Harry Potter: Master of Talismans

After everything I had bought in Diagon Alley, the wand shop ought to have been the easy part. Ollivanders had centuries of experience, a reputation Hagrid clearly trusted and a window display consisting of one wand on a faded cushion. I decided the absence of variety outside must indicate confidence in what waited inside.

Harry was less convinced. ‘Hagrid said this place was famous,’ he murmured. ‘He said that about the Leaky Cauldron too.’

‘Best wandmaker in Britain,’ Hagrid told us, quite undeterred by the comparison. ‘In yeh go. I’ve a few things ter fetch. If I ain’t back when you’re done, wait at Fortescue’s ice-cream shop.’

I pushed the door open while Harry adjusted his bags. A bell sounded inside, and we entered a narrow room with shelves of long boxes reaching almost to the ceiling. There were enough of them to equip a considerable number of wizards. I hoped that included us, because there wasn’t much room left for displaying alternatives.

‘Perhaps he’s in the back,’ Harry said. He had barely finished when a ladder moved between the shelves and an elderly man appeared, startling both of us. My first impression was that the shop had produced him from its stock.

‘Mr Potter,’ he said. His pale eyes settled on Harry with immediate interest. ‘I’ve been expecting you. Ollivander, at your service.’

He came down from the ladder and began talking about Harry’s parents. He remembered selling their first wands, with details of the wood, length, core and character that made me stop wondering about the state of his window. This wasn’t a man vaguely recalling old customers. He spoke as though he could still feel the objects in his hands.

‘You remember every wand you sell?’ I asked. ‘Even after all that time?’

‘Every one that has left this shop,’ he said. ‘Your parents bought theirs here too, Mr Mercer. Ken and Mary. Yes, I remember them.’

Hearing the names again caught me off guard. Before I could decide what to ask, Ollivander had turned back to Harry to establish which hand he used. A measuring tape rose from the counter and began taking measurements while the wandmaker disappeared into the shelves. Apparently having an object invade your personal space was a routine part of shopping here.

The first wand gave Harry an opportunity to damage the stock. At Ollivander’s instruction he waved it, producing a violent flash that sent boxes jumping from a shelf. Harry froze with his arm extended. I found the result rather more encouraging than my own attempts at home had been.

‘That’s certainly doing something,’ I said. ‘Mine didn’t even manage the boxes.’

‘No, not that one.’ Ollivander took it away before Harry could decide where to put it safely. He was already searching for a replacement while Harry inspected the fallen stock.

‘Do you think he’ll make me pay for that?’ Harry asked. ‘I only did what he said.’

‘Then I’d say it’s his responsibility. Otherwise this is a very expensive way to try things on.’ I moved a little farther from the shelves when Ollivander returned with another box. Harry noticed and chose a different direction for his next attempt.

The second wand broke a vase. Ollivander rejected it even more firmly than the first, taking it back while Harry stared at the pieces. I kept my opinion of its power to myself. He didn’t seem likely to appreciate encouragement just then.

The third was different before Harry had properly lifted it. Warmth seemed to pass through the room, and red and gold sparks rose from the tip without striking anything. Harry’s shoulders relaxed. He stared at the wand as though it had answered a question he hadn’t known how to ask.

‘Holly,’ Ollivander said. ‘Eleven inches. Phoenix feather.’ He had gone still, looking between the wand and Harry’s face. The result had apparently told him something beyond whether we were going to need another vase.

I asked what had caught his attention. He explained that the phoenix which had given the feather for Harry’s wand had supplied the core for only one other. That wand had belonged to the wizard responsible for Harry’s scar. The satisfaction on Harry’s face changed as he understood.

‘His wand and mine are connected?’ Harry asked. His hand went towards his forehead, leaving the new wand lowered at his side.

‘Brothers in core,’ Ollivander said. ‘What that means for either wizard is another matter.’ He watched Harry with an intensity I didn’t much like. I hoped the boy would at least get to keep the pleasure of finding his own wand without somebody turning it into another responsibility.

Ollivander hadn’t used Voldemort’s name. The omission interested me enough to ask whether there was a curse on it, given how carefully people seemed to avoid saying it aloud. That brought his attention round to me, and I discovered that curiosity could sound rather like dismissing someone else’s fear.

‘You did not live through those years, Mr Mercer,’ he said. ‘Many people have reason enough without a curse. They remember what it was to be afraid every day.’

‘I hadn’t thought about it that way,’ I admitted. In my old schoolbooks, men who had terrified whole countries had become dates and photographs. Here the people listening could remember neighbours disappearing, and my own parents were among the dead. Treating the name as a puzzle had allowed me to overlook the people answering the question.

Ollivander let the subject rest. Then he asked for my wand hand, which I offered with considerable confidence that having a professional help would improve on my attempts with Ken’s and Mary’s wands. Two and a half hours later, I had revised that opinion several times.

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The first two did nothing. A later one warmed briefly and gave up; another offered a single spark which Ollivander dismissed before I could decide whether to be pleased. Walnut and dragon heartstring gave me a headache. Beech produced a few sparks and then stopped responding, while a unicorn-hair wand vibrated so unpleasantly that Ollivander removed it from my hand.

The pattern bothered me more than any individual failure. I could feel that something ought to happen, yet most of the wands remained stubbornly separate from whatever I was trying to put through them. After preparing Runebark, I knew my magic existed. I had also learnt exactly how unpleasant it could be when it moved without enough control. Here, I couldn’t persuade it to make a useful connection at all.

Ollivander kept finding reasons to try another box. Harry’s interest lasted admirably, then gradually gave way to the kind of patience which involves reading the same label several times. By the time Hagrid returned, I had been waving unsuitable wood for about two hours and my arm ached.

