Chapter Six

"Subject and appointed escorts will be flooing directly into Ollivander's," Kingsley explained, "then Subject will find and purchase a replacement wand and will return, with appointed escorts, to Point 1 directly."

"But what about money?" Harry demanded, completely interrupting the briefing that he was supposed be ignoring, "won't I have to go to the bank?"

"It's been taken care of," Kingsley said, "that's article four of the briefing, and I thought you had a silencing sphere around you."

Harry rolled his eyes and shrugged and tried not to appear embarrassed…he'd thought he'd popped something… "Well, clearly a failure on your part and just how many articles of this damn thing are there? If we aren't going to go soon, I'm going to find lunch."

"There are sixteen," Kingsley replied, "and if you leave then this trip can certainly be post-poned."

"I'm just saying, I don't see the need for this to be a full out auror mission! It's a shopping trip not a reconnaissance mission."

"Quite right, Harry, that was earlier this week," Kingsley replied, "now, do be quiet and let us finish the briefing!"

Harry groaned and banged his head into the wall.

"Article Four, Part One, A: An amount of 20 galleons have been removed from Subject's vault…"

Harry huffed and slid off his chair onto the floor and curled up in a ball, as all the aurors stared on, Kingsley stopped his dictation to glare at Harry.

"Oh, don't stop on my account, please," Harry told his audience, "wouldn't want to get in the way of 'official auror business'."

Kingsley returned to reading the mission plan and Harry closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Harry woke up to a nudge in his side and: "You have got some nerve, kid."

"That's about right actually," Harry said, holding up his hands and twiddling his fingers, "some nerves."

Harry sat up and wiped the drool from his mouth, getting a rather unimpressed glare from Kingsley. "Right, so now…Subject departs by floo from Base 1 right?"

Harry hoisted himself up and stretched and wondered just how he'd managed to pull that muscle in his back.

"And isn't Code Name: Gandalf supposed to be rendezvous in…what was Ollivander's code name?"

Kingsley didn't deign a response, and Harry decided he deserved that, he had been awful since he'd woken up after the "accident."

Kingsley held out a bag and demanded, "Do you remember the floo address?"

Harry pretended to think and then asked, "Knockturn Alley?"

"Do you want a new wand?" Kingsley demanded, finally fed up.

"Sorry!" Harry huffed and he grabbed some floo powder from the bag and headed up to the fireplace, "and yes, I know what the address is, I'm not stupid no matter how much people tend to believe it."

And Harry flooed away before Kingsley could respond.

Harry kept his eyes closed and elbows tucked in as far as possible, praying his glasses were okay…until he remembered he wasn't wearing them.

Harry landed, hard, the impact jolting up from his tailbone to his brain, that felt like it had been swirled around in his head.

Harry opened one eye and saw Dumbledore smiling down benevolently on him.

"Hello, Code Name: Gandalf," Harry greeted, "Glad to see you arrived safely at the you-know-where for the you-know-what for you-know—" Harry cleared his throat, and stopped that train of thought, gaining a chuckle from Dumbledore and a couple of the aurors that hadn't begun looking around nervously.

"Mister Potter," Ollivander's wispy voice seeped out from the shadows, as Kingsley landed quickly followed by a few more aurors, "Mysterious wand destructions don't often go without physical," Ollivander swept out of the back of the shop and up to Harry, "and metaphysical scarring."

Harry remained silent.

"May I see your hands," Ollivander requested, as he crept forward a few more inches.

Harry stared at the man for a few moments and was surprised that his mind wasn't being probed. After a moment, he decided there couldn't be much harm in it, and held out his hands.

He immediately regretted that decision as Ollivander's long, bony fingertip touched the center of the purplish starburst and sent electrical, metallic jolts through his body.

"A magical starburst," Ollivander told Harry, "the sign of a magical explosion or a large accumulation of magic," Ollivander turned his attention to Harry right hand and asked, seemingly less interested, "Silver?"

"Steel," Harry corrected, "Madam Pomfrey says it'll come out soon."

"Curious, Curious," Ollivander murmured. "Now," Ollivander flitted to one of the shelves, aurors darting out of his way, and carefully extracted a wand box, "13 inches, holly, and dragon heartstring, a more usual combination than your last wand, but possibly, possibly as compatible."

Harry reached out for the wand but before he was within six inches of it bolts of…something, it looked like electricity, the same shade as the coloring in his left hand, jerked out of his hand and struck at the wand which popped and began warping. Harry stumbled back quickly, his heart pumping, his eyes wide.

