Chapter 3.5 – The Wandmaker's Pilgrimage

There were few things in the world Garrick Ollivander had not seen.

He had crafted wands from thunderbird feather, mountain ash, and kelpie scale. He had matched them to souls darker than night and brighter than the stars. But never—not once in his long life—had he seen every wand in his shop react to a single person without one choosing her.

Celene Fawley had unsettled him. In the best possible way.

She reminded him of old stories—of wandless sorcerers, of those whose magic sought the world itself as a conduit.

And so, he traveled.

It began with a whisper in the ashes of a long-burned forest in northern Norway, where whisperwood trees once grew. But none remained. Then to the Cliffs of Orkney, where the wind itself carried ancient scents of yew and storm. He followed echoes, symbols, animal tracks. The path was neither straight nor safe.

Three weeks into his search, he found himself at the edge of a frost-glazed clearing in the Carpathians. Snow dusted his shoulders, and the air shimmered with something unspoken.

That's when he saw it.

A silver-feathered raven perched on a blackened branch. Its feathers shimmered not with sunlight, but with intent. Eyes like polished moonstone stared into his.

"You're not ordinary," Ollivander whispered.

The raven cocked its head. Then, in a moment both violent and graceful, it plucked one of its own tail feathers—long, silver, and softly glowing—and let it fall.

It landed at Ollivander's feet.

Before he could kneel, the ground gave way.

Stone crumbled beneath his boots and he fell—down, down into the earth, into a chasm swallowed by ancient magic.

He hit ground hard. Dust rose. Bones shifted.

He stood, sore but breathing, in a ruined temple. Pillars carved with unknown runes reached toward a ceiling veiled in shadow. The air was heavy with old enchantments and something deeper—something watching.

A low rumble made the stones tremble.

Eyes appeared first. Not one pair—many.

A Nundu emerged from behind a broken arch, its spotted coat shimmering, eyes burning like embers. Ollivander froze, knowing even its breath could kill. But the creature only watched.

From the shadows to his right, a dragon stirred—ancient, with moss growing along its ridged back. Its wings twitched but did not rise. It looked tired… yet sacred.

Then came the whispers.

Not words, not voices, but memories… flooding his mind in visions: wandlore drawn into cave walls, rituals older than language, faces that bore runes on their skin and wands of stone.

He walked forward, drawn by something more powerful than curiosity.

At the heart of the ruin, beneath a skylight cracked by time, stood a tree.

It was gnarled, its bark pale and splitting, its leaves few and trembling. Yet from its hollow center came light—a single, vast eye of amber, swirling with liquid starlight.

The tree looked at him.

Not with malice.

With recognition.

Garrick Ollivander, the last of his line, fell to one knee. He said no words.

A single branch descended, as if in slow breath. From its tip, a sliver of living wood broke free—thin, warm, and vibrating with potential. It landed beside the raven feather.

He did not reach for them.

He bowed his head and waited.

Only when the air grew still, and the great creatures behind him had faded into mist, did he pick up the two fragments.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Then, the ruin let him go.

Stone turned to earth, and he climbed back into the world of wind and sky, cradling the beginnings of a wand that was yet to be born.

A wand for a girl who was unlike any other.