Harry shook his head quickly in disagreement snorting in derision, "There were dozens, even hundreds of wars, and some races were wiped out, and others enslaved, while others shifted into a tentative 'peace'. Unfortunately, it was pretty much always the human magicals who won those conflicts and set the laws that governed the others. I won't lie. Magicals were kinda shitty that way."
"Well, that Dark Lord I mentioned, along with a good portion of the society, didn't believe those same species were worth the dirt between their toes. The popular dialogue was that they were unthinking beasts, or 'Dark Creatures' which would turn on us at a moment's notice and kill us all," Harry shook his head quickly, well aware he could go on a tangent with little provocation, "In other words, the entire society, in its bid to save itself from the mundanes three hundred years prior, became corrupt beyond imagining."
"In the midst of all that, I was born to two lovely people. My mother, a first-generation witch who was born from non-magicals," Harry said.
"Lily," Ahsoka interjected, her hand reaching over to run over the wand holster still on her arm.
Harry glanced at her and his eyes flicked to the holster and he nodded once in confirmation of her unspoken question, "Lily..."
There was only a slight pause before he continued, "And my father, James, who could trace his magical lineage back over two thousand years."
"Due to a betrayal of the worst sort, from a friend of my parents', the Dark Lord killed them both, before the then tried to kill me. But my mother's sacrifice saved me and caused the Dark lord to lose his body and exist in wraith form for a time," Harry shook his head slightly, "I'm really not going to go into the wars that I was basically born into, but long story short, with the help of some amazing friends, I eventually stopped that Dark Lord after multiple confrontations including a final one that came down to him and me when I was seventeen."
"After that war, I decided to live my life," Harry chuckled, and pointed at Aayla and Ahsoka, "You've both met the portraits of my wives. Magicals held families as all important, and because I was the head of not one but two prominent families, I married twice at the same time. Not something I had envisioned, mostly because I never really expected to survive that long,"
"But, because I had multiple family lines with their own magics that needed to be individually passed on, I got married to two amazing women. One I got to know during the war, one afterward," He had a fond smile on his face as he clearly was reliving a fond memory.
A their incredulous looks at the idea of needing to marry twice to pass on 'magic' he held up his hand. "Trust me, it's true… took forever for them to actually convince me of the necessity of it. First glance it's an anachronism of a prominently male dominated society. But there were legitimate magics that wouldn't mix and would've been lost if I hadn't. Our society actually had laws set down to prevent ending of family lines so things like that wouldn't be lost."
"Not really that surprising or even that unusual, there are many races and cultures in which such arrangements are the norm, few of them male dominated." Shaak Ti interjected.
"Yeah, I've discovered that myself." Harry replied with a chuckle.
"Anyway, after I got married, I thought I was all ready to settle down the rest of my days with a nice, albeit complicated family dynamic. Unfortunately my life is never simple, or normal," The wry smile faded from his face and his eyes got a faraway look in them. Two things stopped Ahsoka from snapping her fingers to get his attention. First was the melancholy look crossed his face. The second was the similar flash of emotions she felt coursing through him.
His smile slowly turned a bit bitter and self mocking. "No, Harry Potter doesn't do 'normal' or 'simple'."
Silence fell as Harry didn't say anything more, his gaze still far away.
"What do you mean by that, Harry?" Ahsoka asked quietly, shifting closer to him and nudging him very gently in the side with her elbow drawing him back to the conversation and not wanting to let him slip into memories. Harry's eyes zoomed back into focus as he regarded Ahsoka searchingly, for several long moments before he spoke again. He seemed to brace himself. "Harry Potter doesn't do normal. Or as both my wives would say, 'Harry Potter wouldn't know what to do with normal if it walked up and punched him in the nose.'"
"Don't you mean walked up and stabbed you? Given your history I think that would be the far more likely outcome," the Hat offered helpfully.
"Eh, punched, stabbed, shot, you know. Whatever." Harry replied.
"It took us four … or maybe five decades before we realized something was 'off' about me. Magic users on my world were far longer lived than our non-magical counterparts. Our magic retards the aging process somewhat," Harry explained, completely ignoring the comment from the hat.
"A normal human lifespan averaged around seventy to seventy five years in those days," Harry grimaced, "As I explained, a healthy magical was expected to live to a two hundred years. Two hundred wasn't even considered extreme. An extremely powerful magical, who was of course healthy, could hit two hundred and fifty years with only raised eyebrows from those around them. We age, just much slower than everyone else."
"That was the problem though. I didn't seem to get much older. At first we joked I was simply 'well preserved.' A phrase from a famous book on my world. Then, after a few more decades, it became impossible to ignore. We realized I wasn't aging at all," Harry shook his head and glanced down at his hands.
"When we realized it, we tried to figure out why. Though it's mostly supposition and could be any number of different factors or even elements I was exposed to," Harry shook his head with a wry expression, "Because of a series of … incidents that occurred when I was young. it may be any one of those things that did it. As your tests showed, my blood is incredibly … different. So one of the explanations could be something that's in my very blood."
"Is that why you were so concerned about me taking your blood?" Shaak Ti asked, putting aside the idea of Harry claiming to be over a millennia old. It certainly wasn't unheard of, she knew of three sentient and humanoid species, including Master Yoda who were or had life spans that were that long. Harry snorted indelicately, "Hardly. Isolating what is actually my blood and what is…. other magical stuff is pretty much impossible, but that's not what concerned me. Someone with a bit of magical blood can do some… very unpleasant things to that person."
"I learned that the hard way, after I experienced one such unpleasant time, namely the resurrection of the Dark Lord that had killed my parents using my blood, I eventually developed a ritual that prevented anyone from being able to take my blood and make any use of it unwillingly, even without it intending to be used, my blood is unique and offers me some protection, but I still don't give it around willy nilly." Harry explained.
"Which is why we couldn't get any sort of readings on your blood?" Aayla clarified.
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