Title: Defender's Path

Author: Knife Hand

Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated

Spoilers: Phantom Menace for Star Wars. New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are all ignored. At least the first three or four Harry Potter Books, there will be some changes.

Rating: M

Disclaimer: Don't own em, if I did, I would be worth millions.

Summary: When an accident occurs with a potions experiment, Harry and Hermione wake up in a strange place, but that is not all that is different. Set in Seventh Year, Cross with Star Wars.

" " denotes speech, ' ' denotes thought.

AN: There is no correlation between the HP Verse Timeline and the SW Verse Timeline. Time does move faster in SW than HP but each storyline is told semi independently. The placement in the story had no significant meaning.

AN2: No, the Susan Bones that is Minister for Magic is not the one that went through Hogwarts with the gang. It is her Mother.

The Separatist Admiral was not having a good day and could not decide which was worse, the three Republic Cruisers that had emerged out of the sun firing on his ships, which had been hiding somewhere in-system for who knows how long else he would have detected their emergence from hyperspace, or the ground based guns, which he had been assured were under control and well protected, that had just opened fire and taken out two of his ships. A bright flash, which caused the windows to momentarily go almost black to filter it out, indicated the death of another one of his ships from the fire of the Republic Cruisers. He was now in an untenable position. He had just lost half his command and was trapped between a matching force of enemy ships and ground based batteries that clearly had his ships targeted.

Six months ago everything had been going so well. The planet had been secure, no sign of any Republic activity nor even a whisper of an invasion. It had started small, one little province had a rebellion that they said they could handle, and then they went silent. Soon the next province went silent as well. The ground based command insisted that it was local insurgents and had sent more local troops who had pledged to the Separatist cause to investigate, but they kept going silent as did more provinces. Three months ago Command had gotten one semi-garbled transmission from the silent provinces, a transmission from one of the units that had been sent in never to be heard from again. After a week of running the transmission through filters and computers, only two words were discernable. Republic and Demons. A large force of droids had been sent in at that point, and the Capital had been locked down and ringed with defences.

"No enemy will ever breach the city." The commanding General had proudly declared only two days ago.

The Admiral felt his flag ship shudder as it was hit by a round of shells from the Republic Cruisers.

"Helm, plot a hyperspace course to Rendezvous 1663." He ordered. "Inform all ships we are leaving."

The three remaining, but damaged, Separatist ships broke orbit and began to head for a point where they could safely make a hyperspace transition. One was stuck by ground based fire and exploded just after its main engines had fired. The last two Separatist ships made it to hyperspace. When the Admiral made his report, there was a lot of discussion about the nature of the Republic Force on the planet and how they had gotten on the ground past such a heavy blockade. Some of the Generals, in particular one former Jedi called Weston, insisted that the whole report was faked to cover the Admiral's incompetence and a force should be sent to crush the local rebellion, while others advocated leaving the planet alone as it was not of major strategic importance and maybe, just maybe, this elite Republic force would be tied up there for a while expecting a counter-attack.

Harry and Hermione were sitting in the forest outside the Capital, with their backs against a single large tree. Thrust and Rush had wanted to provide them with an escort but Harry and Hermione had overruled them, just wanting a chance to be alone for a while. The fight for the Capital had been tough, and had gone on for two days after the Separatist Fleet had fled.

The early stages of the fight had been bold and decisive for the Legion. It may have seemed insane but Harry had taken the vast majority of the Legion and all of the local Militia units on a vast and direct assault on the Capital's primary defences. The brilliance was that this simply a diversion, a diversion that allowed Hermione's team to strike. Hermione, the Nighthawks and a few Companies of the Legion, including Captain Punisher's Heavy Weapons Company, had parachuted into the surface to orbit weapons batteries and had used them to drive out the Separatist fleet. Apparently some of the troopers had been disturbed when they had seen the only known time that Captain Punisher had smiled while he was personally firing the giant cannons. Once word had spread that the Separatist Fleet had fled, the populous had risen up and fought the Separatists and the collaborators, taking heart from their own Militia units fighting besides the Republic Troopers. There were massive casualties amongst the Militia and relatively few amongst the Predators due to the better armour of the Clones and the Militia's insistence to lead the assault.

