4. The wand trade

It was already dark by the time Harry Potter started to climb Farringdon Road. He passed silently under the streetlights, his footsteps languid, almost in slow motion compared to the rapid pace of the people around him on the street. As he made his way up the hill the sequence of buildings that lined the street came quickly back to him. He preferred not to calculate how much time had passed since he walked those streets every day, as far as he knew just a regular Londoner working in a bookshop, but the office buildings, the names of the streets and even the faces on the passers-by seemed from a completely different era.

He couldn't get the press conference out of his mind. The idea of putting the prisoners on public display had been the brainchild of Luther Penhaligon and Myra Tremayne. He had intended to oppose it until he learned that Kingsley had given his approval. You'll have to make compromises from now on, Hermione had told him that day on the way back to the Burrow. She was right of course. The press conference had been followed by questions and answers with the wizarding press from three countries and an impromptu reception. The incessant barrage of questions in a variety of different languages, some channelled through interpreters, and the vacuous chatter of the reception had left him in a state of fatigued over-stimulation. He had made his excuses and slipped out before the end. The higher up the Ministry you get, the better placed you'll be to decide how we deal with a threat from witchfinders, Hermione had told him. And being who you are, you're the natural choice. The corridors of the Ministry had had a claustrophobic, overheated air about them as he paced back to his office. The quiet satisfaction he had felt at how the operation in Ostend had gone was almost forgotten already. Why don't you do it? No one will be better dealing with this than you, had been his reply. Because I'm going to be very busy doing something that everyone will think is at best a waste of time and at worst an act of sedition, she had told him. And you'll need to go along with them.

At the top of the hill he swung onto Exmouth Market, which was a mass of twinkling lights and animation in the early evening. Halfway down the street on the left he stopped before a narrow shop front with a sparse, slightly faded window display. Without any hesitation he pushed on the front door and went inside.

There were no customers in the shop. This suited him. He made his way past the bookcases and display cabinets, loaded as always with books and occult objects, to the back of the shop. A tall young man with long, straggly straw blonde hair and a ruddy, smooth, almost hairless face was waiting for him behind the counter.

'You made it then at last …' said Armin Vlaminck, squinting at him under the glare of the bulb that hung above the counter.

'I'd have come sooner,' Harry replied, scratching his head vacantly, 'but I don't have as much free time as I used to, and this place is a little bit out of my way.'

He glanced around the silent shop.

'I see business is as good as ever,' he remarked.

'Business is good actually,' replied Armin. 'Online sales are up. But the shop is useful because customers still want to collect their merchandise in person. Plus some of what we sell can't be put in a parcel and sent through the post. You'll see why in a minute.'

'Good to hear it,' said Harry, his curiosity growing. 'What can I do for you then?'

'Come out the back,' said Armin, beckoning for Harry to step around the counter. 'You know the way.'

Harry nodded and followed Armin into the back room of the shop. Everywhere was evidence of the shop's booming internet and mail order business. Harry sat down on a pile of parcels while Armin unlocked the safe and took out a large black box, which he set down among piles of books on a battered desk in the corner of the room. Harry peered over his shoulder as Armin opened the box. Laid about neatly on the box's black velvet lining was a series of objects. Most were immediately identifiable as wands, but among them were more elaborate objects that were unfamiliar to him, objects of wood, jade, bronze, carved with strange contorted beasts, mounted with skulls and even sharp, evil-looking blades.

'What do you think?' said Armin in a satisfied-sounding voice. 'Your line of expertise, wouldn't you say?'

Harry looked into the box and reached for one of the wands.

'May I?' he said, hesitating for a moment before his hands closed around the object.

'I trust you to handle it properly,' said Armin.

Harry took out the wand. It was more intricately carved than any wand he had seen before, and was inscribed with a series of letters in an alphabet he couldn't read. But when he held it in his hand, he felt nothing. No surge of power from the wand, no connection to the holder.

'A dead piece of wood.' he said. 'Not a real wand.'

