Almira and her mother walk to the very end of Diagon Alley, where there’s a shop hardly even 4 meters wide. Its front walls paint is cracked all over, in the window they can only see one dusty wand left on display laying on a faded purple pillow and over the entrance reads “Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.”, with half of the letters having lost their golden color. The stores dilapidated appearance however doesn’t even seem to enter their minds as they enter this shop in terrible need of renovation.
As they step inside, in front of them is a counter covered in dust, with a lamp and a bell being only items on top of it. The walls are hidden behind shelves, full of long and narrow boxes, each of different size and color, with a hallway leading to the back of the store behind the counter.
Almira walked to the counter and rang the bell.
“Yes, yes, coming, just a moment!”
A yell came from somewhere in the back of the shop, and moments later she could see an old man with white puffy hair and silver eyes coming towards the counter.
As Ollivander reached the counter, he turned to look at Almira’s mother before saying:
“Redwood and salamanders tail sinew, 12.5 inches, very flexible and excellent for transfiguration.”
“It has been serving me well.”
“Ha ha, I never forget a wand I’ve sold.”
“And neither do you ever forget to mention that fact.”
Her mother smiles as she jokes with Ollivander.
“Now then, you’re here to get your first wand?”
Ollivander turns to Almira and ask.
“Yes!”
“Well lets get down to business then. Would you please put your right arm forward.”
Ollivander takes out a measuring tape and checks the lengths of Almira’s fingers, palm and her arm as a whole.
“Wait right there and I’ll get you some wands to try.”
Ollivander says before starting to go through the shelves while muttering the lengths and materials of the wands. After a while he picks one box of the shelves and walks to the counter.
“Willow with starbirds tongue as a core, 10.5 inches, very flexible and good for healing.”
Ollivander hands Almira an almost white wand with an intricate bird carved on the handle.
“Good, now try waving it at the bell.”
He says while motioning towards the bell on the counter.
Almira holds the wand in her right hand and waves it at the bell, but while nothing happens to the bell, the wand in her hand gets set onn fire.
“No, no, no, that isn’t good.”
Ollivander rushes to take the wand out of her hand and the wand is immediately extinguished. Ollivander puts the wand back into its box and leaves it on the counter for some maintenace, before once again starting walking between the shelves.
After a moment he comes back with another box, from which he pulls out a wand and says:
“Cypress and dragon heartsring, 12 inches, pliable and goof for protection.”
Almira takes the wand and waves it at the bell and this time it’s the bell that gets set on fire.
“Okay, that’s also a no. This is getting exciting.”
Ollivander takes the wand back to where he took it and starts going through the wands again. They go through the process of him picking a wand, Almira waving it and him putting it back a few more times before he hands Almira a cream colored wand having a female lion’s head with horns carved on the end its handle and a straight shaft.
“Flowering ash and chimaeras heartstring, 10⅓ inches, pleasantly springy, good for both healing and protection.”
Almira's eyes widen when she hears what Ollivander had used as the wands core, and the moment she took the wand in her hand she felt a connection that wasn’t there when she held the other wands.
“Seems like we have our winner.”
Ollivander says after seeing the expression on Almira’s face.
“As you can probably feel, it’s not just the wizards and witches that choose the wands, the wands also choose their owners. Wands made of ash look for owners that are loyal, to others as well as to themselves.”
Ollivander takes the wand from Almira’s hand and puts it into its box, before handing it back to Almira.
“That’ll be 7 Galleons.”
Her mother hands the money to Ollivander.
“We don’t have to pay for the bells, do we?”
Almira couldn’t help but ask as she looks at all the destroyed bells on top of the counter.
“Don’t worry, I have a lot more of them under the table.”
Ollivander says as he pulls out a bag from under the table, filled with bells just like the ones on the counter.
They say goodbye to Ollivander as they step out of his shop.
“Now then, lets go buy everything else on the list and we’ll pick up your clothes on the way back home, how does that sound?”
“Good!”
Almira answers her mother’s question with her mind already on what spells she’s going to practice after they get home.
I can already see some mishap during first year charm class... lots of burning feathers to get that vingardium leviosa right.... :P
"Teacher, can I get another feather?"
"Ms.Marlson, the last one was already the fifth one you burned and we're only halfway through the lesson."
*mumble*"But they look so pretty when they burn."*mumble*
"Could you repeat Ms.Marlson, I couldn't quite hear."
"Nothing teacher!"
Amira, the Pyromaniac
"goof for protection"
Thanks for the chapter!
does Almira's magic set things on fire because she is a Chimera, and chimera's are known for their fire breath?
Well, yeah. But it's only going to be a thing when she's still not skilled in magic. You can think of it like her magic having a command in the background that says "when not sure, set it on fire". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@retiisi and when she's skilled in magic....she can just set things on fire at the drop of a hat.
@Megamink well there'll be some limitations so that it's nowhere near some OP cheat where she can burn someone to death with just a look, but yeah.
@retiisi I mean ofcourse that wouldn't happen. that's just rediculous, it's a chimera, not a edgelord with an eye infection, maybe might be able to one day melt through stones with her flames or reduce a person to dust with them, but burn someone to death with a gaze? No way.
@Megamink Yeah buddy I prefer a OP Mc to a false OP Mc (we all know that she was basically created to murder Voldemort so even if she was nerfed to be humanoid it doesn't change the fact that it's a powerful mythical monster). So yeah I don't know if you plan her to develop her chimera powers but it would be really nice and allow your story to be different from the others "Mc is a new human student at the academy" which can be really good but seems to be always the same. Thank you for the chapter
@Salamanders We are talking about a world where there are wizards and witches able to teleport around, set the seas on fire and turn back time. A mythical beast is not OP in HP universe, but if you make that mythical beast able to use the spells that gave the wizards and witches the power to rise to the top? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@retiisi Thanks for the reply, yeah it seems really interesting
(yeah I know that mythical creature can be harmless in HP but I thought that her mother used dangerous mythical creature for her creation, maybe she nerfed these traits to make her more human?)
@Salamanders Yeah, I'm pretty sure the anti-Voldemort super-weapon was toned down in favor of artificial child, but Chimera's are still pretty strong according to the author. Dragons think twice before messing with them and apparently they've got high magic resistance so I doubt MC's gonna be a complete pushover. Maybe in the beginning sure, but once she starts practicing magic properly and getting a feel for transformation, then we're onto something.
@Salamanders is actually an extremely dangerous beast in the Harry potter, universe and are also very rare. NO idea how you would get your hands on a chimaera egg, but I doubt it's easy. almira also isn't like normal chimaera even with her humanoid shape and the human dna added into the mix. normal chimaera possess the body of goats, and their front limbs(arms in almnira's case) are goat legs the same as the rest of them, almira actually has cat paws with sharp claws, so if she gained a true chimaeren form she wold look extremely different compared to normal chimaeras, not to mention adding in her ability to change her body at will, she would be a force to reckon with.
@Megamink i think that Almira is a 'Classical' chimera, the ones that have the bodies of lions, back legs of a goat, tail of a dragon, and a lions head, with goat horns.