(I) - 'The Magician'

Harry's eyes had a second to adjust to the darkness inside the little store, enough to catch the back of Ollivander's head disappearing out the back. It was perhaps unfair to call it a store; there were just deep leather chairs huddled around a tiny table and the desk Ollivander had been standing behind. The rest of the interior was cut off from view by a heavy black curtain. Like his old wand store, it gave a feeling of being crowded in,; it was like the walls were standing a little closer together in order not let the light in. Unlike his old wand store, however, there were no wands. It was like he knew when everyone was going to come in and what it was they wanted - and Harry realised (coupled with the tiny plaque outside that read 'Ollivander's and, beneath it in a script of almost the same size, 'By Appointment Only') that he probably did.

"Sit," came Ollivander's voice from the back. "The chairs are there to be sat in."

He emerged from behind the curtain, looking ancient and full of wisdom that might not all be completely benign. He was carrying something long and wooden, and for a moment Harry thought it might have been a cane, but he dismissed that idea quickly as Ollivander was not only not carrying it like a cane, he also seemed far too spry and full of motion to possibly need it. He sat opposite Harry, laid the not-cane on the tiny table, and made a vague gesture towards the back room, summoning an ornate tea set to the table that landed with a rattle.

"How do you take yours?" he asked Harry, without even bothering to look up at him through his wiry eyebrows.

"With sugar," he answered.

Ollivander came back with, "'Course you do." His response was neat as clipping a tennis ball back over a net.

An awkward silence followed, broken only by the clink of china and the rattle of a teaspoon. Harry watched Ollivander's hands dart around the self-pouring kettle, looking not so much like he was serving tea but rather playing the tea set like an exotic instrument.

"So." Ollivander leveled Harry with his eyes as he pushed a cup across the table. "You got the message."

He had. A much younger man, who had been working at Ollivander's Diagon Alley store, had cryptically informed Harry that he couldn't sell him anything here, and had indicated a neat stack of business cards sitting on the front desk. The card had printed on it an address and a time, both in the same neat golden letters.

"He's a fine salesman, my apprentice, but has all the wand craft skill God gave to goats." For a moment Harry was lost, until he remembered the young man who must be the apprentice. "Thankfully he doesn't need it."

"Shouldn't a wand maker know a little about making wands?" Harry asked, half-expecting some kind of rebuke from Ollivander. It didn't come, but Ollivander managed to look surprised all the same.

"There's no wand lore taught in school any more, is there?" he asked, and Harry shook his head. "Thought not, it's mostly lost its point to everyone but wand makers - and this includes their idiot apprentices." He paused for a moment, closing his eyes, and Harry guessed he was searching for the right place to start explaining. When Ollivander's eyes opened, he could see they were dancing, alive like a pagan bonfire.

"Wands are simple things to make. The magic's focused on the harmony between the wood and the core, you follow? There's only so many common combinations of wood and core for only so many different types of people in the world. A wand is quick to attune and quick to replace; it's just convenient, you see. It's the reason legends about wands are so few and far between - there's Rasputin, Merlin of course, you've got the Elder Wand myth, and the Brother Wands - but that's about where it ends. Don't even need the fingers on one hand to count them all."

When Ollivander spoke, Harry felt a lump rise up in his throat as Ollivander so casually mentioned two legendary wands that had both once been in his possession, and he noted how little Ollivander seemed to credit that he himself had crafted the Brother Wands. "A wand's got no power of its own, most of the time. It's like a lever - just a stick until someone wants to put a bit of force on it."

Ollivander paused here to take a sip of his tea, and resumed speaking with the cup still level with his face. "But this," he said, not making any overt moments - save maybe his wild eyes - but still managing to indicate the not-cane, "is something different. It used to be all over Europe that wizards favoured the staff. Could be it's still taught about in some places, too, but on the British Isles staves haven't been popular for over a thousand years."

"Why is that?" Harry asked, and hurriedly took a sip of his own tea so Ollivander wouldn't think him rude. It carried an indistinct taste that reminded Harry of forests - misty ones with the moon overhead.

"No demand, mostly. Your average wizard, he doesn't want to waste time understanding his wand. He wants it to be his right away, and for it to do what he wants. A wand is essentially blank before it gains a master, you see, but a staff is not like that. There's no core to a staff, Harry, so all the magical focus must come from the material it's made from - ancient trees, dragon bones, that sort of thing." It was here that Ollivander looked Harry directly in the eyes, and what he said next sent a quick chill across the back of Harry's neck for reasons he couldn't explain.

