After dropping off his things in the carriage, Echo was led to another shop, this time a much smaller one that sat at the corner of an intersection of streets. The sign hanging above read "Ollivanders" and nothing else. When they walked in, Echo saw that the interior was even smaller than the exterior. Only big enough to fit two people comfortably, not counting the countertop separating the room. Along the wall were sleeves stacked high with strange rectangular cases. A bell rang as they entered, and someone in the back called out that they would be there in a minute.
Soon, an old man with the strangest hair and mustache combo, thinkable, came out in a craftsman outfit and a wand on his ear.
Dumbledore laughed and said jovially, "Ollivander!"
"Dumbledore!" the old man Ollivander greeted back. They embraced in a friendly hug. After pulling away, Ollivander asked him, "Good to see you again, old friend. What brings you here?"
"A new student of Hogwarts, recently admitted, pulled fresh from the streets.", Dumbledore explained while stepping away and showing Echo.
Ollivander looked down at the young child standing beside the grand wizard, looking him up and down before sniffing the air and commenting, "He smells like puke."
Echo narrows his eyes, aggravated, and shoots back, "You smell like a virgin."
Ollivander burst out laughing and said with zeal, "My, quite a mouth on this one. I do love a bit of spirit! Makes finding the right wand more exciting!"
Dumbledore slapped the boy on the back for his snide comment and told him, "Echo, this is Sir Ollivander. The main source of wands is in the Hogwarts region and most of London."
"Him.", Echo asked.
"Yes.", Dumbledore answered.
"Him?", Echo asked again, this time with more suspicion.
Knowing how this conversation would go, Dumbledore looked down at the young boy and asked him, "Is that so hard to believe?"
Echo looked to the old wand maker, then back to Dumbledore and admitted, "He looks like he spends a few too many times looking at the bottom of a glass."
"He and I are drinking buddies.", Dumbledore confirmed.
"Somehow I can see that." Echo's sweat dropped.
"Sir Ollivander will help you get fitted with the perfect wand. I'll be outside waiting.", the old wizard told him before leaving the shop and allowing the two people to get acquainted.
The child looks up at the old man and darts his eyes around uncomfortably as he gets studied through the man's many-lensed eye scope. After an uncomfortable amount of silence, Echo breaks the ice and asks him, "Soooooo…how does this go? Is it like….fitting for a shoe or…?"
Ollivander lifts his scope and tells him, "By its fundamental nature, yes. But there's a bit more to it."
"Of course there is.", Echo groans to himself.
Ollivander then skims through the many shelves and mutters to himself. He then finds what he's looking for and pulls out a green rectangular box. He brings it before the boy and opens it in front of him. Inside the velvet-lined box is a stick of wood.
"Here, try this one. It's 12 inches long, made of oakwood, and has a Dragon heartstring core," Ollivander explains while motioning for him to take it.
Echo picks up the stick and looks it over before asking, "Now what?"
"Flick it.", Ollivander tells him excitedly.
"Like this–" Echo tried to say while flicking his wrist, only for the wand to suddenly burst into flames around him.
Covering him in soot and leaving the wand charred before it crumbles to dust.
Ollivander was shocked to see this and rushed to the boy to make sure he was okay. After seeing him still alive, he told him, "Oh! That's not supposed to happen. Come to think of it, that never happens."
Ollivander then rushed back to the shelves and perused them until he finally found another one. Taking out the box, he opened it and handed the wand off to the boy, telling him, "Let's try this one. It's eight and a half inches, Cherry wood, and Unicorn hair core."
Once again, Echo took the stick and flicked it, but this time it electrocuted him before exploding into a stump in his hand.
Ollivander painfully sucked in the air through his teeth and tried to tell him, "That was….unfortunately cheerfully. No need to worry, we'll just keep trying until we get it right!"
20 minutes later
After a very long time of trying out several wands that would either backfire, explode, burst into flames, zap him, freeze him, or any number of other horrible things before falling to pieces, Echo was just at his breaking point.
Ollivander bit his thumb in frustration and worry for the boy, looking over yet another wand that got destroyed with just a flick of his hand. Covered in scorch marks, black as night, clothing barely being held together, hair wild and crisp, and eyes wide and at the edge!
"This is becoming more problematic than I thought….", He said while taking his wand and saying, "Let's get you cleaned up first. Reparo." With that, his clothing was cleaned and restored to normal. "Scourgify," He said as his face and hair were cleaned of all blackened marks and groomed back to normal. Once Echo was back to the way he was before, he took out another box and tried to hold it out to the boy, saying, "Now then, let's try–"
"NO!" Echo yelled at him, making the man jump. "No more! No more! I don't want to keep trying! I don't want to keep getting blown up, electrocuted, or burnt! I don't wanna do this!" He yelled while grabbing the wand and chucking it against a nearby shelf before it exploded in his hand.
However, the explosion caused the shelf to jump so violently that it was knocked off its center and tottered off to the front, threatening to fall over!
Echo saw this and only had enough time to say, "Uh-oh."
Then the shelf fell over and came tumbling down on him! Luckily, the shelf was so tall that the opposite shelf caught it in front of it! Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the dozens of wands within it. As they all came tumbling down on poor Echo, bearing the poor boy in a matter of seconds.
"Merlin's beard! Are you okay, young man?!" Ollivander cried out as he dug up the child's head.
"I just had a whole shelf of wands fall into me…..OF COURSE, I'M NOT OKAY!", Echo yelled back at him in pain and anger.
"Reparo," said Ollivander as the self fixed itself and all the wands were put back into place.
