Hello again all! It's been about two hours since I uploaded chapter 3 and here I am starting on four.
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And to the Guest reviewer… hehehe! Let's get on with chapter 4…
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A Wizards Life In Magical Academia:
Chapter 4
The softness of the four-poster bed in the Gryffindor, second year boy's dormitory threatened to swallow Harry whole as he wearily sat down upon it. Stomach uncomfortably full and legs stiff and tired from a day devoted mostly to sitting and eating.
"Eugh!" Ron moaned in loud pleasure as he flopped back first onto his own, right next to Harry's, "I wish I could just take this thing home with me. It's so much nicer than mine."
Harry nodded in agreement as he copied his friends position by laying back on his own, catching sight of another roommate behind him as he did so,
"Hi Neville." Harry greeted cheerily to the timid boy unpacking his underwear. The somewhat chubby, dark haired boy jumped slightly at being addressed and offered a shaky smile to the boy who slept next to him, "Did you have a good summer?"
"I- yeah. It was alright thanks, you?" Neville responded with a bemused look when Harry gave him an upside-down nod, "That's good. I'm sorry by the way."
"Sorry?"
"Yeah, i-if - I mean… I think you have a nice smile. I voted for you to win."
Harry groaned, hands over his face whilst Ron (who had heard the comments) guffawed loudly and invited their other roommates on the other side of the room (Dean and Seamus) to do the same.
"I hate you all." Harry grumbled as he sat up and scooted back to his headboard, catching Neville's slump out of the corner of his eye he added, "Not you though, Neville. Sorry, I didn't actually enter the competition. Delphi somehow got that picture of me and submitted it."
"Yeah, Harry didn't even find out till this morning when Delphi showed us." Ron sighed as he sat up,
"Bet she wouldn't have told you if she'd have won." Dean said from the other side of the room as he hung up a West Ham poster above his headboard, "Would have cashed in the money and moved on with her life."
"She said she was going to split it with me, Dean."
"Split it? It's your smile she'd have been making money from." Seamus snorted in response to Harry,
"I don't care. I would never have submitted myself in the picture, so I think it's fair."
"Poor Harry." Seamus sighed, Harry's eye twitching in irritation at the detected condescension, "We're not the only one's who warned you about the sneakiness of the Slytherins."
"Yeah, you're probably being manipulated." Dean nodded in agreement though he stopped at Harry's glare and Ron's unimpressed gaze,
"She may be annoying, but Delphi's our friends." Ron began in a low tone,
"So, watch your mouth." Harry growled, ignorant to the invisible pressure that quietly and lightly smothered his roommates.
"I think we're all missing one thing." Ron ripped through the tense air and drawing attention to himself, before turning to Neville with a coy smirk, "You read Witch Weekly, Nev?"
The boy blushed harshly under the ribbing and laughter of his dormmates and the five of them chatted away for roughly an hour before they tucked in for the night. All staring up at their ceilings, ignorant to one another as they patiently awaited their dreams.
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The first Wednesday afternoon of the Hogwarts first term saw Harry Potter back in Diagon Alley, five galleons rattling in his fist as a small smirk curled his lips.
"You're surprisingly early, Mr Potter." Came the familiar voice of Ollivander as Harry slipped into the dim, lamp lit shop. Eyes ghosting over the floor to ceiling shelves of boxed wands in search of the hidden wand maker,
"Our class ended early today, our new Defence teacher is… something else." Despite strong feelings bubbling under the surface at the thought of the buffoon who had unleashed a horde of mischievous Cornish pixies to terrorise the class and then ran off to leave them to deal with his mess; Harry did not have it in him to insult someone behind their back.
"Ah yes, Gilderoy Lockhart." Ollivander's voice drifted over the wooden counter from the back of the shop with an almost ethereal quality to it. Harry stepped in its direction and waited for the man to show himself, "Cherry, if I recall correctly. Nine inches with a core of dragon heartstring. In all my years, I've never sold a wand to a wizard or witch and had the poor thing feel so… unsatisfied."
Harry snickered slightly under his breath at the thought before his expression turned quizzical,
"Unsatisfied? Wait, do wands have… feelings?" Harry called his question in incredulity, yelping when the man he addressed spoke his answer in his left ear,
"Of course they do!" he almost yelled, not seeming the slightest bit perturbed by the boy leaping away in fright at his sudden appearance, "What was it I told you when you walked into this establishment a year ago?"
Harry's hand was clasped over his chest and he prioritised calming his heartrate and breathing before answering the man's question. Leading Ollivander to tut and shake his head unimpressed,
"If you are unable to remember something so monumentally vital, Mr Potter. Then this partnership of ours is not going to be a very fruitful one." The man sighed, raising an eyebrow when Harry took a steadying breath and spoke again,
"You told me that the wand choses the wizard. I guess it didn't really register with me very well back then."
