Disclaimer:It all belongs to J. K. Rowling.
The sun rose on another day. A bedroom that had once been lined with pink rosebud wallpaper, strewn with bright outfits and bookshelves overflowing with picture books and trinkets, was now icy blue, the curtains billowing from the window seat looking out over the sea a lacy white. The pictures on the walls and on the bedside table were much the same; a few remained unchanged, and most of them of a lovely flyaway-haired blonde girl, usually wearing a Muggle baseball cap on backwards, hands in the belt loops of her jeans, a sheepishly friendly boy with bright, turquoise hair and an ill-fitting camo jacket, and a girl with chocolate-colored skin and hair woven into tiny braids, the ends adorned with red-painted wooden beads, often appearing in a red t-shirt.
But, over the years, the focuses of these pictures had grown older. The picture on the bedside table, next to that of the three children standing in front of a shop emblazoned with the letters 'WEASLEY'S WIZARD WHEEZES,' was another photo, with a tarnished metal frame, depicting a small family. The blonde girl from the photos stood with her arm companionably tossed around a younger girl's neck, who had the same bright blue eyes but paler blonde hair, and was ruffling the hair of the boy beside her, who had freckles, a crooked grin, and two very wicked dimples. Behind them, a woman with the younger girl's icy hair was smiling, her arm around the waist of a man with red hair down to his shoulders and a dragon-tooth earring, whose own arm was wrapped around her shoulders.
A door slammed, and footsteps on the stairs could be heard, louder and closer, then a shout "Maman! Maman! Ma lettre de Hogwarts est arrivée!" A door was slammed open, than another. "Maman!"
"Out here, mon chéri," came a voice from outside, drifting up on the wind.
Victoire Weasley sped back down the stairs and out into the garden, where her mother was kneeling in the dirt, a shovel in one hand and a bucket of potatoes by her knee. Her long blonde hair was tied back in a scarf, and she slipped off her gardening gloves as Victoire launched herself at her mother and wrapped her in a hug.
Fleur, surprised at this unexpected show of affection, wrapped her arms around her eldest daughter. 'What is it, chéri?"
Victoire began to babbles in a mixture of English and French, and her mother laughed softly. "Calm down. Speak one language for the moment, chéri."
Victoire brandished the mail in her mother's face. Confused, Fleur sorted through the stack. "George's catalogue, the Daily Prophet, a very large bill for the Floo, another one of George's catalogues, as if we didn't already know his entire stock by heart, a letter from Angelina, asking us to babysit George for the weekend, and . . . . mon Dieu! Your Hogwarts letter!"
Fleur embraced her daughter. "That's wonderful, chéri, and, of course, there was never any doubt at all."
Vic smirked slightly. "Obviously."
"But still . . . oh, ma petite chouette! Your Hogwarts letter! Such a big event, my darling. I remember when I received my letter from Beauxbatons . . . the best school in Europe . . . " Fleur eyed her daughter.
Vic rolled her eyes. "Oh, Maman, I'm going to Hogwarts, like Teddy and Roxanne and all la famille Weasley!"
Fleur sighed. "Ah, oui. I know. Perhaps Dominique will want to go to Beauxbatons?" she eyed her eldest daughter hopefully.
"Maman, Dom was born for black and yellow," Victoire giggled. "Perhaps your grandchildren shall go to Beauxbatons."
"Ah, we can only hope," said Fleur dramatically, then rose to her feet to give her daughter another hug. "Let us go celebrate! Off to school in no time at all, mon bébé." She hugged Victoire again, only slightly teary-eyed.
Vic was starting into the house ahead of her mother when the Floo flared out and Roxanne tumbled out onto the carpet. One look at Victoire, her letter in hand, and Roxanne had her arms wrapped around her cousin and both were babbling excitedly. Roxanne produced her Hogwarts letter and both were squealing (not that they'd ever admit it) when Bill walked into the house, right behind Fleur.
"What's going on?" he asked, as Fleur kissed him on the cheek.
"They just got their Hogwarts letters," Fleur told him, taking his hand in her own, smaller one.