'Not to you perhaps,' replied Armin. 'But you don't have the monopoly on magical practices.'

Harry glanced at Armin. He was in his element. The first rule binding wizards had been broken the day Harry had inadvertently performed magic before him. The demonstration of authentic magic by a pair of wizards, right in his shop, had, as he put it, validated his entire life's work. Harry recalled that he had never found out who had sent the cursed package in his name. If Hermione knew, she had never told him. Surely she would have found a way to tell me.

'The wand you have in your hand there is early American Colonial. About 1660,' said Armin. 'Now look at this one,' he continued, pointing to a similar wand in the box. 'Central American, early twentieth century. Look how similar the designs are to the one in your hand. And this one is eighteenth century, from the Basque Country. That one is Lithuanian, nineteenth century. And this,' he continued, pointing to a wooden stick with a small carved wooden skull mounted at its tip, 'comes from the Ural Mountains. It's as recent as the 1940s. It's not actually a wand. It's called a Sheremet. Upstairs I have a sorcerer's staff from the Pacific Islands. It's too big and fragile to keep down here. All authentic objects, some merely symbolic, some actually usable.'

'What do you mean, usable?' said Harry.

'I mean that practitioners of arts other than the one you practise have used these objects to perform magic. Now what do you make of these?' Armin pointed to a number of wands that looked much more like the kind Harry was used to. Harry picked up one. No response.

'This is a replica,' he said firmly. 'A convincing one, but this can no more do magic than a pencil can.'

'I believe you,' replied Armin. 'There are a lot of these replica wands about. More than ever, in fact. And they are getting more and more convincing: they have specially made cores and everything. It would take a real wizard to tell a real wand from a replica, but you also need expertise from a real wizard to make such convincing replicas.'

'You're probably right,' said Harry. 'I hope you're not going to tell me you've been selling trade secrets?'

'I would never, ever do such a thing,' replied Armin earnestly, his eyes bright. 'I just want to encourage you and your people to take a close look at what's going on. Which brings me to this …'

He took another wand out of the case and handed it to Harry. The wand looked innocuous, but as soon as Harry touched it, he knew it was genuine. For a few moments he said nothing. He simply held the wand still in his hand, feeling the charge it emitted. Still holding the wand, he looked up at Armin.

'This one's real,' he said in a strange, strangled voice.

'I thought it might be,' replied Armin.

'Are you going to tell me how you got it or not?' said Harry.

'I am, I am,' replied Armin. 'A dealer sold it to me.'

'A dealer?' exclaimed Harry. His first thought was of Mundungus Fletcher, but he had supposedly retired to Gran Canaria.

'And this isn't the first wand he's sold me. The others were almost certainly genuine too. The dealer did do a little demonstration of their powers for me, but that's not exactly conclusive. The dealer may well be a wizard but he's still a dealer. It's only now that I got my hands on a genuine wizard to authenticate it for me.'

Harry looked at him.

'So let me get this straight, there's a wizard who comes into this shop on a regular basis selling you genuine wands? What do you do with them?'

'Some we keep, others we sell. The question is: where is he getting them from?'

What was going on? Were the wands stolen? He hadn't heard of any break-ins at wand shops. Or had wizards sold their wands willingly? He had to admit that it was a possibility: it fitted well with Hermione's theory that the next generation of wizards was less interested in using magic than any generation that had gone before.

'It's a good thing you came today,' said Armin. 'I'm expecting the dealer this evening. He brought me this wand a couple of days ago. I told him I needed time to authenticate it and discuss with my financial backers whether the shop is going to buy it or not. Because real ones don't come cheap, you know.'

'Oh I'm looking forward to meeting him,' replied Harry ominously.

'You can't do that,' said Armin. 'I'll have to ask you to stay hidden while he's here.'

'Really?' said Harry, rather disappointed.

'You're not planning to arrest him, I presume?'

'Arrest him? No, I don't have that sort of power. I just want to get a look at the …'

'Traitor?'

'Yeah, something like that.'

'Well, you can have a look at him. But surely it's better if he doesn't see you, isn't it?'

