Harry and Calypso excited the Floo at the Leaky Cauldron and had to be caught by their parents. They didn't travel much and weren't used to it. Their grandparents followed.

As they walked through the Leaky Cauldron, the few patrons eating or drinking in the early afternoon would all stop and stare for a few seconds. It make Calypso more than a little uncomfortable. The Potter clan just walked through without talking to anyone else.

When they reached the brick wall and entered Diagon Alley, it was time for Harry and Calypso to stop and stare for a few seconds. The adults just chuckled. For two kids that barely did any traveling, seeing a place like Diagon Alley must have been a little overwhelming. Shops extended down far past where a person could see and people were bustling everywhere. The early afternoon was one of the calmest times of the day; nobody was at lunch and most people were at work, but it was still plenty busy. All four of the Potter kids stuck close to the adults. They had been in crowds before at parties or in the muggle world where nobody would recognize them, but not all that often.

They went to Flourish and Blotts first. Calypso just stuck to what the required list was for first years, but Harry begged his parents to buy him one extra; a book on wand meanings, and they let them. It was a book that explained what different types of cores and woods were best at; be it warding or Transfiguration or Charms or Defense Against the Dark Arts or a more obscure type of magic. To be honest, the older Potters were pretty interested to read it as well.

After that, they stopped by Madam Malkin's to get school robes and then Apothecary for potion ingredients. Everyone had to stop for a minute when Calypso and James saw the new Nimbus 2000 broomstick in the display case at Quality Quidditch Supplies. Even Harry, who wasn't a huge broomstick fan had to admire the sleek build of the newest top model.

Next was the shop Harry and Calypso were most excited for. Ollivander's. They entered and luckily there was nobody ahead of them.

"Ah," Ollivander said. "The Potters. I thought I would see you sometime soon." He looked at James. "Mahogany, unicorn hair. Eleven inches, pliable. Best suited for Transfiguration." Next was Lily. "Willow, phoenix feather. Ten and a quarter inches, swishy. Best suited for charms of all kinds." Then Charlus. "Cypress, phoenix feather. Also eleven inches, and pliable. Suited for dueling and one very brave." That sure fit the description of Charlus Potter, famed curse-breaker and no slough in the dueling circuits either. Finally was Dorea. "I did not make your wand."

Dorea nodded. "The Blacks were a highly respected family for centuries, and my father had my wand made with a private wand-maker from Switzerland." Ollivander nodded. This made sense, as those who catered towards the elite could charge a small fortune for a highly specialized wand. Dorea's surely had some more exotic core or wood but she didn't say, and he didn't ask.

"Very well then, who is first?" Calypso shrugged and stepped forwards.

Ollivander brought a wand for her to try. "Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches nice and flexible. Just give it a wave." Calypso did that, but a potted plant towards the back of the store just blew up, sending pottery shards spraying. Emily shrieked and hid behind Dorea's leg, making the older woman chuckle. Ollivander took the wand from Calypso's hand. "Certainly not."

It took Calypso almost twenty minutes to find her wand. Ollivander even commented that she was one of his trickiest customers. But eventually she found hers. Eleven inches, like her father, and with a phoenix feather core, like her mom and grandfather. The wood was holly. Ollivander seemed very interested in the fact this wand chose her, and when prompted he revealed that the twin of her wand's core was the core of Voldemort's wand. Calypso looked a little freaked out by that. Next, it was Harry's turn. He took even longer, twenty-five minutes. However, just as Ollivander was looking stumped, he pulled one from the very back shelf.

He took the wand out of its case. "Ten and a quarter inches with a unicorn tail core. However, it is acacia. I have very few acacia wands. They are the most picky of any wood save elder and will likely only work for their owner. But they only choose the most gifted and are best for subtle magic."

Harry grabbed the wand. A golden glow erupted from the tip and for a second Harry felt like he could do anything, even tear down the entire shop and rebuild it again. But after a second the feeling passed a a moment later the golden glow did as well.

