you in your high tops any day [open]

[Deleted]

There were days that Aras spent most of his time in the back of Ollivander's, where the wand workshop was located, but today was not one of those days. He had just finished a wand that was nothing less than a masterpiece - aspen, thirteen inches long, and phoenix feather core. The wand had been practically singing to him for days, begging to be constructed, and Aras could only assume that soon (and soon was relative, when it came to wands) a young witch or wizard would be walking through the door looking for the wand. It really was beautiful, Aras lamented as he slid the finished wand into a box and placed it neatly on the shelf. If his own wand hadn't suited him so well - beech was perfect in the construction of other wands due to its ability to perform subtle, intricate magic - Aras would have considered adopting the wand for himself. In any case, the wandmaker was curious to see what sort of customers would be around that day, if any at all. It was rare that people came through the doors looking for a new wand in the middle of the winter, since the young ones didn't normally go looking for their wands until the summer before their Hogwarts years, and that was the bulk of the store's profit. There was still the odd wizard who came in looking for a better fit, if something had changed their life significantly enough that their previously paired wand failed them, or, more often, someone who needed their wand repaired because it had a scuff in the wood or had been snapped. Those people were the worst, in Aras's opinion. Wands were made to be treasured, and letting them get abused was just intolerable. Some days, there were no customers at all. Today looked to be shaping up to be one of those days...how boring.

[mina pandora oliveira]

@aras

Mina was on a mission today. With her, she had her old wand. The one that had been snapped in half during her tango with the rougarou in Louisiana. The one that had been pretty much her only friend that didn’t tell her she was stupid during her school years but knew how to make her look like she was. Yeah, that one. The same exact wand that she had quickly replaced in the States with a local Louisiana specialty, which was both far superior to the old one, and it got along better with her. Funny how going to a different country ending up leading her to find the wand that was really meant for her. Back to the goal of the day though. She was bringing the old wand, both parts of it, to Ollivander’s. She knew there was no way it would be fixed, but still wanted to see if the parts could be used in some way for a future one.

Bouncing through the door, she was dismayed to hear the jingle of a bell. It sent shockwaves and an eyeroll, reminding her that she had to open the bookstore tomorrow morning. This was one of her rare weekdays off; typically she only had Saturdays and Sundays off to do whatever she wanted. Normally that meant nursing a hangover or trying to kick someone out of her apartment without her sister noticing. Though sometimes Mina was pretty sure she knew. The dog almost always gave it away.

“Hello!” Mina chimed cheerfully, which never would have happened if she was the cashier and the scruffy looking man at the counter was the customer. She pulled the snapped wand out of her pocket and neatly unwrapped it on the countertop between them. “So I don’t need this fixed, or a new wand,” she pulled out her other one to show him. “But I was wondering if you could, I don’t know, do something with the materials? I’d hate it to go to waste since it helped me all these years.”


[OOC: Mina’s snapped wand is Fir wood with a dragon heartstring core, 13 ¼" and brittle flexibility. Her new one is Ironwood, Rougarou hair, 10 inches, flexible]

[Deleted]

Aras wasn’t allowed to sulk in his boredom for long. Not five minutes after he had resumed his vigil on the front counter, a young woman walked through the door, setting off the bell overhead. She seemed less than amused by the noise, and Aras arched his eyebrow at her eye roll. It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t always up front and sometimes needed a notification that someone had arrived. Besides, the bell had been a part of Ollivander’s practically since the day it was established. Aras had messed up a lot of things rather royally, but he refused to muddle the family legacy by making unnecessary changes to the store. Despite the roll of her eyes, the young woman seemed rather happy to be there. Aras nodded to her when she greeted him. A few moments later, when she stated her reason for being at the store, he was glad that he hadn’t said anything – his voice probably would have raised an entire octave upon seeing the ruins of what was once a wonderful wand. Aras picked the wand up gently, cradling it against his chest. It was one that he had made, and while it hadn’t been anything like the masterpiece he had just shelved, this wand was dependable, and it didn’t deserve such an end. Aras couldn’t even stand to look at the woman when she asked if he could do something with the materials. She seemed somewhat remorseful about the wand’s fate, saying that it served her well for many years, but that was only a small solace. “The wood can probably be salvaged.” He murmured after a minute of mourning. “Are you the jewelry type?” Ugh, the question was painful to ask. A beautiful wand, reduced to nothing more than a pretty bauble. The woman had better be glad she was a customer, because if Aras had seen something like this outside of his shop’s walls? There would be hell to pay.

