dark necessities | nell

[rhys alexander greyback]

Coming out to the light of day

We got many moons
that are deep at play

December 16, 2028
eleanor gwendolen ollivander

How fortunate for Rhys that this lovely month of December contained not just one full moon but two. Since returning to work at the start of autumn, Rhys had found himself incredibly busy and losing all sense of time in most cases. Because of this, Rhys hadn’t successfully timed his Aware Wolf potions to coincide with the full moon week since September. With how much he had worked over the last decade, his seniority sometimes allowed him to choose his schedule. For the last few full moons, Rhys had managed to make it home and to the Werewolf Hotel in Diagon so he wasn’t a danger to others at a minimum.

This reminded him of a favor Nell had asked him several years before. And one he could fulfill in this state—begrudgingly. Rhys had meant to stop by earlier in the week, but his hands were full with a very energetic Amelia. She spoke a million words a minute (sometimes making sense) as she excitedly took in the world around her. Not to mention those eyes of hers caught onto shiny objects faster than Gringotts best niffler. After the long previous day and late night, Rhys took the opportunity to sleep in. Not to mention, he’d easily persuaded Juni to stay the night.

Pushing the door open in the early afternoon hours, Rhys instinctively looked up when the bell rang. He looked for his oldest friend. Sometimes, she was with a customer or working on a wand, wearing those eyeglasses that magnified her eyes to ridiculous levels. But Rhys didn’t see her at first. ”Nell?” Slowly, he took steps toward the counter. It was always amazing to see the work she produced, the boxes that lined behind the service counter but with far more creative combinations than her family’s ancestral shop. He thought about the items in his pocket and the wand Nell had replaced for him right before Amelia was born. If the last two and a half years were any indication, Nell knew what she was doing.

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[eleanor gwendolen ollivander]

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The holiday rush was about to be upon her. That brought a multitude of problems for Nell, mostly due to two reasons: wand repairs that snippy parents wanted completed before the start of the spring term, and the yearly Ollivander Christmas dinner. Nell hated both with a burning passion, but at least she was paid for the one (though she was positive there had been years where her parents had slipped Benny or Franky a handful of coins to play nice and stick around for the whole dinner).

Regardless, Nell always ended up with the short end of the proverbial stick for both this time of year, and with the previous day being the end of the fall term, she’d already had several irate parents in the shop. Their kids always looked like hurt little puppies, as they usually destroyed their wands. Depending on the state of it, she could either fix it or offer for them to buy a replacement. When it came to that, she usually sent them to Ollivander’s. They had better starter wands than she did, which ironically enough, most current ones there were probably made by her during her apprenticeship.

With the morning rush over – there had been a small line waiting out front for her to open the shop – Nell was seated in her workspace behind the shop eating her lunch. Typically she locked up and dragged herself upstairs into her flat to do so, but today was far too busy to do that. Halfway through a bite into a peanut butter sandwich, she heard the bell above the front door jingle. Eyes flittering closed for a moment as she groaned, Nell placed her lunch carefully down and slowly made her way towards the front. The call of her name made her ears perk up: it was Rhys.

Stopping and doubling back, she grabbed the paper plate her sandwich was on and brought it up with her. He wouldn’t care if she was eating while they talked. ”What’s up?” she asked as she stopped at her counter and finished the bite she had started only a few seconds earlier.

rhys alexander greyback ● 355

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[rhys alexander greyback]

Coming out to the light of day

We got many moons
that are deep at play

December 16, 2028
eleanor gwendolen ollivander

It took a moment, but Nell appeared from the back of the shop, a sad excuse for lunch in her hand. While Rhys’ eyes lingered on the sandwich, he didn’t comment. Nell very likely knew already that a sandwich like that was not enough. However, Rhys learned years ago (after much trial and error) that his unsolicited opinions would be met with his friend's unsolicited opinions in return. Some of which he wasn’t interested in hearing. Approaching the counter, Rhys offered a brief but friendly smile. ”Just dropping off an early Christmas present.” habitually, he scanned the room despite how it had not changed much since she opened the shop.

