So... it's been a while. First off, I want to apologize to those I reassured that progress with the chapters was coming, with both of my stories.

I've had this part of the chapter written for over a year, and just haven't made any progress on writing anything in a long time. So I figured I might as well post it as an interlude, which I'd considered before and decided not to when I thought the full chapter would be finished in a reasonable amount of time.

I have been trying to write, on and off, although obviously without much success. My style of writing has shifted rather dramatically, and I'm finding it rather difficult to pick up where I left off, and of course the longer I leave it the worse it gets. That said, neither of my stories are abandoned. I won't make any promises on speedy updates, but they will come. Eventually.

~~~~~~~~~~~ Throwing Out the Script ~~~~~~~~~~~

~ Interlude: Here There Be Monsters ~

Sometimes Albus Dumbledore wished he were Gandalf the Grey.

Gandalf was a proper Wizard, who got to do proper Wizardly things. He came and went as he pleased. His whimsical wisdom was received with reverence. He went on epic quests to fight against Sinister Forces, both Great and Trivial, in a world where Good and Evil were distinct and simple concepts.

Albus had to attend meetings, and when those were done he had to attend more meetings. His cryptic words of wisdom were met by the disapproving frown of his no-nonsense Deputy Headmistress. The closest he got to an epic quest these days was hunting down a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher every year.

He did get to fight against an Evil far more Insidious than Sauron, but paperwork couldn't ever truly be defeated. That took all the fun out of it.

Albus Dumbledore was a wizard, but most days he just didn't feel like he was a Wizard.

Perhaps if he had a sword and a staff…

Sighing, the Headmaster of Hogwarts turned his attention back to the documents on his desk. He fought the urge to wince as he signed off on a slightly amended Supply Requisition Form. He afforded Horace a considerable amount of latitude with his more exotic requests, because of the stellar quality of the man's teaching, but there was no way he was paying for that much Acromantula venom. Especially as he had a sneaking suspicion that not very much of it was going to end up being used in an educational capacity.

Were he a lesser man, Albus would have let his head fall to the desk upon reading the new Defense teacher's activities proposal.

Elphias Doge was an old friend and a trusted comrade, and Albus was grateful the man was willing to bear the burden of the post, but he was far from the Headmaster's first choice. The issue wasn't his competence, which wasn't in question, but his expectations and sheer enthusiasm. Although he could empathize with and appreciate Elphias's desire to teach all the myriad aspects of the subject he felt students should know, some of the items on the proposal stretched distinctly beyond the bounds of common sense. A lethifold surprise attack was not acceptable as a pop quiz. The fact that it needed approval from three different Ministry Departments should have been an obvious tip off to that fact. Albus scratched that line out a bit more forcefully than was absolutely necessary.

He paused on the next item he was about to veto, considering it for a moment. Auror-style war games between groups of students wasn't going to happen, but it had been a while since the Hogwarts Duelling Club had been active. He would have to think on that.

Albus set aside the proposal with a tired sigh, deciding to leave it for later. It took at least a few years to break in most new teachers, and most career instructors knew to stay far, far away from Hogwart's Defense Against the Dark Arts post. Elphias was actually one of the more promising hires he'd made for the position, exuberance aside. He knew his stuff, had a vast amount of practical experience, and genuinely wanted to teach rather than just making a name for himself. The prestige of the position had been a rather persistent problem, and motivations did affect performance, regardless of qualifications. Albus had been forced to compromise on that twice so far, regretting it deeply both times. Sometimes, it just couldn't be helped.

Deciding to take a break from the more serious matters, Albus shifted his attention to the only paperwork he ever looked forward to reading. Student petitions.

The right to directly petition the Headmaster of Hogwarts was one that was rarely taken advantage of, but there were a few brave youngsters who tried their luck each year.

Shuffling through the papers, Albus quickly found the petition he knew would be there, his weariness fading and good cheer returning as he pored over it.

The petition was a beautifully written document, constructed with elegance and flair that belied its author's youth. Every aspect of the proposal spoke to the careful attention and thought that had been poured into it, all the way down to the flawless calligraphy, handwritten without any magical aid. It possessed an exquisitely diplomatic flair, the likes of which Albus rarely had the fortune to see even in his years presiding over the International Confederation of Wizards.