mina pandora oliveira

[mina pandora oliveira]

@aras

The shopkeeper, whom she assumed was the Ollivander, took an excruciatingly long time to observe her old wand. Mina had absolutely no clue what he could be looking for, seeing as it was cleanly snapped in two. He seemed rather solemn about the whole thing too. At least, that was what it looked like to her as he went over it again and again. It was just a wand. Hell, he had hundreds, if not thousands of them on the shelves behind him. She knew the spiel for it, of course. The wand chose the witch or wizard, blah blah blah. Clearly that wasn’t always true, because her first one was sitting in its maker’s hands broken in half. That and her new one seemed to suit her loads better than the original ever did. She had been told that it was most likely because her personality or attitudes towards life had changed. If that was the case, then she wouldn’t still be living with her sister and basically under house arrest if post-work activities weren’t cleared a day in advance.

Her question about saving the wand for materials didn’t exactly go over as well as she thought it would. Mina almost didn’t hear him say that the wood could be salvaged. His return question surprised her though. Was she the jewelry type? Of course. She would be stupid not to be. Obviously there was a time and place for it, and she wasn’t going to be all blinged up on a normal night out or while at work. It was too much effort to go that far just to get a few looks here and there. All she wanted to do was let loose and drink. Having the extra weight of remembering jewelry was basically asking to lose valuables, especially when blacked out. Getting home was more important at that point. “On occasion,” Mina stated casually. Today was her day off, so it didn’t show that well. “And sorry about that, by the way,” she added quickly, noting that the man was still rather solemn looking. She couldn’t tell whether he was always like that, or her wandering in with a broken wand did it. If someone came into the bookstore and lit books on fire or ripped them apart, she would definitely be pissed off. “Managed to get it all the way through school, but once I decided to wrestle a wild animal, it couldn’t take it anymore.”

[Deleted]

The woman with the broken wand said that she was the jewelry type on occasion, and Aras sighed a little. Jewelry from a broken wand deserved to be worn at all hours of the day, if you asked him. Then again, if you asked Aras, wands should never have to be salvaged into jewelry in the first place, so there was about a hundred things wrong with the situation. Aras grabbed a scrap of parchment and a quill from beneath the counter, dabbing the quill in his ever-present ink pot and scribbling down a name and address. “This is the name of a jeweler down the way a little. If you tell her Aras Ollivander sent you, she’ll know what to do.” There were few other people Aras trusted to handle the remnants of what was once a beautiful wand, but the jeweler was careful and talented, and wouldn’t let any of the wood go to waste if she could help it. They had a sort of agreement – he sent her customers, she sent back some of the profit. It was all unofficial, but the relationship was symbiotic, and anything that got Aras a few extra Sickles was worth doing, in his opinion. Aras paused a little when the woman apologized for what she had done to the wand. He had long since stopped hoping for people to apologize, so now that someone was, he wasn’t sure what to do. “These things happen.” He said with a slightly forlorn sigh. They happened, but that didn’t mean that he liked it any more.

After setting the broken wand back down on the counter gently, Aras turned his attention to the new wand, picking it up and inspecting it carefully. “Why on earth would anyone wrestle a rougarou?” Aras asked, assuming that the hair at the center of the wand was a spoil of war from the animal the woman mentioned wrestling. Rougarou hair was hard to come by on this side of the Atlantic, and as it was, the hair wasn’t well-known for its longevity in conducting magic. Aras wouldn’t have been surprised if, in five years, the woman was back in the shop looking for another new one because this one had burned out. It was fine enough make, but with subpar materials, there was only so much that even the most talented wandmaker could do.

mina pandora oliveira

[mina pandora oliveira]

@aras

Mina’s eyes raised slightly as the man handed over a bit of parchment that had a jeweler’s name on it. Had he said his last name was Ollivander? This rather disheveled looking man was the owner of the store, and more than likely the maker of her first wand? Now that she thought about it, the way he looked made it hard to tell exactly how old he was. Age was just a number though. Quality over quantity or something like that. And they definitely had pretty good wands here. Just not good enough for her. Clearly the original one wasn’t meant to withstand the amount of torture Mina had put it through. Wasn’t exactly her fault that a wild creature decided that her arm looked like a tasty piece of meat; if she had wanted to know that, all she would have had to do was drag someone home in the wee hours of the morning after a night of drinking.

