Chapter Sixteen

The two newcomers, whose names apparently were Quinlan and Master Tholme according to Aayla, led the two youngsters and their nominally unseen follower to their ship quickly. Once inside, the two youngsters were shown to a circular sofa set into a small recess in the floor, which Aayla immediately jumped up onto, bouncing in glee. "It's almost as soft as your bed Harry!"

Harry grinned following her and sitting next to her. She took his hand then first looked towards Lily, something that Tholme noticed, then Quinlan expectantly. Even if Quinlan is forming a padawan bond with her, it's obvious that the Force ghost has a lot of respect in her eyes. I need to discover why and how the Force Ghost came to be following these two around.

Ignoring that at present, he gestured to a small doorway to one side of the small sitting room. This led into the equally small maintenance room of the ship, where the ship's two astromech droids and the translation droid were kept when not needed. As Jedi, Tholme and Quinlan had their own means to translate someone else's language into words they could comprehend, but they could not make someone else understand them in turn. "Glimmer, could you come out here please?"

A moment later a protocol droid came out of the maintenance room. It was slightly shorter than most of it's breed, and painted with light yellow and pale tan. How he got the name Glimmer, Tholme didn't know nor care, but the droid had proven its worth more than once. "Yes Master Tholme, what do you require of me?" It's voice was slightly high but wasn't grating, and the droid did have some understanding of how annoying protocol droids could be, so tended to keep a low profile unless called on, which served Tholme just fine.

"This young man speaks a language unknown to me, I was wondering if you could help me translate it." Tholme replied then looked at the young boy, gesturing at his mouth as he spoke, his Force powers reaching out to lightly touch the boy's mind. "I want you to speak Harry, this droid will help us understand each other."

Harry looked at him then returned his gaze to the droid, a look of awe on his face. Even after a few weeks living among the Twi'leks, he was not used to the level of technology in this new universe, if that was where he had ended up rather than way the heck out in space. "I don't know what he wants me to say."

Aayla noticed his confusion, and quickly pulled out the children's reader, holding it up then pointing at the droid, using her fingers to draw a circle around the book. "The droid will learn your language Harry, like you're trying to learn Standard with this."

Harry then understood and smiled, though he didn't really know what to say and sort of rambled at first.. "Um, okay. My name is Harry Potter, and this is my mum, Lily. We speak English, er, though I've heard it called Queen's English for some reason at times, other English speaking countries don't use the right words. At least according to the Dursleys, not that it's really a mark against them in my book. Are you wizards, or well, what do you lot call magic users here? You don't really look like how I'd pictured high tech wizards would look, but that energy sword thing is wicked!"

"Boys," Lily muttered, shaking her head at that comment, though her attention remained on the two men.

Tholme smiled, having understood the meaning behind the boy's words even if the sounds themselves meant nothing thanks to his Force powers. A gentle touch of the Force to the other person's mind allowed Jedi to understand other people, even if they couldn't speak Standard for one reason or another.

He frowned at the feeling he felt from the boy when he used the term, or was it a name, 'Dursleys' however. A flash of agony, fear, desperation, pain, perhaps he was abused at some point? That would fit the facts somewhat and is not a good sign for his acceptance into the Order. Memories like that can all too easily lead him to the Dark Side. But where does his, his mum? Is that another term for mother, where does she come into things?

That in itself was a somewhat shocking idea, that a Force user powerful enough to leave behind a Force Ghost would have a child, and not only because it was a gross violation of the Order's tenets against emotion, attachment, and the Ruusan Reformation's laws forbidding Jedi to marry. But Tholme had already been leaning to the woman not having been a Jedi anyway, so that really didn't matter much beyond the connection. But that attachment will not be looked at favorably by the majority of the Order. Especially if they can communicate as well as they obviously can, which means she may be teaching him as well.

To one side Lily's eyes narrowed. "Harry, I think he understands what you're saying now. Keep talking, tell him how we arrived here, that should get a reaction. But don't mention our little moment in-between, alright?"

Nodding his head, Harry went on, his eyes tracking from the droid to Tholme. "I discovered I was different from everyone around me, and began to perform experiments with my magic powers. Then Vernon came home and took out a very bad day's work out on me. " he shivered in remembered pain and found Aayla hugging him almost immediately, her big brown eyes staring worriedly at him.

