The summer before Rose and Savin started their first year at Hogwarts passed fairly uneventfully for both children. There was a certain amount of preparing for the upcoming school year, but most of the summer was taken up with the usual sort of events. Rose spent that summer swimming at the local pool, playing in the backyard, chasing the ice cream truck around the neighborhood, and visiting the local library where her mother had worked before her death. Most of Savin's time was still spent in lessons with his various tutors and in attending the endless rounds of garden parties and teas that made up the summer social season with one or both of his parents. Occasionally he managed to escape from authority figures to ride his broomstick around the manor grounds or visit with the owl that his parents had bought for his birthday, a large gray owl that he had named "Gandalf" after a wizard in a muggle book one of his tutors had once lent him (the tutor, a half-blood hired to teach Savin math, had been fired not long after lending it to him when Lord Silther had heard about it). Between (and during) their other activities, both children daydreamed about Hogwarts, wondering about classes and classmates, and what it would be like to be away from home for so long.

For Rose, her first trip to Diagon Alley was the highlight of the season. Dan and Jenny went with her, of course, nervous and excited to see the magical world that Professor McGonagall had told them about. Despite the initial wide eyes and gaping mouths of all three Aurums upon passing through the brick wall behind the Leaky Cauldron and into Diagon Alley, the trip was overall quite successful. They had been warned by McGonagall about what to expect, and managed not to make too much of a fool of themselves, allowing the goblins to change some of their "muggle money" into galleons, sickles, and knuts before moving on to the shops. Most of this was not too eventful. After all, book shopping was the same even if the books in question were textbooks about potions and spells, and even uniform shopping was not too different, if it was possible to ignore the measuring tape moving on its own, or the fact that the uniform included robes and a real pointy hat. Passing a store selling pets, there was some discussion over whether to purchase an owl (mostly on the part of Rose, who was particularly taken by a small brown one in the window), but after seeing the prices Dan and Jenny managed to convince Rose that it would be better not to get her own, since there were owls at school that the students could use anyway.

Most of the other shopping continued uneventfully, and finally it was time for Rose to buy a wand. This, unsurprisingly, had been the errand that both Rose and her parents had been most looking forward to. They got directions from their previous stop (Fortescue's Ice Cream Shop, which turned out to have quite tasty, though not specifically magical, ice cream), and made their way to Ollivanders. The wand shop was smaller and plainer than any of them had expected – Dan, in particular, had been expecting something more like Gringotts, bright and showy on the outside to match the power which presumably was contained within. Rose, thinking herself just moments away from owning her very own magic wand, was much less concerned with the shabby exterior, and hurried her parents into the shop. The inside, at least, looked more interesting, if no shinier or elaborate than the outside. Boxes of wands stacked high on the shelves behind the counter, and the whole place had a mysterious and ancient sort of air about it. Even Dan had to admit that there was a certain gravitas to it, though he still felt that there should be something more overtly magical about a store selling magic wands.

Soon, the proprietor himself appeared from among the boxes, and after some preliminary questions to Rose about her name and dominant arm and a suggestion to her parents to stand back a little, Ollivander began to produce wands for Rose to try. She took the first he handed her, very excited and secretly quite sure that she would get the right wand on the first try, despite the wandmaker's caution that it often took some time to get the right match (after all, that's how this sort of thing always worked in books). Her confidence, of course, was misplaced, and Ollivander snatched the first wand out of her hand almost as soon as she touched it, returning to his shelves to rummage for a different wand for her to try. The next few offerings went similarly: Ollivander handed Rose a wand, she waved it around a bit, he shook his head and took it back before choosing another one, muttering to himself all the while.

