Wandlore was not subject at Hogwarts, though wands were necessary in most lessons. Erebus hadn't thought too much about his own wand until three years ago when Professor Longbottom had asked him to stay a bit later after a Herbology class.
Erebus was helping the professor untangle a pile of earmuffs in preparation for mandrake root extraction. He was trying to pull the earmuffs apart from one another with his hands.
"I wouldn't have used an Untangling Charm when I was your age either," said Longbottom.
"I know it, it's just—" Erebus began.
"—easier without magic?" Longbottom finished. "In my first years at Hogwarts, I'll admit I'd often avoid casting charms. I was pretty dreadful at wand work."
Erebus was surprised. Neville Longbottom was a hero of the Second Wizarding War, he defeated one of the horcruxes of the dreaded immortal Lord Voldemort. Erebus assumed he must have been brilliant from the beginning.
"What changed, sir?" he asked.
"Like you, I didn't get my first wand from Ollivander's wand shop," said Longbottom.
Erebus froze. He hadn't told anyone about his wand.
"I recognise the signs of a hand-me-down wand when I see it," said Longbottom. "I used my father's wand until it was broken by a Death Eater in my 6th year. Wands have something of a will of their own, they tend to remain loyal to their original owners. As I became more like my father, braver, more self-assured, the wand worked a lot better for me. Whose wand was yours?"
"It was my great-grandfather's," said Erebus. "He died when I was little. Apparently he hadn't left his chair for twenty years by the time he snuffed it. Maybe the wand wants me to be lazier."
"If you intend to keep using that one," Longbottom said, "I think you might want to find out what kind of man your great-grandfather was to know what your wand is looking for in you."
Now, three years on, Erebus knew a little more about his great-grandfather Tartarus. What he knew especially was how disappointed Tartarus would have been in Erebus for losing his wand.
He entered the wand workshop with Ditte.
"Oh." said Ditte.
"Is it supposed to look like this?" asked Erebus.
The workshop was made up of a series of long benches. On one side of the room, where there had once been a series of drawers and cabinets was only a mess of charred wood and twisted metal. The whole room smelt of smoke.
On the wall next to the door, on the opposite side to the burnt furnishings, hung a sooty picture frame showing the scattered remains of a riverside picnic. The usual subjects of the painting had clearly fled. An elderly goblin climbed out of a weeping willow in the picture.
"One of the Coppers couldn't handle their dragon-heartstring," said the goblin. As he drew closer to the front of the picture, Erebus recognised the goblin as Urg, the goblin from the painting in front of the headmistress's office. "When I smelled the smoke I came over hoping it would spread, but no such luck."
"Were all the cores destroyed?" Ditte asked. "And the wandwood?"
"What's it to you?" the goblin spat. "Don't you both have some erklings to go torture?"
Erebus looked down at the floor, ashamed at what he'd done, though it had felt necessary at the time. Ditte turned to him.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I could get more wandwood from the forest and show you how to make a wand that will hold up long enough to duel, but you'd still need a magical material for the core of the wand."
Erebus considered his predicament for a moment. At last he said, "I think I know where I can get the core."
"Great! I'll meet you back here in an hour," said Ditte. "It'll take us at least six hour to make the wand, but we should have it done in time for the duel."
Ditte was halfway through the door when Erebus asked her, "Why are you helping me?"
"Durmstrang chews students up and spits them back out," said Ditte. "The only way through is if you have people at your back. You'll have my back, right?"
"Of course!" said Erebus, swelling with pride at the thought at finally having a firm friendship.
"In an hour!" she cried before setting off at speed down the hallway.
Erebus took a moment to compose himself. "Hey Urg," he said.
"That is my name," said the goblin. "What are you going to do to it?"
"Whereabouts are the erklings kept?"
"Why? Do you want to go finish them off?" Urk sneered at him.
"No!" said Erebus, horrified. "I'm going to free them."
"Really?" said Urg, his voice dripping with scepticism. "Why would you go and do that?"
"It's not right them being caged up. And maybe in exchange they'll give me one of their hairs. Back home we don't even allow house-elves to be enslaved anymore."
"Curious. And have they let goblins use wands yet?"
"Well, no, but..."
"Then there is still much to fight for." The pair of them fell silent as the goblin paced back and forth in the painting until at last he said, "The erklings are in the the basement beneath the lead tower, in lead cages. It prevents them from disapparating. A paltry child wizard like you won't be able to break the charms to open their cages."
"Not without my wand first," Erebus said glumly. His plans were unravelling before him. He needed a wand to get the material to make a wand so he could win the fight to get back his wand.
"And even if you did get them out," said Urg, "the erkling's would sooner eat you than remove one of their hairs. They're not known for being reasonable! Feisty buggers!"
Erebus slumped down and sat on the floor, despondent. The goblin kept pacing, grumbling to himself in a low voice.
"Ah I can't believe I'm helping a bleeding wizard," Urg said at last. He shuddered. "If you swear to free the erklings when you have a wand again, then I'll tell you where you can get a real core. If you don't come through, I'll tell all all the paintings that you were kicked out of Hogwarts for streaking."
