My first real day out in Wizarding London was to shop for school supplies. I was not a happy little witch.
Something immediately observed by my ever diligent mother. She is quite the worrier when it comes to me.
"Cassandra Elsbeth Taylor, if you keep pulling that face you are going to be a wrinkled old prune before you are fifteen years of age young lady!" Mommy said this quite firmly.
Cassandra Elsbeth Taylor. That is me. My mother's name is Elsbeth so I got that for my middle name. When Mommy uses all three names she is serious. While some parents may warn their children their faces will stay frozen that way, my mother preferred realism. She was obsessed with me keeping my looks. I am not sure what is so special about my looks that I should want them. I am pretty plain. I have a dark auburn hair, green eyes and my body has absolutely not blossomed. But I am only twelve so I guess there is plenty of time for that.
I tried hard to make my face neutral, or maybe neutrally annoyed would be a better description.
I was really nervous about walking into this scary store with boxes everywhere. They looked like they were going to all going to fall down and crush me. I did not want to be here. Not just in this store, but on this street, in this city in this country. I wanted to go home. I wanted to get my wand at my school like all of my friends from grade school were going to.
Except I would not be going to Ilvermorny. I was going to Hogwarts. Daddy got transferred to the Ministry here and that was that. No one asked me if I wanted to get transferred. They just packed me up and hauled me off to a place where everyone talked funny and all of my friends were across an ocean and I would never get to see them again.
Mommy kept telling me how lucky I was. How wonderful our new life would be. I just thought I would be lucky to escape this store without having boxes fall and crush me and how wonderful it would be not to be killed at 12 years old by wand boxes.
I was just getting ready to begin one of my world famous temper tantrums. Loud enough and obnoxious enough to guarantee me a restriction from all privileges until I was 35 years of age. I was very very good at embarrassing my parents in public.
I was stopped by the entrance of the shop owner who suddenly appeared. He was the oldest wizard I had ever seen and he was looking at me from behind the counter. He didn't seem so bad. He even smiled at me.
"You must be Cassandra Taylor" he said kindly, "come closer, don't be shy."
Deciding the area near his counter looked a little clearer of boxes I ventured closer and looked all the way up at him. He patted my hand "I will bring out a few wands and we will see which one chooses you."
I didn't know what he meant "Which one chooses me?"
"Which wand. Wands choose the witch." I giggled at the pun 'which wand and witch wand'. He seemed to understand and his smile grew wider.
I liked him. Maybe this place wouldn't be so bad. But it still wasn't home and it never would be!
He brought out a wand instructing me to give it a wave. Nothing happened. "Not this one then." The next showered him with water "Definitely not."
After six more wands we finally found just the right one. A beautiful almost white wood. Mr. Olivander, I had learned this was the wand maker's name, informed me this was the preferred wood for those destined to be great and powerful duelists. I could imagine facing off against an enemy spells blazing back and forth trying to take the other one down. Listening to this Mommy reminded me just a few minutes ago I was worried about being crushed to death now I was cheerfully plotting to take down enemies.
Mr. Ollivander and I shared a secret smile.
"Mommy, being crushed to death by boxes would be … just undignified (I had learned this word from a book I read over the summer and was pleased to find a reason to show it off). Dueling an enemy is… well… it is…"
"Dignified?" supplied Daddy
"Exactly!" I cried.
"Do not encourage her Christopher Taylor." Oooh full names, Daddy was in trouble.
It also had a dragon heartstring core, he assured me this was a very powerful material. I left the shop feeling much better than I had when I had entered.
Maybe I would hold my world famous tantrum until later. Right now we were heading to a pet shop and Mommy promised me a pet to take to school.
Definitely later. But as soon as I had what I needed from this day my parents were going to pay for dragging me here... Mark my words.
When we made it to the pet store I was amazed at the different creatures they had here. It made our simple bullfrogs and hamsters look pretty tame by comparison.
The whole place was filled from top to bottom with squeaking, squawking, croaking and creaking animals. And there was plenty of room left over for stuff for taking care of those animals.
