The Boy and the Bowtruckle
Summary: On their tenth birthday, every Ollivander makes a new friend. They also learn a family secret: behind every great Ollivander, there has always been a great bowtruckle.
Written for Event 3 of the 2014 House Cup – Prompt #1
Rating: 12+
Genres: General
Warnings: No Warnings
Major Characters: Ollivander, OC
Pairings: None
CHAPTER 1: Companion
There was still fog in the air on the morning of young Garrick Ollivander's tenth birthday. Just after eating a tidy meal of scrambled eggs and bacon along with a refreshing glass of his mother's homemade apple juice, his father pulled him aside suddenly.
"Come Garrick," he beckoned with a sharp whisper, extending a long, thin finger from inside his study.
The small boy with chestnut hair dutifully complied, stepping across the threshold into the room he had come to know so well over his years of private tutoring. The musty smell of the ancient tomes lining the room's many bookshelves enveloped him almost immediately. As he sat though, he was surprised to find none lying open on the desk. Normally his father never missed an opportunity to peruse an ancient Roman or Grecian text, seeking as always some hidden property of a particular type of wand core or a reference to a new combination of core and wood. Even at his tender age, Garrick was already more well-versed in wandlore and the intricacies of wandmaking than most witches or wizards would be in their lifetime.
As he raised his head upward, he could see his father's eyes focused on him with a strange intensity.
"Today is an important day," his father began. "To give you more than the directions you will require would be to violate our covenant, but you must do as I tell you. Do you understand?"
"Yes, father," Garrick said simply. How else could he respond?
"Good. When you leave my study, enter our forest by your favorite path. Walk off the trail, fifty paces past your favorite patch of alders and turn right. Through the trees, you should make out a large boulder covered in moss. Walk towards it and your path will be illuminated."
Garrick nodded.
"Go, my son!" his father urged. "There is no time to waste!"
The young boy rose and set off to follow the instructions. As he was about to leave the room, his father called out for him.
"Garrick!"
"Yes?" he asked, turning his head back toward the desk. His eyes went wide with shock and nervousness as he saw his father's wand aimed firmly at him.
"Vox ligna," the elder Ollivander said simply and to no apparent effect before sending him away once more with a dismissive hand gesture.
Some thirty minutes later, young Garrick had reached the rock. He had of course seen it many times before in his romps through the forest. He had climbed on it, sat on it, even scraped his knee on it. As if his father's instructions hadn't been strange enough, they had ascribed some special significance to it which he had never witnessed for himself.
He looked around curiously. He was supposed to start some journey here? His father was not a playful man; Garrick wondered if perhaps he hadn't forgotten to wrap his present. Was this all some ruse so his mother could smuggle in an extra gift?
Suddenly he heard the noise in the forest rise. Though he was well-acquainted by now with the call of the local birds and even how deafening a stiff wind blowing through the many leaves could be, this sound was altogether different. It was a distinct humming interspersed with an occasional chittering noise that sounded almost like a strange whisper.
As he paid more attention to the sound, he realized it was not all-encompassing like the rustling of the leaves. It seemed to emanate from an area to his left and though there was no path, something compelled Garrick to seek its source. Over the ensuing hour he strode on, fording tiny streams and stepping over fallen branches. Finally, when he felt he could walk no further, the noise suddenly stopped.
Garrick found himself in a strange little clearing. Carved out in the middle of the deep woods, it had apparently been created, at least in part, by the presence of an enormous English oak. As he approached the tree, the noise returned in full force as loud as he had ever heard it, yet as soon as he withdrew some distance, it ceased. He looked about, shifting from foot to foot.
Gradually, the chittering resumed, but this time, it coalesced unbelievably into words.
"You are an Ollivander?" the voice questioned.
"Yes," he nodded fearfully, casting his eyes downward.
"Fear not young one," it soothed. "We mean you no harm."
"We?"
"Yes. Today is a special day for us. As it is for you."
"My father said today was important too."
The voice fell into a high-pitched screech and Garrick quivered.
"Our apologies," it offered shortly before a brief spate of screeching again. "Our laugh has always frightened your kind."
"Why is today important?"
"Because young Ollivander…today we become one again!"
Without warning a small brown creature that looked something like a large insect emerged from a hole in the tree, shaking nervously.
"You're a…a bowtruckle…" the young boy started. "Then you…you've all been talking together?"
The screeching rang out louder than ever.
"Your name for our kind amuses us. This is Wyldreek. He will be your counsel-guide."
"My what?"
"You are to be a wandmaker like your father are you not?"
"I've not even got a wand yet–"
"But one day?"
"I think so, yes," Garrick admitted.
"Then you will need Wyldreek's guidance. He will teach you many things your kind do not understand. How do you think your father has gained knowledge surpassing the books he keeps?"
"I…he has a–"
"He cares for one of us as well. As did his father before him…and on down your family's generations."
"But why us?"
"From a long time ago, your family has been different from the others. The ones who claim whole trees…whole forests without need. We tried for many hundreds of your years to stay more silent, to retreat deeper into solitude. But millions of us were lost as we fled. So we taught one of you long ago how to hear us. We promised then that if they would protect our trees, our kind from…the others…they would be rewarded. It is a covenant. One of you cares for one of us and likewise the one of us you care for will care for you in return."
"What–"
"Worry not. Take Wyldreek. Talk to your father. All will be explained."
Immediately the voice went silent, leaving the awkward pair in the clearing alone. Carefully, Garrick reached down and stretched out a hand.
Wyldreek crawled up slowly, resting on the boy's shoulder.
The journey back was incredible. True to his family's word, Wyldreek was a found of knowledge. Since Garrick had been reluctant to speak, the creature had begun volunteering bits of information on its own. Apparently mossy wood from a magical tree was not ideal even after cleaning. The dampness required for the moss to grow made the wood weaker, compromising its purity and usefulness. He had also learned that despite sharing the same type of wood trees could be remarkably different. Those that grew closer to bodies of water had their magic influenced by higher water content while those growing in rocky or otherwise mineral-rich soil absorbed those strengths.
"Wyldreek," Garrick began as they neared home, "do you want to be my companion?"
"It is not my place to choose. That is for my forest family."
"It doesn't make you unhappy to be separated from them?"
"I was raised as a young ga'leb to expect a different life. I had a deeper vision and was the right age when the whispers came that you were born. It was natural I was selected. I have prepared many years for it."
"A ga'leb?"
Wyldreek screeched quietly. "Our name for ourselves."
"Much more stately," Garrick nodded. "Still, you were nervous when you came to me…"
"Until that moment, the tree was life. Not all we know, but all we can trust beyond others of our kind. Then I truly had to trust the covenant."
"Do you? Trust the covenant?"
"I am honor bound. Time will tell whether the binding remains wise, but your family has honored it well for many generations."
Garrick smiled.
"Then we'll both make sure you never regret it."
A/N: When I saw the prompt it immediately made me want to write about a creature-human connection, but one that avoided creatures we already know a lot about. Ollivander's special talent for wandmaking and the longevity of his family in that trade made me turn to this. I hope you enjoyed it! I'd love your feedback either way!
For those interested, vox ligna is Latin for "the voice of the trees."