Chapter 5
On Wednesday after breakfast, the Hufflepuff first years found themselves in their charms classroom.
The professor who taught charms was Prof. Flitwick and, apparently, he was this world’s equivalent of a goblin. The professor was short–a little taller than the local elves perhaps–with light green skin, pointy ears, and sharp teeth. He was also dressed entirely in green tones and had a bushy wild Santa beard. All-in-all, he looked nothing like the goblins that Rainy had spent months fighting when they were still in Middle Earth.
But today they were not here for an introduction to charms classes (they'd had those the day before), instead another elderly man was standing in front of the class.
The stranger with the Einstein hair was wearing what Rainy could only assume must be the latest fashion in rhabdologist circles. He was wearing one of those pirate shirts made of linen underneath a reddish-brown, moth-eaten, coat that looked a lot like a bathrobe. Around his neck, he’d tied what looked like a striped stocking but Rainy assumed must be a cravat of some sort.
Professor Flitwick, standing on a stack of books as usual, introduced the stranger as Garrick Ollivander.
“Mr. Ollivander will introduce you to your wand cores and how to meld them into your wood,” the goblin explained.
Ollivander stepped forward.
“Good morning, Hufflepuffs,” the elderly man greeted. “As your professor has told you, I am here to instruct you in the art of wand making.”
He reached into his coat and pulled out an ornate wooden box. The box was set on a table in front of him and then tapped with the tip of his wand. In front of their eyes, the box expanded into abigger chest.
The front of the chest was opened to reveal multiple different compartments, each engraved with different symbols. Each side had four drawers of the same size. Additionally, there were three more on top, a little bigger than the eight, and one more, even longer one, at the bottom. In the middle of it all were two doors.
“You might know,” said Ollivander, re-directing their attention to him, “That each wand is made up of two physical components: the wand wood and the wand core. No two wands will ever be the exact same, however. Do you know why?”
A girl with curly dark hair raised her hand.
“Yes?”
“Because we have to use our own magical core to make them.”
“Quite right,” agreed the rhabdologist.
Professor Flitwick gave one of his kind but pointy smiles as he announced, “One point for Hufflepuff, Ms Farley.”
Ollivander continued: “I have with me dragon heartstring, phoenix feather, unicorn tail hair, veela hair, thestral tail hair, wampus cat hair, horned serpent horn, and kelpie hair, as well as some more unusual cores,” he tapped each of the eight drawers on his chest in turn as he listed the materials.
Just like with the woods, the students were bid forward row by row to see what core spoke to them. Unlike the wood selection, no child had to sit back down empty-handed.
“Trees are much more picky with their choice of wizard,” Ollivander explained when someone asked him how it was that everyone could find their wand core so easily, “Should you choose to remake your wand one day you will most likely be using the same wood. It’s very rare that that aspect of you changes. The core, however, might be something completely different.”
Most students just nodded but Rosen raised her hand to ask, “Why would we want to re-make our wands, sir?”
“Ah, well, Ms.-?”
“Rosen Payne, sir.”
“Well, Ms. Payne, it’s considered a tradition in some wizarding families to set out and make a new wand upon reaching adulthood. Aside from that, many simply feel like they outgrow their childhood wands and, of course, some people do break their wands on accident or in duels.”
“But do we have to remake them?” she asked, frowning at the rougarou hair in the palm of her hand.
“Of course not,” the rhabdologist assured her. “It is entirely voluntary. I myself have re-made my wand no less than forty-five times in my years of research. My brother, on the other hand, who is also a rhabdologist, still uses the wand he made in his first year of education to this day.”
There was some disbelieving muttering and the old man laughed.
“Well, let’s continue with today’s endeavour, shall we?”
That brought silence back into the classroom.
“You will undoubtedly all require a different amount of time for this,” he began, “The first part of wand-making is to find your own magical core. As Ms Farley pointed out, it is an important part of this process. Your wand will help you channel your magic but in order for it to do so, it must first attune to your magical core. As you begin to attune to it, you will be able to shape your wand and fuse the wood with the wand core properly.”
