Chapter 71: The Old Wandmaker's Wisdom

"Silven, I'm afraid I can hardly offer you any useful advice."

Diagon Alley No. 267, second floor of Ollivander Wand Shop — Garrick Ollivander stared at the five wands laid out on the table before him, a dazed look flickering in his eyes.

Last year, Silven had crafted a wand with a red cap nerve as its core, and he had been so astonished he couldn't sleep for several days.

Now that wand seemed to have become the most ordinary one of the bunch.

Look at the others…

An entire troll spine, a wizard's hair, a unicorn's soul, and something he couldn't identify but was absolutely certain was nothing good.

These things were simply grinding Garrick's understanding into the dust, piecing it back together, then grinding it down again… this process had repeated itself four times.

And at this very moment, Silven had to open his mouth and ask him questions… how to shrink an entire troll spine down to a normal wand core, how to quickly pick a wand body that matched a wizard's hair…

He had no idea!

It was true he had been making wands for nearly a century, but he had never used anything as absurd a material as an entire troll spine!

All those centuries of accumulated experience seemed to suddenly become utterly useless when faced with Silven.

This also made Garrick unable to stop wondering — what on earth had Silven been through at Hogwarts?

"Let's set everything else aside for now." Garrick picked up the wand on the table that looked the most normal — and the one he considered the most abnormal.

"How did you make a wand out of a wizard's hair?"

"Is there a problem?" Silven asked. "Don't you also make wands with a fixed Veela hair…"

"A Veela isn't a wizard," Garrick said. "Even though it can take on the exact appearance of a witch, and even marry a wizard, a Veela's essence is still that of a magical beast, and the magic it possesses is entirely different from a wizard's.

"It's not that I haven't tried using a wizard's hair — every single attempt failed. Including my grandfather, and my grandfather's grandfather — none of them ever succeeded."

After that, Garrick explained the reasons for the failures in detail.

A wand exists to compensate for the deficiencies in a wizard's own magic — like two semicircular magnets, one positive and one negative, only fitting together to form a complete circle.

This is also why most wizards can only cast magic while holding a wand; only a small number of elites, through constant study, can make their own magic approach completeness — what is called wandless casting.

Among these, a magical beast's magic is the "negative pole," entirely different from a wizard's own "positive pole" magic — this can be seen clearly from Hogwarts itself.

Hogwarts has magic that prohibits Apparition, yet it has no effect whatsoever on house-elves and phoenixes — that is the difference in magic.

And a wizard's hair naturally belongs to the "positive pole" as well — how could two positive poles fit together?

Hearing Garrick's explanation, Silven sat up straight in surprise.

"Wait — does that mean no such wand has ever existed before?"

"You can't put it that way either," Garrick frowned. "Andrew the Invincible — his wand's core was his own tooth."

"Then that's fine," Silven shrugged. "I did make one, after all."

"The effect?" Garrick asked eagerly.

"I don't know," Silven thought for a moment, then continued, "but they say Professor McGonagall finds it quite comfortable to use."

"What about others?"

"I find it quite comfortable to use too."

"Is that what I meant?" Garrick's face went red, and he simply picked up the wand and gave it a light flick.

"Orchids in bloom!"

The wand trembled violently a few times, then a few sparks shot from its tip, nearly setting Garrick's hair on fire.

But Garrick didn't care at all — his eyes shone like lightbulbs.

"Just as I thought… but…" He sighed, his expression somewhat complicated, as though he had long guessed it would be this way, yet was still a little pleasantly surprised.

Although he was completely unable to use this wand, Minerva McGonagall could — that alone was incredible, and the sparks just now were also a form of magic.

"Is it because the magical reaction produced by the hair isn't strong enough?" Garrick pressed his eyes almost right up against the wand, muttering almost to himself:

"Combined with your unique core magic, that catalyzed an entirely new magical transformation."

He picked the wand up vertically again, fingers stroking along the shaft, tapping it lightly at intervals.

"A magical resonance I've never seen before… it's just too monotonous… oh, no, that's the key point… I see… too marvelous, a line of thinking no one has considered before…"

"Silven, may I borrow it for a while?" Garrick couldn't help asking.

"No problem, of course." Silven, who had come back to himself, pressed his lips together and said.

Although Silven had witnessed similar situations many times before, every time Garrick displayed his knowledge of wands, it still left him utterly astonished.

When crafting the five-legged monster core earlier, it was Garrick who had recommended the bamboo wand body — and in Silven's memory, he had almost never used this material.

And with this wizard-hair core, although Silven had made it, he wasn't clear on the principles behind it.

Yet Garrick had figured out most of it in just a few minutes — no wonder the man was a top-tier wandmaker.

Watching Garrick's eyes light up, Silven asked curiously, "Could you make a wand like this too?"

"Not now," he said.

"Then does that mean you could in the future?"

"Not in the future either." Garrick shifted his gaze away from the wand and said solemnly and earnestly, "The wands I make may not suit everyone, but they will never be fixed to one particular person."

"Of course, that's my principle, not yours." He looked at Silven and smiled. "You should find your own path — even if that path is different from mine, from every Ollivander's, it doesn't matter."

Silven said nothing, and only after a good while muttered softly, "You say that as if I'd change just because you disagreed."

This time it was Garrick's turn to fall silent.

"But Grandfather, since you can't make this kind of wand, why waste time studying it?" Silven changed the subject.

"The goblins at Gringotts never think they have too much treasure, even when they can't use any of it," Garrick said. "For me, wands are treasure."

Silven nodded as if half-understanding, then pointed at the other three wands. "What about these? I'm not going to use them over the holidays anyway — you can borrow all of them."

"No need," Garrick said without hesitation, the corner of his mouth twitching uncontrollably.

He did love wands — but only the ones he could understand.

Just as goblins love treasure but wouldn't dare rob the Galleons from Dumbledore's pocket, Garrick could not for the life of him figure out exactly how — with what magic — one could stuff an entire unicorn into a twelve-inch wand body.

This question would drive every wandmaker in existence collectively insane.

To keep himself from sinking into an endless abyss of confusion and riddles, Garrick Ollivander's wisdom and eighty years of life experience were both screaming at him—give this thing up!

The remaining two wands followed the same logic; hand them over to Silven.

(End of chapter)