CXXIII. A WANDMAKER'S SECRET
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❝Keep coming back
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THEY WERE LED TO THE room by Bill where Lucia, who was dress what seems t be Fleur's floral gown, stood in front of patiently.
The moment they reached there, it was evident that the event prior still lingered in Lucia's mind as all she did was diverted her eyes toward everywhere but Harry and Ron with her cheeks flushing in embarrassment. Lucia made a beeline to Hermione, taking her cold hand in her warm ones.
Hermione instantly felt her energy slowly replenish just by the mere skin contact. "I never got to ask, but how are you feeling?"
"Better," said Hermione weakly, "Ron and Harry told me what happened to you. Did you really not get tortured? I heard the screams..."
"You could say that I'm an acting prodigy," she tried to joke, and all three of them smiled at her. "Well, anyway, Harry told me that we're here for Griphook and Ollivander — ?"
"We're speaking to Griphook first," spoke Harry, also cannot contain from blushing at the mere memory of half an hour ago.
"We're interro — I mean speaking to him in here?"
Bill nodded. Her wrapped his hand around the doorknob and opened the door into his and Fleur's room. It too had a view of the sea, now flecked with gold in the sunrise. Lucia went inside first and sat the very edge of the bed. Hermione took the chair beside the dressing table, and Ron sat on the arm. Harry moved to the window, turning his back on the spectacular view, and waited, his arms folded.
Bill reappeared, carrying the little goblin, whom he set down carefully upon the bed. Griphook grunted thanks, and Bill left, closing the door upon them all.
"I'm sorry to take you out of bed," said Harry. "How are your legs?"
"Painful," replied the goblin. "But mending."
He was still clutching the sword of Gryffindor, and wore a strange look: half truculent, half intrigued. Lucia noted the goblin's sallow skin, his long thin fingers, his black eyes. Fleur had removed his shoes: His long feet were dirty. He was larger than a house-elf, but not by much. His domed head was much bigger than a human's.
"You probably don't remember —" Harry began.
"— that I was the goblin who showed you to your vault, the first time you ever visited Gringotts?" said Griphook. "I remember, Harry Potter. Even amongst goblins, you are very famous."
Harry and the goblin looked at each other, sizing each other up. Harry's scar was still prickling. He wanted to get through this interview with Griphook quickly, and at the same time was afraid of making a false move. Whilst he tried to decide on the best way to approach his request, the goblin broke the silence.
"You buried the elf," he said, sounding unexpectedly rancorous. "I watched you from the window of the bedroom next door."
"Yes," said Harry.
Griphook looked at him out of the corners of his slanting black eyes.
"You are an unusual wizard, Harry Potter."
"In what way?" asked Harry, rubbing his scar absently.
"You dug the grave."
"So?"
Griphook did not answer. While Lucia, Hermione, and Ron thought it was a compliment, but they also could not help but feel as though Harry was being sneered at for acting like a 'Muggle', but it also did not look as though much matter to him whether Griphook approved of Dobby's grave or not, instead he gathered himself for the attack.
"Griphook, I need to ask —"
"You also rescued a goblin."
Lucia looked peculiarly over at Hermione and Ron, but they casted her with a questioning look as well.
"What?"
"And you instructed her to bring me here," Griphook casted Lucia a brief glance, "Saved me."
"Well, I take it you're not sorry?" said Harry a little impatiently.
"No, Harry Potter," said Griphook, and with one finger he twisted the thin black beard upon his chin, "but you are a very odd wizard."
"Right," said Harry. "Well, I need some help, Griphook, and you can give it to me."
The goblin made no sign of encouragement but continued to frown at Harry as though he had never seen anything like him.
"I need to break into a Gringotts vault."
Lucia did not expect that. She gaped at him, surely her ears were deceiving her? In the corner of her eyes, she saw Ron and Hermione staring at him with the same expression she did: He had gone mad.
"Harry —" said Hermione, but she was cut off by Griphook.
"Break into a Gringotts vault?" repeated the goblin, wincing a little as he shifted his position upon the bed. "It is impossible."
"No, it isn't," Ron contradicted him. "It's been done."
"Yeah," said Harry. "The same day I first met you, Griphook. My birthday, seven years ago."
