Harry was gardening in the yard next time it happened, dried sweat stuck to his back from the previously hot sun. It definitely wasn't as bad as Tatooine but at least... He sighed, thinking about what Anakin would be doing now. His own Aunt Petunia had told him to stay outside and garden until the sun went down and they called him inside, something about guests for dinner. But it was now a little past his bedtime, stars coming out to shine a light on his work. Luckily, he wouldn't be caught unawares by a certain house elf this summer.

Though, he had talked with Dobby about fixing up a way to keep his trunk on him at all times, in case he went back to Tatooine. He didn't want to be unprepared and he... He did notice Shmi eating less food when he had stayed with them. The slaves didn't get very much food each night and he guessed that she had taken less food, giving him and Anakin more. So he had his trunk magically shrunken and tied to his waist with magical rope that would never come off without a word from him.

His trunk now held a years' worth of food, preserved by magic, a muggle medical kit and a magical one, provided by Dobby. It also had a few bags of money in it and he had learned a spell from Dobby that would convert it to republic credits, if he so wanted to buy things on Anakin's home planet and not rely on Shmi or Anakin.

When he had gotten back last year, the Dursley's hadn't even cared about where he had gone or been. Dumbledore had paid him a visit, just to check on him and see if he was okay. Harry had been reluctant to say where he had been; Tatooine and Anakin were his secret. Dumbledore had looked at him as if he thought Harry had been kidnapped and then his memory had been wiped afterward. Harry hadn't budged an inch when he refused to tell Dumbledore what he 'may or may not have remembered'.

Of course, he didn't know whether or not he would ever go back. But the magic or whatever that had taken him there hadn't... seemed like a one time deal. He hadn't gone back since his 12th birthday. And he felt like he had been through so much since then.

A yell from his uncle interrupted his thoughts.

"Freak, get back to work!"

Harry sighed and pulled another weed, ignoring the snake that slithered past him. Ever since he had spoken to the greater krayt dragon back on Tatooine, he had realized that no matter what, parseltoungue was not evil or dark. It was just another language, despite what the whole of the school had thought of him during his second year. He had been able to stop the krayt dragon from rampaging over them and had been able to thank it afterwards. That was not dark or evil.

"Oh cousin!"

He shuddered at Dudley's words and just as he heard the front door open, the foreign magic once again wrapped around him and transported him away.


Anakin startled awake as he felt the bed dip. He sat up and glanced over to the boy that had just appeared alongside him and grinned. Harry looked back at him and grinned too, as Anakin pulled him into a hug.

"I missed you," Anakin whispered.

"I missed you too," Harry murmured. "This happened just in time too."

"Have you eaten?" Anakin asked, looking over at the door to the room. "I could get my mom to make you something."

"I've eaten," Harry answered, shuffling off the bed and reaching down to where his trunk was tied onto him. "I... just need to change into pajamas."

"You look like you were outside for a while," Anakin said.

"I was gardening," Harry spoke grudgingly, as he changed clothes. He whispered a cleaning charm on his clothes and on himself, having seen the charm in a book. Harry felt a whoosh of cold air and then the sweat and dirt came off all at once. "All day."

Anakin's eyes widened then he grinned wider. "You've learned other things, haven't you?"

"Yep. I'll tell you about them in the morning."


In the morning, Harry woke up beside Anakin again. It was like he had never left, never went back to a world that changed their minds about him on what seemed like a monthly basis. Anakin and Shmi had never cared about his speaking to snakes or that krayt dragon. And in the year he had been gone, he had been accused of being the heir to Slytherin and of paralyzing the students.

They both sleepily woke up and then Anakin shot up and out of bed, eyes wide with fear.

"Anakin?"

"We... There are runaways in the back of our hovel," Anakin whispered, jumping out of bed and urging Harry to get up too.

Harry's eyes widened, his heart stopping at the thought. Those people must be scared and hurting, maybe not necessarily physically but emotionally. "Runaway slaves?"

Anakin nodded. "They came around midnight last night. Mom's working on finding them a way off the planet."

"Do any of them need bruise paste?" Harry asked as they hurried out of the bedroom after finishing in the bath- refresher. They ran into Shmi, whose eyes widened at his appearance. She was carrying bandages and a bucket of water that had steam coming out of it. Harry narrowed his eyes at the things. He had asked Poppy to start training him how to heal the second week of his second year and she hadn't said no, just looked at him sadly and then told him to go fetch some potion vials for her.

"Harry?"

