Chapter 20 - Harry's magic

After a few moments, Harry calmed down and his magic settled. His face had become blank, completly devoid of emotions.

"That piece of soul link us together. My scar had always been hurting whenever he was close. And last year I had a vision about him before school resumed. With my mother's protection now ineffective against him, and him returned to power, he may very well find that connection and use it against me. He could very well see through my eyes and hear through my ears like I did before. Heck, he could probably mess with my mind as well!"

"There is a solution for that" stated Scathach.

Harry sharply turned to her, his expression curious, nearly hopeful.

"One of the books we took from your family vault was about the mind arts. I briefly checked it, it is separated in 2 disciplines, legilimency and occlumency. The first discipline is used to read or invade someone's mind. The second is used to protect and strenghten one's mind. Learning occlumency is going to be your priority. In fact, all of us should learn it."

"Why not just take the damn thing out?"

"It's not that simple" said Semimaris. "We are dealing with souls here. Noone of us dabbled in magics of the soul, and very few in our home world did. If your mothers protection was still effective, it may have been possible to get rid of the soul shard by physically removing the scar. Without that barrier however, the foreign soul piece latched onto your own, making the removal much more complicated and dangerous. You will need the equivalent of a spiritual surgery."

Harry gaped at her like a fish out of the water, as the ramifications of what she said slowly sank in his head.

"Bloody wizards and f.u.c.k.i.n.g Dumbledore!!" he shouted as he stood up and started to pace around the room while cursing under his breath.

It was obvious that the piece of soul stuck to him on Halloween 1981. At that time, Lily's protection was at its strongest, and the soul shard wasn't as deeply attached to him. It was still stuck to the scar. Had he been taken to proper medical and curses experts, they would have been able to do something about it.

Intead, Dumbledore left him under the care of a mere mediwitch for a few hours before abandonning him at the doorstep of his hateful relatives. Furthermore, with wizards general ignorance or disdain of non-magical methods such as surgery, they wouldn't have thought of excising the scar, with the soul shard stuck in it. .

Not wanting Harry's anger to reach a boiling point, as warned by the renewed flaring of his magic, Scathach resumed their report.

"By the way, while we were performing your medical checkup, we did a consecration."

"Consecration?"

"Yes. The magic of our world is different from yours despite the many similarities. There are some things that just can't be replicated in the same fashion. After your first trip to Ollivanders, we discovered that our magic aquired some of your world's magic traits, as shown by our ability to cast witches and wizards spells. It is most likely the result of the magical bond between us. If our magic adapted to yours, then the opposite should have happened as well."

It was something Harry though as well but put aside because it wasn't a priority.

"In our world, magic users have an affinity for one or more elements. That doesn't stop them from using elements they have no affinity for, unless it is something very different from the norm. There is nothing similar mentioned in any of the books we had access to. Were you told anything about it in your school?"

"No. Never heard of it mentioned anywhere."

"I see. Well, the consecration is the process of discovering someone's elemental affinity. I expected the result to be unusual, but certainly not this surprising" she said, lightly shaking her head. "You have an affinity for 8 elements."

"... What?"

Harry had already guessed that having more than one elemental affinity was better than average. Since to his limited knowledge, there were 4 main elements, earth, wate, fire and wind, having more than 4 elemental affinities was near impossible. Hearing Scathach words shocked him, and left him near speechless.

"It is as you heard. You have 8 elemental affinities. Only 2 of them are natural though, and they don't have the same strenght. In our world, you can't change your affinities. You are stuck with what you are born with. That isn't the case here it seem. You have an average affinity for earth and a good affinity for space. Then, you acquired a good affinity for spirit, mind and dark, an average affinity for light and fire, and a weak affinity for water."

"Wow..."

That was a lot to take in for Harry.

"It seem that, in this world, what you do, or your environment, affect your elemental affinity" said Semimaris. "The spirit, mind and dark affinities are likely the result of having the soul shard in your scar since you were a toddler. The light and fire affinity probably came from the phoenix tears, and maybe your former wand core. I cannot guess how you aquired your water affinity."

"Great. At least, it looks like I can get something usefull for all the shit that happens to me" Harry snarked. "Even if it comes from the dark bastard" he added in a lower, disgusted tone.

"Your space, mind and spirit affinity are likely what allowed you to summon us" stated Xuanzang, surprising him as she hardly spoke the whole time she had been there. "And your mind affinity will certainly help you in learning occlumency. Finally, with your spirit affinity, you should be able to deal with the soul shard in time"

She gave him one of those smiles that never failed to charm him.

"Don't worry, strenghtening ones mind and spirit is something I learned when I was still a student. I'll help you and teach you."

"Thanks" he said while shyly lowering his head for a bit. "I'llbe counting on you."

"Anyway" continued Scathach. "You clearly had your affinities before our arrival, so they are unrelated to our magics bonding. It is probable that elemental affinities in this world can't be revealed unless they are awakened, and the awakening happens only in special circ.u.mstances. That would explain why the regular magical population doesn't know about them. You forcefully awakened them during the dementors attack."

Scathach smiled at him with a glint of anticipation in her eyes.

"That does not mean you can't learn our kind of magic. While Xuanzang will help you with the mind arts, I will be happy to teach you the basics of our magic."

Harry was both happy and a little regretful. He realised he was going to be very busy this summer. Even though he new it was important and would only benefit him, he was already grieving the loss of leisure time despite being away from the Dursleys. His consolation was that the company would be much more pleasing.