Ollivander stared down into the box and then slowly raised his eyes to Harry, putting the lid back on the box and placing on his desk.

Ollivander studied Harry for a long while before going for another box.

"9 and a half inches, ash, unicorn hair, very agreeable," Ollivander said slowly, cautiously.

Harry swallowed and just as slowly and cautiously took the few steps between them and held his hand out to take hold of the wand.

Harry actually managed to touch this one and it heated rapidly under his fingertips and exploded instantly, the box flying apart. The pieces of wand and cardboard flew away from him and Ollivander and struck the walls; Harry took in a shuddering breath and checked to make sure he was still okay.

He sighed with relief once he saw no debris had struck him and went to brush his hair out of his face when he caught sight of a short, pure white hair attached to his finger. Harry shook his hand quickly to get the hair off, but that didn't work and he ended up picking the hair off and tossing it aside.

"That was a valuable unicorn hair, Mister Potter," Ollivander informed him.

"Oops," Harry replied, and he turned to look, uselessly for it.

"Mister Potter," Ollivander interrupted, "you have tried two very different wands, one which would be useable to any person here, and I'm not sure it would be prudent to have you try a third."

"What does that mean?" Harry asked, his brow furrowed.

"Your left hand obviously has magical damage which would make it difficult for a compatible wand to be found if you were left handed, but not entirely impossible, however your wand has no magical damage and yet it reacts more violently than the average magically wounded hand."

Harry was pretty sure he didn't like where this was headed, "So why don't we try my left hand? You said it was possible to find a compatible wand even with a magical wound, right?"

"But you're right handed," An auror contested.

"Yeah, but what about people who have an amputated arm, they can learn to use their non-dominant hand to write, why not with a wand?" Harry asked, "Couldn't we try that?"

Ollivander studied Harry for a moment and then went to the shelf where he'd gotten the last wand, "9 and a half inches," Ollivander introduced, "ash, unicorn hair, compatible with 99 percent of the population."

Harry reached out for it with his left hand and he could feel the wand, even from this far away. Harry's fingers twitched and he could see the wand echo the motion, he suddenly had a bad feeling about this. Harry pulled his hand away and felt part of the wand come with him, the wand snapped into tiny pieces and Harry's hand jerked and twitched The unicorn hair flew out of the splinters of wood and into the center of Harry's palm , Harry twisted his hand around to stare at it, and the part of the wand he could feel grouped around the unicorn hair, glowed green and then snapped into nothing.

The unicorn hair fluttered off Harry's hand.

"That settles it then," Ollivander explained, "I believe that you're unable to use a wand, Mister Potter."

There was utter silence, then the aurors began talking to each other disbelievingly.

"This doesn't leave this building," Dumbledore almost roared over the din, Harry turned to stare at him.

"If this hits the press," Kingsley added for good measure, "it's all of your heads!"

"Are you quite sure?" Dumbledore demanded of Ollivander, "Surely, there must…"

"You saw the same thing I saw," Ollivander replied, "those were magical reactions, he's incompatible with wands, there's nothing to be done about it."

"Is there some other way, some other cores—another way for him to yield magic?" Dumbledore demanded.

"Wait, what do you mean I can't yield magic?" Harry demanded, "what about what just happened, he said it was magic! You said it was magic! So I can't use a wand, doesn't that still leave wandless magic?"

"It was a magical reaction, Harry," Dumbledore explained, pity and disbelief in his eyes, "a negative magical reaction, meaning there's a conflict between you and the magic around you. Did you notice any discomfort when you touched magical objects, any problems with spells cast around you?"

"I have 'discomfort' whenever I touch anything," Harry replied, "what does that have to do with anything?"

"And you didn't see fit to tell anyone?"

"considering the wonderful exchange of information between the two of us, I don't see fit to tell you or anyone else anything," Harry retorted, "and I still don't see why I still can't do magic, isn't blowing stuff up without touching it magic?"

"Blowing up wands shows an incompatibility with all magic," Kingsley informed him.

"No, that just means you're too lazy to find the wand that's compatible with the other one percent of the population," Harry retorted, "and I'm pretty sure I would've noticed if I was incompatible with magic."

"Harry!" Dumbledore said sharply, "we shouldn't be fighting over this; the fault is no one's—"

"I'm still claiming the right to blame you," Harry told him. "And there are other ways to do magic!"

Dumbledore made his way over to Harry who was ready to push that look of pity off his face, and placed his hands down heavily on his shoulders, "Harry, you must face the fact that you are now unable to do magic, and that is it."