"Yet you remember that simple fact at least. And I doubt you shall forget it once again." Ollivander intoned almost proudly, "The folly of magic users, and the division that separates the greats from the rest, is those who recognise that wands are not tools to be used, but partners that aid you."
Ollivander's back straightened and his eyes hardened,
"Consider this your first lesson in wand crafting. Wands are alive, recognising this makes one more powerful." The wand maker nodded in abrupt satisfaction when Harry indicated that he understood, "Commit it to memory and follow me. Your role begins immediately."
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"What kind of idiot unleashes something on their class with no intention of dealing with them?" Delphi groaned in irritation as she furiously slammed her quill against the desk. Glaring frustrated at her Defence Against the Dark Arts homework.
"I'm just surprised he did that to more than one class." Ron grumbled as he slaved over the thick stacks of parchment before him. A part of him lamenting that he was spending his free time, willingly, in the school library, even if it was for his personal side project,
"I think it is an interesting teaching method, especially for the subject." Hermione stated without looking up from her own work, quill gliding across parchment at a vicious pace before pausing as her face morphed into an expression of disgust and irritation, "Though I don't think that was what he had in mind."
There were nods and sounds of agreement between the three of them as they continued working.
"Harry starts his new job today." Ron muttered as he underlined a passage of manuscript and made a few rough notes in his small notebook,
"Where is he working now?"
"He didn't say." Ron murmured,
"Did you ask?" Hermione questioned with a smirk, Ron's ears burned red but he made no response. Answering her in the process,
"Ollivanders. He's getting wand making training alongside the job." Delphi murmured as she finished up a sentence talking about 'Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite toothpaste', "Besides that he has no idea what it is he's going to be doing."
"I sense a bit of favouritism." Ron muttered, tone slightly clipped, "Why is he telling you all of this Rowle and not us."
"Because, Weasley, I actually ask and show an interest in Harry's activities." Delphi responded in kind, looking up from her work with a minute glare in the boy's direction, "Also we wrote to each other every other day during the summer. He told me when it happened."
"Poor Hedwig." Hermione muttered, lamenting the amount of flying Harry's precious owl would have had to do to over the summer break,
"Yeah, if she isn't the strongest owl in the Owlery I'm going up there to see what potions or drugs the rest of them are on." Ron smirked and Delphi shared his expression.
"Back to the topic at hand though, Ollivander's is an incredible opportunity." Hermione sighed wistfully as she once again stopped writing and leaned her head into her hand with a distant look in her eyes, "I'd love to learn how wands are made."
"That sounds kind of boring." Ron yawned as he fingered his own wand, "As long as it's working I don't really care."
"I don't understand you, Ronald. Where's your intellectual curiosity!" Hermione incredulous as she wrung her fists in disbelief. Missing Delphi's snort,
"Ronnie only seems to care about the magic that can benefit him." She said after it, catching Ron's irritated glare with a smirk, "Wand making's hard work anyway and complicated to boot. He'll steer clear."
"You think THIS is easy?" Ron growled, jabbing down at the work beneath him,
"No. But you're good at it and have had help from your big brother whose good at it, too." Delphi responded, sitting up straight and levelling a serious glance at the boy before her in the process, "if you didn't know that you were getting an easy recipe to the most coveted item in the world out of your work, would you even be reading those?"
"What are you trying to say, Rowle?"
"That there is a clear reason as to why your studying alchemy instead of wand crafting, Weasley. And it isn't altruistic."
Ron, in Hermione and Delphi's eyes, clearly did not understand the word that had just been used. But quickly figured it out,
"If you're calling me selfish, then stop. Everyone does things to help themselves every once in a while. I'm doing this to help myself and my family whilst not hurting anyone Rowle." Ron growled with a dark expression, "I don't know what your life is like outside of here. But mine isn't easy, if this will help me and my family in even the slightest way then I have no choice but to pursue it."
Delphi had a response, but kept it to herself. Ron wanted to force her to speak her mind but knew better, instead turning to Hermione (the mediator between him and the Snake, when Harry wasn't around). Confused he followed her still staring eyes, not because she was looking into space still, but that her eyes were focussed and seemingly following something.
"Err, Hermione?" He tried to gain her attention, only surprised when her eyes narrowed further, seemingly squinting at something flitting between the shelves. Something Ron (or Delphi as she followed Hermione's gaze in equal confusion) could not see for the life of him,
"You ok Hermione?" Delphi asked in a soft voice, surprised when she was shushed and Hermione leaned forward in her seat with a squinting eye,
"Can you... see that?" Hermione spoke up slowly, distracted and almost fearful,
"W-What Hermione? See what?" Ron asked, feeling both dumb and concerned when he still saw absolutely nothing,
"There's nothing there Hermione." Delphi added quietly, turning her attention back to Hermione with an equally worried look, "What can you see?"
