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He was indeed a slave, for a weird looking flying alien named Watto, in a mechanical parts salvage shop.

Harry felt a little sick to his stomach as he thought on this. Was this perhaps what Fate had sent him here for? To free the slaves on this planet? As Harry thought about it, he slowly discounted the idea, while certainly slavery was a disgusting idea … he was still unable to come to terms that he was 'owned' by someone, he felt there must be something out there … something worse than legal slavery that resulted in Fate intervening and bringing him here. And it was this thought the truly gave Harry chills.

As Harry grabbed the spoon and sat back down the only consolation that he could find for his current situation was that his memories seemed to portray Watto as a demanding but not unfair individual, who had never physically or mentally tortured them. Qualities that Harry could not use to describe any of the Dursley's and at least this time Harry had someone with him who cared for him.

As Harry looked back down to his bowl, no longer feeling any desire to eat, he steeled himself with the determination that he would go about his days gathering information and making a plan. But he was under no illusion that he was content to stay here and promised himself that he would escape this planet as soon as possible. And with … a new hope … replacing the feeling despair a moment ago, he smiled up to his mother.

"That sounds great, I am ready to go when you are!"

The next couple of weeks were quite an experience for Harry.

Harry was kept incredibly busy, it seems right before Harry came to this world this Ani, this Anakin, had been in a pod race where he had crashed his podracer, after a mid-race altercation with his rival, Sebulba, miraculously managing to survive, much to Sebulba's disapointment. Surviving a single event like that was impressive, as most accidents during a podrace were fatal, and yet Harry could recall having walked away from five such accidents.

Harry suspected it was Anakin's almost supernatural senses that allowed him to not only walk away from accidents that most racers would never have walked away from, but allowed him to compete in the sport that seemed to singularly be raced by aliens, aliens who had the advantage of extra limbs, additional eyes, or some other physiological advantage that humans just did not have.

As a result of the crash, Watto had been having Anakin fix up his podracer so it would be ready for the next race that he chose to enter him into.

Harry had the opportunity to meet Watto the first day he woke up on this planet and, while all things considered, Watto was not bad, especially when compared to memories of his uncle and aunt, Harry experienced first-hand slavery on this planet and knew that even if this wasn't his purpose for being here he would make sure to find some way to end slavery here.

Over those weeks, beyond making Harry fix up the podracer, Watto also made use of Harry's now exceptional engineering knowledge by having him meet with potential clients and help diagnose their needs before Watto went in and tried to sell what he could.

It was during these conversations that Harry started noticing another surprising ability. One he had originally discounted when conversing with Watto, as he had wondered if it was somehow related to Watto's alien physiology. However when Harry had met the first client, a fellow human, he was shocked to realize he could sense the intentions of individuals he was in close proximity of. Harry recalled memories of Anakin discovering this ability and deciding to only share it with his mother; so Harry realized he should probably not advertise it, lest he stigmatized or taken advantage of for the ability.

Harry was also surprised that he seemed to have inherited some unexplained extrasensory perceptions. He had been working on Anakin's secret project one evening trying to link up the auxiliary power couplings to maintain a constant energy output and he 'felt' his mom approaching. He turned around to greet her assuming he had heard her, however she was not there. As he started to turn back to focus on his project, he watched the door open and his mom appear, leaving Harry starring at her in confusion as she called him to supper.

At first Harry just chalked this up to a coincidence but over the next several days Harry experienced small moments, especially when he was under stress where he seemed to get these feelings allowing him to sense what was about to happen. At first it was disorienting but he quickly grew to realize the benefit behind such an ability, although it was difficult to fully put faith in the feelings and Harry felt himself ignoring them as often as he trusted them.

Two weeks after Harry woke up on the world; he was in the salvage shop and had just finished dealing with a customer when he heard Watto approaching him.

"You will race tomorrow, boy!"

Harry was surprised with the exclamation from Watto, as after Anakin's last race, it seemed that Watto had started to grow a little reluctant with the idea of having his slave race … at least unless there was a very large prize available, and secondly Harry had just finished repairing the podracer that very morning, and they had not even managed to test it yet.

On top of the surprise, Harry was very wary about the idea of being in an actual podrace. From everything he could glean about podracing, it seemed that it was magnitudes more dangerous than trying to outfly a Hungarian Horntail on a broomstick, an experience he had barely managed to live through. And while Anakin had seemed to have a miraculous ability to not die, in a sport where there was usually at least one death per race, Harry was concerned about the idea that his luck might not hold out, especially in competing in an event without ever having tried it.