When Sirius Black truly put his mind to something, he accomplished miracles. Now if only he'd apply himself to something less absurd than trying to have Hogwarts invite a Veela Colony to reside on its grounds.

The young Black's first attempt had been before he'd ever even stepped foot in the castle, attached to his formal acceptance of his Hogwarts invitation. That first petition had been nothing that any other classically educated pureblood child of eleven wouldn't have been able to match, but Albus had been amused by the initiative.

It had obviously been the young boy acting out, channeling his frustration at having to read something like the Hogwarts Charter, but Albus hadn't dismissed the petition outright. He'd certainly rejected it, but he'd addressed the pertinent procedural errors, logistical problems, and diplomatic implications in his response. In some way, he'd just wanted Sirius to know that he'd be taken seriously for who he presented himself as at Hogwarts by at least one person, not just looked at as the Heir of House Black.

In that sense Albus had been successful. He still remembered Sirius's honest smile the first time the boy had seen him in the Great Hall before his sorting. The old wizard had been delighted at his shocking sorting––not because he thought that Slytherin was a lesser House than the others, but because he knew that Sirius would have a better chance of finding friends who would see him for who he was after so utterly shattering the preconceptions of who Sirius Black had to be.

The Headmaster had thought that to be the end of the matter, but at the end of that first term he'd been pleasantly surprised to once again see it on his desk. A great deal of effort had obviously been made to address the points that Albus had initially dismissed it on. That Sirius had spent three months touching up on his petitions was shocking, given his teachers' serious doubts that his attention span was longer than three minutes. He normally bounced all over the place like an overeager puppy, both physically and mentally.

Some surreptitious digging had revealed that the boy had sought no help in his endeavour, taking it as a personal challenge.

His second attempt was more along the lines of what would have been expected of the heir of a prestigious pureblood family, but while a marked improvement it was still not something to be truly impressed by. Albus rejected it again, addressing it as seriously as he had before.

Albus hadn't been surprised to see it again three months later, and then before the next school year, and then the term after that. Again and again Sirius resubmitted his petition, each time the content improving in accordance with Albus's rejections. By the boy's third year his rhetoric and style were on par with the average adult who drafted for the Wizengamot, although his essays for his classes almost never seemed to hint at that.

It was a strange mentorship to be sure. Neither Albus nor Sirius were laboring under the delusion that the petition might one day be granted, but the odd dialogue continued like clockwork with every term. There was no agenda other than the playful challenge it provided. The young man could be like a krup with a bone when it suited him.

By the time the Headmaster finished reading through it, he was grinning so hard it nearly hurt. He would have to let it percolate in his mind before drafting a response, taking the time to appreciate it before he viciously tore it apart. He would pull no punches in his rejection, holding nothing back. The harder he was pushed, the harder Sirius pushed back. In many respects it was one of the more deeply problematic aspects of his character, but in this context it worked wonderfully.

Of the rest of the petitions, only one was interesting enough to catch his attention.

Xenophilius Lovegood wanted form a club to investigate legends and mythological creatures. The delightfully bizarre charter even called for the members to physically go out and hunt down the creatures should there be cause to think they might find them.

Normally, a club required five members and a staff sponsor to be recognized as official, but Albus was loathe to quash such an interesting idea.

The Headmaster penned out a conditional acceptance. The club would be recognized when it had at least three members, but wouldn't be given any funding until it had five.

"Go forth, young wizard, and find me a Balrog!" Albus stated imperiously, signing his name with a flourish.

Fawkes chirped, a mangled and inelegant sound that was more akin to a snort than his usual song-like tones.

Albus glared good-naturedly at the bird. "Don't give me that. It's been ages since I've had any fun. A nice, relaxing fight with a properly demonic foe would be a wonderful change of pace."

Fawkes's gaze bore down on him chidingly.

Their 'conversation' was interrupted by the fireplace flaring to life, glowing green. Albus felt a gentle pressure on his mind, the wards asking permission to let someone through. Very few people were keyed to be able to Floo him this late, and none of them made use of that privilege frivolously.

A figure strode through the fire, stumbling slightly as he came through. High sensitivity to magic and Floo travel did not go well together.

