Introductions

Paul had been in the Leaky, having a pint with an old mate who believed tea time was the perfect time for a pint instead of Earl Grey. It had been an hour of good conversation and a few laughs, and now it was time to head back to Ollivanders. He noticed that Slugs and Jiggers was open again, and it appeared to look not as dark and foreboding as it had when Lorcan D'Eath had had it. He had heard that D'Eath had moved on from the shop into the more lucrative illegals potions, but he didn't know if that was true. It wouldn't have surprised Paul. D'Eath had been even more unsettling than the usual half vampire could be. Surely whoever owned Slugs and Jiggers now had to be a step up.

As he neared the apothecary, he heard the chap who owned the cauldron shop shouting insults across Diagon Alley towards whoever it was that owned Slugs and Jiggers. He had needed to stop in anyway. He had a wand to repair that, for some odd reason had some fairy wings in the core. He didn't usually stock fairy wings because he rarely used them.

He stopped in front of the doorway of Slugs and Jiggers and glanced at the cauldron shop owner who was still hurling curse words and insults towards the shop owner. Doyle--that was the name Paul caught in between all the negative words. Surely this Doyle fellow wasn't that bad.

He made his way into the apothecary anyway choosing to ignore the bellowing in the street. Inside, the apothecary shelves were loaded with hundreds of jars of things. He sighed. All he had do to was find the one jar that had fairy wings. He considered using an accio spell, but if there were any jars in front of it, then he'd surely knock things off shelves, cause breakage, and then he would find out exactly how well tempered or not this Doyle fellow was.

He didn't see anyone, but if Doyle's workbench was in the back like D'Eath's had been, then Doyle might be in the back working. Perhaps.Or perhaps he was just in amongst the shelves where Paul hadn't seen him.

"Hello?" Paul called.

Paul hadn't heard a bloody thing, and all of a sudden some nutter had a wand in his face. Well, Paul had come to London looking for a life a bit out of the ordinary it had always been. This would make him rethink making such wishes. Maybe he hadn't known exactly what he was taking about when he'd made that wish. Who was this loon, anyway? Paul stood completely still and after a moment, the man let him go. He was glad he hadn't brought Maisy, his white Pyrenees. Maisy had come from parentage that included an average size mother and an enormous (even by Pyrenees' averages) father. She was quite large, and normally docile, but she did not like strangers and tended to be very protective of Paul. He was imaging Maisy taking a large chunk out of whoever was currently holding him hostage.

He stood completely still and said absolutely nothing, figuring that when someone had a wand in one's face, it was surely their right to determine the next move. He had told him to get out of the store but then had him hostage. Bloody brilliant. Wait. The man had called it "my store." Well, didn't that make it even better, then? Held hostage by the store owner for reasons unknown. He was going to make a mental note to go see the bloke who made all those tricky potions they used in St. Mungos and see if he could get his fairy wings there from now on, he decided. This man was clearly a nut.

And then, just as quickly as it had started it was over and the owner was now acting as friendly as he had been hostile. Paul listened as the store owner gave him some cockamamie line about rodents and then welcomed him as if nothing had had happened.

"Rodents, eh?" Paul deadpanned, not believing a syllable of it. "Too bad. For a moment I was hoping you were the one who gave old Blotter a bit of whatfor. He's been needing a bit of his own back for at least a year. And here I was hoping for a satisfying account of how it was done. But since it wasn't you..." he let his voice trail off deliberately and pointedly, to let the  this shopkeeper know Paul knew the "rodent" excuse was pitifully lame.

He was about to tell the owner what he had come for when he heard all sorts of wand fire from the cauldron shop, and he couldn't resist looking out the window to see a strangely misshapen cauldron growling and screaming and racing out of the shop into the street. He frowned and thought he saw the cauldron had the face of a badger.

"Go on with ya, then!" Blotter shouted at the cauldron, trying to fire at it and missing.

"Well, that's not something you see every day," Paul said, as the badger took off after what looked to be most likely a truant Hogwarts student, chasing the youth in circles in the street. "Your work? Or did Blotter cast some sort of wonky business?"  He aimed his wand through the window, hoping to not miss and hit the youth, and fired.

