Ted wiped away the tears, a mixture of awe, joy, and bittersweet longing for a mother he barely knew. The wand in his hand felt as if it was resonating with a power that seemed to have been dormant within him for years. He looked at Garrick, who wore a satisfied smile.
"Remarkable, isn't it?" Garrick spoke softly, breaking the moment. "Elara was really something else. That wand, I'm sure, has been waiting for you for a long time."
Ted nodded without even lifting his gaze, his eyes glued to the wand in his hand. He could feel the magic that was once hard to control, like a wild beast, now seemed to become tame, ready to move at his command.
"This wand is what we call a custom-made wand. Mostly, when buying a wand, one would take measurements and the wandmaker would fit them with close matches. Such matches can work well for the mage, but almost never bring the best effects.
A custom-made wand, on the other hand, is a wand perfectly fitted to its owner by a qualified wandmaking master. It is a perfect combination between the measurements and personality, allowing one to make the best out of every spell.
Thestral-hair core wands tend to be extremely hard to match, very proud and picky. To think Elara, even before you were born, could predict such an incredible match. This wand might not even cast a single Lumos for other people..." Garrick, inspecting the wand in Ted's hand, narrated until his voice turned into a low, self-contemplating whisper. "This is even beyond my level..."
Over the last few hours, Garrick answered all his questions the best he could. Unfortunately, Garrick didn't seem to know the name Bella, leaving Ted with no new clues. Learning about his mother's childhood was important to Ted, but unfortunately, Garrick didn't know much after she reached Hogwarts.
According to him, around the end of her third year, she became more mysterious all of a sudden. She became a lot quieter and calmer, stopped telling him about school, and became a lot more studious.
And so, most of Ted's questions went unanswered. What he did notice, though, was the old man's impressive memory of exact details. He could recall the slightest details in stories from many years ago, an ability which Ted couldn't help but compare to his own memory, which was abnormal, to say the least.
With some of the information he had established before, Ted had finally come to an assumption over something he debated for a long time now: Blood status. His initial guess was that older, more prominent, and respected magic families had much knowledge which they only held for themselves, making them stronger.
But this new information made him revise his theory. Ollivanders, an ancient magic family, while they did indeed hold hidden knowledge, had something that fitted the blood theory much more: Inherent magical traits. The ability to 'see' magic, and their incredibly good, if not perfect memory, seemed to be passed by blood.
In his experience, Ted had known how people with more often believed themselves to be superior, even while doing nothing to get anything. Most, if not all his classmates, were like that, believing themselves to be better than anyone with less than them. It was especially so for those of noble descent, who were told how 'special' they were since young.
But this kind of stuff didn't affect the whole society; only the person's behavior. And this is what led him to his initial belief of secret knowledge. If it was just them being richer and more respected, new "pure" bloods would be created quite often. But that wasn't the case.
New "pure" families didn't appear for hundreds of years, meaning there was something to do with their old roots that made them believe themselves to be superior. That's how he came to his initial conclusion about hidden magic.
But with those abilities, that most likely could only be inherited, he changed his mind once more. If those wizarding families actually had special abilities, exclusive only to them through nothing but birth, in his opinion, the feeling of superiority was to be expected.
But that left him with a complicated question: how did those abilities first come to be?
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Leaving Ollivanders, Ted walked back into Diagon Alley. Without even thinking, he started wandering down the street. It was already the afternoon, and he didn't plan on staying the night. He continued halfway down the street until he reached a small bakery, with the smell of pastries and freshly baked bread spreading from its windows.
Passing by it, he turned to his side, entering a small alley that was hidden between the bakery and a traveling agency. Moving on the narrow path that could fit only two people standing side by side, Ted walked slowly, looking at the sides of the buildings at both his sides.
This area, Lightrate Alley, was one of the four districts connecting to Diagon Alley. Knockturn Alley, Lightrate Alley, Worththyme Alley, and Trigon Alley. The street Ted was currently walking on is the entrance street to Diagon Alley from Lightrate Alley's direction.
Lightrate Alley was also known as Enlightenment Alley; this district focused on knowledge. It was Ted's favorite place. It wasn't long before he came across the first shop, 'Seer and Fear,' a small shop, colored light blue, decorated with golden stars on the window.
