Chapter 4: Ollivander's Amazement and the Pure-Blood Patriarch's Gaze (Patreon)

At the corner of Diagon Alley, the cramped, shabby wand shop was thick with the scent of old dust and aged wood. Thousands upon thousands of slender boxes were stacked from the floor to the ceiling, sleeping quietly in the dim light.

Ting-a-ling—

The doorbell chimed softly as Raven stepped inside. Behind the counter, a thin old man with wild hair and eyes that shone a silvery white slid out without a sound, like a ghost.

"Good afternoon, young sir." Garrick Ollivander's voice was soft and faintly drifting, and his sharp eyes pinned Raven in place, as though he were appraising a piece of uncut jade.

"I remember every wizard who has ever walked through this door, and every wand they took with them... But there is something unusual about you. Ancient, deep, yet with an edge I have never encountered. A child of the Capet family?"

"Mr. Garrick Ollivander. I've long heard of you." Raven gave a slight nod, polite without being servile.

"Ah... Capet. The last Capet to buy a wand from me was your grandfather, a master of ancient charms. Fourteen and a half inches, yew with a dragon heartstring. Overbearing and dangerous power."

Ollivander drew a measuring tape marked in silver from his pocket and began swiftly measuring Raven's arm span and the length of his fingers. "Come, try this one. Beech and unicorn hair, nine inches, extremely docile..."

Raven took the wand. The moment it lay in his palm, he shook his head slightly. It was lifeless and gave no response at all.

"Not suitable, too sluggish. Try this one—ebony with a phoenix feather, eleven inches!"

Raven swung it again. Crack! A clay pot full of ink on the counter blew apart in an instant, ink spraying everywhere, but half an inch from the hem of his robe, the invisible barrier of magic his fingertips had triggered by instinct flicked every drop away.

Ollivander was not angry in the least. His silver eyes only grew frighteningly bright. "Incredible! It isn't that your magic is impure. This wand... cannot contain your output! Your magical reserves far exceed the limit for your age, and it is rejecting a mediocre vessel!"

He turned excitedly, climbed the tall sliding ladder, and from a hidden compartment at the very top, cobwebbed and thick with dust, carefully lifted down a heavy black walnut box.

He blew the dust away, and the lid slid open.

Inside, on a velvet lining, lay a wand black as night, its shaft faintly wreathed in ancient spiral patterns.

"Thirteen and three-quarter inches, ebony. Immensely hard, and nearly unwilling to bend to anyone."

Ollivander drew a deep breath, his eyes full of awe and fervor. "As for its core... a whole tail feather from a fully grown thestral, steeped in an ancient extract secreted from shed basilisk skin. This wand has slept here for seventy years. It will acknowledge only a wizard who truly understands death, who commands fate, and whose magic runs fathomless. Try it, child."

Raven reached out and closed his hand around the grip.

Boom—!

In an instant, a violent shockwave, visible to the naked eye, erupted from the wand!

But inside Raven, [Abyss of Magic] and [Spellcraft Mastery Instinct] activated in full at that very moment. A vast tide of magic poured back into the wand like a tsunami, and with the bearing of an absolute sovereign, he forcibly suppressed the raging will of the core!

Hummmm—

A blinding, sacred silver-white radiance burst from the wand tip. Accompanied by a roar like an ancient dragon's cry tearing through the air, a dazzling rain of light swirled through the tiny shop, making the thousands of wand boxes around them gleam.

Wizard and wand in resonance—a perfect match!

"Merlin's beard..."

Ollivander stared, dumbstruck, his withered fingers trembling slightly. "Perfect... a flawless resonance! Sir, you are destined to stir up great waves in this world. Of that, there is no doubt!"

"Seven Galleons. Thank you for your service, Mr. Ollivander." Raven casually lined the gold coins up on the counter, tucked away his wand, turned, and pushed the door open.

...

Meanwhile, out on the dappled, sunlit street.

Draconia, holding up her skirt with red-rimmed eyes and about to leave Diagon Alley, caught sight of Raven strolling out of the wand shop.

Beside her, Lucius Malfoy, just back from his business in Knockturn Alley, was walking over at an unhurried pace, gripping his signature serpent-headed cane.

"Father! That's him!!" The moment she saw Lucius, all of Draconia's grievance and humiliation burst its banks.

She seized the black velvet cloak of her father's, jabbing a slender finger at Raven. "That's the bastard! In Madam Malkin's just now... he not only said I had no manners, he tore up our family's engagement contract!! Father, you have to seize their family's account at Gringotts. I want him expelled!!"

"Tore up the contract?" The cold arrogance on Lucius Malfoy's face stiffened slightly, and his brows knotted at once.