"Would it be alright if I took the podracer for a practice run tonight? Make sure it fully works."

Watto laughed, or at least made a sound that Harry interpreted as laughter, "Oba chee ka? Do you have any idea what a practice run costs? It is almost the same amount of entering you into the actual race. No I will not pay for you to practice."

Harry slumped his shoulders knowing that at this point there would be little he could say or do to get out of the race.

"If you are sure Watto…"

"Yes I am sure and you better look after the podracer this time. I am tired of having to keep paying for parts to fix it. Maybe try to not get it damaged this time … oh a customer. Go see what they want and call me if they are seriously interested in buying something." He commanded, as he flew off in the direction of his office.

"Ah fidget." Harry cursed under his breath, a curse he had learned from some of the boys who he had run into on the planet. He turned and headed in the direction of the tall Ithorian who looked out of place standing among the scrap around him. "Hello, what are you looking for today …"

As Harry finished cleaning up the shop at the end of the day, he walked outside into the dry evening heat of Tatooine, wrapping his scarf around the lower part of his face to keep any blowing sand out of his face.

He had barely taken five steps when he had the feeling that two figures were rapidly approaching from behind… Two familiar figures…

Spinning around with a smile, Harry greeted his two friends who had been trying to sneak up on him, " Kitster! Wald! Good to see you! What are you up to?"

Kitster, a fellow human slave, stood up out of his crouch, "Awe fidget, Ani. How do you always do that? One of these days we will surprise you. Want to come hang out? Wald and I were going to see if we could get into one of the cantinas and talk to the pilots and spacers."

"Sorry guys, I wish I could." Harry said as he looked back and forth between his friends, realizing he actually meant it. While not Ron and Hermione, and despite the age gap between them and Harry's 17 year old mind, Kitster and Wald were incredibly fun to hang out with and were good individuals.

Kitster raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Harry continued on, "Ya … Watto wants me to race tomorrow and I promised my mom this morning I would be home for dinner. Don't want to be late if I am racing tomorrow."

"That is awesome Ani! Maybe I will see if I can sneak out of my duties and watch the race." Kitster said with a smile.

Wald nodded his large head, "Best of luck Ani, hope you don't die."

Kitster nodded his head, "Definitely not, I have been saving up all the druggats I have found to place a bet on you. And the Boonta Eve Classic is coming up. As long as you race, I will bet on you with one of the offworlders. They always bet against a human managing to survive. Even if you don't win there are good odds for betting that you will survive."

Harry gave his friend a forced smile, "Well … I will do my best to survive until then. But I don't know if Watto will let me race."

Wald looked at his friend, "Of course he will. As long as the pod is in good condition he will have you race. You are a natural at podracing Ani, if you cheated, like all the other racers, just a little bit, no one would stand a chance."

Harry smiled, knowing this conversation had occurred before between the friends, "I know, I know. I have heard it all before … but if I am to win, it will be a win without cheating, so that no one would be able to complain or challenge it, just imagine what Sebulba would do if I cheated … until then, until Watto decides whether I am racing in the Boonta Eve Classic, I will try my hardest to not die."

This caused both Kitster and Wald to laugh.

Kitster then looked at him, "That is fair though, good luck tomorrow and say hello to your mom."

With that they turned around and headed in the direction of the nearest cantina, their laughter fading into the distance. Harry watched them leave; a little disappointed he would not be joining them, but determined to not rely only on Anakin's previous knowledge of podracing and his instincts. Harry decided he would spend most of the night reading up on podracing in order to become a little more comfortable before tomorrow's race. He figure if he survived and he didn't look like a fool out there, then he could count that as a success.

The next morning, Harry struggled to get out of bed, having only gotten two standard hours of sleep after finally putting down the holoscreen, realizing he needed a little shut eye before the race.

As he sat down at the table, his mothing noticed his condition.

"Oh Ani, didn't you sleep last night? You look exhausted."

Harry smiled, still getting used to the presence of the maternal personality, "I tried mom, I think I was just a little more nervous for today's race."

"Oh Ani, that's awful. Is there anything you can do to get out of it? Maybe we can ask Watto …"

Harry slowly shook his head, knowing that this also was a conversation that had occurred many times before, but at the end of the day once Watto decided Anakin was going to race, he always had to race. There was nothing they could do, especially not this close to the race, once Watto had paid the substantial entrance fee … unless Watto decided to pay someone else to race for him … and why would he do that if he could just have Anakin run the race for free.

