"I have met several members of your family over the years, so I cannot claim to know you especially well, but I believe you were talented in transfiguration," Helena said after a moment of thought.
Ollivander looked deeply pleased that she remembered him at all, though that expression soon shifted into regret. "I am afraid to say that I do not believe the portkey will work on a ghost such as yourself," he said, sounding genuinely apologetic.
Helena simply smiled and became corporeal, which nearly made Ollivander's eyes bulge out of his head in shock. "As you can see, that should not be a problem at all," she said, giggling at his reaction.
It took him a second, but soon enough Ollivander recovered himself and smiled. "Then I suppose I must congratulate you on returning to the living," he said, clearly impressed.
Helena gave a small shake of her head. "I am still dead, I'm afraid. I can simply take on physical form now, which is close enough for me," she said honestly.
Ollivander appeared to understand that and nodded. "Yes, I have heard that being a ghost is rather miserable for that reason. In any case, we should be off. I would rather not stay away from the shop for too long," he said as he held out the portkey.
Julian tucked Steve into his luggage to keep him safe before taking hold of the loop along with Helena. Ollivander then spoke the activation phrase, "veritology," and space twisted around them as they were pulled away.
Julian was not at all fond of traveling by portkey. To him, it felt as though he were being dragged through a keyhole without the courtesy of actually shrinking first. The sensation was horribly nauseating, and only his strong constitution kept him from vomiting, though he still needed a moment to steady himself afterward.
Ollivander looked a little ill as well from the spatial movement, while Helena briefly turned incorporeal and then solid again, leaving her entirely unaffected. Julian pulled Steve back out of the luggage and apologized to him, since the poor creature had indeed gotten sick. Julian did not particularly care, though, and simply flicked his wand to clean away the mess.
"I believe I have just remembered why I never use this thing," Ollivander said, eyeing the loop with open disapproval.
"Yeah, I think in the future I'll be making a better form of teleportation, because that was absolutely dreadful," Julian added seriously, drawing a chuckle from the old man.
"I will look forward to that day eagerly, then," Ollivander said, not sounding as though he put much faith in Julian's words.
Julian, however, had been entirely serious. He found it unacceptable that with all the things magic could accomplish, this was apparently the best wizards had managed for instant travel.
The room they had arrived in was dusty and crammed with boxes of wands, except for the clear space in the middle where they had landed. "I apologize for the poor state of this room, but as you can see, it is where I keep the spare wands," Ollivander said before leading them out.
Julian was not surprised to discover that the little shop visible from the outside was actually part of a much larger building within. Inside were two bedrooms, a bathroom, a workshop, and two storage rooms, one meant for extra wands and the other for materials. The workshop also held three tall, wide bookshelves packed full of volumes on veritology.
Ollivander appeared especially proud of that particular sight, and according to him, he had personally found and placed every one of those books there himself. Both Julian and Helena were impressed, since they both knew Hogwarts had barely half a dozen books on the subject, while Ollivander had close to a hundred on those shelves alone.
The reason for that was simple. Knowledge had always been jealously guarded by particular groups and rarely allowed to spread beyond them. Wandmakers were one such group, fiercely protective of what they knew from other wandmakers.
"That reminds me, what exactly will you be teaching me over the summer?" Julian asked, worried that veritology might not actually be part of the arrangement.
Ollivander seemed to understand that concern and chuckled. "There is no need to worry. You will be learning how to make functioning wands. Just understand that anything beyond my own findings and what is already public knowledge is off limits."
"I cannot very well hand out my family's secrets, you know," Ollivander said, and Julian let out a quiet sigh of relief.
A short while later, the old man guided them to a room containing nothing more than a bed and a nightstand, bare in every other respect. "You will be staying here for the time being, so feel free to decorate it however you wish. You will also be responsible for your own meals, so do keep track of that. Aside from that, I will teach you to the best of my ability four days a week, leaving the rest of your time free to use as you please," Ollivander explained seriously before taking his leave.