Chapter 1: Welcome to Diagon Alley

England, London.

An owl swept swiftly across the London sky, startling a group of small animals in a corner and drawing a few people to a stop.

Spotting a raptor like an owl within the city of London was, in fairness, a fairly rare sight.

But most of those who stopped were children, or tourists from out of town.

By contrast, the London locals looked far more composed, every one of them wearing an air of "nothing to see here."

It's just an owl — uncommon, sure, but not unheard of, and especially in July of every year, when they were everywhere you looked.

As it happened, it was now mid-July,

"Small wonder — a bunch of clueless out-of-towners."

As if their short-sleeved shirts had suddenly turned into fine tailored suits, the old gentlemen walked with a baseless air of superiority, heads held high, their steps noticeably lighter.

No one noticed that, after crossing one street, the owl in the sky suddenly vanished.

It seemed to have passed through a transparent veil — in the blink of an eye, the owl appeared in the sky above another, far busier street.

Only here, everyone was dressed in all manner of strange clothes, some even wearing pointed hats, and even the buildings were wildly varied, looking as though they belonged to the century before last… or perhaps even earlier.

Although, looking down from the sky, this place and the street outside were separated by only a few feet, it felt like two completely different worlds.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley!"

Directly below the owl, one could faintly hear a drunken lout shouting at the top of his lungs.

But none of that concerned the owl — right now it only wanted to finish its job as quickly as possible and head back for a delicious feast of nuts.

Pressing on, the owl nimbly skirted a small cobblestone path and landed on a tiny windowsill behind Ollivanders Wand Shop.

The window was very clean, and through it one could clearly see a boy of about ten inside, head lowered, utterly absorbed in something.

The next second…

"Bang!"

Something seemed to have exploded — sparks flew through the room, accompanied by a piercing blast and a cloud of black smoke.

"Oh, hawthorn and red-cap nerve — what a fiery pair; perhaps holly would suit better!"

Silven Ollivander straightened up, muttering softly, and looked at the line of red characters that had appeared, floating in mid-air.

【Hawthorn, red-cap nerve, ten and a half inches】

【Status: Unfinished】

【Property: May explode at any time】

Silven rubbed his forehead.

He had been in this world for eleven years now, and over those eleven years he had gradually grown used to the wizards coming and going around him, and slowly accepted his new identity.

A member of a family of wand… ahem, wandmakers.

His grandfather was the famous Garrick Ollivander, who possessed an extraordinary memory and could remember every single wand.

From a young age, Silven had been able to see the attributes, crafting materials, and characteristics of every wand.

He couldn't say for certain whether this was his own golden finger, or a bloodline talent of the Ollivander family.

Silven leaned more toward the former, because beyond that, he could also twist some utterly unreasonable materials into a wand core.

Even an Ollivander would struggle to craft a wand inlaid with a toad's tongue, but Silven could — and with a fairly high success rate at that.

In a sense it was quite impressive, but it wasn't much use.

Silven sighed.

Still, in recent years, under the influence of his grandfather Garrick Ollivander, he had gradually come to enjoy making wands, and grown ever more fascinated by it — so the golden finger wasn't quite so useless after all.

Thinking of this, Silven shook his head and, with practiced ease, picked up another wand beside him and gave it a gentle wave.

"Scourgify!"

"Reparo!"

The dust and black smoke from the explosion vanished in an instant, and the room was restored to neatness.

After all that, Silven finally turned his head toward the window.

There was nothing outside, though he could see the bustling Diagon Alley below, and a few brown feathers resting on the windowsill.

"Strange — I could have sworn I heard something tapping on the window just now, but it's gone…"

Silven walked over, opened the window, picked up the feathers and glanced at them, then casually tucked them into his pocket.

Just then, the sound of flapping wings reached his ears, and Silven instinctively ducked his head.

It was a scruffy-feathered owl, glaring at him furiously, letting out a series of piercing cries.

Silven couldn't understand what it was saying, but from its expression, it was clearly cursing him — and quite colorfully at that.

"Hey, be reasonable — the explosion wasn't my fault," Silven offered in his own defense.

The owl, however, was clearly unsatisfied with this excuse, and hurled the thing in its talons at him before flying off without a backward glance.

"Alright, safe travels…"

Silven closed the window, and only then looked at what had been thrown onto the floor.

It was a pale yellow envelope, with words written on it in emerald-green ink:

【Diagon Alley, Ollivanders Wand Shop, second floor, at the desk, for Mr. Silven Ollivander】

He turned the envelope over; on the back was a wax seal bearing a coat of arms — a capital "H" encircled by a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake.

Oh, right — a letter delivered by owl in mid-July could only be a Hogwarts acceptance notice.

Only then did Silven realize that it was already July, and in not too long, he would be a new student at Hogwarts.

He wasn't as excited as one might imagine.

If he'd received this ten years ago, he'd probably have been thrilled enough to leap up — but now… well, he was still plenty excited, just not quite so over the top.

