Welcome back, dear readers, to "Infinity Keeps Me Alive"
Do you want to make a wand?
Wand-Lore
Ollivander's was just as dusty, wet and gloomy as ever. It would have send shivers down the spine of any first-year coming to get their first wand.
Harry gathered seven years' worth of Gryffindor courage and went deeper into the place, reaching for the reception desk.
"Good afternoon."
Seven years ago, Harry had jumped. He would deny until his fourth death that he had just done so again.
"Hello Mr. Ollivander."
The old man walked calmly toward Harry.
"Ah yes, yes, yes. I thought I'd see you soon Mr. Potter. You have..."
"My mother's eyes, I know."
The old wand-maker smiled weakly, taking a few more steps.
"It seems only yesterday she entered herself to buy her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, willow, perfect for charms. As for your father's..."
Mahogamy, eleven inches, more powerful and better suiting transfiguration. He remembered it, like everything he had ever heard about his parents.
"it was an eleven inches mahogamy wand, more powerful and excellent for transfiguration."
Ollivander took one last step. It was one too much for Harry's comfort as the man started to eye his scar, his face barely five inches from Harry's.
"I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it. Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful, especially in the wrong hands. Well, let's move on, there's no reason to live in the past."
Oh, if only he knew.
"Now, which is your wand-arm?"
Harry hold out his right arm. The measuring tapes immediately started to work on their own.
Silence stretched for a moment.
"Excuse me sir, but... what are you measuring exactly?"
Ollivander smiled widely.
"Nothing of importance."
Wh… what?
"I can't choose a wand for you, as wands choose their wizards, but it doesn't mean that I can't narrow down the options. The measurements in themselves are pretty much useless, but they allow me to see how one acts. Every twitch, every word you say, every look you give in this shop is like a personality test. In the end, I'm only matching your own actions with the wands' attributes."
Well, that was anticlimactic. The best wand-maker this side of Europe had just admitted to being some kind of shrink, so much for wand-lore being an out-of-this-world mystical profession.
"Strangely enough, you're only the fifth person to ever ask that question. The last one, Mr. Potter, was a young muggle-born witch named Lily Evans. Funny how things are repeating themselves, don't you think?"
"Mom..."
"It seems curiosity run in your veins. Your wand's attributes should be interesting."
"Attributes sir?"
Ollivander walked up to the shelves and start rummaging through boxes.
"Why, yes. You see Mr. Potter, wands have three important attributes. Firstly, the wood. Depending on the wood used for the wand's body, your magic will react differently to the spells you'll use. Your parents' wands were good for charms and transfiguration because they were made of willow and mahogamy respectively."
Did that mean that Tom's yew wand had a thing for executions, pointless gloating and generalized chaos?
"Secondly comes the length." continued the old wizard. "It can affect the casting speed, but mostly only matters for charged or maintained spellwork. The longer the wand, the easier it'll be for you to concentrate magic for overpowering curses or spell-weaving wards."
Harry mused that Durmstrang's students had to be very talented at wards, with their full-length wizard staves.
"And finally, you've got the core." concluded Ollivander. "Every wand uses a powerful magical substance as a core. Many things can be used, but the most common in England are unicorn hairs, phoenix feathers and dragon heartstrings. Despite what people think, the core is the minor element here, each substance being from highly magical races with roughly the same potency. At least that's true for the initial pairing. Once you'll begin to use it, your magic will leave a mark on the core, an encroachment that will make it attuned with you. If you ever lose your wand and buy another with the same attributes, your new one will perform slightly worse for some time, until you mark it too. This also explains why you'd have a hard time using someone else's wand, as it would be attuned to another magical signature."
Except for the Elder Wand.
"That's fascinating."
"It is, isn't it?"
The wand -maker put down an armful of wand-boxes on his desk. At the same moment, Harry decided that he preferred to be ahead of schedule.
"May I ask a few questions, sir?"