Mr Ollivander was met with a lot of confused looks and grinned, “It will make much more sense as you go. Now, onto finding your core! I will teach you the necessary meditation techniques so you may do this on your own.”
—
Rainy was sitting outside by Black Lake, concentration fervently on trying to find their magical core. They just weren’t quite sure of what it was supposed to feel like. Whenever they “looked inside”, all they felt was hamon cursing through them.
(Many years ago, a strange Italian had taught Rainy and their friend Jonathan how to use a breathing technique that produced life energy called hamon or “The Ripple” with the same quality as sunlight. It was incredibly handy in fights against all things undead.)
Frustrated, they let out a ripple of it over the dark water. The Ripple was getting in the way of their magical studies!
Rainy was so used now to using hamon that it was much harder to try and find this magical core. If only they could use hamon to-
“I mean…” Rainy wondered out loud. Could it hurt to try?
Closing his eyes, Rainy began focusing on the hamon within their body on purpose this time. They breathed deeply, visualising the hamon streaming from somewhere right next to their heart through their arms and into their hands, where they were holding the piece of birch wood as well as a bright orange phoenix feather.
It felt like an eternity before they opened their eyes to see if they had succeeded.
The wood in Rainy’s hand had originally been somewhat rectangular but was now rounded and much more wand-like, even if it was not quite there yet. It had also begun twisting itself around the phoenix feather. The feather was still visible through the wood but it looked like it had partially melted into it.
“Wicked,” Rainy whispered looking at the incomplete wand. Then they let out a yawn. Wand-making was exhausting.
Rainy headed back into the castle, trying to see a nearby clock but unable to make out what time it was. She really needed to invest in a pocket watch. Or steal one.
As the former hobbit entered the school building, a black cat crossed their path.
“Well that’s ominous,” they remarked.
Then he recognised the cat.
“Cowboy?” he asked.
“Mrew,” said Cowboy.
Rainy watched as Cowboy was joined by another cat. The cat regarded him with bulging yellow, lamp-like eyes and Rainy gasped, “Mrs Norris?!”
He looked from Filch’s cat to his own before asking Cowboy, “Are you having an affair?!”
The look on Cowboy’s cat face seemed to say, Mind your own business.
“Fair enough, I guess,” Rainy admitted.
Both cats' ears twitched as a sound came from the end of the hallway. The cats fled and Rainy went to follow when they recognized the origin of the sound.
“Oh, hey guys,” Rainy greeted Fred and George Weasley, “Long time no see.”
“Are you exploring too?” George whispered.
“We figure we’d be able to do it better after curfew,” Fred added.
“It's after curfew?” asked Rainy, “I was working on my wand by the lake.”
The twins’ eyes widened.
“How far did you get?” George asked her.
Rainy pulled out their wand.
“Wicked,” they said in unison and produced their own attempts.
Both had dogwood as their wand wood but they each had different cores. Fred had managed to mostly merge his thunderbird tail feather with the wand but it was still partially hanging out at the end of it. He had also accidentally transfigured the end of his wand to resemble a pine cone.
“How'd ya do that?” Rainy asked.
“Not a clue, mate,” he shrugged.
George, on the other hand, was struggling to merge his shaving of horned serpent horn with his piece of wood, although the wood itself already looked very wand-like.
“I think I got ahead of myself in the design aspect,” he admitted sheepishly. The grip of the wand had a crossing pattern carved into it along with longer lines between the crossings that gave it a vague, broom-like appearance. “You got any tips? Fred just keeps repeating what Ollivander told us.”
George shot Fred a look, who shrugged unapologetically.
“Uh, I just do breathing techniques I was thought a while ago.”
“Breathing techniques?” Fred asked.
“Yeah, this weird Italian guy punched me in the stomach and then taught me how to breathe properly to kill vampires.”
