A/N This takes place a month or two after the final battle in the Harry Potter Universe and sometime between Steve being unfrozen and the Avengers movie in the Marvelverse. And yes, I know the timelines don't match up.
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own.
Warning: This story may contain in-depth descriptions of grief and PTSD. When I started this story I had no intention of going this detailed into the emotional impact, but as I started writing this I couldn't help but feel I wouldn't be doing justice to the toll trauma takes on children if I glossed over all the awful stuff that happens in canon. If there's anything I think might be extra triggering then I will try to put up a separate warning.
Chapter 9
Hermione tucked a charmed lock of straight dark hair behind her ear as she stared up at the wand store's sign. She had charmed her hair this morning in the hopes that the small change would make her look different enough that if her fame had followed her across the pond then she wouldn't be as easily recognized. She wasn't sure how much the average American wizard paid attention to the international community, but she didn't want to take the chance that she would be recognized here before she was ready. She still had to let Harry know where she was and he would be less upset if he heard it from her first rather than a reporter.
The store's sign read: William's Wand Emporium – Distributors of fine wands since 1933. It was located in an older brick building like so many of the other shops along New York City's Wizarding District. Hermione opened the door and walked inside. The shop was kept at a pleasant temperature with significantly less humidity in the air than outside. The shop smelled of freshly cut wood and magic. The wands were shelved neatly and seemingly organized by which wandmaker had crafted the wand. It was clearly no Ollivander's; there was no musty smell of dust or piles of precariously stacked wands to wade through, in fact, it was clean and aside from the exterior, fairly modern looking. Hermione pressed her lips together, for all that it looked easier to shop in she felt that the store lacked character and she knew from experience that finding a wand was more of an art form than a science.
She walked to one wall of the store and trailed her finger along the full shelf. There were lots of wands in the store. It was easily five times as large as the store in Diagon Alley. The maker listed in this section was one she had never heard of, but she had never gotten around to researching wand lore as thoroughly as she would have liked. Her head tilted to the side as she mouthed the name of a core from an animal that she had never read or heard about. She was absorbed in reading the names of strange cores and wood mixtures when a soft feminine cough came from behind her and Hermione spun around quickly with her wand slipping into her hand from her worn dragon leather arm holster. She relaxed her shoulders as she assessed the woman that had startled her. She was Hermione's age or younger with long dark hair and eyes. She was wearing a shop apron and a nametag that read Angela. Hermione quietly let out the deep breath she had taken in her surprise feeling rather silly about her overreaction to a shopkeep.
The other woman smiled brightly at her, "I'm sorry to have startled you. My name's Angela. Can I help you find a wand or a wand accessory today?"
Hermione blinked slowly at the overly bright tone and it took her a minute to process what the girl had said to her. She was unused to that kind of happy tone now. She hadn't heard it out of any store clerk in the magical world in years and it drove home how isolated the problem of Voldemort had been. She found herself relaxing further with that revelation. If it was so isolated that people on this side of the Atlantic hadn't been worried than it was unlikely that they would recognize her, after all, she wasn't exactly Harry Potter or Albus Dumbledore.
"I'm not sure if I can purchase a wand or not today. I know the law is different in the States than in Europe and I just moved here a few weeks ago. I haven't had time to enquire about the process for buying a wand and I was hoping to either find out here or at least be pointed in the correct direction for information," Hermione said slowly as she recovered her equilibrium.
"Oh, I understand. There have been several people in the last few years with your accent that have come through here. I heard there was some political unrest in Europe or something," she said.
Hermione suppressed a flinch and opened her mouth before closing it. Calling Voldemort and his murderous band of Death Eaters political unrest was a vast understatement, but it wasn't worth it to correct the young woman; after all what did an American shopkeeper care about a situation that wasn't even in her country? Hermione settled on a tamer response. "You could call it that," she said shortly.