He smiled at her and then went on, trying to figure out how to explain where his mother came from without mentioning the powers that be or the soul fragment that had been in his head. "I knew that if the beatings continued they might kill me, so I was desperate. I just, I just took all the magic I could from within me and from outside and begged to be somewhere else. My mom had done something to protect me with her very soul, and appeared to help me when I began to pull magic from the area around me, and then we suddenly found ourselves on Ryloth."

Tholme's eyes narrowed slightly. He could feel the boy was prevaricating, not lying so much as badly simplifying things, and thus hiding some aspect of the tale. However, the truth of the tale was enough to make him realize a few things. So he somehow, what would the word be, teleported himself through the Force. Astonishing, and a sign of the danger he was in, but I've never heard of anything of the like before. The boy's use of the word magic didn't worry him so much, he knew that primitive civilizations often called the Force magic.

The other thing though that made Tholme's eyes narrow was how his mother had appeared. The emerald eyes they both shared was a sign they were related, and looking closely Tholme could see several other hints in their faces of that. But the idea his mother had 'done something to protect him', was bizarre sounding. It smacked almost of sacrifice. And while Tholme could detect no hint of the Dark Side in either of them, sacrifice, particularly if it let the individual leave their soul behind when they died, was a sign of the Dark Side.

Across from Tholme, Lily frowned angrily. "He definitely understood you Harry." There was only one way that a person could be doing that, which was to be reading the thoughts from Harry's mind as he was thinking the words, hence her frown. "Remind me to teach you how to protect you mind from that kind of thing Harry." she said seriously after explaining Legelimancy.

Harry too frowned, but looking at Quinlan, Tholme and then Aayla he could see the trust she had in them, so decided to let it go for now. It's not like I would understand if he asked me for permission anyway, that'd be a very weird thing to try to explain with pictures, wouldn't it? "Aayla trusts him so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt even if he is reading my mind."

"No." Tholme said simply, having of course understood that. Though he made another mental note that Lily seemed to have picked up on what he was doing but didn't understand the particulars. Reaching out he picked up the children's reader, putting his hand over the picture on it only letting the words be seen for a moment. "I am only reading your surface thoughts, which allows me to understand you, nothing more."

Harry and Lily looked at one another, and Lily shrugged. "We can't prove it, but I suppose you're right Harry, we should at least continue to give them the benefit of the doubt."

The disjointed conversation was interrupted at that point by Glimmer shaking his head. "Master Tholme, I have compared the sounds of young Harry's spoken language to all the languages I contain in my database and cannot place it. I am afraid that while I can tell when he is using names, and that his name is Harry Potter, I can tell you nothing new. I could learn his language given time, it has many of the same organizational patterns as Galactic Standard. However it would take time."

Tholme nodded. "Thank you Glimmer remain on standby for now, we might call on you to help him learn Standard instead." Glimmer nodded moving to stand in a corner as Harry tracked his motion, shaking his head in admiration while Aayla rolled her eyes at her friend's fascination with robots.

However Tholme brought his and Aayla's attention back to himself quickly. "Even if I can understand you, you can't understand me, which is a problem." He looked over at Aayla. "Does he understand Ryl any better than he speaks Galactic Standard?"

"No Master Tholme," young Twi'lek said. "Harry's been learning Standard from me and in return, he's been teaching me how to learn ma'gic. I've learned a lot, watch!" She turned to Harry. "Pebble?"

Harry nodded understanding the word and what she wanted. He gestured with one hand and a small pebble appeared from nowhere in his palm, which gained an audible gasp from Quinlan. Tholme had better control than his young padawan, so merely looked on, putting another mark in his mental tally of the mystery that was Harry Potter.

Aayla quickly took the pebble, holding it in her palm concentrating, staring at the pebble intently. After a moment the pebble began to levitate up off the palm of her hand.

"Very good," Tholme said with smile now on his face. Whatever else, it was very obvious that both youngsters were incredibly gifted. "How long have you two known each other?" He asked, fishing for more information with the ease of long practice.

"Not long," Aayla replied, while maintaining her concentration on the pebble, an excellent sign of her ability to multitask. "About five days or so, maybe?"

"I see. That is impressive progress then," he said giving the girl a little positive reinforcement, watching her flush slightly. So she too had a hard life, or at least faced hardships, to be expected from a slave on Ryloth really, even one as young as she.