The twins shared one of those communicative looks with each other.
“That sounds useful and all,” Fred began.
“But how the bloody hell does that apply to wand-making?” finished George.
Rainy shrugged, “I just visualized the vampire-killing energy inside me and directed it into the wand. It took a while, though, and as you can see I’m not done yet.”
George sighed, “I guess I'll just keep trying what I've been doing. Apparently, Ollivander is gonna keep visiting Hogwarts for the rest of the week. I can always ask him for advice later.”
Fred and Rainy nodded and tried to make encouraging faces–as much as eleven-year-olds could, at least.
The three of them spent a couple of hours exploring the castle. By sheer happenstance, they managed to find the kitchens.
“It's completely empty,” Rainy stated the obvious. There was a very eerie feeling to the abandoned room. It felt almost like they were being watched, even though they couldn't see a thing out of order.
“I guess the staff is sleeping,” Fred guessed but he looked unnerved by the emptiness.
George pulled the both of them by their arms, “We shouldn’t be here, I think.”
They quickly left the rooms and all let out a sigh of relief when they were back in the hallway.
“That was creepy as fuck,” Rainy said, “Petition to never go in there at night again?”
Fred nodded.
George joined in, “Motion passed.”
“Motion passed,” Rainy repeated.
“You know, if you’re gonna be breaking the rules you should at least be doing it further away from any common rooms,” a new voice said.
The first years jumped in surprise and Rainy's hair promptly turned from dark blue to auburn. They had entirely forgotten the Hufflepuff common room was in this hallway as well.
In front of them stood Tonks, her arms crossed over her chest.
“I should dock you some points for this but seeing as it's a first-time offence-” she cut herself off and stared at Rainy's hair, “Woah, mate, I didn't realize there were more of us.”
“Hah?” Rainy asked.
Fred and George looked at their shorter companion and startled (again).
“Oh, brilliant!” George exclaimed.
“Didn't know you're a metamorphmagus,” Fred said, stumbling slightly over the word.
“A what?”
“You know,” Tonks prompted and instead of continuing verbally, changed her hair from pink to bright blue, then red, and finally ending in a nice indigo.
Rainy pulled one of their curls into their line of sight to see that the colour had indeed changed.
“Is that a normal thing?” Rainy asked. “No one ever realizes when my hair does that! I swear, I spent almost a year with fourteen other guys and no one realized even once when it changed!”
“Must'a been muggles. They never notice anything they don't want to,” Tonks told her, “But this is brill! I've never met another metamorphmagus. Have you progressed past the hair colours yet?”
“There’s more?”
Tonks' eyes sparked, “I have so much to teach you!”
Someone cleared their throat behind them.
The students turned towards the portrait of an irate old man.
“Will you whipper-snappers pipe down already?” he demanded, “Some of us are trying to sleep here!”
“Oh come on, Malcolm, paintings don’t need sleep,” Tonks told him.
The man sniffed, “Don't mean we don't like it. And I assure you, you will not like it if I inform a staff member of your nightly spelunking!”
Tonks sighed, “Alright, you two, don’t get caught on your way back,” she told the twins.
They saluted and ran off with a whisper-yelled, “Goodnight!”
Rainy followed Tonks into the Hufflepuff common room and to one of the sofas. It was just as comfy as it looked.
“So, uh, I never caught your name,” Tonks prompted.
“Oh! I’m Rainy Baggins,” Rainy introduced themselves.
Tonks nodded, “I’m Nymphadora Tonks but only my mum gets away with using my first name,” she made a face before asking. “So what pronouns do you use?”
“All of them.”
“Smashing. I use she/her and they/them. Honestly, never heard of a cis metamorphmagus.”
Rainy set up straight, “So how exactly does this metamorphing work? How much can we change?”
Tonks grinned and delved into explanations, underlined with demonstrations. They would both be very tired the next morning.