Angela continued talking with a smile, "Well the law is different here, but as long as you immigrated with all the proper paperwork through either the no-maj or magical side than the process of getting a wand here is pretty easy. We'll be able to submit your permit application from here after a wand chooses you."
Hermione dug around in her beaded bag that was stashed in her pocket and pulled out her magical immigration identification and papers. She had properly gone about getting approval to live in a foreign country, well aware that without the proper papers it was potentially dangerous for a magical person to be discovered in a foreign country. Many countries had far harsher secrecy laws than the British Magical Enclave. It hadn't been hard to secure the paperwork at the Ministry of Magic since everything was still in disarray and people were practically tripping over themselves to help her right now. She was sure the media would go back to bad-mouthing her soon, but at the moment she was in society's good graces. In the confusion, it had also been easy for her to bury the paperwork and subtly jinx the ministry employee to be unable to discuss or otherwise disclose where she had gone. Hermione held out her paperwork to the clerk and patiently waited for her to look them over.
Angela took the paperwork in hand and pulled her wand out from her back pocket. She cast a non-verbal spell on the papers and when they briefly flashed green she handed the papers back to Hermione with a smile. She glanced at the name at the top of the paperwork as the papers were being handed over. "Everything seems to be in order, Ms. Granger! Checking is merely a formality. Well, mostly anyway. I've personally never had a case where the papers didn't flash green, but my Grandfather, who owns this store said he had a particularly shifty fellow come in about two years ago to purchase several wands who had falsified paperwork. Grandfather said he thought he was British too, come to think of it. He stunned the guy and turned him into the Aurors. He heard later that the guy escaped custody though," said Angela as if she were just telling a bit of interesting gossip instead of the story of a potentially dangerous encounter with a Death Eater or at least another dangerous individual.
Hermione watched Angela with wide eyes as she was practically bouncing on her toes at this point and Hermione felt oddly ancient in comparison. She wondered if this was what she would have been like if she had a normal education and hadn't fought a war. The thought both turned her stomach and made her feel strangely wistful at the same time. Hermione absently scratched her arm and let out a pained smile at the other girl. "That's an interesting tale," she said noncommittally.
Angela shrugged her slim shoulders as she answered, "Normally, we would just send the person out to get the correct paperwork or alert the Aurors if they are suspicious, but this guy started to try to curse my Grandfather. I'm glad it didn't happen on my watch, I'm not nearly as fast with my wand as Grandfather is. He says I need to get my Defense scores up if I want to ever beat his draw," she confessed.
"I'm sure it's just a matter of practice," Hermione demurred while shifting onto her heels and looking around the store.
"That's what Grandfather says too! But enough of that, you came here for a wand and that's way more interesting than old stories," she grinned enthusiastically.
Hermione met her dark eyes and nodded stiltedly, "Yes. I need a replacement. My original wand is lost to me and the one I'm using right now is not well-suited to me." That was probably an understatement. Bellatrix Lestrange's wand was a very reluctant companion. The wand certainly worked, but it clearly wasn't happy about it and let her know it too.
Angela crossed her arms and hummed, "What was your original wand made out of and what are you using now? Sometimes what doesn't match can be just as good of an indicator as a previous well-matched wand." That made sense to Hermione and was the first indication to her that Angela was truly knowledgeable about wandcraft.
"My first wand was a vine wood with dragon heartstring core and the one I'm using now is a Walnut wand with a dragon heartstring core," said Hermione.
"Hmm. Ollivander's wands, the both of them, I assume?" Angela asked while she seemingly sized up the other woman.
Hermione fought not to squirm at the other woman's scrutiny, she didn't want to give her disguise away by acting suspiciously. At Hermione's affirmative nod Angela made her way over to another wall with hundreds of slim wand boxes lining the walls. The boxes all looked the same with only hand-written labels to tell the differences between the contents of each box. Hermione clenched her hands behind her back to keep from compulsively sliding random boxes out to look at the myriad of different wands for herself.
