Chapter 9: The Wand
"Next, that."
Tamara lifted her gaze to the sign hanging above the narrow shopfront nearby.
Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.
For a wizard, a wand was more than a tool. It was an extension of the body, and a resonance of the soul.
In her past life, the yew wand had stayed with her for half a century. It had witnessed every triumph, every atrocity, and every moment of cold certainty.
"I wonder if my old friend is still here."
Tamara brushed her empty sleeve and pushed open the dilapidated door.
The shop was tiny, almost bare, with only a few benches for customers. Thousands of narrow boxes were stacked to the ceiling, crowding the space until it felt as though the walls themselves were pressing in.
"Good afternoon."
The soft voice pulled Tamara out of memory.
Garrick Ollivander drifted out from behind the shelves like a ghost, pale eyes fixed on her with unsettling intensity. It was not the look of a shopkeeper examining a customer. It was the look of someone attempting to see through skin and bone, straight into whatever lay beneath.
"I thought you would have come sooner," Ollivander murmured.
Then, with a faint tremor in his tone, he added, "Miss Riddle."
He lingered on the surname.
"Riddle, once again."
A chill went through Tamara, swift and sharp.
"Do you know my family?" she asked, carefully arranging her expression into polite curiosity.
"No," Ollivander replied at once. "I simply remember every wand I have ever sold."
He stepped closer, gaze drifting past her face as though he were watching a scene only he could see.
"Summer of 1938. A young man who looked very much like you. Yew, thirteen and a half inches, phoenix feather."
Tamara kept smiling, even as irritation rose in her throat. The old man talked far too much. She had met many people like him, those who thought their observations were a gift to the world.
"That was a very powerful wand," Ollivander continued, voice softening, "and a very terrible one."
"That young man did great things."
His eyes sharpened.
"Terrible things."
Tamara held her smile steady, perfect, as though each word was not another pin pressed into her patience.
"I have come to buy my wand, sir," she reminded him, gently and firmly.
"Of course. Of course." Ollivander drew a tape measure from his pocket, silver marked and oddly alive. "Now then. Which is your wand hand?"
"My right."
The tape measure slithered into motion at once, measuring her arm, her shoulder, even the distance between her nostrils with unsettling intimacy.
Tamara endured it without flinching, eyes scanning the towering stacks of boxes.
She was looking for yew.
In her past life, her wand had vanished the night she died, but what if it had been found? What if it had been brought here for repair, returned to the maker as wands sometimes were?
"That will do," Ollivander said, retracting the tape measure. He reached up and slid a box from a shelf.
"Try this. Walnut, twelve and a half inches, dragon heartstring. Unyielding. Good for Transfiguration."
Tamara took the wand.
The instant it touched her palm, it vibrated violently. Then it shrieked like metal plunged into flame, leapt from her grasp, and burst into a puff of black smoke as it spun through the air.
"Apparently not," Ollivander said, as though this were as ordinary as a rainy Tuesday. "Picky. Try this one. Willow, ten inches, unicorn hair. Suitable for a pure soul."
Tamara wrapped her fingers around it.
Nothing.
The wand lay in her hand like a dead twig, cold and useless. Worse, it carried a faint rejection, as if it were repelled by something in her that it could not tolerate.
One after another, she tried more.
Over the next quarter of an hour, Ollivander placed wand after wand in her hand. None were right.
Some buzzed and sparked and flung themselves away.
Others rolled off the counter before her fingers even fully closed.
Each failure tightened something in Tamara's chest.
"Very picky," Ollivander murmured, rummaging deeper among the shelves.
"In that case…"
Tamara could not help herself. She kept her voice light, almost casual, as though making a harmless request.
"Sir, do you have something made of a more powerful wood? Like yew."
Ollivander stopped.
He turned slowly and looked at her with an expression so complex it nearly resembled pity.
"Very well," he said at last. "If you insist."
From a dusty corner he drew a black box, the sort that looked as though it had not been opened in years.
"Yew," Ollivander said quietly. "Thirteen inches. Dragon heartstring. It has been waiting a long time. It seeks someone with dominance."
Tamara's pulse quickened.
Yew.
It was not her old wand, not precisely, but the same wood, the same promise, the same scent of death and ambition that had once fit her hand like it belonged there.
She reached out, fingers trembling as she touched it.
The moment she gripped the wand's handle, the world snapped sharp.
[Warning! High risk Dark Arts compatibility source detected!]
[Virtue system intervention: Soul Purification Protocol initiated.]
A pale gold jolt erupted from her palm with a harsh sizzle.
