CH-22

No, there was a white avian of some species she had never encountered before. Ahsoka assumed it was a pet, but the bird seemed to be just watching her imperiously from where her sharp looking claws dug into the shoulder of the chair Harry was sitting. From the indents and creases on that shoulder it was quite obviously a familiar perch for the bird. However, the bird's attention wasn't drawn by any small movements Harry made, her head was turned and staring at her unblinkingly.

Ahsoka's attention was drawn away from the bird's piercing stare as the stars in the viewport elongated to the trails of lights that signified entering hyperspace. Ahsoka watched as Harry leaned back comfortably in the pilot's chair as the cockpit filled with the mottled blur of lights that now filled the canopy before them.

"So, how long before the Order sends someone after us do you think?" Harry asked as he idly reached up to stroke his fingers over the bird's chest.

Harry's voice was conversational and almost thoughtful, but he didn't seem particularly bothered by the possibility of any Jedi pursuing them.

"I didn't tell them where we were going." Ahsoka said with a hint of defensiveness in her voice. Maybe she'd been wrong in her assumption that he had no interest in what she wrote to Anakin. "What makes you think they're going to come after us?"

"I wasn't accusing you of anything. But I know their type." Harry replied with a faint, almost absent smile on his face.

"Their type?" Ahsoka echoed.

Harry snorted, "Yeah, old busy bodies with an inflated sense of entitlement, especially when it comes to things like information. They think they have a right to know something just because it exists. I've been staying off their radar for years. But, I didn't bother to memory charm any of them this time, though, so this will probably be the time they get too curious for their own good."

"Memory charm?" Ahsoka asked with a puzzled frown, she had latched onto that part of his comment because she couldn't quite bring herself to disagree with his evaluation of the Jedi, though she didn't seem to blame them or hold it against them in the same way. Given their position, knowledge was something they desperately needed. Of course if they had been a bit more diligent about seeking out knowledge then they wouldn't have chucked her out of the Order in the first place.

Harry chuckled a little bit, "Not the first time I've run into a Jedi. Not even the first time I've used magic around one in the past few years. I've had to use a memory charm to make a Jedi forget about me… oh I don't know… 5 or 6 times after different… encounters."

"You make them forget about you? How?" Ahsoka's eyes were wide, using a mind trick on a Jedi was incredibly hard.

"Like I said, a memory charm. It's a charm that safely erases part of the memory, usually small chunks of time, 5 or 10 minutes, and the person doesn't even realize they've lost the time. The charm leaves them suggestible for a few moments so you can tell them something to fill in the gap, and their subconscious runs with it from there. Though people who are more skilled at the charm can do days, especially if the mind isn't all that disciplined."

A small smirk came to Harry's face. "Or occasionally if you try and vastly overpower the spell, you can erase nearly all memories. Wouldn't recommend trying that with a broken focus though. Trust me, it can lead to bad experiences."

"That sounds like it could be abused so easily…" Ahsoka said quietly.

"Absolutely." Harry readily agreed, and his voice had that rare tone of seriousness to it that made her pay attention to it all the more. "That's why I insisted on an oath before I taught you. If you left and just started teaching people left and right… well, it could cause a lot of chaos."

"But that can't be the first time you used the Force." Ahsoka stated with a puzzled frown, "No one else has reported feeling… whatever it is you do when you use the Force, but the Masters felt it all the way over at the Temple…"

Harry's puzzled expression turned to one of understanding, though a thoughtful look crossed his face "Ah, If I'm not careful... or like with the Bartender and I don't use a focus... Merlin I really should learn her name next time."

He shook his head getting back on track. "Healing her without a focus made more magical noise than I wanted. I was sloppy and in a hurry, she really didn't have much time."

"You keep mentioning a focus, and what do you mean by noise?" Ahsoka echoed, getting a bit annoyed though as much with herself as she was with her companion since he seemed to be doing his best to answer her questions as they came and she still didn't fully comprehend the answers he was readily giving her.

Harry frowned and regarded her thoughtfully for several moments before nodding and pushing himself up out of the pilot's chair decisively. "Alright, I think it's time for your first lesson." He stood up and gestured for her to follow him out of the cockpit, without turning to make sure she was behind him.

Ahsoka got up and quickly followed him, determined not to admit that she was more than a little creeped out by the fact that the bird's head followed her as she left the cockpit as if on a swivel.

Harry lead her into the hangar space and toward one corner that was was empty and seemed surprisingly clean. Ahsoka glanced around sharply and realized that the hangar, and the ship as a whole was incredibly clean, and looked as if it were polished regularly. That was something that only seen on the most luxurious and expensive liners. Or people who bought a pretty ship and only took them on short trips in the system, then spent an inordinate amount of time 'maintaining' them. Ahsoka pushed that thought into the back of her mind as Harry turned to focus on her.

"Okay. As you seem to have observed, when someone uses magic, if someone else is nearby and sufficiently aware of their surroundings and flows of magic, then they're able to sense those things." Harry's voice slipped into the easy tones of an educator.

Ahsoka nodded "Like the disturbance in the Force that I could sense when you were doing those things in the bar?"

Harry tilted his head and nodded. "That's right. I tend to think of it as noise. Because it also requires proximity. The quieter the noise the closer you have to be to hear it."

"So it's only because I was close to you, I could feel when you did that stuff." Ahsoka clarified.

Harry nodded with a pleased smile, "For most of the stuff yes. Most of what I did was very basic. Simple unlocking spell on the box, switching spell on the binders, and stunning spells to knock the morons out. "

"Spells?" Ahsoka echoed, amusement in her voice.

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