As David looked at his wand, he noticed things he never really picked up before because, well, he never really took a good look at the wand. The petrified wood that made the wand was facetted at the bottom to create the handle, but tumbled to smooth the sharp edges. The wand was cut carefully, and precisely. Sheen browns, almost amber, shined in brilliance to the deeper browns that patched the wand. Dark and light hues streaked upward to tell that it was once a wood.

I wonder what Grace's looks like compared to mine, thought David. He rose from the kitchen table, and looked around himself. Nobody was home besides Grace and him. Just as he was going to go upstairs he remembered grace went playing in her animagus form outside somewhere, despite his warning of how dangerous it could be. He knew she had her wand with her so trying to look for it was out of the question. Suddenly, David had an idea. He read about it in Harry Potter one time.

He remembered the time when he found that he was a wizard, flicked his wand and said loudly, "Expecto Patronum!" As usual, his timber wolf howled out of his wand and played happily around him. David cleared his throat and his patronus turned it's attention to David. While pointing his wand at his patronus he recorded "Grace, meet me in the study, and bring your wand." David then nodded his head, and his patronus took off and phased through the front door, looking for Grace so that it could deliver David's recorded message.

Flying never really got old, to Grace. She could do it all day. It felt as natural as walking, never really getting tired. She liked to see through her bird eyes and study the things she could witness fro so far above. She could feel things moving in the earth when she landed, and take off with a sweep of her wings. Being a bird gave a nice break to being human. She decided to land on a branch and enjoy the slight breeze wafting towards her when she saw it.

A mass of silver light was running through the air towards her. She soon made it out to be David's timber wolf. When it approached, the wolf opened it's muzzle and said in David's voice "Grace, meet me in the study, and bring your wand." what did he want now, thought grace. She shifted back to human, fixed her hair, and then non-verbally conjured the door to the study and climbed through it. The door sealed itself and disappeared once grace shut it.

The wall swirled in a spiral to reveal the door Grace conjured. David watched it open and flurries of leaves blew in. Grace was holding her wand with a questioning look on her face. "So?" she asked.

"Let me see your wand. Have you ever looked at it hard?" he asked her. She shook her head and handed over her wand eerily. David looked at it carefully. It had the same faceted then tumbled handle, with the same almost amber highlights. But something felt different to David. He must have said it out loud because Grace said "Well, ya. The wand is for a whole 'nother person. Of course it's not going to be the same thing." David weighed this thought, and decided that was probably it. "But the core…. What is it?" asked David. Grace had no idea either. "Maybe it's on the box or something." suggested Grace. David walked over to where the boxes lay and picked up the one for his wand. Nothing on it said anything about the wand, besides the tag. " Hmmmmm. There's nothing on it. We could…." verbally thought David. Then, Grace and David looked at each other with wide eyes and said in unison "A spell!" Grace took her box and they both tried Aparecium. That didn't work so they stumped over what to do next with it. David and Grace thought hard. There had to be a way to find out what essence lay in the wands, there had to be. Maybe a potion? Not likely. Hmmmmmmm. "I think I have an idea, but it sounds sort of crazy." Said David. "Well nothing to me sounds crazy anymore, spill it." said Grace.

David gathered his thoughts and spoke gently. "Like the rest of the estate, the wands have their own magic. I think that they don't have an essence because the petrified wood itself is the source of magic for the wand. The tree that gave the wood for this wand most likely grew upon something magical, and rather than living on water, sun, and minerals, the tree lived on magic." I bet if we find out what's under the tree where this came from, then we can find what it's essence is. Help me find a map of the property."

They got moving, looking in shelves, under the desk, in books, but nowhere could they find the map. At one point grace realized something. "David, what are we doing? You're a wizard and you're looking manually for the map?" she asked bewildered. She pointed her wand to the ceiling and yelled "Accio Blackthorne map!" and sure enough, a folded, yellowed piece of stiff parchment shot out of a lamp- base, shattering the glass. David grabbed the map and grace repaired the glass lamp-base.

David unraveled it to see the black and white property from a birds-eye view. There was the estate, the woods, the same grass field that surrounded the house, and then- what David and Grace thought to be a pile of rocks, was really what they were looking for which was labeled " The Wand-Wood Tree" in bold, emerald ink that stood out against the rest of the black ink."

Without a word, they opened the door and were back in the woods. "Okay, so I'm going to morph, and I'll find it. Hold on, lemme see it again?" Grace asked. Then, her face pointed to a beak as her body shrunk and took the form of a bird. She flew high over the trees in search of the Wand-Wood Tree. David waited for a few minutes before he heard Graces high screeching signaling that she found him.

