Geraint Ollivander picked through Helga's collection of unicorn hairs. He selected one and held it up to the light. "Mmm, yes," he murmured before setting it down and selecting another. This received a wince and he threw it onto the brazier without another look.
"Oh," Helga said in a tiny voice. "What was wrong with that one?"
"Too fine," the wandmaker grunted. "It would snap when bonded to the wood."
Sal pulled at his collar and breathed deeply. The shop was dark and stifling enough without the heat pouring from the brazier. Stacks of wood tottered everywhere and boxes of discarded wands piled up the walls. Outside, the patrons of Diagon Alley bustled about their business. It was a curious place; a safe haven for wizards located behind an inn that the Muggles of London walked past as if it did not exist. The alley itself was cobbled and lined with shops selling anything one could imagine.
Neither Sal nor Helga had ever been around so many other witches and wizards before. However, they were not used to being around many people in general. The last major visitation upon the house of the Hufflepuffs had been Matilda and her entourage. There, Sal and Helga had been comfortable and at ease in their familiar surroundings. London was different. It pressed in around them but simultaneously seemed to stretch on forever with no offering of protection.
Their first few days had been spent in their room in the inn under the thin guise of gathering strength from their long journey. Gathering the courage necessary to leave the den had been difficult but they had managed to edge out to explore.
Ollivander straightened up. "Now you," he said to Sal with a flick of a hand.
Sal hesitated, then drew his handkerchief from his pocket. The dragon heartstring was nestled safely inside. Ollivander unwrapped it and held it up to the light.
For a moment, unease coursed through Sal. Suppose there was something wrong with it? He had no others to offer. If this one wasn't good enough then he would leave here wandless.
"Almost perfect," Ollivander grunted. He laid it down beside Helga's chosen unicorn hair. "That is the way to do this. Clear, decisive, all or nothing. Laying all your hopes upon one string shall make a wand that obeys you without question. It will also make it much harder for anyone else to use it."
He turned and squinted at a giant roster just behind the counter. "Wands should be done in a week," he told them.
"A week?" Helga exclaimed.
Ollivander glared at the pair of them. "Aye. One week. I have to match the cores to a wood and bind them together. It is a lengthy process and yours is not my only order. If this is a problem then take your business elsewhere. You won't find any wand as good as an Ollivander's though."
Sal returned his glare with fervour but Helga nodded meekly.
"Fine, we'll be back in a week," she said.
They stepped back out into the bright sunshine of the street.
"What now?" Sal demanded. Helga looked around at the other shops.
"We could go for an explore?" she suggested. "There's a robe shop Father has asked me to duck into and a few book shops that look interesting."
"And that will maybe take today and tomorrow at most," he grumbled but followed her up the street. They spent a dismal few hours in the seamstress'. Sal coldly ordered a new black and green doublet with silver fastenings before taking a seat and waiting for Helga. She seemed to take ages; dithering between materials and styles and tiny trivial things like the shades of yellow for the beadwork.
He left like a little storm-cloud scudding along in the brightness of the sunny alley. Helga breezed behind him, gushing about something from the shop, as he made a beeline for the bookshop she now wanted to visit.
He wanted to go back to the inn and update his journal. The snake in him had been abroad for far too long and was beginning to tire of social interaction for the day.
His mood was further darkened as a deep voice cried, "Ho, lad!" and grabbed his arm. He turned to see a brute of a man standing over him, blue eyes peeking out between bushy eyebrows and beard of flaming red. Sal considered yanking his arm from his grip but the man's arms bulged with muscles and he held Sal's own, pitifully skinny limb tightly.
"That sword... where did you get it, laddie?" the man asked, his eyes squinting at the sword at Sal's hip.
"It was my father's," he said defensively. The stranger's face broke out into a wild grin.
"You're Slytherin's boy?!" he crowed with delight and dropped Sal's arm only to grab his hand and pump it enthusiastically. "Gawain Weasley, at your service, young sir. I own the metalcasting forge up the way there and your father was my apprentice many a year ago!"
"You never said your father was a metalcaster, Sal!" Helga said, appearing suddenly at his shoulder. As Weasley introduced himself again and bowed to kiss her hand, Sal blinked a few times in shock.
No, he hadn't mentioned that his father was a metalcaster. He had barely spoken about his parents to the Hufflepuffs. They knew he was an orphan and his parents had been commoners but they could also tell that it was a sensitive subject for him.
"Come, come! You must come to the forge! Come see where your father learned his craft!" Weasley boomed. One hand closed around Sal's wrist and he was yanked along the street.
The forge was wedged between a menagerie and an apothecary. The heat from the furnace washed over him and with it came memories, memories of his father's forge. Weasley had let him go so he stepped forward towards the anvil. A rack of tools lay nearby. Metalcasting tools; designed specifically for binding enchantments to the metal during the forging process. How many times had he sat in the corner of his father's workshop and watched him work?
He absentmindedly reached out a hand towards the tools but stopped himself just in time. It was considered incredibly disrespectful to touch somebody else's tools; his father had made that clear.
"Your father was the finest apprentice I'd ever trained. I begged him to go into business with me; by Merlin, if he'd opened his own forge he'd have run me outta business years ago. But, all he wanted to do was return to that village he was from to marry his sweetheart," Weasley said from behind him. "Last thing he ever made here was a locket for her."
Sal stroked the lump in his clothes where his mother's locket sat. He hadn't taken it off once since she put it there on that dreadful night so long ago.
"You know...," Weasley said. "I'd be more than happy to show you a few things."
Sal looked over at him. The master metalcaster's face was sad but a small smile was still visible amongst his beard.
