A Bite of Hogwarts - chapter 34

Haa…Here it comes again.

The sight of the dazed Ollivander made Dumbledore massage his throbbing forehead. Since yesterday, he had encountered far too many situations like this. Alina always seemed to be capable of examining parts of the Magic World that everyone had taken as common sense from a very strange angle.

“Ahem, Mister Ollivander, there’s no need to trouble yourself too much over this problem. From what I know, the majority of Hogwarts graduates are still using the wands they bought when they first entered school. We should continue to select the wand using the same process.”

Dumbledore coughed. Shooting a glare at Alina, who had seemed ready to ask another question, he patted Ollivander on the shoulder and tried to bring everything back on track.

“Oh! Right, right, right. Dear, please raise your arm.”

Ollivander suddenly came back to his senses and snapped his fingers. The silver tape measure unrolled on its own and began to fly around Alina to take her measurements. Ollivander himself began to move among the shelves and take down the small wand boxes.

“Each Ollivander wand is made of an incredibly powerful magical material. This is where their essence lies, Miss Kaslana.”

Ollivander carried a swaying pile of wand boxes up to Alina as he explained, “We used Unicorn hair, Phoenix feather, dragon sinews, snake nerves, and other such materials for wand cores. If you want to use all the power of these magic materials, you will have to wait another four or five years.”

“Dragon sinew? Snake nerves?”

The silver-haired girl swiftly picked out these words, and before Dumbledore could stop her, she hurriedly asked, “When these materials are removed from magical creatures, they can still maintain their fresh—ah, I mean, their magical nature?”

“Of course. From a certain perspective, each wand has its own life. This is a piece of art, not just a simple wooden stick.”

The old man proudly nodded. The Ollivander family’s ability to perfectly fuse the wand wood and core and then allow the wand to choose its ideal owner had always been a secret that other wandmakers had desired.

“Okay.”

Ollivander clearly had no desire to plunge too deeply into this question. He took a wand from its box and offered it. “Then, Miss Alina, please try this one. Made from vinewood and dragon heartstring, ten and three-quarters of an inch long. As a person of astounding intelligence, it should be a good fit.”

Gulu~

At this moment, Ollivander clearly heard a small gulp.

Alina took the wand and softly muttered to herself.

“In other words, the magic…food (whispered)…stored in each wand can be preserved for a very long time?”

As she slowly spoke, her eyes turned fiery, and as she looked around at the many boxes in the room, she licked her lips. Each wand was a miniature can!

Bzz~

The wand in Alina’s grip strangely hummed, and the glossy wood rapidly dimmed.

“Oh, dear me.” Before Alina could react, Ollivander paled and snatched the wand from her hand.

“Maple wood, thirteen inches, Fire Dragon heartstring. Try it—” This time, before the silver-haired girl could even properly hold the wand, only touch it with her fingertips, the wand trembled and turned dark and dusty.

“No, no….try this one, beech paired with Unicorn tail hair, 9.7 inches, tolerant and brimming with intelligence, very pliable…ssss…”

As Alina tried wand after wand, she could clearly see the beads of sweat forming on Ollivander’s forehead. The floor began to be covered by various wands, all of them, without exception, producing the same result of deathly stillness.

By the end, it was like some infectious disease had spread through the wand store, one wand after another losing all signs of life in Alina’s hand. A bizarre mood permeated the store.

“Hey, now! Isn’t this a little too much?”

Alina unhappily raised an eyebrow. Why was it that other main characters could enter the wand store and have the whole place light up, while she was treated like the plague god, all the wands dying in her hand.

“Calm down. No rush, no rush.”

Ollivander took out a handkerchief and wiped away his sweat as he took in a deep breath. He didn’t know if he was trying to calm down Alina more or himself.

He had been in the wand business for many years, but he had never seen a witch or wizard so feared by the wands—yes, it was fear.

As the maker of these wands, he could clearly tell that the trembling of these wands was like a small animal meeting some vicious predator.

“One, ah, rather special customer. I think that we will eventually find one that is not afraid of you, ah, I mean most comfortable and affectionate…let me think…right!”

Ollivander glanced at Dumbledore and suddenly had a realization. He rushed over to a shelf and took out a box that had seemingly been intentionally placed in the corner and solemnly handed it to Alina.

“An unusual combination, holly and Phoenix feather. Eleven inches. Holly stands for patience and perseverance while the Phoenix stands for courage and hope. I think that this should be no problem.”

“Ah, Professor Dumbledore…”

Alina blinked her eyes and glanced at Dumbledore. Wasn’t this the wand meant for the savior of the world, Harry Potter?! She wasn’t worried that this wand would choose her. What really worried her was what would happen if she frightened the wand to death. What would happen to Harry then?