There was no response at first. Hermione's gaze was penetrating, her expression confused and even scared, before she flopped back into her seat. Shaking her head and violently rubbing her eyes,
"S-Sorry you two. I'm likely just tired, I thought I saw something but it was nothing." She insisted croakily, her eyes blearily taking in her hands after she pulled them away, "Sorry for worrying you. Let's just get this work done and go to bed."
She smiled brightly at them, the gesture somewhat reassuring before she turned back to her parchment and returned to writing. Her expression more focussed than usual and her two friends, despite having questions and concerns, did not have it in them to disrupt her concentration. The two said nothing as they turned to their work again also, neither commenting on the brief moment where Hermione's pretty brown eyes had been a twinkling, sharp blue. Believing they had just been seeing things too.
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The… girl?
Harry settled on girl.
The girl Harry had been introduced to was tiny, standing on the tips of her toes brought her barely higher than Harry's kneecaps. And, although Harry was undoubtedly one of the taller boys in his year, he was still only twelve. He wondered if the girl was even three feet in height.
She was dressed in a simple one piece dress, holes littering its skirt as if it had been assaulted by moths. She had tiny brown boots on her little feet, her skin was pale (as if it had seen little light) and her hair was a pinkish red that fell to her buttocks in furious waves. She held a broom twice her size in her left hand and held up her right to him with a toothy grin and bright orange eyes,
"Hello, new friend! My name is Unyi!" She greeted Harry and he squashed his surprise at her miniscule stature enough to crouch down and shake the proffered hand with a soft smile. Her voice was high, soft and filled with genuine warmth and friendliness,
"Err, hi. I'm Harry. Nice to meet you Unyi." He greeted warmly, surprised by the warmth of the tiny hand in his grasp.
"Unyi is a brὺnaidh, or a brownie." Ollivander spoke up from behind him as he rose to his feet. Harry smiled down at Unyi before turning to the wand maker, "She is responsible for most of the shops upkeep. Part of your role will be to assist her when you are here."
"We're gonna be doing lots of cleaning. Old man Ollie is a klutz and can't clean up after himself." Unyi's chirped with a white, toothy smile. Harry's mind drifted briefly to the purchase of his own wand, the destruction the failed wands had caused and how the man had haphazardly hurled the failures (and their boxes) aside and to the ground. He hummed quietly in understanding and smiled himself whilst Unyi smiled brighter and Ollivander snorted, affronted.
"That's enough idle prattle. There is work to be done, fools." Ollivander scowled but his professional tone held an undercurrent of amusement, "I leave you in Unyi's capable hands."
...
Thus, Harry was set to work. The majority of the next hour and a half revolved around returning discarded wands back to their labelled black boxes. Harry was left amused, incredulous and confused as he and Unyi worked on returning wands to the several layered pile of boxes that took up the majority of the space in the dim back room of Ollivanders. Wands discovered in every nook, corner and cranny of the establishments to various expressions of wonder and disbelief,
"That was gross." Unyi whined in disgust as she eyed the Hawthorn wand in Harry's right hand,
"You're not the one who had to shove their hand in that toilet bowl." Harry glared down at the wand in question, "How did it even get in there in the first place?"
"Mr Ollie has good aim." Unyi shrugged her tiny shoulders before scurrying over to the massively reduced pile and returning with the labelled box, "Hmm, maybe this is why?"
A small finger tapped the golden words on the lid, flowing calligraphy stating the boxes supposed contents,
"Hawthorn, 12 and ¾ inches. Mermaid fin core." Harry read aloud and looked worryingly down at thee thin stick in hand, "What?"
"I heard somewhere that all drains lead to the ocean." Unyi declared earnestly, an excited gleam lighting up her eyes, "And if wands are alive maybe it's trying to get back out to the sea."
Harry didn't know how to respond to that, instead he looked down at the wand doubtfully,
"I don't think they're THAT alive." Harry murmured as he put the wand away, quirking an eyebrow as Unyi slammed her hands into her hips and pouted in irritation,
"You're supposed to blindly believe me newbie!" She stated in annoyance, "It's part of the hazing, idiot."
She yanked the box away and stomped off, though she shot him a joking smirk over her shoulder to alleviate the slight, confused tension. Harry following after her in short strides and taking the boxes she offered to him and took them to the directed
"So, how long have you worked here anyway?" Harry asked as he swiftly hopped up onto a stool to reach the higher shelves labelled 'H'.
"I've served the Ollivander family for since my mother passed a decade ago." She said as she scurried over to pass Harry another box,
"10 years? How old are you?"
SLAP!