"I will be fine mom … I always am. It was just a little bit of bad sleep."

This caused his mother to stop, however it did little to relieve the concerned look from her face.

"If you are sure … I will be there watching from the stands though."

Harry nodded knowing there was nothing that he would be able to say, that would convince her otherwise.

As Harry sat in the pod at the start line, feeling the thrum of energy being transferred through the powerlines causing microvibrations that he could fell in the pod, he could not help but feel as if he felt the whole world slowing down around him. It was a similar sensation to the one he experienced before a Quidditch match but magnitudes more intense. He could see individual grains of sand floating by, he could now visually isolate the individual engine rotors on the neighboring podracer which had been a blur moments before, he could count the individual microvibrations running through his ship whereas moments before they were a near constant buzz. Harry shook his head wondering once again where this ability came from … was it a genetic ability or possibly just some rare quirk.

Realizing this was definitely not the time to be distracted, Harry refocused his attention on the course in front of him, watching as all the support crews were running off the track due to some unseen signal that the race was about to begin.

As Harry heard the announcements to start the engines being translated into several different languages for all the racers, he prepared to engage the engines, his fingers trembling with excitement hovering over button.

'Gong'

The loud starting sound was heard clearly throughout the field and stadium. Harry slammed his fingers against the button to engage his engines, feeling the additional heat production of his own engines combined with the sudden heat generation of the nearby pods.

Harry was thrown backwards in his seat as he felt the pod accelerate, the force generated pushing him back in his seat. Harry could not help but release a smile at the sensation.

'Well … this is going to be fun.'

In a moment Harry had jumped past the nearby pods and was surprised to find that he found himself in second place, coming off the start line, behind only a small insect like alien who had eight limbs and six of them were simultaneously managing the pod's buttons and levers, likely to eek every last bit of potential from the creature's engine.

All of a sudden Harry felt a strange twinge, having started to become accustomed to trusting these uncomfortable feelings, he immediately trusted his gut reaction and altered the heading of his podracer, shifting it about two lengths to the side.

Less than a second after he had started the maneuver he watched a laughing and gesturing Sebulba flash bye, occupying the space that he had evacuated moments before.

Determined that the race was long and he would have time to recover, Harry decided to not over-react or get into a physical confrontation with Sebulba's racer, which was slightly larger than the racer Watto let him race on. Therefore he gritted his teeth and settled into the draft stream created by the Sebulba's pod content to reduce the energy usage of his engines, until he needed them.

For the next ten minutes Harry proceeded rather cautiously in the race. Well … relatively cautious … Harry very quickly realized that podracing was unlike anything he had ever done, he flew at breakneck speeds, certainly much faster than any broom in the Wizarding World was capable of achieving. On top of these impossible speeds, the course itself was unlike anything he had experienced. They were flying mere feet above the ground weaving through terrain dotted with occasional boulders the size of Hagrid's hut, flying through tunnels with the absence of almost any illumination, navigating down slopes that were almost vertical drops, …

However … no matter what the challenge Harry experienced on the course, he could not help but smile at the exhilaration of the task he faced.

Over the duration of the first part of the race Harry had managed to stay relatively close to the leader and Sebulba, although he determined that this was likely largely due to his own abilities, as it appeared that his pod was outmatched in both speed, size, and maneuverability compared to the pods of both Sebulba and the insect-like alien who had managed to maintain his lead so far.

Twice so far, Harry had sensed as other competitors were making moves from behind him, moves that were not a danger to him so he let them carry out their attempts to see what they were capable of … and see how the current leaders would react. However both times, he had a front row seat to Sebulba slamming the weight of his engines into the competitors. The first one who had tried ended up slamming into a cliff wall and the second who had tried to pass Sebulba and had gotten clipped, had one of their engines detach from their pod, this resulted in their pod spinning wildly out of control and spinning by narrowly missing Harry's head as it shot back in the wrong direction before colliding with a racer further back. At this point it seemed no one was brave or desperate enough to make a move to overtake Sebulba.

As they reached the halfway point of the second lap, they were approaching a gentle bend to the left that was at the foot of a large cliff face. Harry watched as Sebulba cut to the right to make a move wide to overtake the leader. However, as he reached the widest point of his arc Harry watched as his engine sputtered a little and seemed to lose power. Harry did a double take as he watched Sebulba's podracer start to lose ground on the leader and smiled as he realized this was an opportunity.

