The ragged men in ragged clothes, a silver thorn of a bloody rose [Izotz]

The air smelt light and sweet today. That was usually a good omen. More and more, Jonathan was relying on his nose in novel ways. He’d always been rather sensitive to scents and aromas, but he wondered when did it begin to be a primary way of taking in the world? He paused for a moment, just to make sure nothing else hung in the air to make him doubt his earlier intuitions.

Still feeling good about the day, Jonathan whipped out his wand from his robes, tapping the requisite bricks that would lead him into Diagon Alley. He could have simply Apparated, but he stopped by the Leaky Cauldron a little early for elevenses, curious about the fresh and familiar faces that congregated in the famous pub. Plus, it was rare for him to go this way, and there was always a nostalgic pleasure of watching the bricks give way to a bustling street of shoppers and traders.

Jonathan placed his wand away and wound his way along Diagon’s lively path. His nose and gut seemed right on the money. The day was lovely! It was a close to a perfect spring day as a Londoner could hope for. It gave Jonathan an extra pep in his step as he continued on his errand.

Unable to help himself, he was like every kid that day, full of wonder and awe as he passed by window displays and carted wares. He told himself, he didn’t really need to spend anything today, that he was just to go on this simple errand and head right back to helping his cousins manage their cafe.

So naturally, an hour later, Jonathan barely made it past twenty meters from the brick wall, having zigged and zagged his way into every store front, inquiring about various curios, grabbing yet more books for his every growing reading list, and buying a new set of robes. He realised the time, and how Ollivanders was still on the opposite end of Diagon. Looking at his purchase bags, Jonathan groaned, and told himself he’d be better next time.

A little more focused now, he made his way into the famed wandmaker’s shop (though not before making yet another detour into Obscurus books and adding a few more titles to his list).

The shop was dusty and cramped, but Jonathan didn’t mind. He was taken by the many rows of wand boxes that seemed to stretch an impossibly long length to the end of the narrow interior. He never got to experience buying his wand here like his peers had. Not that he was unsatisfied with his instrument; far from it! But it was one of many little things that separated him and his family from most of their magical peers, and at times Jonathan wondered what it would be like to be just like everyone else, to not have any of the peculiar weighted expectations that came with being a family of distinction. Jonathan sighed wistfully, and looked around again.

The eponymous wandmaker was not at the front desk. Did Jonathan’s dawdling cause him to miss the man? Perhaps he was having lunch. But ah! Jonathan noted a young man who seemed to be wearing work robes, so Jonathan waved for his attention.

“Um, hello! Are you the junior Ollivander? I meant to give something to your father, but I reckon it makes no difference if you take it.”

@Izotz Gredel

Tuesday. Nothing was very exceptional about Tuesdays. It wasn't the as bad as Monday, but still there was no excitement about the week being close to its end as if it were Thursday or Friday. Day of the week aside, Izotz had a very particular schedule, one that he hardly deviated from even on his busiest of days. It was one of the many peculiarities about the young man that he had never grown out of after school. Some of his friends varied their routines, but not the former Ravenclaw. Within his first few weeks working for Mr. Olivander, Izotz had found the rhythm and adapted to it flawlessly. Now any deviation, however small, could derail the young man and cause him to miss important tasks or be less helpful to a customer in need. Routines were order, order was logical, and any reasonable person knows that logic is what makes the world go round.

As was customary, Izotz rose with the sun and spent his first waking hour preparing to go up to the shop. Collecting his things, reviewing his notes, taking a small bite for breakfast and a cup of tea. The days were all alike in that regard. After ensuring that he had his book in the pocket of his work robes and was prepared to head to the shop,  Izotz closed and locked his door and made his way to the sales floor. He still had plenty of time before the shop would open, but Izotz was nothing if not thorough on days where his mentor was not present. Having taken detailed notes of the previous sales he had made, Izotz was able to account with astonishing detail the supply of the shop as well as the numbers of wands by wood type, core, and general length. Mr. Olivander had stressed to him from his first day the importance of organization and attention to detail, not that Izotz had needed that part of the lesson, in the craft of wand making and shop ownership. Improper inventory could be just as damaging as running customers off with rude or improper etiquette.

Glancing over the ledger and balancing it off his personal notebook of sales and customer requests, Izotz turned his attention to his own project. Each morning, in the last half hour before opening, Izotz did his best to deepen his knowledge of wand lore and the properties of certain magical woods, cores, and the associated animals they came from. Reading came naturally for the boy and he quite enjoyed the quiet of it. Grabbing one of his favorite tomes from upstairs, Izotz took up his place on the sales floor behind the counter and began reading. As soon the clock on the wall signified it was time to open, Izotz carefully placed the book under the counter and waved his wand at the lock on the door, officially opening for business. From this point on his focus was any customer who might enter, as well as the care and well being of the products that lined the walls.

