A really interesting character study and pairing. You fit the main story into canon so well (I love stories that do so), and I'm fascinated by the alternative plot line that you set up in the end -- is it going to work and be a new world? Or will everything still end the way it ends in canon?
I find your pictures of Merope and Ollivander complex and believable. I like that it's not clear why he's attracted to her. That's one of the greatest mysteries, really -- why we love the ones we love. As you present them, Ollivander and Merope both have a lot in common: both beaten down by their fathers, both certain that things won't work out for them. Merope's willingness to try a love potion makes such sad sense.
The wand-making lore is well-done, and I like the explanation you've devised for Harry's and Tom's wands.
Some of the lines I liked:
In the end someone was going to wind up killing someone else and as long as it wasn’t going to be him, Ollivander had lost the will to care.
Ollivander loses himself in the harmony of it all. This newest batch of yew is superb, sliding through the machine with little resistance, as though the wand has been lurking just below the surface of the branch.
in dealing with places such as this, it attracts less attention when one appears to be up to something. Haha! Great insight.
Ollivander couldn’t help but think that it was the opinion of a very young woman who hadn’t experienced a great deal of pain in her life.
Tom would always be there for her but has neglected the possibility that she would outgrow him, would want something more real. Yes, things could easily have happened this way.