Ollivanders was a rather untidy shop filled with numerous boxes of varying sizes, colours and states of wellness. Haphazardly strewn amongst the corners of the room it gave the impression that the shop owner was a hoarder of some description. This already mildly disturbing scene turned for the worse as papers were stacked high on the desk and looked near to falling all over the place... If it weren't for the flickering flames within the lantern lights I'd be considering this business otherwise abandoned and left to mildew.
Fortunately, or unfortunately; depending on who you asked, the notion that this business was merely sitting here for time was disproven by the head of stark white hair quickly shuffling in the back of the shop, searching for a box no doubt... Lun snickered at that particular thought as Galatea sniffed in displeasure, using her wand to scourgify the ambient dust around the room.
"The old man's gotten worse..." The lady murmured her displeasure as we awaited the owner's presence, his fingers gliding along oddly labelled boxes until stopping before a singular one. He tapped it a few times, opened it, and then nodded to himself while smiling. It seemed he had found what he wanted. Lun and I, however, were getting dreadfully bored by now and decided to vocalise our annoyance with a delicate cough. Which the man promptly ignored and vanished deeper into the library of old boxes.
"Hey!" Fingers clutched to our shoulder in an instant, a shiver rushing through our back as we flinched forwards and away from the touch. "H-hey...!" Turning in alarm, the figure of that very same owner stood before us with his billowy moustache and the bright golden eyes.
"Oh my, oh my... A Grindelwald! Fascinating!" His demeanour turned childish with excitement, his palms rubbing together in sheer expectation as his eyes glided over our body with a practiced ease.
"I never had the chance or opportunity to make a wand for your father... A powerful man he was that young Gellert. I hear he was more partial to my rival, though it was to be expected given the Germanic origins of your family." He stopped, seeing that we were holding our heart whilst trying to parse all the information he blurted.
"My apologies young lady, no, young lord...? Ah! Intriguing...! I see you will be a challenge already. Haha, I see I will have to pull out all the stops." He briskly rushed off without another words, scouring his boxes once again as we turned to Galatea who merely shrugged at our befuddled expression. "He's always like this" she said.
A few moments later, after we managed to recompose ourselves, he beckoned us forwards to the counter. Opening the box revealed a pale white wand with small swirling patterns in the handle and small dagger images arrayed around the point.
"Try this one my lord... Yew wood wand, dragon heartstring core, 9 1/2 inches..." We pulled it from its case and instantly felt a sickly sweet syrup fill our stomach. Giving it a small wave that 'syrup' washed out and exploded, an entire shelf of wands shooting out from their compartments all over the floor.
"No! No... Not this one..." He snatched it from our grasp and rushed off, putting it away before beginning his sleuth once more.
~You'd think he'd become poor with all the property damage that must occur...~
Smiling at Lun's statement I watched the man come back with another wand, this one being Holly, Phoenix Feather Core and 13 1/4 inches. We barely touched this one before flames started sprouting from the tip to curl back onto itself. The wand didn't like us at all.
This pattern continued for a good hour, Galatea having sat down for a nap half way in. Old people were definitely weird.
"Mmmm, perhaps, I shall have to make you a wand?" He stopped and stared into our eyes, his golden pupils scanning deeply into our souls whilst his magic focussed powerfully. His presence was wrong...
~He's like the True Dragons dad used to tell us about.~
I stopped everything and concentrated... Lun was right... Then just as I was about to dive deeper into that thought process, as if he knew what we were thinking, the man coughed aloud.
"Lord Lunaris and Lordess Solaris, if I could have you wait here whilst I go gather my materials? I need you to select your ingredients." He bowed and then ran off into the back of the shop, objects flying after him moments later as bangs and crashes resounded off of he dull stone blocks that made the foundation of the shop.
~How did he know our names?~
"Hmmm, more importantly, how did he know when to cut us off to stop us from continuing down a train of thought?"
Lun started humming again, much to my chagrin, but at least I had something interesting to ponder upon as we waited.
...
Half an hour after he had left us, an explosion resounded from below, a dull thud against the soles of our feet. What followed was perhaps the most eccentric display of giddiness that we'd ever witnessed; including when father got his hands on some esoteric magic from far away lands.
Ollivander was, head-to-toe, covered in varying glass bottles and wooden blocks. Magical animal parts hovered in the air around the old craftsman as a huge smile cracked his otherwise wizened face. His pace was fast but measured, small jaunty jumps taken after every single step. He looked more akin to an oompa-loompa mid-song than Britain's only wand crafter...
"I-" he paused to pour out all of the wooden blocks onto the counter, "have gotten all of the materials I will need you to check." He grasped all of the glasses strapped to his arms using an incarcerous spell and slowly splayed them out for our purview. Finally came the magical animal parts, their wet and dry conditions catering to a plethora of disturbing slapping sounds across the counter.
"What are we supposed to do?" A frown covered our face as Lun and I attempted to decipher how we were to chose.
"Ah! Merely hover your hand above the material and bathe it in your magic. You will know when to stop and when not to..." His tone was jovial and expectant, his act close to a child in the throws of obtaining his entertainment, so to speak.