The morning passed slowly, as did most spring days, as no customers were seen for the first few hours of the day. Izotz spent a his time rearranging the wands and separating them by wand wood and length as had become his custom of late. It helped him in pairing a wand with a particular individual. While Mr. Olivander seemed to know where each box was located regardless of its position among the other wands, Izotz liked a system, a catalogue of sorts. Something that helped him speedily find and work with each wand in the store. As he was admiring the craftsmanship of a particular birch wand with a phoenix feather core, Izotz heard the bell over the door in the shop ring. Replacing the wand in its box and filing the box according to his system, Izotz made his way to the floor. It coudn't have been more than a few minutes since the man had arrived, but he looked as though he were lost. Maybe he thought the shop was empty on account of the hour.

Putting on his best customer service smile and friendly voice, Izotz waited for the man to finish his question before responding. "Good day sir, welcome to Olivanders Wand Shop. I am not, in fact, the junior Olivander, my name is Izotz Gredel, Mr. Olivanders apprentice. I have no problem taking whatever it is you have for Mr. Olivander as I am sorry to say that he and his son are both out today. Would that work Mr...?" Izotz trailed off, realizing the man had not given his surname or even a first name by which to be called. Waiting, Izotz fidgeted with the hem of his robes, not quite sure how to continue the conversation and dealing with his first customer of the day.

As the young shop worker approached, Jonathan was surprised to find himself looking slightly upward. He wasn’t used to being the shorter person, and while it was such a trivial detail, Jonathan couldn’t help but straighten his posture even more than usual.

But there was no need to keep up this challenge of machismo, especially since it was more on Jon’s part. The younger man didn’t seem to command presence as his stature could allow, what with the way he fidgeted with his robes. In any case, he seemed friendly enough, and Jonathan was more at ease. Gredel was it? Jonathan was familiar with the surname, in both the general sense—as many pureblood lines were aware of each other—and that there was Memphis, who had been in his house during his Hogwarts days. But Izotz was a new face, and a rather pleasing one to look at. Or was he? Jonathan paused, trying to recall if there had been another Gredel during his school years.

Realising he was holding up their conversation, Jonathan smiled, and apologised for his erroneous assumption.

‘Ah, a future master wandmaker, how exciting! It’s not every day you bump into someone keen on continuing the arcane arts of wandlore! Unless, I suppose, you, er, go into wandshops!’ The Ministry official gave a quick chuckle, easily amused by his own thoughts. But realising he’d failed to make his own introduction, he quickly remedied the error.

‘Jonathan Emerson, junior,’ he said, winking playfully. ‘And I had a special donation I wished to give to Mr Ollivander, but since you’re apprentising for him, perhaps you’d find some interest in it as well!’

Jonathan, fished into the sleeves of his robes, pulling out a long, slim, velvet box. It looked like an upscaled wand box, but its contents were just a little bit different. He held the box in front of Izotz, gently opening it for the younger man to inspect. Inside the satin-lined interiors was a sizable lock of silver, pearlescent hair, laid flat along the length of the box to keep them from fraying.

Jonathan leaned forward, his light grey eyes full of curiosity as he looked at Izotz. Wandlore was an interest branch of magic, and Jonathan rarely had the chance to encounter those who worked in the field.

‘My family owns a couple of unicorn foals, and they’ve been shedding as we get into the warmer seasons. I was hoping they might be of use for Mr Ollivander, or for you if you’re that far along. What do you make of them?’

Izotz stood awkwardly as he waited for the other man to finish his introduction and to tell him how he could help him today. Izotz had a habit of making awkward situations slightly more awkward simply by his physical stature. He noted that the other man seemed to be standing rather like a board, very rigid as though trying to add an inch or two to his stature. Even so, Izotz, as was normal, was at least a few inches taller than his customer.

In the momentary silence that followed, Izotz tried to place the face standing in front of him. The young man, for he appeared to be only a few years his senior, seemed rather familiar to Izotz. He was surely a Hogwarts graduate, and it was possible that they may have been there at the same time. Izotz wasn’t nearly as good at remembering people as they were at remembering him. His rather distinct height, his introverted personality, and the tinge of an accent to his English made him rather noticeable and memorable. Deciding it best to just treat the customer as if he had never met him, Izotz smiled as genuinely as he could, listening for the man’s goal in the shop this morning.

His mention of wandlore as ‘arcane’ was fitting, even if his joke was hardly one worth the laugh that the young man gave it. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity and a half, the other man introduced himself as Jonathan Emerson. Then it clicked for the wand maker. He had met the man while at Hogwarts, but he had also seen him around at something for his cousin. Memphis was quite the social butterfly and he was sure that he had met this man at one of Memphis’ gatherings over the years. Noting the wink, but unsure what to do about it, Izotz just kept the plastered smile on his face and waited to see what kind of a donation Mr. Emerson had for a shop like Mr. Olivander’s.

Only a moment or two after the man introduced himself, he produced a box that looked incredibly like a wand box. But as he took a longer look, he noticed the hinges rather than the fitted cardboard that he was used to working with. The curiosity built as Izotz waited and watched as several thin, white, shining hairs lined the velvet of the box. He knew immediately what they were, and his breath caught as he hoped against hope he was right.