He said that these kinds of things happened. Mina doubted that they occurred often though, just by the look on his face. Was it really that big of a deal? It was her money that she had spent on the first one, and it had served its purpose. She was lucky that the second one had been free of charge, considering she ended up dragging back a rougarou corpse to the maker. “Voodoo ritual. Quite entertaining once they let you in on some of their darkest secrets,” Mina smirked. They hadn’t actually let her in on anything, other than paying her with a new wand and some extra hairs to sell off, should she ever find herself strapped for money again. That was the whole point of the hunting expedition in the first place. The detail about having to kill the beast to be able to pluck off the hair had been omitted to her though, only revealed until after the fact. She had wondered for a time if that was their way of trying to get rid of her. They weren’t that bad of people. “You don’t sell wands of this material here, do you? Always wondered if there was some sort of…exoticism to seeing one from a maker on the other side of the world,” she grinned, leaning up against the counter and staring down at her new wand. This one was loads better than the old one, but she wasn’t going to spill that around the original’s maker. That was probably in bad taste.

[Deleted]

The woman stated that the reason she had wrestled a rougarou was for a voodoo ritual, and Aras had to resist a sigh. He had studied a little bit of voodoo in school, mostly because ‘a little bit’ of voodoo was the most anyone could get without actually speaking to a voodoo master, and most of those were in Louisiana, far out of his path. From what he had found, though, voodoo magic was extremely powerful – just at a price that he wasn’t willing to pay. Why anyone would go searching for that kind of power when they had an entire world in their hands in the form of a wand, Aras didn’t know, but if this woman was foolish or reckless enough to go chasing after ingredients for a voodoo ritual, that was her choice, and it was her life that was unnecessarily risked. (Aras had to be a little upset, though, because while the woman had risked her own life, she had also risked the life of one of his precious creations, and it hadn’t fared as well as she had.) “If you find that kind of magic entertaining, I worry for you.” Aras stated simply. Voodoo wasn’t meant to be fun or entertaining – it was none of the flashes and bangs that came with other kinds of magic. It was dark and it was controlling, and from what Aras could tell, it was very easy to let voodoo magic consume you. That was the furthest thing from entertaining that he could think of.

When asked if he sold wands of that material in his shop, Aras shook his head. When it came to exoticism, though, Aras made a soft scoffing noise. “Even though I don’t sell it here, my father was careful to give me a full education. I’ve seen virtually every kind of wand on the planet.” Aras probably sounded like he was bragging, but it was the truth. His father was one of the best wandmakers of his time, as was his father before him, and his father before that. Aras was responsible for upholding that legacy, and being well-informed was a part of that task. “If you were to find a wand I haven’t at least heard of before, it would be from an uncontacted civilization.” He didn’t spend the majority of his thirty-five years on this earth studying wands to have someone come in and call a wand exotic just because he didn’t sell it.

mina pandora oliveira

[mina pandora oliveira]

@aras

Mina could tell it was coming before it actually did. The criticism without actually knowing what she was all about. Unfortunately that happened all too often with her. There was always someone like Ollivander trying to tell her what to do, or tell her she was wrong for doing something. She was twenty years old, and while she still made stupid decisions, being told she was flat out in the wrong and being coddled like a child was starting to get on her nerves. Especially now that she was actually trying to be an adult. Her family was on the forefront of this criticism and head been for years. She didn’t need a random stranger adding to it. And they wondered why she liked to get black-out drunk on her days off…

“It’s the kind of magic that I like to study in my free time,” Mina countered back, trying to keep her voice in check as best as possible. She didn’t want the man to realize that he had struck a nerve. He seemed like the type to not relent if given the chance. The one trick was that she was a potential customer, and she knew all about treating customers the right way if she wanted them to come back. “The queens wouldn’t teach me anyway. I only ran errands for them because it was convenient to what I wanted to know.”

