Summary: Inspired by Pottermore's description of Ollivander. Follows the man through his life from a boy all the way up to his death. One-shot.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The Tale of A Wandmaker
Ever since Garrick was young he knew what he wanted to be. Like his father and his father before him and so on, he wanted to be a wand maker. There was something about the right mixture of just everything that just got him into a frenzy. Apprenticing under his father he learned of many kinds of woods and that just about anything could be made into a wand. But not everything made a good wand.
He decided this when he was young as he watched his father wrestle a kelpie for this commission he got from a rich noble woman. Perhaps he could limit his wand cores to something that wasn't as lethal and dangerous to collect as Kelpie hair.
He studied abroad from many years, collecting many different kinds of woods, and finding the most powerful potential wand cores. Garrick traveled to many countries, excited by all of them. It was while he was abroad that he met the woman that would one day be his wife. They married and had two wonderful children. One boy and one girl.
Despite having a family, it didn't stop him from pursuing his love of wand making and made several hundred before his eldest child even turned five. Not all of the wands would be best suited, and some of the core would disagree violently with the type of wood. He started to catalogue which wood went well with which core, and what size they needed to be for perfect balance. The size was definitely the most important. You could have the most powerful core suited perfectly with the best wood that would go with it, but if you messed up the proportions even slightly then it was useless.
By the time his son had turned ten he started to show an interest in his line of work and would often watch him as he experimented on new woods, or finding new cores. He was thrilled that he would be able to pass down the family business to the boy. Garrick would talk animatedly to the boy who would nod his head in excitement.
When both of his children where in Hogwarts, his father passed on. Leaving him in charge of the family business. It had been a rainy day at the proceedings, his mother had already passed on earlier so that left him to continue what the Ollivander family strived for. Which was excellent wand making. He moved to Diagon alley above his shop, the children and his wife were at first adverse to the idea, but ended up enjoying to live in town.
With his research that he compiled over the years he revolutionized how wands were made. People from all over the country came to buy his wands, and a decade or so later, all over the world. Other wand makers would take something dear, or of value and make that a core to the wand. But he didn't do it that way. He made every wand with the correct proportion. He could tell what equaled what and so forth. If you gave him a wood type he could list hundreds of possibilities for that particular wand off the top of his head.
It was why his wands were the best.
Both of his children made their own wands, of course under his watchful eye. And Garrick was thrilled that both of them seemed to have such a keen interest in wand making. Both graduated from Hogwarts a few years later, and like their father before them they traveled.
Garrick was hoping that his son would come home and learn from him so that he could have a proper successor, but the boy simply would not stay still. He was alright with that, he was the same way after all. His son would eventually settle down and then come back home and work more with wand making,
His daughter however seemed to marry so quickly, and it wasn't long before the entire family gathered for her marriage to the Lovegood family. It was a wonderful affair, and she was pregnant by the end of the year with what would be a daughter. However, all good thing, don't last. And with great and unbearable grief, he daughter died in a potions accident. She was very talented witch, and she did love her experiments. It grieved him to know that she had inherited that from him. A trait from him that had gotten her killed. It had been horrible.
A parent should never had to bury their own children.
If there was a good thing to come out of it, his son finally came back home, ready to learn from him and to become proficient in wand making.
The two worked with each other for a couple of years, before he was abroad again. Out to search for unknown materials to bring back to experiment with. Garrick had forbade him to do any experimenting without him. His heart couldn't take it if he had to bury both of his children. Last he heard of the boy was that he started up his own little wand shop out in Hogsmead. More of a repair shop, a place where the Hogwarts students could take their broken wands, and be fixed. He demanded that he put in a floo where the two of them were always connected if he ever needed any help.
He didn't often visit the rest of his family, his wife still beside him. She was all he ever really needed. So most of the time he was holed up in his shop experimenting on various woods and making wands all day. Of course that was when he didn't have a customer. He always loved matching a wand to a wizard. Always loved the challenge of guessing what kind of person would go good with what kind of wand.
It was an interesting game that only he, and perhaps his son knew how to even play. But the boy hardly bothered with such trifles, content with just repairing damaged wands.
His most interesting game would had to have been finding one Harry Potter's wand. It had taken nearly an hour, and his anticipation rose with each rejected wand. He knew he wouldn't be disappointed and he was right. Curious it was, that fate would play out that way. He lunched with his son and wife that afternoon recounting his adventures to the now clearly aging boy, who just laughed along, his wife however just smiled contently saying how wonderful it was to be all together again.
A wonderful thing indeed.
She passed away two years later, leaving only him and the boy. Garrick was starting to become sad, and told his son that he better not be thinking of dying anytime soon.
He was called in to be the wand judge at the tri-wizard tournament, and he had felt honored. It was the first time in Ollivander family history that Ollivander was called to judge wands. He, out of everyone in Britain. It was truly and honor. He celebrated with his son later.
A year later, his bachelor of a son finally met someone and finally settled down. A wonderful woman, if he said so himself. She worked in Hogsmead as well, so the two of them could easily find living arrangements. He was happy that his son had finally found the one. And was overjoyed to attend their wedding. However he had yet to, as he was kidnapped a year later, a few months before the planned matrimony.
Voldemort, a name he once was able to just say as any other, now made him shudder. He had endured countless horrible crimes against humanity while held captive. But something did come out of it. Companionship. If he had never been kidnapped by Voldemort for questioning on the Elder Wand, he would have never met his daughter's daughter.
Garrick had been devastated to realize exactly what he was missing. He often forgot that he would get caught up in his own work, and forgot family. The two of them, while being held captive for the better part of a year, formed a unmatched friendship. He enjoyed to listen to everything that she had to say, and was ashamed when she mentioned his son, to her, her uncle. Apparently he visited pretty often, he was ashamed that he had never done so in the past.
They were saved by the curious Harry Potter, and his friends and house elf. And taken to a sea cottage. His condition wasn't good, and eventually he was able to get into contact with his son, whom he entrusted his all of his resources too. The boy had come to him lighting fast. Holding his hand as he recovered. It was a miracle that he did.
Hundreds, if not thousands of wands were destroyed. His life's work. His entire shop, which had been standing for centuries was burned to the ground. He couldn't even count how many times he wept. He moved in with his son, and his expecting wife in a secluded cottage. Much like the sea cottage. It was hidden and placed out of the way.
There he started to build up from the wreckage. Teaching everything he knew to the boy, the two set off to try and achieve what took Garrick his entire lifetime. In that time, his son's son was born, and soon enough they had another wand maker to help them.
Later that year, Voldemort had finally been destroyed and they were able to go back out into the public without being afraid of being murdered. Diagon Alley was all but destroyed, but foundations for a new ally was being laid, and shop owners started renovation on their shops and people began to trickle back into the alley.
Garrick with the help of his son, rebuild Ollivander's, and he insisted that the family move directly above the shop as they did. He wanted to pass on the shop to his son, when he passed. And he wanted his son to pass it onto his son. He knew that his boy would do it too. After all, he was an Ollivander.
Garrick passed away a couple years later. His son taking up Ollivander's and rebuilding the stock. If Garrick had been alive, he would have been proud of his son, making wand after wand, the exact same way that he did, matching the wand to the wizard.
Garrick Ollivander had lived his long life, and had seen many things that most ought not too. But he truly left a mark on the world's most accomplished figures.
A/N: Wrote this a few months ago, and decided to upload it mostly for a friend to read. Was heavily inspired by Pottermore's description of Ollivander that was unlocked. Go check that site out if you haven't already.