The multitude of maimed bandits in the world of Ruby-Eyes would never believe that it was the daughter of a simple merchant that had laid them low. And their disbelief would be correct as far as simple goes. However, the Inverse patriarch was a merchant, and a successful one at that. So when Harry and Lina entered Ollivander’s, they had a moment of professional horror that anything could be so badly arranged.
Then Ollivander himself rolled into sight on a ladder. “Harry Potter,” he said. “I was wondering when you’d be coming into my store. Seems like just the other day you’re parents were getting their first wands. And who is this?”
“This, sir,” Harry said before Lina could try her usual introduction, “is my adoptive sister, Lina Inverse. She is also going to Hogwarts.”
“Adoptive sister?” Ollivander wondered, looking Lina over. “I’ve never had anyone named Inverse in my store. Did your parents buy their wands elsewhere?”
Lina considered her answer. “My parents don’t have wands.”
“Ah, muggles eh?” Ollivander muttered, nodding to himself. “Always interesting to see a muggleborn’s first wand. Take Harry’s mother. Ten and a quarter inches, willow. Nice and swishy, good for charm work. And so she was,” he chuckled.
“Pity not all wands are so illustrious.” He looked at Harry’s forehead, almost seeing straight through the headband to the scar. “Thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Had I known what that wand was going to do…ah, but what use is it to ask if only?”
Harry touched his forehead and scowled slightly. He knew, logically, that the dreaded Voldemort had once been a man like any other, a boy before that, and a child before that. But it was quite another thing entirely to come face to face with the man who had sold the weapon that ended his parents’ lives before he had ever known them. “What was he like?” he asked.
Ollivander looked at the expression on Harry’s face and returned a grim look of his own. “Some things, Mr. Inverse, are best left forgotten,” he said quietly. He cheered. “In any case, you both need your wands. Come come, hold out your wand hand, there’s good children.” He set a pair of measuring tapes over the Inverse siblings, obviously magic as they ran about them taking the most ludicrous of measurements on their own while Ollivander ran to the stacks.
He came back with a few boxes. “Let’s try young Harry first. Away with you, you silly tape.” As the measuring tape fell lifeless to the floor, Lina wondered when the old man had had time to look at it. “Beechwood and dragon heartstring, nine inches. Give it a wave.”
Harry took the wand and waved it a bit when Ollivander snatched it away and put another one in. “Maple and phoenix feather, seven inches. Try—no.”
Lina sat back as Ollivander went through what felt like every wand in the store when a gleam entered his eye. “Maybe…why not? Wouldn’t that be curious.” He ran to the back and came back with yet another wand. “Made this on a whim, rather unusual. Holly and phoenix feather. Eleven inches. Supple.”
Harry grasped the wand and warmth flooded his hand. This wand was different than the others, this wand felt like it belonged. He swished the wand down and left a trail of ice crystals in its wake. He grinned. “I think we have a winner.”
“Indeed, Mr. Inverse, indeed. Curious, though, curious indeed. The phoenix whose feather rests in this wand, gave one other feather. Only one other feather. It is curious that this wand belongs to you, while its brother…”
“Yew and phoenix, thirteen and a half inches?” Harry asked quietly.
Ollivander nodded solemnly. “The wand chooses the wizard, you know. It’s not always clear why.”
“Well this one seems clear enough to me,” Lina offered. “Magical residue in the scar.”
“Stranger things happen,” Ollivander agreed. “Now Miss Inverse, as to your wand…ah. Oak and dragon heartstring, eight inches.”
Lina held the wand and gave it a gentle wave, upon which it shot from her hand and embedded itself in the ceiling on the far side of the room.
Everyone stared for a moment. Gourry spoke first. “Maybe the dragon heart is afraid of her?”
“Wouldn’t be the first, eh Dra-mata?” Harry asked, grinning at Lina’s shocked expression.
Hagrid remembered when he told Luna “what harm could one extra person do?” Now he knew why Luna had given him a pitying look.
Almost as many wands passed through Lina’s hand as Harry’s, although after the third dragon heartstring flew to safety, Ollivander took the hint and stuck with unicorn and phoenix wands.
Success came with another wand Ollivander declared unusual. “Imported bits of this from America. Arbutus and phoenix feather. Eleven and a half inches.”
Lina’s hand closed on the wand and it was like she had grabbed a live flame. It didn’t hurt or burn, and was rather quite pleasant, but she felt it could consume her if she wasn’t very careful. She waved the wand and if left a trail of sparks that smelled vaguely of sulfur and ash, and her talismans glowed dully as if recognizing the kindred spirit in the wand.
“Most curious,” Ollivander muttered. “I almost made this a dragon wand, Miss Inverse, but I felt that phoenix would suit it better. The arbutus is a wood that burns long and very hot, but the tree often survives a fire, and the seeds sprout best after flames clear room for them.”
“So,” Lina said slowly, looking at her wand, “it’s a wand well designed for work with fire.”
“That’s perfect for Lina,” Gourry declared.
Lina had to agree. The idea of using a wand…didn’t sound so silly anymore.
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(Posted Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:54)
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