"Don't worry your simple mind over things beyond your curriculum. Instead, focus on your Potions essay. It's worth 25% of your grade Miss Smith…"

- Severus Snape

Chapter 8: Death-Stick Library

I rarely ever ventured from the guest house and when I did, Mrs. Finnigan found me like a bloodhound on a wounded sheep to heard me right back inside. I was beginning to feel like Rapunzel locked in the tower. Except I was no princess, my hair wasn't nearly as long, and a tower would have been way cooler. Still, I felt like I was being grounded. Out for meals then straight back to my room. Seamus Finnigan had taken to spying on me whenever he got the chance. He was always just outside the guest house, watching me like a creepy villain. Whenever I thought he would speak to me, his jaw would snap shut like a vice and his legs would carry him away faster than a deer during hunting season.

So, imagine my surprise when a month later, that same boy burst into my room early in the morning screaming for me to wake up. "We're going to Diagon Alley today. Get dressed!" he shouted before hustling back out the door. Had my door not been hanging open, I would have thought I'd imagined him coming in. But then, where in my imagination did a Die-Gun come from?

Mrs. Finnegan ushered us into a fireplace with a handful of green powder. Then the next moment, I felt like I was being hugged tighter than I've ever been. The Floo travel AGAIN. My vision crossed, I was dizzy, and I was suddenly in an…Amish market? It looked like an Outlet shopping center and everyone was dressed funny, but no one wore bonnets. "Come along Mary," Mrs. Finnegan said with a firm hand on my back to push me along, "We'll need to stop at Gringotts and get you a little spending money."

There was so much to do, so much to buy. I was fitted for witch robes and got a witch hat and a few witch textbooks. I'd groaned at the thought of having to read my textbooks. I was a terribly slow reader so English was my worst class even though it was my favorite subject. I loved to read but I took too long picturing each word in my head. I liked the way words could create movies in my mind. But when I got picked on in class to read out loud, some of the other kids made fun of me. They said I sounded retarded. That was before I got sent to the remedial class.

Next it was time to get a wand. The inside of the store was far less impressive than I would have thought a wand shop to be. It was dusty and creaky and cramped. There was so much more room behind the old desk. Shelves and shelves and boxes upon boxes of what had to all be wands. A library of them! Mrs. Finnigan walked us in and rang the little bell on the front desk.

"How do you think he knows which to give us?" I asked Seamus but he seemed just as lost on the subject as me.

"But Mum says he's the best. Ollivander's is a family shop. Passed down generations and such. He's really old though. Even gave my mum her first wand when she was a girl."

An old codger came rolling in on a wheeled ladder moments later. "Sorry to keep you waiting," he smiled. "Just had to sort out the mess that Longbottom child made. Who am I helping today?"

Mrs. Finnigan grabbed Seamus and pushed him forward. "This one first. Seamus Finnigan."

Ollivander climbed down and walked around to examine Seamus. His arm length, his face, his wrist, he even asked him to open his mouth. "I think I have just the one. Want to bet I get this one on the first try?" he laughed and ducked behind another shelf. He emerged seconds later with a thin brown box. Seamus pulled the wand from it. It looked harmless. Like a polished stick. But when Seamus gave it a flick, it was almost like a sparkler the way fireworks came shot out and fizzled away. "Sized you up right didn't I, boy," Ollivander smirked.

I wasn't so lucky. I tried wand after wand and the reactions ranged from terrible to empty. I would wave and nothing. I would wave and get blasted across the room. Mr. Ollivander was nice enough to get me a couple band-aids and we tried again. He approached me with a bit of a mad look in his large blue eyes and dusty velvet box in his hands. "I tried this very same one with your mother. It seemed like she would be fit for it but it rejected her. It rejects anyone that wields it but something in me feels that you should have it."

"But what if it rejects me too, sir?" I was nervous about picking up another wand. His shop was a mess because of me.

He opened the box and inside lay a rather plain looking wand. A bit of a let down after all that build up. The box it was in was better looking. The handle curved nicely but it's overall look was ordinary. Less attractive than the other wands she had tried. Then again, maybe it did suit her. "My grandfather traveled the world looking for the ingredients to the perfect wand. This was what he came up with. But it isn't balanced at all. Highly rigid and unstable and while it is perfect in its state, only magic truly profound can master it. Go on..."

When I grasped the handle I flinched, waiting for something bad to happen. Nothing did. Instead I received a warm, almost burning feeling in my palm.

"Give it a wave."

I was nervous again. I reached out at arm's length and flicked it. Sparks flew out the other end, also ordinary. Why did I expect fireworks? Blazing fire? The old man was a lot of hype for nothing. But the way he smiled at me let me know this was the one. This was my wand. And even though it didn't look nothing much, it felt right. "The cores are all a carefully blended collaboration of chimera scales, dragon breath, baslkisk skin, boomslang venom, acrumantula web, fairy wings, crystalized veela blood, thunderbird feather, and a single strand of dried unicorn vein soaked in pheonix tears.

I didn't know what any of that meant but he seemed really excited about it so I nodded and smiled. He seemed like a nice enough old man. I thought maybe he might know what it's like to get picked on so I didn't want to make him feel weird about his passion. Even if his passion was devil sticks. "Thank you for giving me your Grandpa's project. I'll take good care of it, sir."

Ollivander simply smiled and gave me a pat on the head. "See that you do, Mary Ellen McGowen-Smith."

Well when he said my name like that, I sounded like John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt.