Chapter 16: Diagon Alley, Ollivanders, and The Wand (2/2)
Quinn held out his right hand, and Ollivander measured Quinn from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit, and round his head. As he measured, Ollivander said,
”Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. West. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and dragon heartstrings. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such excellent results with another wizard's wand.”
Ollivander stepped away from Quinn to retrieve some wands as his measuring tape continued to do its thing.
”That will do,” said Ollivander as the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. ”Right then, Mr. West. Try this one. Elm and hair from a unicorn's mane. Eleven inches. Nice and rigid. Just take it and give it a wave.”
Quinn took the wand in hand and swung, but nothing happened, and Ollivander snatched it out of his hand almost at once.
”Ebony and unicorn, flexible. Please, do try.” Once again, there was no feeling from Quinn. And, Ollivander snatched it back and put it back into its box.
He offered another wand before snatching it away, ”Unicorn hair doesn't work for you, Mr. West.”
Quinn shrugged in response, and Ollivander moved around Quinn to find something before handing him another wand, but it also failed, and after a lot of giving and snatching from Ollivander, he finally offered Quinn a wand that worked.
”Please try this one. Acacia wood with phoenix tail feather. Fourteen inches long, rigid flexibility,” offered Ollivander and the second Quinn held the wand, the wand glowed.
Ollivander smiled and started with his patented line, ”The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. West. And, this wand has chosen you. Acacia is a very unusual wand wood, which I have found creates tricky wands that often refuse to produce magic for any but their owner and also withhold their best effects from all but those most gifted. Whereas Phoenix feathers are capable of the greatest range of magic, though they may take longer than either unicorn or dragon cores to reveal this. They show the most initiative, sometimes acting of their own accord, a quality that many witches and wizards dislike. Phoenix feather wands are always the pickiest when it comes to potential owners, for the creature from which they are taken, one of the most independent and detached in the world. These wands are the hardest to tame and to personalize, and their allegiance is usually hard-won.”
Ollivander stared without blinking at one of his works in Quinn's hand and spoke, ”This results in a wand with the stringiest condition to master, and that kind of wand has chosen you. Be proud, Mr. West.”
George simply smiled as they saw Quinn stare at his wand. It was his grandson's first wand and if, Quinn was lucky, the only wand.
But Quinn was not smiling. He wasn't even feeling happy. Quinn's current feeling could be most closely described as pure dread. The moment he held the wand, it filled him with an intoxicating feeling. The wand provided him with magic focusing abilities far more potent than his natural capabilities. But, he also felt the threat the wand brought him.
Quinn's entire being was screaming at him, warning him that if he continued to use the wand, his natural focus would stop growing at his current speed, and it would come to a plateau. With time it would become more and more difficult to perform focusless magic. His instincts were screaming at him to drop the wand at the very moment.
It took Quinn every ounce of his self-learned emotional aspect occlumency to detach himself from his overflowing emotions to look up at Ollivander. He did not forget to put up a smile before asking, ”Do you sell wand holster and wand maintenance kits, Mr. Ollivander?”
After Ollivander sold Quinn his wand, holster, and maintenance kit, he shooed them out of the shop.
Quinn could still feel the wand in the holster on his side. All he wanted to do was to reach the West Manor and get away from the wand.
- (Scene Break) -
Quinn and George reached home, and after showing everyone the wand, every second of which was very despairing for Quinn.
The second Quinn reached his room, he shut and locked the door, then threw the wand with the holster on the bed, and stared at it from a distance while sitting in front of his study table.
His heart was still beating at a higher rate than usual.
Quinn was feeling two opposite feelings at the same time. He was feeling despair from the consequences of using a wand, but at the same time, he still wanted to hold the wand and feel the heightened control over his magic.
For Quinn, the wand was a poison. A sweet poison, but a poison nevertheless.
At that moment, Quinn realized why magical focuses had taken over the world.
After what felt like days but were only a few minutes, Quinn made his decision. He opened the window to his room and then ran out of his room to the backyard. In the backyard, Quinn retrieved a small log of wood. He levitated it to the area outside of his room window. Then he sent the log of wood into his room via the open window.
In his room, Quinn set the log of wood on the floor. He was going to use his favorite branch of magic on the log of wood,
「Transmutation.」
Transmutation was the magic of altering the state of a substance. By using Transmutation, one could manipulate and alter matter by using magic. Transmutation was a two-step process; Deconstruction and Reconstruction.
Unlike Transfiguration, where you could change an object into another completely different object regardless of the material, Transmutation only allowed to change the structure of a material. This meant that it could only turn a log of wood into a wooden object.
But, the advantage of Transmutation over Transfiguration was that transmutated objects didn't sacrifice structural integrity and quality and the magic was permanent. Transumutated objects remained in the new shape indefinitely, whereas transfigured objects always turned back into their original form when the magic wore off.
Quinn knelt in front of the log of wood and touched it to use the magic. He knew the inherent structure and properties of the wood.
Quinn used deconstruction to break down the physical structure of wood into a more malleable state to be easily reshaped into a new form. Then he used reconstruction to reshape it into a wooden box with the same shape as the wand boxes at Ollivanders, with an indent in the exact shape of Quinn's new wand inside the box.
[A/N: Similar (key: similar) to Transmutation in Full Metal Alchemist, but I will be limiting the capabilities. A watered-down version of FMA's Transmutation. I am not categorizing it under Alchemy. Harry Potter's Alchemy is closer to potion brewing.]
He looked at the wand on the bed and levitated it into the wooden box, fitting it inside the wand-shaped indent, wincing while doing it as his magic coming in contact with the wand was enough for Quinn to feel the temptation of the wand's abilities.
He shut the lid on the new housing for his wand, picked it up, and placed it in the deepest corner of his cupboard.
Quinn exhaled a sigh of relief, but he knew that the work wasn't complete. He needed to craft a replacement for his wand. With the remaining log of wood, he crafted a replica of his wand.
Quinn's new wand had an extremely simple design. It was a relatively thick wand with a very low difference in the radius of the tip and butt of the wand. The only design on the wand was a criss-cross pattern etched into the wood for better grip. Other than that, the wand was bare.
Quinn picked his replica and casted the color-changing charm to complete the look. Now, he held a blank piece of wood shaped into a wand that he bought today and had held for just a few minutes. On the very first day of buying a wand, Quinn had locked the real wand into a box and placed a replica into his newly bought holster.
As Quinn collapsed on his bed, he only had a single thought,
'Today was a terrible day.'
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[
A/N [1]: I have corrected Cedric's age in the previous chapter.
A/N [2]: Once again, FMA's Transmutation is not the same as my version of Transmutation. And, I am not classifying it under Alchemy. Harry Potter's Alchemy is more like potion brewing.
]
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Quinn West - MC - 11 Years Old - Current thoughts, ”Fate is a B*tch”.
George West - Grandfather - Rosewood wand = Super rich.
Garrick Ollivander - Wandmaker - ”Wand chooses the Wizard.”
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