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Part I: The Muse has Risen

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Being in school helped me keep my thoughts far away from St. Mungos and my mother. I lived in a winter that lasted forever and Hogwarts was where I floated off to when I was asleep. The storm was still brewing but I couldn't feel it. I would wish to be there, anytime, but now; I just want to go someplace else to figure myself out. The letter actually was a surprise for me because I had forgotten everything of the wizarding world in those long months even though I was surrounded by it 24/7. It must have been numbed out in my mind that you could still learn things so beautiful.

I remember seeing the golden parchment fall through the door of my mother's ward ever so slightly at the break of dawn; I had slept in the couch nearby that night that stuck up at me in the most displeasing places so my sleep was light.

The curtain was pulled back as the brilliant sun emerged from the other side of the world. The golden rays intensely reflected the ink of the letter. That was the thing that woke me up, the blinding ink reflected from the sun.

I remember being frustrated quite greatly because I had intended to get as much sleep as possible to forget about my birthday which had gone unnoticed the other day. My eyes pierced open, like a woman who had just witnessed a murder of her husband and sons, to find the letter lying on the floor still glorious.

It had the words Jennie Stillheart in that beautiful anaconda green and I flew from my resting place to grab it.

Someone acknowledged my existence, and I would never forget that day.

One of the assistant healers had to take me outside to Wizard London because…well nobody else could have. Thinking back on it, I didn't realize that one of them actually took me. I was just happy to be outside of the hospital.

She was a nice woman, with a face like a gentle dove and hair blacker than the darkest crow. Her skin felt like milk holding my hand down the damp streets of Diagon Alley; rain had started early this year. I didn't even fathom that she was not my mother; I was just too giddy pointing everything out as if I were a muggle experiencing London for the first time. The crowds and the colours of everything excited me.

I felt alive again.

After we had gotten most of the supplies on the list, we entered the wand shop. Like I had said before, my parents lived quite comfortably and never had less than enough money. The shop was filled wall to wall with shelves and they held brown rustic looking cases which seemed to have acquired dust throughout the ages. Ollivander's it was called and bragged on the sign that it was creating wands since the ancient times.

I found this hard to believe, although it was most likely true. You never truly know how old things were now.

"Mr. Ollivander? Are you here? I can't seem to see you beyond those shelves!" the nurse called. I was captivated by the old creaking wood of the roof.

"Ah yes I'm here, I'm here,"

He seemed to have popped out of nowhere from right underneath us. He was a short, old looking wizard with a very professional air about himself.

I must have gasped because he seemed to have laughed at me.

"Well, a young witch looking for her very first wand eh? You don't look a day older than 11 years. Ah Leda, how are you? I remember when you first came in here. Wasn't it just last month you came here looking for a replacement for a smashed wand? That 12 inch Unicorn hair is doing well, I presume?" he sounded quite stern now.

"Yes Mr. Ollivander. I'm here today to get young Jennie here her first wand. So I'll just umm…let you do what you do." She said it quite quickly and hurriedly found the door and left.

She told me to meet her back at Gringotts when I had found my wand. I didn't think she liked him and I never knew her name was Leda.

"Hmm…she seemed quite quick to get out. Anyway, tell me which hand your wand hand is?" he said quickly while taking out an assortment of measuring tapes and pins.

"Wand...hand?" It all sounded so strange.

Confused, I just wanted to get out of there.

"Yes, the hand you use your wand with." He started to measure me from the foot to my shoulder and then my elbows to my wrist.

"Er…well I'm left handed? Is that it?" I wish Leda had stayed.

"Yes, that will do." He put his measuring tapes back into his pockets and ran into the back room. I stood there awkwardly in the wooden room watching the walls until he came back with an earthened yellowish box in his hand.

"Yes…yes. I've been waiting to sell this one. Maybe it is time somebody had it. But first, we must try the other wands. You can never be too sure you know." He winked at me and set the skinny coffin like box onto the floor. Mr. Ollivander pulled a regular brown container with not as much dust on it from the others on the shelf.

"9 inch, sequoia, unicorn hair. Just made it last week. Very light and delicate. Try it out, go on."

He said this as if I was a child too shy to go pet a brilliant stallion.

"But I don't know what to do!" I truly was afraid now.

"Just put it in your wand hand and give it a little flick. It isn't too hard, dear."

