Author's Note:

My very first Fanfic, I've read a lot of stories on this site and I thought it was time to post something of myself.
I think my writing style is decent enough, but I'm still developing it. I've chosen a 1st person perspective for this story simply because some of my favorite stories are written in 1st person mode. 'The Lie I've Lived' comes to mind.

What always annoyed me about the Harry Potter series was that there were so many events that should have inspired Harry to learn at an accelerated level. First book, sure I can understand Harry doesn't take action after his first year in school. But after having to kill a Basilisk with a sword? Yeah, I would have either started studying my ass off to get stronger and defend myself or I would have ran away from the wizarding world with a suitcase filled with gold.

Now this story is something that's been running through my mind for some time, I wanted a believable, advanced yet relatively easy to understand Magic system. Magical Affinities was my answer to this problem. I'll explain my motives for my different choices in an AN at the bottom of the story.

Don't forget to review/follow/favorite or whatever you want :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

The first time I came off my high of pain-relieving potions after the entire Chamber of Secrest fiasco I almost cried my eyes out.

Seriously, this was the 8th or was that the 9th time I almost died? Hold that thought, I need to count this out real quick.
Voldemort at age 1, Fluffy, troll, 1st quidditch game, Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, Fluffy, Devil's Snare, logic puzzle with decent chance on poisoning, Quirrelmort, Whomping Willow, Acromantulas, Lockhart with a wand and a direct confrontation with a 60 foot long Basilisk ends the list.
That's thirteen times I almost died! That's the more then my bloody age!

And want to know the sad thing? I never knew a single spell that could help me, not a single time.
As Ron puts it, am I a wizard or not? Hermione used that flame spell on the Devil's snare, Ron used the levitation charm to knock out the troll. But me? I jumped on a troll's back and stuck my wand in its nose, I went ahead and brawled against a fully grown wizard who still had his wand and I fought a Basilisk with a sword.

It was at this moment that I realized I had to learn how to defend myself, because let's be honest here, I am a pathetic excuse for a wizard.

So that's the reason why I'm on my way to the library right now. I need a summer project, something to study during my 2 month break. Something I can use to become stronger so that I can actually use magic to protect myself.

The library of Hogwarts is truly a thing of beauty, thousands upon thousands of books filled with magical knowledge. I never understood why Hermione loves this place so much, but now I can see it.

First things first, my electives for next year, Care of Magical Creatures is a given, I've faced a dangerous magical beast multiple times a year so far.

Now Ron wants me to pick Divination for an easy O.W.L. but then again, McGonagall swears the course is useless. Muggle Studies is useless for me, so that leaves Arthrimacy and Ancient Runes. Time to do some research!

It turns out that doing research is a whole lot easier than I expected, Madam Pince may be a bitch but she keeps the library in perfect condition.
Not all that much later I'm looking at 2 books, "A Comprehensive Introduction to Ancient Runes" and "Arthrimacy: A spell creator's basis".

...
Ancient Runes is the study of the script of old magical languages and just like Latin these languages hold great power. In this branch of magic the saying "the pen is mightier than the sword" is true. Every single rune holds great power that often greatly exceeds Latin spells.

The runes you will learn in this branch of magic can be used for a variety of things, the most known use is warding. But for the truly talented this is just the beginning, if you have an affinity for Runes and a sufficiently large magical core you can write these runes in the air and use their effect directly like normal spells.
...
Ancient Runes looks like it might be worth looking into, I don't know much about wards, but I do know they are used to defend a location. But the bit about affinities has me puzzled, I know my wand is good for Defensive magic. Is that an affinity? Damn, now I want to know what affinities are. But I guess I should look at "Arthrimacy: A spell creator's basis" first.

...

Arthrimacy is the usage of numbers to explain magical phenomena, each and every spell has its origin in a Arthrimacy formula. The wand movement and power are defined by the use of Arthrimacy.

This is done by advanced mathematics, for example the formula for the Lumos spell :
...

Oh hell no, I left math back with my muggle life, I am not going to do advanced mathematics in Hogwarts. Well, that solves that problem, Care of Magical Creatures and Ancient Runes it is.
Now to look for a book on affinities.

As it turns out there isn't a single book on affinities in the Hogwarts library, well at least not in the normal section. So naturally I immediately took out my invisibility cloak and headed into the restricted area. Seriously, they need to get some better security for that door.

The restricted area is a figurative gold mine, only a couple of minutes after I started searching I found "Fundamentals of Affinities" by Brian W. Percival.

...
An affinity in its most basic form is a branch of magic in which a wizard excels. More often than not this is confused with the strength of a wand, so if a wand which excels at Transfigurations and Charms chooses a wizard this wizard will have an affinity in both Transfiguration and Charms.
This isn't correct, a wand chooses a wizard for a variety of reasons and even I don't know all of them, however I do know that it has nothing to do with affinities.