Little Echo remained on the floor with multiple bruises from the falling cases. The boy slowly sat up and yelled, "Oh, I give up!"
"No! Don't say that! You're just a… special case—the most special one I've ever seen, to be perfectly transparent." Ollivander tried to assure him.
"You're not helping!", Echo growled at him.
Ollivander thought to himself aloud, telling him, "I may have to make one for you from scratch. Of course, that process is a bit lengthy."
But Echo cut him off while screaming, "NO! NO MORE! I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE ANY LONGER! JUST GIVE ME A WAND THAT WON'T EXPLODE!" He screamed in frustration while stamping his foot down hard, sending his magic through it and causing a small earthquake, causing the whole store to shake.
In the ensuing shaking, something hidden in the rafters of the building fell off and hit him right on the head! Echo grabbed his head in pain at first, but was quickly taken in at the sight of the object. It was a wand case, and unlike the others, this one was black and not red, green, or blue like all the others. He picked it up and opened it only to see a very particular wand. The very sight of it drew him in, like a moth to a flame; he could feel something pulling him into it as if it were tugging on his soul.
The wood was crinkled, crunchy, and pure black, almost as if it had been burnt. The natural marks made it look like it had symbols edged on it. The entire wand curved out at a slight angle, making it look disproportionate. At the ends, it split apart before curving back into itself at both parts, giving it a crescent moon shape. Finally, it had a built-in handle that was colored red.
"What about this one?", Echo asked while he pulled out the wand to admire it.
Ollivander tried to stop him, jutting towards him to grab it while exclaiming, "No wait!"
Before he could, a bright yet eerie light emanated from both the boy and the wand itself. After it faded, Echo had a flabbergasted expression on his face as he said, dumbfounded, "That was….a really weird feeling."
He then flicked the wand and was happy to see that it not only created the magic bolt it was supposed to, but it didn't explode.
"Well, this one hasn't exploded. I'll take it.", Echo quickly said while walking to the door.
"But-!", Ollivander tried to interject.
"Bye!" Echo cut him off while bursting out the door, passing Dumbledore, trudging to the carriage, and jumping in.
Confused by this, Dumbledore left the boy to his own devices and instead looked to ask Ollivander for details. He stepped into the shop and saw his friend leaning over the front counter, back turned, holding himself up, and shaking his head while it was down as he matted.
He approached the man and asked him, "Ollivander, my friend. I'm glad to see that Echo got his wand. But what took so long?"
"Not that wand," was all he said in return.
"Sorry?", Dumbledore prompted him.
"Not that wand! Any wand but that one!" Ollivander stated more firmly.
"What's wrong with it?", Dumbledore asked further.
"That wand is defective and cursed!" Ollivander exclaimed while grabbing the wizard by his collar and holding his face close with fear.
"How so?", Dumbledore asked calmly, pushing him back into a seat.
Ollivander calmed down a bit and sighed as he explained, "Some years back, I decided to experiment with some of the hexed wood from the Dark Forest and a core I had at the time. Everything about it went so wrong. 14 and a half inches long, curved at a 5-degree angle, and the tip slipped off into two before curving back into one another, creating that crescent moon shape at the tip, Basilisk horn core, and–"
However, Dumbledore cut him off in his rant and said, "Ollivander, I was referring to the cursed part."
Ollivander blinked, realizing his obvious mistake, and said, "Oh, right! I should've made that a priority." He cleared his throat and explained, "No matter who received that wand, no matter what they did or how competent they were, spells would always go awry or not work at all! Not only that, but whoever took possession of it would die not too long after! I tried to get rid of it many times, but it would always come back."
"Come back, you say? Why not break it?", Dumbledore asked him curiously.
"I did! But it fought back.", Ollivander told him
"Did you try a--?", Dumbledore tried to ask again.
"I did try to break it with a spell from another wand, but it reflected the magic and broke mine!" The old wand maker cut him off. He sighs while rubbing his hand across his face and tells him, "I had no choice but to keep it and hide it away. And worst of all, the wand has chosen your boy!" He then grabs Dumbledore again and holds him close while whispering in a dread-filled tone, "It's never done that before!"
"Okay, okay, Ollivander! Calm down. Merlin's beard, you're shaken up about this.", Dumbledore said as he managed to pry him off and force him back into a seat.
He rubbed his face with both hands in stress as he admitted, "The boy is so young and innocent. He doesn't deserve this, Albus. No wand I gave before suited him a bit, but that wand." He then leaned down while he went pale and said with fright, "Oh, that wand….I fear he is bound to a cursed life—one that only ends in deaths all around him."
Trying to put a more positive twist on this situation, Dumbledore tried to reassure him by saying, "I'm sure it won't end like that. I'm keeping an eye out for the boy. Besides, I'm sure like many children his age, he'll end up breaking that wand."
Ollivander sighs while sipping from a hip flask and saying, "I hope you're right."
Dumbledore gave him a pat on the shoulder and walked out of the shop, only to see Echo standing in front of the door on the outside.
Initially surprised by this, all Dumbledore could say was, "Oh, Echo…", Dumbledore quickly realized he had been just outside listening in, but just to make sure, he tried to ask, "How much-?"
"All of it," Echo quickly cut him off in his answer.
"I-," Dumbledore tried to respond.
Only to be cut off once again as Echo commands, "Let's just go."
Without even waiting, Echo trudged back to the carriage, leaving a worried Dumbledore to stand there in his thoughts. His only hope was that things didn't go as badly for the boy as he was thinking of. He walked to the carriage, climbed in, and strapped in for a short, silent, and awkward ride.