Eyes wide, Izotz spoke softly, “May I?” he posed as he reached for his wand, not waiting for a response before he coaxed one of the hairs from the box with a gentle wave of his wand. As he was inspecting the hairs, the other man was explaining how he came to have several of these hairs. “Foals you say?” Izotz muttered, “yes, yes I could see how that would be. But these,” he pointed at two longer, more silver hairs, “these are of at least one mature male”. Replacing the foal’s hair in the box, he retrieved the one of the mature adult and examined it. “Tensile strength looks good, it is still fresh, this hair may be very usable. I would need to test it of course, but this could be quite useful for a recent project I just began. Do you mind, sir, if I take this off your hands?” The other man had already said they were to be donated to the shop, but Izotz wanted to make sure he knew that he intended to keep this particular hair for his own personal use rather than hand it over to Mr. Olivander.

Jonathan couldn’t tell if this Izotz fellow was extremely mature or extremely childish. Until he took out the box, Jonathan may as well have been talking to the brick walls. Only until he’d revealed his donations that he finally managed to get some decent reaction from the younger man. Jonathan decided to lean toward the latter. Adults knew how to read the room and go with the flow. Children were a bit more candid, excited only when given something exciting. And Jonathan felt he was on good authority to gauge these things, considering he actively chose when to be an adult or a child at any given point in the day.

He didn’t really have a chance to respond to Izotz’s request, as the assistant wandmaker unceremoniously summoned one of the unicorn hairs whilst Jonathan was speaking. Izotz seemed too enrapt with the silver strand he magically plucked from the lot, and Jonathan couldn’t help but purse his lips and stare, unamused. If Jonathan were to meet the esteemed Garrick Ollivander himself, Jonathan would be quick to suggest adding some better interpersonal skills to his apprenticeship.

Despite himself, Jonathan could not help but be curious about the young Gredel’s observations. Jonathan looked at the new strand that Izotz picked out, arching a brow. Mature did he say? Jonathan had to think about it now. The two foals they adopted were about two years old when his family were allowed to bring them to their Hogsmeade cafe. Jonathan had assumed they were the same age, but he hadn’t proof. Unicorns matured between the ages of five and seven, so perhaps one of them was older than he thought, and Sugar and Spice was running for a couple of years now. Thinking back to the times he had to care for them, knowing that the creatures began to prefer a woman’s touch as they grew up, Jonathan had a feeling he knew which of the two was older. If he were older. But that was if this tall child knew what he was talking about!

Now that that it was Izotz who had a request, Jonathan raised his brow a little higher. Just the one? He supposed to take the whole lot off his hands! Was this duffer sniffing wood shavings? Perhaps there was something more to the request...oh. Oh!

‘Tell you what,’ Jonathan began proposing. But he brandished his wand, which was clearly not of Ollivander’s making, and flicked the strand of hair back closer to him. Lights sparkled around it, joining together like a constellation. The lines of grew solid and dim, until the hair was encased in a thin, velvet casing, a much slimmer version of the one that held the other.

‘I usually don’t add stipulation to donations, but if you can humour me for a bit more, I’d like to know more about the art of wandmaking. I don’t suppose you’re able to have me poke about the shop, so if you’re available for lunch or tea, let’s have a date! An hour of your time and you can have this strand, and the rest you can deliver Mr Ollivander. Fair deal?’

Izotz could tell that the other man was judging him. While he was bad at interpersonal interactions and often missed certain social queues, he had grown somewhat adept at reading people’s expressions after his years of working in the retail and wand making business. He still didn’t always know what they were judging, or why, but he knew that he was being judged, picked apart, he must have done something that the other man didn’t seem to think was how a normal wizard would have done it. It must have been the way he took the hair, taking note that he needed to contain his excitement and feign interest more in the person than the gift, Izotz took a moment to collect himself and decided that it was time to put on his business face rather than the excited face of one who is more interested in wand lore than in dealing with people.

As he bought up his request to keep one of the hairs for his own use, Izotz noticed the older man’s reaction. This was one he had mastered, although he rarely saw it in his line of work. This was more the reaction he got out of people at Memphis’ gatherings than in his day job. Often times he would say something or do something so out in left field that the reaction of shock, mixed with indignation, and a subtle hint of ‘did he really just do that’. He had apparently gone too far in asking the young man to keep a secret from his employer and master. Hopefully word of his request wouldn’t make it back to Mr. Olivander or he would have some explaining to do…

In response to his request, Izotz found it to be his turn to be a little shocked. The request from the other man was one that took him by surprise. A date?! Izotz going out and doing something social? He hardly ever did such a thing, and never without his cousin being the one to poke and prod him from his work. That being the case, an hour for a possible core in a new wand was hardly even something he needed to think about. It was the smallest of prices that he could pay for something that was worth so much more.

Turning to look over his shoulder and ensure that the house elf wasn’t around to take note of what was going on, Izotz turned back to Jonathan and nodded. “Sure” he said in a rather forced warm voice. “I haven’t taken much time to be out and about, so I would be happy to join you in exchange for that box and your discretion with Mr. Olivander. Is now a good time for you or would you prefer to come back this evening?” Izotz wasn’t overly busy now or tonight, he was sure that he could spare an hour of his day to get out and do something else around town. It wasn’t everyday that a unicorn hair walked in to the shop free of charge anyways.