More wand boxes lined the shelves as business increased, but it generally felt the same for Rhys. He reached inside his jacket for a small bag. It contained a small amount of werewolf hair trimmings, a couple of whiskers, and a tooth. Rhys had collected at least this through the morning grogginess from his transformation the two weeks before. ”I was going to drop by sooner but had to work.” Which reminded him. ”Archer didn’t say if he was coming into town or not. You heard from him?” Rhys had just seen him a few days prior at their work site but had forgotten to ask. For now, Rhys avoided looking mischievous or altogether too curious, but he wondered how his friend might respond.

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[eleanor gwendolen ollivander]

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Hearing the word Christmas for the hundredth time today almost made her choke on her food. Every single parent that had brought their child by for wand repairs this morning had that stipulation set forth. Their precious little demon spawn needed their wands back by Christmas and if they weren’t done by Christmas then little Jimmy wasn’t going to be able to go back to Hogwarts with it. Maybe if their crotch gremlins were a tad more careful with their unbelievably expensive wands, then she wouldn’t even be needed in the first place. And then there was the infamous Ollivander family Christmas dinner that she was going to be subjected to in just a little over a week. Where they would all piss each other off once again, before acting like none of it ever happened. Nell could feel her blood pressure rising as she placed her lunch down on the counter and finished swallowing her last bite. As much as she enjoyed her time spent with her own nephew, she hadn’t really liked Gideon until he was able to think for himself. Sometimes it felt like he still took his mother’s influence though.

While using a breathing technique to calm herself down, since it wasn’t inherently Rhys’s fault for causing her to start to go batty like Veronica right now, he placed a bag on the counter. Her supposed present. She eyed it curiously before pulling it closer. Through the bag’s material, it felt like there was a combination of soft, fine objects as well as one harder, large thing. ”I never hear from him,” Nell lied as she looked up at Rhys. She still didn’t know how much he’d figured out from the night they were all out a few months prior. ”He just pops in when he feels like it to annoy me.” And then some. But Rhys didn’t need to know those finer details at all. ”I don’t have it finished yet, but I should have a present for Amelia done by next week.” She had crafted a toy broom, though it was one that didn’t have the charms built into it like the normal ones tended to. Nell didn’t think the girl’s mother would appreciate it all that much.

rhys alexander greyback ● 374

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[rhys alexander greyback]

Coming out to the light of day

We got many moons
that are deep at play

December 16, 2028
eleanor gwendolen ollivander

Nell looked at Rhys while responding, but Rhys didn’t let his gaze wave. Juniper had planted the seed, and now Rhys was loathe to admit that he had missed something happening right under his nose. A terrible look for a Cursebreaker, although perhaps not surprising for Rhys himself. For now, he clarified what was in the bag as a change of topic. ”I had to stay a night at the hotel during the last full moon. I figured I would bring you ingredients for your wands.” Two years later, Rhys still felt odd about the core of his wand, even if it performed much better for charms than he could have imagined.

But back on the topic of Archer, ”I suppose he’ll pop into town before the New Year.” It Would make sense for him to do the rounds just after his birthday. Part of him wanted to pry, almost uncharacteristically. He supposed it was probably the sting of a lost bet with Juniper. But walking down that path invited questions about him and Juniper and how the pair had literally run into Nell during their impromptu escape from his birthday months before. ”No rush.” Rhys commented. While he was grateful that his close friends had all spoiled Amelia endlessly, he also knew they had their work and lives. The thought always left him feeling annoyingly sentimental and grateful.

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Rhys explained what was in the bag before she could open it, and upon hearing that they were bits of werewolf, she quickly looked inside. It was certainly a different way of going about acquiring wand core ingredients, and she knew plenty of other wandmakers that wouldn’t even touch werewolf hair with a ten-foot pole. She understood why, of course, because of the taboo surrounding it. Having a willing donation was completely unheard of, and it did make her feel a little strange to suddenly be able to make a wand using the material whenever she pleased. It was very similar to how things went when she’d purchased the rougarou hair off of Mina years earlier. That was a completely untouched core outside of the United States, and yet Nell had an entire jar full still at her disposal.

”Merlin, this is a lot,” she breathed. It would have been far stranger if she had still been eating while looking into the bag. Fiddling with her cash register, she popped it open and pulled a few galleons out and pushed them over to Rhys. ”Don’t refuse them,” Nell warned and moved the stack even closer to him. ”Put them into Amelia’s vault for Hogwarts expenses or something.” It was a fair trade, in her opinion. Though she knew she could finagle werewolf hair out of a few others, she much preferred it being willing and from Rhys.