Dominique and Louis walked in, arguing, both in swimsuits and carrying surfboards. Dominique was ten, her platinum-blonde hair cut into a short, bouncy bob and pulled out of her face with a pink clip, and Louis was nine, with a mop of golden curls almost as long as Dominique's.
They stopped when they saw the spectacle before them. Roxanne and Victoire released each other, both barely able to contain their enthusiasm, as the two siblings dripped puddles on the floor. Bill folded his arms grumpily. It was his turn to mop.
"What the bloody hell happened?' Louis asked, setting his surfboard against the wall.
"Language, Louis Arthur Weasley," said Fleur sternly. Louis grinned in a manner altogether too much like his Uncle George.
"We just got our Hogwarts letters!" Victoire announced, beaming happily.
Dominique squealed and threw her arms around her sister. "Oh that's wonderful! Oh, ça va être fantastique, je ne peux pas attendre jusqu'à ce que je parte—" she began to babble in French.
Roxanne gave her a confused look. After growing up surrounded by French-speaking peers, she had a small understanding of the language, but Dom's rapid-fire French was difficult for even Victoire to understand.
"She says that it's going to be fantastic, she can't wait until she can go," Fleur translated easily. "Now, release your sister before she suffocates, darling."
Dom pulled away, beaming, and Victoire ruffled her younger sister's ruler-straight hair with one arm, tossing the other over Roxanne's shoulder and beaming at her parents.
"I can't wait," Roxanne sighed. "Quidditch and wandwork and moving staircases . . . . "
"And the Whomping Willow and the Forbidden Forest and the Chamber of Secrets," Vic added enthusiastically, then caught sight of her mother's expression and hastily added "Oh, from a distance of course."
"I for one am most excited about Care of Magical Creatures," Dom piped up happily.
"Quidditch and secret passages," grinned Louis.
"You two are so lucky," Dom finished with a sigh. "I still have another year."
"Two, for me," added Louis grumpily. "But, at least I'm older than James, by three whole years!" he grinned.
"What a great victory for you, dear brother," said Victoire, rolling her eyes.
"Don't be mean," Fleur admonished both of them, but Louis was already skipping back out the open door, grabbing his surfboard as he went. "Hey, Dom, Roxy, Vic, you guys coming?"
"We have to tell Teddy," Vic called. "But he'll want to swim, too, so we'll be back."
Vic and Roxanne turned to Bill and Fleur, pleading expressions on their faces.
"Yes, you can Floo over to Dromeda's," Fleur sighed. "But come right back and don't stop at any strange fireplaces—"
"Yes!" Roxanne and Victoire punched the air gleefully.
"—and remember to enunciate—" Fleur called, but the two had already gone in a whoosh of flames and a joyful shout of "The Tonks Residence!"
Bill shook his head, chuckling, and wrapping an arm around his wife. She nestled into his side, and the two walked out into the garden, side by side.
Roxanne, then Vic, stumbled out into the living room of Teddy's home, brandishing their letters. Andromeda was reading the Daily Prohet in a chintz armchair near the fire. "Grandy, Grandy, look!" Vic cried, throwing her arms around the older woman. The Weasley cousins' name for her was a combinations of 'granny' and her nickname, 'Andy.' "We got our letters!"
"Ooh, look at that, will you!" Andromeda cooed. "Oh, aren't you so grown-up!"
Vic and Roxanne tolerated this fussing and praising for a few more minutes before Teddy Lupin walked into the room. Vic hurled herself at her friend, then began to babble excitedly in his ear. Half of it was French, and Roxanne bit back a laugh as she was reminded of Dominique's similar antics a few moments before. Teddy raised a blue eyebrow over Victoire's shoulder. It wasn't like her to gush like this.
Roxanne wordlessly held up her Hogwarts letter. Teddy's eyes widened, and his hair turned canary yellow in surprise.
"Hey, that's awesome!" he said, pumping his fist in the air. "Finally! Now you guys'll be at Hogwarts with me. You gotta be in Gryffindor," he added, brow furrowed.
"I don't know," said Roxanne slyly, tapping her chin. "Ravenclaw sounds pretty cool."
"Slytherin can't be all bad," Vic added, smirking, as she pulled away, her mood suddenly changing.