Lucia felt faint all the sudden.
"The vault in question was empty at the time," snapped the goblin, and Harry understood that even though Griphook had left Gringotts, he was offended at the idea of its defenses being breached. "Its protection was minimal."
"Well, the vault we need to get into isn't empty, and I'm guessing its protection will be pretty powerful," said Harry. "It belongs to the Lestranges."
Somehow, the room was moving in circles. She couldn't even look up from her hands without feeling her breath shortening: Why on earth would they ever want to break into one of the most unbreakable place in the Wizarding world? Lucia glanced questionably at Harry, but he was too focus on Griphook to notice. She gathered that there would be enough time for him to explain after Griphook had given his answer.
"You have no chance," said Griphook flatly. "No chance at all. If you seek beneath our floors, a treasure that was never yours —"
"Thief, you have been warned, beware — yeah, I know, I remember," said Harry dismissively. "But I'm not trying to get myself any treasure, I'm not trying to take anything for personal gain. Can you believe that?"
The goblin looked slantwise at Harry, and the lightning scar on Harry's forehead prickled, but he ignored it, refusing to acknowledge its pain or its invitation.
"If there was a wizard of whom I would believe that they did not seek personal gain," said Griphook finally, "it would be you, Harry Potter. Goblins and elves are not used to the protection or the respect that you have shown this night. Not from wand-carriers."
"Wand-carriers?" Lucia furrowed her eyes in confusion as she glanced at Harry, Ron, and Hermione; "Is that like a term for wizards and witches?'
"Not entirely, Luciana DiFiore," said the goblin quietly. Lucia was quite surprised that he remembered her name, but then again she could hardly remember the goblin that brought her to her family's vault... ", it means the right to carry a wand. It has long been contested between wizards and goblins."
"Well, goblins can do magic without wands," said Ron.
"That is immaterial! Wizards refuse to share the secrets of wandlore with other magical beings, they deny us the possibility of extending our powers!"
"Ah, there it is again, prejudice," sighed Lucia. "Everything terrible always leads up to that..."
"Well, goblins won't share any of their magic either," said Ron. "You won't tell us how to make swords and armour the way you do. Goblins know how to work metal in a way wizards have never -"
"It doesn't matter," said Harry, noting Griphook's rising colour. "This isn't about wizards versus goblins or any other sort of magical creature —"
Griphook gave a nasty laugh.
"But it is, it is about precisely that! As the Dark Lord becomes ever more powerful, your race is set still more firmly above mine! Gringotts falls under Wizarding rule, house-elves are slaughtered, and who amongst the wand-carriers protests?"
"We do!" said Hermione. She had sat up straight, her eyes bright. "We protest! And I'm hunted quite as much as any goblin or elf, Griphook! I'm a Mudblood!"
"Hermione..."
"Don't call yourself —" Ron muttered.
"Why shouldn't I?" said Hermione. "Mudblood, and proud of it! I've got no higher position under this new order than you have, Griphook! It was me they chose to torture, back at the Malfoys'!"
As she spoke, she pulled aside the neck of the dressing gown to reveal the thin cut Bellatrix had made, scarlet against her throat.
"Did you know that it was Harry who set Dobby free?" she asked. "Did you know that we've wanted elves to be freed for years?" (Ron fidgeted uncomfortably on the arm of Hermione's chair.) "You can't want You-Know-Who defeated more than we do, Griphook!"
The goblin gazed at Hermione with the same curiosity he had shown Harry.
"What do you seek within the Lestranges' vault?" he asked abruptly. "The sword that lies inside it is a fake. This is the real one." He looked from one to the other of them. "I think that you already know this. You asked me to lie for you back there."
"But the fake sword isn't the only thing in that vault, is it?" asked Harry. "Perhaps you've seen the other things in there?"
The goblin twisted his beard around his finger again.
"It is against our code to speak of the secrets of Gringotts. We are the guardians of fabulous treasures. We have a duty to the objects placed in our care, which were, so often, wrought by our fingers."
The goblin stroked the sword, and his black eyes roved from Harry to Hermione to Ron to Lucia and then back again.
"So young," he said finally, "to be fighting so many."