Hagrid carried a snowy owl in a cage. ‘Birthday present, Harry,’ he said, setting it where the boy could see her properly. ‘Thought yeh might like one.’

‘For me?’ Harry approached the cage slowly, then crouched beside it. ‘She’s beautiful.’ The owl watched his finger come towards the bars and clicked her beak, apparently willing to consider the arrangement.

Hagrid looked enormously pleased. I couldn’t resent losing my audience to that expression on Harry’s face, especially when my latest wand was doing nothing more interesting than the previous one. I suggested they go on to Fortescue’s while Ollivander finished deciding how many boxes it took to disappoint me.

‘Are you sure?’ Harry asked. He had hold of the cage now, but he waited for my answer rather than head straight for the door.

‘Go and enjoy your owl. If this takes much longer, somebody ought to know where to send food.’ I handed another failed wand back to Ollivander. ‘I’ll come and find you when he runs out.’

They left, and the testing continued for another half-hour. My fingers were stiff, Ollivander’s hair had become increasingly untidy and I was beginning to feel embarrassed each time he presented something with renewed hope. At last I lowered my arm and asked whether we ought to accept that this wasn’t working.

‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘The wand chooses the wizard. We haven’t found yours yet.’ He put the latest failure aside and looked up towards the shelves, but this time he didn’t immediately reach for another box.

‘I’ve tried quite a lot of them,’ I said. ‘If there’s some other way to do this, I’m willing to hear it.’

‘Wait here.’ His expression sharpened, and he went into the back room before I could ask what he had thought of. I sat down and flexed my hand, listening to him search for something which apparently hadn’t been worth including in the first several dozen attempts.

He returned with a long object wrapped in old cloth. ‘My grandfather’s work,’ he said, laying it on the counter. ‘Unfinished, as he considered it. He travelled widely looking for materials outside the woods our family usually used.’

‘And you think he left the solution to my problem in the back room?’ I asked. After the afternoon we had spent, I wasn’t sure whether to be hopeful or offended that we hadn’t started there.

Ollivander explained that most of those experiments had failed. Some woods cracked, some resisted a core and others behaved too inconsistently to become useful wands. This piece had survived testing and conducted magic, yet no conventional core had bonded with it. His grandfather had kept it, unable to decide whether it needed completing or a wizard who could use it as it was.

‘Withered wood,’ he said. ‘Ten and a quarter inches. A magical tree recorded in very few accounts. It possesses magic while appearing almost dead from the outside.’

The description reminded me of the difference between a plain-looking Runebark slip and what it could hold. That didn’t make the materials the same, but it was enough to keep me listening. ‘And it still has no core?’ I asked.

‘None,’ Ollivander said. He began unwrapping the cloth. ‘Which is one reason it has remained here so long.’

I appreciated his honesty until I saw what it had been protecting. A smooth wooden shaft ended in fine fibres, spread like stiff bristles at the tip. I had come to buy a wand and spent most of an afternoon failing at it. The remaining candidate was a calligraphy brush.

‘Mr Ollivander, that is a brush,’ I said. ‘I already own one. I wasn’t planning to spend two and a half hours finding a larger version.’

‘Pick it up.’ He held it out with no visible sympathy for my objection. ‘Then tell me whether it feels like the one you own.’

I took it more sharply than I should have. Warmth met my fingers, and the familiar pressure of magic stirred beneath my skin. The fibres at the tip flexed. For the first time since entering the shop, I stopped thinking about what I ought to make the object do and noticed what it was already helping me feel.

It wasn’t identical to working with Runebark. The paper drew at my magic while I formed the inscription; this seemed to offer a direction for it, although I couldn’t have proved that explanation. I wanted a desk and a sheet of treated paper much more urgently than I wanted to wave it at the ceiling.

‘Again,’ Ollivander said, quietly now. ‘Hold it properly.’

I adjusted my grip. Nothing exploded, but the connection remained, comfortable in a way none of the earlier attempts had been. I couldn’t yet claim it would solve my difficulties with spells. I could say that it felt different, and that after all those failures I wanted to find out why.

I bought it before my objection to its appearance could recover. Ollivander accepted the payment with an expression suggesting that my reaction had justified the afternoon’s work. ‘For the record,’ I told him, ‘I still think it looks ridiculous.’

‘I’ll note your complaint,’ he said. ‘Do let me know how you get on, Mr Mercer.’

Harry had kept a place for me at Fortescue’s, with ice cream waiting. Hagrid had gone off again to finish his errands, leaving Harry and the owl to inspect the object I put on the table. ‘That looks brilliant,’ Harry said, reaching towards it only after I let him.

‘You have a very generous definition of brilliant.’ I sat down opposite him and accepted the ice cream. ‘Yours looks like a wand. Mine looks as though I’ve been told to write an apology.’

‘Hagrid uses an umbrella,’ Harry pointed out. He turned the shaft carefully in his fingers. ‘I saw him light a fire with it. And give my cousin Dudley a pig’s tail.’

‘I assume he’s got a wand hidden in it,’ I said. That was a guess, since Hagrid hadn’t answered my question in the courtyard. I looked at the fibres on mine, which offered very little room for concealment.

‘Then yours is just different in another way. Everything here is different.’ Harry handed it back to me. ‘Ollivander said the wand chooses the wizard. Perhaps this is what suits you.’

I was ready to object again, but the point had become difficult to defend. Runebark paper, written magic and a tool which had made me want to sit down and draw an inscription: perhaps the appearance was the most useful thing about it. Harry hadn’t tested any of that. He had merely stopped me dismissing the possibility because I disliked the shape.

I rested the wand beside my bowl, keeping the fibres clear of the ice cream. When I got home, I would find out what happened when I wrote with it. Ollivander might yet be spared the rude letter I had been composing on the way here.