And then we come back to the Force ghost, he thought to himself, looking up at Lily as she hovered through the central table. Both of the children's eyes were on her now as she began to move her hands in the air describing something that she wanted them to try. He watched on as the pebble became two, and both began to hover in the air, passed from one to the other under Lily's instruction.

It was a good control exercise, though it didn't seem to be doing his padawan any good to watch another pebble appear out of thin air like that. This time Tholme had been ready however, his Force senses stretched out beyond what he had been using to touch Harry's thoughts. He had felt the brief tingle of the Force as something was created from nothing. That is no parlor trick, but a real Force power. I wonder how difficult it could be to learn? And why such a thing has been lost to us Jedi. If a pebble can be so summoned into being, can other things? And what would be the energy requirement of such an act?

With that in mind Tholme moved over to a small drawer set in the side of the wall, pulling out two ampules and a small device. "I almost forgot, you two might need vaccinations and other things." Tholme said, keeping his voice deliberately calm. "A simple blood test can tell us how healthy you are and what vaccinations you might need later, which would let us speed up the process."

He then stopped, looking at Harry before gesturing to the reader in Aayla's hands. "Tell me Aayla, is there a picture of a doctor in there?"

Aayla nodded, and scrolled through the pad to the appropriate picture. Harry looked at it and nodded agreeably, holding out his arm.

Lily however spoke up quickly. "I can't say what kind of technology these wizards have access to Harry, but there are a lot of rituals, very few of them good for you, which your blood could be used in. The moment he's done checking it, you have to destroy the sample."

Harry nodded up at her then watched as Tholme took a small blood sample from Aayla, running it into his system to see how she scored on the Midi-Chlorian scale, the scale used to measure how much of the Force the individual could handle channeling. Tholme was unsurprised to see that Aayla scored quite highly, well above the minimum a child her age needed to score to be inducted into the Order. Good, that will stop many of those who would be unwilling to accept a child her age into the Order, though given his older age Harry will have even more issues there.

That had been a movement within the Order which had started around two hundred years or so ago, that only young toddlers and babes should be brought into the Order, the better to teach them the proper Jedi way of life before they could be contaminated by outside viewpoints. Tholme himself was not a proponent of it, but he knew that several masters in the councils of Reassignment and First Knowledge, even the High Council, were.

Those thoughts left Tholme's mind as he ran Harry's blood through the scanner and for a moment even Tholme's self-control took a hit. First it had taken longer than it should have for some reason, something that Tholme hadn't ever seen before, and then when the count finally came up on the scanner, it was five times higher than any on record, even Master Yoda's latest count!

Could that be it then? He thought, somewhat sadly. He can do what he can with the Force because he has the power to? But then why don't I feel a larger splash in the Force? When he conjures up those pebbles I only felt a brief, contained jolt of Force power, nothing more. It feels like as much Force power as would be used to push a block the size of my hand perhaps, nothing more.

His hands had, without any order form his brain, removed the blood sample from the handheld machine as he was thinking and a second later Tholme felt another, somewhat stronger pulse of Force and a sudden absence in his hand. Looking up he caught the moment the small ampule of blood he'd held in his hand disappeared, popping out of existence.

Quinlan blinked, then looked at Harry, forgetting for a moment the boy might not understand him. "Why in the world did you do that?"

Not turning to look at the younger Jedi, Harry looked at the ampule containing Aayla's blood sample, and a second later it disappeared too as he squeezed her hand. Aayla didn't understand why he had one that either, only that she had somehow felt something like worry, worry for her, before he did it. So she simply squeezed back, smiling at him. Then Harry looked at Tholme, who nodded his head. "Nevermind Quinlan, young Harry is not as trusting as Aayla is towards us, if he needs to get rid of his blood sample for some reason it doesn't matter."

"But what possible reason…"

"None that I know of for certain, but evidently either Harry, or Ms. Lily more likely, know of something." Tholme was privy to a few secrets of the Order, some of which hinted at Sith practices with blood, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. More importantly Lily's body language, which came through quite clearly despite being a ghost, aided somewhat by what she was wearing, had relaxed the moment it became clear he wasn't going to make an issue of it.

