Immediately following Through the fire

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"It's been a long time since I've been to Ollivander's," Leo Gamp said, glancing at his son.  "I don't suppose you remember the way?"

They were stood outside the Witch Weekly headquarters, now. A big glistening sign with sparkly letters and a picture of the random witch model in her black pointy hat. The letters underneath the magazine’s name read Editor in Chief, Queen G.

Before them, people were milling about, some rushing through the crowds to get their shopping done quick. Dante grinned up at his father.
“It’s down here. Come on.” He started to meander down the street towards the wand shop, being careful not to rush. His dad wasn’t used to crowds, was he? Even Dante, as an almost 13-year-old knew that everything was going to be a massive adjustment. That was why he was there to help, wasn’t it?

“Mamá took me last year to get my wand.” He pulled it out of his coat pocket and lifted it up to proudly show his Dad. “11 inches, birch, dragon heartstring core. It’s supposed to be the most powerful, good for bonding with its master. Bit temperamental, but I’m working on that. What did you have? Before…well…” he frowned, suddenly regretting his question. Leo’s wand would have been snapped when he got sent to Azkaban. That was why they were here now. Fortunately, they were approaching the shop when he trailed off. So he pushed open the door and tried to forget asking the question.

It was bizarrely surreal being back on the streets of Diagon Alley.  If it hadn't been for Dante guiding him along, Leo would have stopped short, overwhelmed by the passerby that were whizzing around him. 

Yesterday's courtroom had been the first time he'd been back in the middle of a crowd since...well, the last time that he'd been in a courtroom.  But even that had felt different.  The chamber on Level Ten at the Ministry had been packed with onlookers, certainly, but he had still been somehow apart from it all, separated from the audience by space and time as he and Enid had stood alone before the Wizengamot.

For a moment, his breath nearly caught in his throat.  A witch with two young children strolled by, almost knocking into him, and then a man in a dark cloak went hurrying by in the opposite direction, cradling a large package.  They had no reason to notice him, no real reason to recognize him, but it still felt as if there were eyes boring into him, as if everyone here knew who he was and what he had been accused of --

Dante's voice pulled him back to the surface.  Leo blinked at his son, taking a moment to process his question.

"I --" He hesitated, trying to recall in the moment.  His wand had been as much a part of him as his arm or his leg once.  Like any wizard, he'd known the measurements by heart.

"Thirteen and a quarter inches."  He gave his son a twisted half-smile, hesitant and pained.  "It was redwood with unicorn hair.  But we'll see what I end up with this time, won't we?" 

If Leo Gamp was nervous or at all overwhelmed by the crowded Diagon Alley, his son was utterly oblivious. Dante García had happily lead the way towards the wand shop, rambling about his own wand and experience at Ollivanders. It didn’t occur to him that his father might feel dazed by the sheer amount of people or pace. Neither did it occur to him that his father might feel dejected at not having been there for the wand choosing. Leo hadn’t been there for anything. But he was now, and that was what mattered.

When he stumbled over a description of his wand, Dante did look up, confused. Witches and wizards proudly shared information about their wand. It was supposed to be quite telling, a wix’s wand. His mum’s wand was made of oak. That meant loyal and she supposedly had deep intuition. She had a hippogriff talon used for charms. The wand itself was bent and quirky. Quirky like his mother.

“I don’t know much about redwood.” The almost teenager shrugged. Unicorn tail hair, however, he’d heard of. People said it was easy to turn to dark magic. Like his Dad had supposedly if one believed all those horrible liars. Dante frowned up at his dad, suddenly feeling a little guilty. His redwood unicorn hair wand would have been snapped when he’d been convicted.

“Could be the same. You never know.” Dante tried to shrug off the awkwardness as he stopped outside Ollivanders. With an intake of breath to steady himself, he pushed the door open. Above the door, a bell jingled to alert the owner to their entry.

Tamzin Ollivander, robed in violet and silver, was atop a spindly ladder with her white-blond hair nearly in the rafters of the old shambly shop. Every spare inch of Ollivanders was tucked with wands - why they kept making so many, who could say. There were only so many magical folk. Tamzin was looking for a set that her uncle Garrick Ollivander was certain were there, but Tamzin was beginning to doubt his memory. He was away in Zurich and had gotten in a pissing match with a fellow wandmaker and had owled back to Tamzin to find a trio of wands all made from the heartstrings of a particular dragon.

A mote of dust found its way into her sinus. She sneezed, the ladder tipped, and she began to fall. Just in the nick of time, however, she transformed into a fluffy white cat with purple eyes and managed to land nimbly in front of the two customers who'd just come in the door. She licked her shoulder, flicked her tail and then returned to her witchy shape.

"Hello," she greeted and dusted off her hands. She faced their direction, but her unseeing eyes behind colored spectacles took no purchase. She had a smirking smile on her lips. "I meant to do that. How can I help you?"

