Around the bend
Chapter 6: This way lies madness.
Michael Corner, totally not a spy, looked in the parcel, a present he'd just got by owl-post.
Inside the box was a brand-new demiguise fur invisibility cloak. And a list, on thick paper, a very short list with pictures. Watercolours; a lot like the one's his girlfriend; Mrs Astoria Malfoy née Greengrass painted.
Except these were unorthodox subjects for a watercolour.
'Stone' had a watercolour of a very ordinary looking river pebble, with incised lines on the top; A circle inside a bisected triangle.
'Wand' and – he thought that looked an awful lot like the old Headmaster Dumbledore's wand.
White, long, spindly and carved into berries twice along its length.
And 'Cloak' was a pen-and ink depiction of a cloak, and a note 'silvery, flows like water. No appreciable weight.'
All in very tidy looped italics. He picked the list up and concentrated, closing his eyes.
A fiery anger – the smell of something like Jasmine but not, and a woman's hand writing the note.
He nearly dropped it. 'Fiery Anger?' thought Michael. Daphne Black was all fiery anger? That… explained a lot.
Michael tore the address off the parcel – he recognised the writing and closing his eyes, concentrated. Lyang Lyang, sweat, and a warm, comforting affection. He opened his eyes. She writes my NAME and feels that affectionate? Mrs Malfoy is quite possibly in love with me.
He thought momentarily about Astoria, and tried not to smile. She was warm, and actually rather amusingly soft-hearted, and… well she was tall and quite fit, extremely rich, thanks to her dead husband…. And he was 'welcome any time I'm not having my menses.' He frowned at that, he was quite prepared to cope with a witch suffering so; when his mum or elder sister were bleary and grumpy – or in mums case, insisted on spending evenings being held on the couch by dad, well. He'd fought Death Eaters, he was quite prepared to comfort his own witch. There might be potion recipe in Astoria's immense library that he could brew that would make her more comfortable, anyway.
He'd gone looking for her one week when he calculated she would be… and her house elf explained that mistress was at her sister's house. Michael didn't feel up to bursting in on Harry 'Don't mind me, I was just in Nurmengard' Potter-Black, or Daphne, who he strongly suspected had
organised for the commander of Nurmengard to be bribed with a new job, working for her, while she was in maximum security at Nurmengard itself.
Not counting that the Weasleys and Hermione Granger of all people, had broken Harry and Daphne out of bloody Nurmengard, and brought them home in time for Harry's birthday; without the alarm being raised, then Hermione Granger, who was a Departmental Undersecretary, and therefore not suppose to go around breaking international laws, had cast a Fidelius charm, tying the secret of their escape into her soul. (And making everyone in the room an unwilling accomplice.)
Michael suspected that between the stress of Ron Weasley dying, and the dark influence of Theo Nott, Hermione Granger had been corrupted.
And Harry Potter had just smiled and picked up an armload of his children.
Some of the seven children he'd somehow got Daphne Greengrass – who it appeared was powered entirely by anger – pregnant twice.
Potter's quip about having family magic for that jingled in his brain.
A spell for easing pregnancy. A girlfriend that went to her big sister when she was having a period.
Potter was… at least partly, working as an unlicensed healer.
And something Astoria had said in bed came back to him.
"Of course Daphne was looking after me. I had a chronic illness. Don't worry Michael. I'm completely cured… Don't worry about her – Harry's got her under a dark magical control. On the other hand… Could you manage another go? Because I rather liked the last one, and we appear to still be naked in bed?"
Apart from the burgeoning desire to find her and regardless of her lack of period or not – snog her silly… he thought about Greengrass's … Daphne's massively angry aura when she wrote the list in the light of Astoria's comment – quite unconcernedly about Daphne being under 'Dark magical control.'
He thought about it. She'd been a heartless, hex-happy witch. Potter had married her. She'd been like a glazed statue at their reception. With the exception of the outburst at Hermione Granger.
And then…
He'd met Harry and Daphne at their house in York, with all the children, as the boyfriend of Aunty Astoria. Potter had been casual, relaxed, used children like pacifiers for Astoria's parents, and somehow had the icy 'queenie' of Slytherin compressed into a box shaped like a slightly harried mum.
