"From Mr. Ollivander."
Luna meets Bill's eyes over the package he is handing her, his eyes which are weary and old but still determined, the eyes which they all have these days. The eyes of a soldier at war.
The package is long, thin, wrapped neatly in brown paper, with her name scrawled across the top. By its weight and its size, she thinks she knows what it is, and if Mr. Ollivander is still thinking of her, though he has so much recovery still to do, so many more important things to worry about –
Her heart swells. Somehow she'll never get used to this feeling, having people who love her and do things for her without expecting anything in return.
She takes the package from Bill, manages a smile. It isn't so hard to smile anymore, these days. She finds herself taking pleasure in the little things, the same way she used to.
She's not completely healed, but she feels herself slowly, slowly coming back to life.
Sitting down at the dining room table, she slowly, carefully pulls the paper apart, frees the box from its confines. Lifting the top of the box, she finds a wand inside – just as she'd been expecting – and a note.
Before she looks at the wand, she reads the note. Just a few words, but touching ones.
My dear Luna,
Although you weren't here to be properly chosen, this wand seemed to fit you. Use it well.
Yours,
Mr. Ollivander
On the back of the paper he's written the wood and core, but she didn't need the note. She remembers all that he's taught her, all about woods and cores and what they mean, and she mouths the words as she runs her fingers along the smooth, creamy wood – beech and phoenix feather, twelve inches, springy – and remembers what these woods and cores mean, and tears startlingly fill her eyes at how much Mr. Ollivander thinks of her –
And when she finally wraps her fingers around the wand and lifts it out of the box, she feels the same warmth, the same rightness, that she felt with her old wand, that she feels with Ginny, Neville, her father –
Love. Understanding. The true connection of a wand and its master.
Mr. Ollivander is brilliant.
Brilliant, because he has been so weakened, so drained, by the many, many months of that cellar, by the torture, by the pain and misery and darkness – and yet he still has that knowledge, the knowledge which goes so much deeper than simply cutting wood and plucking unicorns – the knowledge of people and wands and magic and connections, the knowledge that so many people lack.
Brilliant.
She stands, pushes the chair aside, moving almost in a dream. As she passes the bedroom where Harry, Ron, Hermione and Griphook have been camped for days, for weeks, planning something, she can see Hermione holding a small flask which unmistakably contains Polyjuice Potion – but she knows, as everyone does with those three, that what they do is so beyond understanding, that they are driven by a force even they don't understand, so she passes without a word, knowing that their time here is drawing to a close, knowing that they will leave soon, knowing that soon, the chaos of the world will come again.
She doesn't pause by the bedroom door; she walks past, walks outside, grasping her new wand, glorying in the warmth between her fingers, and quietly she feels Dean fall into step beside her, can feel his eyes widening with envy as he looks upon her and her good fortune.
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out the DA coin, touches the wand to the letters and feels a thrum of magic well up, as though the wand is excited to begin working with her, to begin that flawless partnership that always exists between wizard and wand –
But then she pauses, removes the wand, slips the coin back into her pocket. There is nothing to say, really, nothing new, and for the moment, she will wait.
So she takes her wand, murmurs, "Wingardium Leviosa," and – swish and flick! – a large stone rises slowly into the air, lowers itself back gently down –
Beautiful.
Beautiful, beautiful – and as she continues to cast spells – Summoning things to her, only to Banish them once again, Conjuring flowers and sending flashes of sparks into the air – she watches the magic take effect, feels something bubbling up in her chest that she hasn't felt in so long – and for the first time in months, she opens her mouth and laughs.