As Harry quickly maneuvered his podracer to the left, he felt a small twinge of unease, however after looking around quickly and not seeing anything he chose to ignore the feeling, knowing that if he acted quickly he could make his move before Sebulba would be able to cycle his engine and catch up and he only had limited seconds to complete the move and take advantage of the narrow opening between the cliff wall and the leader, an opening that was shrinking quickly. He knew that if he wanted to take advantage of this opening he needed to act now.

Feeling slightly conflicted, Harry engaged full engine thrust and felt himself once again rocket forward and begin inching closer to the lead racer as the bend approached. Harry felt himself holding his breath as he watched the gap narrowing between him and the leader.

30 meters …

20 meters …

And just when Harry felt he was going to blow by the leader the feeling of worry increased to the point where he almost lost control of the controls for his podracer. Harry risked a quick look to his right and his eyes opened in surprise as he saw a laughing Sebulba start to wedge his left engine immediately behind Harry's right engine, between the engine and the pod, effectively trapping him.

Harry froze for a full second, his unconscious reactions taking over while he tried to process how Sebulba would have been able to cycle through his engines … before he realized it had been a ruse. There had likely been no engine troubles ... he had merely shunted power from his engines into an illegal afterburner, which would appear as if he was losing power but at the same time allowing Sebulba to be able to conserve all the energy, allowing him to almost immediately make up any lost ground once he engaged it and rocked into place.

These afterburners were largely illegal in podracing as most individual's physiologies would not be able to withstand the immediate and severe increase in acceleration, resulting in approximately 99 in 100 individuals who tried to use it dying. However, Sebulba's physiology appeared to have allowed him to survive the usage.

Sebulba had baited Harry into overcommitting and putting himself in a vulnerable position; and he, like a fool, had chosen to ignore his feeling and fell right into the trap. Harry wanted to smack his head into the control column, he knew he should have trusted his feelings … he knew them to be true.

However, realizing if he had any hope to survive he needed to focus back on the present, Harry felt the bigger and more powerful racer began to slowly but ever so surely push his pod towards the cliff face, watching as it inched ever close and closer.

He knew at this point there was almost nothing he would be able to do to escape the impending collision with the wall, as Sebulba's pod was superior in almost every single fashion.

He knew the only option was to try something so ridiculous that even Sebulba would discount it as something that was being tried. So he risked another glance towards his opponent and as he looked over and locked eyes with Sebulba, observing the gruesome smirk on his face, Harry overexaggerated the movement to cut the power off to his engines, realizing that Sebulba would recognize the movement and proceed to slow down to try and match the desperate attempt to escape from becoming cliff art …

However, rather than cutting off all power to both engines Harry only cut off the power to his right engine while almost simultaneously dumping all remaining available power into his left engine.

Not expecting this maneuver Sebulba was slow to react and Harry watched his pod start to pull forward, out from between Sebulba and the cliff face. However as he was only powering one engine and the other engine was basically acting as a giant rudder, his pod turned almost at a ninety degree angle and veered directly into the path of Sebulba's pod.

Hoping he had enough time, Harry leaned forward to increase the output to both engines. If he had been tense before, that was nothing compared to what he was feeling now … it seemed that time almost stood still as he watched himself slowly inching forward in slow motion as he looked to his right, watching the oncoming pod aimed right at him … first Harry passed the Sebulba's left engine … then he slowly passed the pod that held a laughing Sebulba who seemed excited by the prospect of running right through his competitor … as Harry was about to pass by the right engine and avoid the collision he felt a hiccup in his engine. It was only a momentary loss of power, but in the game of inches that appeared to be all it needed … Harry felt as everything seemed to speed up and he felt the impact of Sebulba's engine as it crunched the back of the pod that contained Harry.

Whether due to the jolt of the collision or a result from the wild maneuver Harry had just attempted or a simple static transfer between the pods or a cruel act of a power beyond what he knew, Harry knew not but he watched in horror as both his engines lost magnetic cohesion and the Steelton cables broke, sending the engines shooting off into the Dune Sea.

Without the thrust provided from the engines there was no way to attempt to stabilize the pod after the collision with Sebulba's engine and Harry watched as the world outside the pod became a chaotic blur, gravity seeming to pull him in different directions all at once, without the safety straps Harry had no doubt he would have been ejected from the pod at an incredible velocity.

Harry heard the sound of metal crunching and glass panels breaking. He attempted tried to reach out and stabilize himself on something … anything.

Time seemed to slow down, but yet it seemed as if everything outside of the pod had sped up. And then, suddenly his head hit one of the cushioned metal support beams in the pod and thankfully he knew no more ...

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