Aberforth Dumbledore (![]() ![]() @ 2010-08-18 09:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! log, [1980-08] august, aberforth dumbledore |
Who: Aberforth Dumbledore
When: 17 August 1980, early evening
Where: Abe's rooms, The Hog's Head
What: Abe discovers one of his brother's little secrets. Sort of.
Rating: PG
Status: Complete
Abe had better things to do than worry about why Albus had owned and used a secondary wand instead of the wand he’d been using since he was eleven. Quite apart from the reams of things he still had to go through, he had a pub to run (and he really ought to be downstairs right now, not sitting up here brooding) and a little black market business to carry out. Yet he still found himself fiddling with that curious wand in the privacy of his own rooms. It was a strange wand, certainly it didn’t look like anything he’d seen come out of Ollivander’s store and yet it also didn’t look like the wands he’d seen in Europe, most of which had been Gregorovitch’s work.
Of course, the most unusual thing about the wand is that his first thought was that it was made out of elder wood. He’d need to get that checked but it certainly looked like it. And that was decidedly odd. Wizards and witches didn’t use wands made out of elder wood. It had a bad reputation. Elder was a wood that was a little too closely associated with death and people tended to get a little superstitious about that sort of thing. No, he had to be wrong. It could easily be maple. Or possibly even honeysuckle though that would be unusual as well. In fact maple seemed more likely. No one made wands out of elder, not even the Eastern Europeans who did all sorts of strange things. A wand of elder would never sell.
He held the wand up and stared at it with a frowning look. Now that he thought about it, it did look vaguely familiar but he wasn’t sure whether he was fooling himself because he’d seen Albus using it on some occasion or whether he really had seen it being used elsewhere. Not that he could remember where. One disadvantage in living a long life. So many memories that it was hard to dig them out when you needed them.
He snorted and pointed the wand at the cold fireplace with the idle thought that it might be interesting to see how well the wand would work for him. He’d used Albus’ old wand a couple of times years and years ago and there had been a reasonable amount of compatibility, certainly enough for him to cast spells that worked even if they didn’t work half as well as with his own wand. At least he’d always gotten the right spell aimed in the right direction. Better results than he’d had with other stranger wands.
"Incendio," he muttered, the wand pointed at the logs, expecting something minor and sputtering.
What he wasn’t expecting was the fire to burst into life, strong and sure, and he yelped and started and promptly fell off his chair. That occasioned another yelp as his elbow made contact with the floorboards but the pain faded into the background as he stared at the fire burning strong and merry in his fireplace and then shifted his startled gaze to the wand in his hand.
That was... unexpected. Stranger wands never worked like that. Even the best of them still fought and bucked the traces and you never got as good results with them as you did with your own wand, even if you’d won the wand fairly and squarely. Or even unfairly and sneakily.
He sat up, pointed the wand at his couch and said warily, "Wingardium Leviosa."
The couch rose in the air smoothly and efficiently and Abe wafted it around the room once before putting it back where it ought to be. Then he raised it again and grabbed the book that had obviously slipped underneath it at some point before putting the couch back down. He set the book on the low coffee table and sat down in his armchair, staring at the wand as though it was a live snake.
Stranger wands never worked as well as your own wand and yet this wand... well, with this wand it was as though he was using the wand he’d owned since he was eleven.
"What the hell is this, Albus?" he muttered as he rubbed at his barked elbow. "What the hell have you done?"
He turned the wand around and around, frowning as he did so. "And more importantly, where the hell did you get it?"
He thought back carefully, trying to remember when Albus had started using predominantly wandless magic around him. He sucked in a hissing breath as he settled on a date. After he’d come home. After the war. After a certain little duel Albus had won.
Abe’s gaze drifted over to the credenza where three pictures now stood where previously there had been only one. Ariana still danced and twirled and laughed in her picture frame. Next to her, his mother and father smiled indulgently at each other and then out at him as they sat and stood – Mother sitting, Father standing behind her as was common in photos from that era. Next to them stood a framed photograph of Albus, a fairly recent one and a good one, taken by Minerva and given to him with one of her looks that told him just how silly she thought his attitude was. Albus was sitting at his desk and reading papers. He looked like he was humming and he occasionally looked up and smiled cheekily at Abe.
"This is Gellert’s wand, isn’t it?" he said in an almost accusing tone as he stared at the photo of his brother. "You twat. You lovelorn fatuous idiot. You couldn’t help yourself. You were using your boyfriend’s wand. Where the hell did he get it then?"
Albus didn’t reply which was probably for the best given Abe was on the verge of losing his temper. Did Albus know what the story was with this wand? Had he known why it worked like this? Had it worked like this for Albus? Was that why he hadn’t used it much?
Too many damn questions and no damn answers. Well, no answers for now. Abe still had contacts in Europe. Maybe one of them would know something about Gellert Grindelwald’s wand. Even rumours would be of some use. And if he got really desperate, he supposed he could go and convince the people at Nuremberg to let him in to speak to Gellert. That was a last resort though and would need a hell of a lot of preparation so that he didn’t launch himself at the idiot and choke the life at him the moment he saw him. No, best to avoid that if at all possible. There would be a trail of some description in Europe. There always was. Better to take the long and difficult road in this case rather than the easy one. He’d gotten away with a lot of bizarre behaviour over the years but even he might have trouble explaining why he was so enthusiastically assaulting and attempting to kill a prisoner.
He snorted with sour amusement and tucked the strange wand away in his desk drawer. He paused for a moment then locked and warded the drawer as heavily as he dared and only then did he head for the door. He’d better get downstairs before Aknot decided to start experimenting with the liquor again. A drunk half-goblin could be a menace to anything and everything and he was in no mood for a bar brawl before midnight.