Sasha waited patiently as the older witch completed her business with the wandmaker behind the counter, his gaze darting around the room.  The little, cluttered shop lined with a myriad of short, long boxes was one of the most iconic spots along Diagon Alley and, probably like every one of his newly graduated cohorts, Sasha could remember the first time he'd stepped through its doors.  But, it hadn't ever held quite the same degree of mysticism that it seemed to hold with some of his classmates.  It hadn't been his personal original source of magic. 

At eleven years old, with a well-worn list of school supplies in hand, Sasha had pushed his way through those doors with the wide eyed wonder of child's whose fantasies had all come true. 

His parents had already been obliviated by the Ministry, so they'd remained as blissfully unaware of Sasha's newly discovered talents as they had to Sasha's lie about spending the weekend in London with his best friend.  Well, partial lie.  He had spent the night at the Schäfers but he'd told Anton's parents that he was expected to meet his parents for some social event. 

School letter and supply list in hand and pockets jingling with what money Sasha had managed to squirrel away without his parents noticing in his pocket, Sasha had found his own way to the Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley and, eventually, Ollivander's shop.  But, wands had been expensive.  More expensive than Sasha had managed to stretch his pilfered pocket of coin. 

He'd left the shop, empty-handed, hopeful that the magical school would have loner wands like many muggle schools had loner textbooks and oblivious to the consequences of wandlore.  He'd made do with a poorly matched, old discarded wand from the lost and found (a 'hand-me-down' family heirloom that a student had conveniently 'lost' so that her parents would buy her a new one, Sasha later learned) until it had met an unfortunate fate the night of Ava Grosvenor's death. 

Sasha had, eventually, acquired a proper wand from Ollivander's.  Two, in fact.  Both had been taken from him and destroyed - one by Gerhard Schlagenweit for being a wizard and the other by Callum Knight for being a muggleborn.  Despite its dubious beginnings, the Gregorovitch wand he'd won off the Death Eater he'd killed was the only wand that had worked well for him.  So, he admittedly felt a little strange and out of place standing among the cluttered shelves but he hoped this errand would change that. 

"Good afternoon," he offered politely as the previous customer stepped through the door and Sasha moved up to the counter.  He removed the long, leather-wrapped bundle from under his arm and set it gently on the counter.  "Do you do any custom work?  I'm working on a bit of a project and I am hoping you might be able to help."

"Be with you in a moment, dear," Tamzin spoke past Ginnifer Gladhand to the quiet figure who'd entered the shop, then continued chit-chatting happily with Madam Gladhand. "Polish polish polish, Gin, that gash will fade in a few weeks."

"Oh, I think Tolly will remember wands are made of wood from here on out, Tamzin," chuckled Ginnifer exchanging silver for the little paper sack. Tamzin smiled, but knew full well this wasn't the first time little Toliver Gladhand had damaged his wand and that it wouldn't be the last.

Business done, Tamzin finished with the till then turned her attention to her next customer. Young man, German accent, tidy way of talking. Why, she'd met this one before.

"I do, I very much do," she said merrily as she drew her own wand. "Aura perciperium," she incanted her aura-sensing spell. The room thrummed alive with the waves and warmth of the dozens and dozens of wands catacombed in the nooks and crannies, each of them familiar enough to Tamzin (and sleepy as they were) that they were not much other than white noise to her.

"Ah! I know you, don't I?" His aura felt orderly and tense. "That's a Gregorovich, I think. Very good to see you in here to get set up properly. What's your name, young wizard?"

Tamzin was truly pleased to have this one come through. She didn't remember a great deal about their first meeting, just that he'd made a distinct impression on her. He was an outsider, for all that was better and worse about that. Not as sweet as others, but not everyone could be sweet, could they?

"Gut, gut," Sasha murmured with a nod, relieved to hear this wasn't a completely lost cause.  He could have tried to figure this out on his own, through trial and error, but he didn't want to leave this to chance. 

