CH-23

Harry mock glared at her, but the corner of his lips quirked upward. "Exactly. Spells. The more powerful or more complicated a spell the louder the noise. So, while those smaller things were much quieter, and probably only you were able to tell, when I healed the bartender lady with the nice chest it-"

"She does have a name!" Ahsoka interrupted, with a bit of a scowl on her face.

"I know, I just don't think I've ever asked." Harry responded with a shrug.

"Too busy staring at her chest?" Ahsoka asked, a hint of disapproval in her voice.

"Probably. It was a nice rack. And she certainly has no problems giving me pictures of it. Do you happen to know her name?" Harry grinned unrepentantly at Ahsoka, not bothered by the disapproval in the slightest.

"Well… no but I only met her today. You obviously have known her awhile. She's more than just a pair of breasts with a body attached," sighed Ahsoka with a shake of her head. .

"I know," agreed Harry with a grin. "She has an amazing arse too."

"Anyway," Harry continued before Ashoka could comment on that admission. "When I cast the stunning spells those were like the whispers in a room. Barely audible. You heard them because you were next to me. I doubt anyone beyond a dozen feet heard that. I used the absolute bare minimum power required to utilize that spell."

"On the other hand, healing a person who's just taken a blaster bolt to their impressive chest? Burning muscle and fatty tissue away, as well as damaging the lungs beyond that? Much more complicated." Harry said sardonically.

"You're obsessed with that Zeltron's chest." Ahsoka rolled her eyes, despite coming to the realization that Harry was saying it as much to rile her up as he was for any other reason.

"Not just her chest. Besides, everyone has to have an obsession or two." Harry shrugged and restrained himself from making a further comment. "Healing her like I did was the equivalent of someone shouting in the middle of a library through a set of amplifiers, especially since I couldn't afford to go slow."

"She had no inherent magic for me to slip her into stasis, which would have allowed me to go slower and be more quiet. So, I either had to heal it all at once or not at all. That's what no doubt attracted those friendly fellows from the Order." Harry couldn't resist a smirk imagining what sort of trouble the holo-recording might have caused.

"Now, if I actually knew specific healing spells that could not only heal cauterized tissue, but regenerate organs in the span of a few seconds I could have used a focus to quiet the noise. But… healing was one area I've never spent much time focusing on. Mostly because if someone was injured and no medi-witches were around. I could usually just pour enough power and intent into my magic to force the healing process to start."

He looked a little sheepish. "I could always brute force the spell to heal things, and it was one of two areas of magic I didn't spend much time specifically learning properly over the years... though I do have medical texts aplenty that I use."

His gaze seemed to drift as he considered that, and his voice turned musing. "Maybe I should look into that. It would be interesting to see if spells made for humans worked with the more alien physiologies I've encountered. Zeltron are close enough that the same sort of thing I've always half-assed for humans work just fine, and a blaster bolt has similar properties to certain offensive spells." Harry's eyes went glassy as he considered that thought.

Ahsoka looked at him for several moments, that stretched out into almost a minute before she waved a hand in front of his face That seemed to snap him out of it.

"Sorry. Bad habit." He looked a little bit sheepish.

"What did you mean by a focus to quiet the noise?" She shook her head slightly, rather than just asking about his little zone out, she tried to get him back on track to answer one question at a time. She observed him carefully still concerned about the habit though. Where and how did he develop the habit of just getting lost in a thought?

Harry was unaware of her disquiet, seeming totally engaged once more. He rubbed his hands together before he flicked his wrist in an odd movement and a stick snapped into his hand, to hold it in front of her.

She looked down at it and then back up at him. "A stick?"

"This is one of my wands, it's my magic focus." Harry looked affronted at her calling the dark brown piece of wood in his hand a simple stick.

"You… have a magic wand." she said dryly, wondering if he was teasing her.

"So I've been told." Harry grinned and wiggled his eyebrows before striking a little pose and then continuing without missing a beat. "Now, watch this."

The end of the wand began to glow in a soft light. His tone was more serious, "Can you feel anything when I do that?"

Ahsoka frowned a little bit, narrowing her eyes at the tip of the wood that was now glowing. "Not… really." She finally replied after stretching out her senses.

Harry nodded, "To be honest, it would surprise me if you did. That's lumos. It is the very first spell taught to first year students at the school I went to. It… does pretty much what you see. It makes a light."

"Of course later you learn that the amount of light depends on how much power you put into it. You can put very little…" Harry demonstrated and the light on the wand faded to a dim glow, barely discernable in the lit cargo hold.

"Or, you can put more power into it..." Harry said as the tip of the wand began to glow with a white light that was so bright Ahsoka had to turn her head away.

When she turned away and closed her eyes Ahsoka could feel a very faint buzzing that seemed on the very edge of her senses. "I... can feel that. Very softly in the distance." She said, though her voice had a little bit of uncertainty in it.

Harry nodded a little bit, and with a slight wave of the wand, the light dimmed noticeably. "You'll be happy to know that that is one area you have up on wizards."

When Ahsoka turned her head back to look at him, he nodded a little bit. "Only advanced wizards get to the point where they can intuitively feel magic, usually it takes a hundred or so years of using it, and only when deliberately trained. No wizard or witch I've ever met with your youth can hear it."

"Can you hear it?" Ahsoka asked with a puzzled expression on her face.

Harry nodded, "Yes, and it's much like you described, like a soft buzzing in the distance."

"But you're not that much older than I am." Ahsoka argued with a puzzled frown.

Harry blinked and then started to chuckle softly, "Let's just say I'm a special case and that I'm a bit older than I look." He pressed on before she could ask more questions. "To be able to sense magic usually requires that you learn a discipline called occlumency."

"Occlumency," Ahsoka echoed as she said the unfamiliar word, her attention diverted.

K̾o̾-̾f̾i̾

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