Rowan pushed open the door to the potion shop and froze.
"So it really was looted."
Shelves had been overturned, drawers pulled out, glassware scattered across the floor. It was the unmistakable aftermath of a break-in. Sometime during the half year he'd been away at Hogwarts, a dark wizard had forced their way inside.
Fortunately, anything truly valuable had already been sold off long ago. Whoever came here had likely left empty-handed.
"Reparo."
With a flick of his wand, the shop snapped back into order. Bottles returned to their places, drawers slid shut, and the room settled into the quiet, dusty stillness he remembered.
If he'd known proper defensive charms earlier, he could have layered the shop with wards and anti-tampering spells before leaving. As it stood, petty thieves were still able to get in. Truly capable dark wizards wouldn't stoop to this sort of burglary anyway.
After a quick cleaning charm and unpacking his luggage, Rowan lit a lamp and opened a book.
An Introduction to Wandlore.
The author was Garrick Ollivander himself.
The book explained theory rather than craft. Plenty about wand woods and cores, almost nothing about the actual process of making one.
A wand consisted of two parts: the wood and the core.
Not all trees were suitable. Only trees with innate magical properties could be shaped into wands, and they were rare. Externally, they looked no different from ordinary trees of the same species. Identifying them required experience… or a telltale sign.
Bowtruckles.
If a tree hosted bowtruckles, it was almost certainly wand-grade.
Different woods favored different personalities. Acacia demanded exceptional talent. Alder preferred kind-hearted witches and wizards. Apple favored those with ambition and clarity of purpose. Cedar resonated with strength and loyalty.
Length, flexibility, and hardness mattered too.
But the core mattered most.
The core determined amplification and responsiveness. Most were harvested from magical creatures: Veela hair, Thestral tail hair, troll whiskers, Runespoor nerve fibers, River Monster spines.
At the top were three.
Unicorn tail hair. Dragon heartstring. Phoenix feather.
Rowan closed the book and reached into his trunk.
He took out a small box and opened it.
Inside were several thick bundles of pure white unicorn tail hair.
Gold wasn't enough to buy Ollivander's secrets. The Ollivander family had survived centuries on wandmaking alone. They didn't lack money.
So Rowan had prepared something better.
Unicorns were among the most sacred magical creatures in existence. Their blood could sustain life at the brink of death. Their horns were priceless alchemical ingredients. Their tail hair was one of the finest wand cores in the world.
And unicorns were vanishingly rare.
Before leaving Hogwarts, Rowan had slipped into the Forbidden Forest at night, using Winged Magic to move silently above the trees. With psychic sensing, he avoided centaurs and acromantulas and found the remaining unicorns.
He took only their tail hair.
It would grow back.
From four unicorns, he harvested thousands of strands.
If gold couldn't buy a teacher, this would.
Snow covered Knockturn Alley the next morning.
Rowan walked out into the pale light, footprints marking his path as he left the alley and headed south into Diagon Alley. His destination was a small, ancient shop with a faded sign.
Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands Since 382 BC.
He stepped inside. Bells chimed softly.
"Good afternoon," came a gentle voice. "Looking for a wand?"
Garrick Ollivander emerged from the shadows, silver eyes sharp beneath a mane of white hair.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Ollivander," Rowan said calmly. "My name is Rowan Mercer. I'm not here to buy a wand. I want to learn how to make them."
Ollivander stared at him.
"You must be joking."
Rowan placed a heavy pouch on the counter and loosened the drawstring. Gold gleamed inside. A hundred Galleons.
"I'll pay tuition. Name your price."
Ollivander barely glanced at the gold before shaking his head.
"I can't teach you."
The refusal was absolute. Wandmaking was the Ollivanders' lifeblood. No amount of money would change that.
Rowan sighed, then set a second box on the counter.
"What about this?"
He opened it and slid it forward.
Ollivander's composure shattered.
"Those are—"
His breath caught.
"Unicorn tail hair…?"
Not one bundle.
Four.
The old man's silver eyes locked onto the box as if afraid it might vanish.