"We have met," he confirmed.  "Both here and our paths crossed at the Leaky Cauldron a few months back[1], if I'm remembering correctly."  Though that had been a very brief and casual cause of intersecting paths, so Sasha wouldn't be surprised if it was a memory that had fallen into the rubbage bin of the witch's mind. 

Again, he nodded, his hand dropping to his side to tug the Gregorovich wand free from its pocket along the side of his pants.  "Yes, it's a Gregorovich wand - manticore core.  It had been a mystery to me until Mr. Garrick Ollivander identified it during the Tetrawizard Tournament[2].  Though I'm not ... I don't have intentions to replace it," he added quickly, assuming that's what she meant by getting properly set up.  "Unless you think I should?"

But, that hadn't been his intention when he'd stepped in the shop.  He wasn't emotionally prepared for that.  "It works perfectly for me.  I won it, I can't imagine a wand working better for me?  At least, that's what we were told during NEWTs."

1.	Spin a Yarn, Weave a Tale
2.	The Weight of A Wand

Tamzin cluck-clucked at the young man's supposition that his current wand - a Gregorovitch - was unmatched in its match, unmatched in its ability.

"It's a hag-tale that there's only one wand for a wizard, and ours are the finest." Tamzin had misapprehended the young man's purpose and if she wasn't so curious as to his true business, she'd have been thrusting sticks into his mitts until he had a true Ollivanders and that brute-won twig of his retired to a mantle case.

Nevertheless, Tamzin held out her hand hoping to inspect the Gregorovitch that her uncle had evaluated. It would be a shame not to inspect it herself. There were so few Gregorovitches in circulation anymore and she knew it must be storied. Even from here to where the wand was stowed her aura-detecting spell indicated some of its qualities.

"You haven't told me your name. Mind your manners, now, love. Then we can be collaborators, hm?"

She wiggled her fingers in her free hand.

"Oh right, yes, sorry," Sasha offered, blushing deeply as he reached out to drop his wand in the wandmaker's hand after only a moment's hesitation.  He knew there were likely few hands safer than hers to deposit his wand into, but memories of snapped cores were remarkably resilient.  It took the wandmaker asking for his name a second time for Sasha to direct his attention off of the wand and back towards the witch.

Forgetting his manners was such an infrequent occurrence that the admonishment ... well ... left him feeling more abashed than usual.  At least, it could be blamed on distractions.  "Sasha Snow," he offered, then remembered the name might prompt some confusion.  "Well, it used to be Schlagenweit, but I changed it to Snow about a month ago." 

His gaze drifted back to the simple, wine-colored wooden wand in her hand.  It was no more than a few inches from him, but part of him longed to reach out and return it to his grasp. 

"It's previous owner broke into our home and attacked our family.  Three years ago, tomorrow."  She hadn't asked for a history, but it seemed an important part of the wand - and, perhaps, was an element of the wand that wasn't obvious to the cursory inspection of another artisan.  "He was aiming to kill me with it, but I got it from him and he fell, instead.  It saved my life.  I can't replace it," he added with a shrug. 

But, he was glad to hear wands weren't as rabidly loyal as he'd been led to believe.  "But ... I am hoping I might be able to use another source of magic alongside it.  A secondary magical conduit.  Like, dual weapon tactics?"

Tamzin closed her hand around the wand. Just the moment she did, the wandmaker set her own down in a purpose-made groove on he counter top. The aura-detection spell faded and the room quieted back to normal. Tamzin lifted her face, the candlelight glinting on her amethyst purple spectacles; her jaw worked in concentration as she ran her hands over another's implement. Even as she took it, she felt so clearly that it did not belong to her. It almost begged to be dropped. She cocked her head towards Mr. Snow, but was unintimidated by the focused intent of the object. She knew what she was doing.

Manticore. Flashy. "What's this handle? The shaft is purpleheart... Hmm. Well. No matter. You've said you'll not part with it and who is an Ollivander to argue with that?"

A little smirk. Deftly, she found the balance point of the wand and offered it back to Mr. Snow on two fingers.