And she'd painted some pictures, written a list, all while being incredibly angry.
There was actually only one conclusion. Harry Potter was actually a practitioner of the Dark Arts, and wanted his… three Deathly Hallows back. So he was at least a necromancer, with a good grasp on the Imperious curse. And that Chinese curse on his grounds resisted arithmantic expansion. He'd even sneaked to Harry Potter's York property boundary disillusioned, and cast runes. The only rune-stone that landed face up was Sowilo. And the Auror office files for his house said there was a curse at the boundary he'd need expert treatment for, if he crossed it. He'd sneaked a crystal recorder out of the office and use that to record the aura of the Chinese curse, and when 'patches' thought he was doing filing, he'd put it in the bench clamp and directed magic into it with his wand. And the twisted little snippet of aura in the crystal had not unwound in the slightest. Which, given that it was one of the scut-work jobs he had every day when not scrying, was stupid. You put magic in like stretching a spring, and expanded the charm till you could use runic clamps, then you could visualise the nature of the charm or curse. Elementary cursebreaking, 'patches' had called it. And that wisp hadn't budged. The only way an enchantment got that powerful was ritual magic; and Potter hadn't lived there for years upon years, they'd, according to Potters mother-in-law (and possibly his one day) moved there a year before the twins were born. And a necromancer doing ritual magic – and all those attackers conveniently dying at his house. Well, Michael could put two and two together, and it made a very bloody four.
When he'd looked up Astoria's mum's surname in the Departmental card catalogue he'd been directed to a book on dark magic practitioners. And Erzabet Bathory had her own chapter. All pre-statute, and he wasn't entirely sure how to react if he saw Astoria's mum again. Her family were still on an ICW watch-list for sacrificial blood magic three hundred years later. And Daphne Black was very angry, and under Harry's control. And then they'd had children. Michael felt a very conflicted admiration for Harry at putting up property defences that were that powerful. And Harry had lied and said he cast it and re-cast it weekly. The thaumodollite he'd hidden down in the cemetery had not recorded any high-powered spell-re-casting in two weeks. He looked at the thaumodolite recording. Disturbances consistent with spell-casting by multiple people. No massive spells being re-cast. When he touched the recording he'd felt a sudden rush of malignant wrongness. He recoiled. Michael had thought the cemetery had something wrong with it. Someone had done something unspeakably dark there. Time to do what any good Unspeakable does in the face of past evil of unimaginable horror. He went for a cup of tea, and chatted to 'Sylvester' who worked in the ongoing Hall of Prophecies rebuild project.
"Well, the thing you have to ask yourself" said Sylvester, in fluffy slippers under their grey robes "Is what are you doing. Me, I'm preserving history and rebuilding our greatest research reference in divination."
Or putting nearly a hundred thousand glass balls back together to sit mute on shelves, depending on your point of view, thought Michael. They had aura, and Michael could hear snatches of speech from every one, but they were, he suspected, pointless. The new, freshly filled orbs sat like beacons in the shelves. You didn't touch them unless you wanted to go mad. Being near them was eerily like being near the Death Arch. And none of the graduate program were allowed in that room unless their supervisor had them on a leash. After trainee 'Wiggles' walked into it saying "I can hear them!"
'Patches' had repeated the health and safety briefing for The Death Arch to him the next day. "Do not go closer than ten feet to the arch. Do not listen to the voices from beyond the veil. Failure to do so will result in your death, and no body to send to your family. Have you registered a drop of blood in the memorial products office?"
"The what?"
"They use it to conjure up an inanimate flesh golem if we lose you to an… incident." said 'patches' "So they have something to bury, and it divines out as you, well mostly, in case they were to ask for an investigation by the DMLE." said 'patches.'
He sighed and considered the "mission" Harry Potter had, well Astoria had given him.
Michael opened his desk drawer and got out his carefully wrapped tarot cards, and shuffled concentrating on his possible spying for the dark lord Potter-Black. Then drew three cards.
Ten of swords. Betrayal. We're starting at Betrayal. This is without a doubt the worst reading I've ever done.