An elderly witch behind the counter was explaining to a young boy why having a kelpie as a pet was unrealistic. It would be difficult to train. There would be a lot of running off intermixed with attempts to drown the would be owner. "And what is more," the witch continued, they are not known to shape change just to keep pubescent boys entertained."
At this the furiously blushing boy quickly left the shop.
As soon as he was gone I paid no more thought to him. I was far too busy looking around at everything I could take in at a glance in the shop.
There were so many strange and beautiful animals! A jewel encrusted tortoise, purple toads, a firecrab, poisonous orange snails, a fat white rabbit that can turn into a silk top hat, cats of every color, ravens, puffskeins, and a cage of sleek black rats that play skipping games with their tails.
There were also the average run of the mill animals, magical cats and ravens, pygmy puffs.
I was trying to decide on what I wanted. A cat? Too average. Raven? Too messy. Jewel Tortoise? (NO my father chimed in immediately). Too expensive I sighed.
In a single cage by herself was a beautiful dark brown ferret with a slightly pinkish face. The counter clerk told me that the coloring was known as "peach faced". She looked so mischievous and fun that I couldn't help but be drawn to her right away.
After getting permission I gently took her from her cage and walked over to a chair where I sat down with her in my lap. She looked around a bit, climbed to my shoulder and sniffed my hair and my ears. It tickled and I giggled. As soon as I did she started making this little hopping motion in my lap and made a warbling noise. The witch at the counter told me this was called a war dance. I was enthralled!
The little ferret looked so regal sitting there and deciding immediately this would be the pet for me I called her Isis after the Egyptian goddess.
She seemed very happy with her new name. I sat for a bit cuddling her as my parents made the purchase. She made the most adorable little happy sounds as I snuggled her under my chin. Isis was certainly going to make this a much happier place for me. And I had been told that if I were to get sick and she was to share her food with me, especially if we drank milk from the same cup, I would get better.
My mother immediately pronounced this unsanitary and forbade me to do any such thing. I would get my cures from a licensed healer with well tested charms, spells and potions.
The witch then told me the other powers of the ferret were stealth, cunning, hunting, ingenuity, revenge and the ability to see hidden things and reasons. My mother and father smiled at each other. I knew they thought this was just a clever bit of sales speak on part of the clerk, but looking down at Isis licking her paws, I was pretty sure it was all true.
With my new pet held gently in my arms, I made my way with my parents to the ice cream shop. I loved all of the flavors, but I especially loved the dragon fruit ice cream that made me breath smoke like a dragon every time I took a bit!
I just wished all of my grade school friends could come with me. I was really going to miss them. And my cousins. And my school.
I had grown up on exciting tales of Ilvermorny and the houses there. We had all tried to figure out which house we would be selected for. I really had wanted to be in Wampus after hearing the story of running deer and how she had gone out bravely to fight off the demon ew'ah but I knew I did not have that kind of bravery. No, it would likely be Pukwudgie for me. I was more of a thinker than a fighter.
Dang it Ilvermorny was supposed to be my school, not this frozen castle in Scotland! And I knew it would be frozen because my cousin Michael told me all about it, and he is fourteen and really smart. As far as I was concerned he knew everything.
He said they have to heat the place up with hundreds of fireplaces all year long or the students would freeze to death!
He also warned me about every creature and nasty I could expect to find at Hogwarts and the neighboring grounds.
They sure didn't sound like our reasonably friendly sasquatch and the tiny little people mannegishi who could be great tricksters and were cousins of the pukwudgies, the caretakers of Ilvermorny.
Pukwudgies. They made me feel bad too. There were no pukwudgies at all in Britain I was told. There were other little people but no pukwudgies. They had something called house elves. Maybe the house elves tool care of us instead?
I was certain I had crossed in to savage territory.
The whole idea of being around these strange and terrifying creatures, hippogriffs and dragons and trolls scared me silly. It was looking more and more like Wampus was not the house for me!
Remembering Michael and how he just seemed to know everything worth knowing made me homesick again. I really wanted to see my aunts and uncles and cousins. I felt like I was at the end of the earth and would never see anyone familiar again as long as I lived.
The day did not end as happily as I would have liked but at least I had Isis.