You Were Asked to Learn Magic, and You're Treating Wandless Spellcasting Like a Machine Gun
Novel Summary
Cassius Malfoy, Draco's fraternal twin brother.
Compared to his brother's timidity and arrogance, Cassius was a complete oddball.
As a transmigrator, having two souls grants him magical power as turbulent as a tsunami. A wand? That kind of wooden stick that breaks at the slightest touch would only limit his attack frequency!
The Sorting Hat had barely touched him when it was scalded by the immense magical energy and screamed, "Slytherin! Get him to Slytherin! Don't let him blow up the Great Hall!"
Thus, Hogwarts welcomed its most volatile Slytherin in history.
In Charms class, Professor Flitwick taught the Levitation Charm. Cassius snapped his fingers, and all the tables and chairs in the entire castle shot into the air.
In Defense Against the Dark Arts class, facing Boggart, Cassius didn't even draw his wand, but instead unleashed a massive, wandless punch that physically disintegrated Boggart!
Draco being bullied by Harry Potter? Cassius sneered, blocking the entrance to the Gryffindor common room all by himself, his fingertips flashing with magic: "I heard you want to spar with my brother? Come on, take this instant-cast, rapid-fire version of Wandless Divine Edge!"
When Voldemort and his Death Eaters surrounded Hogwarts, preparing to deliver his villainous speech.
Cassius cracked his neck, his eyes surging with magic, and charged into the enemy ranks like a human nuclear bomb: "Enough with the nonsense, take this Great Wilderness Meteor Strike!"
Voldemort, watching the Death Eaters swarming through the air, fell into deep self-doubt: Who, really, is the Dark Lord?!
Chapter 1: Cassius Malfoy
The underground training room in Malfoy Manor was as large as half a Quidditch Pitch.
The four walls were embedded with ancient defensive arrays, every line traced in refined gold—the accumulation of three generations of the House of Malfoy.
In the center of the training room, an eight-year-old blonde boy held his wand, drenched in sweat.
Draco Malfoy.
His wrist trembled, his lips moved three times, and finally, he recited the incantation.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
The tip of his wand flashed.
The feather on the table remained motionless.
Lucius stood two steps away, tapping his cane against the floor, his voice cold enough to freeze.
"You have been practicing for three whole weeks, Draco. Three weeks."
Draco's face flushed red. He tried again, his wand movement awkward and crooked; the feather slid two inches across the table and then stopped.
"The eldest son of Malfoy Family, unable to even perform a simple Levitation Charm." Lucius's cane tapped the floor again. "You disappoint me greatly."
Draco bit his lip and said nothing, his eyes already beginning to redden.
In the corner of the training room, another blonde boy was leaning against the wall, yawning.
Cassius Malfoy. Draco's fraternal twin brother.
The two shared a sixty or seventy percent resemblance in their features, but their temperaments were completely different. Draco was as delicate as a porcelain doll, while between Cassius's brows lay an indescribable sharpness; even huddled in the corner, he was like an unsheathed blade.
He was boredly flipping through a copy of 'Introduction to Spells', closing it after reaching the third page.
Too backward.
In his previous life, he had been a hardcore fan who had finished the entire Harry Potter series and films, and he had been transmigrated into this world for eight years. Eight years was enough for him to see through everything the Wizarding World had to offer.
A wooden stick as a medium, reciting a long string of Latin as a trigger, flicking the wrist as a casting action—the efficiency of this system was maddeningly low.
It was like having a cannon in your hand, but having to load the gunpowder, insert the shell, light the fuse, and finally aim.
Troublesome.
Too troublesome.
"Cassius."
Lucius's voice came over, carrying obvious impatience.
"Do not loaf about there. Come here and demonstrate your progress."
Cassius tossed the book aside and slowly stood up.
Draco quietly retreated to the side, secretly wiping the corner of his eye with his sleeve.
Cassius walked to the center of the training room, hands in his pockets, looking at the pitiful feather on the table.
"Just make it float?"
"Yes." Lucius's expression spelled out four words—do not disappoint me.
Cassius did not take his wand.
His wand was still gathering dust in his bedroom drawer. That holly practice wand had cracked in three places the first time he used it, and now it could only be used as a bookmark.
He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.
Somewhere inside his body, it was as if a switch had been activated by this action.
That was the thing existing in the deepest part of his soul—the intersection of two souls. The soul from his previous life and the soul of this life had been welded together the moment he transmigrated, forming an eternal furnace.
