Chapter 19: The Unreasonable Elder Wand

Silven had indeed promised to help Hagrid fix something—his wand.

Only this was absolutely the kind of thing that couldn't be let slip to anyone else, especially not Harry and Ron.

In a sense, those two were just as tight-lipped as Hagrid—they wouldn't volunteer any secrets.

They each just had one weakness.

Hagrid would occasionally let something slip; Harry and Ron, meanwhile, plotted loudly—they never bothered to check whether anyone was around when they were discussing secrets.

The next day was the first weekend holiday after the start of term at Hogwarts.

Early that Saturday morning, Silven left the castle and went alone to the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

Hagrid's hut was easy to spot—you could see it at a glance.

When Silven walked over, the front door was shut tight, and the windows were covered so thoroughly there wasn't even a crack.

"We said we'd meet today. Not home?" Silven stepped forward, puzzled, and knocked on the door.

At the second knock, the front door creaked open a crack from inside.

"Keep your voice down, Silven, keep it down…"

Hagrid pressed his face to the gap in the door, both eyes fixed anxiously toward the castle.

"Quick, get in!"

He stepped aside, waited for Silven to squeeze through, and shut the door at once.

"No one saw you, did they?"

"No," Silven said. "I think you're overdoing it—that's actually more likely to draw attention."

"Maybe you're right…" Hagrid rubbed his hands together. "But I really can't relax. I've even sent Fang into the Forbidden Forest."

"Fang?"

"A dog I keep."

"So you think a dog is going to spill the secret that you're illegally holding a wand?"

"Oh, please keep your voice down." Hagrid instinctively lifted the curtain and glanced outside.

"Fine." Silven didn't press the point, just held out his hand. "Give me your wand now. I need to see what shape it's in."

Hagrid nodded and pulled a pink umbrella from the inside pocket of his coat.

Honestly, Hagrid's disguise was terribly slapdash—and it was even a small umbrella. Silven thought it looked a bit small for himself, let alone for an eleven-foot-tall Hagrid.

The thing probably wouldn't even cover his head.

If Hagrid hadn't stayed put in the school's Forbidden Forest, someone would have noticed something was off long ago.

Never mind—Hagrid wasn't really going to use this umbrella to keep off the rain anyway, so leave it at that.

Silven took the umbrella and casually removed the canopy and the handle.

Sixteen inches—probably the longest wand Silven had seen so far. Add the shoddy willow casing on the outside and the length reached twenty inches.

"Silven, how is it… oh, what did you just do!"

Hagrid hadn't even finished speaking when he saw Silven give his wand a hard rub.

A layer of wood, like skin shed by a fire salamander, crumbled to bits at the slightest shake, revealing the battered wand beneath.

The sixteen-inch wand was covered in cracks like a spider's web; in some places you could even see the red phoenix tail feather inside.

Silven paid no attention to Hagrid's heartache, just held it up to his eyes and examined it for a while.

"Who fixed it for you?"

"I can't say." Hagrid shook his head. "Don't ask—I won't tell you."

"Fine, no matter." Silven didn't mind. "But I'll wager whoever fixed this wand was a powerful wizard."

"That's for sure. Dumbledore is the greatest wizard there is…"

A look of horror suddenly spread across Hagrid's face.

"I shouldn't have said that. I've betrayed Dumbledore—he fixed my wand for me and I went and betrayed him."

"Don't get so worked up, Hagrid." Silven couldn't help rubbing his ears. "You don't think I'd go tattling, do you? Don't forget I'm fixing your wand for you right now too."

"I—I didn't mean it like that."

"I know." Silven held the wand level in front of his eyes. "I was wrong. It looks like it doesn't actually need another repair."

"Huh?"

"Look at this." Silven carefully pried up a piece of oak chip, trying to take it off.

But several threads, finer than a hair, held the chip tightly to the rest of the wand.

"I've never seen such a powerful mending spell." Silven couldn't help exclaiming. "Damage like this shouldn't be fixable by any spell, but he managed to keep it whole in another form. It's simply incredible."

"That was Dumbledore." Hagrid said it as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Silven said nothing, but in his heart the thought of getting a look at the Elder Wand grew a few degrees stronger.

If he remembered correctly, Hagrid's wand had been snapped in half fifty years ago. For it to hold together this long—the thing was simply unreasonable.

"So are you still going to fix it? Honestly, it could be used as it is now."

"Fix it, of course I want it fixed." Hagrid nodded vigorously.

Usable was usable, but cracked up like this it was an eyesore to look at. He didn't even dare use any force, afraid it might snap in half again.

"Fine." Silven nodded, took out a wand, and began muttering an incantation.

The incantation was long; from start to finish it took nearly half a minute.

Hagrid watched with his own eyes as his wand seemed like a lizard shedding its skin—first a layer of casing was squeezed out, and the wand instantly grew thinner.

Then came the second layer.

After that, all that was left was a single fiery-red phoenix tail feather.

Hagrid instinctively let out a whimper, then, worried he might disturb Silven, hastily clapped a hand over his mouth.

Actually there was no need — Silven, who had already begun working, would not be disturbed by that little bit of noise.

He first picked up the outermost ring of the wand's body.

The magical runes carved into it were all misaligned; no wonder it had cracked into such a state. It was only because Dumbledore's mending spell was simply too powerful that it hadn't shattered completely long ago.

Still, this made his repair work easier — no need to piece together a puzzle.

Silven opened the leather pouch he carried with him, and from inside took out a silver engraving knife, a few pieces of wood, and a can of pine-pitch-like wand-specific glue.

He had decided long ago to do Hagrid this favor, and all of these were things he had prepared in advance.

First, he carefully glued the fragments together with the glue; once the positions were confirmed correct, he then bit by bit widened the corresponding magical runes by one ring.

To put it plainly, this work was also fairly simple — it was just using new traces to cover the original misalignment, so that the magical runes would once again regain their completeness.

It was just that the process was rather troublesome, and one could not make mistakes; it was meticulous work, and required a bit of time.

Normally, when encountering this kind of situation elsewhere, whether it was Silven or Ollivander, they would advise the other party to simply buy a new wand — it was half the price of repairing one, after all.

But this time Silven said nothing at all, because Hagrid could not possibly go buy a new wand, and Ollivander could not possibly sell him one.

He himself could, of course, but his stock did not include this kind of oversized wand, and the others would probably not work for Hagrid either.

Take it slow — it was the weekend anyway, and he had nothing to do.

(End of this chapter)