The shopkeeper nodded her head decisively making her long dark hair sway behind her. "We'll try some more Ollivander wands then. Generally, if one of the wands worked for you before then another wand from the same maker will work again." Angela explained as she trailed her fingers down a tall column of wand boxes.
"What was the length of both the wands?" she asked.
Hermione watched the other girl intently as she answered the question, "My original one was ten and three-quarters inches and the Walnut one is twelve and three quarters I believe."
"Is the Walnut wood a family wand?" Angela asked absentmindedly as she plucked a wand from the shelf. "Try this one it's another vine wood and dragon heartstring. This one is eleven inches even."
"No. I'm muggleborn," she said as she grasped the handle Angela held out to her. It fit comfortably in her hand, but it still felt wrong in her hand like trying to write with a quill for the first time or attempting to write left-handed.
Angela frowned in clear confusion. "Then how did you acquire your replacement wand?"
"I picked it up during the political unrest," Hermione said ambiguously, unwilling to offer more information than that.
"Oh! definitely not vine wood again based on this wand." Angela said as she grabbed the wand out of her hand and turned back toward the wall. She hadn't seemed to notice Hermione's sharp tone but dropped that line of inquiry nonetheless. She seemed to be speaking more to herself than to Hermione as she murmured, "Tricky then. It might be that you just didn't win that wand's allegiance then and a Walnut one could still work, especially as it seems to work well enough." She gave Hermione a gimlet stare that didn't seem to be precisely focused on her before grabbing two boxes off a neighboring shelf and handing her the contents of the first one. "This one is Walnut and Dragon Heartstring very unyielding. Give it a swish."
When Hermione swished the wand, it shocked her hand and she dropped it in shock. Angela frowned deeply as she picked the wand up off the floor. She placed another in Hermione's hand. "Walnut and Unicorn Hair ten inches long."
As soon as Hermione cautiously took the wand in her still stinging hand, the wand seemed to wilt in her hand. It produced no magic at all and could have been a regular stick from the outside for how it felt in her grip. "Oh dear, oh dear. Not unicorn hair and certainly not Walnut. Let's try some other wands maybe Larch? Or Sycamore?" Angela dismayed more to herself than to her customer.
What followed was a series of increasingly disappointing and sometimes catastrophic results. Hermione had been shocked several more times although, none had shocked her as badly as the first walnut wand. She'd broken three fixtures, knocked down an entire wall of wands, and in one memorable instance, started a magical fire that took both witches a solid twenty minutes to contain.
Angela looked equal parts troubled and excited as she said, "Oh, but you are a tricky customer! In fact, you're the most exciting customer I've had all summer. I'm going to run into the back and get Grandfather. If the wands are this adamant, then I might not have the skill to contain the next magical tantrum if I'm wrong again." She gestured toward the soot still on the ground from the fire. "Wait here please. I'll be right back."
The girl nearly dashed through a door next to the register that Hermione had noted earlier when she had initially come into the shop. Hermione tucked her hands in her pocket and fingered Bellatrix's wand. She flicked the walnut wand in a quick circular motion and wordlessly cast an air-purifying charm to filter out the remaining smoke that was lingering in the shop. She slumped her shoulders and chewed at her chapped bottom lip as she worried that there wasn't a better wand suited to her and that she would be stuck with this wand whose history and previous owner so discomforted her.
Hermione was still staring absentmindedly at the door that Angela had disappeared through, so she didn't miss when Angela walked back through it with an older man that could only be her grandfather. He possessed the same dark eyes as his granddaughter, though his hair was salt and pepper colored from age. He walked with impeccable posture with his shoulders thrown down and back. He didn't seem nearly as happy-go-lucky as his granddaughter and had, in fact, walked in with a frown already on his worn face as he walked in while Angela chattered at him on the wands they had already tried.
When he met Hermione's eyes his steps faltered for a moment. He cocked his head seemingly puzzled for a second before his expression cleared with recognition. "Ah, a subtle charm. Smart," he said nodding approvingly at her. She tensed up in response and gripped the wand in her pocket tighter. Her hair was charmed, and he clearly thought it was a good idea, which meant that he knew the reason why she had charmed her hair. She might not like this wand, but if there were going to be problems in this shop then she would continue to use it if she must.