"No!" Teddy declared. "You can't! I mean, you have to . . . I mean, please ask for Gryffindor?"
"Maybe," Vic considered.
"We'll have to think about it," Roxanne mused.
Andromeda rolled her eyes. "Edward, they're only joking. Now, run along, you three. I'm not having you all in my home for extended periods of time, lest I leave for the loo and come back to find my living room floor's been melted into goo."
"It was only that once, Grandy," said Vic innocently.
Andromeda shook her head. "Shoo!" she commanded, tossing a pinch of Floo powder on the fire.
A moment later, Vic, Roxanne, and Teddy were in the Delacour-Weasleys' living room. A brief trip for bathing suits (every Weasley or Potter family member had a bathing suit stashed in the cottage, in case of a very likely impromptu swim) and all three were racing each other across the lawn, towels thrown over their shoulders. Roxanne, predictably, had selected a poppy-red towel. Roxanne's favorite color was red, and it shown in everything from the wooden beads in her braids to the friendship bracelet on her ankle that matched Vic's green one and Teddy's blue one. For the brief period of time last summer where she had had to wear braces (by order of Rose and Hugo's grandparents, the Grangers) she had been vaguely comforted by the fact that the bands had come in red, too.
Bare feet padded across the ground, but they slowed when they reached the narrow steps cut into the cliff. Three years before, when Dominique was seven, she had slipped down the stairs and broken her arm. Now they were wet, from Louis and Dom dripping up and down them, so the three went slowly and carefully down the steps, however uncharacteristic of them it was.
Dominique and Louis were on the beach, Dom in a purple one-piece with white flowers and a matching surfboard, and Louis in a blue-and-white pair of swim trunks, and both were arguing heatedly. Hufflepuff Dom may have been, but conceding she was not, and it was surprising the number of times the normally sweet and sensible girl got into arguments over her own stubbornness, and, most of all, other people's.
"What is it now, you two?" asked Roxanne, her bathing suit predictably red. She spread her towel out on the sand and leaned back, resting the back of her head on her arms.
"Dom says I tried to push her off her board," said Louis, managing, by some unheard-of miracle, to make the claim sound unfounded and ridiculous.
"You did!" said Dom angrily. "You came right up behind me and shoved me—"
"Honestly, Domi, can you sound any more paranoid?" Louis asked easily.
"Guys, guys," said Vic calmly, in a green-and-silver bathing suit that had practically made her father's head implode when he saw it. (Its exact purpose.) "Why can't you, Louis, admit to pushing Dom off her board, we all know you did it, anyway, and Dom, how about you admit that you were annoying enough to deserve to be pushed off your board?"
"I object to that!" Dom cried out. Louis opened his mouth, probably to agree with his sister for once, but Teddy, ever the mediator, stepped in.
"Now, how about we just do something nice, like build a sandcastle or something?" he suggested.
Victoire flipped her mane of curly blonde hair over her shoulder. "We aren't five, Teddy dear."
Teddy blushed, but Victoire socked him in the arm to indicate that she was only joking.
"And I thought it was only males who felt the urges to express affection with untamed and uncalled for minor acts of companionable violence," Roxanne commented dryly, a book in hand. Where it had come from, it was hard to say. Roxanne had access to a book at all times.
"I have a better idea," said Victoire with a wicked grin on her face. "Mum will want to throw a party for Roxanne and I, because we got our Hogwarts letters. so let's dig a trap for Uncle Percy!"
"I love you, Victoire," said Louis, hand over his heart. "You're brilliant!"
"Obviously."
Roxanne peered over the edge of her book a few minutes later to find Dom, Louis, and Victoire already knee-deep in the sand. Teddy had somehow ended up half-buried in sand, his blue swimming trunks peeking out from under a mound of white sand, and was unable to free himself due to the fact that Victoire was perched on his stomach.
Roxanne bit back a chortle at the look on his face.
"Louis put sand in my hair!" Dominique announced angrily. Louis rolled his eyes.
"It's called digging, sweetie," he said. "It happens."
"Now, now, you two," said Victoire, nagging a finger in an excellent impression of the Weasley cousins' ancient Great-Great-Aunt Muriel, who was a hundred and eighteen.
