Julian was honestly surprised that the execution had gone through without a single issue. 'I suppose I've truly stepped into unknown territory now. The future isn't moving along the same track anymore, which means I need to stay alert for outcomes I can't predict,' he thought seriously as the group departed the execution grounds, each person occupied by their own thoughts. Harry was horrified by the way dementors killed, while Dumbledore felt sorrow over the loss of life itself. Sirius, however, was tangled in conflicting emotions. On one hand, he was relieved that Peter was finally dead, but on the other, he had no idea what he was supposed to do now.
For nearly a decade, he had lived buried in grief and self-pity over the death of his friend and the betrayal of someone he had trusted. Then he had suddenly been told he was being freed because Peter had been caught, and he had been both stunned by the turn of events and glad that justice would finally be done. But now that Peter was truly dead, he found that it brought him no satisfaction at all. All he felt was emptiness, because the purpose that had driven him forward was gone.
Julian, meanwhile, had Dotty apparate him to the middle of nowhere so he could cleanse the locket of the soul shard inside it. Taking both the sealed box and the Nazgul ring out of Greed, he opened the container and immediately dropped the ring onto the locket. The soul shard barely had enough time to react before the ring latched onto the object that housed it and began converting it into pure spiritual energy marked with Julian's signature. Dotty watched from nearby with a horrified look as a dreadful scream burst from the locket, which began glowing gold and white, until the ring finally released it after draining the now lifeless object and storing the energy away for Julian.
It did not escape Julian's notice that the ring was becoming stronger each time he fed it another soul shard. It was also growing more intelligent. 'Perhaps if I feed it enough, it might eventually become a full creature in its own right,' Julian thought, now feeling slightly reluctant to destroy the ring once it had served its purpose. It was clearly loyal to him, if its apparent eagerness to please him was anything to go by, so he decided he would wait and see whether it would eventually become a problem or turn into an asset.
Monday turned out to be an interesting day for Julian, as he stood in the workshop with Ollivander while holding one of the many wand housings he had made. "Today I will teach you how to carve the runes needed to turn this ordinary piece of wood into a real wand. The first step is, of course, the splitting charm used to open the wand. In this case, APERTA VIVERRA!" he said as he pointed his hornbeam wand at the wooden housing. A blue spell shot from the wand and struck the wood, causing a crack to run down the center of the housing and reveal the place where the core would go.
"This spell was designed to be as easy as possible to undo without interfering with the runes written inside it. Can you tell me why we use this instead of transfiguration?" Ollivander suddenly asked, testing Julian. "Because undoing a transfiguration removes any changes made to the object that was transfigured. In this case, I imagine that would remove the runes as well," Julian answered without much trouble, since transfiguration was one of his strongest subjects. Ollivander nodded with an approving look. "Exactly so. In the early days, wandmakers tended to use housings that were split open by muggle methods."
"But the problem with that approach was that if the enchantment holding the wand together was undone, the wand itself came apart too," Ollivander said with a scornful scoff. "Rather than deal with that kind of foolishness, many wandmakers put a great deal of effort into creating this method of splitting, which, while temporary, allows the runes to be placed without weakening the structure of the wand," he continued, his expression proud as he spoke about the development of wandcraft. Julian nodded, understanding the point. A wand that could be disassembled so easily like those old designs might be manageable for a truly skilled wizard, but he doubted most people could do anything about it.
"FINITE!" Ollivander said, and the crack in the wooden housing sealed itself shut as though it had never existed. After that, he showed Julian the wand motions and explained the intent needed to cast the spell correctly. Once Julian demonstrated that he understood the basics well enough, Ollivander had him begin practicing on the wand housings he had already made. Julian had no issue admitting that he still had some trouble controlling the force of his spells, which led to more than a few wand housings exploding into splinters.
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