"You want to what?" Millicent Bulstrode asked her youngest daughter unbelievingly.

"I want to help that boy Daniel," Drucy repeated nervously. "He's just starting out, Mom, and he doesn't have anything. Did you see his… leg… things? Torn, and unpatched. His father drinks – he didn't want to admit it, but I figured it out."

"Those 'leg things' are called jeans, Drucy," Esme said patiently. She turned to her mother, shrugging. "It can't hurt, Mom. We have plenty. He's going to be a classmate of hers anyways. There's got to be a way we can help him out a little without embarrassing him, right?"

Millicent took a moment longer to think, a distant look in her eyes, her lips pressed into a line. Then she smiled, and Drucy couldn't help but smile back. "Alright, Drucy. I got you plenty of Galleons for equipment… but if you're willing to share, so be it. I'll add some of my own, but you will have to fund some of his equipment yourself. If you're willing to do that, then so be it. It's about time you learned how to think about money, and this seems like as good a reason as any."

Drucy had never done much handling of money before, beyond simply handing it over for whatever she wanted. She knew that her mother had been trying to teach her frugality and financing, but she really was not interested at all. This desire, however, to help that poor boy, energized her into action. For the first time, she found herself actually looking at book prices at Flourish and Blotts. There were a few texts she wanted to add to her little personal library besides her textbooks, but she found herself choosing carefully among them and only plunking half of her originally intended list on the counter. "Please," she told the shopkeeper quietly as she pulled out her purse. "There's a boy my age who will probably be traveling alone. His name is Daniel Jacobs, and he's buying for Hogwarts. He doesn't have much money." She slid a couple of Galleons across the counter. "Please give him what he needs and, whatever he can pay, tell him it's enough."

She repeated this little ritual at everywhere they went… Madame Maulkin's , where her mother ordered the softer combed cotton for her and the slightly more expensive wand pocket on the inside, and even Potage's Cauldron Shop, where Drucy couldn't help feeling mildly disgruntled as she had to decide between helping the boy and being able to afford a Collapsible Cauldron for easier storage and carrying. Ultimately, her altruism won out, but not without mild regret. When it came time to buy her pet, however, she held out successfully by telling her mother that she wanted to wait until her second year, when she had a greater range of choices than the traditional owl, cat, or toad. She knew she would be foolish to try to explain to her mother how she had already bonded with her little green snake in such a way that she was not sure she could befriend another familiar.

At last, she and her mother entered Ollivander's shop. Esme had abandoned them, claiming that the dust in the shop made her sneeze, and Drucy quietly wished her sister was still there to provide moral support as her mother stepped up to the counter. A man about her age stood there, sprightly and tidy in dress robes. "Hogwarts student?" he asked kindly, looking at Drucy. "Here for a new wand?"

"Not quite," her mother replied, pulling out an ornate box and opening it to reveal the contents. "I was hoping to have this refurbished for her. It may need a new wood. The heartstring has been in the family for generations - her father's family - and she's been learning on it already."

"Ahh, an heirloom wand," the man said understandingly, taking hold of it. He closed his eyes for a moment, then called into the back. "Mr. Ollivander, I have an heirloom here and I think it's one of yours. Do you want to handle this one?"

With a slight shuffling, a very elderly wizard made his way into the room. He looked tired and worn, but his eyes lit up as he saw the wand. "Let me see," he said, taking hold of it with gnarled fingers. "Yes, indeed, I know this wand. It carries an heirloom core, a heartstring from a Hungarian Horntail. Particularly difficult dragon to slay, and a powerful… yes, yes, I remember this wand. I encased the core in walnut for Bellatrix Lestrange."

"I know it hasn't always had the best masters," Millicent Bulstrode explained. "It was good of Miss Granger to return it to us after the battle at Hogwarts." Drucy only half-heard the bitterness in her mother's voice. Her attention was drawn by the beautiful display wand in the window. It was a rich, golden brown, carved intricately. She looked at it with her hands tucked behind her back as the conversation went on behind her. "I thought if it was re-wooded, perhaps something a bit shorter and, well, kinder? My daughter is not very tall, and she is not aggressive."

"Can she use the heartstring?" Ollivander asked mildly, offering the wand back. "I heard you tell my apprentice that you have been using it as a teaching wand?"

"Certainly. Drucy!" Her mother's voice interrupted her study of the display wand, and Drucy turned obediently to the counter. "Show Mr. Ollivander what you have learned."

Drucy took the wand, with its old, familiar, dark surface and the mildly begrudging personality that she had known for years. "Lumos," she told it, and the tip glowed dimly. The glow faded as she offered it back to Ollivander.