Ollivander looked thoughtful. "You made a rather special set of twins Mr. and Mrs. Potter. I expect great things to come from these wands." The Potters payed fourteen galleons and then left, Harry and Calypso staring in semi-reverence at their new wands. After a few other stops the Potters said goodbye to Diagon Alley and Flood back home.

That night, Harry opened his book on different wand types. While a wand didn't make a wizard, it was their guide and he felt it was important to understand his. The book confirmed what Ollivander said about acacia. An unusual type of wood, it chose the most gifted and was best suited towards the sly and subtle. It stated their would be few "flashy shows" from an acacia wand, but was best suited for the finer points of wand magic. Unicorn tail cores were generally said to be the weakest core, but this could be offset by the wood type. They were also loyal to their owner and very consistent. Overall, Harry was excited. His wand seemed to hint that he had a lot of potential, and he couldn't wait to get to Hogwarts.

The next morning, Harry had a question he wanted answers for. "How does the Trace work?" he asked his parents. "They can't just have been put on the wands from creation, how would it know when its owner's seventeenth birthday would be?" By now Calypso and Sirius were thinking as well. This was a good question. Emily was to young to get interested in technical conversations like this. "They wouldn't be able to track the wand, they would track to surges of magic that would signify a spell." The rest of the Potters were quiet, letting Harry think the problem out. "But how would they know who the person?" he mussed, thinking for a minute. Then he snapped his fingers. "You are required to give your magical signature for the records at birth or for immigration to wizarding Britain. They track those. But... magical signatures can overlap if they are in close enough proximity." Harry looked delighted at his revelation. "As long as their is a magical adult nearby they can't tell if it was somebody underaged who cast the spell!"

Calypso and Sirius also looked delighted and turned towards their parents for confirmation. James and Lily were shocked that their eleven-year-old son had figured this out so early. Usually, students only figured this out in their final few years of Hogwarts or beyond. "How did you figure that out son?" James asked.

"Well I didn't know for sure until now." At this point his parents gave each other we just got outsmarted by our first-year son looks. "But it was just logic and reasoning. Magic has its limits after all. But this means we can practice magic here!" He excitedly whipped out his wand a cast a lumos. He had studied the theory and practiced the movements for years, and was able to do it his first try. Calypso also eagerly got her wand out and cast a Lumos. It took her two tries. After they both used nox to end the spells, with a whoop each ran upstairs to their rooms to grab their new textbooks.

Their parents just stared, still not fully processing this information. "What just happened?" Lily asked.

Over the next month, all the time that Harry had spent learning theory and wand movements he spent working on learning the spells they were used for. He steamrolled his way through the easiest ones and only slowed down a little after he passed the first few week's curriculum.

He noticed a pattern with his magic. You could turn a match into a needle. But it was much harder (for a first year) to turn a match into a needle of a specific color. But this sort of stuff came fairly easily to Harry. Or casting with minimal wand movement. He wouldn't cast silently or with no movement yet (that would be utterly ridiculous) but he could cast many very beginning stuff with less than the taught amount of movement.

But he found it much more challenging to put lots of power into his spells. Before his mom and seem him casting one and forbidding him to do it in the house again to avoid breaking something, whenever he tried to cast very early DADA spells, he found it frustrating that he couldn't put much power into them.

Calypso also did some early spells, but she didn't do nearly as many as Harry, assuming that the world-class teachers at Hogwarts would be able to teach her better than she could tutor herself.

A few days after Harry's revelation, Lily wrote a letter to Dumbledore, telling him that Harry figured it out all on his own, and now the twins were practicing magic early. She explained that it didn't really feel fair to take their wands from them when they weren't necessarily doing anything wrong, even if it wasn't fair to everybody else. Muggle-borns couldn't exploit this at all, and while adult wizards were certainly aware of the loophole, most refrained from telling their children it, even purebloods. Dumbledore replied that it was perfectly fine and that he deserved a bit of a head-start for thinking to logically.

