𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓡𝓪𝓻𝓮𝓼𝓽 𝓸𝓯 𝓟𝓸𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓼: ǟ ʀɛǟʟɨȶʏ ֆɦɨʄȶɨռɢ ȶǟʟɛ ✤ ֆɛʋɛʀʊʂ ҳ օƈ

ȶɦɛ ȶɦɨʀɖ ʀǟʋɛռƈʟǟա

Luna's response came out bitter. Airy as it could be in a time like this. "Then they'll just have to break it, if they want anything."

Click.

Stomps marched down the stairs, and with it, the gate hastily opened. A narrow strip of light screwed up their nocturnal eyes.

Niamh blinked.

The light was gone.

"Did you see that?"

Luna pushed herself to her feet, to Niamh's quick grasp around her waist. But Luna's stubbornness had other things on her mind. "Where?"

"The gates. I heard them click. Saw light filter from upstairs."

"No."

"Then why are you up?"

The shivered, audible shuffle resembled something of a shrug in the darkness. "Must be something."

I must be seeing things. I can't let her lead herself on.

The clammy sound of Luna's palms pressed against the wall.

Tap, tap, tap.

"Felicity!" Luna's whisper ushered her closer.

Niamh followed her voice, hands trailing against the thawing stone.

She came across an edge, then a swerving round wall of fresh, frigid dryness. Unmarked of any slime, of any accumulated condensation.

Mineral dusts filled her nostrils. It seemed Luna pushed the wall in---or out, she wasn't going to touch any more filthy surfaces than she had to.

Niamh stepped into the seemingly identical space to theirs, in all but scent. A classic, very distinct blended wood mixed with the odor of wisdom and age.

"Mr. Ollivander?" Luna asked.

"Miss Luna Lovegood, correct?"

"Yes."

Niamh's nose pointed in all directions, trying to make out the mere silhouette of him to see anything. Finally, the wandmaker spoke.

"11 and 3/4 inch Beechwood, Wampus cat fur core, with bendable flexibility."

"Exactly---" Luna started.

His groan of exhaustion took them both out of it. Niamh rushed, finding Luna's hand on the wizard's shoulder. Together, they supported him up, leaning against the wall. He shook as they steadied him on exhausted legs.

After much maneuvering, they lead him to the nook they had sheltered in.

Luna sank down, wincing as her brain seemed to interest more in the current pain than anything else. Niamh settled across from him, placing a palm on his forehead. Then his neck, his eyelids. She lifted up a calloused hand, rubbing the toughened, wrinkling flesh.

No wounds; no blood. Dried or fresh.

But his breathing labored nothing of peace, and now that she thought---she had heard an agonizing beseech for mercy, but thought it to live in her waywarding head . . .

All these months, he had lived mere meters away. Silenced by solid stone. But to her knowledge, Ollivander's cellar life neared two years . . .

"Nothing to seal up in the flesh, Miss Felicity. Though I've no doubt you have a potion back home for ear infections."

She paused at his perceptive remarks. But then, he had a rather gifted photographic memory. She supposed he didn't need sight to recognize her.

"I do," she murmured. "Who did it---?"

"Bellatrix Lestrange. It so happens she did the same onto me as you." He ran a frail finger along her hairline, the loose ridges of old skin sensing her scars. "Ah, yes," he murmured, moving down to her bloodied lip. "Yes. Happened to me. I begged and begged for mercy, you see. Most of the time---if it wasn't her, I got out of it. So I fed just enough information to a dull-minded Death Eater. Got the mercy.

"Not so lucky this time."

Confusion and exhaustion jostled her brain. She remained silent, holding the elderly wizard steady with Luna against the wall. He may not have open wounds, but every vein seemed to pulse beside. Sunken cheeks, a wheezing breath.

He shifted, starling her.

Ollivander took Luna's, then Niamh's elbow together into his thin grasp. He gently ran a finger between the groove, eventually dipping against the slick gash etched deep into them. He traced each wound along their lower arms.

He murmured a Latin verse, withdrawing his tainted fingertips.

Blood began to retract back inside her veins. Flesh grew, rolling over the thin, damaged cells.

Warmth washed over her wrist.

Luna made an audible gasp, easing her elbow away.

It wasn't warmth, really. Just the absence of a cold web that stung and blew at the wound.

"Magic?" Breathed Niamh.

"Wandless magic."

It wasn't much. It wasn't Vulnera Sanentur.

But anything was medicine. Anything lesser than this agony.

"I didn't know you could . . ." She trailed off.

"Limited forms of it, yes. More limited, however, especially when my health declines. But concentration can do wonders."

"Is You-Know-Who aware?"

Ollivander sighed. "He does. But it's my specialty that keeps me alive. If I died, his pursuits would remain incomplete."

As for specialties, that's not unlike myself. And all who I confide in.

She didn't understand why this was so important. It deviated off the script. The trio would eventually rescue them, and then it would be their time to take careful flight back to Hogwarts.

Wandless magic shouldn't matter at this point. To flow with the way of fate, the blood, the pain---I have to endure it. Not let anything heal me.

"Let me tell you . . ." Ollivander continued, "how else were the first wands made? Assembled with perfect precision, detection of the aura a certain wood pulsed . . . It takes magic to construct one. And, as the wizarding code to survival, every wandmaker must construct his first wand with only his hands."

The burning question burst off her tongue as if it were always there.

"But have you ever nonverbally cast a wandless spell?"

"Curious. A curious pursuit, isn't it?"

But somehow, it feels necessary to know. She grasped her quartz.

The wandmaker shifted more against the wall. "The mighty Albus Dumbledore was the only wizard I knew of this age to wield both forms. Famed for his flames, he was. Summoned the fires with his bare hands, speaking with the eyes, like Merlin's son himself . . ."

Tangents rolled off Ollivander's tongue, hazing in and out of her brain, like pickings stored only if they reminisced with a magical instinct unknown. "No one else?"

Ollivander paused. "No one. But a magic not so obscure as you think, dear Felicity."