"Pardon?"
Ollivander blinked, looking as though he hadn't quite heard right. "When you say you'd like to buy another one… you mean you want to own two wands at the same time?"
"That's correct."
The old man's expression turned grave. "Vincent, I believe I made it clear when you purchased your first wand — every wand is unique, and every wand has only one true master."
"You may think you are choosing the wand. In truth, the wand chooses the wizard."
Bernadette was caught off guard. He never mentioned that. So what I'm doing right now — is it like an Extraordinary trying to take a second pathway potion?
She kept her expression neutral and asked, "So a wizard cannot own two wands at the same time?"
"Well… that's not quite what I said."
Ollivander hesitated. "But when a wizard already possesses a wand that has chosen them, acquiring another is… a kind of betrayal. No one is fond of someone who can't make up their mind, and wands are no different."
He frowned and pressed further. "If you'll forgive the question, Vincent — why do you want a second wand? Are you dissatisfied with the one you already have? Has it become… incompatible with you?"
"Something like that."
"Why? I have heard of cases where a wizard who has suffered a great trauma falls out of harmony with their wand, but… oh, I beg your pardon — could it be because of what You-Know-Who's followers did to you…"
Before he could finish, Bernadette cut in. "It's nothing that complicated. I simply want a harder, sturdier wand — ideally one made of metal, something that won't break when thrown or used as a — well. Something that won't shatter easily."
"…???"
Ollivander blinked in bewilderment. Beside him, Harry struggled to contain his delight: Oh! He finally blinked!
"You see, sir," Bernadette continued, as naturally as breathing, "I've been researching a new kind of magic lately — one that places considerable strain on the wand itself. That's why I'd like something more durable."
"Ah… I suppose I can understand that, just barely." He pressed his lips together and muttered, "Still, every wand I sell has been treated with a Hardening Charm. I have never once heard of a wand being damaged in the course of casting a spell."
Bernadette gave a shrug — the way she'd noticed Vincent doing. "As a matter of fact, my wand nearly broke during an experiment just recently."
Harry raised his hand and said quietly, "I can vouch for that."
The new magic involved firing the wand like a bullet. It nearly blew my head clean off!
"Oh, well."
Ollivander scratched his head. "The trouble is, wandmakers stopped using metal quite a long time ago."
He crossed to a nearby shelf and rummaged through it before pulling out a box and opening it. "Perhaps try this one — ironwood shaft, dragon heartstring core. It isn't metal, but the hardness is exceptional."
Bernadette picked up the wand, stepped back two paces, and gave it a series of sharp, whipping swings that sliced through the air with a keen whistle. Then she launched into the cane-fighting techniques she had mastered as a Scholar of Combat — thrusting, flicking, hooking, slashing.
Ollivander watched from the side with his mouth hanging open, at a complete loss: Is this… is this how one tries out a wand?
Harry, however, watched with sparkling eyes: So this is magic too, is it?
After a moment, Bernadette stopped, set the wand down, and shook her head.
"No. Too light."
Too light?
Ollivander was baffled all over again. In all his years of selling wands, he had never once encountered a customer who chose a wand by its weight. What do you think you are — a troll?
Wands are for casting spells, not for clubbing people with — wait. Didn't he just say something about using it to hit someone?
Swallowing his exasperation, he began to clamber up and down the shelves again. After quite some time, he retrieved a dust-covered box from the very back and removed the wand tucked behind his ear to clean the lid:
"This one is ironbark — hard as ordinary steel, which is precisely why it carries a certain magical inertness. Not ideal as a wand shaft by any measure, but hard and heavy enough."
Bernadette picked it up and swept it through the air in a flurry of quick strokes, then set it down just as quickly. "Still too light."
"!!!"
A vein throbbed at Ollivander's temple. He felt as though Vincent was openly insulting his craftsmanship, yet he didn't dare let his anger show. If word got out that Ollivander had flown into a rage over a customer's complaints, people would think he simply couldn't produce a worthy wand and was lashing out in shame. Two thousand years of the Ollivander name — he refused to be the one who tarnished it.
So he bit back his feelings, stuffed the ironbark wand away, and went searching again — left, then right, until finally he was bent double in a cluttered corner, pulling out a faded box:
"Violet rosewood — the hardest and heaviest material the Ollivanders have ever worked with. An axe would struggle to split it. Its weight is several times that of an ordinary wand, though its magical inertness is correspondingly higher. I do hope this one pleases you."
Bernadette weighed the deep-violet wand in her hand. The heft was certainly far greater than any of the others, but it still fell well short of what she had in mind. "It's still a bit…"
She caught the look in Ollivander's eyes — the kind that could strip flesh from bone — and wisely changed course. "This one will do."
"…"
Ollivander could see plainly enough that she didn't mean a word of it, but he truly had nothing heavier to offer. Of course, if it truly came to it, he could take an entire plank of violet rosewood and fashion this little menace a "wand" weighing thirty pounds.
But that wouldn't be a wand. That would be a troll's cudgel.
Hmm?
The old man's brow lifted suddenly, a glint of light passing through his pale grey eyes. He turned and walked quietly through the back door of the shop.
"Mrow—" "Mrrow!!"
Amid a chorus of overlapping yowls, Ollivander's voice rumbled from beyond the door. "Out of the way, you little creatures."
Half a minute later, he returned, and floating behind him was a length of earth-toned wood that resembled a gnarled, dried branch — roughly two metres long, as thick as an infant's wrist, uneven along its whole length, its bark rough and pitted, tangled here and there with trailing vines.
"Perhaps you'd like to try this."
Ollivander let it drift to a halt in front of Bernadette and said calmly, "I believe it meets your requirements in both weight and hardness."
Harry's eyes went wide. "Mr. Ollivander, sir — is that a wand?"
The old man shook his head. "Oh, certainly not. At best it is raw wandmaking material. It does have some inherent magical properties and can serve as a conduit for spells to a limited degree, but it should suit your purposes for experimental use well enough." — Some effect, just not much.
"There is also one rather curious quality to it," he continued, tapping his chin. "Within a certain radius, it causes catmint to grow from the soil." He looked faintly intrigued. "When I first acquired it, I spent some time trying to understand why, but I made no progress. After concluding it wasn't suitable for wandmaking, I left it in the back garden. Ever since, it's attracted a parade of wild cats and nekomata every single day."
Harry asked curiously, "Why is that?"
"They all seem rather fond of the smell of catmint."
Bernadette reached out and gripped the "staff." The moment Ollivander released the Hover Charm, its weight dropped into her palm all at once — by rough estimate, somewhere between twenty and thirty pounds.
She gathered a thread of magical power and channelled it into her arm and fingers to hold it steady. After swinging it twice, left and right, the magic at her fingertips began to flow — quite without her direction, pouring into the staff like water rushing downhill.
A powerful instinct rose up. Bernadette's eyes flashed, and she spoke the incantation: "Lumos."
To be continued…