Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and Company. J. K. Rowling does.
The Snowy Owl Breeders Association meeting was at the 3 Broomsticks. Harry quickly learned he wouldn't be breeding Hedwig any time soon. Since postal owls have been magically modified breeding them requires a license to do so. To get the license Harry has to apprentice to a registered breeder for two years. The youngest they'll take apprentices is 18. He joined his friends in the taproom for butterbeer and pork pies. Hermione had talked them into attending a lecture that evening on the theory of Fire Spells. Both Ron and Hermione had fire Affinity to some extent and Harry was curious about the other affinities and gifts. Though he grew quickly bored with the subject matter. After the lecture they went straight to the castle. Ron and Hermione heading up to the common room Harry heading down to the dungeons and Snape's office he has a lesson tonight.
As he reached the point where the passage way separated he heard a faint grating sound he turned towards it and saw a wand tip. Harry immediately threw up a shield spell Snape had taught him over the holiday. The spell impacted on the shield sending him back several steps. When it did the sound was a loud booming that drew several Hufflepuffs and a couple Slytherins. A second spell from the wand tip shattered the shield but otherwise did not harm Harry. Two Hufflepuffs cast another shield spell A third a fire ball. The wand tip disappeared.
"Are you alright?" Asked the Slytherin 5th year.
"Yeah, did you guys find anything?" he asked of the Hufflepuffs.
"Solid stone wall." Grumbled the one that cast the fire ball.
"Mr. Potter?" Snape asked as he rushed up the stairs following the other Slytherin.
"I heard stone grating on stone behind me as I was coming down the stairs. I cast that shield spell you taught me over the holidays. It stopped the first spell sending me back a couple of steps the second spell shattered the shield. There was no color to the either spell." Harry reported.
"My twin and I where the first here we felt the shield shatter and cast one around Potter." the male twin said.
"I cast a fire ball in the general direction of the crack I saw in the wall in front of Potter. I don't think it hit anything but the wall." said the third Hufflepuff.
"I concur as to what happened." the Slytherin fifth year who stayed said.
"Where exactly did you see the crack?" Snape asked.
"About here." Harry showed him.
Snape went up to the wall placed the tip of his wand on it and murmured a spell. An outline of a door showed to Harry's Mage sight. "Blast. Mr. and Miss Cummins go get the Headmaster. The password is Marzipan. Mr. Potter go to my office and remain there. The rest of you go on to your common rooms or where ever you were headed." Snape ordered.
Harry went to Snape's office. On his desk was the cage with the Glass lizards. A dish of crickets by it. Harry took one of the crickets placed it next to the cage and asked. "Want one?"
All he got was a vague hissing like sound and an impression of hunger. He dropped a cricket into the cage and one of the lizards ate it. He took up another one and asked the same question again. Still vague hissing and the impression of hunger. By the time Snape returned the crickets are gone.
"I see you feed the Glass Lizards. Learn anything?" He asked.
"Their hissing isn't understandable as words. Though I got the impression of hunger from them when they did hiss." Harry replied. "Though every time I fed one its tail tip glowed a muddy brown."
"A muddy brown you say?" Snape mused then looked over to the calendar on the wall. "Ah your next eye exam is due. We'll try this after that. Any aches or pains, double vision or the like?"
"No." Harry reported.
"If such do show up even if they are minor report to Madame Pomfrey. Tonight's lesson will be taking place in the ritual room. Professor Dumbledore and Mr. Ollivander are going to deconstruct the wand that Brown used to cast his spells. You will simply observe. You may ask a question or two after Ollivander has made his exam and finished."
"The Ritual Room?" Harry asked puzzled.
"At one time it was the heart of the castles wards. That is now centered in the Headmaster's tower. It is however one of the safest places to deconstruct a wand." Snape led him to the great hall then down the stairway they had come up first year into a hidden door way that lead to a room under the Great hall of like dimensions. A greater circle of protection in white marble was set in the floor. Modern magic didn't require such any more that Harry knew about. All the other Mage sight apprentices where there as well as were several Aurors.
The wand was set on the stone alter in the center of the circle by the Headmaster. "Mr. Ollivander if you would begin please now that everyone is here."
"Of course." Ollivander picked up the intact wand. "Common willow and unicorn tail hair nothing special about that. Not of my making nor any wand maker I know of." Ollivander gave it a wave. Butterflies came out of the tip. "Someone who knows his craft then. Well made. Not apprentice work at all. Nor that of a first or second year journeyman. Any witch or wizard would have little trouble using this wand to cast ordinary spells."
Ollivander whispered a spell and a grey light exited the wand and muted the spell colors showed as well as ghostly human figures. Harry counted fifteen different spells before it faded.
"Nothing not in the lexicon of known spells. No obvious dark spells. I am going to break the wood please watch for flares." Ollivander said. A murmured spell and there is a snapping of the wood into several pieces. He picked the pieces up and set them aside a second murmured spell and more grey light and ghostly images show.
"The unicorn was not British and is no longer alive. The wood is British from the Midlands. Wild wood not from a cultivated willow. A relatively young willow at that no more than 20 years old."
"Could the maker live around there?" an Auror asked.
"Possible. The unicorn hair will tell us more." A third murmured spell. The unicorn hair glowed from it came grey images of a pine forest and the sea.
"Greece one of the magical islands at a guess Aklos. The Unicorn herd there has been under heavy predation by a dark creature unknown. Enough to halt all harvesting of hair found in the forest there." Ollivander said. "These hairs where from an immature female."
"Would the fact that the unicorn is dead affect the spell caster using the wand?" asked an Auror.
"No, Unicorns lose hairs all the time they grow back. It's not like the blood which is not meant to be shed like the hair." Ollivander said. "If it was a problem a third of all wands would be dark objects."
Ollivander murmured another spell. "The hand of the maker was not the hand that collected the hair nor that of the wood. Someone is very trusting of their underlings when it comes to materials. The unschooled usually get it wrong as not just any willow wood or unicorn hair will do."
"Would someone with Mage sight be able to tell the difference?" Harry asked.
"It would help some but it would still require training to select the right woods and core. Mr. Potter." Ollivander said. "Someone with the sight could however select a variety of woods and various cores and a wand marker could make the final selection. That would work rather nicely. You see the woods and the cores must glow to those with mage sight indicating they can carry power in them. As willow and unicorn are so common a combination focusing on those two things would yield a number of usable wands."
"So there could be more wands like that out there?" Asked an Auror.
"Unlikely. Wand making is a delicate art. It takes a journeyman six months to make a wand. That is working every day on it. He or she would not be able to work on another at the same time either unlike myself or another master."
"Where all the spells jinxes and hexes?" Asked one of the Apprentices.
"No one was a summoning spell." Ollivander said. He cast a spell with his wand and ghostly images showed up he stopped at one. "He summoned a book. 'Ars Mal' I can't make out the rest. It looks like the Hogwarts library."
"I'll have Madame Pince check the catalog for possible books. Is there anything else Mr. Ollivander?" the Headmaster asked.
"No the wand has told me all it can. It is broken and useless now. It needs to be burned and the ashes scattered." Ollivander said.
"Thank you that will be all then." the headmaster dismissed them.