Steeling his nerves, Severus walked into Ollivander's shop. It was just as he remembered, burned into his brain as a formative memory, and one almost strong enough to use to conjure a patronus.
It was a memory he was about to overwrite with something new.
Ollivander peered at Severus from behind his counter. "Eileen Prince's son, isn't it?" he asked.
Severus nodded, cutting him off before he could recite Eileen's wand's specifications. He'd seen the damn thing. He knew what it was. "I'm here for my wand, Sir."
"Yes, yes, let me see," Ollivander muttered to himself as he began sorting through wand boxes.
It was a long process, trying and being rejected by wand after wand. His anxiety was mounting with every failure.
It had taken a long time last time, too, but Severus could already tell that his magic was different.
It was tugging him in a different direction, and Ollivander's wand choices were following its lead.
Severus actually jumped when a wand finally produced the telltale sparks of a good match.
Ollivander paled.
Instinctively, Severus looked own at the stick in his hand, trying to understand the man's reaction. He recognized that wood type...
"Yew wand," Ollivander said with a scratchy voice, "Twelve inches, supple and pliant. Phoenix feather core."
Yew and Phoenix. Like the Dark Lord's wand.
Severus nearly dropped the offending thing as he rushed to tamp down his panic.
That could not be his wand.
No.
Nagini had infected him, after all.
She had been sick with Lord Voldemort, and now, so was he.
"That... that is a rare combination for a wand, indeed. I've only sold one other Yew and Phoenix in my time. Not the same Phoenix, of course, and this yew came from a sapling, not a mature tree, but still, it is an odd coincidence."
"And who... who did you sell the other one to?" Severus asked weakly, hoping against hope that there was someone else.
Ollivander gave him an unsettled look. "He stopped using his real name a few years back, from what I've heard. I doubt you'd recognize it."
Severus swallowed and fought to stay calm. You're a spy, damnit. Act like it.
"So, there's nothing wrong with this wand, then?" Severus asked innocently, sure that his trembling hands were giving him away.
"Of course not!" Ollivander said, deeply offended, and clutching the wand's box tightly to his chest. "I would never sell a faulty wand."
"Maybe... maybe we should keep looking, just in case?"
"The wand chooses the wizard, child. That wand's claimed you, now. You won't find another."
Bloody wand lore.
"There's really no other option?"
"It's a good wand. Drawn to power, capable of channelling all types of magic without sustaining damage. Adaptable. It will be reborn as you are, able to maintain its allegiance to you no matter how many times you change. You must possess a vast amount of skill and courage for it to have chosen you in the first place. It won't abandon you easily."
No, Severus supposed this wand would stay loyal to him even if his blood was mixed with his enemy's and he was re-birthed as a disfigured snake monster...
He stared at his new wand in horror.
Unwanted, unloved half-blood boy drawn to power and dark magic. Ambitious. Cunning. Brave. Manipulative. Able to lie to people's faces and sway them to his cause. Murderer. Uniquely connected to serpent magic. Tangled in a web of life, death, and rebirth.
Why wouldn't a yew and phoenix wand choose him?
He was more like Tom Riddle than Harry Potter ever had been.
What if he became a monster, too? He was going to be sick.