Rogue had never felt anything like it. She felt as though she was spinning around very fast, and she kept seeing glimpses of other wizard's fireplaces. She decided it would be best if she closed her eyes because with all the spinning and random flashes of things, she was beginning to feel very sick.
"Oh Gawd, mahke it stop!" Rogue screamed in her head, as though hoping someone would hear her desperate plea. And as though someone had actually heard her, the spinning abruptly stopped and Rogue fell forwards and if she had weak reflexes she would have landed flat on her face.
Rogue stood up quickly and automatically wished she hadn't. She was still dizzy and began to fall backward, but before she could hit the floor, she was caught by the largest pair of arms she had ever felt. Immediately, she looked up only to see a large face full of hair with two beady black eyes barely visible beneath the tangled mess of hair.
Normally, Rogue would have struggled out of the mans reach, but the mans beady black eyes were very kind and full of laughter and Rogue could find no ill intent in their depths, so she allowed him to help her steady herself so that she would not fall again.
Before the man had a chance to observe Rogue, Remus' voice, which was full of laughter and amusement, erupted behind them, "Sorry 'bout that Rogue, I guess I should have warned you to close your eyes before you left."
It then seemed that he noticed the abnormally large man standing behind her, even though, Rogue didn't see how he could NOT notice him; he had to be about eight feet tall, at least! Not only that, he looked like a burly mountain man and smelled like one to. He wore a large trench coat made out of some type of fur that Rogue had never seen before that looked like it had more pockets then any one could count and they all seemed to be stuffed full with god knows what.
But when Rogue looked at Remus, he did not seem shocked at all, in fact, he seemed rather excited to see the giant.
"Hagrid!" exclaimed Remus.
"So this is Hagrid," thought Rogue, "Ah don't think large is the rahght word to describe him, gigantic is more lahke it!"
"Ah, Remus, its good ter see ya again! 'Ow 'ave things been going fer ya?"
"They have been going very well, recently, Padfoot and I had our little baby sister returned to us, after all this time." Remus replied happily, glancing at Rogue, who was now standing behind Hagrid, for he had moved in front of her to greet Remus. Because Sirius was a wanted man, it was very unwise to use his name in public, so they used his nickname, Padfoot.
Hagrid had a look of confusion on his face for a moment, but it then turned into a look of realization. Suddenly, he turned around, examined Rogue, turned back to Remus to make sure this was the right person, even though he could tell it was, and immediately enveloped Rogue in a bone crushing hug.
At the moment, Rogue was very glad she had super strength and invulnerability, or else she was sure her back would be broken and she would be in an immense amount of pain. But that did not, however, keep her breathing.
Finally, after what seemed like a life time, Hagrid released Rogue, leaving Rogue gasping for air, and Hagrid wiping the tear from his eyes and trying fruitlessly to dry his beard, which was soaked from his tears.
"Oh bless 'er 'eart! There she is! Oh, blimey! I thought you were dead, I did! An 'ere you are, stan'in righ' 'ere in fron' o' me!" Hagrid chocked. As he began to cry again, Remus and Rogue helped him over to the nearest table, in what appeared to Rogue to be a bar.
While Remus explained everything to Hagrid about mutants and where Rogue had been in the past 15 years, Rogue took the opportunity to look around the bar. This bar was not too different from the one she met Lucious in except for the atmosphere was much friendlier; it too was full of people in cloaks and robes. Now that she thought about it, Rogue realized that both this bar and the last bar she was in must have been wizard bars, because there were people blatantly using magic such as having a spoon stir a cup of coffee by itself, and Rogue just hadn't noticed at the other bar.
"Well," Rogue reasoned to herself, "that perfectly reasonable considering that I had to deal with Lucious and Sirius and Remus staring at me the whole time I was there."
The bar contained some grubby looking tables, most of which were empty and a rather hunched back man, who appeared to be the bar tender.
Finally, Hagrid seemed to grasp the idea of mutants, so he turned back to Rogue and looked her up and down before speaking.
"'Aven't change a bit, she 'as. Looks just like she used ta. 'Asn't aged a' day, oh, bless you!" Hagrid cried before pulling Rogue into another vicious hug.
Rogue was about to get very upset about being hugged so much, there was too much of a risk of skin to skin contact, there was no way she wanted to have this, wonderful, nice but bumbling oaf in her head, and she was very grateful when Remus apparently noticed how peeved she looked and began to pull Hagrid off of her.
"There, there Hagrid, I think Rogue has had enough hugs for today, I don't think she has ever gotten so many warm welcomes in just a weeks time in her whole life."
Hagrid turned to him, somewhat confused, and aksed, "What, ya callin' 'er 'Rogue' fer? 'Er names Vivian, not 'Rogue'?"