Ultimately it was the sixth attempt which proved successful, not enough tries for Ollivander to be concerned, but long enough that Rose was beginning to worry whether there might have been some sort of mistake, that maybe she wasn't a witch after all. The wandmaker handed her the last one, a yellowish wand a little shorter than some of the others she'd tried, which he announced was 8 inches long, made of pine wood with a dragon heartstring core. She took it, and as soon as her fingers wrapped around the carved handle she felt a warmth spread through her, and gold and silver sparks shot out of its end. After congratulating her, Ollivander returned the wand to its box, informing Rose as he did that pine wands were especially good for more creative kinds of magic, and often chose wizards who were independent and mysterious. Her smiling parents came forward to congratulate her and pay for the wand as Rose pondered what he had told her. She liked to think of herself as a creative person, so it would make sense for that to be reflected in her wand and magic, but she doubted anyone would ever think of her as mysterious. As she thanked the wandmaker and left the shop with her parents, Rose made a note to look up more about wands and their meanings when she had a chance, then set the matter aside and focused on leading her parents back out of Diagon Alley. As they passed through the Leaky Cauldron again, Rose smiled at the thought that in just a couple months she would be in the wizarding world fulltime.

While Rose's trip to Diagon Alley was a major adventure for her, the first foray into a new world, Savin went to Diagon Alley multiple times during the summer, and most of the instances were fairly uneventful. He'd been going to Diagon Alley since he was a child; it was one of few places in the country for wizarding shopping, after all. He still needed to obtain all of the same equipment and supplies for Hogwarts, but a lot of things could be ordered directly to the manor, or picked up from Diagon Alley while running other errands. Savin's owl, which he told his parents was named "Athena," trusting that they wouldn't notice that it was male and assuming they would be upset to hear it was really named "Gandalf," had been purchased back in April, for his birthday. His books were selected on one trip early in the summer, and his potions kit delivered to the manor by owl order. Buying robes did require a trip to the Alley, since Lady Silther refused to contemplate her son not having properly fitted robes for school, though Savin had tried to convince her that they shouldn't need him for that since the seamstress had his measurements already.

The only aspect of acquiring school supplies which was equally exciting for Savin as for Rose was buying a wand. Being an only child, Savin had never been inside Ollivanders wand store to watch an older sibling choose a wand, and had never had a reason to go in for himself before he turned eleven. The wand shop was practically the only store in Diagon Alley that he hadn't been inside before, which made it seem even more mysterious, and made Savin even more eager to go inside. Plus, of course, there was the excitement of getting his first wand as well. Suffice to say, Savin was looking forward to his visit to Ollivanders when his parents finally agreed on a day to go. They travelled to Diagon Alley by floo, coming out in the Leaky Cauldron and then proceeding through the brick wall behind the pub and walking directly to the wand shop.

Like Dan Aurum, Savin found himself slightly disappointed by the interior of Ollivanders when he first walked in. After so many years dreaming about the day when he would finally get his wand, and imagining it happening in an open, well-lit room like those in so many of the other shops along Diagon Alley, it was a bit of a letdown to instead be in a cramped, dark, room surrounded by piles of wand boxes. But Savin quickly forgot about his surroundings when confronted by Ollivander himself, who suddenly came out from nowhere and greeted Savin's parents by their wand types before their names. Soon the boy found himself trying wand after wand, none of which Ollivander seemed happy with. He could feel his parents growing somewhat impatient, but trying their hardest not to show it, as the old man dug through his boxes and mused about wand combinations. Finally, Ollivander pulled out a dark, polished wand ("Walnut wood with a phoenix feather core, nine and a half inches long, very versatile") and passed it to Savin. For a moment he didn't think anything had happened, and turned to return the wand to Ollivander, but then felt a tingling spreading out from the wand, and saw silver and gold sparks coming out of its end.

Ollivander, watching the sparks fly, found himself with a feeling of deja vu, having seen just that color combination only days earlier, when Rose Aurum passed through his shop. Shaking off the feeling as an old man's folly, the wandmaker said nothing to the Silthers as he watched them leave the store, but found himself wondering about it later that evening as he closed up his shop. In all his years studying wandlore and selling wands, he had never encountered any two wands showing the same exact reaction when claiming their witches or wizards. There were plenty of similar cases, there being only so many colors possible for wand sparks, but never the exact same shades in the exact same proportions. Yet Ollivander would have sworn that the sparks he saw come out of Savin Silthers wand that day were the exact same as those he had seen from Rose Aurum earlier that week. The old wizard would not see either child again for twenty-five years, but found himself wondering often during that time what had happened to them, and what those matching sparks might have foretold.