He drew a second card. Seven of Swords Deceitful thief in the night. And I'm not stealing anything. I'm finding it. She was quite clear about that.
And a third card. Nine of swords. Nightmares. Is where we're going.
Michael stared at the three card spread. Well, that was just peachy. The sort of thing that gave Professor Trelawney the vapours.
He impulsively drew one more.
The little card had Death sitting on a pale horse holding a scythe.
Michael gulped and concentrated, trying not to have a panic attack. Maybe it wasn't that. There were always alternate meanings, and he might be picturing the sortelidge results from the wrong angle.
He drew one more card.
The Devil grinned at Michael, the two victims in chains.
He jammed all the cards together and let his shaking hands shuffle. He was just going to do a simple divination. He was not losing his mind.
He drew one card as the first of a three card spread.
Death. For a "Where are we now" that was…. Surreal.
Michael sighed. And pulled a second card.
The Devil, but upside down. Professor Trelawney had placed great stock in 'reversed' cards, but Michaels' research found little evidence 'reversed' meant anything. Except… He hadn't rotated any cards. He never did – you got reversed cards, and then he felt cross.
And the Devil reversed was supposedly freedom from bondage.
And Daphne Greengrass, poor, angry witch was under Harry Potter's control.
Michael drew his third and final card.
The Lovers. Huh.
He pulled a fourth card, because he wanted to know what happened next.
The Hierophant.
And The Lovers next to the Hierophant meant a marriage.
I find the things, that frees Daphne from… whatever thing he's doing to her, and …. Well, Astoria could remarry, and frankly, I'm getting tired of living with my big sister; and my girlfriend has an entire Manor.
Michael lifted the invisibility cloak out of the box, to put it into his satchel and smuggle it into work, and something in the box went clonk.
He compressed the cloak further into his satchel and looked back in the box.
There was a pen-knife in the bottom of the carton. An old design, with yellowing horn sides and a single blade. There was a cardboard tag tied to it's cord-loop with string, which was knotted into a perfect tiny bow.
Michael picked the knife up, and felt something in his fingers. This was charmed somehow.
His supervisor, 'Patches' made him use the puzzle-box trainer to cultivate magical sensitivity every week.
He read the tag, written in crabbed, spidery writing. Probably Harry's.
"This knife opens any lock and undoes any knot. Return it when you are done."
He turned it over.
"Do not attempt to open door to Love Room. Cost a lot to get it fixed."
Michael's hand dropped the knife with a clatter.
Harry Potter knew about the Love Room, and … had tried to open the door. In his invasion of the department in 1996, he realized.
He undid the tiny bow, and lifted the tag, closed his eyes and concentrated. He smelt something like broomstick polish again, and the feeling slowly slid up his fingers of intense, bone-deep regret. And he saw a man's hand and a self-inking quill writing the label very slowly, while drops of clear liquid landed on the desk blotter around the label.
Michael opened his eyes and re-read the label. Harry Potter was loaning him a pen-knife to open doors, that he felt intense regret associated with? He shrugged. Harry Potter was strange. Probably he regretted the dark magic. But the pocketknife had not been used to do dark magic, so that was nice.
-==0==-
Michael Corner, spy, put on the invisibility cloak, clutched the pen-knife in one hand, and his wand on the other and slid out of the tiny office he shared with 'Penguin.' Graduate programme codenames made little sense. 'Patches' said they would get new ones later, that were department in-jokes. But his was 'Bendy' and that was just an insulting play on Corner. He suspected he'd be 'Bendy' till he retired.
He usually took lunch in the ministry Cafe, so nobody would expect to see him for at least forty minutes.
He was halfway down the hall towards the senior staff's offices when he realized that the tiny piece of string was hanging from the pocketknife and might fall off. He shoved his wand into his pocket and plucked the string off. Michael got a momentary hit of Jasmine up his nose.
He rammed it into his pocket and got his wand out. No time to lose snorting aura from witches with big personalities.
The Unspeakable most likely to do research on a creepy necromancy-related artefact was 'Toothpick' who had by far the most ironic codename, as 'Toothpick' was tall and thickset. He supposedly was still doing (inconclusive) research in The Death Arch.