"A wand is not a weapon, Mr. Snow," she firmly, steady in the theory and philosophy of her craft. "It is an extension of yourself. Is your elbow a sword? Your ear a morningstar? Perhaps you misspoke."

She left her wand where it was, a smile crept over her lips. A secondary magical conduit, of course it could be done. Had been done. She was an Ollivander.

Sasha watched carefully and curiously as the witch across the counter held the wand between her hands with unmistakable intent.  He could feel the wand's distance much as one could feel the loneliness in a completely vacant auditorium and he had to resist the urge to reach out and pick it up before the woman extended it back across the counter towards him. 

"Black limba, is my understanding.  That's all I know about it, though.  Wish I knew more about its history," he mused aloud as he slipped the wand back into its pocket.  He didn't think he would need it anymore for this visit, though he wouldn't be surprised if the wandmaker proved him wrong.

He nodded, slowly, to the witch's correction.  "Yes, I know," he admitted.  "But, I didn't misspeak.  Even a book can be a weapon, if it's thrown the right way.  I'm wanting my wand to be what it's intended to be: an extension of me with defense tactics being an auxiliary function.  What I'm wanting is a secondary item whose primary function is defense - but with a magical core."     

Sasha carefully peeled away the outer layer of leather to reveal a trio of blades: generally dagger-shaped, though each had slight variations in design, and completely carved out of wood.  Each side of the blades had been sanded and finished with a strip of silver flashing, which had been honed and sharpened into a formidable edge.  It had taken some experimentation to find species of hardwoods that were dense enough to take and keep an edge, when supported with magical enhancements but he'd finally settled on three: ebony, rosewood and lockwood.  With luck, one of those woods would be a good match for him. 

"Please be careful, they have full edges," he cautioned as he shifted the leather and blades so the handles faced the wandmaker.  "I remember hearing rumors back at Hogwarts of irregularly shaped wands.  Or wands being worked into the center of other objects and still functioning.  My hope is one of those options might work well in this instance."

The blind witch felt out with her hands, inching onto the leather then onto the handles then patting the wooden implements.

"Magic folk have been using focusing cores for centuries," she explained.

"All manner of cores encased in all manner of vessels. Orbs, staves, rings, swords, fireplace pokers..." she picked up the first dagger and smelled the wood. It was newly made and the wood still smelled fresh, like sawdust. It was carefully polished but not yet worked with the oil of hands. No part was worn down.

"There's a reason for the wand," she continued. "My family has been perfecting the form for hundreds of years. A simple thing on the surface, just a stick,  but it's that simplicity that makes them efficient, focused, and beautiful. Finesse. Ease. And the vessel to core ratio is un-matched by any other form. The core is protected, but barely a centimeter away from the blood."

The ridges of her thumb's fingerprints found the silver edge. She set the dagger back down with its siblings, then did short inspections of the other two. Different woods, similar shape, each with the sharp metal cutting edges.

"Well."

She put her hand over her mouth in thought. After a moment, Tamzin drew from under the desk a little placard and placed it by an ancient old desk bell. It said, 'forever hold your peace, be back in a spell. Then she took up her wand from its groove and smiled.

"Follow me, Mr. Snow."

She turned and headed back through the tight alleyway between tall shelves. Little lamps lit as they passed revealing hundreds of wand boxes. The shop could seem like an endless warren. Shortly, the shelves of wands gave way to shelves of other things. Tools, stacks of small lengths of wood, tins of stains, waxes and polishes. Everything had a smell.

At last, they came to a space large enough for a work bench which was covered in all the trappings of an active craftswoman. Lathes, blades, a balance. Snips, sand paper, brushes, awls, rune stones, matches, a silver basin. And behind the work bench were the cores on their own special shelves. Dragon heartstrings suspended in tincture, unicorn tail hairs wound in loose loops hanging from golden twine. Long glowing phoenix tail features erupted from a vase like a bouquet, each one tagged.