Noticing Tholme's eyes on her, Lily nodded her head slightly. "Thank you." Tholme blinked, as the words had been in Galactic standard. Noticing his surprise, Lily shrugged. "I learn too," she said, gesturing at Aayla and her picture book.

That made sense, and would no doubt help in the long term in some ways. But in others, weaning Harry off his attachment to his mother would be bad enough without Lily actively fighting against it. Still for now it was time to turn his attention to other things. "Quinlan, remain here with the youngsters. If they are hungry, get them something from the kitchen. I will finish our investigation here quickly thanks to the evidence you uncovered, and we shall leave as quickly as possible."

"I will watch them Master. But do you not think we should call Coruscant now? Surely Harry's skills need to be shared with the High Council as fast as possible."

"I will call them eventually yes, but certainly not here on Ryloth. It might have a Hypercom transmitter, but do you really think that the local corruption does not spread to the Republic officials in charge of the transmitter?"

Quinlan winced then nodded in agreement.

Tholme looked at the two children, who had gone back to their game and they turned to look at them. Tholme patted his chest and gestured towards the entrance way to his ship. He then looked at Aayla. "I am going to go and see what I can about why Quinlan and I were here originally, do you think you'll be able to make Harry understand?"

"I'll try to get him to understand, though I'm not certain how to describe 'investigation'." Aayla replied, having heard the two talk and she stroked one of her lekku staring at Harry thoughtfully then back at Master Tholme. "Master Tholme, can I ask a question before you go?"

"Of course, child."

"Well actually I have two of them. The first is, I had heard stories from a few of the other slaves about Jedi," very mixed stories it must be said, though she wasn't going to say that aloud. Though young, Aayla understood no one wanted to hear the kinds of bad things people spoke of when they weren't around. "But I've never heard about the Jedi being able to just make things like Harry can."

"That would be because child, we cannot." Tholme said, seeing no reason not to tell her the truth. "We might be able to learn from your young friend how to however, has he been able to teach you anything of that sort?"

"No, though I think we might start on that kind of thing soon, at least I hope so. I'd love to be able to create my own bed like he did!" Aayla said excitedly.

"Excellent, then perhaps I will be able to become a student once more," Tholme said with a faint smile on his face. Aayla giggled at that as he had expected and went on to her next question quickly. "If you were not here for me and Harry, why were you here?"

"We were investigating a smuggling ring which had begun to smuggle endangered species for profit." Tholme said again honestly.

Aayla frowned, looking over at Quinlan and Tholme smiled slightly. "Do not worry child, my padawan feels what you feel growing between you. It is called the padawan bond, and it is a sign from the Force that when you have passed your initiate years with the Order he may take you as padawan. So long as he has finished his own apprenticeship?" Tholme said, cocking one eyebrow at his padawan.

Quinlan bowed acknowledging his point, and Tholme nodded. Motivation of a sort. With that Tholme left quickly.

Aayla nodded, leaning against Harry lightly as she looked at Quinlan. "Can you tell us anything about the training?" Then she frowned slightly, looking over her shoulder at Harry. "Or maybe we should wait until Harry learns more Galactic Standard."

"I think that would be a better idea," Quinlan said with a nod. "He might feel left out." He looked at Harry questioningly, having watched the boy's eyes track whoever was speaking. Those emerald eyes of his lit up slightly when he recognized certain words, and he obviously recognized the simpler ones, 'the', 'and', 'so', though how Aayla had taught him those was probably a story in and of itself. "So," he said, standing up, "are either of you hungry?"

The task of wrapping up the endangered species smuggling ring didn't take Tholme very long, though what to do with the criminals took some doing here on Ryloth, with all the connections Pol'Secura had here. By the end of his investigation the Secura clan lost quite a bit of face, its leader was in custody and being sent off planet for Republic justice. The Hutt unfortunately had already left the planet, thus escaping Tholme.

Thankfully there was a Republic trade ship from Chandrilla here whose captain had been happy to do the Jedi a favor on his return trip from selling a shipment of food to the food-strapped Twi'leks. If he hadn't, Tholme would've been in a difficult position. He definitely wouldn't have wanted to bring the prisoner along, not just because he was related to Aayla, but because dropping him off would have slowed Tholme's next move.

About three hours later everything was finished and he returned to the ship. When he entered, he found his padawan tied up to one of the sofas, with Aayla and Harry sitting on the other with what looked like a very good meal of some kind or other between them. He recognized what looked like a bird of some sort, and some vegetables.