"Will you help us?" said Harry. "We haven't got a hope of breaking in without a goblin's help. You're our one chance."
The goblin looked tauntingly at them.
Lucia gnawed her bottom lip and thought to herself, what could possibly make him agree to their wish? What exactly -
Then she had a bright idea.
Well, it wasn't a bright idea per se...
But since when were her ideas ever bright?
She rose from where she sat. They all looked at her peculiarly, but she said nothing as she slowly, but with hesitance, knelt down on the floor beside the bed.
"Lucia —"
"Get up — !" attempted Ron, but Harry held an arm out, creating a barrier between them and the girl and the goblin.
Ron was about to flare when he recoil at the sight of Harry's reluctant expression. It seem it was taking him his all to not pull her up, but he knew the importance of her doing such thing.
She looked up at the goblin with hope and determination. "Please, Mr. Griphook, consider. You have to help us." She pled.
Griphook looked down at Lucia and a look of consideration crossed his face. That apparently had moved him enough, but at the same time, he was also quite... sadistic.
"I shall... think about it," he said maddeningly.
"But —" Ron started angrily; Hermione nudged him in the ribs.
"Thank you," said Harry, as he rushed to help Lucia back up to her feet.
The goblin bowed his great domed head in acknowledgement, then flexed his short legs.
"I think," he said, settling himself ostentatiously upon Bill and Fleur's bed, "that the Skele-Gro has finished its work. I may be able to sleep at last. Forgive me..."
"Yeah, of course," said Harry, but before leaving the room he leaned forward and took the sword of Gryffindor from beside the goblin. Griphook did not protest, but Harry thought he saw resentment in the goblin's eyes as he closed the door upon him.
"Little git," whispered Ron. "He's enjoying keeping us hanging, and what were you thinking kneeling like he deserves it!"
"Shut up, Ron," Lucia covered her mouth, yawning. "At least it worked. Kind of."
"Harry," whispered Hermione, pulling the three of them away from the door, into the middle of the still-dark landing, "are you saying what I think you're saying? Are you saying there's a Horcrux in the Lestrange's' vault?"
"Yes," said Harry. "Bellatrix was terrified when she thought we'd been in there, she was beside herself. Why? What did she think we'd seen, what else did she think we might have taken? Something she was petrified You-Know-Who would find out about."
"Smart thought and thinking, but how are we so sure that it's in her vault? Could be anywhere else," stated Lucia.
"Yeah, I thought we were looking for places You-Know-Who's been, places he's done something important?" said Ron, looking baffled. "Was he ever inside the Lestrange's' vault?"
"I don't know whether he was ever inside Gringotts," said Harry. "He never had gold there when he was younger, because nobody left him anything. He would have seen the bank from the outside, though, the first time he ever went to Diagon Alley."
Lucia considered Harry's theory. It wouldn't be as far-fetched as they would think now that she thought of it, who would have considered the place where he would hide his most valuable item inside somewhere he had never been?
"I think he would have envied anyone who had a key to a Gringotts vault. I think he'd have seen it as a real symbol of belonging to the Wizarding world. And don't forget, he trusted Bellatrix and her husband."
"How can we exactly forget them like that?" Lucia let out a sarcastic chuckle, "But you're not entirely crazy, Harry... For once. My dad... I think he knew that, that's why Rodolphus was so angry with him. He's apart of You-Know-Who's devotees that sees him as this god or something or whatever cult people think of their leader," she said simply.
"Him and Bellatrix," said Harry, pointing the fact. "They were and are his most devoted servants before he fell, and they went looking for him after he vanished. He said it the night he came back, I heard him."
Harry rubbed his scar.
"I don't think he'd have told Bellatrix it was a Horcrux, though. He never told Lucius Malfoy the truth about the diary. He probably told her it was a treasured possession and asked her to place it in her vault. The safest place in the world for anything you want to hide, Hagrid told me... except for Hogwarts."
When Harry had finished speaking, Ron shook his head.
"You really understand him."
"Bits of him," said Harry. "Bits... I just wish I'd understood Dumbledore as much. But we'll see. Come on - Ollivander now."
