[x] Invite Carter to shop with your family.

You figure it's about time you head back to Dad and Maggie, if only to minimize the lecture you're bound to get for wandering off. At the same time, though, you'd feel pretty bad just leaving Carter by himself. It's clear the workers won't help him out, and you doubt that the remaining supplies will be within his reach - from the looks of it, he'd be pretty short even if he wasn't in a wheelchair. Why his mum is over with her older son and not in here is a mystery to you.

"Hey," you say, an idea bubbling up in your head. You need to find your family again, but you also want to stay with Carter. Why not kill two birds with one stone? "You want to come shop with my family? We're headed to the same places either way, since we need the same supplies. And maybe we'll be able to fight off rabid salesmen if we stick together." You shrug. "Strength in numbers and all that."

He laughs.

"I'm sure we'll have better odds of survival if we travel in a group," he says. "Just don't move if you get cornered. They can only see you if they hear jingling galleons."

"I see," you say, walking down the aisle toward the place you split off from Dad. Carter follows you, his chair wheeling itself along. "And what about sickles and knuts? Do they hear those?"

"Only the most desperate and starving specimen would pay any attention to such petty coins," he replies, sounding for all the world like a wizened old zoologist. "By then, though, they'll have begun to revert to their true form. You can recognize them by their yellow eyes and greenish-brown scales. Hence the name: 'scalesmen.'"

You giggle...and sincerely hope he's kidding. It seems like he is, but when it comes to magic, you can never know for sure.

A few moments later, you hear a very familiar voice, about as irritated as you expected it to be.

"There you are, Astrid. We've been looking all over. This blasted store is such a maze," Dad says, spying you from halfway across another aisle and jogging over to you. He leaves the trolley with Maggie. "Hold still for a bit." His signature black wand appears in his hand, and he says a string of incantations in the exact same tone he uses when he's swearing in Russian and doesn't want you to hear. "There. That should be all of them. How silly of me to forget I'd need a suite of protection spells before I walked into a store." He stows his wand back in his pocket, then assumes his full posture, arms crossed and everything. Uh oh.

"And where did you get off to, anyway? Those house elf steps were so bright, I was seeing spots. Unless some salesman pulled you away, in which case I'll hex the bast-"

Carter pulls up to your side, and Dad cuts himself off abruptly, jaw snapping shut before he can finish his sentence.

"Oh. Er...and who might you be?" he says, dropping both his arms and his stern tone.

"Sorry, sir. I was having some trouble reaching something, and Astrid came over to help me out. Didn't mean to scare you or anything," Carter says, and you can't tell if he's being genuine or if he's just really, really good at knowing what adults want to hear. "I'm Carter Fellwind. I'll be a first year too, in a few weeks."

Dad blinks, then looks between the both of you like he's trying to decide whether he should still be angry. You take the opportunity to hold out your brass scales and drop them in the trolley, which Maggie's pushed over to you in the meantime.

"Got these, by the way," you say. "You're welcome."

That must be all the convincing he needed, because after shooting you a familiar 'watch that tone, young lady' look, he smiles at Carter.

"Good to meet you, Carter. I'm Vasily Ivanovich. The father of this little goblin, as I'm sure you've guessed," Dad says, using his weird little pet name and patting your head at the same time. Payback for getting smart with him, you guess. Grumbling, you pull away. "Though I'm glad Astrid's meeting other first years, neither of you should be alone. Especially in a place as shark-infested as this. Where's your par -"

"Carter wanted to come shopping with us, Dad," you say, sending him a pointed glance before he can finish that question. You don't know all the details, but you're pretty sure Carter doesn't want to talk about where or why his parents aren't with him, if his reaction earlier is any indication. "We have the same supplies anyway, so I didn't think it'd be any trouble. Can he come along?"

Your father returns your glance, obviously confused at the note of urgency in your voice.

"It wouldn't be the whole day. I'm meeting up with my mum and my brother once they're finished at Flourish and Blotts," Carter chimes in. Thankfully, he doesn't seem to get gloomy like he did earlier. Between your combined efforts, your father relents, though he still looks at you like there's something you're not telling him.