Affinities aren't limited to wand magics like Transfiguration, curses, hexes and charms.
Potions, Alchemy, Spell-Creation, Rituals and numerous other magics can be affinities as well. Now you are probably wondering what it means to have an affinity, what effect will the affinity have on your magic? The answer to this is simple, you won't have a ceiling on your skill involving these magics. As long as you practice and study you will be able to keep growing in your respective affinities where others will hit a so called 'cap'.

A prime example of this is Nicholas Flamel with his Philosopher's Stone. If I were to do the exact steps for the creation of the stone, written by mister Flamel himself I would only get an inferior copy. And I have a minor affinity for Alchemy myself. Mr. Flamel's innate magic is so strongly attuned to Alchemy that his magic will come to his aid subconsciously to complete his work. The same is true for every other possible affinity, you will use less power for the same result, your work will show more details, your spells will be more powerful and so on.

Other affinities include but are not limited to: Elemental spells, Raw magic manipulation, Dark Curses, Illusions, Magic Reinforcement, Speed-Casting and Enchanting.
...

So as it turns out affinities are basically amazing, this Brian guy really knows how to explain something. Now all that's left is to find out my affinities and I have my summer project. The problem is that affinities seem to have fallen out of grace 200 years ago in favour of a more widespread education. So figuring out my affinity might be harder than I thought. According to Brian you can only find out your affinities in Gringotts or by the use of an expensive gadget these days. Getting to Gringotts won't be easy during my summer, and the gadget seems to be rather rare.

I'm rather pissed that I can't take this book with me, it's so helpful! But the charms on the books in the restricted section prevent me from taking them out of the area without the permission of Madam Pince. I guess I should go talk to a professor and see if they can help me out with my affinity but which one will help me? Dumbledore seems like the best choice but then again, he's the headmaster and most likely busy. On the other hand I still know the password of his office, and he did say his door is always open for me. Ah well, you snooze you lose, Dumbledore it is.

I will admit that I am rather stressed at the moment, walking up that spiralling staircase to see the greatest wizard in the last 100 years can do that to a person. Yes I know I see him daily, but still, this is in his office, and I always feel like I'm in trouble when I'm in there. All the portraits, a mythical phoenix and a sentient hat staring at you make you really stressed out! And that's without the Headmaster sitting across of you.

Okay, relax, exhale deeply and knock on th "Come in Harry" Bloody hell, how does he do that.
I open the door and go in, and every single portrait starts looking straight at me! Merlin, that's annoying.

"Well, hello Harry, what can I do for you?" The old man says to me.

"Sir, I was wondering if I could ask you something?"

"You just did Harry" He chuckles
Okay, even I saw that one coming. Now for the big question.

"I've been reading a bit about different kinds of magic to defend myself with, since I seem to attract danger and I read something about affinities. I was wondering if you could help me figure out what affinities I have" Okay, perfect, tilt my head down and look up with my puppy-eyes, that should do the trick!

He chuckles, again! "Ah, I wondered what set of the Restricted Section's alarm this time." Oh, I guess that explains the chuckle. "Well, you are in luck Harry, I am one of the few wizards who still own a M.A.T." My facial expression must have betrayed my confusion because he immediately explained. "M.A.T. stands for Magical Affinity Tester, it identifies your affinities with the help of a blood test and a frequency scan of your magical core" He hands me a silver dagger, a bowl and a joystick? Why would I need a joystick? Again the confusion must have been coming off me in waves. "Make a cut on your palm and let the blood flow into the bowl, 5 drops will do. Once you've done that grasp the antenna with both your hand and relax, the machine will drag out a sample of your magic"

Having your magic sucked out of you is a weird feeling, I can't really describe it, but I'd rather not have that happen again. Immediately after I release the antenna, the blood in the bowl begins to shine brightly. Once the glow dies down there is a piece of parchment at the bottom of the bowl, the headmaster picks it up and his eyebrows rise at least half an inch. That might not seem that spectacular, but compared to his usual controlled facial expressions it's a big reaction.

"Euhm, sir? What are the results?" He's been looking at that piece of paper for over a minute now, I'm getting anxious over here!

"See for yourself Harry, you have some rare affinities, it is rather impressive"

M.A.T. 1.67.1

Harry James Potter

Magical Affinities:

-Raw Magic Manipulation

-Runes

-Elemental spells: Lightning

Magical Strength- Emrys scale:

142 - Upper Wizard Class

"As you can see, you have some rather rare affinities. By itself your Runes affinity is common but if you combine it with your rather high magical power you will gain access to runic spells in a couple of years, which is a valuable skill for both Duellists and Warders. Elemental affinities are a step above the normal affinities, your lightning based spells will gain a boost but more importantly you will be able to do minor wandless feats off this magic branch.