[Soul Furnace].
It began to operate.
It was not a slow start, but an instantaneous operation at full capacity.
A dull humming sound emanated from Cassius's body, like a large-displacement engine suddenly igniting.
The air in the training room froze at that moment.
And then—
Deep blue magic surged out from Cassius's entire body.
Not a wisp, not a thread, but vast sheets of blue light, so intense it almost became physical, forming a churning storm of magic around him.
The impatience on Lucius's face vanished.
Replaced by an expression he himself did not notice.
Fear.
The defensive arrays on the walls began to flicker violently, the golden lines appearing as if overloaded with electrical current, emitting a piercing hum.
One second.
Two seconds.
"Crack—"
The array patterns on the entire wall shattered simultaneously, golden powder falling like snowflakes.
That defensive wall, which had withstood countless high-level spell tests, could not even last two seconds against the overflow of Cassius's magic.
But it was not over yet.
Cassius's snap had a clear target—he was looking at that feather.
However, his magic did not care about any "precise control." It was too much, too fierce, like using a fire hose to water a flower.
The feather was vaporized instantly.
The table was sent flying to the ceiling the next moment.
The two-man-tall bronze target in the center of the training room—a military-grade test target Lucius had spent eight hundred Galleons to buy from Borgin and Bole—was gripped by an invisible, immense force.
The metal let out a painful shriek.
The bronze target was crumpled like a piece of waste paper, shrinking into a fist-sized metal ball that hit the ground with a "clang" and rolled twice.
The training room went quiet.
Lucius's snake-headed cane slipped from his hand, hitting the stone floor with a "clatter."
He stared at his youngest son, his mouth agape, forgetting to close it.
Draco was already sitting on the floor. Not from being scared—his legs had simply given out.
Cassius retracted his magic.
The blue light instantly dissipated, and the training room returned to its normal temperature and air pressure.
He looked at the debris of the arrays and the scrap metal on the floor, curling his lip.
"Father."
Lucius snapped out of it, swallowing hard.
"These defensive arrays are too brittle," Cassius said. "Get something sturdier next time."
The study of Malfoy Manor.
The fire in the fireplace burned brightly, illuminating the long bill in Lucius's hand.
Array repair costs: 1,200 Galleons.
Bronze target damage compensation: 800 Galleons.
Training room wall reinforcement: 600 Galleons.
Total: 2,600 Galleons.
The cost of an eight-year-old child snapping his fingers.
Lucius put down the bill, leaned back into his chair, and stared at the House of Malfoy crest above the fireplace, lost in thought for a long time.
He did not care about the money. The Malfoy Family vault was stacked to the seventh underground level of Gringotts; this expense was not even a fraction of a percent.
He was thinking about something else.
Cassius's magical reserves already exceeded those of the vast majority of adult Wizards.
It was not at the level of an "excellent child."
It was at the level of "beyond common sense."
And that magic possessed an extremely rare quality—violence.
An ordinary Wizard's magic was like a stream: gentle, controllable, and capable of being precisely guided through a wand. Cassius's magic was like magma: scorching, surging, and filled with destructiveness; any container attempting to restrain it would be burned through.
Lucius thought of one person.
The Dark Lord.
The Dark Lord in his youth was said to have possessed magic far exceeding his peers. But even the Dark Lord, at eight years old, could not have crushed a military-grade bronze target from a distance.
"My son..."
Lucius picked up the whiskey on the table and downed it in one gulp.
The corners of his mouth curled up behind the rim of the glass.
It was not fear.
It was ecstasy.
Chapter 2: The Acceptance Letter
At the same time, in the manor's back garden.
Draco was riding a children's broomstick, flying low among the flowerbeds, pretending to be the most dazzling Seeker on the Quidditch Pitch.
"Look! Draco Malfoy catches the Golden Snitch with a beautiful dive! Slytherin wins!" he commentated for himself, flying unsteadily.
The broom was less than a meter off the ground, and its speed was barely faster than walking, but Draco was having a great time.
Behind the low bushes, something was moving.
Draco didn't notice.
He was pulling his broom into a sharp turn—or more accurately, a failed sharp turn—nearly crashing into a neatly trimmed holly tree.
Just then, the bushes exploded outward.
An Erumpent cub charged out from the shrubbery.