"Alright. It looks like we have the scales covered, and Maggie and I found the telescopes before you went missing, Astrid, so we can get back to those. I think. Unless the aisles rotate when we're not looking, or that house elf led us away - oh, Merlin's beard, point me -"

And so the four of you struggle through the dense mercantile jungle of Engleby's. You lose a fair bit of time to getting lost, and to Dad refusing to call another house elf because you can do this on your own, damnit, but you eventually gather all the supplies you need and head over to the cashier. As you're standing in line, glancing behind you to make sure no enchanted tea kettles have taken a liking to you, you see the pinkish-purple glow of the Windows from earlier, though your view is mostly blocked by a swaying shelf of Quidditch bobblehead dolls. You'd sort of hoped you'd pass that section of the store again. You're curious what all that talk of 'Webspinners' and 'faster connections' was about, but in all the circles you went in over the past hour and a half, you never managed to go back there.

You make a mental note to ask Dad about Windows later.


"Five galleons for a size 2 cauldron," your father murmurs when you finally exit back into the main street. Your eyes adjust gratefully to the normal level of light, and the fresh air feels lovely, even as humid as it is. "A bloody scam, that place. A downright injustice. How those scoundrels ran Potage out of business I'll never know."

"Well, we're done in there, at least," you say. "And everything else should go by much faster, except maybe Ollivanders." Indeed, the line for the wand shop is still trailing out onto the sidewalk, with many kids your age looking antsy from the wait. You made a good call not wasting your time there yet, even if that meant slogging through Engleby's first thing.

"Ollivanders can sometimes go fast," Carter notes, his chair hovering down the entrance's short flight of steps. (Good - you'd been wondering how he was going to get around Hogwarts without walking. Haven't you heard something about a grand staircase that moves?) "My brother was in and out in a moment when we went with him. Ollivander said that he can sometimes pick the wand the second a person's through the door."

"You wouldn't know it from the line," Dad mumbles again. You know he rather resents the old wandmaker; he's gone on and on to you before about how he's a snob about his cores, and how he limits the variety of his wands greatly by only using three. Gregorovitch was the true master, he says, and it's a shame his children will never know the unmatched subtlety and craftsmanship of his work. But Dad is a kind man, and can only stay grumpy for so long, so he brightens again rather quickly.

"Did you need us to walk you to Flourish and Blotts?" he asks Carter. "The alley is easy enough to navigate, but I'd hate to leave you on your own."

"No, it's fine," he replies. "I see them over there." He points several dozen yards down the road. You squint, and in the crowd, you can make out a sour-looking woman in fine emerald robes, holding the shoulder of a boy with messy blonde hair, who's holding a thick book open in one hand.

That's...odd. You look quickly back at Carter. He has dusty brown hair - curly - and a round face that's not a bit as severe as his mum and his brother's. Maybe you've spotted the wrong pair?

But the woman turns her head and makes eye contact with Carter, beckoning him over with a sharp gesture. The older boy looks up, appraising you from a distance for a moment before returning to his reading.

Carter begins wheeling over, his supplies bumping about in the basket on his lap. He looks over his shoulder before he gets too far away.

"It was nice meeting you, Astrid," he says. "Thanks for helping me out."

You smile.

"No problem. I guess I'll see you in a few weeks?"

"Yeah. September 1st." He returns your smile. "Maybe we can sit together on the train."

"Maybe," you say, then smirk. "If the scalesmen don't get you first."

Your father looks at you like you've grown a second head.

"They'll never take me alive," Carter says, his smile nearly splitting into a laugh - then his mother makes that gesture again, this time even more impatient, and he winces before starting forward. "See you around."

When he's a safe distance away, Dad raises an eyebrow. "'Scalesmen'?"

"Don't worry about it," you say, breezing past him. "They can't see you if you don't move."


The rest of your shopping is mercifully easier than the debacle that was Engleby's. Madam Malkins is boring, and the Apothecary stinks to high heaven, but you find what you need there at reasonable prices and without much trouble. Funnily enough, you see Carter again inside the Apothecary, and you're about to go over to him and say hi. But then you see his wheelchair clip the edge of a shelf, knocking down several jars that shatter on the ground. His mother makes a comment you can't hear, repairs the fallen ingredients with a flick of her wand, and ushers him out of the store before you can do anything.

You don't think she's a very nice person to live with.

