Mr Ollivander
奧立凡德先生
基本資料
Birthday 生日：
25th September 9月25日
Wand 魔杖：
Hornbeam and dragon heartstring, twelve and three-quarter inches, slightly bendy
角木和龍的心弦，十二又四分之三吋，些微的柔軟
Hogwarts house 霍格華茲學院：
Ravenclaw 雷文克勞
Special abilities 特殊能力：
An incomparable understanding of wandcraft 對於魔杖製造有著無與倫比的了解
Parentage 雙親：
Wizard father, Muggle-born mother 巫師父親，麻瓜出身女巫母親
Family 家庭：
Married, one son, one daughter (deceased) 已婚，一兒，一女(已故)
Hobbies 興趣：
None; his profession is his obsession 無；他的職業就是他的狂熱癖好
The family of Ollivander has long been associated with the mysterious profession of wandcraft. It is said that the name means 'he who owns the olive wand', which suggests that the original Ollivander arrived in Britain from a Mediterranean country (olive trees not being native to the UK). Mr Ollivander himself believes that his earliest forebears in this country arrived with the Romans, and set up stall (subsequently shop) to sell to ancient British wizards whose wands were crude of construction and unreliable in performance.
奧立凡德家族和神秘的魔杖製造這個行業從很久以前就一直有關聯。相傳有一說是奧立凡德這個名字的本意是「橄欖木(olive)魔杖(wand)的持有者」，許多人因而推測奧立凡德家在最當初是從一個地中海國家遷入英國的(橄欖樹並不是英國的原生植物)。奧立凡德先生自己則相信他最早的祖先和羅馬人一起來到這個國家，然後架起了攤子(之後成為了商店)來賣魔杖給有著粗糙製成而表現不可靠的魔杖的古英國巫師。
Mr Ollivander is arguably the finest maker of wands in the world, and many foreigners travel to London to purchase one of his wands in preference to those on offer in their native lands. Mr Ollivander grew up in the family business, in which he showed precocious talent. He had the ambition of improving upon the cores and wand woods hitherto used and from his earliest days conceived a single-minded, even fanatical, determination in his pursuit of the ideal wand.
奧立凡德先生可以說是世界上最好的魔杖製造者，許多外國巫師會特地旅行到倫敦來向他購買一根魔杖，而不是在他們自己的國家購買。奧立凡德先生從小就在家族企業裡面長大，也在小的時候就表現出著早熟的才華。他有著改良當今使用的魔杖芯和和木頭的雄心，而從他早期開始就對於製造最理想的魔杖一直有著專注甚至狂熱的決心。
Prior to Mr Ollivander's proprietorship of the family business, wizards used a wide variety of wand cores. A customer would often present the wandmaker with a magical substance to which they were attached, or had inherited, or by which their family swore (hinted at by the core of Fleur Delacour's wand). Mr Ollivander, however, was a purist who insisted that the best wands would never be produced merely by encasing the whiskers of a favourite Kneazle (or the stalk of a Dittany plant that once saved a wizard's father from poisoning, or the mane of a kelpie a witch had once met on holiday in Scotland) in the customer's favourite wood. The best wands, he believed, had cores of immensely powerful magical substances, which were expertly enclosed in specially selected and complementary wandwoods, the result to be matched to an owner with whom the wand itself felt the most affinity. While there was initially substantial resistance to this revolutionary way of crafting wands, it swiftly became clear that Ollivander wands were infinitely superior to anything that had come before. His methods of locating wand woods and core substances marrying them together and matching them to ideal owners are all jealously guarded secrets that were coveted by rival wandmakers.
在奧立凡德先生接下他的家庭企業之前，巫師們使用了相當廣泛種類的魔杖芯。客戶通常會向魔杖製造家呈獻一種他們有聯繫、繼承而來、或他們的家族推薦或經常使用的魔法物質(譬如花兒‧戴樂古的魔杖芯)。然而，奧立凡德先生是一位純粹主義者。他堅持最好的魔杖絕對不會是因為有著客人最心愛的獅尾貓的一根鬍鬚(或著是一根曾經救過一位巫師的中毒父親的白蘚的莖，或一位女巫在蘇格蘭遇到的水怪的鬃毛)的芯而被製造出來。最好的魔杖，他堅信，會有著極大能量的魔法物質來作芯，然後再用資深的手法封於特選而相配的魔杖木之中。如此產出的魔杖再配上一位魔杖本身感覺有最好的共鳴的巫師，才能是最好的魔杖。雖然說一開始大多數人對於如此革命性的魔杖製造法有所抵抗，但很快的大家都發現奧立凡德的魔杖比任何之前的魔杖來得極度優質許多。奧立凡德所使用的尋找做魔杖的木頭、芯、結合兩種物質、再配將魔杖配給最理想的主人的方法全部都是競爭的魔杖製造者渴望而被小心守護的秘密。
接著讀[魔杖介紹] 魔杖芯、長度和彈性、木頭
