Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past

"I took the liberty of compiling a list of discrete removal specialists from Knockturn Alley."

My kind of goblin.

So I was right about the goblins' appreciation for the art of revenge. One should be leery about accepting an invitation to a wine-tasting from one of them, especially amontillado...

It's interesting that, in some ways, Harry is able to show more of his true self to Goldfarb than to his friends; Goldfarb, after all, is extremely close-mouthed about his clients' affairs, and doesn't have to spend several hours a week face to face with Severus Snape. That name keeps jumping out at me, though -- my parents' next-door neighbors are named Goldfarb, and given that the goblins in canon already come off a bit like an anti-Semitic caricature of Jewish bankers, giving one a patently Jewish name is a bit off.

Oh, so Rita's sniffing around? Can't wait to see Harry use some of his verbal jujitsu on her. Given what he knows about her, she could become a useful tool, actually -- Hermione certainly got some good mileage out of knowing what Rita is, and I suspect this version of Harry could do even better.

"Yes, I know JKR said that Ollivander only makes wands with Dragon Heartstring, Unicorn Hair, or Phoenix Feather cores. Given the rarity of Phoenixes, and the number of combinations involved, it seems rather limited in terms of ‘every wizard needs to find the wand that fits them’. Two or three, multiplied by a couple dozen varieties of wood, would hardly fill a shop. It wouldn’t be the first time that the numbers don’t seem to support the story."

I don't think it's ever been suggested that each combination of wood and core is unique to a single wand; I think it makes a difference *which* dragon, phoenix, or unicorn provided the core, especially given what we know about the relationship between Harry's wand and Voldemort's. So there could be other phoenix-and-holly wands out there which wouldn't (or perhaps would, though it's doubtful seeing as Harry's wand apparently chose him *because* of his connection to Voldemort) have fitted Harry.

Even if every wand is unique, there are two more variables: length and flexibility. Length is technically a continuous variable, but even if we limit it to quarter inch units, we've seen wands from seven inches to sixteen, and those might not be the actual limits. Given the number of adjectives we've heard Ollivander use for flexibility, that probably adds another multiple of ten or twelve at least, which gets us well up into the five figure range: three cores times twenty-four woods (and I think two dozen is a conservative estimate, frankly) times thirty-six lengths (quarter-inch increments from seven to sixteen) times ten gradations of flexibility would give us 25,920 possible wands; Ollivander would have to produce one wand a day for seventy-one years to exhaust the possibilities.

"I don’t think Merged Harry will have any doubts about who he wants to take to the Yule ball. I don’t imagine him putting up with a lot of nonsense from his friends either. Of course, you know someone or something is going to have to louse it up for everyone…"

Actually, I was kind of hoping that was one of the things that would run smoothly* this time around, like dealing with Quirrell and Dobby...

"He’s a good bit older and did a spot of wandless during the dementor attack." I wouldn't exactly call that "wandless;" what he did was light his wand while it wasn't actually in his hand. It probably helped that it was only a few inches away, and "Lumos" is a pretty elementary spell.

(I can imagine merged!Harry, in one of his more frustrated moments, quoting Mal Reynolds: "It never runs smooth! How come it never runs smooth!?)

Very good chapter.

gunny

As to the wand issue: bear in mind that every dragon, unicorn and phoenix would produce unique cores. Harry's wand would not have been brother to Voldemort's if it had not been made with a feather from Fawkes, right?

Also, you have to remember that not all wands are the same length: there appears to be some vague correlations between height and wand-length although I'd have to look up to see if anybody's studied it.

Lastly, even two wands made with the same core to the same length are being made with different and distinct pieces of wood: there is no way that any two wands are ever going to be identical.

Think of a shoe-shop which only sells hand-made shoes, but in standard sizes: even two pairs which were nominally the same size would actually be slightly different.

Your flashbacks to the future/past deaths of people are heartbreaking.

Fabulous tale.

Interesting chapter.
One thing, you forgot that the length of the wand has to be taken into account as well. While it may not get things close enough, it would be closer to believable.

I have to admit, I think that you don't have to posit a wand trade. Mainly because you're not factoring in a couple things. For one thing, I think that you have to factor in differences in species. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of dragon species. So that's not one core item, that's as many core items as there are species of dragons, at minimum in Britain. Then there's the question of different genders having different characteristics. That also effectively doubles the numbers. Then there are the differing lengths of wand. So, that's (to give some sort of hard numbers to this) say, twenty dragon heartstrings, (ten species available, two genders) two unicorn hairs and two phoenix feathers. That's twenty-four cores. Assume twenty-four wood types and you have 576 wands. Add in the factor of wand length, you'll recall that Ollivander mentions wand length as well as the materials, you have 3,456 wands without any duplication yet.

However, I also have to wonder about the craftsman's aspect. As I suggested, different genders probably affect the whole, but I also expect that different individual animals would have a different effect, even within a species. No two individuals of any species are exactly alike, that too could affect the matter. And once you have that, the possibilities become too numerous to count.

I would like to add that, although I did note that you want your reviews to come in at your Yahoo Group, I am a terrible feedbacker generally and I would wind up joining the group for no real save this one review. So if someone's already flogged this point to death I apologise, but I felt the need to respond to this note.

The chapters are to short.

I'm about to fall asleep, but one more chapter won't hurt. I can stop anytime. I'm not addicted to your story. (I'm on the 10 chapter program.)