"The lights came on for you?" she asked as she used her wand to clear a space.

Sasha listened quietly as the witch offered some insight into alternative applications for wand cores, a trace of a grin flickering across his features as she fired off the list.  He was on the verge of rattling off a Tolkein-esque quote about rings of power when one of the other items on the list passed through his thoughts a second time.  "Fireplace poker?" he repeated, with a slight chuckle.  "Auto-lighting fireplace?" 

Not expecting the question to be answered, Sasha re-swaddled the wooden blades in their leather bindings and followed the wandmaker towards the work area, his gaze drifting over the shadowy tools and boxes of materials lining the walls.

"I have thought about adding a sword in the future, so I may be back for another commission," he admitted, deciding that full disclosure seemed the wisest approach.  "But, knives and daggers seemed a more reasonable option to start with."  Easier to carry and conceal and he was still a ways away from using such an item with a reliable degree of safety and precision. 

Not to mention continuing to experiment with casting or fighting with his off hand.

He nodded, the comments about the wand's shape seeming to make sense.  "So, it's less important what material the core is encased in?" Sasha asked, setting the bundle on the workbench.  "Yes, the lights are on for me.  I had been assuming it could only work with wood adn metal would interfere with the core.  And, what if a larger core is used - so it's still close to the blood?" 

"A sword, pah!"

Tamzin never held back her true feelings. She didn't approve of any of this, but the pureness of her ethics were nothing compared to her pride. She'd do it because she was the only one who could do it properly.

At the behest of her spell, the set of acacia unicorn wands she was working on danced out of the way. Those were the tailhairs acquired at Wentworth ranch and they would go so beautifully encased in a savanna wood.[1]. A nice young witch had shown her the way and the unicorn mares had been generous. Tamzin felt like she'd know the witches these wands would all there pick if they walked in the door.

The space cleared, Tamzin patted the table for Sasha to set down the pieces again.

"Everything is important. Every substance in nature carries magic differently and the liveliness of wood is in our opinion ideal. Most metals are too chaotic, I think, to grant the wielder any true control. But what do I know, I'm only an Ollivander," she said her snipping giving way to a cocky smile.

"Don't know what you mean by larger core, but you want a good balance. Nature of the individual core, nature of the wood, the design, the finish - all of it matters. It's an art more than magic sometimes. No magic formula."

1.	14 Nov 2011 - Begging for a Thread

Sasha grinned at the wandmaker’s protest and, initially, offered some reconciliation.  “I believe that a blade is not ideal; wands, no doubt, have their design for good reason.”  The witch’s dedication to her point of view reminded him a lot of his sisters and grandmother – perhaps a trait indicative of a more deep-seated impressive trait running in the women of the Waldgraf family. 

Perhaps it was a sign that he’d have his hands full, if he ever had a daughter of his own. 

Despite fully acknowledging the witch undoubtedly knew better than he, Sasha still felt obligated to defend his request – though his tone definitely carried an apologetic deference. 

“But, not every threat is universally susceptible to magic,” he pointed out as he lay the trio of daggers on the counter, handles oriented towards the witch.  “Werewolves are rather resistant and – do we really know what these direwolves are capable of?  Besides, a blade is an easier thing for a nerdy university kid like myself to explain away in mixed company.”  No one could deny the recent uptick in activity; Sasha had heard too many disturbing rumors coming from too many directions. 

The reemergence of direwolves also meant the old strategies of staying indoors during a full moon just didn't work anymore.  And, the power of wands was entirely dependent on the abilities of the one holding the wand.  "Relying on wands also doesn't help those who can't use them, like squibs."

Tamzin's laugh rang out like birds chirping. She held out her bejeweled hands and her bangles jangled.

"I'll do the job, oh, I'll do it, don't fret, dear. Who else could? I can't have you wandering around with a half-cocked twiddle-sticks, now can I! What would people think? You'd blow your hands off or worse. No, it has to be me. Ollivanders are the best. You should know since you've come here, but if you didn't, best to take it to heart: Ollivanders are the best. Oh, good lad."