I took the wand from his outstretched hand and held it in my own, still unsure. I raised my arm to do what I that I was supposed to and he snatched it away from me.

I gasped at the abruptness of it all.

"Try this one, 7 inch, Maple, phoenix feather," he was beginning to look a bit anxious now and rushed me this time. Again, I felt nothing because he snatched it away before I could have done anything.

"Yes…yes. We are getting closer. You may be it. Let's try one last one before we get there. Can't be too sure now, can you?" he said. He seemed to like to reassure himself, even if I wasn't listening.

I think he was talking to himself because I didn't dare answer…and he kept talking as he went up and down shelves. He came back to me with a dustier looking box. As he opened the box, it squeaked from age and I caught a glimpse of soft red velvet at its lining.

"10 inch, marble, with a core of bat fur. Perhaps this would work." He said this as he set it in my hand and told me to flick. He didn't snatch it away this time.

The wand looked so beautiful, I was too afraid i might ruin it. I flicked the wand after raising it to a reasonable height and saw a sparkle of black and red fly from it. I hadn't felt it surge through me or anything remotely magical. It just…came. The string of lights disappeared before flying even a foot from the wand.

I expected something more.

"Is this my wand?" I asked Mr. Ollivander. Even though it was barely anything, I was still enthralled that I had done something. A burst of laughter came forth from him softly and then he spoke again.

How arrogant he seemed.

"Hmm…it seems quite weak. A bit weak. You need something else. This can't be it. Yes…finally. Maybe you are the one this wand chooses!" He sounded a bit excited and it scared me. He took the wand from my hand, though I did not want it to go away, and proceeded to the yellow box. Upon further inspection, I noticed it had calligraphy in a language I did not recognize written upon it.

"This…is a very old wand. Very, VERY old indeed. I'm surprised it is still intact. It belonged to a great sorceress and I have had it since she perished. A shame, a shame it had to wait so long to reawaken. Lately I had noticed it was shooting sparks at the most unreasonable times though the sparks did no damage at all... After centuries of being dormant, it finds a master…try it child. It wouldn't hurt." He said this quite pretentiously and I was hesitant.

I took the wand after a few moments and felt its coldness surge throughout my arm, then to my entire body and mainly I felt it in my heart. I felt its power, I felt its magic, and I felt like something. I raised it as I did with the others and before I got to my desired height, it went off. In a symphony of purple and blue, I lighted the shop in hues.

I became a witch for just one moment.

I was greatly excited and afraid at the same time. I realized those two emotions walked hand and hand around me. I jumped for joy after I had seen Mr. Ollivander do the same after seeming to hold his breath for moments.

Whatever this wand meant to him, he expected this to happen, he craved for it to happen; I saw it in his old gray eyes.

"Yes! Yes! It does! It finally happens. So many years, so many indeed. This is a wand created in the times of the ancients and belonged to a great sorceress. Now I should not tell you and I won't, but this wand…the very one you are holding is very great," he said to me in an excited manner. I still did not understand a thing. I was blank.

"But remember, such greatness can come at a price. And everybody knows the price of a wand but never the value…don't abuse it." he told me in a warning tone. I was afraid now.

"Now you go on, you need not to pay for this wand because has no money value to me anymore," I hesitated as he spoke. "Yes, go!" then I ran from the store.

I was afraid but I left after thanking him. On my way out, I saw a girl with unkept brown hair enter the shop; she looked as old as me and was with her mother. Her mother looked beautiful but she did not notice me at all.

There was something in her expression that seemed as if she was annoyed. I did not bother making contact with her but instead decided to see if the girl would. I smiled at her and she smiled back.

Those beautiful few seconds, I had said something, even if it was unsaid, to a peer…to a friend.

And I felt alive once more. As I walked toward Gringotts waiting to see Leda waiting for me, I just could not help but think about this wand.

What did it mean to him and what does it mean to me? Why was he waiting for it to go? Does this wand hold some significance to the world? And if so, why me? Why is it me? I'm not special, I was just a girl who lost her parents.

But most of all I had thought about that girl that smiled at me at the shop. I might have made a friend. And yet it hit me that I was on my way to Hogwarts. On my way to freedom, and to a better life. Maybe it was the wand that chooses the path.

But whatever it was, I liked it.