Truly Terrifying!
7: Chapter 7: My Mind Is Unshakable—Is This Creepy Wand Gaslighting Me?
Truly Terrifying!
“Curious.
Very curious.” Lynn leaned back slightly.
“Sir, if you get any closer, I might start to think wandmakers choose their customers too.” Ollivander gave a small smile.
“The wand chooses the wizard, Mr.
Grey.
They respond to magic, character, and latent desire.
But the impression you give them is…
quite peculiar.” “Peculiar enough to cost extra?” Arthur asked immediately.
Helen pulled at his sleeve.
Ollivander ignored the practical concern of the Muggle father.
He looked at Lynn and said slowly, “You are like the surface of a calm lake.
But beneath that surface, I can see nothing at all.” Lynn felt a quiet stir in his mind.
His mind shielding was working.
Ollivander was certainly no practitioner of Legilimency, but a master wandmaker spent a lifetime dealing with wands, magic, and the inner connections of wizards.
The way he looked at people differed from ordinary wizards.
The wands were trying to respond to Lynn.
Ollivander was trying to understand him through the wands.
But Lynn’s instincts suppressed everything of true importance deep within his consciousness.
This was good.
It also meant he couldn’t afford to be careless when facing Dumbledore and Snape in the future.
Ollivander retrieved another wand box.
“Before you try this one, I would like to ask you a question.
What is the strongest emotion in your memory?” Professor McGonagall frowned.
Lynn looked at Ollivander without answering immediately.
This was a probe.
Emotions influenced a wand’s response and exposed a person’s inner inclinations.
To an ordinary child, this was just a minor interlude in buying a wand.
To Lynn, it was someone knocking gently on a door, trying to see what lay behind it.
Naturally, he had no intention of opening that door.
So Lynn adopted a look of curiosity appropriate for an eleven-year-old child.
“My strongest emotion is probably curiosity about why you pushed the fifth box from the left on the third shelf deeper than all the others.” Silence fell over the shop.
Ollivander’s hand froze midair.
Professor McGonagall glanced at the shelf.
Arthur and Helen followed Lynn’s gaze as well.
The fifth box from the left on the third shelf was indeed set back farther than the rest, tucked behind two older boxes as if deliberately hidden from view.
Ollivander slowly turned his head to look at Lynn.
“How did you notice that?” “The dust pattern is different,” Lynn said.
“The neighboring boxes have all been moved, but that one hasn’t.
Yet its position isn’t out of the way, which means it isn’t that nobody saw it—it’s that you didn’t want it easily seen.” Ollivander smiled.
This time, his smile was no longer just the polite greeting of a shopkeeper meeting a customer.
“Ravenclaw will suit you well, Mr.
Grey.” “I haven’t been sorted yet,” Lynn reminded him.
“The Hat will have its own judgment,” Ollivander said, walking over to the box.
“Though I am truly curious whether this one will choose you.” He took down the old white box.
When the lid opened, inside lay a light-colored wand.
The shaft was not entirely smooth, etched with fine grooves near the handle.
Ollivander’s voice dropped low.
“Hawthorn, eleven inches, reasonably supple.
The core is rather unusual: a Thestral tail feather, blended with a short, specially treated fragment of unicorn hair.” Professor McGonagall immediately looked at him.
“A hybrid core?” “An experimental piece,” Ollivander said.
“Not standard practice by any means.
It is far too finicky, far too contradictory.
Thestrals are tied to death, endings, and seeing the unseen.
Unicorns are pure and stable.
Bringing them together rarely yields harmony.” Arthur grew nervous listening to this.
“Then why sell it at all?” “Because it has not yet chosen anyone,” Ollivander said.
“A wand that has not chosen a wizard should not be judged a failure.” Lynn reached out his hand.
Professor McGonagall didn’t stop him, though she took a step closer.
Lynn grasped the wand.
This time, there was no loud pop, no frost, and no frantic jingling of bells.
The candlelight in the shop pressed inward all at once, then flared back up.
The light didn’t grow brighter, but it became perceptibly steadier than before.
The long white boxes stopped trembling.
Lynn felt a gentle chill seep from his palm into his arm, which quickly settled down.
It wasn’t submission, nor was it rejection; it felt more like two observers reaching a temporary non-aggression pact.
He raised the wand and gave it a gentle flick.
The quill on the counter floated up, spun once in midair, and settled smoothly beside the inkwell.
Arthur’s eyes widened.
Helen covered her mouth.
Professor McGonagall’s expression finally softened slightly.
Ollivander, however, remained silent for a long moment.
Lynn lowered the wand.
“It seems it doesn’t dislike me.” “No,” Ollivander said, staring at the wand.
“It was waiting for you.” That remark brought back the sense of tension that had hung over them since the private room incident at Gringotts.
Lynn disliked statements burdened with fate.
Especially in this world, things that were “waiting for you” often ended up dragging a person into deep trouble.
He set the wand back on the counter.
“How much?” Ollivander quoted the price.
Arthur paid immediately, moving so fast it seemed he feared the shopkeeper might change his mind.
Helen took the wand box, double-checking to ensure nothing strange was attached to it.
Ollivander slid the box toward Lynn, but did not let go.
“Mr.
Grey.” Lynn looked at him.
“If this wand ever exhibits anomalies—such as casting spells without your permission, or causing you to see things you shouldn’t—come to me immediately.” “Is that part of the after-sales service?” Lynn asked.
Ollivander didn’t smile.
“It is a warning.” Professor McGonagall also picked up on the strange tone.
“Mr.
Ollivander, do you consider this wand dangerous?” “All wands are dangerous, Professor,” Ollivander replied.
“The only difference is whether they direct that danger outward at others, or inward at their owner.” Arthur’s face paled.
“Can we exchange it for a regular one, then?” Ollivander looked at the box in Lynn’s hand.
“I am afraid not.
The wand has chosen him.” Lynn brushed his hand over the lid, his mind completely calm.
Danger wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Only the unknown was.
Today had yielded plenty of gains: the old Prince vault, the shadow in the mirror, the black mirror, the Malfoys and the snake, and a wand with a core of mixed Thestral tail feather and unicorn hair.
All the clues pointed in the same direction.
The ancient magic of this world was far more complex than anything written in textbooks.
And before school started, he needed to disguise himself as an ordinary, completely unexceptional freshman.
This was no small challenge.
After all, ordinary first-years didn’t get warned by an ancestral spirit on their first shopping trip, nor did they make Ollivander wear an expression like that.
Lynn picked up the wand box and nodded to Ollivander.
“I will keep your warning in mind.” Ollivander finally released his grip.
But just as Lynn turned to leave, the wandmaker spoke again in a low voice.
“Mr.
Grey, one more thing.” Lynn paused.
Ollivander stared at the white box in Lynn’s arms and said, word by word: “If one day your wand begins to dream for you, come see me immediately.”