"Ours is a small community and news travels fast," he said. "I know your father was killed some years back. If I'd known about you I'd probably have come looking for you m'self. If you're in London for a while, I'll show you something of your father's trade."
Later in his life, Sal would often return to the memories of that week in Weasley's forge; his skin burning from the heat of the forge, the ring of hammer and steel, the master metalcaster's roar of a laugh from beside him and Helga's giggles as she flirted with Weasley's apprentice, Elric, at the back of the shop.
The work was hard and often confusing but, by the end of the week, his pieces were apparently adequate for a beginner apprentice. He found binding the charms to the metal to be the easiest part; it was the actual smithing he struggled with. Despite what Weasley told him, he thought his pieces looked rubbish.
Seeing the beautiful things even an apprentice like Elric could create compared to his lumpen messes really got him down. That is, until Weasley decided to have a stiff word with him.
It was just the two of them in the forge. Helga had gone to pick up some of the goods she had ordered and Elric had volunteered to chaperone her. This had been some hours ago. Sal was pretty sure that the pair of them had somehow made their way to the Leaky Cauldron.
He was trying to bind a charm to a necklace he'd made earlier in the day when the spell slipped from his hand and cracked the pendant right down the centre. He groaned and threw it into the scrap pile.
"Now, lad," Weasley warned from the other side of the forge. "Behaving like that will get you nowhere."
"None of these pieces seem to be working," he said.
"What about this?" Weasley said, holding up a dagger Sal had made earlier in the week.
"That's not pretty," he said shortly. It was strong, true, but it was a squat little thing with only a few basic strengthening spells bound to it.
Weasley raised an eyebrow then threw the dagger the length of the forge. It plunged into the doorframe and stuck there.
"Who cares that it isn't pretty? It's strong! Look at me, am I pretty?" he asked, striking a stupid pose.
Sal snorted but went to retrieve his father's sword. "But this is a beautiful piece and it's strong too," he said, holding up.
"Yes, but that is a masterpiece, lad," Weasley said. "It took your father seven years to reach that level. You could never make something like that in a week and you'd be a fool to even think you could. This sword alone took a month to make; it's a very powerful magical weapon."
Sal looked at him curiously and then handed over the blade when Weasley held out a hand for it. The metalcaster fetched a piece of wood from the woodpile and pushed the tip of the blade deep into a crack in the wood.
"Incendio!" he cried.
Sal gasped as the runes along the blade lit up in a blaze of emerald green. A plume of green fire exploded from the crack in the log and Weasley swiftly removed the sword before kicking it out into the courtyard at the back of the forge.
"I'm guessing you didn't know it could do that?" he asked, passing the sword back to Sal.
"No... I thought it was just strengthened by magic," Sal said, holding the blade up to read the runes again.
"Aye. That it is. But, as long as it is stuck in something, you can also use it as a conduit for your own magic."
"Like a wand?"
"A wand is much more powerful. A wand doesn't require contact with the target," Weasley said gruffly. "But most folks can't afford a wand. Most folks won't even be able to afford a sword like this; they just have to rely on their natural talent."
"Huh. And a goblin-forged sword?" Sal asked. "Where does that compare?"
"Goblin-forged?" Weasley said. He sat down and scratched his beard, a misty expression in his eyes. "I've only ever seen three goblin-forged pieces in my life. Incredible pieces and so beautifully and intricately forged. I'm considered to be one of the best metalcasters out there but my work pales in comparison to that of the goblins. They are different, however. I'm not certain of all the properties of goblin-forged steel but I know it makes a much stronger blade than a metalcasted one. Your father's sword should serve you well throughout your life.
"But, even with your father's sword by your side, Sal, you will lose on the battlefield if you face the man with the goblin-forged sword by his side."
Helga gasped and lifted the wand out of its box.
"English oak, twelve and a half inches, quite spring, and cored with the strongest of the unicorn hairs you brought me," Geraint Ollivander told her. "A loyal wand for a loyal lady."
She blushed prettily and then turned and flicked her wand. The lantern at the end of Ollivander's counter floated upwards.
"This is incredible!" she gushed and promptly turned all the buttons on Sal's doublet bright yellow.
He suppressed a sigh and forced a smile on his face as even the grim Ollivander cracked a smile. The wandmaker then ducked underneath the counter and brought out another box.
"And for you, young sir. Fir, thirteen and a quarter inches, cored with your dragon heartstring and unflexible," Ollivander said. "A wand for a determined character... and for a survivor."
Sal pulled the box towards him and picked the wand up.
It warmed slightly in his palm as he held it for the first time and it seemed to fit almost perfectly with his hand. He could feel the power within and it almost scared him to feel that power. It was his to control, however, and only his.
He met Helga's gaze and grinned at her.
The wands were perfect.
They began their journey back to Wales after bidding farewell to Weasley and Elric. Sal couldn't help but tease Helga mercilessly after her goodbye with Elric, especially as the apprentice had given her a gift upon parting.
A small two-handled yellow cup; bearing the emblem of House Hufflepuff.
Bad Bronze Cat for not updating sooner *frowns* Sorry but I've been writing other things which aren't ready for uploading yet, in particular a Next-Gen fic which will be affected by the events of Crusade! *Ooooooh!*
Apologies for shoving metalcasting down your throats but is is important and my own invention so I feel the need to point it out. Hope you enjoyed the cameo from the Weasley and Ollivander families! Also, look, two of the Horcruxes! The cup and the locket! :O
Please review and I shall hopefully see you in the next chapter where we shall have a fleeting glimpse of someone very special indeed! ;)