'Fair enough,' said Harry. 'Where do you want me to go?'

'Wait upstairs in the spare room,' said Armin. 'Lift up the rug on the floor, you'll find a peephole. Ignore the mess, it's just as it always was.'

Harry nodded and exited the room. He stepped out onto the cramped hall and then made his way quickly up the steep, creaking stairs to the flat above the shop where Armin lived. At the top of the stairs was another small landing, with four doors leading off it. He opened the door directly in front of him and stepped into what was the flat's spare room, which was theoretically intended for guests, but which was mostly used as a storeroom. As he glanced about the piles of books, magazines and other detritus, he recalled that Armin's own bedroom just across the landing was just as much a storeroom as the room he was standing in. He kneeled before the threadbare rug that lay in a crumpled heap in the middle of the room and lifted it up. Beneath the rug, as Armin had promised, was a small hole in the floor. He bent over and put his eye to it and found himself looking down into the backroom of the shop, where Armin was busy pacing back and forth, but for the time being alone.

He sat back up and looked around the room again. He stood up and went to the window, which was small and smudged and overlooked a dingy courtyard surrounded by a high brick wall. Then he crossed the room to where a bed lay pushed up against the far wall. The bed obviously hadn't been slept in for a long time, and was piled with books. He shifted a pile of books out of the way and sat down, running his hand over the bedcover and tracing a line through the dust. The bed's slightly musty smell was instantly familiar to him. Has anyone slept here since we did? Over two years they had done what they had set out to do, done all that had to be done so everyone could live harmoniously; after all that time the room still seemed marooned in an unchanging present.

Voices could be heard downstairs. He slipped noiselessly across the room and returned to his place at the peephole.

At first he could only make out the tops of their heads. Armin's straw blonde hair was easily recognisable, while the dealer was partly concealed under a baseball cap. After exchanging pleasantries, Armin and the dealer crossed the room to the box of magical objects, affording Harry a better view of them. The first thing that struck him about the 'dealer' was that he barely looked old enough to have finished school. He was dressed in typical muggle street clothes, which gave off a smell of cannabis that came drifting up through the peephole.

'I have a question,' Armin was saying. 'A simple curiosity.'

'Go on,' said the dealer.

'How come the owner was willing to part with the object?'

The dealer seemed to smile. His face was pale and still acne scarred in places.

'Does it make a difference?' he said, in a clipped, rather well-to-do accent.

'As I said, a simple curiosity,' replied Armin. 'It has no bearing on the sale.'

As Harry crouched over the peephole, an idea occurred to him. He reached silently into his pocket and drew out his wand, which he held close to his face as he looked again through the hole.

'They aren't stolen, if that's what you're thinking,' said the dealer. 'People know that you can get a very good price for one of these things, and the sellers would rather have the money. Simple as that. I'd sell mine, but I don't need to, I make plenty out of selling other people's.'

'Fair enough,' said Armin. 'We'll take it. At the price we agreed earlier.'

The dealer pursed his lips.

'Done,' he said finally, thrusting out his hand and shaking Armin's.

As the dealer turned to leave, Harry raised his head and pointed the shaft of the wand through the hole.

'Reducitur,' he whispered under his breath. The dealer made no gesture that indicated that he was aware of the charm that had been cast.

When Armin entered the upstairs room he found Harry sitting quietly on the bed.

'I've put a trace on him,' he said, looking up. 'I want to see who he's meeting.'

'Ok, but I hope you'll be discreet about it,' said Armin. 'I have a feeling it would be bad for business if you assault one of our dealers as soon as he leaves the shop.'

'Don't worry,' replied Harry grimly. 'I'm not going to do anything to him. He seems a bit beyond help.'

He stood up.

'Can you still get up onto the roof of this building?'

'What, do you want to fly off the roof?' replied Armin.

'Funny,' said Harry sarcastically. 'Give me that wand and I'll show you.'