It was only the size of a small calf, but the sharp horn on its head was already fully grown, gleaming with a cold metallic luster under the sun. The cub's eyes were bloodshot and red, and white foam dripped from the corners of its mouth—typical symptoms of an Erumpent's frenzy.
It was unclear if it was someone's lost pet or a wild individual that had escaped from the Forbidden Forest.
The Erumpent spotted Draco.
It lowered its head and aimed straight for Draco's direction.
"Ah—!"
Draco fell off his broom and landed on his backside, grimacing in pain. He tried to run, but his right foot was caught in the broom's footrest.
The Erumpent let out a short roar, its hooves pawing the ground as it charged toward Draco.
The manor's House-elf, Dobby, was trimming the lawn not far away. Hearing Draco's scream, he dropped his shears and ran toward them.
But Dobby's short legs couldn't outrun an Erumpent.
The distance was too great.
There wasn't enough time.
Draco stared at the approaching horn, his mind going completely blank.
There was the sound of wind overhead.
It wasn't a breeze. It was the sound of air tearing as a heavy object fell at high speed.
Cassius jumped down from the second-floor balcony.
Without hesitation or a running start, he vaulted over the railing and fell vertically. The height from the second floor to the ground was over four meters; any ordinary eight-year-old would have broken their legs.
But Cassius was no ordinary child.
As he fell, his right leg was wrapped in a dense layer of blue magic. It wasn't a flashy light effect, just a thin layer clinging tightly to his skin and bone, turning his entire leg into a tempered iron stake.
A second before the Erumpent reached Draco, Cassiuslanded.
To be precise—he landed on the Erumpent's back.
With one foot.
His entire body weight plus the potential energy of a four-meter fall, further augmented by magical reinforcement.
The Erumpent didn't even have time to scream. Its spine collapsed instantly under the kick, its four legs snapped outward, and its entire body was stomped into the soft soil of the flowerbed, creating a crater two meters in diameter.
Soil splashed three meters high.
Cassius stood on the Erumpent's back, the soles of his shoes still sunken into the thick, leathery hide.
The Erumpent's eyes rolled back. It fell unconscious on the spot.
Dobby ran up and saw this scene, the shears in his hands falling to the ground with a "clatter." The House-elf's tennis-ball-sized eyes widened to their limit, and his entire body shook like a leaf.
Cassius jumped down from the beast's back and brushed the dirt off his trouser legs.
He walked up to Draco and reached out a hand.
Draco stared blankly at his younger brother, his brain not yet recovered from the images he had just witnessed.
Cassius grabbed his arm and pulled him up with a single tug.
"Stand up straight, Draco."
He helped his brother brush the grass clippings off his robes, his voice flat, as if he were merely commenting on the nice weather.
"A member of Malfoy Family shouldn't be sitting on the ground."
Draco opened his mouth, wanting to say thank you, and wanting to ask if he was crazy for jumping from the second floor, but in the end, nothing came out. He simply nodded vigorously.
Dobby edged over trembling, looking at the unconscious Erumpent in the pit and then at the expressionless Cassius, nearly bursting into tears.
"Young... young master... Dobby... Dobby will go call someone to handle this..."
"No need to call anyone," Cassius glanced at the Erumpent. "Tell the kitchen we're having an extra dish tonight."
Dobby's lips quivered for a long time before he finally nodded obediently.
From that day on, all the House-elves at Malfoy Manorreached a consensus:
The eldest young master, Draco, was a timid but relatively easy master to serve.
The younger master, Cassius, was a dragon in human skin.
Three years passed, neither long nor short.
For Cassius, these three years were mainly spent doing three things:
First, he blew up the manor's underground training room seven times, replaced the magic circles four times, and upgraded the defense level from "household" to "vault-grade."
Second, he scoured every book on Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts in the Malfoy Family library. It wasn't to learn the tedious casting steps, but to extract the core logic of every spell—the path of magic flow, the method of action, and the principles of destruction.
That was all he needed.
With the principles understood, his [Soul Furnace] could bypass Wands and incantations, directly shaping magic into the corresponding effect.
It was like not needing to know the chemical composition of a bullet; you just had to pull the trigger.
Third, Draco had been beaten by him fourteen times during these three years.
Every time was because Draco's loose tongue provoked someone he shouldn't have, and then Cassius would clean up the mess for him and give him a lecture afterward.
The method of education was simple—a flick to the forehead.
Draco constantly had a red mark on his forehead.
—
On the day of their eleventh birthday.