It was about time Rogue decided to speak for herself, she decided, so she cut Remus off before he could explain.
"Listen, Ah don't go bah 'Vivian,' that mah have behn whaht Ah used tah go bah. But not any more. Ah'm a different person then who Ah used tah beh! Ah'm Rogue!" Rogue shouted, finally letting all her frustrations of the past week and of her life in general out onto Hagrid, who, when Rogue looked back on it, really didn't disserve to be yelled at.
Once Rogue was finished, Hagrid nearly cried out of sadness and once Rogue realized what she had done, she decided to just keep her mouth shut around him when ever she felt like snapping at him.
Immediately, Remus was at Hagrid's side, trying to make him stop crying because their group was now getting some rather odd looks from the rest of the pub.
"Hagrid calm down, she didn't mean it and you can't really blame her. I mean, thinking you are one person your whole life and then one day finding out your someone completely different, not only that, but having new powers to deal with to? She has had a rough week, don't take anything she says personally." Explained Remus calmly as possible while glancing around at the various wizards that were moving their chairs further away from the sobbing giant.
After about five minutes, Hagrid finally seemed to calm down, but whether it was from Remus' comforting words or he realized how odd it must look to see a giant man, who looks like he would tear you arm off sooner the look at you, sobbing in the middle of a pub, Rogue didn't know.
"Raight then, we best get started, we've got'a big day of shoppin' a'ead of us." Said a very sober Hagrid, as though afraid to say much around Rogue for fear of another outburst. As he said this he waved the bar keeper over for the bill, paid and began walking towards the back of the pub.
They walked through a doorway which led to what seemed to be a storage room. Rogue looked around skeptically before deciding to speak.
"Well, if this is thah biggest shoppin' centeh, Ah'd hate tah see the smalleh ones."
Remus cast her a warning look but before he could speak, Hagrid let out a slight chuckle, but said nothing. Instead he took out what looks like a battered old umbrella and tapped three brick, and it was as though some unseen hands were pulling the wall apart.
Rogue gasped at what was behind the wall. It was a market place, but instead of having things like fishes, chicken, and cheap things that no one really needs, but buys anyway, there were brooms, live owls, moving pictures like the one back at Grimmauld Place, and it was full of people in robes that had bags of various shapes and sizes trailing behind them in mid air. Rogue even saw one very haphazard looking middle aged witch, who had a group of four, what appeared to be bundles of clothe, which were all howling madly. At a closer look, Rogue realized they were all babies, identical in fact.
"Dahmn!" Rogue thought, "No wondeh she looks lahke shit!"
But Rogue didn't have time to pity the woman much longer because Remus and Hargid stopped suddenly in front of her, causing Rogue to run into their backs and was knocked off balance.
"Hey!" Rogue shouted after she regained her balance, and began glaring at them.
"Sorry Rogue," chuckled Remus, as though he thought it was very funny that she was so irked, "I keep forgetting you don't know about the wizarding world, because any witch or wizard would have know what this shop is."
Rogue looked up at the shop they were now standing in front of. The outside was old, termite eaten wood, the paint had almost completely chipped off and the sign above the door was hardly legible. Rogue had to look at it for a minute to finally read "Ollivanders, Fine Wand Makers Since 832 B.C."
"Ha, yeah raght. 832 B.C., ya gotta be jokin' meh."
Rogue could believe a lot of stuff, but a shop that sells wands and has been around for over two thousand years, that was pushing it.
"No joke Rogue, wizards have been around since before…who was that guy? You know the one that muggles worship and everything?"
Rogue snorted at this comment before relying, "Jesus Christ?"
"Yea, that's the guy."
Rogue shook her head, she couldn't believe this. First she was being asked to believe that there are wizards, and now they expect her to believe that they have been around since before Christ's time? They had to think she was a complete idiot.
"What ever." Was all Rogue said before gliding past Remus and Hagrid. Hagrid and Remus just exchange bemused looks, before following Rogue into the shop.
Inside, the shop was dimly lit and had a very musky scent that was just below being unpleasant. Rogue looked around, trying to find someone who might work there. After looking around and not finding anyone, she decided she might as well ask for assistance.
"HEY! DOES ANY ONE WORK HERE?!" Rogue shouted. "What?" she thought, "she never said she was going to ask politely."
"May I assist you?" murmured an eerie ancient voice, directly behind Rogue.
"AH!" Rogue yelped as she spun around, only to be met with one of the oldest looking men she had ever seen. Vast mazes of creases and wrinkles serve as his face, sagging almost so low that Rogue could hardly distinguish his eyes from the various shadowed areas of his face.
