The old man sighed, and visibly refocused himself. "Every wand I craft uses a core of a powerful magical substance. We tend to use freely given unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and dragon heartstrings. No two of our wands are quite the same, just as each animal and tree is not the same. You will also never get the such good results with someone else's wand, as the user and wand grow together." He grinned. "Now Mr. Potter, let us find your personal wand. Which is your dominant arm?"
Harry wiped an eye that was NOT moist. "My right. I would also like to ask questions about how wands work, if you have time."
Harry watched as the man measured Harry from shoulder to finger, wrist to nose, knuckle to ear, and other absurd things. The man noticed Harry's raised eyebrow, and he grinned back. "Keeps the kids quiet as we begin testing the wands. Some get quite anxious as the process goes on." He pulled forth a box. "Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. VERY whippy."
Harry held the wand and felt it reach into his core in several places. Allowing it to connect, he felt several threads being pulled down his arm and coiled into a rope that was pulled into the wand itself. The inside of the wand felt twisted, as if the center was actually a series of rune in three dimensions that magic flowed through. As the connection reached the tip, a wave of sparks flew from the end.
Ollivander's eyebrows shot way up. "An instant connection!? That has never happened in my personal career. It seems perfectly matched as well." Harry shook his head. "Actually, I think something else is happening. Could I try another wand?"
The old man seemed set back. "Another wand? But this one has one of the best connections I have ever seen! The wand choses the wizard young man."
The boy shrugged. "Please humor me. I think it is important."
With hardly a grunt, the man placed the maple wand carefully back in the box and picked up another. "Here then. Ebony and unicorn hair..."
His face went slack as he watched the young boy give the wand a swish and again, brilliant sparks flew from the end.
Harry nodded. "I could feel it trying to connect with me like the last one, but this time in different places. Since I have such control on my magic, I can enable either wand access to my magical core as it attempts to connect." Ollivander seemed stunned. Harry grinned at him. "So, since I can probably use any wand in the shop, how about we try for something interesting? What is the smallest wand you have?"
The old man's eyes seemed to glow white for a moment, before he began to grin. "Smallest? I have been making wands for years that I have wanted to see wizards actually use." He dashed to the back of the shop, where he had placed wands he had created back as an apprentice. He remembered how optimistic he had been back then, when he had made all kinds of interesting and bizarre wands before he realized wizards would rather use something normal looking with a bad connection than a well matched wand that looked strange.
He placed an ancient case on the counter, and lifted the lid. "Harry, in my youth I had made many wands that no one was willing to try because they were not considered 'normal'. Would any of these appeal to you?"
Harry's eyes literally began to glow as he beheld the beauties in front of him. Wands with multiple woods, wands that were curved or even had a branch in them, even some that were carved with strange gems in them. He picked up a wand shaped as a perfect circle, like a ring. The connection felt odd, like a series of loops that wrapped around his core before connecting, and the sparks flew around the rim like fireworks.
Placing it down he saw one that had three tips and one handle. As he lifted it each tip shot a different spark, and he could feel it making multiple connections into his core.
Ollivander was acting like his birthday had accidentally bumped into Christmas and decided to have tea. Some of the wands Harry was playing with even HE hadn't been sure would be usable, but each one gave the perfect connection signal as the boy swished them. He grinned as he reached into one of the top sections of the display, and handed the boy the one he had in mind.
Harry looked up from a wand made of stone and saw what was in the old mans hand. The wand was of some type of wood, but most of it was bound in dragon leather. Only an inch of it was exposed. Harry lifted it, and felt a MASSIVE amount of connections feeding into it. "Wha... What core is in this one?"
The old man chuckled. "That one is what I called the Dragon Scalpel. The hilt is dragon leather from one of the oldest Hungarian Horntails my grandfather knew, and it contains two dragon heartstrings. One from the father dragon, when he died of old age, and the other from one of the youngest Horntails that had passed in my time." His eyes misted a little. "I was heavily into symbols at the time, and I spent years on this wand. The Ash tree wood came from the preserve where the Horntail lived, and after some haggling I managed to even get some of the young dragons blood to help with the internal runes."
He sighed. "I made it in rebellion from father, really. We had an argument that two or more cores was not possible, and I thought using the same species would prevent many of the issues. We were both right in the end." He pointed at the handle "It had to be extra thick to handle the internal carvings, and I had to use dragon leather to keep it from possibly dissolving the outside when under heavy use." He pointed at the inch tip. "As you can see, the extra protections and such required for the wand to be stable drastically reduced the length it could safely be. Also, the larger connection to the wizards core caused massive misfires if it was a bad match, and almost destroyed part of the wall during testing." Harry looked carefully as he moved the wand. The two cores felt like it was weaving his ropes together. "I ran into something like this on my own. Did the misfire create... well, fire?"
The man nodded. "I assumed it was a side effect of using so many dragon related components. This wand was part of the reason why I stopped experimenting."
Harry shook his head. "From what I can feel, the core is wrapped in a spiral. As the magic is pushed through, it wraps as well. I found that if you do that with raw magic it creates a sort of flame as a byproduct."
Ollivander thought about this. Sighing, he seemed sad. "I suppose that means this one can't be used then. Any heavy magic would just come out as a flame."
.
.
.
👓☕️Consider supporting me and enhance your reading experience with the ready-to-read PDFs I have on my Ko-fi.☕️👓
🎯https://ko-fi.com/bstories🎯