At the breakfast table, two grey owls flew in through the dining room window, each carrying a thick parchment envelope in its beak.
The recipient's name was written in emerald green ink on the envelope, and the back bore the Hogwarts wax seal.
Draco snatched his own, his hands shaking as he tore it open.
"I got it! Cassius, I received my acceptance letter!"
He held the letter over his head and spun around the dining room twice, nearly knocking over the juice pitcher.
Cassius's movements to open his letter were much slower. He pulled out the parchment and read it line by line.
The acceptance letter.
Enrollment instructions.
Then the supply list.
the standard book of spells, Grade 1 by Miranda Goshawk.
One standard size 2 Pewter Cauldron.
One set of glass or crystal phials.
One set of Brass Scales.
A Wand.
...
Cassius flipped the list over and over twice, his brow furrowing deeper and deeper.
"What's wrong?" Narcissa, sitting opposite him, put down her teacup and looked at her younger son with concern.
"The equipment is too sparse."
Cassius slapped the list onto the table.
"Cauldrons, scales, phials—these are all experimental equipment. Where's the self-defense gear? Where's the emergency supplies? There isn't even a single piece of armor."
Narcissa was amused by her son's wording.
"Honey, you're going to school, not to war."
Cassius didn't smile.
Chapter 3: Diagon Alley
He knew very well that Hogwarts was no ivory tower.
The Chamber of Secrets, Dementors, the Triwizard Tournament, the return of Lord Voldemort—ever since his first year, that school had people dying or nearly dying every single year.
In a place like that, you want him to bring a cauldron and a set of glass vials?
Cassius glanced at the crooked handwriting on the supply list and flipped it over.
The back was blank.
He took out a quill and began writing his own list on the blank side.
Lucius sat at the head of the long table, his snake-headed walking stick resting beside his chair. He watched his younger son's battle-array posture, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
"A wand is a Wizard's best weapon, Cassius." Lucius's voice was unhurried, carrying the certainty typical of a pure-blood family head. "The House of Malfoy does not need those crude defensive items."
"A wand."
Cassius put down his pen and repeated the word.
He glanced at his right hand.
Since he was eight, he hadn't used a wand properly. The practice wands kept in the training room were all scrapped—his magic was too violent; it would explode the moment he poured it in, no different from pouring lava into a glass tube.
To him, a wand was not a weapon.
It was a disposable consumable.
But there was no need to argue this with his father at the dinner table.
"Fine." Cassius folded both lists and stuffed them into his pocket. "Let's go to Diagon Alley."
His expression was very calm.
Like a professional boxer being notified that he had to participate in a kindergarten gymnastics competition tomorrow.
It wasn't that he didn't want to go.
He was just thinking about how to control his strength so he wouldn't crush the equipment.
—
Diagon Alley.
Passing through the self-opening brick wall from the Leaky Cauldron, the cobblestone streets were crowded with all kinds of shops.
Shops selling cauldrons, owls, brooms, robes, and Gringotts, which always had a long line.
The air was filled with the smell of owl droppings, herbs, and caramel; it was noisy and crowded.
The Malfoy family of four walked down the street.
Lucius walked in front, his snake-headed walking stick tapping a rhythmic beat on the stone road. Narcissa held his arm, her blonde hair combed meticulously.
Draco followed closely behind his parents, his head turning left and right, finding everything fresh.
Cassius walked at the back, hands in his pockets.
He did not deliberately release his magic.
But the operation of the [Soul Furnace] was 24/7, and there was always a tiny amount of magic seeping from his body. To him, it was negligible.
To the people around him, it felt like a draft of December air suddenly blowing through a street in midsummer.
Two Wizards clinking glasses in the Leaky Cauldronsimultaneously stopped their movements.
It wasn't because of Lucius. The head of the House of Malfoy would be noticed wherever he went, but that was the awe brought by fame.
This was different.
This was the kind that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
An old Wizard drinking Firewhisky at the bar subconsciously blocked his granddaughter behind him. It wasn't until the blond boy's back moved away that he slowly lowered his hand.
His companion spoke in a low voice: "Lucius's youngest son?"
The old Wizard didn't answer; the hand holding the glass was still unstable.
Eleven years old.
Half a head taller than his peers, his shoulders already showing the contours only a teenager would have. The lines on his face were firmer than his brother's, and there was no expression in his gray-blue eyes.
His posture when walking wasn't like a child going to buy stationery.
