#i like how even as a sith he knows he's got that grandfatherly charm going for him

[rochenn]

Behind the scenes pic I've never seen before. Look at this guy cheesing!!

If Dooku had stayed a Jedi he really would've been the peepaw of all time (don't challenge him to a duel) (don't let him talk politics at dinner) (don't ask about Galidraan)

[whatanauthorsgottado]

Harry Potter and the Dark Councillors

Chapter 2: Welcome to Hogwarts

Anubin woke in a soft bed in a white room. Immediately, he got to his feet to look for his crew... and fell back to the bed, hissing in pain. He pushed past it and sat up, taking stock of his surroundings.

The room was long, with a row of beds along the longest walls. It was painted a soft white that was likely intended to be calming, but gave Anubin something of a headache from the light. His crew and Darth Vowrawn were in beds nearby, except for Khem Val, who was lying on some padding on the floor.

"You're awake!" came a gentle voice from the other side of the room. Anubin turned - carefully, mindful of the pain in his ribs - to see a matronly human woman bustling towards him. "Lie down, dear; you're hurt rather badly."

"Who are you? And where are we?" He suddenly noticed the absence of his weapon. "And where is my lightsaber?"

"Hush, hush. You can ask all your questions when the headmaster arrives. Now lie down, dear. Your ribs are broken, and I wasn't sure magic would be able to fix them, since you're, well..." She gestured to his horns.

"Not human, yes. So there's a headmaster I should speak to? Are we at a school?"

"Yes indeed. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I'm surprised you didn't know, given how your, er, craft came right towards us. Didn't you know what you were looking for?"

"Er, not exactly," Anubin mumbled, lying back at the woman's insistence. "We, uh... we crashed here. All our systems shut down."

"I see. Well, it was quite a crash - the whole school shook! You're quite lucky to be alive!"

The woman bustled over him for a moment more before turning her attention to his companions. Anubin watched her fuss over Talos for a while until the sound of a door opening called his attention.

The man who came through the door was quite a sight to behold. A full, bright silver beard spilled over the robes he wore, which were embroidered with crescent patterns. His hair, a silver to match his beard, was long enough to reach his waist., and it was covered on his head by a long pointed cap. The man stood probably as tall as Darth Marr, but was not nearly as wide - in fact, he was quite thin. A pair of bright blue eyes stared at Anubin over a long, crooked nose.

"I see you've awakened, finally. That's a good sign."

"I have. I assume you're the headmaster?" Anubin pushed himself up so he was sitting rather than lying back, ignoring the fire in his chest.

"I am. My name is Albus Dumbledore."

"Anubin."

"A pleasure. " He shook Anubin's hand with a firm grip,neither too tight or too loose. Anubin liked him immediately, though he had to admit there was something about the grandfatherly man that put him on edge. Perhaps it was just that he was used to the ever-scheming Darth Vowrawn, who was likely of a similar age to Albus.

"Poppy," Albus said, turning to the woman now looking over Andronikos, "how are our other patients?"

"They're all doing well. The human ones responded well to my healing magic; they should be waking up any minute."

As if on cue, Talos groaned. "Oh, my head... that was quite a crash!"

"Most definitely," Anubin said. "How are you feeling?"

"Quite well, my lord. Aside from a rather nasty headache, I don't appear to have suffered any injuries at all." He suddenly noticed Albus and Poppy. "Oh! Hello!"

"Hello. I am Albus Dumbledore."

"Talos Drellik, Imperial Reclamation Service."

"A pleasure." Albus' eyes flickered over to Anubin. "You shall have to introduce me to your companions. They seem a rather interesting group."

"Of course." Anubin stood, ignoring Poppy's tutting and the pain from his right leg, and stood at each bed in turn. "Andronikos. Ashara. Vowrawn. Talos, Xalek, and - why is Khem on the floor?"

"It wouldn't fit into a bed, unfortunately," Poppy said.

"He, not it. And fine." Anubin returned to his bed and sat again. "And that is my crew."

"Interesting. You're quite a varied crew, I see."

"Varied, eclectic - motley is the word I prefer."

Albus chuckled. "I can see why. May I ask you a question?"

"You already did, but go ahead."

"Why are you and your crew here?"

As Albus' eyes pierced his own, Anubin felt a foreign presence in his head. He shut it out and registered the micro-expression of surprise that crossed Dumbledore's face before he could stop it.

"We're here on a diplomatic mission, as envoys from the Sith Empire, come to see if the society of Force-users on this planet would be willing to join us."

"Force-users?"

Anubin smirked. "You said one question. I answered that." A sudden shock of pain stabbed through his ribs and he winced. "I can explain more when I've recovered, and when Vowrawn's awakened. For now, I need to rest."

"You are correct. Rest, and we will speak later." Dumbledore looked at Poppy. "Poppy, I shall leave our new charges to your capable care." With that, he swept out of the room.

The rest of the crew came to over the next few hours, and the testing began. Poppy wanted to know how her healing 'magic', as she called it, would affect the non-human crew members, so she spent a great deal of time examining each of them and testing the effects each 'spell' had on their physiology. The healing spells tended to work the same way on the non-human crew members as on the human ones, with the exception of Khem Val, who with his Force resistance wasn't affected by any spells, even the non-healing ones. This drove Poppy up the wall, but Anubin assured her that Khem would heal quickly even without her help.

Once she'd managed to heal what she could, Poppy released the crew from the hospital wing and into Dumbledore's care. He allowed them a suite of rooms in a tower near the one they called Gryffindor Tower.

Almost as soon as they had settled in, of course, Anubin, Ashara, Xalek and Vowrawn set to getting the Angel out of the furrow that had been dug on her impact with the ground. It was a simple matter for the four Force-users, with a little help from Dumbledore, to lift the Angel over the wall out of the wards, where the ship's technology would work again - Dumbledore explained that technology tended to have a bad reaction to the latent magic in the air around Hogwarts. Anubin thought it was more likely the field he could sense around the castle, meant to keep intruders out.

In any case, the ship was now largely functional, though it was in desperate need of repairs, which Anubin set Andronikos and Xalek to work on.

For the first several weeks, Anubin and Vowrawn spent most of their time with Dumbledore and his Deputy Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall - Vowrawn working on diplomacy and learning about the world's politics while Anubin worked on uncovering every little bit of history he could about the Force users on the planet. Minerva eventually became tired of Anubin's constant questions about every little thing and finally showed him the library, where Anubin, Ashara and Talos ended up spending most of their time.

Of course, at first, the offworlders had trouble reading the books, since they weren't in Basic, so Talos had the bright idea of having the librarian, a Madam Pince, read to them. That idea was shot down by the woman herself, who chose instead to help them learn to read - Talos wrote down the offworlders' Aurebesh and Pince wrote down the Earth equivalent, and they compared each character to find that the two writing systems were largely equivalent, though Basic had several extra characters. Once they got the writing difference solved, Anubin, Ashara and Talos began to take thorough notes on every book they thought was interesting or relevant, on subjects from history to charms and spells to wandlore.

"What about your focuses?" Anubin asked Minerva one day after reading a book on wandlore. "Are they the only way you can channel the Force, or can you channel it naturally?"

"Most witches and wizards can only channel magic through a wand."

"That's so... limiting. How can you stand it?"

"We manage."

"That was rhetorical. How does one go about getting a wand?"

Minerva returned to him the next day with an offer: Dumbledore would give him the money to buy a wand if he agreed to teach a small group how to channel magic without one. After a short consultation with Vowrawn, Anubin agreed. Showing these people to use the Force without foci would be trivial. He hoped.