Chapter 12: Interesting

The wand-sorting room stretched in leviathan style, spinning in a maze of pedestals, lighted low with torches which reflected off of the jewels and glass on the walls and pedestals themselves, so it looked like an underwater treasure trove. The walls themselves bent in ways that made you sick if you looked at them too long. And maybe, it had occurred to some, that they did actually move. It was a magical castle.

"Who's that?" the boy whispered nervously to Ravina as she guided him into the great room.

The witch saw what had unnerved him about the young woman who stood next to her father. Her arms were folded, and she seemed oblivious to the splendor or anything else for that matter except the newcomer who slunk behind Ravina's jacket. "That's La – Professor Ro. She teaches Transfiguration and heads the wand-sorting."

The boy peeled his eyes from Laren and for the first time seemed to take in the labyrinth of stands containing their individual treasures, "Sorting?"

"Yes. Usually everyone does it together, but you-" Ravina cut off, wondering how the explanation might sound. "-You're special."

They reached the other two. Professor Hodges' frequent sidelong glances and out-of-hearing mutterings showed exactly how happy he was about Professor Ro being there.

"That's the Obscurial, I presume?" She said when they got close enough to be within hearing. The child flinched as if the word stung. Ravina hugged her arm more firmly around him and even Rocky had the grace to look disapproving, but Ro pretended not to notice. "He can go on," she told Ravina.

The young witch rearranged her face from its death-gaze before turning back to the child. "It's ok, just go and look around."

The boy hesitated before the vast array of wands and weirdly bent architecture, "How will I –"

"The wand will let you know," Laren Ro interrupted, "You'll feel it. Usually when you pick it up it will glow or spark or something. You couldn't miss it."

With an encouraging push from Ravina, the boy stepped out among pedestals.

"He's smaller than I thought," commented the professor once he was out of earshot. In fact, now that she saw him, he looked worn-through, almost transparent. His head hung low, causing his dark hair to partially hide some rather piercing eyes. He was skittish, and seemed to jump at any misplaced sound.

"Not the killing-machine you were imagining?" the younger witch replied frostily.

"Ravina..." her father warned.

Laren ignored them both, "No. I was imagining something quite different." Seconds of silence elapsed, each adult watching the Obscurial's progress throughout the maze. Finally she asked, "What's his name?"

"Credence." Rocky answered, feeling the full weight of the irony. In onomastics, credence was the very definition of belief. Laren had none.

"Something's happening," the wizard commented. The two women saw that the Obscurial had stopped in the middle of one of the rows. Rocky and Ravina didn't hesitate. They followed the path around the twisted jeweled stands the direction the boy had followed. Laren hung back.

"So it's true," she murmured.

The stick his ma had run him out of the house for apparently should never have worried her. Real wands were a thousand times more magical. Poking around, avoiding pedestals and walls that seemed to come from nowhere, wondering what the woman had meant by You'll feel it, the boy suddenly halted in his tracks. A stand was right in front of him. Its attractancy was like a magnet, pulling him closer.

The wand looked nothing like that stick he had picked up what felt like ages ago; darker and carved. He felt the wooden base, picked it up – and instantly dropped it again.

"Just grab it, it's not going to bite," the female professor said as she sidled up behind the two Hodges.

At a nod from Ravina, the child hesitatingly reached out again and took hold of the wand. The whole room brightened slightly. Was it just more tricks of the light, or did the wand glow, for just an instant, when the boy's fingers touched it?

Professor Ro bent down to gaze at the inscription on the pedestal from which the wand had come, "Well that's interesting."

"What is?" Rocky asked, looking at the pedestal as well, and then comparing the wand in the boy's hands. 10 ½ inches, oak wood, rougarou hair core. "Oh... interesting."

"Is there something I don't know?" Ravina questioned, but they both ignored her. Professor Ro straightened up.

"Convinced yet?"

She eyed Mr. Hodges, measuring the chances that his words hid a gloat inside them. "For now. I think I've seen all I need to see." She turned around and disapparated.

As soon as she was gone the boy seemed to find his voice again, "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing..." Rocky said slowly, skimming the pedestal engraving again. "The core is just – I'll need to do some research." He made an attempt to smile, "It fits you."

Ravina couldn't make out the sidelong glance he gave her before likewise disappearing from the room.

She turned to the child, hiding her befuddlement, "Can I see that?"

He seemed to come out of a reverie, giving it to her. The witch smiled. She remembered the first day she got her ivory-sculpted wand. This one was short and nearly black. The most unique thing about it was the wave-like carvings that ran the entire length of the wand, like cracks of bark on an old trunk. They were haphazard, yet flowing. Smooth, yet clawing. What did that remind her of?

"Oh," she said, "Interesting."

A/N: So I am admittedly not an expert on how wands respond to wizards when they first get them, but this seemed like how Harry's wand worked sort of (less dramatic than the movie, but I'm not sure what happened there). About the actual wand of Credence's: I was thinking about changing the way it looked after seeing the wand he gets in The Crimes of Grindelwald, but then I thought that that was one G made for him, not necessarily one he would have gotten under normal circumstances. I think it would have been a different sort of wand had it not been given to him. I chose rougarou hair for the core because that was the core of President Piquery's wand and it is said to take to Dark Magic. For Credence, I thought that would be, well, interesting. Please review!