"Welcome to my shop, Ms. Hermione Granger. You are in no danger here," he said calmly displaying both empty palms of his hands. She consciously relaxed her posture again, but not the grip on her wand. She hadn't survived by letting her guard down around strangers during the war. All she could think about as her blood rushed through her ears and she stared piercingly at him, was how his granddaughter had said he was a quick draw and seemingly a competent dueler from the story she had told earlier.
"Mr. Williams, I presume?" she asked softly and at odds with the way her mind and body were prepared for an altercation.
He nodded to her and said, "That's right I'm Samuel Williams." He turned to his granddaughter, his frown more pronounced than before, "You should have called me to the front immediately for an important customer."
Angela turned wide guileless eyes toward her as she sputtered, "But she's my age."
Hermione fought the beginning of a blush as she spoke, "Oh no, your granddaughter has been very helpful so far, and I'm really not all that important."
"Angela, I really wish you would pay more attention to the news and less attention toward tawdry gossip," he sighed. After a pause he addressed Hermione again, "Ms. Granger, you kept European troubles from spreading to America. Many of the witches and wizards around my age remember what happened the last time European trouble was allowed to spill over into America and we are sincerely grateful that this Voldemort mess didn't spill over and make it any further than Europe."
Hermione hid a cringe and a reflexive scan of the room at the sound of Tom Riddle's moniker spoken aloud. Merlin, she still expected snatchers to show up even across the Atlantic Ocean, despite the fact that the snatchers were disbanded and that most of them rounded up and awaiting trial. She took in a moment to consider what Mr. Williams had said, then finally let her grip on her wand go and withdrew her hands from her pockets. "It's nice to meet you as well then, Mr. Williams."
He walked closer to her seemingly reading in her body language that she wasn't so wary of him now. "Angela said she was having trouble matching you to a wand and that some of the results were volatile," he said tilting his head curiously.
"Yes, sorry about the fire," she grimaced as she waved a hand toward the darkened patch of wood and soot a few feet away.
He waved the apology away with an easy dismissal. "That's a danger associated with matching wizards with wands. It happens. Will you pull out the wand you are using right now? I'm not as good as some of the wandmakers at this, but I've been matching wands for a long time and I can normally see how a wand is interacting with its witch or wizard," he explained.
Hermione pursed her lips but withdrew the wand from her pocket anyway and displayed it for the shop owner. Mr. Williams glanced back and forth between her and the wand in her hand several times.
"And this wand will perform magic for you?" he asked with obvious skepticism coloring his voice.
In response, Hermione non-verbally cast the Patronus charm and her otter gamboled playfully around her and the shop in a brilliant display of light and happiness.
Angela let out a pleased gasp, "Oh that's beautiful!" The otter turned and frolicked around the other girl seemingly in response to her comment before Hermione dismissed the guardian.
"I see," he said. He crossed his arms and let out an exasperated puff of air. "Frankly, Ms. Granger I've never seen such a poorly-matched wand work that well for anyone. You two loathe each other and the only reason I can guess this wand will even produce magic for you is that, for whatever reason, it grudgingly respects you."
She stared at the wand in her hand thoughtfully. Mr. Williams talked about wands as if they were almost sentient, but what he said was close to what she had already suspected about why this wand resisted working for her. She nodded firmly to him and glanced up, "That feels about right. I took this wand from a woman that thought me lesser and took great pleasure in hurting me and others with it."
"Ah, an enemy's wand. That explains a lot," he said understanding immediately brightening his features.
"I- I won't be stuck with this one, will I?" she asked in a voice that was as small and as hesitant as a mouse's.
He leveled a compassionate look at her, which softened his stern-looking demeanor considerably. "Absolutely not. We'll find you something better suited to your magic and if not, I'll send you to a crafter friend of mine to make a custom one. I only distribute wands, but if there aren't any premade ones that match you in this store then a crafter won't have any trouble putting one together for you."