August 31st

It was the last day before Harry and Calypso left for Hogwarts and they could hardly wait. They could tell their parents were holding back some tears from seeing their little babies grow up, but overall the atmosphere in the house was one of excitement. Harry and Calypso were both already packed, and Harry was just wandering through the Potter Library one last time before he went and messed around with his sister. They did a competition sometimes where they had a certain amount of time to get as many successful pranks off as possible. Over the four years since they invented the game, Harry held a winning record of winning 6 out of 11 games. However, they couldn't do it to often or their parents got mad. However, as their "uncles" and grandparents were coming over for their last dinner before Hogwarts, it was the perfect opportunity. If Calypso won, it would mean they would be even and Harry would lose his winning record he had held for almost three years. He was looking for any books that held anything that might help him.

On the very back shelf, there was a set of books that were bound together. The tied to the ribbon was a piece of paper that said The Complete Guide to Wand Guidance, by Geraint Ollivander. Harry remembered his dad mentioning a few times that a Potter did an Ollivander a favor during the Middle Ages. Harry wouldn't have been surprised if this set was in payment of that or something.

Each book was simply titled after a different wand wood. Harry untied the ribbon and opened the book titled Acacia.

Chapter 1

Overview

Acacia wood wands are tricky to use, but quite a force if used right. Acacia wood is incapable of channeling great amounts of power into them, so users have to use other methods to achieve their goals.

It is for this reason that acacia wands only chose those who are intellectually gifted clever enough to make good use of them. Most witches or wizards would find it difficult to use an acacia wand simply because they wouldn't know how to. A talented duelist may be used to casting a barrage of spells to wear down his opponent's shield. But give him an acacia wand and he would fail. Users of these wands would have to learn to do more damage with fewer, well placed spells.

One thing that acacia wands do excel at is finer things. Precise Transfiguration is a typical example of this. For instance, in turning a tortoise into a teacup, an acacia wand user would find it easier than most to make the teacup more detailed, give it intricate patterns.

Charms are odd with acacia wands. They can be quite proficient at Charms, but I find that schools across the world do not teach Charms in a way that is set up to let an acacia wand user achieve their full potential (See Chapter 3). A student must be taught to tell the wand do more of the work. Instead of channeling most of the magic from the user itself, a witch or wizard must be taught to let the wand channel much of the energy from the much softer magic that flows through the very air and direct that magic using their own.

Yes, acacia wands are tricky to use. But somebody proficient at using one would be quite the force in whatever job he or she might choose that involves wand-casting. Because they are use to looking at things a little differently from everybody else, they often advance magic into new fields by simply providing a different prospective.

Harry looked up from the book. This looked very interesting. He thought back to his own experience. He had had trouble with getting power to the spells listed in the first-year DADA textbook. And while he could do charms like wingardium leviosa relatively easy, he had only managed to get the quill to hover a little less than a foot off his desk. It was almost like there was some sort of cap on his magic, and it was very frustrating. This book sure seemed like it would be able to help. He grabbed it to bring to Hogwarts and snagged the holly one for Calypso as well. He could read later. For now, he needed to beat his sister at their competition.

He put the acacia book in his trunk and then gave the holly one to Calypso, explaining what it was. She thanked him and went to pack it as well.

Over the years, Calypso and Harry had learned the limits of their entire friend and family group during their eleven total rounds of their "friendly" competition. And one person they knew had basically no limits was their Uncle Sirius. They had set the time limits from 6:00-8:00 in the evening, as the dinner was supposed to start. And so when Sirius was the first guest to arrive through the Floo at 6:04 they both saw the perfect opportunity to get the first point. Harry was the faster thinker. He cast a shrinking spell at Sirius's underwear when he wasn't looking. Everyone else saw but decided not to say anything.

