Ollivander's shop had a self-enclosed garden similar to a courtyard.
Many of the things you could expect in a normal London garden made appearances there. Tea bushes, blackberries, mint patches and leafy greens covered most available ground, but the real stars of the courtyard were the many trees keeping these foodstuffs shaded from the harsh summer sun.
The ancient English oak towered at the very center of the garden with the smaller trees - fir, elm, yew, ash and maple among them - hugged the walls tightly, leaving barely enough room for the windows. Ollivander also kept trees that weren't so native to the isles, but kept them as pygmy trees, made eternally small through the use of a bonsai potion and each kept in a plastic container to serve as a miniature greenhouse.
The witch or wizard with a good eye would notice that every single tree in the garden and on every windowsill was of a type used for wand-crafting. What they might not know is that these specimens weren't particularly well-suited for use as wands and weren't used for the wands Garrick himself made. No, the old man kept them for his own personal study and served to help the wandmaker gain a sense of immersion to his craft. For meditative purposes.
Harry was out here for a similar purpose at the moment. He was meditating. Stretching his senses to feel the fine grain of bark, soft fabric of leaves and deep vining roots.
Trees, above and beyond all other things, are magical. Trees feel. Trees think. Trees are well and truly alive. Even Muggles are capable of experiencing the magic of trees. All you have to do is give one a great, big hug, and you will feel it. Odd that calling somebody a tree hugger is considered an insult to some.
Harry's ability to stretch out his senses into his surrounding came from his studying and meditating beside these very trees. Experiments with wandless magic in conjunction with his study and attempted reverse-engineering of the elder wand led to him gaining the ability to grow his magical core to encompass the world around him and practically incorporate it into his being, just as these trees do.
When he discovered how to feel his core, his very magical essence, he discovered that magic is alive. Magic is sentient. Magic remembers. Trees also remember.
To hold even the remains of a tree, as wood carved into furniture or a wand, opens the door to gain knowledge from them. To tap into their memories. It is one of the most useful functions of his sixth sense. It took a lot of practice, but speaking to the, what some eastern philosophies call kami, of an object or place can yield incredible knowledge.
With enough time he can see every person to have ever sat in a particular chair or slept in a particular bed. It was practically post cognitive in its application and was his best method for comparing the history of this world to that of his own world.
These trees talked freely, as if they recognized him, and shared freely. Every difference he tried to glean seemed so minor that it didn't lead to many answers.
He would strive to search the histories of more important objects and places to find where their histories diverged, but thoroughly hoped they didn't diverge too greatly.
His list of objects and places whose kami he craved to speak with grew exponentially from including the desk in the oval office(and her sister), to the entirety of everything he had already spoken to in his own world.
"Am I interrupting something?"
Harry opened his eyes and turned to look at her, even though he didn't really need his eyes to see. Bellatrix Black was as immaculate as the first time he saw her in this universe. Hair? Perfect. Dress robes? Perfect. Nails and makeup? You get the picture.
"Just meditating. This garden is good for that." Harry told her. "And for testing wands. Hopefully clearing blockages comes just as easily."
With that declaration, one meant to announce his intention to keep the encounter brief and professional, Harry rose to his feet.
"Before we get into that, mind explaining to me where you get off using your defective wand in a dueling tournament despite my warnings?" He demanded in his best McGonagall impression.
She sighed.
"Tournament rules. I have to register my wand ahead of time and there wasn't enough time between my wand developing a blockage and the preliminaries." She said. "There may be enough time before the official tournament begins to register my new wand, but the time they say it takes to finish the paperwork on their end and the time it actually takes are entirely different in practice."
Ah, beurocracy! Putting people's lives at risk as always. First law of economics and civics, all regulations and government intervention cause more harm than they solve, assuming they do not achieve the exact opposite of their intended result. Surely the answer is more laws and regulations, as always.
He could see why she was so adamant on restoring her original wand then. As if mere sentiment weren't good reason enough.
"Very well, let us begin. Clearing a wand blockage is a simple, but dangerous affair. All you need to do is determine which spell caused the blockage and cast a spell of equal power but opposite wavelength." Harry explained. "Are you familiar with the wavelength of spells and their reactions with each other as described by the arithmetist John Vendile?"