And his office was down in the sub-level, so Michael would have to go in one office door and down the concealed stairs.
The hidden stairway was hidden, said 'Patches' because the architect hadn't liked stairways.
Michael got to Toothpick's office and knocked; he should be at lunch, the seniors took long lunches and worked late.
There was no answer, so Michael jimmied the lock with the pocketknife. The door opened with a soft click. Quite handy, thought Michael.
Michael slipped in and shut the door behind him, then froze.
In the middle of 'Toothpick''s crowded office, was clear space with three items floating and spinning in a circle. A silvery invisibility cloak, a wand, and a small black stone.
It was, thought Michael, in the first place he looked. That did happen to him a lot… for obvious reasons.
Michael walked over to the floating artefacts, and a screaming noise started. A caterwauling charm. Bugger.
Then what was probably a capture charm levitated him off the floor. He sighed. He was so busted.
He was handing over his robe-pocket contents to 'Toothpick' at wand-point when he picked out the string.
He closed his eyes momentarily. Jasmine, and… a feeling of intense, possessive love that had Michael almost letting go of an insignificant short bit of string out of embarrassment, before he saw the two slim womans's hands knot it – while a man's hand put a finger on the centre of the knot to help. He could practically hear his own parents making small-talk as they knotted the string on a parcel.
She loves him? Like a goblin loves gold? But…
He'd drawn the Devil reversed. The prisoners freed. Harry and Daphne had been kept in fetters in Nurmengard – Percy Weasley had said so.
But it started with Death. And… those, rotating in a circle are the Deathly Hallows of the fairy story. Death's gifts. But … owned by three wizards. Three brothers.
But Potter wanted them BACK. He'd had them.
He'd had them before he'd walked to his death, Michael suddenly realized, in one heart-stopping moment. The way he took the wand from Voldemort was… taking loot from a burglar.
And the ICW had taken them from him. And The Department had kept them from him. And he had been given the task to bring them home. To free the captives. From betrayal.
Michael wanted to giggle insanely and run in circles. Harry Potter was the master of Death, and we were stealing from him. He'd sent a very bluntly worded letter to the ICW members that had profited. Something about that jingled in his brain.
He opened his eyes "What does the Harry Potter-Black letter to the ICW members say about the items here?" he asked.
'Toothpick' tilted their head. Then after a short pause, swept over to their desk, opened a drawer, took out a file, and paged through it. Everyone in the department was an atrocious hoarder.
"He claims to be the eldest surviving Peverell, that the artifacts are heirlooms of the Peverell family" said 'Toothpick.'
"Did you read the story carefully" asked Michael, starting to wonder what, to him personally, Death means as a Tarot card.
"Everyone knows it – they're all cursed, but the cloak is best." said 'Toothpick' "And there's no evidence having all three does anything. I have conducted extensive tests."
"I have been doing divination about this. Sortelidge" said Michael. "Death keeps coming up. Over and over."
"Well, spies are sometimes executed." said 'Toothpick.'
"Get a sortelidge kit. I'll shuffle and draw. Bet my life Death is where we start" said Michael, feeling like he'd decided to change his signifier to 'The Fool' from 'The Magician.' Time to step forward off a cliff. Or onto a cloud.
'Toothpick' summoned a kit; they were handy around the office to check on things if you had the gift. Like Muggle scientists used … something simple and multifunctional.
Michael closed his eyes, unwrapped the cards, shuffled and drew. He held the card out, then opened his eyes. The shadows from the rotating Hallows played across the pale horse.
"I could scry for Harry Potter's Hallows. I'd need a ball, but at close range " Michael closed his eyes and let his mind fall free. They were right here.
"Zero range" said Michael, and he opened his eyes "And more importantly, we're not learning much, are we. A few dead people rising, just avoiding the ban on Greater Necromancy using a technicality."
Something occurred to him."Do they know what happens when they're dead?" he asked.
'Toothpick' flinched, like a rat caught in the light from a wand.
"You've got reports?" asked Michael.
"It's contradictory, apart from… that soon after death the deceased experience a transition… from a limbo like state to an ill-definable afterlife."
"Neither Heaven nor hell" said Michael. "But a product of our own imaginations." he said, because that felt like the right words.