"Raw Magic Manipulation on the other hand is one of the rarest affinities. Speed-casting is considered just as rare, and only a high Alchemy affinity is rarer.
Now, Raw Magic Manipulation allows for a number of feats all of which are done without a wand. You can manipulate your magic to take corporal form, be it a shield, an orb which you launch at your foes or a simple mass banisher."

Oh, this is amazing, never again will I be forced to put my wand in a Troll's nose, never again will I be forced to dive in a basilisk's mouth to try and kill it. But answers never come without questions, because what in the world is the Emrys scale?

Dumbledore is a good guy, instead of giving me detention for breaking into the Restricted area (again), he gave me "Fundamentals of Affinities" and "The Emrys scale: Magical Might Explained". For some reason he found it incredibly amusing that I praised Brian W. Percival so much, I guess he's an old acquaintance of the headmaster.

"Fundamentals of Affinities" has a chapter dedicated to each affinity and how to train them and apparently wandless magic can't be traced by the ministry so I can practice my RMM as much as I want! And of course the wandless aspect of my lightning affinity.

The Emrys scale really explains a lot of oddities about the magical community, why start school at the age of eleven? It seems such a random number, as it turns out 11 is the average age at which the magical core of a witch or wizard stabilizes enough to be used with some manner of control, before that point a wand will simply explode or catch fire because of the uncontrolled magic.

From the age 11 to 15 a wizard goes through a slow magical growth during which the magical core increases by roughly 100%. So the O.W.L's happen right after this growth. Before the age of 15 a lot of wizards simply don't have the strength to complete their practical O.W.L's.

From the age 15 to 17 wizards hit their magical growth spurt, and their core increases with 150% till 200%, so you can take your N.E.W.T's at your magical peak and find a job which suits your potential.
The classes are the following:

0 = Muggle

1-10= Squib

11-50= Adept: This class is what most 1st years belong to, you can use spells but don't expect to pass your N.E.W.T's. Most wizards grow out of this stage around their 16th birthday, halfway through their growth spurt.

51-150= Wizard/Witch: The average wizard will be somewhere in this class, N.E.W.T.'s are passable.

151-250= Sorcerer: A minimum requirement for Curse-Breakers and Warders, high ranking Aurors sit in this class as well.

251-500= Warlock: The best and strongest Aurors, Curse-Breakers and warders will often belong in this category, they have the raw power to put down most criminals and break down a lot of curses compared to the normal wizard and wards build by a Warlock won't be taken down on a whim.

500-750= Mage: You don't fuck with Mages, yes a capital M, there have only been 2 mages in Britain in the last 100 years, care to guess who? Yep, Dumbledore and Voldemort are both mages with 624 and 687 respectively. Grindewald was also a Mage, scoring a respectable 552. But he never came to Britain. Nicholas Flamel also belongs to this category with a score of 529.

750-999= Arch-Mage: There has never been more than one Arch-Mage alive at the same time, right now the only living Arch-Mage is somewhere in the jungle of Brazil. Luckily enough he isn't a Dark Lord.

1000= Myrddin Emrys, or as we know him today, Merlin.

I must say, today has been more productive for my education then the last 2 years combined. I know which jobs I have enough magical strength for, looks like I'll be at least a warlock. I figured out which elective classes I'm going to take and I got a book to train my affinities with.

Now all I have to do is withstand Hermione's questions and Ron's moaning about Divination. Sweet Merlin, this is going to take a while. Or I just hide "Fundamentals of Affinities" and "The Emrys scale: Magical Might Explained", because otherwise I'll lose my books before the summer even begins.

So far it looks like I might have an enjoyable summer this year, it's not like anything can go wrong, right?

An: So, Magical Affinities. I rather enjoy this concept, it isn't like some fics where only Harry gets insane skills, like parselmagic, or multi Animagi or shadow magic or whatever else you use to overpower Harry.

I enjoy those fics, I really do, but after a while all those stories blur together.

In this story Harry doesn't have more power than Voldemort, he probably never will. He'll reach a 650 or something like that on the Emrys scale, I haven't decided yet. His affinity isn't the rarest or the most powerfull, no Speed-Casting ( both Flitwick and Voldemort will have this) is just as rare. Alchemy is even rarer.

Now please note I never said something about strength, an affinity for Dark Magic might be more common then an elemental affinity but they are not comparable in strength. Each branch of magic has its own strengths and weaknesses, and even I haven't decided on the strength of each affinity compared to the others.

Only Alchemy stands above the others, you probably wonder why though. Turning metal into Gold isn't strong, just extremely convenient, the same with the Elixer of Life.
But Alchemy is so much more then just that, it is an overpowered version of transfiguration and the Philosopher's Stone is the best Magical Focus in the world, the Elder Wand will simply be a wand that is good at every branch of magic.

I will expand upon this in future chapters, but if you have questions, suggestions, compliments or criticism please review and let me know.

If you have criticism, please try to word it so I can learn from my mistake, if you hate it, tell me why and tell me what I can improve :)