e swallowed and replied, "Was hoping you could tell me. I wanna bribe you to join all my history lessons."
I chuckled. A couple weeks into the term I'd had the inspiration to join Ron's sessions going over history with the first years, using magic to provide accompanying illusions, all to appeal to Lacey's love of stories. It'd become a huge hit, and tons of other first years had joined the lessons since then. Despite Ron's wheedling me to join him on other days, I'd begged off, because I didn't want to spend all my free time doing that. Sure, it was great fun, but I had plenty of other stuff to do too.
It was at that moment that all the owls came in to deliver their missives. We weren't the only ones who slept in on weekends, so at least half the students' owls knew by now to deliver weekend mail at lunch rather than breakfast.
Today seemed to be quite the day for mail though. Harry got a big package, I got two letters, and Ginny received her latest reply from Gwenog Jones, the captain of the Holyhead Harpies (with whom she'd been corresponding since she'd joined some of their practices over the summer).
I stroked Rowena Ravenhoot's head as I examined my mail. I didn't recognise the writing on the envelopes of my mail, curiously. One's writing seemed pretty feminine, so I opened that one first. Possibly some fan mail? I got some of that not irregularly.
I tapped the envelope with my wand, and the top slit open, followed by the sheaf of parchment within zipping out, unfolding, and coming to my hand. Then I began to read.
Greetings to Troy Shaft.
I've heard much of you from my father. He'd love to play matchmaker with us, but I place no expectation on you. Just because I celebrated my 18th birthday last month doesn't mean I'm seeking marriage right away! But I'm intrigued by your command of wandlore, so if you're amenable, I'd like to correspond.
My wand is-
"YES!"
My reading was interrupted by Harry's triumphant crowing. I looked up to see that he had opened his package, and it was a brand-new Firebolt. He hoisted it up above his head, and all the Gryffindors went into an uproar of delight, those on the Quidditch team especially.
"From my parents," Harry grinned a minute later, in response to some of the questions directed his way. "They wanted to get it for my birthday, but someone's older brother in the Ministry," he shot a meaningful look at Ron, "decided to kick up a fuss about broom imports over the summer."
"Firebolts aren't made in Britain?" I queried.
"Brits can't make brooms for shit," Ginny laughed.
"Japan makes most of the best high-end brooms in the world," Alicia offered. "Mostly because they have access to better materials than we do. The Nimbus Racing Broom Company may have invented the Firebolt, but they get the materials for it from Japan. But Britain and Europe have tons of import laws and tariffs because our nobles don't want competition for products they sponsor. So Firebolts are manufactured in Romania, by a branch of the Spudmores' company, precisely to get around the tariff on brooms and broom materials coming from outside of Europe."
"And Percy decided that was against policy," Ron scowled, "and spent all summer trying to restrict them. We were bombarded with Howlers for weeks."
"I know Percy's kind of a stick in the mud," I furrowed my brow, "but I didn't think he was so against Quidditch."
"He's not against Quidditch specifically," Forge said.
"He's against all kinds of fun!" the other Forge clarified.
Ginny rolled her eyes. "He didn't care that the policy was about Quidditch. He just cares about policies and rules being followed, and felt that this was a policy being sidestepped. Penelope must have finally brought him around and gotten him to drop it."
"Good thing too," Olivia Olsby came up to admire the new broom. "I've been spitting fire about this. Did you know they test Firebolts by racing against dragons?"
"Yeah," Ron nodded. "Charlie's mentioned that before. Awesome, right?"
"Eat up, Harry," Ginny commanded her brother's best friend. "Because after lunch we're going out to the pitch with both our Firebolts and I'm going to show you I can still fly rings around you!"
"Oh, you are on," Harry retorted, and bets started flying.
I grinned as the enthusiastic byplay continued. Hogwarts was just plain fun. Hanging out with my friends and girlfriends and either getting up to magical hijinks or enjoying the magical hijinks of others. Sometimes it was easy to lose sight of that, with all the magical research I got up to.
I returned my attention to my letter shortly though.
My wand is olive, core of phoenix feather, quite springy, 10 and 1/4 inches. Not a common wand wood, as I'm sure you know, but there's a reason I begged to attend a boarding school in Athens - they have a grove of the world's oldest wand-wood-quality olive trees, and I wanted to connect with my roots. I made the wand myself, you see. It's not as good as Papa would make, but it's uniquely mine.
I know your wand of course. Papa showed it to me when I was growing up. It's his greatest work. I'm pleased its wielder is so such an afficionado of wandlore as well, it seems fitting to me.
Well, I shan't bore you to tears with personal details in my very first missive! I shall save that for the next one, should you deem fit to respond.
Hoping to receive your reply,
Orchid Ollivander
I had a smile on my face as I finished the letter. I'd surmised it was from Ollivander's daughter early on in the missive. She seemed not only to be a wandlore nerd, but self-deprecatingly aware of her own obsession, which was amusing and honestly kind of attractive.
Wands made of olive wood were unusual, that I already knew, but I could understand wanting to connect to her roots. The name Ollivander literally meant "he who has the olive wand," and according to my mentor in wandlore, the founder of their business (a Roman who'd immigrated to Britain over two thousand years ago) had in fact wielded such a wand.
Olive wasn't one of the wand woods Ollivander used in his business however. I'd asked him about that once, given that it was literally his namesake, and he'd explained that not only was olive a very finicky wood to work with in wands, but wand-quality olive trees were rare and difficult to source, and on top of that it required a peculiar temperament to wield a wand made of one in the first place. "And the first Ollivander had a very peculiar temperament indeed," he'd chuckled.
For Orchid to have successfully created a wand from it showcased her talents, though based on what her father had told me, that talent was never in question. Still impressive though.
I'd have to write her back tomorrow; my day today was full. For now I set the letter aside and opened the next one. The scrawl on this second letter was messier and a bit harder to decipher.
Greetings to Troy Shaft.
I heard that those dumbarses at the Department of Mysteries didn't give you an internship this past summer. Well, they're the ones missing out.
I don't have any goodies as neat as they do, but my old family house still is chock full of artifacts and books. Most of them are pretty dark, but maybe you'll get some use out of them? I've not touched them. Hell I haven't even gone into the house in decades. Too many bad memories.
"What the hell, Troy!" Dean Thomas' exclamation broke my attention away from the tantalising letter. "You fucked werewolves last night?"
A glance at Petty showed her face to be beet red; I'd been half-aware that she'd been describing last night's events to my girlfriends, but clearly others had overhead. And at Dean's shout, every head in the Great Hall turned to me. Great, thanks Dean.
"Nope," I said. I waved my wand and conjured an image of a wolfwyr in its more humanlike form. In l