"OW!" Harry rubbed the back of his head from the wand box that collided with the back of his head,
"DON'T ASK A LADY HER AGE!" She growled, eyes a fiery orange and the fury that burned them caused Harry to recoil in fear,
"S-Sorry." He stammered out his apology and avoided eye contact, that very action drawing his gaze to something else, "Wait, Unyi. What is that?"
The irritated brownie turned to follow his finger and her eyes fell onto the glass, display case shoved against the dark wall, directly under the light of a ceiling hanging oil lantern. Within, mounted on a black, metallic stand was a wand. The wand looked to be over a foot long, the wood a deep brown and well-polished (that fact clearly visible from across the room from the way it glistened under the candlelight.
"It is my families most prized possession, Mr Potter." Came a response from the shop owner, starting his two employees and forcing them to turn his way. He cast his aged eyes over the back room, humming and nodding in satisfaction as Harry hopped off of the stool.
"Do you know the meaning of my family name?" Ollivander asked in an unexpectedly solemn tone,
"Ollivander?" Harry asked and received a nod, his response was a head shake that caused a soft smile on the elderly man's face,
"It means 'he who owns the olive wand' and that," Ollivander pointed to the glass case, "is the wand. Olive, thirteen inches, the core is a crystallised paste created through the union of the powdered fang of a chimera and the blood of the wands creator, first user and my oldest known ancestor, Gula Ollivander."
"W-Wow…" was all Harry could manage, feeling the awe and respect that Ollivander paid to the mounted wand. Harry himself impressed that the item remained in such pristine condition despite being a few thousand years old.
"Have you been working him hard, Unyi?" Ollivander changed the subject with a quirk lifting the corner of his mouth,
"You made a good choice." She responded gleefully, and Harry felt his cheeks grow warm under the mans approving gaze and Unyi's smile. Though he was slightly confused by the look the two quickly shared and the mirth that quickly infected her innocent smile,
"I think that will be enough for today, Mr Potter." Ollivander decided with a swift nod, He turned quickly on his heels and went to the cash register, Harry trotting quietly behind after a nudge and smirk from Unyi, "For your services."
Harry had a small pile of heavy, gold Galleons dropped into his hands and after a lightning fast use of mental maths he surmised it was the appropriate payment for the hours he had worked, thus he profusely thanked Ollivander,
"Don't thank me yet, Mr Potter." The old man stated almost cryptically, his eyes turned searching and Harry flinched under them (yet still held the man's steady gaze). The old wandmaker hummed thoughtfully before a soft nod and smile before he continued to speak, "I believe this will work."
"What will work, Mr Ollivander?"
"This arrangement of ours." He responded with a bright smirk, "This will definitely work."
Harry was ushered out after that statement and told that he would be expected again in the next week,
"Where we'll discuss and prepare you for the second half of your employment."
The door was closed before he could formulate any further questions. Leaving the Boy Who Lived to stare in confusion (and concern) at the closed door for a few more minutes before activating his Portkey and swirling through time and space back to Hogwarts.
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"A very good choice indeed, Ollie." Unyi brushed dust off of her mud, brown dress as the old wandmaker hopped over the counter and strolled back into the bowels of his shop. The brownie following a few strides behind with a skip in her step (partially out of necessity, in order to keep up, whilst it was also a product of her good mood.)
"I am glad one of them finally received your seal of approval, though…" Ollivander slid a thick oak door located on his back wall open, wall mounted torches roaring to life in response, illuminating a dark staircase that carved through earth and stone far beyond the man and demi-human could see as it descended, "I will not lie. I am conflicted over using a boy so young."
Unyi's response was a musical giggle as she slipped past him and hopped down a few pairs of stairs, turning on her heels and smirking in almost cruel condescension,
"You humans and your hang-ups." She trilled as her hands found her tiny waist once again, "Not only at his age will he have some good stamina, but I hear that they like them most when they're young and cute like he is."
A shiver ran the length of Ollivander's spine, the icy guilt not at all alleviated, even if he understood that this little… arrangement, was beneficial not just for the success of his shop. But the human race as it currently stood.
"That… did not help at all Unyi." Ollivander sighed, following his partner in descending the stairs. The brownie's smirk curling ever more cruelly as she spun back around and slipped on ahead,
"I'm not here to help, Ollie. It's not why her majesty sent me at all." She called over he shoulder, stopping briefly before she fell out of sight and glancing back with orange eyes that flickered and burned just like the burning torches, "I'm here to get us some results."
He had nothing to say in response, thus he let her run off. Trekking behind at a slower, more reluctant pace, the weight of his sins (the ones he had committed and the ones he was yet to commit to) weighing on his already weary shoulders as he strode…
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A bit shorter this time, but there isn't much else that I can put in this chapter. Look forward to the next one.
Thanks for 1,000 views so far, see you when I see you x