"He came back, mom!" Anakin exclaimed, rocking back on the heels of his feet. "It wasn't a one time thing!"

Shmi smiled wearily and looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "Are you lost again?"

"I don't think I was lost the first time," Harry answered, running a hand through his medium long hair. It reached down below his ears, almost all the way down to his shoulder now. "I don't know what's really happening but the thing that brought me here was the same thing as last time."

Shmi sighed but nodded. "Okay. I need to go tend to our guests, Ani. You'll get to Watto's shop on time?"

"Yes, mom. Let me go say goodbye to them first."

A knock on the door of the hovel stopped both Skywalkers where they stood. Shmi's eyes widened, a little fear showing in her eyes. Harry could hear gasps coming from the back of the small home and he watched as Anakin's eyes narrowed.

"Open up! We're looking for runaways!"

It was yelled in a gruff, not so very human voice. It sounded like a Rodian or a...

"Trandoshan?" Harry whispered heatedly, his stomach roiling. He knew what Trandoshans looked like and they were creepy, bounty hunters and slave hunters. They hunted by scent more than sight but...

"They're my friends, mom! We can't let them be found!" Anakin murmured a little loudly. He was fidgeting, looking between the door and the small room that could be called a living room frequently.

"Ani! We don't have anyway to hide-"

"Shmi, I know of a way," Harry whispered as yet another shout came from behind the door. This time it was in another language, probably the native langauge of the Trandoshans. Though now that he thought about it, the native langauge of the trandoshans sounded more than a little close to his parseltoungue. "Go open the door slowly. Anakin, show me where the runaways are."

Shmi's eyes widened. "Are you sure, Harry?"

Harry nodded.

"You're just a kid though. We can't have you butting in for us," Shmi said quietly. "I only took them in because I was sure that Anakin wouldn't be here during the day while I helped them."

"Mom! I could have helped," Anakin muttered.

"I'm sure," Harry offered, gesturing to Anakin to lead on.

"What are you planning?" Anakin murmured, leading him back to where the pseudo living room was. Two women, one twi'lek and one human, with one young girl stood crouched in one corner.

"I brought my cloak with me," Harry answered, nodding to the women. They looked to be in their early 30's but both women's eyes were haunted, weary.

"Cloak? Ohhh," Anakin whispered, his lips turning up into a hesitant grin. "Got it!"

Harry reached into his pack and drew out his cloak, which looked a lot bigger than usual. He smiled at it, knowing instinctually that it would cover the three former slaves and their scent.

"What are you doing?" The Twi'lek asked softly, her hand on a knife, which was bloody. Harry could see out of the corner of his eyes a bloody patch of skin on the twi'lek woman's left arm, near her elbow. Her skin was a light red, darker than pink but not much darker. Harry knew as much that Twi'leks, especially women, were more prized as slaves when people wanted slaves. Their exotic beauty often lured slave hunters their way.

"Put this over yourselves," Harry explained. "Cover everything. It should keep you guys out of sight and scent. Hurry!"

"What is a cloak going to do?" The human woman questioned, narrowing her eyes and keeping a hold of the human child between them. The girl was looking at them fearfully, eyes wide and skin pale.

"You can trust him," Anakin said quietly, as they heard the door slide open. "Quickly!"

The Twi'lek hurriedly took the cloak from Harry's hands and draped it over the three of them, covering every part of each person. In a few seconds, neither Anakin nor Harry could see anyone. Harry took a deep breath and willed himself invisible, trusting in his magic to hide both his body and his scent. He had used it for at least a few seconds when he had fought the basilisk. That fight hadn't ended in the basilisk dying, like everyone thought. He had been able to see that the basilisk was being controlled by Tom and had spelled a curtain of magic around the creature's mind, protecting it and shielding it.

Anakin nodded as Harry disappeared from view too then ran back to go help his mom. Shmi was standing away from the door as four Trandoshan hunters stalked into their hovel, sniffing the air. One of them stepped close to his mom and he glared up at it. The Trandoshan smirked at him, showing a lot more teeth than would be considered polite. Well, polite for humans. Trandoshans always enjoyed scaring their prey.

"Little human, you have no need to fear us," the trandoshan in the lead hissed out, slurring quite a few of the words. "We are not here for you."

"Yeah? Then stay from my mom!" Anakin yelled.

"Ani!" Shmi murmured.

"He was going to..." Anakin trailed off as he felt an invisible Harry slip his hand into his open palm and squeeze. "Okay."