“Is there a problem? Do as Mister Ollivander recommends and try it out…”

Dumbledore warmly smiled, with no other reaction.

“Eeeeh…to be honest, I have a bad feeling…”

Alina sighed, and under Ollivander’s expectant and uneasy gaze, she took the wand.

As she gripped the end of the wand, the entire store resounded with a bright Phoenix cry, and red light emerged from the tip of the wand dyed the room in warm golden colors.

Ollivander sighed in relief. Smiling, he began to clap. “Oh, wonderful! Truly, won…eh?!”

The wand in Alina’s hand went crazy, trembling like no other wand before it, shuddering and shaking.

Swoosh~

Plop.

A moment later, the crazed Phoenix wand broke out of the silver-haired girl’s grip and shot straight up. Only after it struck the ceiling did it fall back to the ground.

“Ah, so this wand symbolizing courage…was frightened off by me?”

Alina had a dark look on her face as she massaged her palm. There was a bright red mark from all the struggling. She was determined now to eat some Phoenix meat while she was at Hogwarts in order to vent her hanger.

“…yes, it should be.”

Ollivander nodded in a daze. He uncertainly looked at Alina and the wand ‘corpses’ around her as he fell into a long silence. Even he would not be able to find her an appropriate wand in a short time.

At this moment, the watching Dumbledore broke the silence.

“It seems, Garrick, that you will need to make a wand specifically for Miss Alina Kaslana, just like before.”

In truth, before Garrick Ollivander took over the family business, the vast majority of wandmakers in the Magic World took things rather easily. A customer would often provide the wandmaker magical material that they preferred, had been passed down generations or provided by a family member.

This sort of understanding had persisted until Garrick Ollivander, the man before them, changed everything.

Garrick Ollivander was a pure idealist. He firmly believed that best material for a wand core was not the whisker of the customer’s pet leopard cat, nor was the branch of a shaggy-fruited dittany a customer’s father had saved from being poisoned, nor was it the hair of a mermaid a customer had encountered while on vacation in Scotland.

He believed that the best cores for wands were those that contained extraordinary magic power. It was also best if the wood was selected that most complimented the traits of the wand core and that the wand could choose the witch or wizard that it was most attracted to.

Although everyone had initially rejected this subversive idea, people quickly realized a fact: Ollivander’s wands were more outstanding than any other.

“A custom-made wand? It seems that’s the only way.”

Ollivander frowned. Although he was rather unwilling, this seemed like the only possible way. After all, he couldn’t allow the ancient brand of the Ollivander family to be blemished under him. But there was still one problem.

“I have a few choices for wood, but Albus, what about the core?”

“A hair.”

“My hair.”

Dumbledore and Alina spoke at almost the same time.

Ollivander thought it over and then spread his hands apart as he sternly spoke.

“That’s no good. If my guess is correct, this Miss Alina Kaslana is a half-Veela? The magic in her hair is not enough to create a powerful wand.”

“She does not need a very powerful wand.” Dumbledore shook his head. “The magic potential in her body is astonishing enough. For her, the most important thing is learning how to control it, not the pursuit of even greater power. I think, Garrick, that this should not be difficult, yes?”

Dumbledore lightly waved his wand, and a strand of silver hair silently dropped down and drifted into Ollivander’s hand.

“Mm, fine. If you insist, but I must caution that a custom-made wand is not cheap. As for the wood, I recommend black walnut.”

After some thought, Ollivander helplessly shrugged his shoulder.

“Wait a moment, his! A very, very, very, very small…request.”

Alina gritted her teeth and pulled out several more strands of her hair, tears in her eyes as she gave them to Ollivander.

Owwww~So painful~~˃̣̣̥᷄⌓˂̣̣̥᷅

The little girl cutely pleaded, “Grandpa Ollivander, can you make two wands for me? After all, I’m rather special. If one breaks, I’ll still have an extra.”

Two wands? Ollivander couldn’t help but laugh as he looked at the silver-haired girl. Did the girl really think that making a wand was that simple?

Shaking his head, he proudly declared, “Each Ollivander wand is unique, so…”

“Ahem.” Dumbledore glanced at the crying girl and cleared his throat. “I recall that there’s a Unicorn herd in the Forbidden Forest…”

“Of course, other than when the magic materials are too valuable, we will occasionally use the same materials to make a wand. Leave an address, and I will send it to you by owl in a week.”

Ollivander immediately changed his tone, not at all noticing the subtle shift in Dumbledore’s face.

“Eh? Thank you, Professor Dumbledore. Thank you, Mister Ollivander.”

Alina happily voiced her thanks. The black walnut was a rare material used for making chopsticks, ah, wait, she meant a top-class wood used for wands.