Shrugging, me and Lun held our arm out and slowly willed the magic in our body outwards. Unlike how Ollivander expected however, our magic wrapped all of the ingredients at once, lifting those specific materials and compounds into the air to slowly rotate and trundle over to the shocked craftsman's callused hands. Shock sucked all words from him as he simply stood there agape, his eyes flickering between the materials and us.
~Flies could land on his tongue if he keeps that up.~
I rolled our eyes at my brother's comment whilst the wand maker simply grasped the materials hovering before him. His gaze was now firmly locked onto our own, his magic softening until it became nearly non-existent.
"Wonderful..." The word was wistful, wispy even. Whatever we had done had impressed him; a thing I'd learned to pick up on from my father's ally, Lord Abraxas of the Noble House Malfoy.
The man blinked after a few more moments and quickly scurried away, shouting about how the creation wouldn't take long now... We didn't believe him at all... And yet, when we turned to Galatea to see if she were wanting to go get some ice-cream she was fast asleep upon a conjured chair.
'I guess we're stuck waiting, again.'
~Hmmm, maybe you could take a look at that book o the counter?~
I sighed.
'Take over and go have a look, I want a break anyway.'
He did so, the body shifting into the masculine appearance in but a split second. Then our slimy, greedy, little, fingers deftly hoisted the singular book in the entire establishment into our grasp as Lun began devouring the information with an ungodly speed. If anyone were to be the poster boy for the phrase, 'knowledge is power', Lun would be the very first candidate.
Fortunately for my brother Ollivander took over two hours this time, the wand crafter having almost zero understanding of time; I was sure of it. He was done with the rather intriguing book on wand lore, the depth of the text on materials causing my brother to mutter within our mind as I once again slithered into the control seat.
Galatea had shifted in her sleep somewhat, now laying across the arm rests with a dopy look plastered upon her visage. This change was only punctuated by the resurgence of dust inside the building, a consequence of the earlier explosion. Someone could have heard the bloody wood creaking given the lack of anything happening... I did for a moment... Until the old bastard finally slipped back into the chamber with a semi-completed wand; the core still hovering in the air near the unique shaft of wood.
"Ah, ah! Just the people i wished to see! Come, come, come... I need you wash this core with your magic so that I can stabilize the materials." I went to ask a question but he almost hissed at me in urgency, something I'd rather not happen again. "Quickly! No time to hesitate!"
We, Lun had snapped from his consumption of knowledge, pulled upon our magical core as father had taught us and willed it forwards through our finger tips. Unlike previously where we were simply letting magic freely shower down upon the materials like a spring rain, now, we were condensing it into a cloud of sorts... An aura dad had called it.
Amazement shone in Ollivanders eyes, in equal measure to his urgency, as our aura battered into the strange core that hung before us. It shone like a star for an unexplainable fraction of a second, the material burning hotter than lava as Ollivander rolled his shoulders and hunched forwards, his own aura wrapping around ours and pressuring it to go even further beyond its current limits... To express us, to the focal core of our wand.
With a crooning creak and squeal of metal and wood, the entire room seemed to haze into mild heat waves as a multitude of magical colours sundered, awash, through the space. Galatea awoke at this moment as the haze hit her chair and vanished it. She slammed to the ground roughly, her startled cry punctuating the final hiss in the creation of our focus.
"AMAZING!" Ollivander's voice boomed through the shop as the wand whipped end over end into our hand, the entire room alighting with eldritch light. Sparks caressed our mind and embraced our body whilst the sensation of an ocean of magic slumped down into our core. The wand, had boosted our magical core by almost three hundred percent...
~Holy Sh-~
"It, Is it done...?" Lun's voice was blurred out by the loud inquiry of Galatea, her right hand rubbing her eyes as the other massaged her bottom. She had no idea what just happened with us and looked close to going back to sleep.
"Y-yes... Lord, Lordess... I can only say that you have brought me great joy today. Never have I created such a wonderful wand before. I'd- No, It is not fair to compare wands to one another..."
Lun snickered at the innuendo whilst I measured him carefully. He was genuine, if not slightly tired with the expenditure of magical energy. I couldn't blame him for that last part... Though it did beg to question what the wand was made of...
"If I could ask, Mr. Ollivander, what is the wand made of?"
He gaped in horror, his hand raising into a face palm. Genuinely, he looked horrified at a possible blunder.
"I-I must apologise, it is most rude of me to keep the details of a wand from the owner for this long..." I waved him off and inclined my head; asking him to continue on.
"Very well. Your wand is a dual cored wand of Basilisk ichor and Changeling Heartstring. With a wood and metal exterior; Elder Wood and Magical Orichalcum respectively; An especially powerful combination that expresses the fact that you are adaptable and are certainly going to be mighty. Finally, for the size, it is completely fluid. The second core, that of the changeling, allow this wand to morph into any size and even, perhaps, change form..."
~Wicked!~
'Indeed...'
Galatea just blinked a few hundred times in the span of a second and sighed deeply, her legs already taking her outside the shop.
"Just call out 'Rosier Mansion' at the flu, it'll take you home..." The door jingled behind her as she left us behind to marvel at our new wand. Of course Ollivander also used this time to examine it as well, asking for any final details to its exterior whilst the iron was hot.
We grinned.
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