Disclaimer: All recognizable characters/places are owned by J.K. Rowling and her publishers, and I do not claim ownership over them or their world. No copyright infringement is intended; this piece leads to no financial gain and it is written for the purpose of personal enjoyment and skill development.
Draco Malfoy was scared of a dusty, worn out wooden door. It was an unusual door by all accounts; parts of it had been reduced to splinters on several occasions and yet it still stood. Although no amount of magic could take the old creaking noise out of it whenever someone pushed it open.
It was broad daylight on a simmering hot July day. The clock had ticked twelve o'clock exactly six minutes ago. Draco had chosen the hottest day at the hottest hour to run this very specific errand in hopes that the narrow street would be less crowded than its usual sardine-can standards.
With a heavy sigh, and a defeated glance sideways, he had to admit that his most brilliant plan had failed spectacularly. It wasn't the first plan to go down the drain in a thunderstorm either. Draco knew all about failed plans – it didn't take the sting out of it, though.
A pair of old witches walked right past him, still standing with one foot inside the shop and one on the pebbled street, not bothering to lower their voices or hide the fact that they were judging him.
"Oh dear, isn't that the Malfoy boy? I saw his face on the Daily Prophet not two days ago; I still cannot believe his entire family isn't rotting in Azkaban. Tsk tsk tsk," the shorter (and definitely more rounded) witch said.
Her friend replied with a shake of her head that sent her ugly moss green hat askew. "Gold will get you anything nowadays. The ministry's being much too lenient. In my book, once a death eater, always a death eater."
And in my book, once an idiot, always an idiot. Draco thought grinding his teeth together until it hurt. With a heave, he pushed the old brass doorknob over and with his foot faltering for the slightest of seconds entered the scarcely lit room. At least it provided an escape from the incessant comments that followed him like a dog follows a bitch in heat.
"People will talk Draco; you must let them. The easiest way to tell a fool from someone actually worth your time is to watch what leaves their mouth," his mother would say. Draco could only agree – he didn't talk much nowadays, there just didn't seem to be enough people worth talking to.
That Greengrass brat seems intelligent enough; too bad she annoyed the living daylights out of him. He shook his head, amused at his own random train of thought.
The annoying chime of a bell somewhere above his head brought Draco back from la-la-land. The sound sent a shiver down his spine, and not for the first time did he wondered if there were still any Gregorovitch's out there willing to make him a wand.
His hand darted towards his pocket where his old wand laid. Potter had given it back to him only a few days ago, after his father got sentenced to six months in Azkaban and his mother and him got set free. The ecstasy of having his wand back had been quickly replaced with the crushing realization that the sodding thing didn't work.
He had trouble levitating a bleeding feather, for Merlin's sake.
The old shop looked eerily similar to what it had years past. It was, if possible, more worn out, however; the war hadn't been gentle on the infrastructure or the owner.
Draco shook his head, knowing well in advance it was futile. Now wasn't the time to let his thoughts get in the way – this was a simple business trip and he would treat it like one, dammit.
The next think he heard, were footsteps.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Malfoy," Draco could recognize that old, slightly decrepit yet curious voice anywhere. Swallowing a lump in his throat, he turned his attention to the old wand maker. Ollivander looked much the same, although food, daylight and lack of daily torture sessions sure had done wonders for his complexion.
The old man's blue eyes were narrowed, fixing Draco against the half-open door. "Would you mind closing the door? I'm afraid too much light hurts my eyes, they became too accustomed to darkness, you see."
Draco felt like stupefying himself, but he closed the door without a single word. A cloud of dust floated up and invaded his nose; he sneezed. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Mr. Malfoy?"
Draco took a deep breath, willing himself to hold steady –and his nose to ignore the itch he wanted to scratch. Slowly, he removed the wand from the inside pocket of his robe. He watched with apprehension as the old man winced and took an involuntary step back. Draco took a defiant step forward, his teeth grinding, and placed his old unicorn wand on the countertop.