As a scheming old pure-blood patriarch, he knew very well the alliance made with the Capet family back then. The Capets might have fallen on hard times, but their bloodline ran deep in ancient magical tradition, and unless he absolutely had to, he had never intended to truly break with them.

But he never would have imagined that a scion of a fallen house would dare to tear up a Malfoy contract on his own initiative.

A flash of malice crossed Lucius's narrow gray eyes. He tightened his grip on the cane and strode straight toward Raven.

Draconia followed behind her father, lifting her small chin proudly, her gray-blue eyes full of the relish of coming vengeance. Raven Capet, my father is stepping in himself. Let's see you kneel and beg today!

Tap, tap, tap. The crisp rapping of the expensive serpent-headed cane stopped in front of Raven.

"Young sir, a moment, please." Lucius looked down on Raven from his height, his platinum hair combed back without a strand out of place, and his voice drew out the lazy, arrogant drawl peculiar to pure-blood nobility. "I hear that you just committed certain acts against the apple of the Malfoy family's eye, acts extremely rude, even offensive?"

In an instant the bustling crowd around them drew back. Many wizards recognized Lucius as a great financial backer of the Ministry of Magic, and whispers rose all around.

Draconia crossed her arms over her chest, chin held high, and even sniffed at Raven in open provocation.

Yet before this remnant Death Eater who shook the British wizarding world, a governor with power in his hands, not even a ripple crossed Raven's face.

He turned slightly and returned a bow in flawless, top-tier European pure-blood bearing, the new wand hanging naturally at his right side, his black eyes as calm and indifferent as an abyss. "Rude? I think you may have misunderstood something, Mr. Lucius Malfoy."

The corners of Raven's lips curved in an unhurried arc, his voice cool and clear, yet carrying distinctly to every person present. "Through the generations, the Capet family has walked side by side only with pure-blood families of equal wisdom and character. Since your daughter believes that status and Galleons outrank everything, and even mistakes rudeness for pure-blood dignity... then tearing up that mutual-aid memorandum, which existed in name only, is merely my way of preserving the last shred of dignity for the sake of both houses' honor."

"You...!" Draconia stamped her foot in fury and was about to retort, but Lucius's sudden raised hand stopped her.

Deep in Lucius's pupils flashed a fear of the rarest kind!

Others might have heard only a verbal duel, but as a high-ranking wizard of long renown, Lucius, once within three paces of Raven, clearly felt the enormous pressure of magic faintly radiating from the boy.

Above all, the fierce lingering aura of the thestral tail feather, not yet fully dispersed from the tip of that ebony wand, was locking down the surrounding space like an undercurrent!

How could an eleven-year-old, a newly enrolled first-year, possess such fathomless reserves of magic and such terrifying composure? Even You-Know-Who, at that age, could hardly have been more than this, could he?!

The fingers resting on the serpent-headed cane tightened imperceptibly. In a flash, the scorn and anger in Lucius's heart were forced down by the extreme rationality of a merchant and politician.

This lone heir of the Capet family was by no means a soft persimmon to be squeezed at will. He was a prehistoric beast that had not yet fully opened its eyes!

"Mr. Capet's way with words is as sharp as the rumors say." Lucius drew a deep breath, and a smile that did not reach his eyes surfaced in his once-chilly gaze, swallowing the rebuke by sheer force. "Since this is merely a spat of temper between youngsters, the matter of the old pact can wait until later. Hogwarts opens on the first of September. I hope Mr. Capet can keep this astonishing confidence up inside the castle as well."

Draconia was utterly dumbfounded. She looked up at her father in disbelief, her big eyes full of absurdity and collapse. "Father?! What are you saying?! He tore up our—"

"Nia, silence. Go back." Lucius's low rebuke carried a severity that brooked no argument.

Raven inclined his head to Lucius with elegance. "May your words come true, Mr. Malfoy. I'm sure life at Hogwarts will be very fulfilling." With that, he gave the wronged young lady beside them, nearly mad with rage, a casual glance, a meaningful smile on his lips, then turned and swept away with an effortlessly dashing stride.

In his mind, the System's rewards came barraging in again!

[Ding! Major psychological upheaval detected in key character 'Lucius Malfoy'!] [Main-plot character 'Draconia Malfoy' has hit maximum grievance!] [Causality Reversal Points +500!] [Current total Reversal Points remaining: 1,450!]

The sun was setting. Watching Raven's tall, slender back recede into the distance, Draconia clutched the silver satin ribbon on her cloak in a white-knuckled grip, her gray-blue eyes misty, nearly swallowed by grievance and shame.

"Raven Capet..." The young lady ground the name between her teeth again and again, and a blaze of stubbornness unlike any before burned in her eyes. "Just you wait... at Hogwarts, I'll make you pay for this!!"