And compared to going to school at Hogwarts, he had found something far more interesting to do.

Making wands.

He had even thought that if he didn't receive the Hogwarts acceptance letter, that would be fine too — that way he'd have more time to devote to studying wandmaking.

But that was clearly impossible.

As a child born with magic, it was impossible not to receive the Hogwarts acceptance letter — Dumbledore wouldn't make such a basic mistake.

Even if Dumbledore could make mistakes, there was still Minerva McGonagall.

But this wasn't bad either.

Silven stretched his arms, casually tossing the envelope onto the table.

"Knock knock knock…"

Just then, a slightly hurried set of footsteps came from downstairs.

Silven picked up his wand and opened the door ahead of time.

The next second…

"I just saw an owl!" A head poked in from outside.

"Has the thing arrived!" Garrick Ollivander asked impatiently, not even having had time to put down the tape measure in his hand.

"That's right, the Hogwarts acceptance letter…" Silven pointed at the envelope lying on the table.

Ollivander immediately shifted his gaze over there, and upon seeing the familiar crest, blurted out:

"Excellent!"

"Honestly, I'd actually rather take my mum's suggestion and go to Beauxbatons." Silven said thoughtfully, propping his chin up with one hand:

"Alchemy would be a great help to my research, but Hogwarts doesn't have an Alchemy class."

"And my dad, mum, and grandma all graduated from Beauxbatons. Mum also told me that her good friend was promoted to headmistress last year, so it would actually be more suitable for me to go there."

Dumbledore's name carried great weight — not only was he the Head Mage of the International Confederation of Wizards, he was also the recognized strongest white wizard, but his eyes were only on Harry Potter and Voldemort.

Not that he didn't care about other ordinary students, but he certainly wouldn't pay them special attention.

Compared to that, Beauxbatons was different.

His mother, Lila Ollivander, had graduated from Beauxbatons, and had been both mentor and friend to Olympe Maxime, who was still a professor at the time. After graduating, they kept in touch often.

Now that Madame Maxime was already headmistress of Beauxbatons, if he went there to study, it would certainly be much more convenient.

And more importantly, in the next few years, that Voldemort was going to start planning his resurrection, so staying at Hogwarts would be very troublesome.

"Mm… Hogwarts is also great…" Ollivander's gaze drifted, "And, didn't we already agree…"

Ollivander wanted Silven to attend Hogwarts, because Silven was the only child still willing to inherit his wandmaking craft.

His son — that is, Silven's father, Garian Ollivander — had also liked making wands as a child, but after graduating from Beauxbatons he became obsessed with botany, and ran all over the world with his wife.

And his daughter — that is, Silven's aunt — graduated from Ilvermorny, and is now a somewhat well-known expert on magical creatures.

He didn't know what was going on either, but both his son's and daughter's careers were closely tied to wandmaking. Yet both were worlds apart from it.

Ollivander thought about it for a long time, and finally concluded it must be the schools' fault — Ilvermorny and Beauxbatons were too far away.

Now that Silven had finally shown a love for wandmaking, no matter what he had to personally keep him by his side and teach him carefully — he couldn't let him run off to school somewhere else again.

There was just one thing…

Not knowing what he thought of, Ollivander's face fell.

How to put it — Silven was very talented, and also very hardworking, but the direction of that talent seemed a little off.

Silven didn't like traditional wandmaking methods and core materials. In other words, Silven didn't like using unicorn tail hair, phoenix feather, or dragon heartstring as cores, and was instead more fond of some… mm, in his (Garrick's) view, what could only be called unorthodox combinations.

For example, troll nose hair, red cap's trigeminal nerve, hinkypunk leg bone.

These were things that Ollivander — let alone making them into wand cores — couldn't even imagine, but Silven never tired of it.

Ollivander had also tried to guide Silven back onto the "right path," but clearly without success.

And Ollivander didn't dare be too forceful, afraid that Silven would be like his daughter — after being scolded loudly a couple of times, she'd stormed off in a fit of temper straight to Ilvermorny in America.

A little off is a little off — at least the craft has been passed down.

"Fine, fine, I never said I wasn't going to Hogwarts." Watching Ollivander look pitiful and hesitant to speak, Silven shrugged and said.

Thinking it over carefully, Hogwarts wasn't bad either.

Although it was a bit troublesome, it could provide a lot of good materials — three-headed dog, dementors, dragons, Voldemort, the Whomping Willow.

Especially the Whomping Willow — in the entire Wizarding World of Britain there was only the one at Hogwarts, and Silven had been eyeing it for a long time.

Oh, and the Elder Wand in Dumbledore's hand — if he could get a look at it, it should be a great help to him.

Even if it wasn't any help, he still wanted to see that legendary wand, and if possible, try it in his own hand.

Although the odds weren't great, Silven was willing to wait — an opportunity would come eventually.

(End of chapter)