"Garrick!" Albus greeted, not having to fake or exaggerate his delight at seeing an old friend. The fact that it would delay him getting back to his paperwork further was a just a bonus. "What a pleasant surprise."

"Albus," Garrick returned, his smile a bit strange. "I–"

A musical trill cut him off. Fawkes swooped in, looping around the old wandmaker once before landing gently on his shoulder. Albus and Garrick both looked at the phoenix in startled shock as he seemed to examine his human perch, cocking his head curiously to one side. Garrick reached up tentatively with one hand, as though to stroke the bird, but Fawkes leapt away, flying back to his perch.

"How peculiar," Albus said, peering over his half-moon glasses at his familiar.

A young, excitable Garrick Ollivander had tried to pluck one of Fawkes's tail feathers on their first meeting. It hadn't been with malicious intent; he simply hadn't thought before acting, the lure of such a rare and exotic material right before his eyes overwhelming his common sense. He had grown and matured, and had much more respect in the ways that he acquired his materials now than when he was twenty.

Nonetheless, Fawkes had not forgotten. He never came within Garrick's reach, and always stared accusingly at him whenever they were in the same room. To actually perch on the man's shoulder was unprecedented.

"I've still not been forgiven, I see," Garrick lamented, eyeing the phoenix wistfully. He turned his attention to Albus, sitting down across from him. "Peculiar indeed, but today has been a peculiar one."

"Do tell."

Garrick seemed to ponder something for a moment before coming to a decision. "I think it would be better for you to see it for yourself, and draw your own conclusions without my bias first."

Albus retrieved his pensieve, setting the heavy stone bowl on the desk between them. He'd been curious before, but this had stepped it up a level.

Garrick brought his wand to his temple, drawing out a silver thread of memory with practiced ease and dropping it in the pensieve. He drew a slow circle in the shimmery white pool of memories with the tip of his wand, as though stirring it.

It was an almost inconceivable rudeness to do anything more than simply drop a memory into another's pensieve, except among the most trusted of friends. This simple, casual action spoke more of the depths of comradery between the two old men than any words ever could. The sanctity of a Wizard's pensieve was in many ways more highly valued and jealously guarded than their minds. One could fight a Legilimens if they were hostile, or direct and limit them if they had been invited. A pensieve had no such defenses, and every scrap of thought in it was all but assured to be of great personal significance.

It wasn't that Albus was comfortable with Garrick having access to his mind in such an open format; it was that Albus trusted him not to seek out even a moment that didn't belong to him, even subconsciously. Pensieves were tools of the mind, and they responded to threads of desire and half-formed hunches even more readily than they did direct commands. They were meant to unravel one's own thoughts, to lay bare what the mind hid from even itself.

If Garrick's respect for the privacy of Albus's thoughts wavered for even a moment in just the deepest, darkest corner of his mind, the pensieve would pounce on it.

It was a strange paradox, this trust, but a beautiful one in Albus's mind.

They each touched a finger to the surface of the pensieve, and the situation was reversed as they floated into the wandmaker's shop, the Headmaster's office fading away as the part of his mind still aware of the present withdrew to allow him to immerse himself in the wandmaker's past.

It was no longer Albus's mind that was at the mercy of Garrick's whims. This was no shallow copy of a memory, no mere snapshot of events. Garrick's handling of the pensieve had not been without weighty purpose. They were not simply viewing the wandmaker's memory. They were in it, the pensieve a stable bridge between their minds for them to meet on.

The pleasant aroma of a thousand distinct woods filled his nose. It was a pleasant bouquet not because Albus found the scents agreeable, but because the wandmaker did. He was experiencing the shop as Garrick had. Not just his senses, but how he processed those senses.

The entirety of the other wizard's thoughts in the memory were vulnerable to Albus's prying, should he attempt to grasp them. At least, for however long it took for Garrick seal away his mind. Albus did no such thing, allowing Garrick's subconscious to limit what aspects of his experience to seep into Albus's perception. So long as Albus's subconscious respected Garrick's own, he would not stray beyond what the other man was comfortable sharing.

"No," the Ollivander of the memory said distractedly, snatching a wand from a young boy's hand. He made a motion as if to hand over another wand but halted halfway there, putting it aside and muttering, "not that either. Ah!"