'Toothpick' dropped their wand, and hurriedly knelt and picked it up, pointing a new wavering wand at him. "You can't know that –I've charmed the files unreadable with an insanity curse." said Toothpick.
"I'm on a mission" said Michael, "But I'm not here to take anything."
"You cannot tell anyone of anything that happens in the Department" said 'Toothpick' "Your vows of office are magically binding."
"I found them," said Michael, "In the first place I looked. What are the odds of that? I report nothing to my friend, and he asks me to scry. My working range is somewhere around a thousand miles. He only lives in York. And I'll know where they are to the foot. And if I know the things I'm looking for. He stared at The Deathly Hallows. "And I know these things. You know… he loves her – we heard him being questioned, and she loves him so fiercely I could only sense the anger when I read them."
"Read them?"
"I have a small talent for psychometry" said Michael. "It works best for very loud personalities."
"You could… test them" said 'Toothpick.'
Michael wondered what would happen. And realized he already knew. He'd done the divination. The captives would be freed.
Michael Corner turned, took two long strides, and grasped the floating stone in his hand.
The smell of cabbage soup. A sudden pain – everywhere pain. So Lonely for so long.
Michael opened his eyes and released the stone, which bobbed back into its charmed dance in mid-air.
"It's lonely" he said "And pain. And poverty."
"What does that mean?" asked toothpick
"I just read what's there" he said, and he grabbed the cloak
An acrid smell, freezing cold, and a warm, patient persistent presence.
Michael let the cloak go. It did say 'Greeting death like an old friend' in the story.
"Imagine a comfy jumper made by death" said Michael. "That's that cloak."
"Do not touch the wand with bare hands. It is semi-sentient, and cursed." said 'Toothpick'
Michael looked at his gloved hand. He'd picked up on psychometry with gloves on. Gloves that muted everything, and as 'patches' had joked 'keep all the bits of your hand in one place for later.'
And the wand, as he held it, as he suspected smelt of death. Of split blood, of putrefying bodies. A lot like the last day of the war. When Harry Potter picked it up and left with it. And a clever, patient hand carefully, slowly carving the stick down from a gnarled log, till the carved berries were as big as real Elderberries. And a feeling of warmth started to slide up his arm. Of his magic and the wand being made for each other. He let it go abruptly, and looked at 'Toothpick'. Who had actually given him the health and safety briefing for the artefact.
"They were made by people" said Michel having let the wand go, so his nose could smell the real, not the seen. Not just spilt blood. "People who cared for their work, carefully. The Cloak was made by a very patient weaver… from something stinky. The wand carved patiently. Taking away everything that wasn't the end shape of the wand. And the stone… a poor lonely, person. They worked at it for a very long time."
"But that's not the three brothers" said 'Toothpick' crossly.
"Yes it is," said Michael. The cards made a kind of sense now. "There are three brothers, and they're all idiots. They steal the family heirlooms and flee their home. They get to a river, and make a bridge, and drop it behind them,… escaping their pursuers. The story's true… but the makers were not impulsive. Sad, possibly insane, in the case of the stone… but these all took lifetimes to make. They're brothers, in a sense. And they want to go home to their family. So… I suspect if you get Harry Potter to draw a signifier, you can do it a hundred times… and it will always be the man on the pale horse. Give him back his heirlooms. He won't kill the people that stole his family magic and cheated death. That's…. The Peverell legacy. They made the High Necromancy into a choice for their family, and then they died out. They stopped doing it, because they…
Michel suddenly heard Harry Potter standing at Ron Weasley's Funeral, and like a misread divination his words to Hermione Granger… her words twisted sideways through the Peverell lens and he saw a different conversation. And Harry Potter was a shit, he realized. He must have sarcasm for blood. 'Loved her till the day she died.' he'd said. Ron had been 'badly injured' in the attack on Harry's house. Then died in a 'potions accident.'
"Oh shit" he said.
"What?" asked 'Toothpick.'
"The stone … it works despite the natural order of things." he said.
"Necromancy, yes." said 'Toothpick' probably nodding, their cowl bobbed up and down.