It was not the wand rejecting her.
It was the system rejecting the wand.
The yew wand cried out, a thin crack spidering along its surface. Then it wrenched itself from her hand like a startled venomous creature and rolled into a corner, shivering as if it could feel fear.
Ollivander inhaled sharply.
"Yew," he whispered, staring at her as though she had broken a law of nature. "Fears you?"
Tamara stared at her smoking palm.
In her mind, she cursed the virtue system with enough venom to choke a basilisk.
Damn it. It was not content with forcing her into this ridiculous moral leash. It was stripping her of even this right, the right to choose power.
"It seems yew is not for you either," Ollivander said, voice distant, as he retrieved the damaged wand and set it aside with surprising gentleness. "Since yew, which signifies death and rebirth, will not do, then…"
His eyes brightened suddenly, as if a thought had struck him like lightning.
"This is very strange," he said, quickening towards the very back of the shop, "but perhaps it is strange for precisely that reason."
He climbed, reached, and drew down a faded purple box from the highest shelf.
Inside, on velvet, lay a slender, supple wand, warm brown in colour.
"Holly," Ollivander said, and now his voice held a solemnity that felt almost reverent. "Eleven inches. Phoenix feather."
He offered it to Tamara as though offering her a verdict.
"Holly is a wood of protection. It wards off evil and helps its master overcome anger and impulsiveness. And the phoenix feather within…"
Tamara looked at the wand.
Then she closed her fingers around the handle.
This time there was no shriek. No recoil. No refusal.
Warmth flooded through her hand and raced up her arm, spreading through her body like rain falling after a long drought. The thin magic inside her stirred, not resisting, but rejoicing, meeting the wand's core with perfect resonance.
Brilliant golden sparks burst from the tip, lighting the dim shop as if someone had torn open the sun. The sparks danced and curled, faintly shaping themselves into the outline of a phoenix before scattering.
A perfect match.
More perfect, disturbingly, than the yew wand had ever been.
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for obtaining a signature weapon!]
[Item Name: Wand of Salvation]
[Quality: Legendary]
[System Evaluation: This wand naturally counters the Dark Arts and possesses extremely strong positive energy guidance. With it, you are one step closer to becoming a saint!]
Tamara held the wand and felt a sickness rise in her throat, as though she had swallowed something crawling.
She knew this wand.
This was supposed to belong to Harry Potter.
This was the signature weapon of the Boy Who Lived.
And now it had chosen her, a Dark Lord reborn in a girl's body, shackled to virtue like a joke.
"Curious," Ollivander whispered, eyes shining with feverish excitement. "How very curious."
Tamara forced her voice to remain even. "What is curious?"
Ollivander looked delighted to explain.
"Do you remember what I said? The yew wand sold in 1938. Phoenix feather."
He pointed to the holly wand in Tamara's hand.
"The feather in that wand and the feather in this one came from the same phoenix. Fawkes gave two feathers only. One made that wand, and the other made this."
His voice dropped into something like awe.
"They are brother wands."
The air seemed to go still.
Tamara felt the world tilt into bitter irony.
In her last life, she had been the monster holding yew, killing with cold precision.
In this life, she held its brother, holly, the wand meant to oppose her, to symbolise protection and justice.
"Perhaps," Ollivander sighed softly, "this is the arrangement of fate."
"Holly chose you, which suggests the phoenix hopes for redemption."
"Perhaps this wand can end the pain left behind by the yew wand."
Tamara tightened her grip on the holly wand. It was warm, nearly hot, but her heart felt carved from ice.
No.
This was not redemption.
This was plunder.
She had taken Harry Potter's wand. That four eyed child would now be forced to accept a lesser substitute, second best by necessity, and fate would not compensate him for it.
"This is very interesting, Mr Ollivander," Tamara said, and her smile was bright enough to be convincing, and just slightly wrong around the edges.
"I will use it well."
She flicked the wand lightly. The golden phoenix outline dissipated into the air like embers scattering.
"After all, since it chose me, it is mine. Whether for redemption, or for something else."
She slapped gold coins onto the counter, snatched up the wand, and left before Ollivander could add another word to the pile.
Outside, Diagon Alley's noise rushed back in around her.
Tamara stood in the sunlight, staring down at the beautiful holly wand in her hand.
"Harry Potter," she whispered, tasting the name.
"Your wand is in my hands. Your chance to enter school is in my hands. Even your little life…"
She paused, then shook her head, forcing herself back into patience.
"Not yet. That can wait."
.....
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