Armin nodded and handed Harry the wand. Then he led the way out onto the landing, before using all of his height to reach up and open a hatch in the ceiling and pull down a ladder. They climbed the ladder and passed through a darkened attic cluttered with wooden crates and rotting cardboard boxes, until they reached a small window that opened onto a flat section of the roof. Armin swung open the window and they stepped out onto the roof terrace. The building was tall enough to offer a sweeping view to the north and east. In the dark of the evening London was lit up in every direction and a cool breeze was blowing.

'What are we doing up here?' said Armin.

'I want to try something,' said Harry, gazing out into the darkness vaguely in the direction of the illuminated skyscrapers of the City. He lifted the newly purchased wand and spoke softly into the night air.

'Tenere manus.'

'Hold hands?' said Armin.

Harry nodded and gestured for him to look out into the bank of lights that spread out below them. Almost at once, countless points of light pulsed on and off in the darkness. Some of the points of light were scattered and isolated, while others were gathered together like miniature constellations.

'What was that?' said Armin.

'Those were the brothers and sisters of this wand, wands that all share some common feature, like the type of core or the tree the shaft came from,' replied Harry, still staring out into the darkness.

'So the places where many lights were gathered together, those are gathering of wizards here in central London?' said Armin.

'Yes,' said Harry. 'Gives you a sense of how many of us there are. Of course, since the Ministry of Magic is down there somewhere, that would account for a lot of them.'

'I wish I could remember where I saw the greatest concentration of lights,' said Armin as he looked out over London. 'Then I would know where the Ministry lies too.'

'Good for you that you didn't,' said Harry. 'Else I'd have to erase your memory. I don't recommend it.'

Armin half-laughed in response.

'That dealer's out there somewhere,' said Harry, scratching his chin thoughtfully. 'I wonder how many of those little points of light have gone out already because of people like him. That charm I did only works on wands that are still with the wizard they chose.'

'If the lights are going out, it's because their owners have no need for them anymore,' replied Armin. 'They're giving them up willingly.'

'We'll see,' said Harry, adding quickly, 'I have to go now. Thanks Armin.' Before Armin had a chance to reply, Harry was already gone from the ledge.

Down on the South Bank the breeze was colder and stronger. Harry slipped into the crowd of passers-by, following the dealer as he headed eastwards. Where the noise and the lights ran out, the Thames was vast, dark and silent. He couldn't see the dealer through the mass of bodies in front of him, but thanks to the tracking charm he knew which direction he was taking. In the vicinity of Southwark Bridge the youth turned off the main path and stopped. Harry looked up at the bridge with a shiver then quickly passed under its grey hulk, pausing at the entrance to an alleyway. The dealer had stopped there and was in conversation with another person who had presumably been waiting for him at the far end of the alley. Harry inched down the alley without making any sound then stepped into a doorway to listen in on the meeting going on further down. As he looked around the edge of the wall he could see money pass from the dealer to the wand's seller. His share of the profits. The seller, with his thin face and nose ring, looked possibly even younger than the dealer. At his age he should be in Hogwarts. Maybe he dropped out?

'So if you hear of anyone else interested in selling theirs, let me know,' said the dealer.

The seller nodded and pocketed a wad of £10 notes. Harry decided he had seen enough and stepped out from his hiding place.

'Well this is a new one on me,' said Harry, in a loud, ironic tone. 'Wizards selling their wands? I have to say, the new generation isn't looking very promising.'

The two whirled around and stared at Harry. Their surprise at his sudden appearance turned to shock as they realised who he was. The dealer was the first to regain his cool, and a smirk soon spread over his face. The seller of the wand continued to gawp at Harry, his pale blue eyes bulging.

'Well well,' began the dealer. 'Is that really Harry Potter? Bit of a blast from the past, eh? Could I trouble you for an autograph? It's still worth a few quid, but not as much as it used to be.'

Harry raised his wand and poked it at the dealer.

'This transaction is cancelled,' he remarked grimly. The dealer's smile faded. In the meantime, the seller had his back up against the wall and was trying to inch his way past Harry. Harry wheeled around and pointed the wand at him. The seller recoiled, reaching in his pocket for the wad of bank notes.