"Yes, yes it does work for her," the aged wandmaker said thoughtfully. "It does not work very well, however. Did you notice the weakness of its response? It is possible that a new wood can help focus her temperament… it would be a shame to retire such an old core…"

Drucy was barely listening now. She had turned her gaze back to the display wand. It seemed… active, somehow. Bright. Young. Eager… and… "What are you doing?" her mother snapped, startling her, and only then did she realize that she had laid her hand gently on the wand.

"It's warm," Drucy said in surprise.

Her mother started to speak, but Ollivander motioned for silence. "It's alright, girl," he told her. "You can pick it up and take a look at it. Try it out."

Drucy carefully lifted out the wand and held it in her hand. It was definitely warm. Was her hand trembling? Or was the wand doing it on its own? She smiled at it, then raised it slightly. "Lumos," she said.

Nothing happened.

Ollivander turned back to her mother. "There, I was quite sure of that… no first-year is going to draw magic out of that wand. It is a special one, an experiment of mine. Nobody has yet shown an interest in it, and I am sure it will be a very special adult witch or wizard who finally…"

Drucy had stopped listening again. She couldn't understand what had happened. The wand was definitely young, eager, and willing. Still, she detected a slight hesitation, almost a fear, which she understood very well from befriending the snakes in the garden. She started speaking to it quietly and reassuringly. "It's alright. You want to do magic. I can tell. You want to travel. You want to work, and not sit in a display window. I can take you there, but it has to be my way. I have to learn at my pace, and you have to learn as well." Many pets responded well to this kind of psychology, a mixture of mastery and cajoling, but snakes seemed to prefer it especially well. She could even feel her pet snake shift under her robe as she spoke to the wand. Then she raised the wand and ordered it, almost sharply, "Lumos!"

A brilliant flash lit up the room.

Drucy blinked several times, shaking her head slightly, trying to clear her vision. In a moment, the glare had faded and she could see the wand in her hand, the tip blazing like a little star. She held it up slightly, and realized with astonishment that she could read some of the words written on the stacks of wand boxes surrounding the three… no, the four. Ollivander's apprentice had peeked into the room and was watching silently with the others. Drucy looked wide-eyed back at the wand tip again, and then shook her hand slightly. The light extinguished. "Lumos," she commanded again, and the wand obligingly lit without any theatrical flash. She shook it dark and spoke again, this time calmer, almost casual. "Lumos?" Again the shop was filled with wandlight.

Drucy looked up, expecting everybody to be pleased. The apprentice, however, had his mouth wide open as if he was a frog looking for an insect. Ollivander did not look as astonished, but he had a slight, almost puzzled frown on his face. Her mother, however, was so furious that she spoke with a harsher tone than Drucy had ever heard her use in public. "I told you not to do that here!"

What had she done? Drucy tried to figure out which of her mother's many commandments she had unwittingly flouted. Ollivander's next statement made it clear. "Your daughter," he said simply, "is a Parselmouth." After the way Drucy's mother had always scolded her for speaking to snakes, Drucy had come to believe that this was some sort of horrible crime, but Ollivander didn't sound perturbed. He sounded utterly calm… maybe slightly fascinated, as if he was studying a rare kind of wand.

"I didn't know," Drucy wailed, terrified at the look of fury on her mother's face. "I can't tell! I wasn't even talking to a snake, I don't even know how I did it!"

"I do," Ollivander responded, though her statement had not been directed to him. "I made that wand myself. I crafted it several years ago. English Oak, thirteen inches even, containing a core of crystalized Basilisk venom."

Everyone was still and silent for a long moment. Drucy's mother recovered first. "Go," she told Drucy icily. "Give me that, and wait outside for me. Now!"

Drucy had always promptly obeyed her mother in public before, but this time she found that she didn't dare. There was something strange about the wand she held. It was still trembling slightly, as if it was angry at her mother… as if it understood Drucy's frustration. "I-I don't want to," she said shakily. A number of gold and green sparks shot out from the wand's tip as Drucy desperately wanted to find the words to explain why. She didn't want to be disobedient, she didn't want to be a bad person, she just feared that the wand might somehow do something it shouldn't if she handed it over.

Again, Ollivander was the one who seemed to understand. "Give it to me, Drucilla," he told her gently. "It's alright. You can give it to me. I created it. It's safe." He held out his hand, and she slowly placed the wand in his grasp and slowly let go. Then, with another frightened glance at her mother, she turned and stepped out of Ollivander's shop.