Ron and Hermione looked quite impressed by this, all the while Lucia was confused: What was hiding in Gringotts that made it the safest place in the world? There were no break ins except for the one seven years ago, and even then it was a futile and a pathetic break in. And from what she could remember, the goblins were mostly up in the main area of the building, not the cavernous area underneath the bank... So what truly was in there that made it so special?
She was oddly intrigued.
Her mind was occupied by the thought as she followed idly behind the three across the little landing. The thoughtful bubble in her mind popped when Harry knocked the door opposite Bill and Fleur's. A weak "Come in!" answered them.
The wandmaker was lying on the twin bed farthest from the window. He had been held in the cellar for more than a year, and tortured, Lucia knew, on at least one occasion. He was emaciated, the bones of his face sticking out sharply against the yellowish skin. His great silver eyes seemed vast in their sunken sockets. The hands that lay upon the blanket could have belonged to a skeleton. Lucia sat on the empty bed last, in between Harry and Hermione as Ron took the space on the other side of the latter of the two. The rising sun was not visible here. The room faced the cliff-top garden and the freshly dug grave.
"Pardon us, Mr. Ollivander!" chirped Lucia.
"I'm sorry to disturb you," Harry said.
"My dear boy." Ollivander's voice was feeble. "You rescued us. I thought we would die in that place. I can never thank you... never thank you... enough."
"We were glad to do it."
Harry's expression was unreadable to Lucia, for his eyes dulled immensely. Feigning a calm he did not feel, he groped in the pouch around his neck and took out the two halves of his broken wand.
"Mr. Ollivander, I need some help."
"Anything. Anything," said the wandmaker weakly.
"Can you mend this? Is it possible?"
Ollivander held out a trembling hand, and Harry placed the two barely connected halves into his palm.
"Holly and phoenix feather," said Ollivander in a tremulous voice. "Eleven inches. Nice and supple."
"Yes," said Harry. "Can you — ?"
"No," whispered Ollivander. "I am sorry, very sorry, but a wand that has suffered this degree of damage cannot be repaired by any means that I know of."
Harry had been braced to hear it, but it was a blow nevertheless. He took the wand halves back and replaced them in the pouch around his neck. Ollivander stared at the place where the shattered wand had vanished, and did not look away until Harry had taken from his pocket the two wands he had brought from the Malfoys'.
"Can you identify these?" Harry asked.
The wandmaker took the first of the wands and held it close to his faded eyes, rolling it between his knobble-knuckled fingers, flexing it slightly.
"Walnut and dragon heartstring," he said. "Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange."
"And this one?"
Ollivander performed the same examination.
"Hawthorn and unicorn hair. Ten inches precisely. Reasonably springy. This was the wand of Draco Malfoy."
"Was?" repeated Lucia, puzzled. "Shouldn't it still be his?"
"Not anymore, my dear girl. Not if Mr. Potter had been the one to take it —"
"— I did —"
"— then it may be yours. Of course, the manner of taking matters. Much also depends upon the wand itself. In general, however, where a wand has been won, its allegiance will change."
There was silence in the room, except for the distant rushing of the sea.
"You talk about wands like they've got feelings," said Harry, "like they can think for themselves."
"The wand chooses the wizard," said Ollivander. "That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wandlore."
"A person can still use a wand that hasn't chosen them, though?" asked Harry.
"Oh yes, if you are any wizard at all you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand."
The sea gushed forward and backward; it was a mournful sound.
"I took this wand from Draco Malfoy by force," said Harry. "Can I use it safely?"
"I think so. Subtle laws govern wand ownership, but the conquered wand will usually bend its will to its new master."
"So I should use this one?" said Ron, pulling Wormtail's wand out of his pocket and handing it to Ollivander.
"Chestnut and dragon heartstring. Nine-and-a-quarter inches. Brittle. I was forced to make this shortly after my kidnapping, for Peter Pettigrew. Yes, if you won it, it is more likely to do your bidding, and do it well, than another wand."
"And this holds true for all wands, does it?" asked Harry.
"I think so," replied Ollivander, his protuberant eyes upon Harry's face. "You ask deep questions, Mr. Potter. Wandlore is a complex and mysterious branch of magic."
"So, it isn't necessary to kill the previous owner to take true possession of a wand?" asked Harry.
Ollivander swallowed.
