Lost and Longing.

Watch of the observers felt the extremely subtle twisting of the Force as it struck the necklace, and the burst of energies that both faded from the object, the spells on the necklace and were now suddenly no longer masked and hidden.

"What about now?" Harry asked curiously.

Shaak Ti reacted first, having been trying to read it with her senses when Harry broke the enchantment and actually made a gagging sound. "I don't know what it is, but whatever it is... is revolting…"

Aayla reacted a second later, shivering and crossing her arms over her chest to ward off chills. "It's so dark and vile, it should be destroyed."

Harry had to admit some grudging respect for their responses, it had taken him decades to get his magic to the point that he could intuitively understand it like that. He felt each of their magic slide over the piece slowly, passively sensing it. His attention focused on Ahsoka whose eyes were fixed on the piece of jewelry with intense concentration on her face.

"They're right… it's dark. But…" She trailed off uncertainly.

"What is it?" Harry asked, intrigued, a suspicion forming in his mind. His suspicion was confirmed as he felt Ahsoka's magic not just passively read what it was telling her, like the other two Jedi had done… instead he felt her at trying, albeit very clumsily, to push magic into the piece in order to figure out what it was.

"I… am not sure..." Ahsoka frowned and shook her head a little bit. For a moment there she thought she might have sensed something more at the very edges of her senses but it seemed to slip away as she tried to focus on it. And the overall dark feeling of the item didn't help her desire to sense it.

Harry nodded slowly and pushed his own magic into the piece. His facial expression hardened slowly as he slowly unraveled and determined the enchantments on the necklace. "Whoever enchanted this was pure evil. If you put it on it has compulsions not to take it off, but it starts to leech energy from the soul, you the more you use magic, the more of your life it actually takes, likely aging you or making you ill. I'm not certain."

He looked at Ahsoka seriously, "You were making a good attempt at using magic to sense and evaluate it."

She averted her eyes from the piece and nodded slightly looking down. She was disappointed that she wasn't able to sense anything more.

Harry stepped forward and gestured to get her attention so she would look up at him, "Hey, I'm proud of you. You're starting to use magic, rather than just letting it guide you. You're listening. I told you it wouldn't be easy, and I'd much rather you learn the hard things with me here than on your own."

When her expression remained uncertain, he gestured. "It took me a very very long time to do what you just did. Literally… years. And that was after I left school."

She searched his expression to see if he was being honest and saw nothing but honestly there and she nodded a little bit, a small smile on her face.

He shook his head and returned his focus to the piece, letting his magic drop it into the smallest pile. "Dobby, take those two piles and put them in two boxes for now. We may use the slightly bigger one as a teaching tool later to teach Ahsoka how to sense that sort of thing and how to dispel curses... But the smaller one contains objects with curses that aren't dispellable. At least not without a lot more work than I feel like putting into it. Seal the box and I'll either fiendfyre it while out in orbit or we'll drop it in a star or black hole somewhere."

Dobby simply nodded and the jewelry disappeared with a pop followed by Dobby a moment later.

Harry turned to Ahsoka, "Sorry, I wasn't trying to pass anything off. As I said, I never cared for the jewelry, Daph was the only one who ever wore any of it, but even that was really just a handful of pieces she really liked. Those are in another trunk somewhere. So, believe me, I'm not attached to any of this crap."

Harry nodded at the sight, and gestured toward the still huge pile that was still remaining on the wooden floor of the house. "Everything that's left in that pile, go ahead and rummage through to your heart's content. Whatever you want in there, go ahead and break it apart and take the crystals.

Ahsoka looked at Harry in disbelief, she might not have been a mineralogist of any sort but she at least recognized metals that would make some of the pieces worth a fortune on the black market and on several worlds. "Harry, I can't just… go destroying that jewelry some of it is likely very expensive."

"Seriously, I'm really not attached to everything. If it makes you feel better I'll destroy all the pieces and just leave the jewels. Then… instead of a handful destroyed to be used, they'll all be," Harry said, making no attempt to hide his cheeky grin, cutting off the argument before it could gain traction.

Ahsoka stared at his grin for a few moments before sighing a bit. "If you're going to be stubborn about it," She turned to the pile, and squaring her shoulders slightly she stepped forward to begin looking through it.

"Harry, why do you have pieces that are so dark in nature?" Aayla asked finally breaking the silence. She was forcing herself to keep her tone light, she didn't want to be accused of assumption again but she and Shaak Ti were both tense at the mention of what the nature of the jewelry could do.

"Like I said, one of my families was rather renowned for their dark leanings, and some of them delved into very dark magic without concern for morality. I've just never sorted through all their crap. I'd be surprised if a necklace like that was the darkest thing contained in one of these trunks." Harry replied with an indifferent shrug.

Aayla was going to press slightly further, mostly about the recklessness of such artifacts and their ability to corrupt, but Dobby popped back in with arms crossed looking pleased that Harry had done as instructed. "Master Harry needs to eat. Dobby be making large dinner and it be nearly ready."

Harry glanced down with a raised eyebrow. "I think we'll have three guests tonight Dobby, give me a minute and I'll grab the drinks."

Dobby gave a long suffering sigh as if he didn't need to be told how many to cook for before with a shake of his head he popped away once more.

Harry looked to Ahsoka, who seemed to have her search under control, or at least seemed to be progressing well. He left the area to go to the kitchen to grab the drinks and check on Dobby, since the elf likely made enough for ten people.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Do you enjoy reading? Visit my Ko-fi! There you will find the advanced chapter in PDF format, ready for your convenience.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

https://ko-fi.com/fictiontopia