"No… Harry already used it. His friend died, he raised them, and they… they lived a few months before they killed themselves to get back to… whatever their next adventure was. I… I predict – not divination-ally, that a very substantial portion of the people raised by the ICW will kill themselves, or arrange for others to do so… before the year is out."
"Why?" asked toothpick.
"It's in Beedle. It's a warning, Practically the sodding operations guide of the sodding stone. Roll the stone and get your loved one back. But you must do it swiftly. Because it does not take long – " Micahael sighed.
"To start the next adventure" said 'Toothpick.' "These items could be very useful for our historical research."
"But they want to go home" said Michael. "The Stone is filled with the legacy of pain."
"Having all three is not necessary, I suppose" conceded 'Toothpick.'
"But it is" said Michael "Because they want to be together. They're… not even occult. The wand was made very slowly and deliberately. The cloak woven slowly and carefully. Only the stone is not like that – it just feels of pain. Pain and poverty and sorrow."
"Is that from the original maker?"
"I can't tell you that," said Michael, "The people who had the stone for the most, with the biggest auras, were cold and had cabbage soup, and were so lonely. Now maybe it's not that cursed, but… I don't understand how it can work, and still have such a long history of pain and poverty and suffering. But it's family, they're brothers. Together they are happier."
"Happier? The stone is full of suffering?"
"And the wand of death and spilled blood. Everyone's got relatives that hunt." said Michael. Astoria's mother did, Astoria did not. She wouldn't eat rabbits because they were cute. "They're from the same… place."
"Hmm" said 'Toothpick.' They summoned a bucket of sand, cast some charms on it, and planted the Elder wand in it. Then cast a spell on the bucket. A shadow of a tree grew from the bucket, a gnarled Elder.
Michael grabbed the stone and thought of being carved, squeezed hard and closed his eyes.
A wavering hand, a pointed scribe. The smell of burning wood. A stone from the floor.
Michael let the stone go, it floated back into the bobbing ring, and frowned "I saw the stone being inscribed" he said, blinking. "Just a stone off the floor, a human hand, admittedly an elderly one."
"It cannot be just a stone with an inscription. It works." said 'Toothpick.'
"What if it's just… charmed" said Michael. "Or cursed. Makes no difference really."
"I've tried examining for enchantments and there's nothing there" said 'Toothpick.'
Michael held the stone in his fingertips, gave it a gentle pat, and cast periscopius revelio. From the stone expanded blue glowing runes, string after string, in a sphere that filled the room they were in, with intense, interlocking patterns of runes that themselves had meaning.
"That's a ghoul binding - " said 'Toothpick' staring at a phrase spinning round the room, "How did you unlock it?"
"Give it a friendly pat." said Michael "It's very lonely."
"I can't read the damn things, they're too small." said 'Toothpick' crossly. "What sort of idiot puts millions of runes worth of enchantment into a stone off the floor?"
"The sort of idiot that knows what to do with a million runes" said Michael. "I would like to make a bet about the wand?"
"What, that it's sad and needs a cuddle, then is filled with a zillion runes worth of enchantments?"
"It's a wand" said Michael "It's a core, and an outer, and some carving. Just… this one's right. The best made wand ever. I'd bet it's not enchanted at all. Or if it was, just basic wand-care."
And he picked out the Elder wand, and cast a patronus and… a gout of silvery smoke stabilised into a duck that opened its beak and paddled along. He was surprised, but if it quacks, he thought to himself. It's a duck.
"Your Patronus is a duck" said 'Toothpick,' I'm never living this down, thought Michael.
"If you wanted to know about that wand. You should ask Olivander. He's an expert wand-maker. We don't even know what we're looking at" said Michael.
"We can't just go see Olivander and say… tell us about this wand?"
"Why not?" asked Michael, "It's a wand. He knows about wands." Michael wiggled the wand, the duck swam over to see him. He kissed the duck's bill and it turned and opened it's wings and flew away through the wall of the office.
"It's gone" said 'Toothpick.' "But there are neither Dementors or Lethifolds here."
"If you really want to know," said Michael, accidentally invoking the fighting-est words in The Department of Mysteries, "We'd just go see Olivander. In uniform, of course."