You head to Flourish and Blotts afterward, splitting off from Dad and Maggie, who head for Florean's. Dad gives you about a million different ways to contact him should anything go wrong - should you get lost, or mugged, or transfigured into a toad - before you at last get away. It's a new sort of experience, being in the bookstore on your own. Just about everyone else you see in the shop is with a parent. Well, except this one blonde girl you spot, who's badgering a man with a bowler hat and Ministry pin for some of the candy they sell at the counter. You'd forgotten that Muggleborns had to do all this shopping with a Ministry escort. You're lucky you don't have to. They've all seemed pretty uptight when you've met them.

Quickly gathering your books, you steal over to the back of the store, checking behind you every so often as if you'll get in trouble at any moment. This is where you know they keep the books on the Dark Arts. Dad's been back here a few times, always telling the cashier that it's 'Ministry business,' whether they ask about his purchases or not. Some of the texts are far beyond your meager price range, but you do find two books that look interesting. (Some of the stuff in Dad's library is confusing drivel, and you'd prefer not to accidentally buy something like that.)

One is called 100 Helpful Hexes. It looks like a standard spellbook, like the one you need for school, only with a list of jinxes and hexes instead of charms and enchantments. Most of them seem more mischievous than Dark, but as you're flipping through, you see one or two that could be helpful in a fight. The Bat Bogey Hex, for instance, though that's listed under the 'Challenging' spells. It's not exactly serious academia, but it could be a useful book. And it probably wouldn't get you suspended if anyone found it.

The other is called The Forbidden Arts: A Treatise on Morality and Magic. It's much thicker than the other book, with an ominous skull on the front, and you find the author listed only as 'Anonymous.' The print is small, and you're not sure how much practical advice it gives, as you know that no one is allowed to teach serious Dark Magic in Britain. But still, some of the chapter titles seem interesting, and one in particular catches your eye: 'The Dark Mark, or A Critical Analysis of the Second Wizarding War.'

Your heart leaps into your throat. Dad never has told you much about The War...

You'd buy both, if you could, but you can only afford one. Which do you choose?

[ ] 100 Helpful Hexes (5 galleons)
[x] The Forbidden Arts (7 galleons)

You avoid looking the cashier in the eye as you slide the book across the counter, then stow it in the deep pockets of your robes as you head back outside to find your father.


"Looks like everybody's gotten their wands now," you say, standing across the street from the much less busy Ollivanders. Maggie's nursing the remains of an ice cream cone, while Dad cranes his neck to see in the shop window, which is caked with dust from the inside.

"Almost everybody," he says. "There seems to be a bit of a crowd inside, but that can't be helped, I suppose. One wand shop, one wandmaker, and at least forty little students who need wands. It's inevitable."

"I'm so excited." Maggie crunches down on the last of her cone, smearing vanilla-strawberry ice cream around her mouth. "I want to see which wand chooses you, Astrid. Dad told me that wands say a lot about a person."

Ah, yes. Adage 14: 'People can act however they wish, but wands never lie.' He gave you a sheet of wand woods and cores to look over, but you found all the different meanings and combinations a bit overwhelming. Besides, you don't think it's totally fair to judge someone only on their wand. If it's true that the wand chooses the wizard, no one has a say anyway, so why would it matter if someone got an 'evil' wood? You're not even sure there is such a thing, not unless some trees are good and some are evil.

"Well, nothing for it, then," Dad says, crossing the street with both of you. "We'll just have to wait inside until the crowd leaves." He grabs hold of the knob, turns it -

- someone inside shouts, "All clear!" -

- and the window explodes in a shower of glass.

Standing in the middle of the shop is a girl with blonde hair in two braids, holding up a greyish wand, looking completely stunned.

Perhaps you picked a bad time to wand shop after all.

A head of thin white hair peaks up from behind the counter, silver eyes gleaming in the low light.

"I think we can safely say the dragon heartstring isn't for you," the man says, pulling out a brittle-looking wand of his own. The broken glass leaps back into place without a word from him. "Not to worry, my girl. That happens more often than you would believe."

"Didn't happen to us," a voice says from further away.

"We all got our wands on the first try," another one comments.

"All dragon heartstring, all from the same dragon," a third one joins in.