Passing it, the narrow road finally widened after the corner, revealing a square decorated by various stalls. It was a market that was hosted there during the holidays, though this wasn't Ted's target. Continuing on his way, Ted entered one of the streets that led to the square.
There, walking towards a red door near a small restaurant and a residential building, Ted opened the door, entering a small, Muggle-style gym. Walking towards the booth, Ted nodded at a wizard sitting behind it.
"Hi Teddy, been a while." The wizard spoke to him, revealing a wide smile. He was a muscular man in his late 20s; he had short black hair that seemed to have already lost its lush and a bright red robe, one that resembled more of a boxing robe.
"I believe I told you to only call me Ted, Mister Jim." Ted's expression remained unchanging as his eyes lingered at a green-red door that was placed on the opposite side of the entrance. "And I would like to use the dojo."
"So you finally got your wand; anyway, I believe I told you to call me Jimmy." The wizard answered before nodding. "Fine, have fun, you have 3 hours before I close shop."
Ted didn't answer as he put down a single Galleon on the booth before walking through the red-green door, entering an average-size dojo surrounded by curves of runes that decorated the floor. This place was built on a rune circle invented by Jim. Unfortunately, he wasn't good at marketing, because if he was, Jim would have long been rich. Ted, at least, was impressed with the invention.
The place was called the training room. While inside the rune circle, all the people present gained a sort of shield that protected them, saving them once from a fatal attack before throwing them automatically outside of it if they 'died.'
Jim himself was a Muggle-born; his father, a big MMA fighter, died shortly after Jim finished his studies at Hogwarts. Jim, making a deal with the owner of the building, used his father's inheritance to buy and build this gym, creating it as a memorial for his father. Meanwhile, he wasn't thinking about how he should make a living using this place.
Wizards, after all, greatly underestimated the usage of physical strength. So, when he realized his problem of no customers after he finally opened shop, Jim figured he had to create something that would attract wizards.
Jim tried to create something that would improve the efficiency of magic training. And while he was trying to create a rune circle that could protect the user in case of a mistake in casting, Jim accidentally invented this one.
Ted could think of many ways to make money using this rune circle, but every one of them would take a lot of time to finalize while working on Diagon Alley, time Ted didn't really have. During his rare visits, he would use all his free time and still miss a few things. Money also was no longer an issue, making this thing far from the top of his to-do list.
Of course, he could also tell Jim what to do, but Ted wasn't exactly a nice guy, more so he was suspicious of everyone. In his opinion, if he let Jim handle this alone, he might as well just stick a knife in his hand and wait for him to drive it through his back.
Jim eventually found a way to get some customers. Getting help from his favorite professor from his time back in school, Jim found a way to turn to professional duelers, eventually making the gym among the most popular professional training locations for duelers. Jim even convinced them of the usefulness of physical training.
But all of this wasn't the reason Ted came here. He had only come here for one reason: Underage magic. This law restricts using magic under the age of seventeen, as per the law, each wand sold to a student, had to be marked by a trace which would inform of any use of magic near it to the local ministry.
Ted had many good qualities, ones that were rare even for adults. Patience was definitely not one of them. When he wanted something, he had to get it as fast as possible. And so, almost as soon as Ted found out about the trace, he acquired a Polyjuice Potion through Raynold and went to Knockturn Alley.
Under the disguise of an ugly old man, Ted entered a pub named 'Sweeping Nightmares,' where he found an information barter. Under the price of 35 Galleons, Ted found this place for his 'grandson' who was a third year. After he went to this place to check if the info was good, he had met a few duelists and actually started training here whenever he found the chance.
He found that watching the duelers practice helped him understand magic quite a bit.
Entering the room, his body started to glow for a moment in a dim bluish light, before it disappeared. This was the rune circle activating. Walking forward, Ted nodded at the sight of a small crystal that was placed on the table, placed in the center of another small rune circle. This was the circle meant to block the trace.
'I have been waiting for this for a long time!' he thought, raising his wand towards a target that stood near the wall at the other side of the room.
"Incendio!"
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please VOTE and give me some POWER STONES if you like the story
sorry if this seemed a little to much like an info dump, unfortunately even those are needed to set a base for a story.
Also leave a COMMENT if you don't understand something, or have any idea, I promise I read every comment related to my story, won't address toxic people though..
BTW- if you want you can try the How I Met Your Mother fic I'm writing:
HIMYM:Barney Stinson... But with a vampire system?!