The interesting thing was that food didn't match anything he knew the ship contained in its small spartan kitchen. The Force Ghost, Lily, was laughing at something, the sound reverberating in his bones through the Force, and he actually smiled slightly at the feeling of it.

"So my young padawan," he said, gesturing with one hand. The small ball stuffed into his padawan's mouth shot out, hovering in the air slightly before falling. "How exactly did this occur?"

"Well master…"

Flashback:

Harry sniffed, his nose wrinkling as the smell of whatever it was Quinlan was trying to make wafted out of the small kitchen. "That's what he's going to feed us, yuck! It smells worse than that animal I had to kill on the cold side of Ryloth!"

Aayla didn't understand most of that, but her own nose was wrinkling at the smell too. Whatever his skills as a Jedi, it didn't look as if the older boy knew anything about cooking. Then she smiled, pointing at Harry. "Can you do something Harry?"

Having understood what she meant if not the words Harry nodded his head determinedly and got up from the sofa, entering the kitchen. Quinlan turned to him, shaking his head. "Just wait a bit Harry, it's almost done."

"You food bad!" Harry said, shaking his head as he tried to communicate in Galactic Standard, before switching to English, hoping that Quinlan knew the same magic trick that Tholme had used earlier. "Sorry mate, but whatever you're trying to make smells as bad as my uncle's socks. Now get out of the way."

Quinlan tried to bar him from pressing forward, using his own body to block the younger boy's progress, but Harry gestured, and the older youth found himself floating in the air. Quinlan used his own Force power to break the hold, finding it strangely difficult, and then tried again to get in Harry's way without hurting him.

Scowling Harry conjured up ropes to bind him, hurling them at Quinlan who began to dodge and duck about, retreating from the kitchen as Aayla watched the action from the sidelines, laughing and cheering them both on. "I'm not going to let you poison us Quinlan, just let me at the ingredients already!"

Quinlan landed from the jump that had taken him out of the small kitchen grabbing at one of the ropes still trying to encircle him then blinked as Aayla, still giggling, charged forward, taking one of his feet out from under him with a low tackle to the back of his leg, knocking him off balance. Before he could right himself, Quinlan found his arms bound to his body by two of the ropes, and Aayla got out of his way as he completed his fall.

She helped him up onto one of the sofa, and he watched as Harry worked at the kitchen top for a moment. A second later Quinlan felt a brief murmuring in the Force. When Harry turned, he held a large plate of something that looked admittedly far more edible than Quinlan's attempt had been as he carried it over to sit beside Aayla.

End Flashback

"I tried to stop him master, but by the time I realized I should take him seriously he was already in control of the kitchen. Then he just changed the food, I mean it's still the same ingredients I think, but Master, what is he!? Some of the things he can do with the Force it's beyond anything I've ever imagined!" Quinlan asked, shaking his head. Looking back, the fight, if it could be called that, was more humiliating than painful, but the Force abilities that Harry commanded were another story.

"Calm yourself padawan, you need to be able to deal with sudden surprises far better than you seem to be able to at the moment. Center yourself in the Force."

The boy did so, it opening his eyes after a moment and nodding, visibly calmer than he had been. "Good. As to your question I have no idea what he is, except perhaps an opportunity for new knowledge." Or perhaps a test of the Order as a whole. Contemplating how the High Council would react to Harry's abilities made Tholme uneasy. The slow occlusion of the future and present that had begun a few years ago had made the Council more and more reactionary. "Tell me, when you confronted him did you feel any anger in the Force?"

"No master, just incomprehension and possibly some disgust."

Tholme nodded, relieved at that. "Yes, the language barrier is a difficult one, and your cooking my padawan leaves much to be desired. We can understand him if you reach out with the… Force…" he trailed off looking at Quinlan's guilty expression. "You didn't try, did you?"

"You know that I'm not good at that master, I'm getting better, but…"

Tholme sighed, shaking his head. "You'll meditate for five hours tomorrow morning on your failure," he said simply, waving his hand. "While doing a hand stand. Ignorance can be an excuse padawan, a lack of effort or thought is not."

"Yes master," Quinlan said, bowing his head in submission.

Moving over to Harry Tholme held up a hand. "May I have your reader Aayla?"