The Trandoshans looked at them, almost as one, then spread out and searched the hovel. They bickered amongst themselves as Anakin, Harry and Shmi watched.

"I wouldn't let anything happen to your mother," Harry whispered, still invisible.

Anakin nodded wearily and tried to lean subtly into the other boy.


In the end, the Trandoshans found nothing, to their bafflement. They had apparently received intel from somewhere, perhaps other slaves, that the runaways were seen walking into Shmi and Anakin's hovel. But the only two people that they saw were Shmi and Anakin, property of Watto.

"Don't you have to go to work?" Harry asked, watching as Shmi helped the two runaways and their child to patch up the spots where their transmitter was. The cloak had done its work, hiding the small family in both scent and sight.

"Yeah. I... Mom, I can help get them to the port," Anakin argued. "No one would pay attention to me."

"Ani..."

"I'll go with him," Harry added. "Besides, I can use magic here and not get in trouble. Everyone will think I'm a Jedi or at least whatever they call their apprentices."

"You probably don't want to draw attention to yourself, Harry," Shmi remarked quietly. "We can't ask that of you."

"I'm volunteering," Harry offered.

"You get in trouble when you use magic sometimes?" Anakin questioned.

"I'm not suppose to use it during the summer and within sight of non-magical people," Harry explained. "We're suppose to keep our presence secret. I got in trouble getting to school last year."

"What happened?"

"It's..." Harry could feel his cheeks redden in brief embarrassment then sighed, partly in fond remembrance and part bemusement. "It's a long story but my friend, Ron, and I had to drive a car to school. The car... was kind of a flying car? Like a ship from here but it looked like a car that's from my world. So a few people saw it in the air that morning."

Anakin's eyes widened then he laughed quietly. "You guys drove a flying car to school?"

Harry glared at Anakin, trying not to grin but mostly failing miserably. "Yeah, we did. It was fun for the most part until we hit the Whomping Willow and got caught by Filch."

"I bet that was fun," Anakin said.

"Yeah, we had detention for a week."

Shmi looked between the two of them with a fond smile and relented. "Very well. There's a ship bound for take off later tonight. Harry, are you sure?"

"I can cloak us if we get seen," Harry offered, glancing at Anakin.

"Yeah. Which port is it, mom?" Anakin asked. "Is it the one to the north of the pod racing?"

"Yes, it is," Shmi explained. "The ship is due to take off at 9pm so you five should leave at 8:30, okay?"


"Anakin?"

"What?" Anakin turned to look at Harry, as the other boy walked next to him. The night air was luckily calm enough for them to not need goggles as they lead the runaway slaves to the port. The stars shone even brighter tonight and Anakin could tell that Harry was occasionally looking up at the sky.

"Before I left the first time, I asked you about the... power around you," Harry whispered, as they dodged a speeder. The runaway slaves were right behind them, cloaked with magic. Harry was only using a small portion of his magic to cloak them and the rest of it was scanning the minds around them.

"Power?" Anakin murmured, eyes widening. "I remember. But what... what were you talking about?"

"The first time I saw you I was nearly blown away by the power that you had," Harry offered quietly. He could see the pod racing arena to their right and the space port they were headed to was about a mile away to the north. He glanced up at the sky again, looking at the various constellations that were different than Earth's. "Have you had any... It's not like my power."

Anakin raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I don't... I do kind of feel... sometimes that something is urging me in one direction. There's also this kind of... I don't know."

"What?"

"Pressure?" Anakin tried, wrinkling his nose and shrugging. "I don't know if that's the right word for it."

Harry nodded, more than a little bewildered by how Anakin was describing it. He wondered...

"I've never told mom about it," Anakin whispered, turning to check on the two women behind them then realized they weren't visible to anyone. "They're still behind us, right?

Harry was about to say yes when Anakin nodded to himself.

"They are still behind us but I can't see them. They're cloaked, right?"

Harry's eyes widened, realizing that Anakin could sense the two women and one child behind them even though he had cloaked them. "Yeah, they're invisible to everyone."


Anakin woke up with his heart beating so much that he thought it would race out of his chest. He could feel sweat dripping down his back as he sat up in bed, watching as Harry blinked his eyes open at the movement. They had decided to share the bed again this time, choosing not to give Shmi extra work on top of what she did during the day for Watto. Anakin and Harry had gotten back just a few hours ago from helping the runaway slaves off the planet and had fallen asleep not to long afterward.

"Anakin? Nightmare?"