"Now, now, you three," said Roxanne, giggling as Dom and Louis tackled their sister to the sand. Teddy took the opportunity to shake off the sand and flee, and with a shout of dismay, the warring siblings united to chase the Metamorphmagus down the sand at top speeds. Teddy was extremely fast and it was doubtful that he would have been caught, had he not made the mistake of stepping on Roxanne as he rushed past her. Taking care to put her book down respectfully, Roxanne rose to her feet, and in a moment the long-legged Weasley girl had Teddy sprawling in the sand.
What resulted was a sand fight of epic proportions, until it was moved into the water and Teddy morphed his hands into fused flippers to slough water at his opponents, until Vic, who, as, a part-Veela, could hold her breath for much longer than seemed possible, dove underwater and yanked his feet out from underneath him.
Ginny and Fleur, sitting in the dining room of Shell Cottage, watched the chaos contentedly,
"When all three hit Hogwarts, things are going to explode,' Ginny remarked, her fingers wrapped around her cup of tea. Lily, who had turned two earlier in the month, snatched and played with the buttons on her mother's sweater.
"Literally," Fleur agreed. "You know," she said, watching as Victoire climbed onto Teddy's shoulders and tried to shove his face into the water. "They would make a very cute couple, as you say."
Ginny smirked into her mug. "Absolutely."
"Snake!" Lily giggled. "Snaaaake!"
"Hush!' Ginny pouted. "She won't stop it with the snakes. It's got Harry panicking that she'll be put in Slytherin."
Below them, Teddy managed to hurl Victoire off of him by dunking her in the sand and proceeding to tickle her while she beat at his chest, giggling helplessly.
Victoire kicked blindly at the monster that had seen fit to disturb her sleep.
"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty," came the absurdly cheerful voice from beside her. "Time to get up, up, up!"
"I hate you," Victoire mumbled, pulling the coverlet over her head.
"No, you don't," said the evil, evil thing, poking her in her ribs. "But you will if I kiss you to wake you up, so, up and at 'em!"
There was a long pause, in which Victoire tightened her grip on her blanket.
"Come on," came the voice again. "We have to go now or we won't have very long at Diagon Alley before everyone has to finish up prepping for our party this afternoon, hon."
Victoire shot upright, sending Roxanne flying off of her bed. "Why didn't you say so sooner?" she demanded, scrambling out of bed, to run a brush through her hair, tie it back in a braid, pull on a pair of jeans and a green-and-golf Holyhead Harpies t-shirt. Cramming her favorite Muggle baseball cap on her head and pulling on a pair of mismatched socks that, for some reason, her Uncle Harry called 'Dobbies,' she slipped on her green friendship anklet. In less than three minutes, she was ready, while Roxanne was still rubbing her head and swearing under her breath.
"Let's go!" Victoire declared, slinging her satchel over her shoulder and staring for the door, Roxanne following, muttering.
In the kitchen, alternately sleepy and excited, a bleary-eyed Dominique and a bright-eyed Louis were crowded around the kitchen table, along with Bill, Fleur, Fred II, George, Angelina, Teddy, Ginny, James, Albus, little Lily, and a very lost-looking Neville Longbottom.
"Uncle Neville, what are you doing here?" Victoire asked, giving her cousin Hugo's godfather a hug.
"Well, I don't really know," the Herbology Professor sighed. "Hermione said she had a friend who had an interesting specimen of a mordaci distrinxprimula to show me—" he caught sight of the uncomprehending faces and added "oh, that means a biting daisy. Anyways, she told me that she couldn't pick it up until she finished her paperwork for the upcoming Ministry Ball, because, as Minister, she's very involved, so she told me to go along and visit Ginny for a while until she was done, so I didn't have to go all the way to Hogwarts and back, but when I arrived, Ginny was bundling everyone out the door and I kinda got swept up in it. I don't think she even realized I was there," he added.
"Sorry," said Ginny sheepishly. "James had stuck himself to the ceiling accidentally during his tantrum regarding the fact that I wasn't going to get him his own broom until second year. Harry's at work, and it was a little stressful."
The six-year old grinned, not seeming sorry at all.
