I have considerably altered every chapter from chapter Two - re-read recommended unless you found this yesterday or today (15/04/21). Long chapter as I have coursework I realise I desperately need to catch up on.
Jo endeavoured to grasp the assortment of restaurants, shops, and other sights of the bustling cobblestoned alley. However, at the same time, keeping pace with Professor McGonagall's swift and purposeful strides through the suffocating traffic grounded her better alongside the warm and weighty, vibrating fluff-ball smugly snuggled in the curve of her neck and shoulder.
She pondered, as her enchanted trunk slowly began to fill with her purchases whether the older witch noticed her twitchy fingers. Jo hoped she didn't. She was so absorbed in trying to pacify the sickness rolling in her belly she didn't notice they entered Ollivander's until the heavy magic in the air hammered an unsettling tingle down her spine. Jo discovered they were both stood behind a dingy counter, Professor McGonagall in front of an old man behind it, looking like she would rather be elsewhere.
"Good afternoon, Miss Bevan," he said, meeting her gaze. His eyes, silvery like dual moons, vehemently intrigued her despite the alarm bells ringing like klaxons in her head.
"Afternoon, sir," Jo stared with the slightest tilt of her head and promptly raised her dominant arm. Kolya leapt and curled next to Professor McGonagall's feet when a silvery measuring tape shot out of Ollivander's pocket. As the man himself now started flitting between shelves and pulling out boxes, Jo's dark brown eyebrows lifted as it snaked around her, continuously questioning the significance of its every action.
Why on Earth nostrils?
"Now then," the wand-maker yanked her out of her rabbit hole as the tape plopped onto the floor at the sound of his voice. "Try this one. Maple and phoenix feather. Eight inches and quite whippy."
"What are the characteristics and significance of each constituent, sir?" Jo enquired, looking down at the smooth grains of the beautiful wood in her small hand and handed it back almost immediately. "It is a beautiful wand, sir."
"Beautiful indeed," he offered another wand into her hand which was then replaced after a swift flick. "Every single wand wood is unique and will depend for its character on the particular tree and magical creature from which it derives it materials. Black walnut, dragon heartstring and nine inches. Nice and flexible."
"And the individual themselves, sir?" she stared when she felt its humming warmth, and recoiled at the next one's ickiness.
"The tendencies of each with the owner's experience and nature may counterbalance or outweigh each other. The unicorn hair of this holly wand—" she blinked at the new wand, finding it slightly warmer than lukewarm and returned it as he went off to select more wands; a furtive glance over a shoulder revealed Professor McGonagall was curiously observing her from the spindly chair with Kolya purring on her lap, "—generally produces the most consistent magic, and is least subject to fluctuations and blockages. Wands with these cores are generally the most difficult to turn to the Dark Arts, the most faithful of all wands, and usually remain attached to their first owner. In contrast, the dragon heartstring core of this beechwood wand as a rule produce wands with the most power and capable of the most flamboyant spells." Jo paused as the warmth warm enough to make her sigh yet clearly not enough was replaced again. "Dragon wands, like this flexible red oak wood wand, tend to be easiest to turn to the Dark Arts—" and again, "—though it will not incline that way of its own accord. It is also the most prone of the three cores to accidents, being somewhat temperamental."
Jo clung to every word said by Ollivander. Though every wand returned meant more time spent, it meant more riveting explanations from the increasingly passionate wandmaker.
She'd gone through another vast selection of wands, wrist already aching, when the warmth began to appear more frequently: a willow wand, walnut, another black walnut, vine wood, hazel, dogwood, acacia, another beechwood and so many others.
If anything, her magic was thrumming and dancing in thrill and Ollivander's infectious passion had her cheeks hurting from the sheer anticipation and awe pulling her lips.
So far, a nine and half inch, stiff rowan wood wand with phoenix feather seemed to be the most compatible one yet, lighting up with a shimmery light, however even then it wasn't hers.
Jo didn't know how much time had passed until she looked outside the shop window. The sun high enough to signal it was late in the afternoon. She didn't know how Professor McGonagall was so patient when she seemed quite the opposite when they entered.
"Pear wood, ten and a quarter inches, phoenix feather and quite stiff," the wandmaker rushed back. Jo's heart practically froze in her chest when she curled her fingers around the the wand, her magic billowing out like—
"What? Why?!" Jo exclaimed when Ollivander tore it away from her hand. She followed him to the counter when she realised, with mild embarrassment, he was simply packing it in its box for her to take.
"Possessive already," he smiled softly, pushing the box across the counter towards her.
"My apologies, sir," she impulsively ducked her head, looking down to the left when Professor McGonagall's emerald robes crept into her vision. "Am I to retire it into its box when its not in use? I don't believe leaving it vulnerable within my pocket is acceptable either. Oh, and how do I best care for it?"
"Holsters and wand cream, Miss Bevan," Ollivander brought her round the counter to a vast range of stunning holsters and an array of wand creams.
The brunette tentatively glanced at Professor McGonagall only to find her mouth curving into a slight smile a touch softer than she had witnessed at the Ministry-approved Apparition point. One which twitched a bit wider when her stomach grumbled from hunger.
Either way, never in both her lives had her heart ever felt so lighter or she so utterly and wholly alive.