It was like a beast that had just eaten its fill and was temporarily uninterested in its prey.
The nickname "Tyrannosaurus of Diagon Alley" had been circulating in the pure-blood circles for two years. The versions were diverse—some said he crushed bronze with his bare hands at eight, some said he had stomped an Erumpent to death, and some said his magic had overwhelmed an adult Auror.
Half true, half false.
But all versions pointed to the same thing.
This child was not right.
—
Madam Malkin's Robes.
The magic tape measure flew up from the counter and automatically wrapped around Cassius's shoulders.
"Sizzle—"
The tip of the tape measure was charred, emitted a wisp of white smoke, fell to the ground, twitched twice, and stopped moving.
The shop was silent for a moment.
Madam Malkin opened her mouth, dug out a most ordinary cloth tape measure from under the counter, and measured him herself.
Her fingertips paused when they touched Cassius's cuff.
"Your... body temperature is a bit high, Mr. Malfoy."
"Normal." Cassius cooperatively raised his arms. "Just measure quickly."
Draco stood on the side, covering his mouth with his robe sleeve.
He was already used to his younger brother's constitution of blowing things up wherever he went, but he still found it funny to see other people's reactions.
—
Flourish and Blotts.
Cassius pulled "the standard book of spells" from the bookshelf, flipped through three pages of the table of contents, closed it, and put it back.
Levitation Charm. Locking Charm. Alohomora. Repairing Charm.
All daily life spells.
He found a clerk, a thin, middle-aged Wizard.
"Do you have any books on high-level offensive spells or ancient combat magic systems?"
The clerk's smile froze on his face.
"Sir... are you a first-year student? That content is not on the Hogwarts book list, and some of it belongs to restricted publications..."
"Forget it."
Cassius turned and walked out.
Draco was waiting for him at the door, chewing on a toffee bought from next door.
"Finished buying?"
"They didn't have what I wanted." Cassius walked past him and said, "The courses at this school have a problem. They teach people how to make a feather float, not how to survive."
"Huh?" Draco didn't react in time. "What do you mean?"
Cassius didn't explain.
Draco chewed the toffee twice and trotted to catch up. Although he didn't quite understand what his brother said sometimes, one experience was certain—Cassius wouldn't be nervous for no reason. If he thought it was dangerous, it was truly dangerous.
This experience came from that Erumpent three years ago.
And also from the red mark on his forehead that never faded.
—
After buying the cauldron and books, Lucius said he had business in Knockturn Alley and asked Narcissa to take the two children to pick out a pet.
Draco's eyes lit up, and he pulled his mother toward the owl shop.
Cassius stood still.
"I don't keep pets."
Narcissa looked back at him.
"Then you—"
"Going to buy a wand."
His gaze fell on the street corner.
The shop's sign had faded, most of the gold paint peeled off, and only a few crooked letters could still be recognized.
Ollivander's Wand Shop.
Making fine wands since 382 BC.
A time-honored brand that had been open for over two thousand years.
Cassius walked in that direction.
His pace was neither fast nor slow.
He wanted to see what expression this old gentleman—the old man who supposedly remembered every wand he had ever sold—would have when he met a Wizard who didn't need a wand.
It should be quite interesting.
Chapter 4: Ollivander's Bad Day
Draco arrived before him.
When Cassius reached the door of the wand shop, Dracowas already standing in front of the peeling wooden door, clutching a half-eaten toffee stick.
"Mother asked me to come with you." Draco stuffed the toffee stick into his pocket. "She said if we buy two wands together, we can get a discount."
"Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions didn't even give a discount, do you think Ollivander will?"
"...Then maybe she just didn't trust me to come alone."
Cassius didn't reply and pushed the door open.
A bell chimed once. It was crisp, echoing for two seconds in the cramped space before fading.
The shop was darker than outside. Only an oil lamp burned on the counter, its flame no bigger than a thumb, but enough to illuminate the first few rows of shelves. Further back, everything was a blur—thousands of narrow boxes piled from floor to ceiling like a paper maze, each with a yellowed label and writing so small you had to lean in to read it.
There was a peculiar smell in the air. Wood, varnish, and something indefinable mixed together—Cassius identified it as likely the faint energy released by magical materials over the years, fermenting in the enclosed space.
Not unpleasant. But heavy.
Draco walked in, looking around, clearly a bit disdainful of the aged decor. He was just about to say something—
"Malfoy."
A voice came from behind the shelves.
Draco jumped.