It had been years and years since he'd found himself amidst the dusty, narrow confines of Ollivanders.  Stepping through the door now made him almost feel like he was eleven years old again, dwarfed by the towering shelves packed with boxes upon boxes of carefully crafted products.  Back then, he'd eagerly led the way, charging ahead of his parents in his hunger to claim his own wand.  It had been a steadfast friend, constant in his hand through his years at Hogwarts and his later time in service as an Auror at the Ministry.

There had been other visits too, later on in his life and none of them as personal.  When he'd been on Level Two, Ollivanders was occasionally pressed into service to help the Ministry identify the wands of known culprits.  And later on still, during the war, the wand shop's proprietor had been the target of darker preoccupations.

The individual who greeted them now, though, was not the craftsman that he remembered.  She came tumbling through the air as a fluffy white cat, and it was only an instant after she landed that she deigned to resume her human shape.

"I think we're here to make a purchase," Leo said, giving her a slight, polite smile.  There was a strange anxiety starting to rise in his chest, as if he'd been led into the middle of the wrong story and abandoned there to flounder.  "Garrick Ollivander isn't about somewhere, is he?"

"My uncle is nose to nose with Ibrahim in Zurich, I imagine, in heated discussion about the role of woodgrain in volatile core wands," Tamzin replied.

She patted her robes for her wand and moved around behind the counter. It wasn't unheard of for a young student to break their wand during their first term at Hogwarts and come to Ollivanders for a replacement. The little ones, especially magic-born, didn't always appreciate their wand. She didn't recognize the customers, but that wasn't unusual. Everyone came to Ollivanders, how could she keep track of everyone.

"Step up, please," she asked and tapped the counter that they should approach. Then she heaved out a massive tome. Her uncle claimed to remember every wand he'd ever sold. Tamzin could claim a similar talent, but only the couple dozen of her own wands she'd sold over the last ten years.

"If you have the pieces of the broken wand," she said to the kid shuffling his feet, "maybe I can fix it."

No need to shame the little klutz. She held out her hand.

The witch apparently in charge of the shop was atop a thin ladder that appeared to be balanced precariously against a cluttered shelf crammed with boxes and boxes of wands. Eyes almost bulged from the young wizard’s head as he watched her take a tumble and begin to fall to the ground. But no bang. Nope. Instead, the wirey silver haired crazy witch turned into white cat and landed very delicately at their feet.
“Whoa.” The 12 year old exclaimed as she transfigured before their eyes back into a normal…well, a regularish witch. Dark eyes shot over the purple glasses and over the top robes and ridiculous hair. His mum could teach this old witch something about dressing, couldn’t she?

"I think we're here to make a purchase," Dante’s Dad explained, getting an odd look from his son. They were here to make a purchase, no thinking needed.

"If you have the pieces of the broken wand," crazy lady cat witch addressed Dante, holding out her hand for…oh, then he realised. Dante’s brows shot up and he stared across at her with incredulity.
“Hey, my wand isn’t broken!” The cheek of it! “I’m not some hufflepuff klutz, lady.” She was just old, wasn't she? Incept and old. "My dad is the one that needs the wand."

Dante's impertinence, charming when directed at his parents, was downright hilarity-inducing when his target was another adult.  Leo cleared his throat, swallowing back any laughter, and gave the shopkeeper a look that was half-apologetic, half-chastisement.  He couldn't blame his well-organized son for being offended.

"And although the wand in question is broken, I'm afraid the pieces have been lost to the winds of time," he put in, offering the witch with the colored spectacles a dry half-smile. 

Something tugged at his memory, vaguely -- the remembrance of a bookish witch with a famous last name who had been a couple of years ahead of him in Genny's house, who had kept company with Muggle-borns and had had no interest in the machinations of the school's pure-blooded elite.  Was Garrick Ollivander dead?  He had been poorly at the end of the war, and Leo had had no reason to hear news of him in the many years since.

"We were hoping to purchase a replacement," he said, meeting the witch's colorful spectacles cleanly.  "You'll be able to help us, I imagine?"

Tamzin sniffed at the little boy's expositional backtalk. A moth in her gut was telling her that this would be no ordinary match.

"Yes, I'll be able to help you," she parroted not a little impatiently. He must not know who she was, that the Ollivander's tradition was being kept alive, thriving, and safe in her hands.

"I can match you. Aura perciperium."

With her olive-branch wand, Tamzin had cast an aura-sensing charm. Among the sounds, textures, and smells, another layer of art and information was added to the space. Every wand in every box hummed like a bee in a honeycomb cell, and the three wix in the room radiated with a unique character.

The boy's aura was like a fireworks sparkler, and his father's was magnetic and heavy somehow. And true enough, the boy had a wand and his father did not. There were several reasons a grown wizard would have neither a wand nor its pieces, and one in particular gave that moth in her gut cause to turn.

"I'm Tamzin Ollivander. And who am I speaking with?"