Aayla handed the datapad over, and Tholme flipped through it for a time, before pointing to pictures of nutritional items, then at the food cocking his head. Harry nodded replying in his own language knowing Tholme could follow that. The younger man hadn't, but Harry figured it must've been a tough spell to learn or something. "Yes, it contains the ingredients I found in the kitchen, I just changed what they look and taste like, in a good way not like what Quinlan was doing."

"Now Harry." Lily said, smiling down at him. "Just because Quinlan can't cook is no reason to rub his nose in it." Her eyes watched Tholme's face as she spoke, and noticed his eyes didn't leave Harry's face. Ah, so he can't follow what I say then. So it's not am actual translation spell but a mental one as I thought and with no actual physical mind such a spell won't work on me. Definitely going to teach Harry Occlumency. Tholme seems to have good intentions, but who's to say that the next person around with that skill will?

"In that case, we are done here Quinlan," Tholme said, getting to his feet. "Finish eating, then join us in the cockpit if you wish to see us take off Aayla, Harry."

Aayla nodded, then made a series of pantomimes to get Harry to understand that they would be taking off soon. Harry's eyes gleamed with excitement, and he shoved the last of the food in his mouth before jumping to his feet quickly.

Lily also looked interested, something Tholme noticed, and he frowned. So, very primitive then, it might not just be Harry calling the Force magic and her not correcting him as I had hoped. But how long has she been dead, she doesn't look older than her early twenties, to have a son as old as Harry seems to be… Unseen by anyone Tholme shook his head. The questions keep piling up, without any answers. I have to get Harry to open up more, but the language barrier makes that difficult on his end.

The two Jedi led the way through the short passageway to the cockpit of the Consular class ship, where they gestured the two youngling to the observation area before sitting down themselves. A few moments of checks later the ship's generator went from standby to full power, and a deep thrumming sound filled the air. The ship's repulsors activated, lifting it off its landing treads. At Tholme's direction the main engines came online, pushing the ship forward.

Orienting itself towards the end of the port, the ship began to move forward, getting into a line behind two other ships preparing to leave the protected underground cavern. Moments later, the massive doors which protected the entrance of the landing bay from the solar storms that racked the sun side of Ryloth opened, and the three ships left one after another.

The gasps from the children amused Tholme, though he didn't let it show, instead concentrating on his own instruments. Quinlan however smiled at their youthful enthusiasm, watching as they ran towards the front viewport, pressing their faces against it as they stared out. "Amazing, we're actually heading up into the atmosphere! We're going into space!"

"That was sort of assumed Harry," Lily said hovering behind them and watching with no less interest despite her words. "Remember, we are dealing with at least… how many aliens races did we see?"

"Seven or eight I think," Harry said with a nod. "Good point."

Lily laughed, reaching forward and ruffling his hair, while also stroking Aayla's head with her other hand. She grimaced slightly at the exertion of doing so but didn't let either of them see it as they turned to look up at her. "I'm sorry I tried to rain on your parade Harry, this is of start of a magnificent adventure and I shouldn't have. Looking forward to it?" She asked gesturing upwards as the ship continued to climb.

Harry grinned at her with a nod and turned to Aayla and asked in his pidgin Galactic, "space good, yes? Fun!"

Aayla grinned and nodded back, and Tholme allowed a faint smile to appear on his face, having looked up as he felt the Force Ghost, Lily, do something, watching her interact with the youths once again. They would learn that being a Jedi also meant a lot of effort and learning, but their enthusiasm was nice at least.

Moments later they exited the atmosphere, and began to orient themselves out system where they would jump. They would have to get away from the planet's gravity well of course, and then orient themselves on their destination or at least the next jump to said destination before jumping to hyperspace. Once in hyperspace, a person could not change his ships direction after all, and things like asteroids, planets, suns and black holes all interfered with the ability to jump straight from one system to another.

"Where to Master?" Quinlan asked, his fingers hovering over the after nation board.

"Give me a moment padawan," Tholme replied, working on his own systems for a moment. He pulled up a galactic map for a moment, thinking hard. For some reason bot h the Force and his own instincts were telling him not to head directly back to Coruscant. And frankly they didn't have to tell them that very hard, because a moment's thought also told him that Harry should be kept a secret for now even from the majority of the Order.