"It makes all staves unique. They all have their own minds, own will - and unlike wands, every staff has its own legend."

Harry's own education on legends was lacking somewhat in both wizard and Muggle tales, but there was one he knew of quite well: Pandora's Box. This was something Hermione had said in passing at some point, which confused Ron, and that in turn had perplexed Hermione, who claimed it was a common saying and implied that Ron was just dense for not knowing it. Harry had then brought up he didn't know what it meant either, which had made Hermione momentarily grouchy, and had the boys wondering for days who exactly was this Pandora and what she was doing with a box. Through the week they had continued to make up what may have been inside the mythic box, each thing more outrageous than the last, and with each idea then they had laughed like loons. Not in front of Hermione, of course – broaching the subject with her, even with complete seriousness, was somewhat touchy at first and then not worth the effort later, and it eventually faded out of their minds in the way that foolish jokes of the moment do. Years later, Harry's instructor at the Auror Academy had opened up the year explaining the myth; she had meant it to contrast them, the would-be Aurors, to the evils of the world that escaped from the box. However, all Harry could think was, It all makes sense now. Mentioning Pandora's Box to Hermione would be like opening Pandora's Box.

It was now he was reminded again of that particular story. Had there been some figure in it, some mischievous demon of some kind, that wanted Pandora to open the box? Harry couldn't remember for sure, but if there was, he surely would have looked the way Ollivander did right now.

"Mr. Ollivander... I couldn't accept this, it's-"

"Harry," Ollivander interjected, "while the entire wizarding world owes you a tremendous debt, I am among the few that still owes one to you personally." He contemplated his teacup for a moment, drumming his spindly fingers on the table and letting Harry absorb this statement. Harry gave no reply, and when Ollivander looked back up, the fervour was out of his eyes.

"About the wand you've got now," he said, "it would be oak and unicorn hair core, yes?"

"It is," Harry replied, trying to sound even but thinking, no, it's not completely out of his eyes. He just managed to push it down a little.

"How did I know that?"

"You know the Ministry wandmaker?" Harry had imagined this to be a joke, but it didn't manage to leave his mouth sounding like one, nor did it seem as if Ollivander took it as such.

"I don't," he said, and took a long sip of tea, and asked Harry with eyebrows raised: "Do you?"

"I can't say I do. Most people in the Department use the standard - that's the oak with unicorn hair - so there's not much call to ask to have wands made custom. Usually they're just replaced. Wands get broken on the job – it's not common, but it happens – so there's reason to have available spares ready, in case of... you know, emergencies." Harry felt he had lost conviction somewhere towards the end; possibly it was because he had the feeling he wasn't presenting an argument but further helping whatever point Ollivander was making.

"Being an Auror takes a certain kind of person – one that wants to help the good people of the world and hurt the bad ones, to be broad. Oak and unicorn hair creates the resonance for that mindset. It makes a wand that's very strong in the areas of structured magic – enchantments, wards, a fair few group spells – but nearly useless at anything else. Can't brew a potion, it's a bad instrument for Legilimency, and be damned if you can get a decent charm out of it."

"It's encouraged to go wandless with charms," said Harry, thinking about how hard it had been to master the Big Three without a wand – performing the charms in drill as their instructor had barked at them commands of Shield! Stun! Disarm! – and Ollivander just waved his hand in a casual well-there-you-go gesture.

"I can't just give up my wand..." Harry protested feebly, and Ollivander cut him off with another wave of his hand.

"I wouldn't ask you to do that. Wouldn't suggest you should, either – a staff has a rather severe learning curve, and I'm sure there's a lot even you couldn't manage wandless." He picked up the staff from the table, while Harry tried to decipher if the last remark was a compliment and - if it was – whether it was intentional.

"What I am asking," he concluded, extending the staff to Harry, "is that you just try."

Harry, thinking of Pandora's Box, took the staff. When Ollivander let his end go, Harry felt a strong sense of déjà vu, feeling eleven years old and like he was selecting (being selected by?) his first wand and, at the same time, feeling very unlike that. His wand had sought him out like it recognised him; in the staff he felt a similar recognition, an awareness in it of him, but he also felt power thrumming through it – enough, perhaps, to buck him off like a wild horse if he wasn't careful.

"I will try," he said, thinking a little in unformed thoughts that he felt the same way about the staff as he still did about Ollivander – he was unsure if he liked either of them or not.