Professor McGonagall smiled to herself as she watched one of her new students continue to gaze around the shopping district in wonder despite having spent most of his day there picking up school supplies with his family. Although, trying to keep his parents from doing… things Minerva would never understand turned out to be a full-time job that may have interfered with his ability to observe and process his surroundings in a timely manner.
"Only one thing left," the older of the two children said while reading off the list after wrangling her parents. McGonagall had to remind herself multiple times which ones were older and that her newest charge was the only magical member of the family. "Danny's wand. I think I saw a shop earlier. Ollivander's, wasn't it?"
"You are correct, Ms. Fenton," the headmistress answered. She reminded herself that introducing muggle families to the wizarding world wasn't usually this stressful and that she just had the bad luck of picking this family this year. "Ollivander is one of the best and oldest wand makers in the world. It is extremely rare for a witch or wizard in the British Isles to get their wand anywhere else."
The group continued to wade through the crowd back towards the wand shop, making slow progress as they corralled the older Fentons. Once Danny caught sight of Ollivander's wand shop, he took off like a snitch and raced to the doorway where he stood bouncing impatiently for the group to catch up. Once everyone was present he wasted no time tearing the door open and darting inside.
The old store looked no different than it had any other year, McGonagall noted to herself. The dusty shelves covered in boxes of wands. The piles of parchment where Ollivander took notes on each customer so he would know what to expect if they ever returned or could note abnormalities and continue to study and perfect his craft. The chairs near the window and door for parents of first time buyers or other customers waiting their turn to sit. And, as always, Ollivander wasn't in the front of the store. She had heard that he only did this during the back to school rush when new students came for their wand. If you came during the school year it was said that he behaved like a normal shopkeeper, although Minerva found that hard to believe.
"Hello there!" The older man cried as his ladder came careening down the shelves to the front. "You certainly aren't the usual student," he continued with a frown as he took in the black-haired teenager standing in his shop. The surrounding family and Hogwarts Headmistress only cemented his statement.
Oddly enough Danny didn't jump, but only turned to face the man with a grin while his sister and parents both twitched. "Nope," he said, popping the p.
"These are the Fentons. They're from Amity Park," McGonagall explained briefly.
"Ah, the town that MACUSA refuses to take responsibility for. I see someone's finally doing something about that. Dreadful business, cutting off unknown numbers of witches and wizards from proper magical training."
"You have Ms. Granger to thank for that," McGonagall informed him proudly.
The man grinned, "She never could ignore an injustice. Originally used a ten and three quarters inch, vine and dragon heartstring, pity she lost that one in the war. So, young man," he continued turning to the youngest Fenton, "you chose to come to Hogwarts?"
"Yeah," Danny said still grinning, "they said it had to be internationally recognized-"
"Which is an extremely short list already," Jazz grumbled.
"And it couldn't be the one in America for some reason, and I don't really know any other languages, so it was really my only choice. If I could've stayed closer to home I would have."
Ollivander nodded. "Well then, let's get started, shall we? Stand here," he directed Danny, "and hold out your wand arm."
Danny promptly moved to the spot the wandmaker had indicated and held out his right hand as Ollivander set to measuring. Eventually the old man returned with a box and the tape measurer (which Danny had ignored in favor of watching Ollivander wander the store) stopped taking its meaningless measurements (everything after the first few was for show and to distract the buyer) and the quill on the nearby desk set itself to take notes on the wands and the reactions (a detail every first-time buyer missed).
"Eleven inches, cedar, dragon heartstring, a bit bendy," the man said as he held it out to Danny.
The boy confidently reached for the wand, his fingers curling around the handle. As soon as he had the instrument in his grip, a loud bang echoed through the shop, reminding the Fentons of gunfire. Danny startled, his hand quickly withdrawing from the wood.
"Hm, definitely not," Ollivander murmured before delving back into his stock.
Ollivander brought out wand after wand with varying effects. Some of them caused only loud noises and flashes of light. Some caused the usual destruction of the already beat up shop, though on a much larger scale (one notable occasion caused all of the shelves to collapse, scattering wand boxes everywhere). Two caused Danny to start floating to the ceiling (which didn't seem to concern him). A large number, however, caused serious harm to the youngest Fenton. He was blinded, deafened, burned, cut, frozen, suffocated, bruised, hit in the crotch, and petrified. Four wands wilted afterwards.
With each passing attempt everyone became more concerned and Danny began making sarcastic comments and puns to try and diffuse the tension. The elder witch and wizard had never seen reactions as violent as these and were certain that the blue-eyed boy would have died by now if it weren't for their intervention (though, Ollivander was also intrigued by the challenge and did his best to hide it). The elder Fentons thought this was normal for wand shopping and were extremely concerned for all the young children that came through. Jazz, on the other hand, saw how McGonagall and Ollivander were reacting and, while concerned for Danny's health, was already putting together the why, which was slightly more concerning.
Eventually, the old wandmaker stopped grabbing wands and reversing wayward magic and simply stared at the untrained wizard. Danny shifted uncomfortably but said nothing.
"Um… Mr. Ollivander?" Jazz said hesitantly.
"Yes, yes," the old man muttered, "maybe. I'll be right back."
