Chapter Ten – A Troubled Man
or I try to get a wand
Snape once again took my hand as we entered Diagon Alley and led me to Ollivander's shop. I was really excited about that but acted confused since he hadn't explained anything about wands yet. Let me pretend I didn't know what he was doing on the train.
"What's that stick in the window?" I asked him as he was about to open the doors. He looked at the wand and then at me, realizing he had forgotten to explain this to me. He opened the doors while saying,
"That is a wand. It's the main magical focus that helps you direct your magic from inside yourself. By moving your wand in a specific way and incanting a specific set of words, you can put a spell on something, like I did with the doors to our train compartment."
"Nicely said. And it is the wand itself that chooses a witch or a wizard," an old voice added as we stepped deeper into the shop. "I expected you to stop by soon, Miss Potter. There hasn't been a witch or a wizard that left here unsatisfied with their wand."
I looked over to where I heard Ollivander and finally saw the old man for myself. He was as odd looking as the books described him with pale blue eyes and wispy gray hair that was thinning on his forehead indicating that he would probably go bald in the next decade or so.
"Hello," I said with a shy smile, trying my best not to hide behind Snape from feeling uncomfortable under his gaze. In the books, it always seemed as if he could read your mind or your aura or something like that and even if I wasn't sure, I didn't want him to read my mind and find out what really happened.
I felt a soft touch on my shoulder as I watched Ollivander hum to himself as he gathered various boxes with wands while letting the measuring tape do its job. I looked up and saw Snape giving me a comforting look.
Yeah. I was definitively in an alternate universe because the Snape from the books never looked comforting. And the only time he looked like Christmas had come early was when he thought he could get Harry in trouble.
I gave him a grateful smile and continued watching the measuring tape as it flitted between my nostrils.
"That is enough," Ollivander said as he came back from wherever he was with an armful of wand boxes and settled them on the desk in front of him. The measuring tape fell on the floor and remained still.
It was time to find my wand, I guess. I wondered if I would get the same wand as Harry did.
"Right," Mr. Ollivander said as he opened the first wand box. "Twelve inches, willow and containing the hair of a unicorn."
I picked it up by its handle and tried to swish it through the air, but Ollivander grabbed it from me before I could even get it in the air, with an exclamation of, "Not that one."
And so it went. I must have gone through about a half of his shop when he finally brought out the holly and phoenix tail wand for me to try. He gave me a calculating look but didn't say anything else.
I warily picked up the wand and was kind of relieved when nothing came out of it.
"Curious," I heard Ollivander mutter as he shuffled towards the back of the shop, once again in search of a wand that would fit me.
I always found what Ollivander said to Harry in the books creepy and fascinating, so I prompted him with, "What's curious, sir?"
There were a few bangs from the general vicinity of where Ollivander went and he said a bit louder to make himself heard, "It's curious that the wand that you tried last had a phoenix tail feather whose phoenix had given just one other feather. And that feather resides in the wand I had sold the young You-Know-Who. I had thought that the wand would have chosen you, but I was mistaken."
"No, I don't know who," I said before I could stop myself. I admit, I've always loved fanfictions that played on this.
Ollivander came stomping from wherever he was and looked at me weirdly. He was carrying ten wand boxes and there were ten more floating behind him. Thank Merlin for the Levitation Charm, right?
I could see Snape pursing his lips from the corner of my eye. Was he displeased?
But no, I could see a small glitter of mirth in his black eyes that disproved that theory. I guess he found what I said funny. Good. He needed to smile more. Okay, he wasn't smiling, but I'm going to assume that he was pursing his lips to prevent himself from smiling. Makes me feel better anyway.
I turned my attention back to Ollivander who was murmuring to himself as he tried to decide which wand I should try next.
"How about this one? Beechwood, eleven inches, the core is a phoenix tail feather and the wand itself is quite bendy."
I stared at him in shock and took the wand from his fingers with hope in my heart. It was the wand that selected me on Pottermore. I really liked the hidden meaning behind the wood and its flexibility – meaning I was open minded and adaptable to situations. Or at least that's what I understood from the description written on the Pottermore pages.
I felt a warmth inside myself as I drew the wand up in the air and let it shower me in golden and silver sparks. They reminded me of the small sparklers I sometimes lit on New Year's Eve.
I felt my lips stretch in a big smile as I looked over to Snape, reminding myself of a puppy that wanted to see if his owner was pleased with him. His lips twitched a bit as if he could read my mind and I knew that he could, but hadn't. He just knew how to read me well, I guess. I was happy by that realization since people always said I was hard to read before.
I brought my (my!) wand to my eyes to look at its design. It was a pretty wand in my opinion. It was a light brown with ivy swirls. It was sleek and shiny, but I could still grip it in my fingers with no fear of it clattering to the floor. I loved it.
I must have been glowing with happiness because Ollivander was also smiling at me, happy that we had finally found the right wand for me.
Snape paid for my wand soon after that and we were once again walking down Diagon Alley.