Rogue heard muffled chuckles from the front of the shop and glanced over her shoulder to see Remus and Hagrid both with their hands covering their mouths, faces nearly bright purple. She shot them a glare before turning back to the old man, who she assumed to be Ollivander.
"Yea, Ah'd lahke teh get eh wand, if ya'd be so kahnd."
Without even asking for permission, Ollivander yanked her over to a platform. There was as light pop and measuring tape appeared out of thin air, causing Rogue to jump a bit.
"Ah should beh used tah this bah now." She thought sarcastically.
As thought it was being manipulated by unseen hands, the tape measurer began to take her measurements. It measured from the tips of her fingers to the tip of her nose and toes and her arm span.
"Hmm." Was the only thing Ollivander said through out the entire process before taking the measurement that a stray quill had taken down and returning into the long corridor. The corridor contained row upon rows of different size rectangular boxes, Rogue couldn't even see the end of the corridor.
Even though Rogue couldn't see a thing past where the rays from the outside sun breached the dusty windows of the shop, Ollivander must have been able to see perfectly well, because Rogue did not hear a single bump while he was back there.
Finally, Ollivander returned with an armful of boxes, which he laid on the ground, before opening the top most box, and handing the wand to Rogue.
Rogue looked at him for a moment, awaiting instructions, before realizing he would offer none without her asking.
She was about to ask what the hell she was supposed to do now, when he gave an irritated huff.
"Well?" he asked.
"Well what?" was Rogue reply.
"Give it a wave!" he shouted, irritated.
So Rogue, with one incredulous towards Ollivander, gave her wand a jerky wave. Flames shot out of the tip of the wand and engulfed the checkout counter in bright green flames.
Rogue screamed at the top of her lungs and backed into the corner, her eyes wide with fear.
Suddenly, she was back in the room from her dreams. The red haired woman was pleading with a dark hooded figure. There was screaming, then a flash of bright green light, and darkness and silence.
An unknown, low, sultry, voice far off in the distance called "Vivian."
"Vivian." Again it called, this time laced with warmth and tenderness.
"ROGUE!"
Rogue jolted awake. Her breathing was hard and her body coated in another cold layer of sweat. Her eyes dashed about the room, trying to remember where she was and find the soothing voice that had called to her.
There was no one in the room but Remus, Hagrid and…who was the old man? Oh yes, Ollivander. She was in Ollivanders wand shop. She could remember coming into the shop, getting the wand, and then…nothing, just a flash of bright green light, then screaming, and then nothing.
"Wha' happened?" Rogue managed to mumble, sounding as though she had just awoken from a very deep slumber.
"The counter caught fire and you had some kind of panic attack." Ollivander stated calmly, as though girls screaming and fainting when a counter caught fire happened every day.
"You gave us quit'a scare, ya did." Said Hagird, looking as pale as a ghost, which in contrast to his thick dark beard, was very pale, and as though he was about to faint himself.
Throughout all of this, Remus said nothing. He had a feeling he knew what spooked her so much. He knew what the Unforgivable Curse was. He knew it was like bright green light, smothering everything in the room with its ghostly green glow. And he also knew that both someone who had cast the curse and the someone who had received it where linked very closely to Rogue.
Could it be that Rogue, like Harry, has visions of the past present and future, even if she herself was not present in the visions? Such as the time when Harry foresaw his best friends father being attacked and put into St. Mundgos. He would have to ask her later, now she had to get a wand. And besides, in the Middle of Ollivanders wand shop was not the most secure area to talk about such things.
By the time Remus had thought all of this over, Rogue had already been lifted to her feet by Hagrid and was once again trying on another wand.
"Lets just hope all the wands don't cause the counter to catch fire like that." Remus thought jokingly to himself, but also a little bit grave.
"Ah'm not so sure about this." Rogue said to Ollivander, barely above a whisper, as though she feared if she should talk to loud it might happen again.
"Don't worry, my dear. In all my years of selling wands, never have two wands reacted in the exact same way."
Ollivander seemed positive that nothing would happen, so Rogue decided to give it another shot.
She took the next wand that Ollivander offered her, closed her eyes, and gave it a wave, this time not as jerky as the last. She waited for some kind of explosion, but all she heard was a little "tut" from Ollivander, and the wand was yanked out of her hand.
Rogue continued to try wands, and like Ollivander said, no two wands reacted the exact same way. That does not mean, however, that she did not blow up anything else or cause the counter to burst into multicolor flames again.
About an hour passed, Remus and Hagrid were now sitting on the floor and reclining against the wall nearest the door, hoping that they could just get Rogue and wand and get out of the grimy old shop, and Rogue still hadn't found the perfect wand, and Ollivander wouldn't let them leave until she had the wand that fit her perfectly.