An old man slid out from the gap between two rows of shelves—not walked, but slid. He was standing on a low rolling ladder, holding onto the edge of a shelf, appearing like a card drawn from the shadows.
Ollivander.
Older than imagined, but his eyes weren't old. Those pale eyes were like two glass marbles soaked in water, reflecting the dim light of the oil lamp with an uncomfortably intense focus.
"Lucius Malfoy's sons." The old man's voice was soft, as if talking to himself. "I remember your father's wand. Elm, dragon heartstring, eighteen inches. Excellent for Defense Against the Dark Arts—and, of course, excellent for the Dark Arts themselves."
He glanced at Cassius, who showed no reaction in the corner.
"Your mother. Walnut, Unicorn tail hair, twelve and three-quarter inches. Gentle, loyal. When your mother first waved it, a lily bloomed from the vase on the counter. Very beautiful."
After finishing, the old man's eyes held the warmth of memory.
Draco listened with some impatience. Cassius was more direct.
"Shopkeeper."
Ollivander's reminiscence was interrupted.
"Save the nostalgia for later." Cassius leaned against the counter, gesturing with his chin toward the wall-to-wall shelves behind him. "Just give me the stock that can handle the highest magic output you have."
The shop fell silent for two seconds.
Ollivander stared at Cassius for a moment, his pale eyes shifting, and the corners of his mouth slowly curved upward.
It wasn't an expression of being offended.
It was an expression of interest.
"Well then," the old man stepped down from the ladder, patting the dust off his hands, "who's first?"
"Him first." Cassius pointed at Draco.
Draco puffed out his chest, stepped forward, and struck a pose he thought best represented a pure-blood aristocrat.
Ollivander pulled a tape measure from under the counter. This tape measure was more flexible than the one at Madam Malkin's—it flew up on its own and began measuring Draco's arm length, finger span, shoulder width, and even the distance from his brow to the tip of his nose.
"Wand hand?"
"Right hand."
While watching the data returned by the tape measure, Ollivander slid into the depths of the shelves on his ladder. After a flurry of rustling, he brought out three boxes.
"Try this one. Willow, Unicorn tail hair, nine and a half inches. Good spring, suitable for delicate spells."
Draco took it, held it in his hand, and gave it a wave.
Nothing happened.
Ollivander snatched it back so quickly Draco barely had time to react.
"No. Try this one."
The second one. Oak, dragon heartstring. Draco gave it a wave, and the oil lamp on the counter went out.
Ollivander shook his head and snatched it away.
The third one. No. The fourth one. Also no.
Draco's face grew redder and redder. Things never went smoothly when he practiced at home, and now being rejected repeatedly in front of his brother was a serious blow to his pride.
Cassius leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching silently.
He had no issue with the "wand chooses the Wizard" mechanism. In principle, the wand's core and wood need to resonate with the Wizard's magic frequency, much like tuning a radio—you only get sound when the frequencies match; otherwise, it's just static.
For Draco, finding that frequency was only a matter of time.
The seventh. The eighth.
Draco's palms began to sweat.
The ninth. Birch, Phoenix feather. Draco waved it, and three boxes fell off the shelves.
Ollivander took the wand away, thought for a moment, and ducked back into the deepest part of the shelves. This time he searched for a long time, dust puffing out from the gaps, making Draco cough several times.
"Try this one."
When the old man emerged, he held a box that was older than the previous ones. The label on the lid had turned yellow and brittle.
"Hawthorn. Unicorn tail hair. Ten inches. Reasonably springy."
Ollivander lifted the lid. The wand inside was light brown with a fine grain; it didn't look flashy, but it had a steady quality to it.
Draco took it.
The moment his fingertips touched the wand, his expression changed.
It wasn't the "holding an ordinary stick" feeling from before. This time, it was as if something swam up from the depths of the core, crawling into his veins along the lines of his palm. Warm, alive.
Draco waved it instinctively.
A bright silver light burst from the tip, illuminating the entire shop. The boxes piled to the ceiling cast long shadows in the silver light, and even the oil lamp was sparked back to life by the glow.
Ollivander clapped his hands a few times.
"Excellent. Hawthorn, with a temperament, very loyal once it has recognized its master. Suitable for a Wizard who is conflicted within but steadfast in nature." He smiled, "Your wand has found you, Mr. Malfoy."
Draco's eyes lit up.