"Shall we move on?" Fleur asked, checking the clock on the windowsill. "We have a bit of a short window of time before we have dinner here, on the beach." She turned to Neville. "You, Hannah, and the kids can make it, can't you? We're celebrating your next round of Weasley students."
"You'd better be able to make it," said Ginny narrowing her eyes. "You can make it, right?'
"Of course," said Neville hastily.
"Splendid!" Ginny beamed. "Now, let's get going. We want to beat the rush at Ollivander's."
After the war, the original Ollivander had passed his wand making business down to his nephew, Owen Ollivander. The nephew was no shame to the Ollivander name, even introducing the now extremely popular line of palmwood wands, something unheard of in Garrick Ollivander's day.
"I want an Original Ollivander wand," Victoire told Roxanne, but Angelina overheard.
"There aren't many left, sweetie," she told her niece. "And the wand chooses the wizard."
"I know," Victoire sighed. "It'd be nice, that's all." Original Ollivander wands were those made by Garrick Ollivander himself, when he was still in the business.
"Let's go, now," said Fleur, hustling everyone towards the fireplace. A Floo for each later, Lily in her mother's arms, they were standing in the Leaky Cauldron. The barman, who never seemed to age a day, gave them a toothless smile and turned back to cleaning glasses as Ginny, Fleur, and Angelina shooed everyone towards the entrance to Diagon Alley and out among the vividly colored sight of the wizarding shops.
"Where first?" Louis asked happily.
"Flourish and Blotts," said Roxanne.
"Ollivanders," Vic said, at the same time.
"All right," Roxanne conceded. "I really want my wand, anyway."
The fourteen of them hustled their way through the street, but it soon became clear that it was going to become nearly impossible to navigate such a large group through the crowd. After several failed attempts at organization, Victoire suggested that Fleur, Angelina, and Ginny take Roxanne, Victoire and Teddy into Ollivanders', while Bill, George, and Neville took Louis, Dominique, Fred, James, Albus, and Lily to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, then meet up later at Shell Cottage for the evening.
The children readily agreed, and, although the grown-ups blanched at the thought of two children to each of them, they reluctantly agreed it was the best course of action.
When the six children and three grown-ups were hustled away towards George's shop, the rest of the group made their way through the bustling avenue bright with fine robes and signs announcing 'Slug and Jiggers Apothecary' and 'Potage's Cauldron Shop.' The three children drank everything in greedily, as it was rare they were allowed to go into Diagon Alley themselves, usually just popping into George's Floo when visiting the shop.
"There!" Victoire cried, pointing to a small, dusty shop wedged between Twilfitt and Tattings and a boarded-up joke shop. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes had put many a joke shop out of business over the years. The wand shop had two large, turret-like windows out front with gilded letters spelling OLLIVANDERS over each.
Roxanne bit down on the heel of her hand, a nervous habit that she hadn't done since she was small. "I can't wait!"
"Neither can I," Victoire breathed. Teddy grinned. The year before, he had received his own wand—pear wood with unicorn hair core. Victoire had decided this was entirely unfair, so she had refused to speak to him. At least, until she forgot all about being mad and tried to convince him to use his brand-new wand to set Uncle Percy's hair on fire.
Victoire pushed open the door and stepped into the dark, dusty shop, the hinges squealing and the floorboards creaking ominously under her feet. This had served to sufficiently intimidate generations upon generations of brand-new Hogwarts students and parents alike, but not Victoire.
"Coo-eee Mr. Ollivander! We've come for our wands! MR. OLLIVANDER!"
The ancient wandmaker's nephew scrambled out from behind a stack of empty wand boxes. He was short, with scruffy, graying hair that was balding at the top, spindly spectacles, and a paint-stained piece of white cloth tucked into the bib of his overalls. He gave the newcomers a nervous, well-meaning smile.
"How can I help you? Er, Mrs. and Mrs. and Miss and Miss Weasley and Mrs. Potter and Mr. Lupin?" the man gave a little tremble. "Ah, yes. Mr. Lupin. Pear wood and unicorn hair, 13 ¾ inches, pliant."
"Yes, sir," said Teddy gravely. Vic elbowed him.
"I mean, whatever," he said hastily. Victoire was always telling him to, quote 'not be so uptight, Teddy dear.'