"Of course, Mr. Potter. Here, wave this wand."
"Can several wands come from the same tree?"
A curse was heard through the door. Harry could have sworn it had been Avery's voice.
"Not that one then. And yes, but those wands will always be of different sizes. Besides, this common ancestry has no real magical meaning. Try this one."
The shop filled with darkness.
Ollivander dissipated it before snatching the wand away.
"Definitely not. Maybe this one."
Time to shake things up.
"What about the cores?"
A wave and ice formed on the walls.
"No. What about them?"
"Can you use several heartstrings from a single dragon or are each core from a different animal?"
Just one little question. A perfectly legitimate one for an eleven years old boy.
"A fascinating question. Try this one."
Ollivander's hairs turned to moss but he quickly reverted it.
"Still no. Why such curiosity?"
Harry replied honestly. At least, he appeared to be honest. He definitely wasn't.
"You just said it, I'm curious. My aunt raised me and I'm new to this whole magic thing."
How else was he supposed to explain that he was preventing the old man from being kidnapped several years from now?
Ollivander opened his mouth to answer and suddenly went rigid. The wand he was about to present was a mere few inches from Harry's hand. The old man remained silent but started to steal glances behind him, to a section of the shelves Harry knew housed his former wand.
"I wonder..."
Pushing every failed attempt aside, the wand-maker hurried back to the shelves and retrieved a box. A very specific one.
He took the just as singular wand out and handed it over to the young wizard.
"Here, try this one."
The shop turned into a light-show, five times the scale of what it had been seven years ago.
Ollivander hadn't been prepared for that however. He gasped loudly and stared into thin air like a fish out of water.
A minute went by.
And another one.
And another one.
"Sir?"
That was enough to wake him up.
"Oh, yes. Excellent power, stunning even. But how curious... how very curious..."
"What is it sir?"
"I didn't answer your question Mr. Potter, but multiple cores can indeed come from a single animal." he said nervously. "The wands sharing such a common ancestry are basically brothers and yours just happen to be one. You're wielding an eleven inches holly wand with a phoenix feather for a core. Now Mr. Potter, understand that a phoenix feather unwillingly taken would lose all of its power and that the phoenix whose feather is contained in your wand only accepted to be plucked twice. Until that phoenix decides otherwise, your wand will only ever have one brother."
"What's so curious about that, sir?"
Hey, Harry knew how to play dumb. He had been dumb for several years after all.
"What's curious Mr. Potter, is that single-brother wands are almost unheard of in wand-lore. We're usually talking of seven or eight brother-wands, if not more. I never met an animal more stubborn that this phoenix. But what's even more curious is that your wand's brother took your parents and gave you that scar you wear."
Harry swallowed loudly. He deserved an award for his acting skills.
"As I said, it fell in the wrong hands."
Ollivander was seasoned nicely. Time to cook and serve.
"What would happen if... if I had to face that wand?"
The old wan-maker paled instantly. He was as white as his eyes now.
"Your... your wands are so closely related that they would certainly nullified each-other's assaults, which would be both a blessing and a curse under normal circumstances. But since You-Know-Who has been defeated, your opponent would be incompatible with his already encroached wand and you would have no trouble overpowering him. Still, if that wand was to ever resurface, it would be a dark time for the wizardry world... a very dark time."
He took a deep breath, then another, slowly regaining his composure.
"Well, Mr. Potter, we found your wand. I'm a little tired, so if you would be so kind as to pay, so that I can close early..."
"Oh, sure."
"It will be seven galleons."
Harry had barely put the money on the counter that Ollivander was already shoving him out the door. The old man was thinking about the letter he would write to Dumbledore. He had to be warned about what had transpired here.
Harry took in the sight of Hagrid sleeping on Hedwig's cage, to the owl's growing irritation. She had even started to peck him, but the half-giant didn't seem to register the pain.
The time traveler sighed.
"That went well."