In the aftermath the Legion was providing support and training to the locals to man the planetary defence cannons and set up their own military academy to train their own defence force, lead by the remaining members of the Militia units the Legion had trained. The intention was to get the populous back on their feet and able to defend themselves as much as possible before the Legion had to leave.

Today, however the couple needed a break, so they had come out here to the forest, with Hermione leaning against Harry resting her head on his shoulder as they listened to the soothing sound of the birds singing and a creek nearby gurgling.

"Marrying you was the best decision I ever made." Harry said suddenly.

"Of course it was." Hermione replied glibly, then became serious. "But why?"

Harry looked down at the chocolate brown eyes, the long and sleek brown hair and the long scar that both marred and enhanced the perfection of her face.

"Because you are probably the only person in two galaxies who ever saw me as just Harry. Not the Boy-Who-Lived, not the Chosen One, not James Potter's son, not a Padawan to teach or a General to follow. You saw who I was and then you showed me who I really was through your eyes." Harry replied.

"You did the same to me, and more." Hermione replied. "You save my life and my soul. Do you remember Halloween of our First Year?"

"Yeah, a Troll rampaging around is kind of hard to miss." Harry replied, sarcastically.

"Quite. But what I never told you is that two minutes before you burst in to save me, I had made a decision." Hermione replied. "I was going to ask my parents to pull me from Hogwarts, and if they refused, which was admittedly unlikely, then I was prepared to take more drastic steps."

"Like Jasmine?" Harry whispered.

Hermione just nodded.

"Why?" Harry said forcefully.

"Because, like you, no one had ever seen the real me." She replied, her voice soft and sad. "All anyone besides my parents had ever seen was a Teacher's Pet, someone to do their homework for them and then be thrown aside like a used tissue. The instant you stepped into that bathroom, I swore to myself that I would stand by your side no matter what because here was someone who would save a person that he hardly knew, with no thought of his own safety or a reward. I would have stood by you as a friend no matter what, and gladly watched you marry another if that was what made you happy."

"And I am immensely glad that it did not go that way." Harry replied. "I can't imagine my life without you, Mione."

"I can." She replied. "I call it Hell."

They sat together for a few more minutes before Harry got up and stretched.

"I'm going for a run. Think you can keep up?" Harry asked with a sly smile.

"Oh please." Hermione replied.

Harry broke out into a grin and ran a few paces before jumping. He shifted in mid air and came down on his front paws, took a few more bounds and then stopped, again stretching as a shiver ran through his fur and down his tail. It had been so long since he had been in his Animagus form. The Cougar that Harry turned into had a dusty brown/grey fur on its back and flanks with lighter fur on it underside and around the mouth. It also had Harry's distinctive green eyes and a lightning bolt shaped darker patch of fur on its right shoulder. He chirped at Hermione and then bounded away, almost like a 100 kilo kitten.

With a shake of her head Hermione changed into her own Animagus form. Her form was a bird of prey, a Red Goshawk which was extremely rare and native to Australia. It had taken her quite a bit of research to determine her species when she had gone through the process, but had kept some of what she learnt from Harry so as not to confuse him, like the fact that the Red Goshawk was more closely related to a Square-tailed Kite than it was any other kind of Goshawk. With a wingspan of 135cm and a total body length of 58 cm, she was large for a Raptor. Her feathers were the same colour as her dark brown hair, with darker mottling, and her legs were yellowed. After a few seconds to stretch her long unused wing muscles, Hermione launched herself into the air and began chasing after her husband.

Harry and Hermione returned to the Legion's encampment then next morning after their relaxing time in the woods. At their insistence, the Legion had made camp outside the Capitol, as a show of good faith to the people that they did not intend to be an occupation force. The Clones of the Legion saluted as they passed on the way to the command tent. They ducked inside the command tent and were greeted by Major Rush.

"Welcome back, Generals." Rush said. "A courier ship arrived while you were gone. There are some dispatches on your desks and two people waiting to see you."

"Give us ten minutes to go over the dispatches and then you can show them in." Hermione said, moving to her desk.

They read through the dispatches, each having received a copy, most of which were standard military matters that had been held while the Legion was out of contact. The newest one was their orders to move to another battlefield in the next few days. One of the oldest, from mere days after the Legion had landed, was also of interest to them.