'Are you on Ministry business?' said the dealer. 'This hardly counts as an act of dark wizardry, so I can't see why the Auror Office would be interested. Or have you been demoted?'

'I'm on my own business,' replied Harry. 'I just want to understand what's going on here.'

'In that case,' replied the dealer, 'since the great Harry Potter does us the honour of sticking his nose into our business, I'll tell you. It's perfectly simple: this guy here doesn't need his wand anymore and wanted to sell it. I have good contacts, and got him a good price for his trouble. Nothing more and nothing less. No dark wizards, just business.'

'What you do with your wands is your business, as you say,' replied Harry, 'I just want to know why.'

He turned to the seller again.

'Why did you want to sell your wand?'

The seller looked at him sadly.

'I was never that good at magic,' he began. 'I did my OWLs in the summer. I just scraped through most of them. My parents wanted me to go back, but I'm not going to. I'm supposed to hand over my wand to some office at the Ministry if I don't go back. I told them I lost it. The woman at the Ministry told me to fill out a declaration, and that was that. It's my wand. I'll do with it what I like. And to be honest, I need the money.'

'What do your friends at Hogwarts think about this?'

The seller grimaced slightly.

'My best friends are Muggles, not wizards,' he replied. 'I told this girl I could do magic, but it never came out right, and I made a fool of myself. I'm best rid of magic.'

'You told some girl you can do magic?' exclaimed Harry. 'Don't you know the first rule of being a wizard?'

'Ah, I'm pretty much an ex-wizard.'

Harry stared at the seller, who stared back at him with a vacant expression.

'Satisfied?' said the dealer. Harry turned to him.

'I'm still putting you out of business,' he replied. The dealer's eyes narrowed, and he reached into his pocket. Harry was about to disarm the dealer when he heard the tread of a foot just down the alley.

'I'll decide who gets put out of business tonight,' came a voice. Standing before them was a man with tanned skin and a long dark ponytail. He was smartly dressed and held a wand in his hand. He looked about the same age as Harry himself.

'Who are you supposed to be?' said Harry.

'I know him,' said the dealer. 'He tried to buy a wand off me last month. He got rather tetchy because another buyer outbid him.'

'The wand you have there looks pretty serviceable,' remarked Harry, peering at the man with the ponytail. 'Why do you need to buy someone else's?'

'It's certainly none of your business,' replied the man, looking scornfully at Harry. Then he turned to the dealer. 'But you, you really should have sold the wand to me.'

'Not my problem if other people are willing to pay than you.'

The man smiled at him coldly.

'I've come to propose new terms.'

'Sorry, I've already sold that one,' replied the dealer, defiant to the last.

'The new terms apply from now,' said the man. 'Any wands that come into your possession, you'll sell them to me. Otherwise the organisation I represent will be extremely unhappy. And if that happens, I'm afraid you won't be selling anything to anyone, however useful you may be.'

'You're threatening me in front of witnesses?' said the dealer.

'What witnesses?' replied the man.

There was a moment of complete silence. Then there was a flash of light and the wizard's curse was deflected against the wall, where it shattered a section of ancient, soot-stained bricks. The wizard scowled at Harry and fired at him. Harry parried again and fired off a counter-curse, which pinned the wizard against the wall for a few moments, giving the young wizard who had sold his wand time to run off down the alley. The wizard was up again in an instant, firing off a volley of curses, which Harry parried, now with the assistance of the dealer, who seemed to be pretty handy with a wand after all. Together they pushed the wizard back down the alley, until the sound of voices and footsteps on the path outside began to be heard over the wand play. With one glance behind him, the wizard disapparated, leaving Harry and the dealer alone in the alley.

'Thanks,' said the dealer. Before Harry could reply the dealer punched him in the stomach, winding him. As Harry fell to his knees, clutching his stomach and gasping for breath, the dealer winked at him and disapparated. Harry slowly pulled himself to his feet, coughing.

'Don't mention it,' he muttered.