The boy's irritated frown and frazzled blond hair gave away that they had been at this long enough for the excitement of the experience to wear thin. Garrick's process could have that effect on people.

A bell rang once as the door to the shop, and Albus knew that was a ward sound, audible only to those keyed to it. A single figure stepped in, certainly too tall to be an eleven year old buying his first wand, and not accompanied by a child. This was the source of Garrick's peculiar day, Albus realized.

Either that or young Gilderoy Lockhart was a good deal more interesting than he appeared at first glance.

Neither Gilderoy nor his mother standing beside him had noticed the newcomer, who made no move to draw their attention. Memory-Ollivander didn't appear to pay any attention to him, although he had angled himself in such a way as to see the door when the ward had rung, but present-Garrick viewing the memory beside Albus was staring intently at the figure as he drew back his hood.

The young man's stature was unremarkable. Not noticeably tall or short, although he seemed to be a bit on the slender side. He held himself with a quiet assuredness, but there was a hard set to his oddly familiar face that seemed to hint at deep, ongoing concerns and not quite enough sleep. His black hair was cropped short in a way that drew attention to a faint silver scar, jagged like a lightning bolt, on the right side of his forehead.

It was a curious thing, that scar. Albus recognized it as a curse scar easily enough, but while the etch of it suggested Dark Magic, its size, clean lines, location, and hue didn't add up. He filed it away in his mind as a curiosity and moved on.

The young man's eyes were a sharp, vivid green. There was some truth to the saying that the eyes were the window to the soul–not in a literal sense, but the eyes were rather affected by one's magic. They could be quite revealing for those who knew what to look for. Albus had never met a powerful witch or wizard whose eyes weren't interesting.

This man's eyes were interesting. Not for their color, although that too was rare. No, it was their weight that intrigued the Headmaster. It was subtle, outshone by their aesthetic beauty and clarity, but it was there. There was an edge to those eyes that spoke of power.

But it wasn't the power that drew his interest either; not entirely, at least. The kind of power that came with being in tune with one's magic to that degree, while rare, wasn't unheard of, even in the young. There were even a few attending Hogwarts, chief among them Bellatrix Black, with her striking violet eyes.

Interesting eyes, indeed.

More interesting than the power was that it was subtle. That deliberate subtlety spoke of control. Power was one thing. Power and control, another.

The shop around them seem to become less real as Ollivander handed Gilderoy a wand with a satisfied look that meant the boy's ordeal was over. Albus understood that this moment, this first meeting between wizard and wand was not his to experience through Garrick.

"Nine inches, cherry and dragon heartstring," Ollivander intoned, a reverence to his introduction as a rainbow of sparks spiraled from the wand. "Slightly bendy. Good for delicate charmswork."

"Dragon?" Gilderoy said, a wide grin crossing his face at the thought. He was obviously pleased by the core of his focus.

Albus frowned as the boy's mother settled the purchase with Ollivander, his attention on the green-eyed enigma, those interesting eyes having fallen upon the boy enthusiastically waving his new wand, throwing showers of multi-colored sparks around.

A hard expression had flickered across the stranger's face as he looked upon young Gilderoy's joy. Something about it unsettled the Headmaster.

The Lockharts left the shop after paying six Galleons and change, never once looking directly at the man or even seeming to notice that he was there. It was a good use of charms, nothing fancy or overboard. He knew how to stay unnoticed.

"Now, I don't believe we've met before," Ollivander said, giving the man his full attention for first time. The stranger seemed to find that amusing, his lip curling into a wry smile. "Welcome to my shop. What is it that you find yourself in need of, Mr…" the wandmaker trailed off leadingly.

"Harry," the young man introduced himself simply. "I happen to be looking for a wand. This seemed like the place to find one."

"Indeed! But the question is, is a wand looking for you?"

"I should hope so. And if it's not, that just means I have the element of surprise."

Ollivander seemed delighted by the banter. It was rare for anyone to play along with him.

"I'm guessing this won't be your first wand," Ollivander said, a tap of his wand sending the tape measure flying at 'Harry'.

Harry snatched the measuring tape out of the air as a zipped uncomfortably close to his head, glaring at it reproachfully. It seemed to shrink into itself, almost in apology, and then it was let go. The tape continued measuring, but much more sedately.

