Thanks to those that dropped a review over at ff.net as well as here. I appreciate that extra effort. I'm glad that everyone has liked the Elaine and Harry interaction. I'm not a fan of her character, but writing her is causing her to grow on me.

As far as Elaine and Harry learning magic from each other. I'm not too sure about that. I can see them learning somethings from one another, but successfully doing spells that are native to their breed of wizard is doubtful. An example off the top of my head would be the Flash and Quicksilver. Both are speedsters, but for two very different reasons. One was born for speed. Its in his genes to be a speedster. The other gains super speed by utilizing the Speed Force, an outside energy source that all speedsters use. Replace Elaine and Harry with Flash and Quicksilver, and magic with speed, and you get my point (I'm watching JLU and it was the first thing that came to mind).

Harry hasn't brought it up because he has bigger things to worry about. He already speculated Harrison was a seer, so he knows the ability is genetic. Its only a peice of the puzzle though for now. Aiden's abilites and why he has them will be addressed.

 

No, mental focus is not the key factor. It's a big one, but not the only factor. You are forgetting one thing Taure:

The existence of quantifiable magical power. In DF wizards have a certain amount of power, and when used too much, they become drained (like the popular 'magical exhaustion' phenomenon in HP fanon). Spells in DF take a lot of magical power. Power that not too many people are born with. You are trying to merge your HP theories with Dresden. I know you don't like the idea of magical cores, and magic as a quantifiable energy, but this is a big part of DF magic and you can't disregard it. What separates Harry, Elaine, and the other powerful wizards in DF from the minor occultists is that they were born with a certain amount of magical power/potential. Dresden for example has quite a lot of power, but is more of a brute and lacks the subtlety needed for precise magic, hence his lack of veils.

 

Yes, there is quantifiable magical power in Dresdenverse. But that is partly my point. In HP there is a Muggle/Wizard divide - either you're one or the other. In Dresden, the only difference between wizards and normal people is that they're all on different levels of a single sliding scale: anyone could do the spells, were they were further up the scale. In HP there is no such scale.

 

Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, Butters was able to create a circle to protect himself. Could be that HP magic is purely genetic, while DF magic is...spiritual? Everyone can use it. Don't really know how to classify DF magic.

 

True. HP it's all or nothing. You are either a wizard or your not. I like your scale metaphor. That seems like a pretty apt description of DF magic.

 

I like the new chapter, the Harry-Elaine interaction is really well done. This whole story is a good example of how to do a badass Harry without doing Harry Sue or SuperHarry.

Just a minor comment on the DF magic system--it's not exactly a D&D style "magical core" thing. Wizards have a varying level of ability to channel magic, they don't carry around varying levels of power. You can see this when Dresden was trapped in a circle (Summer Knight, I think) and only has access to his personally generated magic, he knows he will die if he uses it.

Also, DF "muggles" can personally direct magic and cast spells as long as some other person or thing handles the power channeling (rituals), so the sliding scale is a good analogy.

 

Rituals in DF seem to be 'will-powered' while spells take actual magical ability. Dresden likened ritual magic to a vending machine: anyone can do it as long as you can pay the price. The trick is learning how to do the ritual and performing it properly. Of course botching the ritual usually lets loose some horror from the Never-Never. Dresden mentioned that one of the White Council's mandates is to keep the knowledge of these rituals out of 'civilian' hands.

 

Well, actually, they give them out (I think). Because one entity (no matter where they come from) can't power a million ritual's.

 

About the chapter, I really liked it, especially the soulgaze part. Didn't like Harry-Lily interaction much, but it's only because I hoped for HP vs. Venatori arc.

 

Just because Lily and Harry have patched things up for now... doesn't mean it will stay that way. They can still hate each other, if the plot calls for that.

I felt it was unrealistic to leave them as enemies so soon though. If they come to fight each other, I think, the rift between them will need to be stronger than Jame's prejudice and Harry's impulsive response to his parent's betrayal.

Good chapter.

 

Dang Aukunen, I had forgotten about that bit. You know that almost seems like purposeful entrapment. Yeah, most people aren't going to get anything but every now and then someone has to get a ritual to work correctly. Then the Warden's come along and cut your head off for dealing with demons or something.

I still think there was mention somewhere that some materials were kept out of the public. Sounds like an excuse to re-read the series.

 

Jearom if I remember right (which I think I do) during Fool Moon there was that Practicioner (sp?) who came to Harry asking about the greater circles. Harry told her that she didn't need to know anything about circles of that size/type because they were only for trapping the really big nasties out there and that was too dangerous for her to be messing around with.

 

I was thinking of how the rituals took on the personality of the person performing it, which to me suggested that they had some hand in directing the magic. On further reflection, though, I believe rituals actually require at least a little magical ability, as one of the plot points was that one of the villains concealed her ability from Dresden. I think anybody can feed money into the cosmic vending machine, but you need some magical ability to push the button.

It's a little hard to piece together the DF system, since we frequently see that Dresden is strong magically (car-flipping, Sue, etc.), but then he runs into people who massively outclass him more on skill level than strength. Anyways, Harry's lucky he ran into Elaine instead of Dresden, since besides being easier on the eyes she also is stronger on the skill end of the skill/power tradeoff.

 

Bwh! the whole theory between the two magic system can go either way. It doesn't really matter much since it's irrelevant.

Anyway, the chapter was aswome. Love the interaction between harry and his mom as well as the other chick. Couldn't have gone any better.

Can't wait for more.

 

Awesome new chapter Water Mage, I loved the Dawn is Aurora twist.

 

Eh, who's Dawn? Was she someone earlier in the fic that I've forgotten?

Other than my confusion at the end, very good chapter indeed. Even better for having read Summer Knight a few days back.

 

She was a chick Harry banged last chapter.

 

Edit; nevermind, question about who Dawn is has already been answered.


I'm curious about how this will play out. Considering he's already banged her, repeatedly no less, that's bound to be a tad awkward right there. And the Fae never do anything without reason which brings up the question of what her angle in all of this is.

 

Ah, the girl he banged. Yeah, I skimmed that bit. Was more interested in the Potters at the time.

Perhaps Harry told her his full name while they were together. Perhaps she just wanted to get a look at him. Perhaps she's pregnant with his firstborn.

We'll just have to wait and see.