Jazz opened her mouth to demand an answer, but he was already gone. The siblings shared a concerned glance, before turning their attention back to where they had last seen Ollivander. When the man returned he had a very serious look on his face and a box that Minerva had never seen before. The box was green and had a strange blue metal serving as the clasps and hinges and decorating the corners and edges.
Ollivander placed the box on his desk and carefully opened that clasps before he pulled out the wand with more delicacy and care than he showed to even his own.
The wand had two distinct woods for the shaft and handle, the handle being a warm orangish color and the shaft taking a lighter gray. McGonagall was shocked to see such a wand in Ollivander's shop. The wandmaker didn't usually work with multiple woods in a single wand, as it tended to result in unstable wands due to the extreme split in personality and behavior that it could indicate in the user. There were some pairings he would use, but the woods tended to produce wands that Ollivander considered similar in personality. Despite the woods, the wand seemed largely unremarkable. The carving was remarkably plain and there were no twists, bumps, or bends anywhere in the shaft, with only a thin line and different colors to mark the handle.
Ollivander held the wand out to Danny, raising more concern from the Professor when he didn't announce the wand's woods, core, or length and merely waited for the teen to take the proffered stick.
Danny hesitated, glancing between the box, the silent wandmaker, and the wand resting in his hands. Eventually Danny's gaze came to a stop, not moving from the wand. Everyone was silent. He reached out, slowly, and wrapped his fingers around the smooth handle. When he received no reaction, he glanced over at Ollivander, confused. The man was beginning to grin and nodded encouragingly. Danny glanced from Ollivander to the wand again, before slowly lifting his arm and waving the wand.
A cold gust of wind blew through the shop as green and blue sparks burst from the wand's tip. A small puff of mist came from Danny's mouth almost simultaneously. As the green sparks faded, the temperature dropped further, and the blue sparks changed into a gentle snowfall.
Danny grinned, "I think we found it."
"That we have!" Ollivander crowed. "I've never seen anything like that before!"
"Mr. Ollivander," Professor McGonagall began, "if you don't mind me asking, what is that wand made of?"
Everyone's attention snapped back to the man. "Ah, well," he grumbled, "the problem is, I don't know. No one does. Just about every wand maker alive has looked over this wand. No one has been able to tell us anything about it."
"Wait," Mrs. Fenton began, speaking to Ollivander for the first time, "I thought you made all of your wands."
The rest of the Fenton's nodded.
"Normally, you would be correct. But this wand… it has a special story."
"It does?" Danny blinked. "Could you tell us?"
The adults stared at him. They hadn't expected Danny to pick up on the importance of a wand's history, or a wandmaker not knowing much about his wares. At least, not based on the personality he had displayed up until now.
"What?" He blushed. "In my experience 'special stories' tend to be important."
The adults continued to process that for a moment before Ollivander launched into his story. "About 300 or so years ago a strange man came to our shop. He carried with him this box," he gestured to the green box and then the wand Danny was still holding, "and that wand. He told my ancestor that someday it's proper owner would come to us looking for a wand, and that we were to not entrust it to anyone else. He also told us that we would know when the owner came. He didn't say how, just that we would know.
"For the first few years we tested everyone with this wand first, but we never sold it, and it either didn't react at all or, in the case of some of the darker customers, reacted extremely violently.
"We tried to identify the woods and core, wandmakers from all over the world have tried. From all generations too. But no one ever figured it out. The most we managed to determine is that the handle seems like blackthorn and the shaft like dogwood, but they both… feel different. Even magical means of identifying woods and cores didn't work."
There was a slight pause, "That's all I can really say other than that it's thirteen inches and fairly supple."
Silence filled the store. "Okay," Danny said, staring at his wand, "and the whole 'never seen anything like that before' bit?"
"Well, I've never seen wands react as harshly as the others did to you. It's even rarer for the burst of magic to be directed at the witch or wizard holding the wand. But the really interesting part is how this wand reacted to you, and, I think, you to it. You see, most wands only put on a quick simple display. They do one thing and that's the end of it. Yours made sparks and wind and lowered the temperature and made snow. And I've never seen the wizard react to a wand at all either. That little puff of mist from your mouth wasn't from the wand young Mr. Fenton. No, that was you."
Mr. and Mrs. Fenton frowned to each other. "But, it wasn't cold enough to produce condensation," Mrs. Fenton murmured.
Ollivander nodded, "Exactly, your son's magic welcomed the wand as much as the wand welcomed him. That doesn't happen. Witches and wizards, by their nature, can channel their magic through almost anything. It's just that some things work better than others."
"So," Danny said drawing out the O, "basically, I'm weird."
"We didn't need a magic wand to tell us that, Danny," Jazz teased.
"Hey!"
Professor McGonagall glanced out the window and was surprised by how dark it had gotten. "We should be going. How much for the wand, Mr. Ollivander?"
He hesitated, "Nine Galleons."
McGonagall raised her eyebrows but said nothing as Jazz Fenton fished out the required amount.
The group quickly made their way through the now quiet streets and returned to the Leaky Cauldron, where the Fenton's would be spending the night before returning to the muggle world for the rest of the summer.