"Necessary? No, I should not say that it is necessary to kill."
"There are legends, though," said Harry, and as his heart rate quickened, the pain in his scar became more intense; he was sure that Voldemort had decided to put his idea into action. "Legends about a wand — or wands — that have passed from hand to hand by murder."
Ollivander turned pale. Against the snowy pillow he was light gray, and his eyes were enormous, bloodshot, and bulging with what looked like fear.
"Only one wand, I think," he whispered.
"And You-Know-Who is interested in it, isn't he?" asked Harry.
"I — how?" croaked Ollivander, and he looked appealingly at the other three for help. "How do you know this?"
"He wanted you to tell him how to overcome the connection between our wands," said Harry.
Ollivander looked terrified.
"He tortured me, you must understand that! The Cruciatus Curse, I — I had no choice but to tell him what I knew, what I guessed!"
"I understand," said Harry. "You told him about the twin cores? You said he just had to borrow another wizard's wand?"
Ollivander looked horrified, transfixed, by the amount that Harry knew. He nodded slowly.
"But it didn't work," Harry went on. "Mine still beat the borrowed wand. Do you know why that is?"
"I had... never heard of such a thing. Your wand performed something unique that night. The connection of the twin cores is incredibly rare, yet why your wand should have snapped the borrowed wand, I do not know..."
"We were talking about the other wand, the wand that changes hands by murder. When You-Know-Who realized my wand had done something strange, he came back and asked about that other wand, didn't he?"
"How do you know this?"
Harry did not answer.
"Yes, he asked," whispered Ollivander. "He wanted to know everything I could tell him about the wand variously known as the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny, or the Elder Wand."
Somehow, Lucia had a taste of satisfaction when she had glanced sideways to Hermione, who looked extremely flabbergasted. She remembered faithfully of when the latter would shut down the mere theory that the Hallows existed, but now they were slowly creeping towards their existence. She felt somewhat smug about this.
"The Dark Lord," said Ollivander in hushed and frightened tones, "had always been happy with the wand I made him — yew and phoenix feather, thirteen-and-a-half inches — until he discovered the connection of the twin cores. Now he seeks another, more powerful wand, as the only way to conquer yours."
"But he'll know soon, if he doesn't already, that mine's broken beyond repair," said Harry quietly.
"No!" said Hermione, sounding frightened. "He can't know that, Harry, how could he — ?"
"Priori Incantatem," said Harry. "We left your wand and the blackthorn wand at the Malfoys', Hermione. If they examine them properly, make them re-create the spells they've cast lately, they'll see that yours broke mine, they'll see that you tried and failed to mend it, and they'll realize that I've been using the blackthorn one ever since."
Time seem to stop momentarily there as revelation settled in them. The colour on their faces drained immensely.
"Nice to see that we're all being optimistic," squeaked Lucia shakily at the thought, as though she could cry.
Ron gave Harry a reproachful look, and said, "Let's not worry about that now —"
But Mr. Ollivander intervened.
"The Dark Lord no longer seeks the Elder Wand only for your destruction, Mr. Potter. He is determined to possess it because he believes it will make him truly invulnerable."
"And will it?"
"The owner of the Elder Wand must always fear attack," said Ollivander, "but the idea of the Dark Lord in possession of the Deathstick is, I must admit... formidable."
Silence filled the room, no one wanted to talk as they registered this very information.
"Well," Lucia swallowed hard, feeling like she could truly faint at this moment. Her voice cracked, "Thanks for the unneeded encouragement, Mister."
"You — you really think this wand exists, then, Mr. Ollivander?" asked Hermione.
"Oh yes," said Ollivander. "Yes, it is perfectly possible to trace the wand's course through history. There are gaps, of course, and long ones, where it vanishes from view, temporarily lost or hidden; but always it resurfaces. It has certain identifying characteristics that those who are learned in wandlore recognize. There are written accounts, some of them obscure, that I and other wandmakers have made it our business to study. They have the ring of authenticity."
"So you — you don't think it can be a fairy tale or a myth?" Hermione asked hopefully.
