Wand Wood

Prologue

Madeira Ollivander had been moving in to her new apartment when she'd received a letter from her parents asking her to return to their home for the weekend. She found it odd as she had just moved out of that house with them despite having graduated Hogwarts two years previously as she'd been having trouble finding a job.

Now, though, she had finally been hired and was sorting medical records in St. Mungo's, renting an apartment she loved. Deira felt things were really looking up for her, though it wasn't the highest paying job in the world and it wasn't the specific job she aimed for when taking O.W.Ls and N.E.W.Ts it was a good start and she could always work her way up to better jobs in the future.

She thought perhaps her parents simply wanted to congratulate her on moving up in the world, though she wasn't sure why they couldn't have done it the week before when she was still at the family home every day, packing her things and spending time with her mother and baby brother while her father was at work. However, upon arriving at her parent's home on the following Friday night she found her entire extended family cramped inside the house waiting for her. Aunts, Uncles, cousins, grandparents, the whole set.

"Finally!" Her Aunt Aleena exclaimed as 'Deira shut the door behind her as she entered the room. "We were beginning to think you weren't coming."

"What are you all doing here?" Madeira asked, overwhelmed by the amount of family members that were suddenly crowding her after they'd gone years without seeing each other.

"You're Uncle Garrick has something to tell you." Her mother replied with a tight smile. She could tell the family's presence was overwhelming her mother as well and patted her on the shoulder before making her way over to her Uncle.

Garrick Ollivander looked much weaker than the last time Madeira had seen him, though she knew that he'd been captured by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named during the war and was held as a prisoner in Malfoy Manor but had not thought about how this would effect his appearance and demeanor. He was much shakier in both voice and balance and was quite hard to hear over the crowd.

"Hello, Deira. I have something for you." Her Uncle smiled down at her, speaking quietly.

"So I heard." She replied, nodding. "What is it?"

He handed her a long, thin box that she recognized immediately to be a wand box from the wand shop in Diagon Alley that had been run by her family ever since 382 B.C. and was currently run by the Uncle standing before her. Madeira hesitantly opened the box to find a thin grey wand, the wood twisted and covered in knots. She gulped. She had never seen it in person before, but she could sense that this was the wand that was passed from family member to family member as they took over the responsibility of running the wand shop. It was usually a parent passing it on to their child.

Maddy had known that her Uncle Garrick never had any children of his own and therefore no one to pass the shop on to when he retired, but out of all of her cousins she'd never thought he would choose her to follow in his footsteps. Her head began to spin. She'd just been hired at St. Mungo's, just settled into her new apartment, and she was supposed to just throw all of that out the window and move to Diagon Alley to run Ollivander's wand shop?

"Why me?" Deira asked, her trembling voice barely above a whisper.

"I know you can handle it." Garrick replied simply.

"I don't know anything about wands. I studied to become a healer and I'm finally on the right track." She sputtered desperately, trying to make her Uncle realize just how big a mistake he was making in trusting her with the shop.

"You should be grateful, it's an honor to be chosen." Madeira's Aunt Wren yelled. This was her least favorite person in the family as she was could never keep her mouth shut when it came to her opinions or 'helpful' advice she offered Maddy.

"It's alright, Wren." Garrick held up a hand at her Aunt before turning to face Deira again. "I'll teach you. I didn't know anything when I started either."

"Alright." The doubt in her eyes was clear as Maddy agreed, breathing out a sigh.

~•~

Madeira stood behind the counter in Ollivander's wand shop with her Uncle a week later, biting her lip and trying hard not to think of all she was leaving behind in order to do this. She knew there was no other way, if she refused the wand she'd be disowned and Deira was much too sensitive to be able to stand up to her family, however much she'd like to.

"Follow me to the back, let's get started."

Garrick Ollivander trained his favorite niece in the art of making and selling wands for four months, staying in the shop to guide her before he decided that she was ready and finally left to retire, only checking in on the girl once every couple of months after that.

Ok so I'll be updating in a week and the first chapter, along with all the chapters that follow it, will be in first person point of view. I just felt like writing the prologue in third person for whatever reason. Again, I don't know where this idea came from and I don't know where the story's going so it probably won't be updated regularly as it's just a fun little story I'll be working on in my free time. Let me know what you think.