"Er, remind me?" Bellatrix said.
It was the kind of phrase one used when they didn't want to admit they did not know a thing. A small part of Harry, the part that couldn't separate this woman from the one who murdered his godfather, goaded him into teasing her for it. But no, there is a time to tease a woman and a time to be respectful.
"Well, simply put, all spells can be imagined to exist on a hexagon." Harry said.
"Hexagon?" Bellatrix asked.
"Hexagon. With each vertice, or point, representing one of the six types of spells. Charms, transfiguration, hexes, jinxes, curses and healing magic." Harry simplified. "Counter spells are really not a branch of magic so much as a reverse-engineered and wavelength swapped version of a particular spell. Some have surprising uses as spells in their own rights, but that is neither here nor there."
Bellatrix nodded in understanding.
"So, if you cast a powerful transfiguration spell at somebody could they annihilate in midflight by simply casting it's opposite?" She asked. "Kind of like a wand stream connection mid duel, but without the struggle over dominance?"
Harry had never thought of that.
Thinking back to the duel in the graveyard he knew that in a normal scenario where two spells intercepted, thereby connecting the wands, then the more powerful spell would simply rip through the other. Twin core interaction notwithstanding, what would happen if equally powerful, oppositely tuned spells intercepted?
"I suppose they would pretty much cancel each other out. Not necessarily annihilate like matter and antimatter if that's what you were imagining."
She actually blushed at that.
Clearly that's exactly what she was imagining. Could you imagine the energy released by two spells if they could actually undergo annihilation? Harry could. The conversion rate between magical energy and matter was close to infinite, hence conjuration, the art of creating matter from nothing. It would be like annihilating an entire chair or couch worth of atoms.
Goodbye Europe. And all life on Earth, really.
"But it's a moot point, in order to properly counter a spell so perfectly you'd have to be able to identify the spell being cast, know it's perfect opposite, cast that opposite and do so with the exact same amount of force as your opponent." Harry said.
Bellatrix had a faraway look to her the more Harry explained.
Was she actually considering this as a possible tactic? He knew she was a professional dueler, so identifying her opponent's spell as they cast it and casting one of her own was child's play. It was knowing how much force her opponent had put into it that she had no hope of knowing or countering.
But he could.
With that dangerous thought Harry came to mirror her glazed expression. He could! With a little - okay a lot - of training as a duelist and even more experimentation he could easily obliterate a spell midflight with its opposite. Hell, if the spell was weak enough, he could do it wandlessly, morphing the magic around him into a perfect, specialized shield against specific hexes and jinxes. With enough experimentation he could use this method to craft a counter to the killing cur...
No! Bad thoughts!
It's a law of arithmetic every spellcrafter knows. Don't try to create counters to the unforgivables. Too many people have wasted too many years of their lives trying.
"I think we're getting off track. All I need to know is what type of spell you used and, if we're lucky, it has a perfectly opposite spell you can cast to clear it."
She returned to reality but adopted a more demure and hesitant posture. Harry found this thoroughly disturbing.
"It was a curse." She confessed.
"Good, that means you'll have to cast a charm to clear it, and charms are the most numerous of any branch of spells. So, we are more likely to find a match."
She didn't offer any more specifics.
"And?"
"And what?"
"Which spell was it?!"
"I don't really wish to disclose that. Do you perchance have a hexagonal graph depicting every spell and it's opposite?"
"Yeah! In my head by way of arithmetic deduction!"
"Well pull it out of your head and put it in a pensieve! I'll figure it out myself!"
And so, their shouting match continued. This was turning out to be terribly unproductive and unprofessional.
"Look." Harry stopped the argument, taking a deep breath. "If you're worried I may judge you or report you if you tell me the specific spell, know that I have cast two of the unforgivables before." He explained.
She seemed unimpressed.
"On people." He clarified.
She gasped. That was an incredibly stupid thing to confess to somebody. Life in Azkaban and all that.
"Truly?"
"Yes."
And one of them was on you, you child-torturing, godfather-killing, cruciatus-slinging whor... Deep breaths Harry. Deep breaths. This isn't her.
"So, if it was an unforgivable, I swear to you I will hold your confession sacred." Harry promised.