He turned the Hawthorn wand over and over in his hand, wishing he could carve his name on it. Then he turned his head and jerked his chin at Cassius.
"See that? A perfect match. Silver light on the first wave."
Cassius glanced at the ten-inch twig.
"A toothpick that would snap with one bend. What's there to show off?"
Draco's smugness was choked back.
Ollivander, however, wasn't angry. He shifted his gaze from Draco to the boy who had been leaning against the wall.
When those pale eyes refocused, they held something different.
It wasn't the look of a shopkeeper seeing a customer.
It was the look of someone seeing an unsolved problem.
"Now then," Ollivander came around from behind the counter, tape measure in hand, "let me see what kind of wand you need, young sir."
He walked toward Cassius with the tape measure.
The tape measure was automatic; it flew from Ollivander's hand and reached toward Cassius's shoulder.
Then it stopped.
It just hung in mid-air, two inches from Cassius's shoulder, motionless.
It wasn't anything Cassius did. He hadn't even raised a hand. But the magical tape measure simply didn't dare get any closer—it trembled slightly in the air, the brass buckle at the end rattling like a snake cornered by a cat.
Ollivander's pupils constricted.
He had been in the wand business for over a thousand years—or rather, his family had—and he himself had done it for most of his life. He had seen geniuses, he had seen freaks, he had seen the Dark Lord himself walk through this door at age eleven.
He knew what powerful magic felt like.
But the tape measure hadn't stopped because it felt "power."
It stopped because it felt "danger."
"Interesting." Ollivander summoned the tape measure back. He didn't try a second time but turned and walked directly into the depths of the shelves.
This time he didn't search. He went straight to the innermost row—the shelf against the wall, where the boxes were all black, looking completely out of place among the grayish-white boxes outside.
Chapter 5: Persistent Ollivander
He pulled out a black box, dusted off the lid, and walked back.
"Ebony."
Ollivander lifted the lid, revealing a pitch-black wand. It was a circle thicker than Draco's; the wood grain was invisible to the naked eye, and its surface had a light-absorbing matte black luster.
"The core is Dragon Nerve. Not the common dragon heartstring—it's the spinal nerve bundle of a Ukrainian Ironbelly, extremely rare."
The old man pushed the box toward Cassius.
"Thirteen inches. Hard, with extremely strong resistance to magical impact. One of the sturdiest wands I've ever made."
His tone carried a hint of a craftsman's pride.
"Suitable for combat. Suitable for a powerful duelist."
Cassius looked down at the black wand.
He reached out and picked it up.
The first feeling upon holding it—light.
Too light.
Like holding a withered twig. It clearly looked sturdy, but the feel told him that this thing was no different from a biscuit before his magic.
"Give it a wave." Ollivander took a half-step back, staring without blinking.
Cassius didn't wave it.
Waving is a physical action intended to assist in the release and direction of magic. But he didn't need assistance.
He simply held the wand and used his mind to open a valve on the outermost ring of the [Soul Furnace].
One ten-thousandth.
He only released one ten-thousandth of his magic, letting it flow through his palm into the wand's body.
The tip of the Ebony wand lit up.
Red light. A blinding, highly saturated red, like a drop of concentrated magma seeping from the tip of the wood.
The light was expanding.
The wand's body began to make a sound. Not the harmonious hum of a normal wand connection, but the sound of wood fibers being forced apart from within—fine, continuous, and increasingly rapid.
"Crack. Crack-crack. Crack-crack-crack-crack—"
Cracks began to spread from the middle of the wand. First a hair-thin line, spreading into a spiderweb within a second, splitting from the middle to the end, and then from the end to the tip.
Ollivander's mouth fell open.
He wanted to say "Stop," but the word hadn't even left his mouth.
The wand exploded.
No fire, no bang. The Ebony shattered into hundreds of charred fragments from within, and the Dragon Nerve core carbonized directly into a wisp of Ash, spilling through Cassius's fingers.
The entire process took less than three seconds.
Cassius opened his hand. There was nothing left in his palm but a layer of black charcoal powder.
He clapped his other hand to brush off the Ash, then looked up at Ollivander.
"Boss, is this wood expired?"
Ollivander didn't answer.
He stared at the bit of Ash remaining in Cassius's palm for a long time.
That was Ebony. Aged magical material from Southeast Asia, with a wood density three times that of ordinary wand materials, and its resistance to magical erosion ranked in the top five of his entire inventory. Combined with the spinal nerve of a Ukrainian Ironbelly—a nerve bundle capable of withstanding the magical load of an adult dragon—this wand's theoretical limit was enough to match any living Great Wizard.
