Yes, I'm Working In The Bloody Wand Shop

(audience: public)

Why is there a horde of angry people outside the wand shop? I use the word "horde" in the nicest possible fashion, of course, but I'm starting to be rather concerned about potentially getting mauled when I leave work.

'....and the just man rages in the wild where lions roam.'

(audience: public)

I wonder if Ollivander has put up a sign that I am unable to see, informing the store's custom that it is perfectly all right for them to verbally abuse me, allow their filthy children to harass me in every possible way, and demand that I be in six places at once. I'd be more inclined to believe it of him if he hadn't been acting so blasted fond of me lately. "Natural aptitude, Draco, natural aptitude," he says as I'm peering at wood grain with that ridiculous stupid eyepiece. Of course he still works me until all hours, so I'm not sure if "fond" is exactly the correct locution in this case.

Very grateful to have been relegated back to the quiet workshop today instead of out front in the monkey house. We've been working with some extremely interesting experimental woods in between churning out the customary combinations, as we're running rather low now on the good-quality holly and ash. Although I now have wand polish all down the front of my favourite eggshell cable-knit jumper, I managed to steathily misappropriate fifteen whole calming minutes to read Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell while I was bolting my dinner, so the day wasn't a total loss.

(audience: the slytherins)

Well, Mother's trial is over. Truthfully, it would have been more bearable if I had not been slightly the worse for having been drinking a bit the previous evening.

Everything went as fine as I had expected - she was also deemed nondangerous and sentenced to the work release program. I had thought she would take the news worse (she nearly had an embolism when I was sentenced to be a shopboy) but she's really been quite philosophic about the entire ordeal. She's going to be working part-time in that shabby little flower shop that just opened up a few doors down from Ollivander's. I suppose it will be good for her to get out of our house a little and interact with people again - I wish she had other family to reach out to now that Father's in prison. We've been getting steadily busier in the wand store and it doesn't seem that I'm home much, except to sleep.

I also suppose I'm now going to be forced for appearance's sake to publicly thank certain hotheaded idiots who took it upon themselves to testify for her. Bother.

(Audience: Public)

I am literally about to fall down with exhaustion. I know that I have somehow gotten a reputation for the melodramatic, but it's honestly not hyperbole this time. I nodded off in the shower a few minutes ago, and it was only by the grace of my "employer" that I'm not sleeping at the shop for the second evening in a row. I mean, not that I don't enjoy the rug behind my work table, but it's not my idea of luxury.

When I was sentenced to the work release program after my trial I had those few, beautiful fleeting moments of believing that it would be a cakewalk compared to prison. Ha! Well, the dementors have left Azkaban and I'm beginning to envy my father the long empty days in his cell - during the afternoon as I'm hunched over the wood lathe or handing someone their eighty-second wand in a row to try out, I have ridiculous thoughts like "I bet he gets to sleep whenever he would like." Besides, he's not forced to wait on the masses, and if he knew I was doing so he would likely prefer me to commit honorable suicide instead. You know you're in need of a little rest when you become envious of the imprisoned. I believe Ollivander holds me personally responsible for every wand that was seized during the uprising, at least he certainly acts as thought he does. I didn't understand at first why he had requested me specifically, but now I do - because he can work me like a house elf apparently without remorse. He seems perversely gleeful about it, too, but at least he's letting me gradually tackle more and more of the interesting parts of the job instead of the six straight days of sorting unicorn hair by length that was my introduction to wandmaking.

Mother's trial is next week. She's optimistic about it, and from what we hear she will have more people willing to testify on her behalf than I did. I don't know what to think, but despite the wreckage of my life she's in a fairly stable place and I'd like to see her stay there. She deserves some normalcy (although I'm still a bit terrified she'll wind up working in the ice cream parlor or similar, which I don't think I could bear).

There is still sawdust in my bloody hair. Why couldn't Flourish and Blotts have wanted me? Why?