-==0==-
Olivander came to the counter. Two grey robed hooded figures stood in grey gloves. One reached into a pocket and withdrew a white wand and laid it on the counter.
"Albus Dumbledore's wand, in his latter days." said Olivander "I have seen it before. You have become grave-robbers in your search for power." He glared at them both.
One pointed at the wand "What is it?" they buzzed in a clicking parody of human speech.
Olivander picked it up and had to school his expression "It is… ": he sighed down it "Elder. Quite old. Hand-craved from a large, gnarled trunk. This... would… would require growing the tree the right shape before carving. A rather large investment of time. The core…"
He led the wand to his ear and wiggled it slightly "Is Thestral hair." he said "I have made Elder and Thestral hair wands. They are temperamental and hard to use. This one – "
He gave it a slight wave and his entire shop tidied itself and all the dust vanished. "Is not temperamental, and the balance is, I believe, perfect. This is a masterpiece, from a bygone era. I could not make a wand like this, because I would need to tend the tree for a century before cutting it down. Then the carving would be..."
"Time Consuming" buzzed the talkative Unspeakable. "Uneconomic to reproduce."
"Indeed," said Olivander. "I envy the craftsman that made it."
"They are long dead," buzzed the other unspeakable.
The door opened and Harry Potter stepped in a t-shirt and jeans, barefoot.
"Ah," he said, "My heirloom wand." He smiled, but not his eyes. He was unshaven, with dark stubble, and his t-shirt had stains on the shoulders.
He held out his hand and Mr Olivander tilted his head "If it is your wand. It will sing in your hand."
"Wands do not sing" buzzed the less talkative Unspeakable.
"They do to me," said Olivander, and he handed Harry the wand.
"Well you've been a lot of places haven't you?" asked Harry of the wand.
Olivander shook his head "That is no way to speak to wand as elderly as that one."
Harry stroked the wand with his free hand, like stroking a cat, and all the wand boxes in that general direction flipped around.
"Now I have three hundred and four wand boxes upside down" said Olivander surprisingly precisely.
"I've made worse messes here" said Harry Potter.
"Indeed. Holly and Phoenix feather, eleven inches. It serves you well still?"
"My first wand is still very good" said Harry. He wiggled the Elder wand, and the windows of Olivander's shop were suddenly clean. "Hmm" said Harry "You think clean windows and a shiny floor?"
"My floor will get messed up by the dirty shoes of countless children yet, Mr Potter" said Olivander "I do hope yours are coming to my shop?"
"In time" said Harry. "My twins are only nine."
"And how is your wife's wand?"
"Well, I find she's still charming, so I assume it's okay" said Harry. Olivander frowned at him severely. "That joke, Mr Potter was old a millennia ago."
"That makes it a classic, and I am a dad, I do have seven and a bit children – counting Teddy Lupin." said Harry Potter, with a grin.
"GIVE US THE WAND BACK" shouted an Unspeakable.
"Give you back my own Property?" asked Harry. "No. Where are my other heirlooms? They can be a bit dangerous on their own."
"YOU! Said the Unspeakable drawing a wand on the other Unspeakable "YOU did this!"
Harry waved the Elder wand idly and the loud, angry Unspeakable was disarmed.
"Didn't expect Mike to have a Duck as a Patronus, but whatever," said Harry, "I can have my things back or come and get them. I suspect you haven't finished rebuilding from the last time I visited."
Harry held the wand in his fingertips. "Be careful with this one – it's awfully tricky."
Then Harry Potter hissed "$hesh shaw she sha she soo sheee hessh$" and Michael was viscerally reminded of the time Harry Potter stopped a snake from biting Justin by hissing at it. He tossed the wand to 'Toothpick' who caught it.
"You have three days to return my property" said Harry "Then the curse on the wand will kill you. And you cannot lift it." Harry turned to Michael "Duck-man, that you? I really hope I got the right one?"
Michael felt faint. Harry Potter had not known? What kind of idiot puts a lethal curse on a wand and only has a guess that it's going to someone he doesn't like?
And he went outside and apparated off, barefoot. Doubtless being barefoot was somehow related to him being as powerful as Voldemort had been; he was often barefoot.