The wand made an dead sound when it landed on the cold, hard wood.
"My wand, Ollivander. It won't work."
The wand maker approached him cautiously; Draco kept his hands strategically away from the wand. In the dim candlelight, he could glimpse scars on the man's face that had nothing to do with age.
He wanted to throw up. "It hasn't worked, not since-"
"Not since it changed its allegiance to Mr. Harry Potter," Ollivander finished. His blue eyes darted forward to meet Draco's cold gray ones. "Curious, if I recall this wand worked wonderfully for Mr. Potter. Once returned to its original owner, it should work just as well as before."
Draco nodded, bile rising slowly up his belly and into his dry mouth- not even his sodding wand preferred him over Saint Potter.
Ollivander grabbed the wand and held it between long fingers as he examined it closely. Draco began tapping his foot on the floor, releasing new dust bunnies into the suffocating air. He'd deal with the runny nose once he returned to the manor. It would give his mother something to do. "Well, Mr. Malfoy, it would seem your wand is dead."
He felt like snorting, or hexing the old man. Even muggle punching would work. He opted for staring at the wand maker with wide eyes and an open mouth. "Dead? How the bloody hell can it die? It's a bleeding piece of wood!"
Ollivander looked at him in a way that reminded Draco a little too much of his old Headmaster. It unnerved him. "Your wand's core, Mr. Malfoy, is made of unicorn hair," he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Draco urged him to keep explaining with a tense hand gesture. "Such wands are quite sentimental."
"You are telling me a hair and a piece of wood has feelings?" he stared at the wand the old man still held with a mixture of disgust and curiosity.
The wand maker nodded. "If the owner of a unicorn wand undergoes some extreme circumstances which… debilitate him" he nodded in Draco's general direction, "the unicorn hair can wither away," with its master, Draco though the old man forgot to say. That Ollivander would be sparing his ego hurt more than honesty would have. He welcomed honesty; it was refreshing like a new toy on his birthday.
Draco grabbed a nearby stool, and sat on it. He felt like someone had submerged him into the cold, black lake and allowed the Giant Squid to squeeze his intestines out of his eye sockets.
He had killed his sodding wand.
Why, wasn't this just bleeding perfect.
"So, it's true then," he said slowly, when he regained his voice. He sounded tiny to his ears. "I'm not worthy of carrying a wand, of doing magic. He was right all along." Father would have a fit when he found out.
If he found out, a little voice said.
He buried his face in his hands with a deep sigh, doing his best to ignore the short-lived look of pity that crossed the old man's face. What was public humiliation when you couldn't do magic?
"There is another way in which unicorn cores can die, however."
Draco's head snapped upwards faster than he could say Quidditch.
"Unicorn hair does not do well with dark magic. To force something so pure to commit an evil deed – it is just not right, Mr. Malfoy." Draco felt himself withering beneath the old man's stern gaze. Despite his age, Ollivander's eyes burned with enough fire to rival the Sun, and Draco was acutely aware that not all had been forgiven.
He really wished Voldemort hadn't finished off all of the Gregorovitch's.
"Well then, Mr. Malfoy," the old man continued after a long, awkward pause. "It would seem we need to find you a new wand," Ollivander was moving towards the back of the shop before Draco could mask his relief mixed with confusion away. The young wizard looked at his pale hands and questioned the sanity of his endeavour for the thirty-eighth time that day.
Ollivander returned carrying nine boxes of wands. Draco eyed them apprehensively. "Let's start with this one, shall we? Unicorn hair and Redwood, 11 and ¾ inches, pliable," Draco took the offered wand, his hand shaking. It was an ordinary looking wand, and as he waved it he could easily tell the magic was lacklustre. He put it back into the box without saying a word.