He gave her his most sympathetic smile and she positively melted. This had more to do with him attempting to influence her emotions through wandless manipulation of her aura than any inherent charm - the one thing Riddle hadn't seen fit to transfer to him - but it was still incredibly effective.
"Imperius." She said all but at a whisper.
"Excellent!" Harry clapped. "Because the other two don't have a counter. All you have to do to clear your wand is cast a patronus." Harry told her.
"A patronus?" She clarified.
"A patronus." Harry confirmed.
"The patronus charm is the opposite of the Imperius?" She asked, sounding unconvinced.
"One protects the mind from dark influences of emotions, the other influences the mind through dark influenced and emotions." Harry told her.
Most people didn't know that. The Imperius isn't a mind control spell, it's an emotion controlling spell. A thing it had in common with the patronus, and the other unforgivables, was that it's an enthused spell; a spell that works on emotion and plain old will to cast. No need for complicated wand motions. Just point and shoot.
"But what if I can't cast the patronus?" She asked with a glare that seemed to be daring him to criticize her for her lack of ability.
"Then somebody else who the wand recognizes as it's master could do it. Has anybody ever bested you in a duel?" He asked. "Perhaps this Figg girl?"
She glared at him.
"Once or twice. It's part of being in a competitive sport." She said.
"Then if you can't cast it, invite one of them to do so." He invited.
"No." She refused.
"Didn't think you'd go for that. In that case I'll just have to teach you the patronus." Harry decided.
She scowled at him.
"That could take weeks!" She complained.
"For most people it takes months." Harry correct.
"I'm not most people." She boasted.
The cool, deep voice she said it in, beyond being sexy as all hell, left no doubt in Harry's mind that she wasn't overstating her ability.
"Plus I also started learning it already, but stopped." She confessed.
"Hm? Why did you stop?" He asked.
She didn't answer right away.
"I... experienced a barrier to casting it that I couldn't overcome." She admitted.
She didn't need to explain further. Harry had a similar experience. It's hard to cast a spell that requires a happy memory, when you have so few to choose from and none powerful enough.
Fortunately, he had the workaround.
"I find... That it doesn't need to be a real memory to work." He explained slowly. "It can be a fantasy, a delusion, but it has to be a powerful one. Imaging a lost loved one alive and just... doing the normal daily routine with you is the one I see works most often."
She considered him thoughtfully.
"Like what? Household chores and mealtime talk?" She asked.
"That's exactly right!" He told her. "When we lose the people we love, the things we miss the most is just the comfort of their presence during the most mundane moments. By imagining that again we can cultivate the most brilliant light of happiness in our hearts."
As he explained it his mind turned to George, as it always did when he gave this speech. It was through this exact method that he'd helped the man who lost his other half regain the ability to cast the patronus. It was a spell he couldn't sleep without casting before bed after the war; a nightlight many of the survivors resorted to. Harry included.
"Expecto patronum." Bellatrix whispered.
Nothing came out of her wand. Not even the fizzle that could be expected if she had put too little or too much force into it to counter the blockage.
"Say it like you mean it!" He said.
"Expecto patronum!" She said more forcefuly.
There it was. A spatter of white and transparent sparks.
"Good. Do it again." He instructed.
She did, and more sparks followed.
"You'll need to put more power behind it." He course corrected.
She did, and an outright fountain of magic sparks erupted.
"Good. From here you need to adjust how much to put into it. Right now, you're putting a bit too much behind it." He told her.
And so began the tedious task of trying to incrementally decrease how much power she was putting into the spell to match that of the blockage. It helped that Harry could sense exactly how much it needed. It didn't help that it was impossible to convey that through words and so all he could do was instruct her to increase or decrease how much strength she was putting into it.
Her training as a duelist was a huge blessing to the endeavor. Most people can't judge how much magical power they were putting into their spells. Duelists were very good at it. Mostly because they ran endless drills where they varied the force behind their piercing, bludgeoning and cutting hexes at targets to create larger or more precise damage. Along with dodging, ducking, running, aiming, sidestepping, countercursing, blocking, quickcasting and spell identification drills. To name a few of the microskills they had to master.
"You're really close, just..." Harry began.
But his warning fell on deaf ears.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" She roared.
