Being in school was extremely helpful. It allowed Hari a decent overview of the expectations of Earth, began filling in the gaps in his understanding. He put particular focus on history, asking his teacher for additional resources to study on his own time. He found that the world was split into hundreds of smaller groups, most in alliances of various types, some at war, some uneasy neighbors.

He couldn't remember ever encountering a world with quite so many distinct cultures and heavily divided boundaries, apart from Coruscant perhaps, but it did reinforce the fact that this little world was trapped without access to the rest of the galaxy.

So many people, crushed up against their neighbors with no other planets to flee to where they could be welcomed. Fight for your place here, or be shunted aside. It was sad to see how deeply the desperation of being trapped had permeated through society, but also heartening to see that even with so many cultures represented on a single world, they'd managed to maintain peace to the extent they had. Hari would have expected far more war and destruction.

Most likely it was not as bright as the school texts painted it, with injustice and wrongs merely hiding below the surfaces of society, but that wasn't something Hari could change at present even if he did know about it in perfect detail.

Harry seemed to be a pariah at school, mostly due to the attentions of Dudley and his gang. Hari kept them at bay with carefully controlled Force pushes if they tried to assault his person, and otherwise ignored their insults and mockery as he devoted himself to study.

Earth was fascinating, but there were so many points in history where a handful of Jedi could have maintained the peace that was so constantly broken by war.

Hari began to see that there was more to his arrival here than chance. The Force was strong here, so overpoweringly strong. It was waiting, searching for someone to bring the planet into balance.

It had called to him, through poor young Harry Potter. It had drawn him here for something more than simply acting as a droid for his relatives.

He would learn of this world. Ten years was not so long, he could maintain appearances. Act as a proper youngling would in this world, remain with his family that long. But then he would find a way to bring balance to this chaotic world, as the Force clearly wished him to.

He was a bit disappointed when the school year ended so shortly after his arrival, but with assurances that he'd be going to a new school in only a few months he was content to wait.


Hari's 'family' treated him with a combination of fear, disgust, and arrogant loathing that he found quite inexplicable. And still they refused to give him the chance to speak with them. He bided his time, sure that eventually they would stop acting so unreasonable if he maintained his calm and gave them space, though they seemed to have a real gift for stubbornness.

Though he at first had thought their fear a result of his taking over their nephew's body, Hari soon realized that there was something more, an undercurrent of distrust that had been present long before his own arrival on this planet.

It was only when the letters began arriving that he glimpsed the true depth of it.

Uncle Vernon began acting more oddly. He barred up every entry to the house, shredded and burned every letter, and only occasionally did Hari catch glimpse of the emerald ink addressed to Mr. H. Potter, cupboard-under-the-stairs.

His surname must be Potter, then, not Dursley. He hadn't known; they only ever called him Harry or boy.

Dudley's first several attempts at pushing or bullying Hari had been ignored or gently rebuffed, and the bigger boy had grown confused and the incidents became more infrequent. It seemed that he'd been pretty much in control of Harry's life for so long that he kept assuming Hari would behave certain ways. It always seemed to surprise him when he was only met with serenity.

This, more than anything else, seemed to unsettle his relatives. It was one thing for him to be spouting madness about 'Jedi', another entirely to act so unlike the boy they knew.

But still they refused to sit down and talk to him about it. Instead they gave him more tasks to occupy his days and spent as little time as possible in his presence. They talked about him behind closed doors, whispering with fear in their voices.

And the letters kept coming. They came down the chimney, flying into the room by the hundreds. They squeezed out of the showerhead, came up from the sink drain. They plastered the outside of the house, which sent Aunt Petunia into a frenzy of removing them in case anyone saw.

Hari didn't know how to react to this strange obsession someone had with him, or the boy who he'd overwritten at least, and thus did nothing to encourage or discourage the letters. Not that he'd have known what to do in either event anyway. Dudley seemed livid that his parents wouldn't let him read them.

"What are you so afraid of?" he asked Aunt Petunia one day, as she shredded letters in her food processor with single-minded determination.

"Quiet, boy," she snapped. "This is none of your business."

"If you want me to leave, I can—"

She spun on him, one skinny hand on her hip, her eyebrows stern. "You will not be going anywhere. We agreed to take you in, and that means you're staying here where it's safe."

"Safe from what?" Hari asked. "I've noticed no significant threats. And I'm not—"

But Aunt Petunia simply shook her head and spun back to her work, ignoring his attempts to restart the conversation.


Slight edit 2019-03-03: fixed typo