Ollivander tsked, but offered him a different wand. "Dragon heartstring and Cedar, 12 inches, relatively hard." Draco brushed his fingers over the slightly longer wand and raised a cocky eyebrow; Ollivander shot him an unreadable look, but Draco didn't bother to lift the bloody thing. "No, it won't do, will it? This one then, Unicorn hair, Hazel, 11 and 1/2 inches, rather sturdy. Give it a try."
And try he did. In fact, Draco tried eighty six wands, fifty seven of which were Unicorn Hair, twenty Dragon Heartstrings, eight phoenix feathers and even one sodding veela hair. And yet not a single wand worked the way it was supposed to.
Draco was ready to tear the place down. Ollivander's face, however, seemed to light up with every new failure and Draco couldn't help but wonder if the old man was doing this just to spite him.
"No, no and no," Draco said throwing the last wand on top of the ever-growing pile of rejects. His face was lobster red and he felt like his sanity was hanging by a very, very precarious thread. His composure had long gone, and his temper was as erratic as a malfunctioning bludger.
"Don't you have any wand that works, Ollivander?" he yelled, plopped himself on the stool and almost fell backwards.
If the damn thing breaks, I'll hex something – or someone, he thought before remembering that there wasn't a single wand in this entire shop that would work for him.
He felt like crying.
Perhaps he should take a break, lie down on the dusty floor and have an aneurism. They've been at it for hours – the sun would soon be setting, and Mother had expected him home four hours ago. If she hadn't contacted the department of missing persons by now, she would be doing so rather soon. Draco thought his blood vessels would explode if Potter found him in that stupid shop. Trying to get a wand.
"Certain things, Mr. Malfoy, take time – and they are usually the ones worth waiting for," Ollivander said, calmly shelving some of the tried-and-failed wands.
He wanted to scream. "What's the point? I think it is quite clear by now that no wand wants me!" He would have laughed or cried if it wasn't for the burning sensation in his throat; Draco felt like he was drowning. "I'm not worth owning a sodding wand. He was right after all," he finished, his voice dropping alongside his head.
Ollivander stared at the young man for quite some time before speaking, his voice losing all the hard edges of unforgotten anger. "If you believe that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was correct about his assessment of your character Mr. Malfoy, then you are giving a dead man power over you which does not belong to him."
Draco fixed his eyes on the floor, the dust had been altered by his constant footsteps.
"Tell me, Mr. Malfoy, what do you think of yourself?"
His head was flooded with adjectives, adverbs and words he frankly believed were quite old-fashioned – failure, coward, turn-cloak – but he settled for the least damaging of these. "Slytherin, Pureblood, Death Eater."
Ollivander pinned him down with his eyes. "Death Eater?" he all but whispered. "Why, Mr. Malfoy, I never thought you enjoyed being one."
Draco's belly felt full of flobberworms as regret and shame sunk in. "It wasn't a matter of enjoyment, old man. It was my duty, my privilege, my-" curse he wanted to continue, but realized he couldn't. He could feel the next word itching to be said, screamed if possible, but if Draco Malfoy had one good quality it was his superior self-control.
"Your privilege, Mr. Malfoy?" Ollivander said. "Tell me now, what did that privilege entail? What did it do for you?"
Oh you know, the usual, it destroyed me.
Draco shook his head to clear it from treacherous thoughts. He couldn't afford them. "I was chosen for it," he said instead, his voice sounding hoarser and weaker than he had expected. "I was the youngest of them all. It was my mission, he chose me because-"
"Because he wanted to see you fail," Ollivander finished. "You are many things Mr. Malfoy, but a fool is not one of them."
If the old man had kicked him in his privates with spiked shoes containing the cruciatus curse Draco would've felt much, much better. He entertained the thought of asking Hagrid if he could have one of his little monster eat him alive. Perhaps he'd be good monster-food; he must at least be good enough for that. "He said I couldn't do it – he knew I was a bloody, stinking coward," he snorted, half-laughing and half-crying, his chest constricting as his throat closed in on itself. "The bastard knew me better than I know myself- I couldn't do it- I couldn't kill the old man."
