Disclaimer is in chapter 1.

As summer peaked and began the inevitable march towards fall, Willow, Wednesday, and Xander finished their first test wand.

"Graphite wand blank, unicorn tail hair core, first test." Xander said as Willow scribbled down the words.

He held the wand in his normal fashion and just flicked it through the air with a casual motion. His breath caught, and Willow gasped, as a moderate shower of sparks erupted.

"It works!" Willow said gleefully.

Wednesday held up a hand, "proceed with the test."

Xander nodded, shifting his grip on the wand. He turned towards the far wall, a solid cement buttress that was part of the house's foundation, and cast his first spell.

"Stupefy!"

The result, an uninspired pink pulse of energy hit the far wall a moment later and vanished with a pop.

"Well, that was disappointing." Xander said, sighing.

Willow frowned, "it wasn't supposed to do that?"

Wednesday rose, and walked over beside Xander, her own wand in hand. "Stupefy!"

A glaring red blast of energy tore across the room and slammed into the wall before bursting into a multicolor display.

"That, is what it should do."

"Wow."

"Yeah," Xander said in agreement, "we're missing something."

The three were silent for a moment, until Willow spoke up, "well, what about the other spells? Maybe they'll be different?"

Xander shrugged, "I don't see why, but let's try em."

He turned to a book on a table, and with a classic swish and flick intoned the words, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

He was surprised when the book was steadily into the air, showing no real signs of instability.

"Intriguing." Wednesday said calmly. "Try the shield charm."

Xander let the book down, nodding in agreement, and turned away from the table again. "Protego!"

The shield popped into existence, showing some of the soap bubble lines that indicated weakness and instability, but it was almost a strong as Xander could currently manage with his own wand.

"So... Is that good?" Willow asked uncertainly.

"It seems to be better for charms, then curses." Xander said thoughtfully.

Wednesday nodded in agreement, "may I?"

Xander shrugged and dropped the graphite wand into her interest hand. She accepted it and gracefully swished it through the air as a test. Her reward was a shower of sparks very similar to the one Xander had created.

"Stupefy! Wingardium Leviosa! Protego!"

The three spells as tried to Wednesday, reacted fairly close to how they had for Xander. When she was done, Wednesday was the one on the table and calmly took her seat.

"Well I believe further testing is required, it would appear to be a fairly functional wand for charms at least."

Xander frowned, "yeah, but why? Do you think it's the graphite, the core, or something we did?"

Wednesday and Willow ponder the question, until finally Willow spoke up.

"There's really only one way to find out."

Wednesday nodded in agreement, "try another wand."

"Right." Willow agreed, "we try again, then we change one variable. Only one."

"So we to find wood for a new wand blank, new material for the core, we change our construction method?" Xander asked.

Willow nodded, "that's right. We should try a new core, at least I think so. A different blank will actually introduce multiple variables, since the wood isn't as pure as graphite. Also, our construction method has too many steps to change in a controlled manner for testing."

Xander frowned, "okay, I can see that. The trouble is, I don't have any Dragon heartstrings, and I sure as hell don't have any Phoenix feathers."

There was a long moment of silence, until Wednesday spoke softly.

"But we do have basilisk materials."

After a moment, Xander let out a long low whistle.

"Never heard of that in a wand, which just makes me more interested to see if it will work." He grinned.

Of course, working with basilisk quickly turned out to be easier said than done. One of the few details of wand crafting that Xander's research had been able to turn up was that wand cores were normally taken from as close to the center of a creatures magic is possible.

For dragons, their magical core with their hearts. The feathers of the Phoenix held some of the most potent magical energy in the known wizarding world. Unicorn tail hairs were an exception to the rule, but only because taking materials from any closer to the unicorn center of magic would result in the death of the creature, something no sane person would risk being responsible for.

What that meant for this project was twofold. First, they didn't know for certain what the magical center of a basilisk was. For obvious reasons, there had been little research on the subject in the past. They could make some educated guesses, which revolved mostly around the giant snake's eyes and fangs, which were the creatures' most potent weapons.

Those guesses led directly into their second problem. Namely, the fact that those things the trio believed were most potent, were also those things that they had the least of them were loath to waste.

Finally they decided to start with something more common, with the full knowledge that it was almost certainly less potent.

"Graphite wand blank, basilisk muscle sinew core, first test."

Xander again turned to the wall, and casually swept the wand in front of them. A burst of green and red sparks showered out of the end of the dark wand, showing that it was distinctly capable of channeling magic.

That done, Xander shifted his grip and moved on to the first spell.

"Stupefy!"

A deep red bolt flew across the room been splattered into the cement foundation on the other side.

"Wingardium Leviosa. Protego."

Both of the following two spells didn't cast properly, but were obviously weak. The Wingardium was shaky and unsteady, forcing Xander to apply unusual focus to maintain the levitation of the book. And the Protego, was the worst he had cast in almost a year.

When he was done, Xander place the wand on the table beside their other completed model and carefully wrapped a circle of green tape around the end. The green wrapped basilisk wand rested beside the blue wrapped unicorn wand as the trio consider the results of the test.

"I think we need to test them against our regular wands with spells we can easily quantify," Wednesday said simply.

Willow nodded in agreement.

"Okay, we'll have to write up a list of spells to use then." Xander said, "but for now it's looking like we have an answer."

"I think so too," Willow said in agreement, however she held up a cautionary hand, "but it's not proven yet."

"True."

Xander nodded, agreeing with the other two. "Agreed. For now though, unicorn hair seems better for charms, and basilisk muscle sinew appears to be better for curses."

The other two merely nodded in agreement.

"There's nothing about that in the books though," Willow complained.

"Wizards like their secrets." Xander said thoughtfully, his face twisted into a puzzled frown. "Still, it wasn't that difficult to test. There should be some mention of it, right?"

"It was impossible to test." Wednesday corrected, "until Willow here suggested the use of graphite. Any wooden blank would require several years of seasoning, at least, it would likely introduce several unknown and unknowable variables."

Willow nodded, "I think she's right. Graphite is pure, it's just carbon. We know now that carbon will channel magic, but wood isn't pure. Of course, that may be why our wands don't react as well to you as your own."

Wednesday fixed her with a stare, "explain."

"What I mean is that the impurities in wood may be beneficial to wand crafting." Willow said slowly, "like how little bit of carbon introduced during forging turns iron into steel."

"You're saying that these graphite wands," Xander said with a grimace, "may never match up to proper wooden ones?"

Willow nodded glumly, "right now it's clear that even in their areas of strength, the graphite wands aren't as good as your matched wooden ones. In other areas, their weaker ones, they're far inferior."

Xander sighed, disappointed, but he had to admit that Willow was right.

"It's not a failure, Xander." Willow said quickly, "we made real wands! They work, that's incredible, right?"

"She's right, Xander." Wednesday said calmly. "We have something new here, it may lead nowhere, but it may just lead some were very interesting indeed. To find out we have to walk the path."

Xander nodded, "I know. I guess I was just hoping for a miracle."

"Miracles are for the weak and the desperate."

Xander had to smile at the cold, bleak tone that Wednesday delivered her statement in. Still, the word had their effect, and he nodded in agreement.

"Alright, ideas then. Where do we go from here? Just brainstorm, will organize the ideas later."

For the rest of the afternoon that was what they did, just throwing out various ideas and jotting down for later organization. The three of them knew that there was a mountain of work remaining to do if they wanted to even bring this idea into the realm of practicality. However, for the moment it wasn't labor, it wasn't work, it was quite simply fun.