Disclaimer is in chapter 1.

Over the next couple weeks Xander and Willow played around with the notes and few details Xander had been able to pick up on the rather nebulous art of wand crafting. As he found out in Europe, there were very few details in the public domain, to the point of it being simply ridiculous. Certainly, the process followed by the three families of wand making was for all practical purposes passed only from father to son.

The lesser art of wand crafting, with all its foibles, was only somewhat more open. The basic process was available to those who wished to research it, however by all accounts the devil was in the details.

In their pursuit of the ideal, however, Xander had to admit to being a little scared of how obsessively Willow was pursuing her goal. Stealing her dad golf clubs, well that showed a good deal more nerve than he really gave her credit for.

In the end, though, Xander figured Willow was just really pissed off over not being able to go to a magic school.

That said, even she wasn't willing to do more than wreck one of her father's clubs. So that was how the two of them wound up crouched over an expensive graphite club, hacksaw in hand. With the club properly dissected, their having gained two pieces about long enough to use for a wand, the duo began to puzzle out how they were going to put it all together.

The core would be easy enough, since Xander been planning this for several months. While still at Hogwarts Xander had managed to finagle several unicorn hairs from the groundskeeper, Hagrid. He figured that those would make an excellent start for a new wand crafting project.

As the preparations for this little project continued, however, a new force made her way to Xander's summer.

The Floo specialists from the California County Bureau of the American ministry arrived and put Xander's special order into effect, opening the Harris home Floo to full transport, as well as communications, capacity. With that done, two of the girls in Xander's life were now on a collision course to meet.

Wednesday tucked in to a roll as the burst of green fire flared in the fireplace, coming back to her feet about halfway into the living room. The dark haired girl glanced around briefly, idly dusting the Floo powder from her close as she did.

"Wednesday!" Xander grinned, striding forward and gave his friend a brief hug.

She spared him a brief glare in return, then grudgingly returned the embrace.

"Man, it's good to see you!" Xander said, stepping back and gesturing around. "Welcome to California, home of Hollywood, giant redwoods, rainbow pride, and the hellmouth."

"Yes..." Wednesday said slowly, as she turned around. "I can feel it."

Xander carefully had a smirk, thinking about how it was strange those things you could get used to if you really had to. From anyone else that comment would have sent shivers up the spine, but from Wednesday Addams it really was just par for the course.

"It's like a cold dark presence," she said, musing mostly to herself. "A chilled blanket, to keep the summer warmth away. Delightful."

And there went the shivers.

This time Xander had to muffle a snicker. Wednesday was of course, purely Wednesday.

"Come on downstairs," Xander said with a grin. "There's someone I want you to meet."

The Addams scion merely inclined her head slightly, and then followed Xander without comment.

Willow was pouring over one of the wand crafting books, trying to absorb the sections on theory, when Xander and Wednesday walked downstairs. Xander smiled when Willow characteristically didn't even bother to look up, just waiting in his general direction as she mumbled, "hey Xander."

Wednesday, for her part, merely raised a single eyebrow as she took in the near disaster zone of books and papers that surrounded the redhead. "It would appear, that I have located the reason for you being so comfortable in the presence of Hermione."

Willow jerked up at the sound of the other girl's voice, twisting around in a manner that really couldn't be recommend, and wound up falling off the chair and flat on her butt.

"Ow!"

"Just as jumpy," Wednesday noted, "though perhaps a little more clumsy."

Willow pushed the hair out of her face, staring up at Xander and Wednesday with wide eyes, "hey! I'm not clumsy ..."

Wednesday raised an eyebrow.

Willow flushed red, looking around at the mess she had made when she fell, and sighed. "Well, not normally."

Xander snickered.

"It's not funny!"

Xander started to laugh, slumping against the wall as he managed to nod and get a few words in between breaths, "yes it is."

Willow glared at him, Wednesday merely stared, and Xander... well Xander just started to laugh harder. Finally, after several minutes and several hundred gales of laughter, that even Xander would have to eventually admit were over the top, he calmed down.

"Wednesday," Xander wheezed out as he tried to catch his breath, "meet Willow. Willow, meet Wednesday."