"Lost that one traveling," Harry confirmed, without a hint of shame. "The core was a–"

"Stop!" Ollivander interjected suddenly. "Don't say it. Wands are like lovers, and woe befalls he who speaks fondly of one in the presence of another."

Harry frowned, but didn't speak further on it.

That didn't fit with what Albus had seen so far. A competent wizard didn't simply lose their wand, and to admit such an embarrassing lapse so candidly… no, that didn't add up. But he couldn't see any deceit in the younger man's bearing either.

Ollivander handed over a wand. "Birch and unicorn tail hair, twelve inches. Give it a swish."

Harry did, visibly without enthusiasm. The wand seemed to curl and shrink in his grasp, but it's physical shape didn't change. Albus was struck by a discordant sense of vertigo, and Ollivander snatched the wand away.

"No, too placid."

Albus turned to Garrick beside him, his eyes slightly wide in surprise. He knew what he'd just 'seen' and felt was the wandmaker's sense of compatibility between wand and wielder, the very same kind of experience that had been shielded from him when it had been young Lockhart meeting his new wand. This was why they were viewing the memory in such a deep and invasive fashion. It didn't make sense that he was here to experience the failed matches, but he'd felt the depths of Garrick's regard for the privacy of a successful match, so what was different?

"You'll know it when you see it," Garrick reassured, misinterpreting the look somewhat.

Deciding to leave it be for the moment, Albus resumed his examination, but this time with rapt attention to each new wand. While the common perception of objective reality–sights, smells, etc–was easily translatable from mind to mind, the intensely subjective way that Garrick experienced the resonance between wand and wizard was something his mind didn't have the framework to interpret so easily. It compensated by trying to express itself in a variety of ways, including emotions, physical sensations, the smell of rotten eggs and burning plastic, and a beautiful sound hovering just out of earshot.

He'd been sure that the last one was a positive sign, but the wandmaker had snatched that one back with an almost stricken look on his face.

The time Ollivander spent carefully choosing wands after every failed attempt gave Albus ample chance to study Harry's features and work out what he found so familiar about them. Even with his prodigious skill in Occlumency it took a few minutes to work it out.

Harry bore a rather strong resemblance to Cygnus Black.

Not the living Cygnus Black, but his grandfather and namesake. The man had been too young to have attended Hogwarts with Albus and too old to have been his pupil, so it had taken a while to dredge up his face from memory. Now that he had made the connection, he saw that many of the young man's features were similar to Cygnus's grandson attending Hogwarts, James Potter.

James Potter, who had inherited a good deal of his maternal grandfather's looks, did not resemble Cygnus as strongly as this Harry did. In James's case, the angular features had been softened by Charlus Potter's more gentle, rounded looks. Even with that in mind, Albus would wager if Harry were to copy the faux-casual windswept hairstyle that James favored and those overly large glasses that would be enough to make their resemblance unmistakable. With nothing on or around his face to soften his features or distract from his eerie eyes, it was more difficult to see that they shared a grandfather.

More likely a great-grandfather in this one's case, Albus guessed after running the dates in his head. He thought idly of how he might confirm his theory as he felt a snickering warmth wash over him, courtesy of a feisty Hungarian Horntail heartstring. He'd never known that warmth could snicker, and found it quite novel. And a bit dizzying, for some reason.

Ollivander seemed to ponder this wand more deeply than the others before taking it back, almost reluctantly. Harry's lips had curled into a half-smile bordering on a smirk upon hearing what the wand was made of, so with that and the sense of near-compatibility Albus guessed that might have been close to his previous wand, though he didn't seem disappointed when Ollivander set it aside, muttering to himself.

Albus felt more than saw Garrick shift beside him as the memory of the wandmaker disappeared into the backroom. He recognized the sense of anticipation in his friend, and knew the next wand would be the last.

It took a few moments to realize that the thrumming energy gently building up wasn't just his own anticipation. It permeated the air, building in intensity as filled the room.

Harry straightened his posture unconsciously, his eyes lighting up. He too could sense what was happening in some way.

Ollivander came back into view, carrying a nondescript, dusty box. His pace was unhurried, but each step fell with a measured finality. He didn't take the wand out to hand to the young man as he had every other. He set the box on the counter, carefully removing the top and stepping back.