Hard feelings aside, Mina was more interested in knowing how unique her wand was compared to the other ones that Ollivander sold. The scoff said otherwise. Maybe that line of thinking had been too positive. He was a wand maker after all, and he said as much. She had seen thousands of books too, if that was enough of a comparison. But he could have reacted a little kinder. “Some would say the voodoo queens are relatively uncontacted,” Mina retorted. There was barely any research on what they actually did with their magic, and it had been a fight to get her new wand made by them. “I know what you mean though.”

[Deleted]

Aras blinked at the woman when she said that voodoo magic was the kind of magic that she liked to study in her free time. He was quickly getting the idea of the kind of person that she was, and that was the kind of person that he was actively trying to stay away from. He already had enough problems with destroying his life without letting other destructive people in. Someone who said they liked to study a magic that he had insisted was dark and destructive definitely had some issues that they needed to work through, and while Aras wished the woman all the luck in the world in solving her problems and becoming better or whatnot, he wasn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole… which meant switching the subject in a manner that was tactful and not awkward. Luckily, the woman admitted that the voodoo queens wouldn’t even teach her in the first place, so moving on wouldn’t be as difficult as it might have been if she had launched into an explanation of a voodoo ritual or something of the sort.

“Undocumented.” Aras corrected when the woman said that the voodoo queens were uncontacted. “We know that they exist and we can interact with them, but there’s no significant record of what they can or can’t do with their powers.” He explained. Aras himself had never gone to visit Louisiana to speak with voodoo practicers, but he had several associates who had made trades with them or spoken with them. What about, Aras wasn’t sure, because no one offered details and he knew better than to stick his nose into matters that didn’t involve him. Wandmakers were notoriously stingy with their tricks of the trade, and if they thought that the knowledge of voodoo would help their business, then they weren’t going to share with him. Aras didn’t mean to sound cocky, but he didn’t need the voodoo queens to be the best wandmaker in Great Britain. “Any other interesting places you’ve visited?” Aras asked. He hadn’t left the country in recent memory, so hearing of someone else’s adventures was a way for him to leave the shop for just a little while.

mina pandora oliveira

[mina pandora oliveira]

@aras

Ollivander went into this whole spiel about the difference between uncontacted magical communities and those that were undocumented. Mina turned her ears off as he started to get long winded about how there were some things that modern magical communities and knew about them, and still things that they didn’t. She wasn’t that stupid (though that was up for debate according to some people), so his explanation was rather unnecessary. “Same difference,” Mina yawned. She really should have gotten more sleep, seeing as it was her day off. “Well, if you ever want to use rougarou hair as a wand core, I have a decent stock still. Potioneers apparently don’t like buying stuff that can be potentially black market,” she shrugged. “It was a legal kill. I have all the documentation and everything.” And she would continue to be fine with the hair as long as she didn’t bump into the wrong magizoologist. In her mind, she had defended herself against a dangerous animal. The initial goal had been to pluck a few hairs from the creature, not end up wrestling with it in the bayou. Some things were never that easy though.

The store keeper decided to change the subject though, and asked Mina if she had been in any other interesting places. He gave off t a really serious vibe, so she decided against cracking crude jokes that were usually associated with that question. This wasn’t the time nor place for those, especially after he had helped her out with the wand. “Mexico was nice. I wish I could have stayed there longer.” That had been right before she traveled to Louisiana, and had been when she realized that her trip needed to be cut a little shorter due to lack of funds. The last leg of the trip - rougarou fight, voodoo queens, et al – had completely drained her though. In a different life time, she would have spent the rest of her time in Mexico, where everything was cheap. “They definitely had some uncontacted magical communities back in the day,” Mina chimed smugly, knowing full well that the native tribes of Central America had practiced spiritual magic of sorts that no one these days would ever be able to replicate. Ollivander couldn’t correct her on that one.

