Chapter Eight: Wands and Wonders.
Hermione couldn't help but bounce of excitement. She was finally going to her school. But it was more than just that; this was her destiny.
Her parents had threatened her with the respect and honour that would have been bestowed on a young virgin sacrifice. Her mum brought her new cloths, some used just for a half day before being safely locked away in her trunk.
When they went shopping for her wand and other things, they walked into Diagon Alley with pride, head held up high, following a young woman who was suppose to show them around so they wouldn't get lost.
As they walked to Ollivander's Wand shop, Hermione planted her eyes on the vendor who rushed to her straightaway, already a box in his hand. Hermione shook her head already by the sight of it. It was light wood, whitish and plain.
"- Ex-excuse me Miss… have you already brought a wand?"
Hermione held the eye contact the old man had started. He blinked first but Hermione was the first one to shake her head. She felt flattered somehow, but it was also a very natural feeling to her: she truly belonged here.
Hermione had an immense feeling of satisfaction. Everything was going her way. The flashes were rare, but still present, surprising her during important moments, thus registering everything better. Her flashes had slightly changed: they were a hazy picture of her dream: a red ground and red dunes under a yellow, scorching sun.
She walked around the shop and noticed in the corner of her eye a box. This was no big deal: the whole walls of the shops were filled with boxes. But this one protruded slightly out; but it was more interesting because it was red. Not red-red, but more of a used red. As Hermione walked towards the shelf, she saw how her parents walked near her, her mother frowning, her father smiling.
Slowly her hand extended out, and took the box with her fingers. She slowly pulled out the box. The shopkeeper wasn't obviously very happy about it, but didn't do anything else than just frown.
The box was a bit different than the other ones. This one was made out of some very soft fabric that had been maroon some years ago. One of the sides of the box was reddish now because of its exposure in the sun.
Hermione slowly pulled the thin cord that was around the box and wrapped it around her wrist before taking off the lid. The movement was very simple yet elegant. Hermione felt very at peace, feeling she was doing something very important. And Hermione knew the importance of small things. This one was to be done with extreme delicacy and seriousness.
As Hermione was opening the lid, Viveca had to keep herself from jumping on Hermione and hit away the wand from her hands. Just now she understood how concrete everything was: Hermione will disappear from their lives. Not permanently, but periodically, and this scared her even more. Viveca knew that after a while, she would get used to Hermione not being there. Hermione wasn't just her daughter: she was her dream as well.
Viveca just shuddered and whimpered inwardly as she saw her daughter take in her hands her power. They all felt the crackle of energy that had flown from her hands.
Nicholas was very happy, but a bit worried as well. He was glad that his daughter (yes- his daughter; he could accept his past now and assimilate her as is own) was about to follow in the steps of those that loved her before she knew them.
The thing that bothered him was… boys. Hideous boys, ugly things. He felt very depressed at the thought that he couldn't lynch each boy that would even come in a two mile radius near her. With the responsibility of accepting Hermione as his, he felt a large weight on his heart. But he always comforted himself by thinking that she had the power of her parents in her. Jane had had power; how else could she have shot her husband?
Meanwhile, Hermione twirled the wand in her hand, laughing in wonder and amazement, sending bubbles out from the tip of the wood. Each time one of the bubbles exploded, a little crystal like noise was heard.
"- Vine wood, dragon heart's core. Very powerful…. Strange though; usually men have similar, dark wands."
Hermione turned then around and winked to Ollivanders. He too felt the power urge through her and noticed the gleam of her eye. She looked a bit like one of those woman Aurors who just knew how to deal with things.
The old man straightened slightly and took a closer look on the wand. It was quite old, surely a good decade old, surely even older, judging by the look of the box. He did make the wands mostly himself, but some of them just made themselves.
To make a wand was per se not very difficult: you needed a powerful tree and various magical products. You stripped the tree from its branches and let the wood dry. Because of its magical properties, the wood will fall in neat pieces of different sizes. Then you took the pieces of wood and dipped them in the different magical ingredients around you. The wood searched for the energy it needed to become active. Once the wood and ingredient had chosen each other, you dipped them in a solution made out of bark, honey and something else (ingredients changed following the seasons). Then the wood and ingredient became one. You took out from the solution, cleaned it, waxed it and prepared a little support for the hand with fabric or remaining bark or branches of the same wood.
But like said, some wands just made themselves. The vine tree that had been used for this wand had been digged up with its roots still on. Usually you didn't dig up the roots; if you left them on place, a new tree could grow, often more powerful than the older one. But the vine tree had been so many times re-grown, it wasn't healthy. Therefore the roots were also there; roots were the most powerful part of the tree.
Ollivander sawn off the roots and left them in a corner, deciding not to make a wand out of it. The war was still around, and an all too powerful wand might be more than a bit dangerous in the wrong hands. But the tree had decided otherwise. As the trunk and the branches were being stocked to dry, He just felt the creepy sensation of pure forest magic. The tree was dying and was trying to create a last life before dying miserably.
He didn't do anything, he didn't even turn around as he heard the gnawing sound the tree was making. The sound was quite scaring, reminding one of broken bones and exploding stones. As finally the tension settled, he turned around and saw the last portion of magic every done by that tree.
It was a wand alright; it was standing out straight from the part he had just sawn off. It poked out like a flag pole; the wood was dark, with red glints in it. It seemed to tremble gently and Ollivander slowly approached it, timidly extending his hand, as if the wand was a very hungry animal who thought he had a striking resemblance to a steak.
The wand had fallen before he had time to come even near it. It had bounced on the floor several times before jumping in the air and landing straight in the pot containing Dragon Heart Cores. It had rolled over the fresh ones dragon hearts and settled for one which Ollivander had first mistaken for an old dried prune.
The wood and 'prune' had turned and twisted and he had quickly dropped them into the bark-honey-something else solution. That year it had happened to be mimosa flowers, nettles and ice; it was obviously an odd summer mix.
The wand had marinated some time in the solution. Finally when it was ready, it was a beauty. Different, yet somehow plain. He didn't dare to create a hand supporter for it, so instead he put the end of the wand in a mollifying solution and quickly and delicately twisted the end of the wand so it would be easy to take it in hand.
Then he hid it quickly in a plain wand box and stuffed it on purpose to the wrong wand section. The shop was divided in several sections, according to the power and composites of the wand. He hid it in the 'beginners' section where usually children who left for Hogwarts or some other wizarding school chose their wands. Good for beginners, good control of power.
This wand was unpredictable and dangerous if well used; therefore Ollivanders hid it in the weaker section of wands. More than once he had been robbed by Death eaters. They always grabbed the powerful wands, so now he hid them. He hid them well.
He had forgot that wand; you have the tendency to that when becoming older.
Now the wand was found, and he knew, like the girl and her parents knew, that that little girl knew just how powerful she was. And she will use the wands potential as well as she could.
The thing that made him wonder was the bubbles that had appeard out of the wand. It wasn't normal; the wand hadn't anything to do with water, much less with musical bubbles.
To make wands is not the only thing a wandmaker is suppose to know; each wand held a key to a future, and the first signs with that wand were usually prophetic for the person. Musical bubbles from a fire creature's wand could only mean one thing: unnatural and wonderful things will happen to the girl.
It was a dumb thing of him not to tell her parents this. At least they could have been prepared to what Hermione will bring them.