Owen's fuzzy gray eyebrows, resembling furry caterpillars, rose on his forehead, but he didn't say anything more, only squinted at Victoire and Roxanne.
"Are these my little customers?" he asked Angelina. "New Hogwarts students, I presume?"
"Yes, and we can talk, too," said Roxanne, smiling brightly.
"Yes, yes of course," Owen mumbled. "Obviously. Ah. Yes. Jolly good. Here we are."
He took a wand box off the shelf behind him and handed it to Victoire. "Palmwood and unicorn hair. Quite exotic. 12 ⅛ inches, surprisingly swishy. Try it."
"I'm not using anything with little hearts carved into the handle," said Victoire coldly, examining the wand.
"Ah. Yes. Narrows it down a bit, I should think,' said Owen, not appearing to be joking. "Miss . . . "
"Victoire," said Victoire. "And this is Roxanne."
"Ah, Miss Roxanne," Owen smiled at her, but it appeared to be more of a grimace. "Would you, by any chance . . . "
"No hearts," said Roxanne firmly.
"Ah, yes. Quite," said Owen disappointedly. "There was another young lady in here earlier, wanted flowers and rainbows. Miss Boot, I think she said."
"I remember Lavender Brown from Hogwarts," said Ginny grimly. "It seems her tastes have been passed on to her daughter."
"Magenta is a horrible name for a child," said Angelina. Fleur nodded in agreement.
"Anyway, back to business," said Owen nervously. "Ah. Miss Roxanne. Try this. Holly and unicorn hair. Quite bendy. Give it wave, there's a good girl."
Roxanne examined the wand suspiciously, but, finding no hearts, rainbows, or flowers, she gave it a swish. Instantly, several boxes of wands, including the ladder that could be rolled along the shelves, came crashing to the floor.
A moment later, Owen peeked out from behind the counter, pushing his spectacles back up his nose. "Perhaps not that one, dearie. There, put it down."
Owen rummaged for a moment among the fallen wand, then emerged, smiling. "Ah, here we are. Miss Weasley. Ahem. Miss Victoire. Cedar and phoenix feather core. Surprisingly swishy. Try it."
Victoire scrutinized the wand, then gave it a wave. The candles all exploded, plastering the wall behind the counter with molten wax. Owen had dived for cover, and now he stood, wiping wax from his spectacles.
"Ah. I think perhaps not. Miss Weasley, I mean, Miss Roseanne—"
"Roxanne," Roxanne said loudly. Owen flinched.
"Ah, yes. Miss Roxanne. Of course." He picked a wand from the stack and handed it to the girl. "Fir and dragon heartstring. Pliant. Give a swish, dearie."
This time, the books on fine wand making, lined up on the shelf at the back of the room, came flying forward between the narrow shelves and hurled themselves at Owen's head. He ducked.
"Maybe not. There we are. Miss Weasley. No, not you, dearie, Miss Victoire. Cherry and unicorn hair. Surprisingly swishy. A wave, dearie, give it a little swish."
Victoire complied, and the glass in the windows shattered out into the street. There were screams, and a small stampede as everyone rushed to safety.
"Er, just as well," Owen admitted. "It has flowers on the handle."
Victoire tossed the wand back onto the counter in outrage.
They went through at least ten different wands that day. Finally, after a small explosion that had singed off Owen Ollivander's caterpillar eyebrows when a hawthorn and phoenix wand rejected Victoire rather violently, Owen suggested his two customers come into the back room and take a look at the Original Ollivander wands. Victoire and Roxanne nodded eagerly, and Ginny, Angelina, and Fleur agreed.
Owen lead the two girls through the back and into a small room, lined with ornate shelves and wands in wooden boxes. Seating himself behind a desk, he licked the tips of his fingers and began to flick through as stack of parchment he had produced from a drawer, while the pair of customers stood around awkwardly, eyeing the gilded shelves, stacked with wooden wand boxes.
"Ah, here we are. Miss Roxanne." Owen drew a sheet from the pile, his spectacles slipping down his nose. "I think this would do quite nicely, don't you?" He scanned the parchment carefully. "Yes. Quite."
