After a moment, the Hat spoke quietly, in an almost uncharacteristic tone of concern after all the sarcastic and lewd remarks it had made thus far. "You honestly believe this… person may have a true lead for you and you're not just chasing Snorkacks again?"
"I don't, not really anyway," Harry replied, his tone honest as he took off the Hat and tossed it lightly on the desk that contained several books and scrolls and now sat right past the arm of the couch he was sitting against. "But sometimes chasing snorkacks is enough to amuse me. Especially for someone in my position. Besides… you never know what you might find in the process." "Too true, Mr. Potter. Too true," the hat said after it had landed and seemed to shift and reorient to face Harry once more. "Sounds suspiciously like something Miss Lovegood used to say."
The Hat was silent a moment before it responded, sounding genuinely serious if somewhat melancholy. "So the trip to Nar Shaddaa and this 'Slicer' is another step on your search."
"Yup," Harry replied cheerfully, "As I said, it'll be entertaining if nothing else."
"Then I hope you find something besides false hope or leprechaun gold," the Hat replied, with his tone surprisingly serious.
"Wait a minute," interrupted Aayla as she stared back and forth between the piece of headwear and Harry. "How does the frakking hat suddenly know more about what's going on than we do? We've been around you the whole time and yet you've never done more than insult one another."
"Please. Those things I said to the walking combination of natural disaster and trouble magnet were hardly insults!" The Hat protested with a sound of pure indignation.
"The moth eaten collection of lint is right," Harry replied as he nodded in amused agreement, "It was more like social commentary."
Before they could argue further, he shook his head and kicked up his feet, then looked down in surprise when he realized that there was no table in front of him to do so. A wave of his hand corrected that, putting a foot stool directly in front of him.
"So… I believed I promised Ahsoka answers to her questions, and I know you have some as well," Harry asked with a half amused, half resigned expression as he met the eyes of the three looking at him.
The oblique reference to Harry's rather unorthodox uses of the Force seemed to embolden Aayla and Shaak Ti, though Aayla was the one who beat her to the punch, "I think that's rather an understatement."
They all saw him sigh a little bit, a look of resignation crossing his face. he had after all been rather evasive of any questions on his background. He knew the interrogation was coming sooner or later. He had also promised Ahsoka some answers the evening before, and could see from her expression that she was eager to ask questions, but could also sense that she would back off if he expressed much reluctance.
Ahsoka grinned as she looked at him, "I think I've been patient! I have lots of questions."
"Somehow, I'm not surprised," Harry snorted, before he seemed to shrug it off, and his mouth quirked slightly in amusement, "I don't suppose I could claim that the explosion this morning gave me temporary amnesia?"
"Nice try, Harry," said Ahsoka, after glancing at the chairs she hesitated several moments glancing at Harry and seeming to gather her courage before she stepped around the footstool and sat down on the couch next to him. When she saw that he wasn't shifting away from her she relaxed into the cushion behind her, incidentally resting her head on his arm.
"You know I started making a list of all the odd things I've wondered about you. It's become quite long," she said to push through any awkward silence, with an extremely satisfied grin on her face.
She was really glad that Harry didn't object to the close physical contact. Jedi weren't opposed to physical contact per se, but a part of Ahsoka that she had always ignored, one she recognized as a part of her Togruta heritage craved casual physical contact. Harry's hugs the previous evening had felt better than anything she had felt before, in part because she could feel the emotion surrounding them. But this was the first she had initiated the contact, when she wasn't an emotional mess. She ignored the way Shaak Ti and Aayla exchanged a look between the two of them at her actions but neither decided to say anything about her behavior.
Harry looked at Ahsoka in surprise for a moment and then chuckled softly as he glanced over at the hat briefly, before looking back at her a fond smile on his face, "Why am I not surprised that you have a list either?"
"How about we keep it simple before you give him a full-blown interrogation?" asked Aayla, her own interest was betrayed in her voice. As she settled in one of the chairs, she seemed slightly surprised that the chair actually rocked forward slightly. "I figured I'd need to answer some sooner or later. Be advised, I won't lie to you, but I may not tell everyone everything," Harry said, mostly directing his comment to Ahsoka with a slight warning lilt to his voice.
His warning just produced an unrepentant grin from the girl, "That's okay, I've got lots of time to learn all your secrets. You're stuck with me, Master!"
Of course Aayla wasn't surprised at all when Ahsoka did not take a deferential stance or expression to Harry's admonition. Even when she was a padawan, she was hardly a paragon of submissiveness. That was something no doubt encouraged by her former Master. Harry certainly seemed to be an instructor in the same vein. The hat on the table snickered a little bit, "I like her, you should let me sort her."
"Maybe later," Harry replied with a roll of his eyes, before turning his attention back to the girl resting her head on his arm, "Okay, I'm ready. Hit me with your questions."
"Where is it you come from?" Ahsoka asked immediately. She had been curious since he had shown her glimpses of his world in his memories.
"It can hardly be from a planet called 'Dirt'," Aayla added with a twitch of sarcasm, remembering the bounty hunter information that Master Kenobi had ready to the entire Jedi High Council.
Harry's brow furrowed for a moment in confusion at Aayla's comment, and after a few seconds he blinked in recognition, which was then followed by a full blown smile, "Oh! I take it someone has read my bounty hunter's guild membership application... file... thing."