InsaneJournal

RP: Unexpected Results
Characters: Varin
Time/Date: Late evening, August 19, 2023
Location: His flat over the wand shop
Warnings/Rating: None
Summary: Varin experiments.
Status: Complete



He'd acquired the stone (after the woman selling it had proven that it was, in fact, the stone of legend) a couple of months ago. It was a lucky break, though a very expensive one. He had paid in galleons, goods, and services; for the next ten months he would be creating wands at her request.

It was a small price to pay, he thought.

After closing up the shop for the evening, he spent some time setting up the back to school display. While he did custom design wands, he thought parents were more likely to want the less expensive, plain wands for their children. After all, so many accidents happened to wands at school. Overzealous bullies, spells gone wrong, exploding potions, and who knew what else. Granted, there were the sorts who became attached to their first wand and watched it carefully for their entire lives.

He supposed he shouldn't mock those sorts; he still had his first wand, battered and chipped and worn smooth as it was. But he had other wands - an entire store full of them, in fact. Not all of them worked well for him, but they all did work for him. His first wand had been generic and plain; the wand he had now was one he'd made himself. The handle was carved in the shape of a dragon's head. It was blackwood and one of his first successful dual-core experiments. He'd combined the heartstring of an Ukrainian Ironbelly with a chip from a basilisk's fang.

The wand he was using now though was one of his newer creations. It was easily the strongest wand he'd made so far and he was pleased to have it. The branch had cost him a bit, and he knew he'd just gotten lucky with the combination of the cores but the result had been ... surprising at best.

It was a wand well suited for a very powerful wizard. Not that Varin wasn't powerful in his own way, but he would never consider himself among the strongest wizards in history. No, his power lay in other areas. In his subtlety and his confidence and his ability to read people and play them like little pawns on a great chessboard. He let others do the dirty work and take the falls for him while he remained above it all, model citizen and friendly neighborhood wandmaker.

Smiling to his thoughts, he continued on his way upstairs to his work room. After crossing to the back of the room to undo the wards on the back wall of a cabinet, he slipped the cloth-wrapped bundle free of its hiding place. He'd tinkered around with the stone on and off over the months he'd had it, but tonight he had a few other things he wanted to try with it.

Setting the stone, still on the cloth, on his workbench, he flicked his wand to summon over a pair of books from his shelf. Opening them both to the pages he'd marked, he read over the incantations a couple of times to ensure he performed them properly. They were theoretical spells at best - no one believed the dead could be revived. Reanimated in the form of inferi, yes, but not brought truly back to life.

Varin was curious if, with the stone and a wand replicating the Elder wand of legend, he could create anything from the spells. He doubted he'd do more than summon a ghost - if that - but he did want to try.

And so he began, reciting the ancient Latin words carefully as he moved his wand in a series of flicks and twitches.

When he'd finished he wasn't surprised to find that nothing had changed ... but he was disappointed all the same. There was no ghost. No once-deceased person now standing in his work room. Nothing but the weight of magic in the air around him. Slightly stifled, he crossed to open one of the windows overlooking the Alley to let the summer breeze in, or to let the lingering magic out. Whichever.

With a sigh, the wizard decided it was time to get some rest; the next week promised to be busy. School children would be receiving their letters and coming to the Alley to do their shopping. Since he was currently the only wand shop in town ... that meant this was his busy season.

Carefully wrapping up the stone, he sealed it back away in the cupboard's false wall before he left his work room to retire for the evening.