Rogues resolve was wavering as well. She had already gone through the first round of wands, and Ollivander had gone back into the corridor about five times already, and Rogue wouldn't be surprised if she tired every single one and still didn't find the right wand.
Ollivander went back into the one last time before returning with a single black and green rectangle box. Rogue jumped back from it when something inside the box started to rattle uncontrollably, as though it was trying to escape from the restrictions of the box.
Even Ollivander must have been surprised by this, because he got a startled look on his face before looking at Rogue and speaking.
"Well, I think I can tell without even trying on that this is the wand for you." He paused and looked at Rogue, considering her as though she was something dangerous and needed to be dealt with the utmost caution and care, "Strange, I do not even know the origins of this wand for I have never noticed it before, but it seemed to rattle back into life today, odd."
He began examining the box, what he was looking for Rogue couldn't tell you. Finally, with a huff of indignation, he began to slowly open the box.
The second there was so much as a crack between the box and the lid, a dark object shot out and right into Rogues hand. Rogue squeaked in shock, before finally realizing it was a wand that had flown into her hands.
Rogue just stared at it; it seemed to draw her in, like it was calling to her. It had an odd ghostly greenish glow to it, as though the wand itself were alive, with a mind of its own.
Remus and Hagrid had already stood up staring in utter bewilderment at the wand, they both knew wands didn't normally act like that.
Ollivander didn't seemed amazed at all by the wands behavior, just frustrated that he couldn't tell where the wand came from, when it was made, or even what it was made of. Finally, he seemed to find something of use, even if it wasn't exactly what he was looking for.
"Well, this is most remarkable indeed." He paused, as though thinking about what he was going to say, "Never in my life time have I ever seen a wand such as this, I have only read about them and heard them spoken about in only the lightest of whispers."
Rogue finally broke her attention away from the wand. What was so special about the wand? Didn't all wands act like this?
Ollivander looked at Rogue and then to the wand in her hand before speaking again.
"That wand," he said, pointing to the wand, his voice raising, caught up in the excitement of what he had discovered, "is no ordinary wand. That wand contains a soul. The soul of a man who wished to live on forever, any way that he could, and now, even though he has been dead for centuries, his soul is still alive."
"How is that possible? Is that kind of magic even possible?" Remus asked, as though the whole concept frightened him beyond all belief.
"It is indeed possible, very possible indeed. But it is very dark magic, very dark indeed. But to perform this spell means that the casters soul will be split in two, half of it remaining with the original and the other half embedding itself into the desired object. In order to do so, the caster must make a kind of offering, a sacrifice if you will. A sacrifice of the worst kind, only the most vile and wicked deed will suffice, the murder of another human being."
He paused a moment, in order to let this new information sink in. Remus and Hagrid just gawked at the wand, starring at it as though they thought it might attack them at any moment.
"Look at the wand, Rogue, is there anything distinct on it?" Ollivander asked Rogue, staring intently at the wand, unblinkingly.
Rogue looked down at the wand, she didn't see anything. She rotated it, trying to get it in a better light. She was about to give up and tell Ollivander that there was nothing there, but something caught her eye, a slight indentation in the wood. She ran her finger along the indention, which made several curves and turns, before finally she reached the spot where she had started.
Suddenly, the indentation began to light up in a subdued dark green, not vibrant like the fire had been, but softer, quickly outlining the same lines that Rogue had with her finger. Finally Rogue held the wand out to see what the lines made and gasped when she realized that the line made up a snake.
"Just as I thought." Sighed Ollivander, as though he had wished he would be wrong.
Remus and Hagrid both looked as though they would drop dead if you so much as exhaled a breath of air. And Rogue, she was once again confused and angry about it.
"What?! What's just as ya thought?" Rogue barked through clenched teeth.
"This wand was once the property the property of THE Salazar Slytherin, the fonder of the Slytherin house at Hogwarts, the creator of the Chamber of Secrets. the ancestor of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself! It is strange that you should be destined to have this particular wand, it has never once reacted to anyone else who has entered this shop in the eighty years that I have attended it."
It seemed as though he wanted to continue, but restrained himself. But his eyes held a hidden curiosity. He gazes at Rogue, as though trying to find something, some truth hidden in Rogue's eyes.
Remus shifted nervously from one foot to the other and cast a sidelong glance at Hagrid before jumping in between Rogue and Ollivander.
"Well then! As you can see it is the only wand that works for Viv- Rogue, so if you don't mind we will just purchase said wand, and be on our way. How much?"
"Well the total will come to about-" Ollivander started.
"That's great!" he pulled out a two hundred galleons from inside his coat, and thrust it into Ollivanders unsuspecting hands, "keep the change."
He immediately grabbed Rogue by the arm and quite literally dragged her out of the store.