[Deleted]

Aras just blinked at the woman when she said ‘same difference’. He had literally just explained the reasons why the two words were different, and yet she insisted they were the same? Willful ignorance was not something that he was a fan of, and he also didn’t like that he had taken the time to explain such difference only to be greeted by a yawn. The woman then said that if he ever was in need of rougarou hair for a wand core, she had a decent stock. How she had gotten that through magical customs was a mystery to Aras, but he was not going to waste his time trying to solve it when, chances were, this was the last that he was going to see of this woman. It was always better to assume that people had done things the legal way, anyways, that way if anyone from Magical Law Enforcement came investigating he could claim ignorance. Or, better, claim that the woman had told him that everything was legal – which was exactly what she was doing now. Aras relaxed a little – he liked everything a lot better when he could keep from getting tangled with the law. He had had enough tense law conversations for a lifetime… and he was going to need to have a lot more if he wanted to free his father, a thought that made Aras’s shoulders tense again. Damn it. “Documentation can be faked.” Aras said quietly. He knew that extremely well. It was how a lot of his gambling buddies had kept themselves from getting fired for embezzling. Aras hadn’t had to do any forgery since he had been the only one running the books, which had been both a blessing and a curse. If he had been trying to hide forgery in addition to everything else, he might have been caught, and then none of this mess would have happened.

The woman said that she wished she had stayed in Mexico longer, and Aras just nodded absent-mindedly. “Why didn’t you, then?” He asked. If she liked the place so much, logic would dictate that she would have stayed there instead of coming back to show wandmakers their broken creations. The woman said that Mexico had uncontacted magical communities in the day, and Aras just nodded again, not wanting to give another lecture on technicalities that wouldn’t be listened to.

mina pandora oliveira

[mina pandora oliveira]

@aras

Mina faked a gasp as Ollivander stated that documentation could be duped. As if! The age old question of ‘how stupid is Mina Wulfe’ didn’t apply to her this time. That was mostly because the voodoo queens needed the proper papers to take them off her, and weren’t willing to anger the wrong people over there. Technically she wasn’t a legal beast hunter, and technically she wasn’t supposed to be killing rougarou to begin with. But technically it attacked her first, and there were bylaws over there that dictated she had a right to protect herself from magical beasts past a certain danger level. “Seeing as it put me in the hospital for a month to make sure it wasn’t a werewolf, I’m pretty sure the documents the government gave me are real,” she chimed back. “Unless you want to challenge MACUSA as well.” At this point, Mina wasn’t really all that interested in selling Ollivander any of the hairs. He didn’t seemed too thrilled by her wand or the idea of purchasing them from her to begin with. “Just thought it would be cool to have a little piece of American magic over here, that’s all,” she muttered.

The conversation switched to why she hadn’t stayed in Mexico. Luckily she had an easy answer to that one. “I can’t speak Spanish. There was only so far I could get before it was essential, and at that point I was running out of money. Fast.” She shrugged as she leaned back up against the counter. “Plus I missed the brooding types. They’re much easier to wrangle when you speak the same language,” she added, looking off into a distant corner of the store as she did so. All she really wanted to do now was tick off Ollivander more. She knew she was getting under his skin by just being herself. A little flirting never killed anyone, and if he pushed her half-hearted advances away, it would be that much more interesting. She never would have dared to take this gamble in her own store, but she had time to kill and it would be fun to watch his reactions.

[Deleted]

At the sound of the gasp, Aras narrowed his eyes. That was fairly theatrical, given the situation. The woman said that the rougarou had put her in the hospital for a month, and he raised his eyebrows. He couldn’t believe that she was in a foreign hospital for so long, especially about something as simple as the identification of an animal. And if it had taken her a month to get cleared of lycanthropy, that meant that she had fought the rougarou on or just after the full moon. Aras wasn’t superstitious, but fighting a dangerous animal on the full moon just seemed like a guarantee of getting hurt. She made a comment about challenging MACUSA, and Aras snorted. “I’ll challenge any and every government I want.” Aras wasn’t an anarchist, but he was confident that he knew a lot more than most bureaucrats, especially when it came to forgery and wands. He didn’t think that the woman was going to be pleased with that answer, but he had already done several things to annoy her in this conversation, so it seemed silly to let up and try to be charming now. Then she would just think he was being fake. When she made a comment about having American magic over in Britain, Aras clamped down on the urge to roll his eyes. That was ruder than he was comfortable being around a customer, even if she didn’t seem wont to come back to the store. “If I want American magic, I know where to get it.” It wasn’t like this woman was the first one ever to venture over to America. Aras was certain that he had sold wands to at least a few Americans over the past years, and they knew more about their country than a passing visitor.

The woman said that she couldn’t speak Spanish, and Aras nodded. He spoke English – obviously – but also had fluency in Latin not many could claim and a halting command of French. He probably could have understood Spanish, if he tried, since Latin was its parent language, but he wouldn’t have been comfortable in Mexico, either. “Non aliquam meditationem.” He retorted sharply. Aras was certain that the woman didn’t speak Latin, which was the only reason he felt comfortable in snapping back at her. Hopefully she wouldn’t be that intrigued, and would leave him in peace.

mina pandora oliveira

[mina pandora oliveira]

@aras

Oh this guy was a real winner. He’d challenge any government he wanted, would he? Maybe if he was about twenty years younger or something Mina would find that statement attractive. But he was like, old. A couple decades too late to be saying that, especially in this day and age. “Oooh you’re a real rebel, aren’t you Mr. Ollivander?” Mina cooed as she leaned up against the counter again. The best part about it was that she was positive that they both knew she was joking. “Then buying the rougarou hair from me wouldn’t be a problem, would it? Or are you worried that it’s fake?” She hadn’t thought about that possibility. Everyone she had propositioned about purchasing the hair had only ever cared about documentation, except for some muscle-headed dude working a shop in Knockturn. But that was Knockturn, so she didn’t expect much of anyone to care there. If anything, that was the place for her to sell. Except for the part where the shopkeepers there weren’t willing to pay the flat rate, whereas someone like Ollivander would. Integrity or something like that. Mina wasn’t too sure though, because according to her sister she didn’t have much.

Ollivander stated that if he wanted magic from America, he could get it himself. Mina backed off of the counter and folded her arms. Playing the tough guy, was he? “Fine, have it your way. Offer still stands if you ever need it though.” The fact that he was so dismissive of her offer in the first place only reminded her that he had criticized the capabilities of her new wand earlier. If the one he had made her years ago had been any good in the first place, then she wouldn’t have snapped it and needed another. Clearly there was a winner here. She kept her mouth shut after explaining that she didn’t speak Spanish, and he went on in some language that was beyond her linguistics prowess (which comprised of English and, wait for it, English). “Well,” Mina started as she made sure she had her old wand in her pocket as well before backing towards the door. “Guess I’ll go then. Thanks for helping out. Sorry about the wand.” Turning, Mina stepped back out into Diagon Alley. It frustrated her when people didn’t want to play her game. She’d give him an earful if he ever stepped into Flourish & Blotts while she was on a shift.

[Mina End]

[Deleted]

It was all Aras could do to suppress a snort when the woman asked him if he was a rebel. He was almost sure that she was joking, but damn, Aras couldn’t imagine someone who was less rebellious than he was. He, after all, was the child who stayed, and did his duty, and took on the family business, and helped raised his sister, and… well, from the outside, he looked the epitome of a man dedicated to his work and to his family. Aras didn’t know whether or not people would consider his addiction a rebellion or not, since it hadn’t ever been intended that way. It had just been a way to relax… until it was more than that. “The problem is that I would never use it.” Aras said silkily. Hadn’t he just explained that he found the material substandard quality? It didn’t conduct magic as well as the other cores that he used, and since Aras prided himself on the quality of his creations, it seemed rather nonsensical that he would purchase something he considered to be less than ideal to use in his wandmaking. Aras didn’t know why the woman was pushing the subject so much. He would never run out of excuses for reasons not to purchase the rougarou hair, from his own standards to the legal problems to the fact that he probably didn’t have enough Galleons to pay her asking price up front. It was only because of his long history with other suppliers that he was allowed to purchase most woods and cores on credit. Aras didn’t think the young woman would be fond of such an arrangement.

Aras just blinked when the woman said that her offer still stood, if he ever found himself in need of rougarou hair. As if that was ever going to happen, Aras thought to himself. He wasn’t going to change the family tradition of only using phoenix feathers, unicorn hair, and dragon heartstring. He simply wasn’t. Too much was changing already without adding to the chaos. The woman said that she would go now, and Aras bit back a sigh of relief. He didn’t know why that conversation had been so challenging for him, but that didn’t change the fact that it was, indeed, challenging. He watched as the woman exited the shop, wondering if she was going to take his advice to go to the jeweler, or just allow her broken wand to languish in some back drawer for the rest of time.

mina pandora oliveira
(le end)