There would be those who would look at Harry askance simply because of his relation to Lily, and his strange powers. They were Force based, Tholme could feel the changes occurring in the Force, but that would not be enough for many. And there was his age to consider of course. But I do need to tell Master Yoda at the very least.

However, there was a training training vessel operating in the Expansion Region slowly making its way core-ward. According to what he knew of its flight plan it would be in Lanopa in about a week. That was within three jumps from here, one jump on the Corellian Run to Denon, then another on the Hydian Way from there and another from the edge of the Way, near Harrin, to Lanopa. Yes, the training training vessel will do very well to stash Harry away for now. "Set a course for Denon Quinlan, from there we will make for Harrin and finally Lanopa." He said aloud.

"Why there Master, we could just take the Corellian Run almost all the way home, surely..."

"Coruscant is too open, someone always sees anything going on there. Besides wanting to keep his abilities under wraps until we can discover more about them I wish young Harry to be able to communicate with us as well as we can understand him before introducing him to the High Council. You know how reactionary some of them can be."

"Yes Master that makes sense, I'm sorry I questioned you."

"Questions are fine my young friend, doubt in yourself is not. Trust the Force to guide you Quinlan, and yourself to find the right path within it." Tholme replied firmly.

"Yes master," he said even more humbly.

The ship jumped into hyperspace about an hour later, during which Harry and Aayla talked to one another in Harry's pidgin Galactic Standard, as Aayla taught him the word for stars, ship, and several other items in the cockpit. Whether or not they young boy would retain them all Tholme didn't know, but at least he was learning.

Aayla began to yawn after a few moments spent in hyperspace, and Tholme nodded. There were after all young, and it had been a long day. Harry didn't look to be that exhausted, but Aayla was. "Bed for you both now, come." He said, getting to his feet and gesturing to them both.

Harry nodded understanding after Aayla pointed to another picture and put an arm over Aayla's shoulders, helping her along. The girl put her head against his shoulder almost seeming to fall asleep on her feet. It had been a really long day.

Quinlan followed for a moment, pulling out a pair of blankets. When he came into the sitting room however he found both children already curled up on the sofa with another blanket Harry had conjured into being, pulling it up over them both.

After the two of them left head back up to the cockpit in the case of Tholme, and bed himself in case of Quinlan, Lily, who had followed the children looked down at Harry. "So what do you think Harry?" she asked.

"They seem nice," Harry said with a shrug. "But I think at least Quinlan seemed surprised by a lot of the magic I used. They call it the Force here for some reason though, I got that much from what they were saying. I'm not certain why they would call it that, though I noticed they didn't need a wand like you said wizards normally did."

"True, though perhaps transfiguration and conjuration aren't well known here, they might concentrate on charms." Lily mused. "I think we really need to step up our language lessons though."

"Yes, but I'd like to keep up Aayla's training too, at least until we get wherever were going. They seemed surprised by her ability, but not astonished. I guess maybe you went a little too fast for their own version of training, but that shouldn't matter in the long run."

"Quinlan at least seemed able to answer Aayla's questions, she looked really happy."

"Are you jealous?" Lily asked lightly, though she was watching her son intently just in case. She didn't think he was interested in girls yet, but it would be something to watch out for.

"Why would I be?" Harry said with a shrug.

"Be careful though Harry," Lily cautioned, shaking her head as Harry didn't respond to her tease. "That mind trick of theirs which allows Tholme to understand you is impressive, especially without any kind of focus or external sign that he was using it. And just because they don't know Conjuration or Transfiguration doesn't mean they won't know anything else. They're certainly both more fit and warlike with that energy sword thing of theirs than the wizards on Earth. Be careful."

"You think they're dangerous to me?" Harry asked, frowning. "But you were all for going with them."

"I was and I am. I don't think they're threat to us Harry, not these two, despite all the questions I have for them. But who's to say that all of these Jedi will be so nice? There are always dark wizards Harry, that's just a sad fact of life."

"I'll remember that mum," he said, then nuzzled back into the sofa. He pulled the blanket back up to cover Aayla, who had kicked it off a moment ago and tucked his head into a space between the sofa and one of her lekkus slowly closing his eyes. "Goodnight mum, love you."

"I love you too Harry." Above him, Lily smiled and prepared to wait out the night, watching over her son.