"I wasn't kicked out!" said Erebus, turning red. "But how did you..."
"I hear everything in this damned place," said Urg. "Including what Xoog told all the teachers in the staff room."
Erebus tried to push out the thought of all the teachers knowing about what had happened in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. "Well I accept," he said.
Urg grinned a long, sharp, toothy grin. "Excellent. There's a stuffed jobberknoll dangling from a chandelier in the Arithmancy classroom. Its tail feathers will do for a wand. A bloody awful wand, mind, but any wand's better than none."
Erebus didn't need to be told twice. He shouted his thanks sprinted out of the ruined workshop and down the corridor and two flights of stairs, along the undulating bridge and up through a portrait gallery populated by portraits of students who had died at the school. Finally, somewhere near the Silver tower he arrived at the Arithmancy classroom which was, thankfully, unlocked.
Slipping into the dim classroom. On the board was a complicated formula which Erebus vaguely recognised as the method for divining coincidences by applying the number 23. Just as Urg had said, hanging from the chandelier were several stuffed birds, one of which, small blue and speckled, was clearly a jobberknoll. The only thing Erebus knew about them is that before they died they would sing out backwards every sound they'd ever heard. He only knew that because it was an important plot point during an oft-repeated episode of The Moonlighting Auror, a convoluted mystery series his mother enjoyed listening to on the Wizarding Wireless Network.
There was no rope to lower the chandelier, it would ordinarily be lit with magic after all. With some effort, and taking most of the time he had remaining to him, Erebus was forced to pile all the tables in the classroom into a rough pyramid in the centre of the room. Standing three layers up on his tip-toes, he was at last able to snatch free the bird. He was in a hurry, so he left the tables where they were and ran back to the workshop.
There he found Ditte frowning at one of the benches which now held a very short thick stick. The bark was grey and covered in lichen.
"I tried to placate the bowtruckles with chocolate frogs but it didn't work and all I was able to do was snatch this tiny branch before they could gouge my eyes out. It's good quality sycamore. Did you get the core?"
"I've got some jobberknoll feathers," said Erebus, laying out a handful of blue feathers plucked haphazardly on the way.
"I've never heard of anyone making a jobberknoll wand," said Ditte as she sorted through and selected the longest, fullest feather. "But the feathers are used in truth serums, so they're definitely magic."
"So how do we do this?" Erebus asked.
"We have to fuse the core with the wood. If that works, it comes alive and acts as a conduit for power. We'd also usually clean it up, carve and polish it, put a whole load of protective enchantments on it but we won't have time for all that."
Ditte passed the tiny stick of sycamore to Erebus along with the blue feather.
"Wrap the feather around the stem. Close your eyes. Hold it all there in place. Breath! Now try channelling some of your power to the wood."
"Don't I need a wand for this?"
"You don't need a wand to make a wand, that'd be circular. No just focus. The materials want to fuse. Just focus."
Erebus breathed in deep and focused his mind on the scratchy lichen, the light heft of the wood, the softness of the feather. When you cast a spell, there's always a brief moment of anticipation and then release between forming the thought and unleashing the magic. Here this moment stretched out for long minutes.
"Okay it's happening," said Ditte. "No don't open your eyes! You've got to keep this up. It usually takes hours and hours unless you're used to doing it. If you lose concentration, let your mind wander too much you can muck it up and the wand will be subpar if it even works at all."
Patience was one thing Erebus had. Every time his mind started to wander he thought about getting his wand back and turned his attention back to the mild tug of potential he was feeling towards the wood and the feather. As the time went on the feeling grew stronger and he became lost in it. He barely noticed when Ditte's hands clasped his around the wood. He could feel his own magic meet her own and merge at the wand.
His eyes burst open as a great white light filled the room. It glowed intensely from he end of the wand. The stick of sycamore looked much as it had, only now the lichen on it was faintly blue. The feather was nowhere to be seen. The only light was from the wand and through the window he could see night had fallen.
Ditte appraised the wand. "Sycamore, five inches, jobberknoll feather core, and still looking like a stick."
"I've never seen anyone use a wand this small," said Erebus. "This is ridiculous."
"You don't have to use it for very long. Give it a try!"
Erebus held out the wand. It barely poked out from between his fingers. Where it had been as unyielding as any other stubby bit of wood, now it was fused with the feather core it was lighter and incredibly pliant. He didn't want to risk it, but Erebus was pretty sure he could now bend the two ends together should he wish. With the end still glowing, Erebus swished the tiny wand and said "Lumos Maximus!" and the light grew more intense.
"It works!"
The light faltered and then extinguished itself. Erebus tried to cast the spell again and while he could feel the flow of magic as normal, the wand did nothing.
"I spoke too soon," said Erebus, that all too familiar sinking feeling overcoming him.
"Let me see," said Ditte, lighting up her own wand. As she cast the spell, the tiny sycamore wand copied it and lit itself up again.
"It works but it's very contrary," said Ditte. "This might be why nobody uses jobberknoll cores."
A cuckoo sang out from one of the pockets of Ditte's robe.
"You can worry about it latter," she said. "Because your duel's going to start in fifteen minutes!"