Cursed

After they all had a few sips of their juice, Effie continued, “I did hope you would come here for your wand, so I pulled out Garrick’s notes and did some research.  Your first wand was actually your father’s, yes?”  At Ianto’s nod, she continued, “Ash, with a dragon heartstring core.  I expect you had a great deal of difficulty casting with it, didn’t you?”

Ianto was staring at the pumpkin juice in his left hand.  Jack gave his right hand a squeeze and answered for him, knowing Ianto would let him know if he was overstepping.  “He told me it was like trying to drive with the parking brake on.”

“I confess I know very little about muggle automobiles, but that sounds like a very apt metaphor.  You see, Ash cleaves to its original owner in such a way that it is unwise to pass it on to another, because its power and skill will bleed away.  That’s more extreme with a unicorn hair core, but dragon heartstring tends to be temperamental at the best of times.  In an ash wand bereaved of its original master, I imagine it would become downright recalcitrant.”[1]  She smiled kindly at him.  “It may have caused you to question your own abilities, but please let me assure you: if you were able to make the wand perform at all, that means your powers are very likely well above average.”

Ianto blinked at her, shocked.  Jack wanted to kiss her.

“That wand was broken,” she resumed briskly, once more allowing Ianto to absorb her words without too much of an audience.  “And you obtained another.  I believe it was the last one that Garrick sold before his capture.”

“I’d heard that, as well,” Ianto nodded.

“Cherry, with a unicorn hair core.  Cherry wands tend to carry a strange power,[2] usually choosing wizards with a natural affinity for nature, in some form or other.  Care for magical creatures, perhaps, but more likely herbology.  Flora rather than fauna.”[3]

“Well, it certainly wouldn’t choose me, now,” Ianto said, his voice full of sorrow.

“Nor should it, and nor would we want it to,” Effie said, patting his hand reassuringly.  “Your wand needs to suit who you are, not who you were.  And just as the cherry wand did what the ash could not, we will now find the perfect match that will be able to do what neither of the others could, even if they were still intact.” 

She leaned forward in her chair as if to get up, but then hesitated.  She reached out and took Ianto’s hand.  “What happened to you was terrible and unfair.  But consider this.  Not to in any way minimize what you’ve been through, I must still say that no one on this planet is who they were, seven and a half years ago.  Every one of us shifts and changes and evolves as time passes.  And that’s as it should be.  I hope you know that it’s okay that you are different, now.  So even if the man you were is gone, the man you are is a damned fine one.  And I’m honored to know you.”

Ianto sniffed, then looked away.  He let go of Jack’s hand to wipe his eyes, then took it again before nodding at Effie, a small, shy smile gracing his lips.

“Thank you.”

She let his hand go and patted his forearm, then blew out a breath before changing the subject.  “Now.  Your choices are going to be a bit more limited than normal.”  She nodded towards the copy of the Quibbler that was on the table before them.  “I know from the article about the unicorn blood.  Having unicorn hair as your wand core would resonate too strongly with the unicorn blood in your body, and that would throw your magic off balance.  So,” she pulled out her wand and waved it. 

The shelves all turned ninety degrees so they were now facing the front of the store.  The colorful wand boxes flew from shelves and sailed through the air in a complicated formation.  Ianto noticed that even the boxes she had set on the counter had taken flight.  Jack gave a shout of joy, and Ianto smiled at the display.  After a few minutes, the boxes began to arrange themselves in some sort of order on the shelves.  As the activity began to settle, something less than half, perhaps forty per cent of the shelves shifted to the back of the shop and turned themselves, coming to rest end-on, once more.

Effie turned back to Ianto.  “Forgive me for prying, but did they treat the imbalance in your system with dragon’s blood?”

Ianto’s eyebrows shot up, but he supposed it made sense to tell her about this.  He nodded, even as he wondered how she knew about the obscure treatment he had received.

“Oh, nothing too dramatic,” she assured him as though he’d asked the question aloud.  “The potions master was ill one day, so Professor Dumbledore taught the class.  Except he didn’t, actually.  Well, he seemed to find the lecture that had been set for the day to be dreadfully dull, so he decided to tell us how he discovered each of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood.  He was… a bit odd,” she hesitated, but Ianto laughed.

“Mad as a box of hair, you mean?”

“Well, that goes without saying,” Effie replied with a chuckle.  “But I’m sure you can see why such a lecture would stay with a person.”

“A rare and singular opportunity,” Ianto nodded.  “I suppose this means no dragon heartstring cores for me, either?  Because of the same resonance issue…”

“Just so,” she smiled, and waved her wand again.  The boxes flew once more, and after a moment, shelves containing a bit more than three-quarters of the remaining wands shifted towards the back and their shelves resumed their places in the lines.  Effie gestured towards the last four shelves that now faced them, seeming to stand at attention.  “What you see before you is about thirteen percent of my inventory.  Phoenix feather cores are quite rare.”  She looked at Jack to explain, “Difficult to source, see.  So only about three per cent of my stock contains a phoenix feather core.”

“So you’ve devoted a full ten percent of your inventory to other cores?” Ianto asked, interested.  It was rare for anyone to have a core other than the three Garrick Ollivander had favored – unicorn hair, dragon heartstring, or phoenix feather.