Raising his own wand, he non-verbally summoned a single box from the shelves on the right, and handed it to Roxanne. Inside, placed in a nest of black velvet, was a slender wand, almost reddish in hue, completely smooth except for a slender grip that fit perfectly into Roxanne's hand, the knobs and bumps in the wood almost molded against her skin.
"Yes," said Owen, watching her closely. "Black walnut and phoenix feather, 10 inches precisely. Unyielding. You are a very precise young woman, are you not?"
"Definitely," said Roxanne, with a grin.
"Very good. Give us a swish, dearest."
Roxanne waved the wand, and there was a small cascade of red sparks from the tip, landing in the carpet and sizzling. Roxanne gaped at it, as if she had felt the power flowing through her fingertips and into the wand itself.
"Very good, very good, Miss Roxanne,' said Owen, clapping happily. "Now, Miss Victoire."
Victoire, who had been clapping Roxanne on the back, looked up to find Owen holding out another wand box. "This would be quite suitable, I should think, my dear," he told her.
Victoire took the wand box, opening it to find, in a mold of black velvet, just like Roxanne's walnut wand, a wand slightly longer than Roxanne's, with a rough-cut handle that fit snugly against her palm. The wand's 'blade' was sleek, and cool to the touch. She grinned at Owen.
"Very good, Miss Weasley. Ahem. Miss Victoire. This is hazelwood, with dragon heartstring core. 11 ½ inches. Unyielding. You do not bend for anyone, do you, Miss Weasley?" Owen asked.
"Nope," said Victoire with a grin.
"Quite. Now, a swish, if you will."
Victoire waved the hazelwood wand, and, with a bang and a flash, a shower of violet-colored sparks burst out of the tip.
"Very good, Miss and Miss Weasley," said Owen, clapping again. "I do like tricky customers, and I think you'll be very well suited to these particular wands, my dears. Now, let me give you a few words of advice about your wands," he continued, placing them into their boxes and handing them back to their particular owners. Victoire gave into a rare moment of untamed squealing and hugged her wand to her chest.
'Miss Roxanne." Owen beckoned her closer. "Walnut wands are known to be completely loyal to their master, and, once won, will perform any task their wielder desires. Now, while that may be useful, beware, as it makes a lethal weapon in the hands of wizards and witches without morals."
Roxanne nodded.
"Good. Now," Owen continued. "Also know that walnut wand are best suited to highly intelligent, brilliant spellcasters, often possessed by inventors, those who explore the realms of magic and create their own ways of navigating through it."
Roxanne blushed. "I actually . . . well, it's always sounded very interesting to me."
Victoire nodded. "Yes, she's always wanted to invent her own spells and things."
"Now, Miss Victoire," said Owen, turning his owlish gaze on her. "Hazel wands are quite aware and often reflect on their owner's emotional state, and it often shall absorb energy if the master of the wand has recently lost their temper, and shall often expel it onto whoever next picks up the wand and does not own it. However, it is often quite powerful in the hands of the skillful, and entirely devoted to the one master. So much, in fact, that it often 'dies,' or releases its magic after the owner's death. They also have the ability to sense water underground, and will emmett puffs of smoke near water sources."
"Okay," said Victoire.
"Go along now, and tell your family you've found your wands."
Victoire and Roxanne obeyed, rushing from the room and babbling excitedly to their mothers, Ginny, and Teddy. Teddy ruffled Victoire's hair in congratulations, causing Victoire to poke him in the stomach. Roxanne stood next the two and rolled her eyes at their antics, causing both Victoire and Teddy to poke her. The resulting tussle lasted until Angelina and Fleur had returned, having paid for the wands, and ushered the children out into the street.
Next Chapter:
'"You don't think . . . " Ginny's eyes were wide, and she tuRned to AngElina. "You don't think . . . . "
"I hope not," Angelina said, frowning. "But it does seem Very likely . . . "
"What? What? What is it?" VIc demanded impatiEntly.
"The last time a dubious writer had complete control over a booklist at Hogwarts, Well. . . " Ginny trailed off.
"Nevermind," said Angelina hastily. "It's probably nothing."'
The story knows all! Find the answer and follow the trail . . .
CritterCat