He'd thought his description would have made it obvious how he knew, because it wasn't as though he catalogued this degree of detail about every wand in the shop. "Because I was there," he said pleasantly. "I made this wand a few years ago. Maybe five or six years ago, now." Gideon didn't always collect his own wandmaking materials, of course; there were shipments that came in all the time of various core types and wand woods from all over England and from around the world. It would have been practically impossible to do it all himself. That being said, identifying the proper materials for a good wand was part of what he had been trained to do during his long apprenticeship with his father, and both he and his brother did source materials directly when they were able to do so. Finding unicorns who were willing to give up a hair or two was a much more pleasant experience than trying to deal with some of the more dangerous creatures that were used in wandmaking. Gideon wasn't about to go wrangle dragons on his own, for instance — his involvement in that acquisition process only extended to being called in after a dragon was already dead to disconnect the useful bits of the heartstrings before they were hacked to pieces by someone who didn't know what they were doing. Even then, it was rather gruesome work — unicorns were much more pleasant. Particularly as they didn't need to die in order to assist with the wandmaking process.

She pointed the wand and it responded immediately, with a flourish of little flecks of golden light, as though they'd walked out into a night filled with fireflies.

"I think we've found it," he announced. "What do you think? How did it feel?"