"No... I don't consider dogs nightmares unless they're predators," Anakin replied quietly, eyes wide. "Have you seen a giant black dog?"

Harry peered up at him, wiping his eyes before shaking his head. "No? Why?"

"There was one in my dream just now," Anakin said, frowning. "It looked half dead though. I don't... Sometimes there are stray animals running through the slave quarters but they usually don't end up living for too long."

"It also was running through a castle," Anakin added, lying back down as soon as he got his breathing calmed. "I don't know of any castles like the one in my dream though. Maybe... You told me Hogwarts was a castle."

"What did the castle look like in your dream?" Harry questioned, turning over to look at him.

"It had... Some of the stairs were moving on their own."

"Definitely Hogwarts then. Huh."


Throughout the next month, Harry helped out with the chores around the small hovel and helped Anakin with things at Watto's shop. He was more comfortable in Mos Eisley this time around, maybe because he knew the town better. Knew the ins and outs of a town that attracted a lot of attention, whether it was bounty hunters or other people who had morally grey occupations.

He described the past school year to Anakin over the month, with Anakin getting outraged on his behalf when he talked of everyone accusing him of having paralyzed the other students.

"You weren't paralyzing your friends! You were trying to find out what was happening!"

Harry nodded, holding onto the broken droid that Anakin was working on. "Yeah. It didn't help that everyone saw me speak in parseltoungue at the first meeting of the dueling club. Everyone gave me the stink eye after that."

Anakin rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath about something, Harry couldn't really hear him. "What happened when you went down into the chamber? You never told me."

Harry looked into Anakin's blue eyes and sighed, his grin disappearing. "I found out that the journal was created by the teenage Voldemort."

Anakin's eyes widened and he gasped. "That's possible?"

"Yeah, it was some kind of magic," Harry explained. "Probably dark magic too. But I defeated the journal by the end of that night. I... You're going to enjoy this bit."

Anakin grinned, twisting some metal part around in the brain of the droid while he watched Harry.

"I talked the basilisk, the giant snake that was paralyzing everyone, into stabbing a fang into the journal," Harry offered.

Anakin grinned wider. "You used your parsel whatever on the giant snake like when you used it to talk to the krayt dragon."

"Yep. Now no one knows that the basilisk is still there. Well, Dumbledore knows but I talked him into leaving it there," Harry explained, smiling right along with Anakin. "Maybe it will protect the school one day. Or at least, that's what it told me that it would do."


Harry felt the now familiar magic swirl around him the last week of July, having spent his birthday with Anakin and Shmi. It had been the first birthday that he could remember having celebrated truly. Shmi had made a dessert like pastry with the food that Harry had brought with him and they had celebrated Harry's 13th birthday. It had felt like home to him, with Anakin grinning widely and Shmi looking at him with a look akin to the expression that she gave Anakin sometimes. Something like a mother to a son.

"You're going back, aren't you?" Anakin asked, tinkering with a pod that Watto had asked him to repair. He looked up at Harry with dull eyes, already teary despite the fact that Harry hadn't left yet.

"Yeah. I'm… I wish I could stay," Harry whispered, as Anakin got up, looked around for Watto then tugged Harry into a hug. They both melted into each other and Harry wasn't sure who was crying and trembling a little, maybe it was both of them.

"I'll miss you," Anakin murmured.

"I'll miss you too."


Harry appeared back on planet Earth the next day, sighing at the Dursley's lack of caring. He glanced over at them and then walked up the stairs to where they had given him Dursley's second bedroom.


Harry stopped at the street outside of the Dursley's, lugging his suitcase behind him. It had been a few weeks since he had come back from Tatooine and he was already soo done with his aunt and uncle. It all blew up when Marge had come with her bulldog and saying those things about his mother. He walked over to sit on the curb, looking up at the stars that no longer seemed familiar to him.

The night air was a little chilly and he was a little tempted to cast a warming charm but then he realized that he was back on Earth. Back when people would care that he did underage magic. And there was the whole blowing up his aunt thing too. Harry snorted, knowing that Anakin would enjoy hearing about it.

A rustling in the grass in the park behind him made him turn, keeping an eye on his surroundings. He reached for his wand and then smiled when a big, black dog came out of the bushes.

The dog appeared to study him, panting and looking like it was smiling. Harry stared at it then did a double take when Anakin's past dreams came to him.

"Padfoot?"

The dog stopped panting, its grey eyes widening then it yipped in excitement and barreled towards him. Harry grinned and rubbed the dog's ears.