"No," said Ollivander. "Whether it needs to pass by murder, I do not know. Its history is bloody, but that may be simply due to the fact that it is such a desirable object, and arouses such passions in wizards. Immensely powerful, dangerous in the wrong hands, and an object of incredible fascination to all of us who study the power of wands."
"Mr. Ollivander," said Harry, "you told You-Know-Who that Gregorovitch had the Elder Wand, didn't you?"
Ollivander turned, if possible, even paler. He looked ghostly as he gulped.
"But how — how do you — ?"
"Never mind how I know it," said Harry, closing his eyes momentarily as his scar burned and he saw, for mere seconds, a vision of the main street in Hogsmeade, still dark, because it was so much farther north. "You told You-Know-Who that Gregorovitch had the wand?"
"It was a rumor," whispered Ollivander. "A rumor, years and years ago, long before you were born! I believe Gregorovitch himself started it. You can see how good it would be for business: that he was studying and duplicating the qualities of the Elder Wand!"
"Yes, I can see that," said Harry. He stood up. "Mr. Ollivander, one last thing, and then we'll let you get some rest. What do you know about the Deathly Hallows?"
"The — the what?" asked the wandmaker, looking utterly bewildered.
"The Deathly Hallows."
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. Is this still something to do with wands?"
Lucia let out a puff of air of disappointment. They were just talking about one of the three Hallows, and yet Ollivander didn't looked as though he had ever heard of the Deathly Hallows before.
"Thank you," said Harry. "Thank you very much. We'll leave you to get some rest now."
Ollivander looked stricken.
"He was torturing me!" he gasped. "The Cruciatus Curse... you have no idea..."
"I do," said Harry. "I really do. Please get some rest. Thank you for telling me all of this."
He led Lucia, Ron, and Hermione down the staircase. Harry caught a glimpse of Bill, Fleur, Luna, and Dean sitting at the table in the kitchen, cups of tea in front of them. They all looked up at Harry as he appeared in the doorway, but he merely nodded to them and continued into the garden, the other three behind him.
The reddish mound of earth that covered Dobby lay ahead, and Harry walked back to it, as the pain in his head built more and more powerfully. It was a huge effort now to close down the visions that were forcing themselves upon him, but he knew that he would have to resist only a little longer. He would yield very soon, because he needed to know that his theory was right. He must make only one more short effort, so that he could explain to them.
"Gregorovitch had the Elder Wand a long time ago," he said. "I saw You-Know-Who trying to find him. When he tracked him down, he found that Gregorovitch didn't have it anymore: It was stolen from him by Grindelwald. How Grindelwald found out that Gregorovitch had it, I don't know - but if Gregorovitch was stupid enough to spread the rumor, it can't have been that difficult."
"And Grindewald used the Elder Wand to become powerful?"
Harry nodded. "At the height of his power, when Dumbledore knew he was the only one who could stop him, he dueled Grindelwald and beat him, and he took the Elder Wand."
"Dumbledore had the Elder Wand?" said Ron. "But then - where is it now?"
"At Hogwarts," said Harry, fighting to remain with them in the cliff-top garden.
"But then, let's go!" said Ron urgently. "Harry, let's go and get it before he does!"
"Stupid — honorary brother!" Lucia smacked her hand near Ron's ear, causing Ron to yelp at the volume. "We can't just go barge into the enemy's territory!" She hissed, "As someone that just came out of there both willingly and unwillingly, you would be surprised just how much terror those two people could do over a hundreds of people. We would die instantaneously!"
"And it's already too late for that," said Harry. He could not help himself, but clutched his head, trying to help it resist. "He knows where it is. He's there now."
"Harry!" Ron said furiously. "How long have you known this - why have we been wasting time? Why did you talk to Griphook first? We could have gone - we could still go —"
"No," said Harry, and he sank to his knees in the grass. "Hermione's right. Dumbledore didn't want me to have it. He didn't want me to take it. He wanted me to get the Horcruxes."
"The unbeatable wand, Harry!" moaned Ron.
"I'm not supposed to... I'm supposed to get the Horcruxes..."
"Harry? Are you all right?" Hermione asked.
But Harry winced in response before he almost doubled back on the ground if not for Lucia and Ron quick intervention to catch him. Lucia laid him down softly on the patch of grass, "Harry? Harry..."
Then everything was cool and dark