Mr. Ollivander and the Wand he Couldn't Remember

Introduction
(by I. Fondit)

Mr. Ollivander's reputation for remembering the wands he has made is almost as legendary as his workmanship in creating them. There is one wand, however, that eludes his notable memory. As many of you know, Mr. Ollivander avoids using Veela hair in the core of his wands, due to their unpredictableness. Learn the story behind this observation and why this one wand is one he, thankfully, cannot remember.



Chapter One

It is a beautiful wand. Twelve-inch rosewood with a single Veela hair as its core. The only Veela-cored wands Mr. Ollivander created in his younger years as a wandmaker. But this wand has a very sad story attached to it.

Anna was considered extremely beautiful even among other Veelas. She had one pecularity though, she loved watching wood artisans at work. Carpenters, violin makers, cabinet makers - she could spend hours, entranced, as they turned wood into beautiful creations.

Then she heard of this young wand-maker in London. People described him as a genius. The more Anna heard of this English wizard, the more curious she became. Finally, she had to see him for herself and see his work. She went to London and offered the young Mr. Ollivander one of her hairs in return for letting her watch him make one wand. By the time she finished, she had fallen deeply in love with the young wandmaker and he felt deeply for her too.

But, alas, it wasn't meant to be. The Ollivander family objected to their son marrying a Veela. Both Anna and the young Ollivander were heartbroken. For months, the young Ollivander slipped into despair because he couldn't be with Anna.

Unable to bear his son's misery any more, Mr. Ollivander Sr., a great wandmaker in his own right, put a forgetfulness charm on the younger Ollivander and bewitched the wand itself to re-enforce the charm whenever it came near him. He then sent the wand to Anna and told her what he had done, warning her to never come near his boy again.



Chapter Two

Anna was heartbroken. To be out of the young Ollivander's life was bad enough, but to *know* he had no thought of her was intolerable. She wanted to destroy the cursed wand, but since its core came from her, her magic would not work against it.

She tried to get another Veela to destroy it, but none would. They felt that Anna's devotion to Ollivander was disgraceful and felt that the wand was saving her from herself. Anna considered just throwing it into the sea, but she knew that wouldn't help. Magical items, like wands, have an uncanny ability to make themselves inconvienent when they are rejected.

So Anna searched for another means to destroy the wand - only to find out that the elder Ollivander had put another charm on it that he had not mentioned. No matter what Anna did or who she tried to give the wand to, it would always come back to her.

Finally, in despair, Anna threw herself into the ocean and drowned. The second charm was broken with her death and the wand floated to the surface and was found by a Muggle fisherman.



Chapter Three

The Muggle fisherman had no idea what this carved stick actually was, but the form pleased him. So he hung it above his fireplace and spent many an evening thoughtfully gazing at it.

It stayed there for a few decades until Voldemort came into power. A witch, running from a Death Eater, entered the old fisherman's home. She was sensitive to magical energies and had assumed the wand was another mage who could help her. When she saw the wand on the wall and the fisherman's shock, she realized she was wrong.

But it was too late. The Death Eater burst through the door and killed the old fisherman with a curse. Since the wand on the wall had more power than her own, the witch summoned it to her and defended herself with it. But the Death Eater wizard was stronger than her and after he killed her, he took the wand with him - unaware that the vengence of the Veela hair inside had been awaken from the death of another desperate woman.



Chapter Four

At first, the Death Eater couldn't believe his luck. An extra wand he could perform dark magic with that could not be readily traced back to him. Just to break it in, he killed several Muggles that night with the Avada Kedavra curse. With each death, he noticed the wand acting more and more pecular. First it would glow and then it began pulsating. During the last curse, it began to generate heat.

The Death Eater was reluctant to give up the wand, for despite its pecular behavior, it was powerful. Recognizing it as an Ollivander wand, he devised a plan. First he would perform several small, innocent spells with it, so a Priori Incantatem would not readily reveal that the wand had been used to perform dark magic. Then he would visit Mr. Ollivander and claim that the wand belonged to a friend of a relative who knew he was visiting England and asked him to have the wand checked out.

Walking boldly into Mr. Ollivander's shop, the Death Eater presented the wand and his explanation of why it was in his presence. To his surprise, not only did Mr. Ollivander not recognize the wand, but the famous wandmaker became very forgetful whenever he picked it up. The Death Eater also thought he could see a dim outline of a woman standing near the wand.

"I-I" Mr. Ollivander studdered, creasing his brow for a moment, "I believe the wand is haunted. Something else. There is something else, but I cannot seem to recall it."

The Death Eater stared at the shadowy woman and the form shifted into a hideous beast. "Could it be a ghost of a Veela?" he asked.

Ollivander nodded slowly. "Yes, that is possible. The wand's core is a Veela hair, but it looks like one of my wands and I do not use Veela hair."

Ollivander turned pale for a moment and stumbled. When the Death Eater grabbed him, Ollivander saw the Death Mark on his arm. Despite the fog his memory was in, Ollivander realized the significance and the Death Eater realized he had been discovered.

He grabbed his wand. Ollivander grabbed the rosewood one. Anna's ghost knew what the Death Eater was planning, so she prompted the bemused Ollivander into casting the Avada Kedavra curse on the Death Eater before he could do it to him.

Ollivander collapsed on the floor in shock and confusion. He realized that he had just used an Unforgiveable Curse. When the Ministry of Magic people found him, he was staring at the Death Mark on the dead wizard's arm and still holding the rosewood wand. They decided that Mr. Ollivander had reacted in self-defense and no investigation was made.



Chapter Five

Many assumed that Mr. Ollivander's bemusement was from the attack he had to ward off, but when the elderly Ollivander came to see his son and saw the wand, he knew the truth. He took the wand and sent it owl post to Albus Dumbledore, asking him to find a safe place for it. Then he questioned his son about what he did remember.

When Ollivander mentioned the Veela ghost, his father realized that Anna had saved him. He also found that his son had now memory of killing the Death Eater and as days went on, his memory of the wand disappeared too.

Ashamed of his past actions, but still unwilling to undo the forgetfulness charm, the elderly Mr. Ollivander wrote Prof. Dumbledore a long letter explaining the wand's history. Three days later, the senior Ollivander died peacefully in his sleep.

As for the wand, Prof. Dumbledore put in my keeping and it now rests in specially sealed box somewhere in the United States - far from the man who created it.



written by Amanda Doerr as I. Fondit (can't fudge dates in a Yahoo Groups archives, can you?)