David jumped through the air, changing into a timber wolf. He shook out his brown fur, and ran towards Grace's screech. It was faster running as a wolf than it was running as a human. He got there within minutes and fixed his eyes on the stone. Grace was already human again, and David followed after; people think dogs see black and white or something, but when you're an animagus, you can keep the color to the world. Either that or dogs see color too. David saw the familiar bright colors of the once-upon-a-time wood. "So this is it. How are we going to dig under it?" asked Grace. "I was prepared for that." said David with a smile. With a powerful stroke, David threw his arm at the ground and yelled "Saxitem!" resulting in a large cut carefully sliced down the middle of the main rock. " Wooow! Did you make that one?" Grace yelled excitedly. "Yup!" said David proudly. "It means 'stone-cut'. Cool, huh!" he said. Grace agreed and together they lifted the petrified wood boulders from the earth and placed them beside the huge crater they made.

Neither of them wanted to approach the crater. Who knows what could be lying in there. "You do it." said Grace. "No, you do it." argued David. "Fine, we both go." insisted Grace. Slowly, they walked towards the crater. There, at the bottom, bored a hole. "I think it's a passageway." Said David as he climbed down in the crater. "What do you think you're doing? If mom catches you she going to flip! It's bad enough we cut the petrified wood!" Grace yelled at David.

David looked at Grace simply. "Grace. I want to know what makes my wand, and the house, magic. The only way to do that is to climb down there and see what there is."

Grace didn't like the idea, but she knew she had to. She got down in the hole after David, and they searched.

The air smelled of dirt and wet leaves. They had been crawling inside for about five minutes, and so far they found nothing. It was dark and cold, they must have been going downward more. David's knees were beginning to hurt from rubbing against the gravel floor. Just as he was going to pull out his wand to bring some light to the tunnel Grace yelled "David, look!" and pointed ahead. Far, far down the way of the tunnel, a speck of light shown. They crawled faster until they light speck grew brighter and brighter, and soon made out to be a small room. "What is it? Are you sure you want to keep going?" grace timidly said. "It's the only way I'll know. Common." said David. They crawled forward. Now, they could almost see the whole room, the ceiling anyway. They could hear a soft cooing, like a small bird. How could there be a bird, they thought. David took a deep breath, and crawled forward into the den.

It was circular and stony, with a comfortably warm nature to the lighting. Lighting? In the middle of the room, ad a raged stone pedestal, a nest of embers glowed mildly. Sitting on the nest was the bird they heard cooing. It's plumage was bright red and orange, with almost a shiny texture. It wasn't a bird, it was a phoenix!

"Oh, my gosh! Grace get in here!" yelled David. Grace crawled in to see the phoenix licking its chest, then looked at her. "It all makes sense now! Don't you see? The phoenix! It's magic leaks into every pore of the property, including the tree that petrified, that now serves as the entrance to the phoenix's den, and as the giver of wood to our wands. This is amazing!" said David. Grace was so enthused that she could hardly comprehend what was happening. "Grace. I just thought of something! This phoenix could be our Familiar!" David said. "What's a Familiar?" asked Grace. "A Familiar is a normal or magical animal that serves the owning witch or wizard. It's like Harry's owl, Hermione's cat, and Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawks." He answered. But the phoenix can't live in here forever, even if it was to be their phoenix, thought Grace. "It can live in the Study. We can set it up and everything!" said Grace.

"Sure, I'll get a make a cage for it. Oh, but wait, I wanted to check the map where we were just out of curiosity." David pulled out the crinkled map and found the Wand-Wood Tree. He flipped out his wand and said " Aparecium!" . this time in red ink, a tunnel traced itself from the Wand-Wood Tree all the way over to the house, and then under it. It ended in a small circle representing the den, and then an orange dot in the center, labeled the phoenix. "Grace, it says that we are directly under the house. This explains it even further!" said David, almost as if a child when they find a cookie. "Okay, I'm done. Could you get the door please?" asked David. Grace conjured the door in the ground and kept it open for David who was now carrying the phoenix in a magic bubble. When he got inside, he drifted the bubble over to the corner of the room where it stayed afloat while he closed the door. "So what are we going to name it?" asked David.

Grace put her hand to her chin and thought. "Well it has to be something powerful. Something that could be for both a boy and a girl, seeing as how it's neither." Grace said. "Oh, when I was on the internet, I saw something in Greek. What was it again?" David tried to remember. "I remember! It meant the blazing one. How about Phledgon?" David suggested.

Apparently it was perfect judging by the fact that the phoenix smoldered it's wings, sending a shower of sparks in the air. "I like it too." said Grace. "After we tell mom about this, we have to go me seal the entrance permanently for the safety of someone finding our home. The spell is Saximend. Anyway, I don't even care if she gets mad, we have a Familiar! Common." said David. Grace followed but gave one last look at Phlegon, as if to say goodbye, then left through the door to the house that David conjured up through the wall.