章 69: The Wand Chooses
Hermione stepped outside the clothes shop wearing brand new casual robes, the shield of Slytherin house proudly displayed for the entire wizarding world to see. Her school robes and muggle clothes sat neatly shrunk in a side pocket. She rubbed her hands together. Everything was going so well. She'd achieved a quarter of the mission Harry had given her for the Hogwarts express, and she hadn't even set foot on it yet.
Now that clothes were taken care of, it was time for the next most important thing on the list. A wand! And this time, the mission from Harry was meant to be done now.
...
The bell rang, and Hermione stepped into the dusty old shop. Boxes were piled everywhere. Thousands of wands, each destined to a single owner, each containing either unicorn hair, a dragon heartstring, or a phoenix feather.
Hermione remembered Harry's words, spoken not too long ago.
"Fifty new students a year on average, Hermione." They'd been sitting opposite each other in her parent's back garden. Harry's conjured chairs overlooked the vegetable patch. "That's for Hogwarts alone. Another fifty go to other, smaller, lesser-known schools in the British Isles." He looked up from where his forehead rested on his knuckles.
She nodded to show she was following.
"Then there are the other wizards and witches that need replacement wands for whatever reason. Call that a doubling of demand — so two hundred wands on average in the UK a year. Then there's the rest of the world… Obviously other wand makers use different combination of wand cores. Gregorovitch has been known to use veela hair, thestral tail hair, and even coral, among others. But many wand makers use Ollivander's three-core system, and that still leaves the underlying problem. Brother wands are rare, Hermione."
"I don't understand. What is a brother wand?" She edged forward on her chair, closer to the new knowledge, closer to Harry.
"A brother wand is a wand that shares a core from the same animal. I had the brother wand to Voldemort in the second timeline. When brother wands meet in battle they produce a priori incantatem effect that locks the wands together and produces a powerful magical knock-back on the caster that looses the subsequent battle of wills."
She nodded, slowly, trying to see the implications.
"When I was sent to Azkaban, Dumbledore took my wand, and later used it in a battle with Voldemort to stall him while the order achieved a side objective. Voldemort was pretty annoyed about this, and subsequently delved deep into wand lore to understand what went wrong. That's how I was able to make this." He held up his fifteen inch yew and thestral hair wand. "Eventually he discovered the brother wand effect, but he had to go directly to Ollivander to find it. It's not common wand law. You won't find any mention of brother wands in standard duelling rules and regulations, nor will you find it in basic books on wand troubleshooting, nor on wand care and maintenance, nor is it a part of any active government laws and regulations, even in the market for wands, which is one of the most highly regulated markets in the wizarding world. As I said before, brother wands are rare. So, can you see the problem?"
She nodded, slowly. "Where are the tens of thousands of dragons, unicorns and phoenixes needed to ensure the rarity of brother wands?"
Harry smiled, grimly. "Exactly." He leaned back in his chair. "We know how they get the dragon heartstrings. Dragons are farmed. It's not pretty, but dragons grow really quickly. You can have a dragon that's ready to give its heart to a wand in as little as three months. Most dragons never live to see their first winter, and never fly past the mountain they were born on.
Hermione put her hands up to her mouth, her eyes wide in horror. "That's… that's terrible. Oh, those poor creatures."
Harry shrugged, face grim. "It is what it is. The wizarding world uses dragon in many different products. Dragon liver, dragon heartstrings, dragon blood, dragon hide, the list goes on and on. It's the only reason dragons are still around as much as they are. It's quite hard keeping the existence of dragons quiet you know."
She shuddered, before continuing in a whisper. "What about the unicorns?"
Harry brightened. "A bit better news there. Unicorn tail wand cores are made up of many different unicorn hairs, all interwoven together. The different combinations of hairs in each cord ensures that the brother wand effect never becomes an issue."
She sighed in relief. At least there wasn't a battery farm out there raising and slaughtering baby unicorns.
"Phoenixes are where we have a problem. Phoenixes are amazing creatures. They are very intelligent. They can carry extremely heavy loads. Their tears have healing properties, and they can travel by flame, teleporting themselves and others anywhere they wish."
Hermione's eyes widened. "I'd read stories with phoenixes in them, but I wasn't sure if their powers were real or made up. They seem too good to be true."
Harry smiled. "They are. Real that is. And too good to be true. You'd think that with how incredible phoenixes are that everyone would have one. But they don't. Phoenixes are extremely difficult to domesticate. There are only two people in the world who have a phoenix, Albus Dumbledore, and some sports team in New Zealand. Phoenixes are supposedly very picky about whom they bond with, but once that bond is established they are loyal. Loyal until death. Almost always the human's death. Phoenixes live for immensely long periods of time, owing to their ability to be re-born from their ashes when they die."
Hermione scrunched up her face, and frowned.
Harry continued. "So… we have a bird that is almost impossible to catch, because it can teleport past any wards known to wizard kind, almost impossible to domesticate, with only two currently known cases, almost impossible to hunt as killing one will result in a ball of flame, a pile of ashes, and no feathers, with a lifespan measured in hundreds if not thousands of years, and yet rare enough in numbers that the muggles can't confirm their existence." Harry brought his hands together in front of him and steepled his fingers. His eyes gleamed. "So the question is this. Where the fuck does Ollivander get his phoenix feathers?"
The dust of the shop tickled Hermione's nose and jolted her from her musings.
"Good morning," said a soft voice from right beside her ear.
She jumped, but quickly rallied.
"Good morning. Are you Mister Ollivander?" She didn't curtsey, or handshake, or bow, or introduce herself by title, or anything. Not here. Mister Ollivander might be a senior member of the oldest most ancient British house still alive, but in this context, he was a trader, and there were few formalities with traders. Besides, it would throw off her spiel.
"Yes. And you are here to buy a wand, of course."
"Of course. I'm Hermione Granger, Sir. This is all terribly exciting. Isn't it? I mean, a wand, and magic. How do I decide what wand I'm going to get?"
The man in front of her chuckled while a number of tape measures started wrapping themselves around her. She idly wondered if wand compatibility changed as a wizard grew.
"The wand chooses the wizard, my dear, or witch in your case. I don't recognise the name Granger. I assume your parents are non-magical?"
"Yes, Sir." Her tone conveyed her eagerness to own the ultimate symbol of magic.
"Mmm… I suggest we start you here then." He withdrew a box from the nearest shelf, and handed her a plain looking wand."
She shook it, but nothing happened.
"Ah, guess not. How about this one?"
....
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