Now, the Shrinking Spell isn't taught until the beginning of the second semester of Charms, and Harry was having problems with Charms anyways, but it still worked and was still powerful enough to make Sirius's crouch feel a little uncomfortable. He didn't notice a big difference, but he did stop to try to discretely rearrange his underwear every few minutes to try to make more space. Calypso, James, Lily, and Sirius Jr; who had all figured out what Harry had done, as well as Harry himself had to hide their smirks and giggles. It was funny watching him struggle while trying to avoid drawing attention to it. After a few minutes of small talk and setting the table, Sirius noticed something was wrong.

"What? Why is everyone laughing? Is their some inside joke I'm not getting here?" he asked, confused.

"Oh, you just seem to be having a little difficultly with your underwear," Harry said a little to innocently.

Sirius narrowed his eyes. "Wait a minute. Did you do something?"

Harry faked looking shocked. "Uncle, with influences like you and Dad in my life do you really think I would ever do something like that?" Everyone burst out laughing at that. Even Lily had to smile.

Sirius gave Harry a knuckle sandwich. "And that is how you do a Maruader proud!" he said, looking very happy being used to being on the butt end of plenty of pranks before. "Now, I need to go fix this." He headed off to the bathroom.

Harry looked at Calypso. "That's one!" he said smugly. The look on his twin's face promised retribution.

Their parents looked at each other and sighed. Harry and Calypso were doing their little competition again. And with them able to use magic this time, this could be a bit of a long night.

Harry and Calypso really gave it their best during dinner. They had been preparing a week and a half for this.

The main course was ribeye steak made by the house-elves, with sides such as grilled sausages or broccoli and cauliflower. Their grandpa was a man who really liked broccoli and really hated cauliflower. Calypso was sitting next to him, and she discreetly cast a color-changing charm under the table to a piece of cauliflower to make it green. It wasn't a very good job (she hadn't been doing magic for very long and color-changing wasn't exactly very beginner, cut her some slack) and turned out to be a very pale green, but it passed an out-of-the-corner-of-the-eye-inspection. She got it onto her grandpa's plate when he was talking to Grandma Dorea, who was sitting on the opposite of Charlus from Calypso. Partly out of luck, he stabbed her light green cauliflower with his fork next and took a bite. He immediately spit it out in surprise and disgust.

Or during dessert, when their father wasn't paying as much attention to what was in his food as he really should have at that point. James really didn't like spiders. While it wasn't a true phobia like what Ron Weasley had, he just really didn't like them crawling on him. Harry had seen one building a web a few days ago, and captured it in a jar a day prior to the dinner party. Dessert was ice cream, and Harry somehow managed to get the spider into his father's bowl without him noticing. However, he definitely noticed when the spider climbed up the spoon and unto his hand. His dad dropped his spoon with a very un-manly shriek and flung the spider off.

It was a hard fought battle, but in the end Harry come on top six pranks to four. He made sure to rub it into Calypso's face, who was really hoping to change her record from a losing one to one at five hundred. She tackled her twin and they started playfully wrestling. Their dad had to separate them while both Sirius's and Charlus egged them on. Lily and Dorea shared a look. Men.

Both twins went to sleep that night very late thinking about the future. Neither really knew what it would bring, but both were looking forward to it. And no matter how bad things got, one fact would always stay the same. They always had their twin.

A/N In case you are wondering, I got the information about wand cores and woods from Pottermore and expanded from there.

And I know, I know, I said some of the same things three times and focused a whole ton on wands, which might have been a little boring. I promise you, there is a reason for it. It will become very clear later on in the story. Also, Harry's wand will lead to some interesting things, such as warding and some extremely rare dueling styles. Some were asking for Harry to get a really interesting wand, but I didn't want him to have something unique or whatnot for no reason so this was the compromise.

I hope you enjoyed this second chapter, it is pretty short but there isn't to much I can write about during a single trip to Diagon Alley and a summer where they can't do much magic due to have not even arriving at Hogwarts yet. The next one will be longer.