Angela jumped back into the conversation at this point, "I've tried several wands in both European wandmakers with increasingly bad results."
"Which woods?" he asked curiously.
"Vine, like her original wand, Walnut, Larch, Sycamore, and Apple. The Apple wand is the one that caused the fire," she answered. "Oh! And Unicorn Hair is certainly out, the wand I tried that with practically wilted in her hand," she tacked on as an afterthought.
Mr. Williams raised his bushy greying brows high. "The apple wood wand caused the fire?" he asked?
At his granddaughter's confirmation he turned back toward Hermione, "My dear, you are an interesting customer. Did any of the other wands you tried perform well for you?"
"One of the Sycamore and Dragon Heartstrings was okay. It didn't immediately shock me, break anything, or start a hard to contain magical fire. It still felt not quite right though," Hermione answered with a shrug.
"Oh, it was a magical fire too? From an Apple wand. How very unusual," he muttered.
"Why does the Apple part matter," Hermione interrupted. She made a note to look more into wand lore, but she knew that it was an elusive subject that was seldom written about by experts and therefore hard to find accurate material on the topic. Wand Crafters were notoriously secretive.
"Because Applewood wands are generally suited to people with high aims and ideals, which I've heard you have in spades..." he glanced over at her to allow her to confirm or deny the statement
Hermione tentatively nodded as she thought about her old dreams for S.P.E.W. and other creature reforms she had wanted to champion before the war had exhausted her energy for such things.
He looked at her speculatively as he spoke in a measured tone, "And your original Vinewood wand suggests those tendencies as well but, and this is key, Applewood wands hate dark magic. I've never heard of one starting a fire over a mismatch and certainly not a magical fire, which is not precisely light magic either."
She crossed her arms in discomfort. "So you're saying that the wand was so offended to be placed in my hands that it had a temper tantrum that skirted its own moral compass?" she asked incredulously. Wands were way more complicated and sentient than she had given them credit for.
"Essentially. An uncontrollable fire from an apple wand is quite the statement," he said emphatically.
"I see. I'm not sure if I should be offended or not," she deadpanned.
"The good news is, I think I know what's wrong with the wood choices. My Angela was putting a little too much stock into her first impression of you and the make of your original wand. I believe her thought process was simply off regarding you. It's quite an easy mistake to make with someone with your messy history, especially since you're still so young," Mr. Williams waved dismissively as he spoke.
"What, exactly, do you mean by that?" she asked her hackles rising. Hermione considered herself blunt by nature but speaking with Americans was a whole new level of bluntness and it was heavily adding to her sense of culture shock.
He met her intense gaze carefully as he spoke nonchalantly, "Only that you've likely had several life-changing situations recently and as young as you are, you're more malleable and likely to be affected by such tragic events." Hermione unclenched her hands and felt the blood flow back into her white-knuckled fingers as she processed his statement.
"Now you said Sycamore was the best wood out of the bunch you tried?" At her nod, he continued, "If that's the case then I'm betting you need something that's better suited to adventure or unusual magic rather than a wand that's more concerned about your ideals."
Hermione frowned; she didn't like that assessment overly much. She still liked to think of herself as the girl who followed the rules and who had thought that being expelled was worse than death. The girl who fought for justice no matter what. It was just more proof that she had changed and that she would never be that same girl again. She felt like she was constantly cutting herself on the pieces of her broken soul.
He handed her a half dozen wands from various fixtures across the room, one after another. Wands of Maple, Red Oak, and Fir. At least none of these wands had shocked her, but none of these seemed to fit her either. The older man gave her a considering look. "I've mostly been trying newer wands with cores of Unicorn Hair, Dragon Heartstring, and Phoenix Feather since they are considered the Supreme Cores by most modern wandmakers, however, I'm beginning to think we need to try something else. Give me a moment please."
