Chapter 40: Affinity
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I, however, insisted that the best wands would never be produced merely by encasing the whiskers of a pet Kneazle or the stalk of a Dittany plant that once saved a wizard's father from poisoning, or the mane of a kelpie a witch had once met on holiday in Scotland in the customer's favorite wood.
The best wands should have cores of immensely powerful magical substances, expertly enclosed in specially selected and complementary wand woods, the result to be matched to an owner with whom the wand itself felt the most affinity," he spoke passionately before pausing and chuckling.
"There was initially substantial resistance to my new way of crafting wands by the simple-minded folk.
But it swiftly became clear that Ollivander wands were, forgive my lack of humility, superior to anything that had come before.
My new methods of locating wand woods and core substances marrying them together and matching them to ideal owners are all, of course, secrets that are coveted by my rival wand makers worldwide."
"So… any chance you'll tell me about them?" Harry asked only half-jokingly. He'd felt the magic the old man was weaving and he knew he had to ask.
To his surprise, Ollivander chuckled, "Meet me after Hogwarts and we'll talk."
After much insistence, Professor McGonagall had finally agreed to let him off near Charing Cross, but not before making him promise to catch a taxi and go straight back home.
Harry had no intention to go through the painful process of being apparated by someone else.
Quickly, ducking into the bathroom of a nearby shop, he had shoved all his new stuff into his inventory and apparated on his own back to Number 4.
Upon knocking on the door, Vernon had simply dragged him upstairs and shoved him into the cluttered second bedroom of Dudley's and left to talk to his wife in a hushed tone that Harry couldn't make out from his room.
Honestly, he couldn't bring himself to care about them anymore.
Thinking about how Professor McGonagall's words in the Leaky Cauldron had helped him more than she would ever know, he quickly started to rearrange and sort out his inventory, sorting his clothes and books out into separate boxes, taking extra care with the letter he had to deliver to Johnathon's son, when suddenly he came upon a book that he'd picked up in the forest. It was brown and had a single label on its cover, 'ID Create/Escape.'
With some hesitation, Harry picked the book up and suddenly a blue notification came.
Ping!
You have obtained a skill book! Would you like to learn the skill, 'Instant Dungeon Create' & 'Instant Dungeon Escape'?
YES/NO?
Harry gave a grim smile. This was his reward for killing an innocent man…
With a sigh, he pressed the yes button and suddenly the book burst into flames, letting the new knowledge flood into Harry's mind.
Ping!
You have learned two new skills!
ID Create, Lv-1 (0%)
Used to create Instant Dungeons. Higher the level, stronger the dungeon.
Current list-
Empty Dungeon- no monsters.
ID Escape, Lv-1 (0%)
Used to escape from Instant Dungeons.
Harry smiled at that and quickly closed the boxes. A lot happened in the dungeon. He had faced death and had come back stronger for it. He certainly felt strong, and yet the price of his strength weighed strong on him.
Still, at the end of it all, he had finally found a place where he belonged.
That night, for once, no nightmares came his way… only sweet dreams of a green-eyed red-haired woman and a man who looked like him lulled him to a peaceful rest.
"But that hurt, that pain in your heart is what tells you that you are human" is the line that kinda sets the tone for the story. So long as Harry still feels that pain, he will stay human. The day he stops… well, that's for a later chapter. ;-)
The Gamer's Mind failing in front of spiders thing from the last chapter was me setting up a plot point for Book 4. Let's just say that in ' fixing ' Harry, the entities might've messed with his memories a bit.
There is a certain thematic undertone that I'm going for with these books. Book 1 has Harry discovering his powers. Book 2 has Harry discovering the people around him.
Book 3 has him discovering the source of his powers. Book 4 has him discovering his own past. Book 5, is of course, the culmination of all that.
Book-I:On Trains & Training
Chapter 6:
"ID Create" a rather frail looking boy in tattered clothes intoned as he walked along a sidewalk in the bustling streets of London. A man sitting on a bench on the other side of the road blinked as the boy walked behind a streetlight pole on one side and didn't come of the other.
That boy, Harry Potter, was having a whale of a time by startling the life out of random strangers on the street.
He'd discovered soon after that fateful day of magic shopping in Diagon Alley that sneaking up on people using his Instant Dungeons and startling them by popping out of nowhere was a rather clever little cheat for leveling up his Sneaking, ID Create, and ID Escape skills.
He couldn't wait to get to the point where he would be able to gain access to some other forms of Dungeons that involved fighting enemies and leveling up his skills.
He had read in one of the many gaming pamphlets he'd perused that Dungeons were basically grinding heavens, supplying the player with enemies to fight in waves until the wanted to stop. Harry couldn't wait to get into that dungeon, but at the moment, he was having fun in this one too.
Harry looked up at the red sky of the dungeon.
Through a series of Observes and discoveries, he had learned quite a few things about Instant Dungeons. For one, there seemed to be no moving objects in there. No wind, no cars, no people, no animals. If it could move, it didn't exist in the ID.
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