Harry stepped forward, gently reaching forth to grasp the wand.

The air stilled, the energy seeming to quiet in anticipation as he brought the wand up to eye level.

They belonged.

Albus knew it. He could not say how he knew but, but it was with a bone deep certainty that in that moment eclipsed everything else he knew. Every thought that tried to form in his mind was subsumed by the harmony of the wand and its Chosen.

And then the wand burst into flames that eagerly consumed Harry in an instant. Albus knew that it should have startled him, but it didn't. All was as it should be, somehow.

Harry wasn't on fire, but at the same time he was wreathed in flames, and he was flames. Wings of fire unfolded behind him, their span too large for the shop but still contained within. The flames were being blasted back, roaring in a harsh wind that wasn't there.

No, not roaring – they were singing.

Albus knew the flames weren't actually there. It was just his mind awkwardly processing a sense that it didn't understand, but the vision usurped reality in the memory to the point where he couldn't focus on what was physically there at all.

The small part of his mind that he'd sequestered for safety judged whatever was happening to be bad news, and suddenly he was back in his office, the harsh transition a painful shock to his mind. He was on his feet, a burning heat flowing through his veins and the Elder Wand purring in his hand.

Fawkes was gliding through the air, trilling the same song as the flames, continuing their melody unbroken. The sound was as soothing as ever, but it was ecstatic in a way that Albus had never experienced before.

The Headmaster tried to level a glare at his old friend, but still under the effects of the Phoenix Song it was all he could do just to keep from smiling.

"I would have liked some warning," he admonished, sitting back down. Garrick wasn't some wet behind the ears fool. He should have known better than to share such a thing without being more cautious.

"It wasn't nearly that intense," Garrick protested, amazement coloring his voice. "Not by a long shot." He eyed Fawkes speculatively for a moment. "I think that was your bond with Fawkes, allowing us to more deeply perceive the event. Some kind of non-temporal resonance?"

"Resonance?" It only took a moment for Albus to catch on. "That wand…"

"Eleven inches, holly and phoenix feather," Garrick confirmed.

Albus steepled his fingers in front of his face, eyes narrowing.

Fawkes trilled, happily ruining the gravity of the moment. It was rather difficult to maintain an ominous state of mind with a phoenix in the room.

"I trust there is no more need to feel the memory?" Albus inquired. He'd aborted the viewing before it had run its course, but he was wary diving back in. The mind was not a place to experiment with new phenomenon so casually.

"That is correct."

Albus was relieved. Witnessing that kind of event through the Wandmaker's mind was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity, but it seemed prudent to limit it to just that once. He dipped a finger into the pensieve again, falling into just the shallow copy of the memory this time. Garrick didn't follow him in this time.

It was more faded, more stale – and most importantly far less likely to burst into mind-warping flames.

The Ollivander in the memory placed the box with the wand on the counter again. Although Albus felt a slight sense of anticipation, the bone-deep certainty of an impending match was nowhere to be found, even though he knew what was about to happen.

Harry picked up the wand, and Albus felt an acute sense of loss at the lack of immolation. The bonding had seared itself into his mind, and it seemed so wrong not to feel it this time.

A light, almost imperceptible breeze ruffled the young man's cloak as he smiled at the wand in his hand. His expression was gentle, almost reverent, and it wiped years off his face.

Albus found himself revising his estimate of the young man's age downwards significantly. Relaxed, Harry seemed like he wouldn't be out of place among the older Hogwarts students.

"Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches…" Ollivander said, his eyes locked on the wand. "Curious," he murmured.

"Curious?"

Ollivander blinked. "Ah, I just had you pegged for dragon heartstring," he deflected.

Harry grinned wryly, twirling the holly wand deftly between his fingers. "I've got a habit of defying expectations."

There was something familiar nagging at Albus that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"I don't doubt it." Ollivander smiled knowingly, his eyes drifting back to the wand. "That'll be 13 Galleons, 7 Sickles."

"What?!" Harry glared at Ollivander. "That's ridiculous. It can't be that expensive," he asserted indignantly.