Three seconds.
Shattered to bits.
Ollivander looked up at the eleven-year-old blonde boy before him.
The boy's expression was calm, as if he had just crushed a piece of chalk.
The old man's lips moved a few times.
Then he smiled.
Not a polite smile, not a businessman's courtesy. It was an uncontrollable fanaticism emerging from his very bones.
"Marvelous."
Ollivander turned and rushed into the shelves, moving with a speed unlike an old man.
Clatter, bang, thud—boxes fell from the shelves, sending up a large cloud of dust.
He ran out carrying a stack of boxes, piled them on the counter, and hurriedly opened the first one.
"Walnut! Phoenix feather! Extremely explosive! Try this one!"
Cassius took it.
The magic had just touched the core, before he had time to do anything.
The Walnut wand spontaneously combusted.
It started burning from the middle; the flame was blue and went out in less than a second—because the entire wand had already turned to Ash.
The Phoenix feather core drifted in the air for a moment before turning into a small pinch of charred debris.
Ollivander's hands were shaking.
Not from fear. From excitement.
"Try again! Oak! Thunderbird feather! It can definitely hold up!"
Cassius took the third one.
The Oak wand struggled in his hand—yes, struggled, like a fish being squeezed. It vibrated violently for about half a second, let out a sharp wail, and then snapped in two right down the middle.
Wisps of blue smoke rose from the break.
Draco stood to the side, clutching his Hawthorn wand, his mouth half-open, not knowing what to say.
Watching his younger brother go on a rampage at home was one thing. The training room, the back garden, the basement—those places were Malfoy Family's private domain; whatever his brother broke was a family matter.
But now they were in someone else's shop, in front of the owner, crushing his merchandise one after another.
And that owner, instead of being angry, was becoming increasingly excited.
Draco began to doubt Ollivander's mental state.
The fourth one. Alder, Unicorn hair. Cassius touched it, and the wood grain on the wand's body all bulged out as if something were pushing from the inside; a second later, the entire wand exploded into a pile of wood chips.
The fifth one. Vine, dragon heartstring. This one lasted the longest—a full two seconds—then the tip began to smoke, and the body softened and bent like a melting candle.
The sixth one. Yew, Unicorn hair. It exploded as soon as he held it, fragments even bouncing off Ollivander's face.
The old man wiped the wood chips from his face with his sleeve, his eyes shining even brighter.
The seventh. The eighth.
Cassius held one, and one shattered.
His expression went from "let's try" at the start to "as expected," and finally to a expressionless routine.
Hold. Wait a second. Shatter. Throw away. Brush off dust. Next.
The whole process was like a factory quality inspection.
Ollivander was no longer staying behind the counter. He had crawled into the deepest parts of the shelves, rushing out every dozen seconds or so with a stack of boxes, slamming them onto the counter, opening them, handing them over, and then watching them be scrapped in Cassius's hands.
"I don't believe it."
The old man pulled a box covered in half an inch of dust from the top shelf, nearly falling off the step ladder.
"I don't believe that with over a thousand years of craftsmanship passed down in the Ollivander Family, I can't find a single wand that can hold up."
The eleventh. Ash, Horned Serpent horn. Shattered.
The fifteenth. Holly, Phoenix feather (a core from the same source as Harry Potter's). When Cassius picked it up, the core let out an extremely sharp shriek, as if begging for mercy. Then the wand snapped in three places simultaneously.
The twentieth. Pine, Thunderbird feather, a limited edition with orichalcum inlays. The orichalcum lasted three seconds, the wood lasted one second, and the core lasted zero seconds.
A thick layer of wand wreckage already covered the floor. Charred wood chips, carbonized core fragments, and twisted metal inlays were mixed together, looking like a miniature junkyard.
The air was filled with the smell of various burning woods—the bitterness of Oak, the sourness of Vine, the resinous scent of Pine—all mixed together, making Draco sneeze uncontrollably.
The twenty-third. The twenty-fifth. The twenty-seventh.
Cassius's expression no longer showed any fluctuation.
He was now certain of one thing.
This wasn't Ollivander's problem. The old man's craftsmanship was already the best in this world. Over a thousand years of technical accumulation, the combinations of wand wood and cores had been verified and optimized through countless generations.
The problem lay with himself.