A glorious white falcon erupted from the tip of her wand and rocketed across the courtyard with a loud bang!
Harry reeled from the sensation it had on his sixth sense, and it was only his experience fighting off the Imperius curse that prevented him from falling under it then and there. He was much more sensitive to some spells, like the imperius and cruciatus, when he had his magical senses stretched out.
If she had waited for his warning she would have known that the end result would have been an unnatural fusion of the original spell and the new one and he could have braced himself.
All the same, Harry had never seen a patronus so large or vibrant, but then again, he had never seen one cast through a wand blockage either. His own patronus when cast with the elder wand came close, but the sight of her falcon made Harry wish he'd have reserved the Azkaban courtyard, because if any spell could kill a dementors, it was this one.
The cool, calming euphoria of the imperius curse mixed with the heart-lightening effects of the patronus like a phoenix song.
"I. We. Wow." Bellatrix, who had worked up a real sweat in the quarter hour of excursion, fell to her knees.
Harry momentarily marveled at her ability to collapse into such a ladylike and poised position, before the eight-foot-tall falcon faded into a shower of sparks. If only he'd had the presence of mind to bring a gordian bottle to this meeting. He could have captured it for later experiments involving a caged lethifold.
"Takes a lot more out of you when you cast it successfully, huh?" He asked as he offered the not-a-death-eater his arm.
He turned away from her as she wiped her face clean of tears, after all she was a warrior, and warriors demanded dignity. With that finished she grasped his elbow gently and allowed him to lift her up.
She patted out the wrinkles in her dress robes and bowed slightly, exactly as a noble lady of the ancient house of Black would have been raised to do.
"Thank you, Mister Morrigan, for your services." She said graciously.
"Don't thank me yet. You haven't tested to see if the blockage is fully removed." He warned her.
"I am confident that it is." She said. "You have earned such confidence."
She was right, of course. He had stretched his senses back out the moment the imperionus(tm) faded, and the blockage was indeed gone.
"Please send an invoice with the price by owl to the Tonks estate and I will ensure you receive proper compensation for your help." She told him.
Harry, jolted by the address given, didn't recall his manners until she already reached the door back into Ollivander's shop. He had to jog to catch up with her in order to do the gentlemanly thing and open it for her before leading her through the shop.
"Thank you for your patronage, and never shy away from coming to Ollivander or myself for help in the future." He said by way of goodbye as he held the front door open for her to leave.
She curtsied politely before exiting.
He closed the door intending to get a good look at her behind only to spot a young man with perfectly coiffed, platinum blonde hair approaching Bellatrix. Harry could recognize Draco Malfoy in any dimension. God he completely forgot that they had once been kids. And such awful ones at that, both of them.
Unable to resist, he held his hand to the glass panel of the door and altered his perception to instead feel the vibrations of the air outside. It took an immense amount of concentration, but with practice he had discovered how to "hear" conversations with his sixth sense too. It was still more of an art than a science.
"Thank you for your patience, Draco. Have you gathered all of your school things?" Bellatrix greeted her nephew.
"Yes auntie. Have you finished your platonic date with Ollivander's catamite?" Draco countered.
Aaaaaaand Harry was done eavesdropping for today.
You'd think he would be used to the wonderful and bizarre rumors that sprouted up in his wake by now, but Harry had hoped such things were behind him in another universe. Rumors of his batting for the other team were easily ignored when it arose due to his constant rejection of fangirls, but what stung about this one was how reasonable it was.
After all, what was everyone supposed to assume when a reclusive, elderly, never-married man suddenly had a handsome, slightly feminine young man working in his shop?
Harry cringed at the visuals. He'd have to make an effort to avoid any Hogwarts aged girls with fantasies about his homophilic tendencies in the future. What was yaoi again? And why were teenaged girls in teh 2000s so obsessed with it?
With a sigh he locked the front door and plopped down on the seat behind the counter. The notepad, pen and pile of newspapers were all as he left them, and so he got back to work circling ads that interested him and writing down the pertinent information as he went.
"What in the blazes are you doing boy?" Garrick demanded.
Harry turned to Garrick with a glare.
The old man had really let his hygiene slip in last week. Spending fourteen hours in a pensieve each day and sleeping for the rest left little time for the man to shower and shave. Or eat, by the look of him.