Curiously, he had unconsciously shifted his wand from a regular grip to a rather unusual one; the handle was between his index and middle fingers. It was an old-fashioned example of pureblood etiquette that had been considered stuffy and dated even when Albus had been young. Holding a wand like that was supposed to indicate that one wasn't intending to cast anything. In this context it was as if Harry was assuring the wandmaker that he wasn't going to cast in anger.

The young man had done it without thinking, not to make a statement.

"Phoenix feathers don't grow on trees," Ollivander scoffed. "They can't be harvested like dragon heartstring or unicorn tail hairs – they have to be given freely. Phoenixes are rare, and rarely gift their feathers. 13 Galleons is a bargain, and one I wouldn't give if I weren't devoted to my craft. I could have easily sold the feather to a Potions Master for twice that."

Harry frowned, spinning the wand around his fingers in what Albus recognized was a subconscious response to irritation. A habit that showcased hundreds of hours of dexterity practice for delicate wand control.

A hauntingly familiar habit, shared by only one other person Albus had known; Tom Riddle.

It wasn't nearly so obvious as his resemblance to Cygnus Black, but Albus could see Tom Riddle in Harry's features now that he was looking for it.

It wasn't damning evidence of a connection, and Albus could probably have dismissed as mere coincidence were it not for the wand. Shared habits, similar features, and sibling wands were too many coincidences to ignore.

"Fine," Harry groused, counting out the coins. "Would you like an arm and a leg with that?"

The memory ended, the shop fading from view. The transition back to the office was smooth this time.

"Thank you for bringing that to my attention," Albus said pensively. "It's given me much to think on." Garrick nodded, getting up to leave. "One last thing. Was it like that with Tom?"

"No. Tom's match was indeed strong, but I've never felt anything quite like this before. It's not just a matter of compatibility. There was something fundamentally different going on."

The fireplace flared to life again, Alastor Moody's scarred face appearing in the flames.

"Albus, there's a situation at the Ministry, and everyone in charge has their head stuffed up someone else's arse, as usual." He disappeared without sparing Ollivander even a glance.

Albus took a deep breath, rubbing his temples soothingly.

"This is what I get for complaining about my paperwork."

Fawkes trilled smugly.

AN:

If you're comparing the way that Albus thinks about and treats the mind to the way Harry does and finding the difference jarring… good.

Some of you may be wondering exactly how this take on pensieves ties in with what happened in Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix.

Diving into another's mind and memories is treated rather casually in the HP-verse, all things considered. But even with the more conservative nature of pensieves in canon, I don't believe that Harry actually ever stumbled into them by chance or accident. That's far too hamfisted a plot device for me to accept, and it doesn't fit with any characterizations of Dumbledore or Snape that I find consistent with canon.

On Harry's appearance… I know I came down rather heavy-handed there. JKR is really fond of generational parallels, so I didn't want to just hand-wave the resemblance to James away, or leave it in the air for some character to be like 'hey, it's weird that he looks like a Potter...' somewhere down the road. Personally, I think there's a huge amount of cognitive bias with regards to Harry looking 'just like James'. I could keep ranting on the issue, but I suspect the only person who'd find it interesting is me.

So… the 'Harry looks like Tom Riddle' bit. The diary horcrux notes that he and Harry "even look something alike…" in the Chamber of Secrets, which I thought could be interesting. But Dumbledore is giving their physical similarity more significance than he should because he's consciously and subconsciously picking up on their shared mannerisms. In canon that he kept a close, critical eye on Riddle during his Hogwarts years, so he's got plenty of ammunition there.

As to how that'll play out… you'll just have to wait and see.

Ollivander only works with three cores in canon, the ones he considers to be the Supreme Cores. I couldn't see Phoenix feathers as being on quite the same level of Unicorn hairs. There are only two phoenixes that are explicitly known to be 'domesticated', and Fawkes only gave two feathers. And the language in the Philosopher's Stone is very specific – Fawkes gave the feathers. Dragon organs aren't so difficult to get ahold of – apparently their liver is considered to be expensive at just 17 sickles an ounce! That doesn't speak to there being a scarcity of such things. And Ollivander apparently goes out and plucks unicorn hair, which go for 10 galleons each (according to Slughorn). So yeah, I don't think all wands are priced the same. And for the purposes of this story, Harry got a 'Defeated a Dark Lord' discount in canon.