"A shame," says the first.

"A shame," a chorus of voices repeats.

You wheel around and see a group of nigh identical blonde girls, at least seven or eight in total, all wearing their silver blonde hair in intricate styles, all training their eyes on the girl in the center of the room. They look so alike - you figure those must all be her sisters - but how? There's so many of them, and all of different ages, so you know it's not some monstrously rare case of octuplets. And they all wear the same mask of judgmental disappointment as they stare down their sister.

A boy you didn't see before steps in front of them, as if to shield the poor girl, who seems to be on the verge of tears.

"Leave her alone. So what if she doesn't get a dragon heartstring? It's not like that matters."

The girls titter with laughter, high-pitched and elegant.

"The boy thinks he understands."

"How quaint."

"How gallant."

Meanwhile, the girl with the wand holds it up again, a look of pleading in her eye.

"Just let me try it one more time, Mr. Ollivander. I'm sure it'll work." She makes to swing it again, but before she can, Ollivander's reached over and plucked it from her hand with worried swiftness.

"No, no. I have something much better in mind for you, miss. Much better indeed," he says, then disappears into the countless boxes and shelves behind him.

Coughing awkwardly, your dad closes the door.

"Here we are, here we are." Ollivander comes back but seconds later, carrying a slender box. He removes the top and pulls an intricately carved, light brown wand from within. "Dogwood with unicorn hair, thirteen and a half inches. Wonderfully pliant. Just perfect for a girl like you, I think. Give it a try."

The girl hesitantly takes the wand. A tense second passes. Two. Three.

And a shower of sparks erupts from the tip, iridescent in the dusty air.

"See? A wonderful fit," he says, beaming at the display. "Wouldn't you rather have a wand like this, my dear?"

She sniffles.

"I suppose we have no choice," one of the voices from the back says, standing up. From her height and her air of maturity, you guess she's the oldest of the bunch. "Give her the one that works."

Two or three more comments of 'a shame' can be heard before one of the younger girls strides forward and drops a bag of coins on the countertop. Ollivander nods solemnly.

"Would you like its box?" he asks.

"No. She'll take it with her," the oldest girl says, before turning to her flock. "Come, sisters. Urania. Your little friend may come along, if he wishes, but we are finished here." She turns her cold eyes to you, standing in the doorway as you are. You swallow, then step to the side. The girls exit without another word, the youngest looking at the floor the whole time.

The boy stays for a moment, shakes his head, then follows them, leaving silence in his wake.

"Odd family, that one," Ollivander says, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. "I gave a dragon heartstring to each of the first eight. All from the same dragon. I figured it would be the same this year...but oh, I'm rambling. You're not here to hear about the troubles of others."

"Indeed not," Dad says, cool and polite. The old wandmaker perks up as he speaks.

"Judging by that accent, you're one of Gregorovitch's, aren't you?" he says, chuckling. "Interesting. Very interesting. What did the old man give you, if I might inquire?"

"Ebony and dragon heartstring," your father answers. "But I'm here for my daughter, not myself."

"Of course you are." Ollivander looks down at you from across the counter, eyes twinkling. "And who might you be, young lady?"

"Astrid," you answer, heart beating fast. "Astrid Ivanovich."

He looks you up and down once, with an expression you can't read - then he taps his wand against a shelf, and a measuring tape flies at you.

"Well, Astrid Ivanovich. Are you right-handed or left?"

[ ] Right.
[x] Left.

(Choose one answer for each of the following. Credit to the Pottermore wand quiz for the questions.)

What do you take most pride in?
[ ] Your determination
[ ] Your imagination
[ ] Your resilience
[ ] Your intelligence
[x] Your originality
[ ] Your optimism
[ ] Your kindness

You reach a crossroads. Which path most appeals to you?
[ ] The path by the sea
[x] The path through the forest
[ ] The path to the castle

Of these, what is your greatest fear?
[ ] Darkness
[ ] Fire
[ ] Heights
[ ] Small Spaces
[x] Isolation

In a trunk of old magical artifacts, which of these would you choose?
[ ] The dusty bottle
[ ] The old black glove
[ ] The golden key
[x] The bound-up scroll
[ ] The glittering jewel
[ ] The silver dagger
[ ] The ornate mirror