He walked briskly to the back room without waiting for a response, reminiscent of his granddaughter just minutes ago, and brought back out a wooden case that was stylistically several decades older than the sleek modern cases that lined the walls. "I keep all the antique wands out back since most people can be matched with more modern wands quite easily," he prefaced as he opened the box.
The wand inside was an elegant warm white wood with spiraling etched leaves standing out in relief from the end of the handle and tapering off three quarters up the length of the wand. "Try this one," he said as he handed the box to her carefully.
She picked the wand up from its bed of deep purple silk. As soon as the wand was grasped in her hand, warmth traveled up her arm and beautiful golden sparks shot out of the wand. As the sparks drifted down through the air they changed from golden to electric blue before fading out of existence as they hit the ground. Hermione smiled broadly in relief as she felt the knot of anxiety in her chest melt away. It felt like warmth, like security, like finally coming home. She remembered this feeling from her first time at Ollivander's and she didn't even need the wand seller to confirm that this was the wand for her.
"I thought this might be the one." He said as he set the box down.
"What's it made of?" she asked with a smile still playing on her lips. It was a beautiful wand and she was curious about its origin and why it had sat so long without an owner.
"The wood is from a Quaking Aspen and the core is a tail feather from a Thunderbird," he said seemingly pleased to have finally matched her with a wand so suited to her.
Hermione frowned and tucked the wand closer to her body. She could feel the etching of the leaves with how tightly she had grasped the wand. "I thought Thunderbirds were protected under your endangered species act?"
He nodded, "They are since 1927, in fact, but this is a Shikoba Wolfe original wand and it was made long before the protections were put in place. There aren't many of them left anymore. This wand is from my father's time and it's been waiting a very long time for a match."
Hermione took another look at her wand in awe, "I've read about him before. He's legendary even in Europe for his wand-crafting capabilities."
"Wolfe was renown specifically for his powerful, but difficult wands and I think we can expect to hear about you for a long time, Ms. Granger. This is an especially curious wand even for a Shikoba Wolfe wand. There's a reason that it's gone so long without matching to a wizard. While Aspen is noted for its propensity towards charms and martial magic, Thunderbird Tail Feathers are prized for their power, defense, and transfiguration work. In anyone else's hands, this wand would likely be ineffective and produce weak underpowered spells, because its nature is just too conflicted and contradictory, but it is perfectly balanced within your hand. It buzzes and crackles as it intertwines with your own tempestuous magic, like the smell of an oncoming rain and the premonition of danger the moment before lightning strikes," he said his voice low and deep by the end.
Hermione felt a shiver run down her spine at the intensity of Mr. Williams' words. She had done enough already and didn't care for any more experiences like the war she had just come out of.
"I'm equally good at both charms and transfiguration so the fact that this wand reflects that doesn't surprise me, but I've never excelled in defense and other martial magic," she said confused. Harry had always been the one that was better at defense and martial magic rather than her.
"The wand chooses the witch, Ms. Granger, and this wand believes you to be its match," he said in an eerie imitation of Garrick Ollivander.
Hermione shifted back awkwardly and pursed her lips. She would have to think about that. She wasn't sure how she felt about a wand that thought something of her that she didn't believe about herself, nor was she sure about the description Mr. Williams had given her about the feeling of her magic.
"How much do I owe you?" she asked pulling her beaded bag from her pocket.
"All wands are 10 Dragots. Come up to the register and Angela will get your wand permit started while I ring you out."
A/N Well look at that! Another update and only about a month apart! I have about another 25k words written so far, but it takes time to edit and make sure everything makes sense plot-wise. Also, I will probably cross-post this on AO3 sometime before I post the next chapter so it might take a little bit longer than it did this time depending on how annoying it is to post multiple chapters on that site.
I changed the summary since the original summary was supposed to be for a one-shot and we've gone far beyond that premise at this point.
As always, please let me know what you think by reviewing.
Stay safe and thanks for reading!
-BlushinRosie