Draco felt trapped in a typhoon of his own making, emotions he never wanted to experience, and thoughts he thought he had buried eight feet under came rushing in with the force of a 100 mile per hour wind.
And it sucked.
"Was cowardice was froze your wand that night, Mr. Malfoy? Why I would've thought it was compassion."
Draco sneered. "Compassion? I am Draco Malfoy, you old man. I hate kittens and despise puppies and don't even get me started on bunnies!"
Ollivander raised an eyebrow challenging. Draco gritted his teeth together. "And yet your late wand had a unicorn hair core. No Death Eater, no real death eater, ever owned a wand with such a core."
"Perhaps I am a different type of Death Eater." Perhaps somewhere, I have a well-oiled, functioning heart.
It wasn't too much to ask for, was it?
The wand maker nodded distractedly as he pulled out a few more wands to try. "Yes, perhaps you are. Shall we try this one? Phoenix Feather, ebony, ten inches, springy." Draco extended his hand, but the old man smiled sardonically, withholding it. "You see, Mr. Malfoy. Even when we think we don't have choices, we do. Perhaps the time has come for you to accept that."
Draco sighed before grabbing the wand from the old man's decrepit hands. It was slender and; the wood was a dark rich colour and smooth to touch. It felt good. With his hopes up, he pointed it towards a piece of parchment and muttered a spell. "Incendio."
He watched with the fascination of a child in Honeydukes as the parchment burned down to ashes.
"It would seem, Mr. Malfoy, that you've found yourself a new wand."
oOo
"Draco dear, where have you been? You missed supper – I thought!" Narcissa said, chasing her only son across the manor's handsome living room.
Draco walked quickly, with the pace of a man with a purpose towards the kitchen. "Fret not, mother; it seems picking a new wand is harder than advertised," he said opening the tap and serving himself a glass of water.
His mother stood by the open door, her arms hanging limply on her sides. "Ollivander didn't give you any trouble, did he?" Draco almost cringed at the worry that laced his mother's words. Narcissa Malfoy shouldn't have to be concerned what other people did or thought and he, Draco Malfoy, would make sure that never happened again.
"And if he had, what could we do? He had every right to kick me out of his shop.."
"Then what took you so long?"
He sighed. "I told you mother," he planted a kiss on her cheek before walking past her. "Picking up a new wand is serious business."
Draco walked up toward his room, his left hand fingering the wand in his pocket and a lazy smile playing on his lips. He opened the door and closed it behind him, using the manual lock. Taking a deep breath, he pulled out his wand and walked toward his bookcase. His old school books, books he read as a child, and a few other familiar memorabilia were neatly stored there. Most of his father's old books and parchments depicting the Dark Arts or bigotry had been dutifully removed by ministry officials when he and his mother were allowed to return to their devastated home.
There was one book which hadn't been taken by the ministry; the fools had not deemed it a threat. But Draco knew better.
A sick grin crossed his pale lips as he grabbed the book, and moved it towards his desk. A ray twilight light coming through the window illuminated the title written in gold.A history of magical families.
Draco took in a deep breath, grabbed his wand with his right hand and said. "Incendio."
His lips curled in pleasure as he watched the book burn, one hideous page at a time. His wand never wavered. When it was nothing but ashes he made them disappear with a flick of his wrist, enjoying the tiny pulsations that coursed through his body as he performed magic .He carefully placed his new wand on his bed table with a smile.
Feeling like the weight of the world had finally been lifted from his shoulders; Draco decided to grace his mother with his presence. And perhaps grab some supper.
oOo
"Ebony is happiest in the hand of those with the courage to be themselves…. the ebony wand's perfect match is one who will hold fast to his or her beliefs, no matter what the external pressure, and will not be swayed lightly from their purpose."
-JK Rowling, Pottermore
Reviews and constructive criticism are much appreciated :)