“Well, one doesn’t know what a wand can do, until it has been created,” she smiled.  “And I like to see how certain variables can affect the wand’s performance.”

“Variables?” Ianto asked.

“Location, timing, circumstances,” she watched both men, gauging their reaction to her words, and then seemed to come to a decision.  “For instance, a cherry wand will always behave like a cherry wand, but the wood from a cherry tree grown in Okinawa is going to have different traits to one grown in Nagasaki, even now.  Likewise, an ancient forest versus a city park.  Both can have value, but surely their contributions will vary.  It’s those variations that I find interesting.”

Ianto nodded his agreement, smiling.  Wandlore fascinated him, and he fully intended to know everything he could about the wand that would end up choosing him.  But then his gut clenched. 

What if a wand didn’t choose him?  

What if he was too messed up? 

What if he had been spellbound for too long? 

What if…? 

What…? 

What if…?

“Hey,” Jack’s voice cut through the spiral, and Ianto’s eyes snapped open to find Jack cupping his face. 

“What…?” Ianto gasped, looking around, his eyes a bit wild until they settled on Jack.

“Hey,” Jack smiled.  “There you are.  What just happened?”

Ianto blinked.  “Just had a scary thought, that’s all.”

“You’re not the first,” Effie said, her voice kind, but unconcerned.  “Any witch or wizard who walks in here for a wand already knows that the wand will choose them, and not the other way around,” she explained to Jack.  “And as often as not, there’s the fear that one may not be chosen, at all.” 

Jack, who was still holding Ianto by the sides of his head, turned back to Ianto, leaned in, and gave him a quick kiss.  “Will you please stop scaring yourself, my Love?”

Ianto chuckled and nodded sheepishly, then he and Jack returned to how they had been sitting, before Ianto had spun out.  “I apologize,” he said to Effie.  “You were saying?”

“Ianto, just to put your mind at ease, I already know one of the wands on these shelves is for you.  I can feel it.  Okay?”  He let out a breath and nodded, and she continued.  “Well, as I was saying, you can’t know what a wand will do until you create it.  And almost all of my creations are here.  Some are more powerful than others, and some are stranger than the rest, but they are all here, because – for example – sometimes it would be best if a witch or wizard does not have a powerful wand, because that would not best serve them.  But everyone will have a match.  That is simply how it works,” she smiled. 

“So you have experimented with enough… other wand cores that you’ve built up a bit of an inventory?” Ianto smiled his appreciation for her reassurance as the conversation got back on track.

“Yes, though I do occasionally trade them out to other wandmakers.  But I usually trade them for rare core types, which only results in more wands,” she chuckled, turning her hands palms up and shrugging as though it couldn’t be helped.  Taking a breath, she stood and went behind the counter to peruse the wands on the four shelves that remained facing them.  She had a feeling she knew what core Ianto’s wand would likely be, but she wanted to test a hypothesis.  She had a feeling Ianto had a great deal of potential.

Tapping her chin, she went to the set of shelves to the far right.  She took down a box and brought it back to where Ianto and Jack were sitting.  “This is one of my more obscure efforts, but it strikes me as a good place to start,” she said, removing the top from the box.  “It is beech, a pliant eleven-and-a-half inches, with a wampus cat hair core.”

“Really,” Ianto said, taking the box from her and staring at the wand inside with interest.

“Go on, then,” Effie encouraged, and Ianto reached for the wand as Jack read aloud from Ollivander’s book.

“The true match for a beech wand will be, if young, wise beyond his years, and if full-grown, rich in understanding and experience.”  He nodded, understanding why this was a valid candidate for his lover.

Ianto waved the wand at the Quibbler on the table and performed the first spell he had ever learned.  “Wingardium leviosa.”

Without warning, the publication flew from the table and began pinging off the walls, hurling itself violently from one side of the shop to the other, ricocheting off of the ceiling, shelves, and floor.  With a flick of her wand, Effie had the battered magazine settling back onto the table.

“Well,” she said, smiling brightly.  “A resonant power, but a bit skittish.  Possibly nervous of the creatures in your blood.”

“How so?” Jack asked. 

“The unicorn is a shy, solitary creature.  Wild, but believed to be more sentient than the likes of a dragon.  And the dragon is bold when necessary, but they generally keep themselves to themselves.  Not completely mindless, but not terribly sentient.  And here’s the wampus cat.  Just as wild, just as solitary.  But caught between the two, in terms of sentience.  What we just saw,” she waved her arm a bit to mimic the flight of the Quibbler, “was the wampus cat wary of the others and trying not to be caught standing still, for too long.”

“It felt… not quite safe,” Ianto nodded.  “I could use the wand in a pinch, but it was uncomfortable and – as you say – wary.”

“Trust could undoubtedly be built, but I believe there is a better choice for you,” she said, putting the wand back in its box and returning it to its shelf.  Her fingers brushed over the boxes until they stilled on the next one.

***

[1] This and all wandlore described in this fic were taken from the Harry Potter Wiki wand page, Wand | Harry Potter Wiki | Fandom.

[2] Still the Wiki

[3] Okay, so I made that bit up, because there is nothing on Cherry wands in the Wiki other than ‘strange power’.