She arranged one of the knives in front of herself upon a velvet square of fabric. Then she took up her wand and began casting a spell. For Sasha, he'd see the grain of the wood illuminated as if power was leaking out from with it. The knife itself levitated and turned in the air and Tamzin moved her hand around it not touching it.

"Exploring this particular bough," she explained as the light reflected in her violet spectacles. "Must see its quality, must find its heart..."

Despite himself, a slight sigh of relief escaped Sasha as the wandmaker insisted she'd take on the project.  "Fretting could be my middle name," he admitted sheepishly.  "My skill in worrying is matched only by your skill in wandmaking." 

"Precisely," he confirmed, without hesitation.  "I spent my first five years at Hogwarts with a second hand wand and know, first-hand, how unfortunate working with a poorly made or mismatched wand can be.  I've gotten pretty good at crafting charms and spells, but this is an entirely different skill.  Besides, if I ever find myself having to fend off another werewolf, I definitely don't want some poorly-made knock off exploding in my hand." 

Sasha watched the witch as a spell flowed from her own wand and the ebony dagger responded.  "I don't think I'll ever get used to this stuff," he murmured, taking a slight step back to ensure he was out of the witch's way. 

"You think that one has potential?" he asked, hoping his inquiry wasn't premature.  There was no telling how long 'exploring a bough' took.  "I can easily source more of it for the sword, if it will work.  Has anyone ever tried working with two wands at the same time?  Dual handed casting?" 

"My skill in worrying is matched only by your skill in wandmaking."

Charming and self-deprecating. Tamzin laughed a little. Sasha Snow was not short on things to say. He seemed to Tamzin curious, and somehow fresh, easily questioning after long-held Knowns of wandcraft. All the more opportunity for Tamzin to explain, for she was never short on things to say either.

"Oh, many have tried I'm sure," she said. "Despite a certain ostentatiously vulgar redundancy of wielding a wand in each hand, there are impracticalities. How would you scratch your nose, hm? The wand is a focus for the singular will of the wix. A second wand does not create a second mind, unless it would..."

Tamzin actually paused at the haunting notion of a witch gone mad from too many wands. Then she shrugged. It hadn't happened that way before...

With that, she ended the spell and let the object lower back to the velvet. She began the same procedure on the other two examples.

"The ebony is dense," she began. "(Ah - rosewood, yes.) I imagine it would need to be so for a dagger. But that same density could cause you some resistance in magical focus, so it would need a sensitive core. A unicorn's tail hair, perhaps, but silver and unicorns don't typically agree... feather of a phoenix then, if you're the sort..."

It felt backwards to do it this way, putting wizard before the wand - or hinky silver wooden dagger as the case might be - but now Tamzin was intrigued.

"Shame," Sasha said, the disappointment clear in his voice.  He had imagined dual-wielding would have its limitations but... "Being limited to one spell at a time seems so ... restrictive," he pondered aloud.  "Getting cornered in the dark, for instance - seems like being able to maintain Lumos and still cast defensively would have distinct advantages."

With a slight grin, he added, "Or, you know, not be stuck using a nose-scratching charm in the dark."

He wasn't entirely surprised to hear that woods that were beneficial for daggers weren't ideal for magic.  On that front, at least, every muggle fantasy game and media genre that definitively delineated the magic users from the melee fighters was spot on. 

"Are wands - or staves - ever made out of non-wood material?  Stone or ... even metal?  What if the core was smelted directly into the metal?"

It was fascinating to watch Ollivander work through her process.  Experimenting, forming magical hypotheses, not caving to his own hair-brained ideas but also not stunting them, either.  This was the type of exploration and trial-and-error that he thrived on; why he'd enjoyed studying spellcraft theory with Mr. Landis Morgan and even part of what fascinated him about Kronos' unconventional approaches.  The murderous cruelty wasn't as much fun but the introduction to an approach so very different than what Hogwarts taught had been fascinating.