"We'll need to congratulate Anakin on passing his Trails." Harry said.

"Maybe I'll get Padme something nice too." Hermione mused.

They had just finished reviewing the dispatches when Rush put his head in.

"The two… visitors, are here to see you." He said.

"Thank you, Major. Show them in." Harry said.

The two who entered were very different from each other. Both were teenagers and both wore the dusty coloured outfits of young Jedi, but there the similarities ended.

"I am Padawan Nilock. Assigned to General Granger." One boldly declared, looking at Harry.

"I'm Senar. I'll be Padawan to Master Potter." The other said with her head bowed.

Nilock was a Chiss, his blue skin and red eyes making him easily identifiable, and he stood ram rod straight, making his Padawan outfit seem like a military uniform as he exuded arrogance and confidence. Senar on the other hand was a Twi'lek, her red skin marking her as a rare Lethan, but her posture, slightly stooped and reserved, and her general air reminded Harry of Hermione when they had first met, a very reserved and bookish personality. Harry was actually slightly amused that Nilock had assumed he would be apprenticed to the male Jedi.

"Nilock. Eyes over here. I'm your master." Hermione said.

Nilock looked shocked and offended that he had a female master.

"Hello Senar." Harry said, gently. "Pleasure to meet you, I am General Harry Potter."

"A pleasure to meet you, Master." Senar replied.

"They told me I was going to be apprenticed to one of the most experienced Generals in the Order." Nilock muttered.

"You have been." Hermione replied sternly. "Now get that god damned chip off your shoulder and you may have a chance to learn something, otherwise some of the troopers will be using you for target practice."

"Rush!" Harry called, causing Senar to jump slightly.

Rush stuck his head into the tent, with a quizzical expression on his face.

"Gather the command group. We got new orders and some introductions." Harry said.

Rush popped back out of the tent and a few minutes later the senior commanders were standing in the command tent.

"Alright, these are our new Padawan. Nilock and Senar. Nilock had been assigned to General Granger, Senar to myself." Harry said. "This is Colonel Thrust, the Commander of the 332nd Legion. Major Rush, his Executive Officer. Flight Commander Swoop, the C.A.G., which means Commander Air Group, he is in command of all the Legion's fighters and Assault Craft. And these are our senior Captains. Captain Stalker; Captain Talon; Captain Crash; Captain Punisher; and Captain Rock."

Nilock looked over the Clone officers coolly, as if they were pawns for him to move, while Senar seemed to be a little overwhelmed to be in the same room as so many high ranking soldiers.

"Where are they in the command structure?" Punisher asked gruffly.

"At this stage they are supernumerary." Hermione said. "They have no command authority and can not issue and orders to troopers."

Nilock opened his mouth to say something but then shut it when Hermione glared at him, made all the more menacing by her scar.

"They are here to learn. If they ask a question, answer it. If they ask a stupid question or become a pest, send them our way." Harry added, before turning to the two Padawn. "You will have formal instruction with General Granger and myself, but in the mean time watch the troopers. Observe what they are doing. Ask questions if you don't understand something but if the troopers are busy, let them do their work. Crash, get them set up for accommodation. Anything will do for the moment. Orders came in that we are to ship out in the next six days. Admiral Keltra will be landing the cruisers one at a time for loading starting the day after tomorrow. Dismissed."

All of the Clone officers except Crash immediately turned and left while Crash looked at the two Padawan.

"Come on you two." Crash said. "First lesson in this clone's army. Dismissed means you leave unless you want a boot up your backside."

The flap closed behind Senar, who had paused to give the two Jedi Generals a shy smile, leaving them alone in the tent.

"Boy, that Nilock sure has a stick up his arse. Reminds me of you at your most uptight and stubborn, or worse Malfoy." Hermione grumbled.

"Maybe you can punch him in the nose like you did the blond ferret." Harry replied, casually. "Senar reminds me of you in First Year. Smart, bookish and shy."

"Seems like they were paired with the wrong master." Hermione observed.

"On the contrary." Harry said. "They were paired with the master that would make them a better Jedi. You to reign in Nilock's superiority complex and make him think, me to bring Senar out of her shell and make her act."

Hermione just nodded before they went over to the holoterminal to begin coordination with Admiral Keltra on the loading of the troopers into the Cruisers.

TBC…