He'd have to intervene soon enough for the wandmaker's own good.
"I'm looking for a job, what the hell does it look like?" Harry snapped.
"It looks like a damn waste of time is what it looks like." Garrick snapped back.
"And why is that?" Harry asked.
"Because who in their right mind is stupid enough to hire a man with no owl or newt scores, let alone history of any kind?" Garrick countered. "Let alone a job better than the one I gave you."
Harry smirked as that question hung in the air. Soon enough the insinuated answer to that question dawned on his mentor.
"Oh, you can kiss my ass. And after all I've done for you since you got stranded here." Garrick bemoaned as he threw his hands up in exasperation.
Harry chucked at the old man's expense, but relented.
"I know. I'm kinda up a creek without a paddle in that regard, but I have to try. You can't have expected me to apprentice under you and take over the shop when you eventually keel over."
Ollivander paused and made the oddest simpering sound as he motioned around the shop.
Oh. Apparently, he had expected Harry to do just that.
"Oh damn, I'm sorry old man." Harry said sincerely, getting up from his seat to put a comforting hand on Garrick's shoulder. He would have hugged him if it weren't for the smell. "I didn't mean to mislead you or anything, but wand-crafting really isn't in my blood. You'll find a proper apprentice soon, I've seen it."
And he had. Being trapped in the Malfoy dungeon with a loony girl had gained the Ollivander of his universe a brilliant, if odd, apprentice to impart his knowledge onto. An apprentice that Harry had enjoyed learning beside. Even if it had ended in such brutal heartache.
Back to the present Harry, come on!
"You're not going to tell me who?" Garrick pleaded in a sad whisper.
Harry grinned like a Cheshire cat.
"Nope. But I am going to make damn sure she finds her way to you." He promised.
Garrick snarled at that.
"Great. As if the rumors going around with you as my apprentice weren't bad enough, how bad are they going to be with a young woman down here?" He bemoaned aloud.
Harry hadn't thought of that. In his universe nobody would have dared make such a suggestion about the two, after what they'd gone through together. After the bravery they'd shown in the fight against Voldemort.
He suspected the people here wouldn't be nearly as understanding.
"A bridge we'll cross when we come to it. Now, is there any chance you can help me get a job to make some proper coin?" He asked. "Quidditch tryouts are long since over or else I'd be demolishing the European league right now."
Garrick wiped the self-pitying expression from his face and picked up the notepad of candidates.
"I can write an outstanding letter of recommendation, but good Lord is this a terrible job selection. Why are you picking such low-skilled jobs?" Garrick asked as he flipped through the notebook.
"Er, because I have no documentation or newt scores with which to apply for good jobs?" Harry asked pointedly. "As you just kindly reminded me of not thirty seconds ago."
Garrick turned from the notes and stared at him. It was that way of staring that always made Harry feel like he was being x-rayed. Examined like a product.
"I assume you are aware of recent and old attacks on the ministry of magic?" Garick started.
"Yeeees?" Harry confirmed hesitantly.
"Well, as you would expect when a building containing all of magical Britain's records is attacked, some people's records have gone missing or were destroyed." He explained.
And then it clicked.
"So naturally it is our responsibility as citizens to inquire if our records were retained or if we need to go in and help replace them!" Harry concluded. "And retake exams if necessary."
Garrick beamed at him.
"Quite right. And if they ask why you waited so long to come in since the last attack, just give them a spiel about how you wanted to avoid the chaos of other people immediately following the attempt on Longbottom's life."
Sometimes things in life really do fall into your lap. Despite how good this prospect looked Harry still had to consider the downsides.
"I'm not so sure I want to retake my exams." He confessed. "Those examiners are good at gauging your abilities, no matter how hard you try to hide your skill."
Garrick looked at him inquisitively.
"And you don't want people thinking you're as exceptional as you are because..." Garrick asked mockingly.
"Because certain actors may take an unhealthy interest in my abilities." Harry explained.
"Dumbledore?"
"Dumbledore."
In the end Harry decided to walk down to the owlery and mail an inquiry to the status of his non-existent documents all the same. When the negative response inevitably came back, it would be no time at all before he was called in to retake his exams.
It was time to hit the books