"Immobulus!" he fired, wondering if the cauldron qualified enough as living that it might be affected by the spell. The cauldron was leaping in mid air to try to bite the youth and it froze and hit the brick street with a bang, rolled around for a moment and then fell motionless and silent, as a small crowd started to gather, notably at a safe distance from the thing.

"Well, that'll keep it a moment," Paul said. "Seems one of us has a new pet. Yours or mine? You need a watch cauldron, Mate?" He sized up the potions maker and added, "Perhaps I should introduce myself. I'm Paul Ackerman, owner of Ollivander's. I need fairy wings--quite a few of the larger size wings if you have them because I need to replace a wand core, and I need them as soon as I can get them."

"I know more about your neighbor than he knows I know," Paul said disdainfully. "If you're ever tempted to buy a cauldron from him or nick one from him? Don't. Do yourself a huge favor. They're dangerous. He doesn't know I saw him but, before fall term began, just before students came to buy their supplies, I was stepping out back behind my shop, walking my dog, and I saw old Blotter meeting with some really scurvy looking chap who had a big cartload of number 2 cauldrons. I heard them talking. Blotter bought that great load of number 2's on the cheap because they're not solid cast iron. They're just pig iron. He bought them for next to nothing and sold them at standard price and, I'm sure, made a huge profit off of innocent first years and their families.

"But you and I both know what will happen if they try to push those cauldrons up to a high temperature or if they put something volatile in those things. The cauldrons will explode and could easily kill somebody because of how brittle and useless pig iron is. I've tried to get in touch with the new headmaster at the school, but I never have heard a bloody thing back. And I honestly don't know who else is there anymore that might be in a position to do something. I tried to go to the ministry but some young clerk who looked like he was twelve just blew me off and sent me on my way. Don't think I haven't been tempted to go in some night and blow up each one of the number 2's Blotter has left. I did send another owl to that headmaster, hoping he'll find at least one of them."  He listened as Doyle continued to familiarize himself.

"Doyle. Or Horse's Arse. I presume that depends on what mood we're both in? I can do that," Paul cast him a mischievous smile. He always brightened seeing one of Ollivander's wands, and this time was no exception. "Garrick Ollivander was one of the finest men I have ever known," Paul said, taking Doyle's wand and holding it in his hand for a moment, always a bit in awe of seeing Garrick Ollivander's special pieces. "Cedar--so the wand believes that you're perceptive and quick witted. Hmm...the same man who thought I was crotchety old Blotter. I don't know..." He let his voice trail off, with a bit of a playful smirk. "The wand will have to do better than that." He examined both ends of the wand and inspected it. "Veela," he said. "So, veela hair tells me either you're well known for your social prowess and your flowing, cordial social skills, or you're narcissist. Which do you think?" He really did like this guy. He could see them becoming friends--odd friends, but friends, nonetheless. "It's a really great wand. Well balanced, and it has quite a lot of energy, snappy. It likely fires well and very quickly." He handed it back to Doyle. "And if the wand has picked well, you know how to fire it just as quickly as it can respond. It should help you to be a formidible opponent, and somehow, I don't doubt that."

"Blotter has trouble with his spells, I believe, because I've seen his wand. Chimera scales--bloody unstable things, and they're crappy wand cores because they can't be trusted. And it has a bit of acromantula web, meaning he's a greater lover of dark magic than he wants to appear. So you can make out of that what you want," Paul said. "Frankly, I'd be happy if he took his dark, untrustworthy self and go elsewhere far away from Diagon Alley," he said, not questioning Doyle's price. He liked the quality of the fairy wings, and he needed to get the wand repaired quickly, so he handed Doyle the twelve galleons.

"No, no basilisk. I left that in my gran's basement," Paul teased. "I apprenticed for awhile under Ollivander while I was a student, and then I traveled. I like watchmaking, alchemy, and making magical artifacts. No steady girl, not yet." He wasn't telling this new guy everything. "And my current house mate is a very large Great Pyranees dog named Maisy. Other than that, there's not much to tell, I don't think. What about you? Long list of broken hearts in your wake? Secret swiss bank account? I know, priceless art collection in the vault, right?"