Willow, who was still flushed bright red, nodded towards the dark haired girl. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

Wednesday's dry, acerbic drawl, left Willow flustered and uncertain as to whether the other girl meant what she said or was merely humoring Xander. The moment of uncertainty caused her innate shyness to kick in, and she ducked her head turning quickly away from the darker girl, mumbling some words about getting back to her studies.

Wednesday glanced at Xander, raising her expressive eyebrow again, and Xander shrugged in return. The Addams scion sighed silently, and then the two of them walked to the table, split apart by mutual consent, and took seats on either side of Willow.

"So," Wednesday said her monotone voice, "what are we working on today?"

"Wand crafting."

Wednesday glanced over at Xander, unsurprised. Xander's interest in wands had been ongoing, so there was certainly nothing new here. She glanced across the materials on the table, taking them in silently as she also took the moment to formulate her thoughts. There were two items that she took to be wand blanks resting in the center of the table, both of them identical, and both of them looking surprisingly like her own ebony wand.

She reached out, taking one, and realized instantly that really it was nothing like her own.

"This isn't wood." She said as she examined the rod in her hand, "was this from a golf club?"

Willow blushed deeper red, hiding her face behind a curtain of her hair as Xander grinned wide enough to split his face. Wednesday was far from stupid, she could've put the whole story together with a lot less evidence.

"So, just to be clear, you cut up what looks like a brand-new golf club," she drawled dryly, "which I'm guessing, from the look on your faces, you didn't exactly have permission to do. Am I right?"

Xander snickered as Willow just nodded mutely, practically pressing her face into the desk.

"Impressive."

Willow bolted up straight, eyes wide as she stared in surprise at the other girl. "What?"

Wednesday however wasn't someone to repeat herself, so she merely examined the material more closely. "What is your justification for this material?"

Willow swallowed, "well we, I mean Xander in me... that is, Xander and I, we were looking for ways to build a wand when we realized, well actually Xander realized that the wood usually had to be prepared, sometimes seasoned as much as 50 years. Since we didn't really have that much time, I mean I sort of want a wand before I'm 65, so we looked for alternatives. Did you know they used to use diamonds as foci? That's cool, but a bit expensive, I mean I have some money but not like that..."

Wednesday stared over at Xander, her expression practically unreadable, except for the fact that he'd spent two years learning what her expressions meant. At the moment she was caught in the cross roads between surprise and amusement.

Oblivious to the communication between the other two, Willow continued on, "anyway I thought that since diamonds are carbon, and that's the only thing that they have in common with wood, maybe another form of carbon would work as well."

Wednesday raised an eyebrow, examining the former golf club in her hand. "A graphite club? Interesting. Intriguing even."

She set the rod back down on the table, next to its twin, then nodded to the books and papers, "what have you found?"

With Wednesday coming through the Floo every couple days to help out, they quickly moved the project along from theory to the more practical aspects of testing. Some things of course, were easier theorized than accomplished.

For example, embedding the unicorn hair into the shaft was both simple and complicated at the same time. Simple because the shaft was hollow, and more than thick enough to accommodate the hair. Complicated because the shaft was hollow, and too thick to hold the hair firmly in place.

Xander suggestion of superglue was quickly shot down, much to his disappointment.

"What about a liquid core," Wednesday suggested.

Xander frowned, thinking about it, "the only liquid that would work is..."

"Blood."

Willow squeaked, eyes going wide, "b... blood?"

Wednesday nodded silently.

Xander scowled and thought about it, "aren't blood cores illegal? I think I read about that in here somewhere."

Wednesday shrugged, "so?"

Willow squeaked again.

Xander thought about it, then shrugged as well, "before we even think about that, I think we should research blood cores. In the meantime, what if we filed down some of the graphite and filled core with powder?"

Willow nodded enthusiastically, happy to be away from the topic of blood. "That sounds like a good idea."

Wednesday sighed, rolling her eyes, "if we must, then we must."

Xander hid a grin as Willow stared wide-eyed at the dark haired and just plain dark Addams scion.

"Excellent," Xander said, clasping his hands together. "We have a plan of action then. Let's do this."

The two very dissimilar girls nodded in agreement as they began to gather the materials needed for their first hands-on project of the summer.