The conversation shifted back to Archer quickly, and she knew there was no way she could avoid it forever. After Rhys’s birthday, she had realized that the two of them hadn’t been nearly as careful as she had thought. ”Suppose he will. You probably see him more than I do.” Though not in the same capacity at all. And she was starting to think that Rhys probably knew that, without either of them ever telling him as much.

”I’m so ready for the holidays to be done with,” Nell added after a moment. ”These parents…it’s like they never taught their children any wand discipline. Never seen so many broken ones in my life, and because I’ve gotten a reputation for being able to fix them, they all come to me now.” She really needed to start charging more, because the amount of time it took for some of these repairs was long. The short window to get it all done didn’t help either.

rhys alexander greyback ● 400

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[rhys alexander greyback]

Coming out to the light of day

We got many moons
that are deep at play

December 16, 2028
eleanor gwendolen ollivander

Rhys was about to protest when Nell held out coins for him. He didn’t do these things for the gold or the credit, for that matter; he did it because it was Nell. Sighing through his nose, he nodded. ”Fine.” Reluctantly, Rhys retrieved the coins and put them in his pocket. It would indeed be added to the gold he was already beginning to set aside for Amelia to have when she was far older. Merlin forbid anything happened to Rhys on the job or in general, he felt better knowing she was taken care of. And Sage by proxy, despite their troubled relationship.

Hopefully, Nell knew that Rhys would not do this if it were not for her. She was his best friend and perhaps his oldest friend. And Rhys remembered how proud he felt when she first opened her shop because she had worked so hard. And Werewolf materials were hard to come by. Rhys didn’t even know how HOWL affected all that—now that he thought about it. But speaking of old friends, Rhys was still slowly snooping around about Archer and Nell and any supposed connection there. While Juni claimed she had won that bet back in August, Rhys still had nothing that was definitive.

”Right—just didn’t want to miss his birthday again. He always gives me a hard time.” Jokingly, of course. But its convenient timing with Christmas made lining up schedules and plans difficult. ”How are these kids breaking wands they aren’t supposed to use?” Rhys wondered out loud. If they were using magic outside the Hogwarts grounds, a broken wand was the least of their worries. Unless kids these days were really that clumsy. ”You should close the shop for a few days. Otherwise, you’ll never have a break.” Rhys suggested. And this was coming from the man who often worked himself to the bone to avoid too much free time. But traveling for work had its benefits.

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Nell had discovered that the easiest way to get Rhys to capitulate to her demands was if she brought Amelia into it. There was no way he could turn down a small fortune of Galleons for the toddler’s Gringotts vault. These sorts of things mattered these days. While she was never wanting for much, everything had always been provided to her in a way that was very obviously from a standing of privilege. Until she arrived at Hogwarts, she hadn’t truly understood that. She’d done a lot of thinking on it over the years, and she had concluded that the normalcy and genuineness of those that hadn’t grown up like she had, was far more welcoming than the alternative. It was easy to see the complete opposite in Veronica, with her viperous attitude and ostentatious display of wealth. Building up her store from the ground up showed far more integrity, in her opinion, than being gifted the family business. And that still stood despite her older sister’s talent in wandmaking, which was hard to argue against. Veronica was fairly competent, unfortunately.

Rhys probably always missed Archer’s birthday because it was spent with her after she slunk away from the absurd Ollivander family Christmas dinner that happened yearly. ”Never knew he was so serious about that,” Nell lied. It was easier to turn the conversation back to her work though. Complaining was more fun to talk about than her mysterious and hidden relationship with Archer. At least for now, it was.

”These repairs basically keep the lights on for the next few months, assuming I don’t make any other sales,” she explained. ”I don’t really want to risk losing out on that and letting my sister take them all on.” Realistically, Veronica wouldn’t do that. If anything, she was probably the one sending all of these parents her way in the first place. No one explicitly said that, but it sounded like something she would do. It was maybe a strange thing to say after forking over a pile of gold to Rhys for werewolf whiskers and the likes, but the exchange would end up playing in her favor in the long run. Her wand shop acted almost as an oddities store at times; the stranger wand cores she had available, the more witches and wizards from around the world came looking for them. Thus, more sales. It worked out, somehow.

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