Side or Darkness in a power sense. It is quite literally the absence of fucking light. The darkness of his cupboard is because its god-damned dark in there!