I own them not

"The wand chooses the wizard, Harry, it's not always clear why."

Charlie yelped and jumped back, yanking Molly with him. James gasped and even Sirius uttered a small noise as the ghost got nearer to them. It was still smiling, and James saw that it was wearing clothes reminiscent of the fifteenth century. He gulped and stepped forward. "Er...hello. We didn't mean to...we didn't know..." he fumbled for words as the ghost clasped his hand in both his own.

"Hello Harry." The ghost said warmly, and James suddenly smiled in return. He turned to his friends, who had backed away to the great staircase. "It's okay, guys. I don't think it will hurt us."

The ghost looked offended. "Of course I won't. But surely you know...aren't you Harry Potter?"

Charlie snorted, James shook his head. "No, I'm James, this is Charlie, Molly, and Sirius." He cleared his throat, looking at the ghost, "And who are you?"

The ghost was suddenly distracted by his head flopping to one side. Molly screamed as his head hung, attached by only a small string. The ghost was pulling it back up as he said, "I am Sir Nicholas deMimsy Popington." He looked at the group, "Better known by the students of this school as Nearly Headless Nick, for obvious reasons."

James laughed and Charlie, Sirius, and Molly stepped forward to flank him on both sides. "Umm...Nick?" Charlie was still plainly scared of addressing a ghost. "Could you...could you tell us about this person, Harry Potter? Only James has been called that twice now. And who are Ron and Hermione?"

Nearly Headless Nick sighed a little sadly. "Before I start that story, I think you should see something." He floated off to the far side of the huge Hall. James ran to keep up. "Are there more of you?" he asked quickly. "More ghosts, I mean?"

Nick sighed again. "There used to be around fifty of us haunting this school. Now the numbers have dwindled. Only the House ghosts, Peeves, and young Myrtle remain."

"What are the House ghosts?" Sirius asked, keeping up with them quite easily.

"In a minute, we're nearly...here we are."

They had stopped in front of what appeared to be a marble statue, but as James approached it he realized it wasn't marble at all. From every angle there seemed to be more things, more people to look at, and it had colors. He counted at least seven people with flaming red hair like Charlie's, and in the front, standing flanked between a red-headed boy and a girl with bushy brown hair was the boy with the scar, the boy who must be Harry Potter.

James gasped. He was a replica of the boy of the statue, as Charlie was one of the boy with red hair and Molly of the girl with bushy brown hair. Sirius had circled the statue twice before finding a tall man with loose strings of hair and a handsome face. "Must be you, mate." Charlie muttered to him.

There were other people on the statue who looked like people James knew. The red-headed twins, for instance, were mirror images of Charlie's older twin brothers, as was a smaller red-head girl. The statue also showed a large man, bigger by far than any human, tiny elf creatures, and a half-human horse.

"These are the people who fought with Harry in the battle that took place right here at Hogwarts." Nick floated closer to the statue, looking at a girl with beautiful face and long, silver hair. "But you better sit down, I will start at the beginning.

Sirius leaned against the wall, Charlie and Molly sat on the edge of the amazing statue, staring up at it, James was too jumpy to sit down. Nick arranged his head to be sure it wouldn't fall off before starting the tale.

"Nearly a thousand years ago, magic was flourishing. A great headmaster taught at this school, Albus Dumbledore. But, as a good man once said, 'Not all wizards are good.'"

James had a sudden flash of a large man sitting in a vaguely familiar pub, continuing the sentence, "Some of them go bad. A while ago one of them went as bad as it gets, and his name was Vold-" he stopped.

James wrenched himself out of the memory to hear Nick continue. "Lord Voldemort was powerful, and many thought he would take over. One night he went to the house where the Potters lived. He killed the parents, but could not kill the baby Harry Potter. Voldemort was, not killed, but destroyed for a while, and Harry was left with a scar like a lightning bolt on his forehead."

"Ten years later, Harry came to Hogwarts. In six years he did many extraordinary things. He fought Voldemort and witnessed his return to power. He also made friends." He nodded to Charlie and Molly. "Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. The three were nearly inseparable until they died."

"But one did die." James interjected. "I saw that Charlie ― I mean Ron ― died in that battle at Hogwarts."

Nearly Headless Nick sighed once again, "Yes. The Weasleys had two casualties that night. Ronald and one of those twins." He smiled, possibly remembering the pair of troublemakers as infamous as those who had preceded them by twenty years. "But it was Ronald's death that enabled Harry to go ahead with his task. It is said that he died that night, then came back to life."

Molly gasped, "Is that possible?"

Sirius answered for the ghost. "It's magic, Molly, anything's possible." He turned back to Nick, who was sitting staring at the statue, lost in thought. "What about this other guy, Sirius?"

"Sirius Black was a good friend of James Potter, Harry Potter's father. He was Harry's godfather and died saving him from a group called the Death Eaters, followers of Voldemort." Nearly Headless Nick didn't take his eyes off the statue, now showing a pair of boys, one with black skin and short hair, the other with blond hair and a very bruised face. "The two were great wizards, very skilled."

The mention of a skilled wizard prompted a question, this time from Molly, "And what about that headmaster, Dumbledore, Is he on this statue?" she looked up into the face of a girl with long blond hair and huge blue eyes. She wore radishes in her ears.

"He died a year before the battle." Nick straightened up, if it was possible for a ghost to do so. " To continue this tale, after Voldemort was defeated there was a half century of peace. The Ministry of Magic was rebuilt by Harry, Hermione, the remaining Weasleys, and friends who had survived the battle. Magic thrived again. This school was reopened and a new headmaster took over."

"So how did it all die?" Charlie's question was one that James had been burning to have answered since he'd stumbled onto the tomb. "All this stuff is so great, how did it all just disappear?"

"There was still evil left in the world. Another wizard rose to power, a descendant of the great Grindewald, and this time there was no Harry Potter to stop him. He wiped out most of the wizarding world. Those that had fled eventually died, their blood mixed and distorted." Nick wiped an invisible tear from his translucent face. "But you four, you might very well be descendants of Harry Potter himself."

The ghost crossed over to the statue and whispered something to it, words that James didn't catch. The next second a door opened at the base and Nick withdrew four wands from it. "These wands were offered back to the families of those who had fallen, but they were eventually given back to the school and placed within the statue. It is what has kept it alive and safe all these years."

He handed Charlie a reddish wand, "This was Ron Weasley's wand." He explained, and Charlie wrapped his fingers around it with reverence, his hand fitting it perfectly.

Nick next gave a long, almost white wand to Molly, "This was...well, it was either Fred or George Weasley's. It doesn't matter, as the wands were as identical as their owners." As Molly touched the wand it emitted gold sparks. "I think it likes you." Nick said warmly.

Sirius received a black wand that was shorter than either of the others. "It was Draco Malifoy's, but Harry used it too. I think it will work for you." Sirius took the wand hastily and examined it with a hungry expression.

James received his wand last. "This wand was sent back to Hogwarts the day Harry Potter died, with instructions to keep it safe. It is called the Elder Wand, or the Wand of Destiny. It is very powerful and very dangerous. Use it well."

And James had two last flashes of pictures before his hand wrapped around the Elder wand. One was of an old man with a crooked nose, piercing blue eyes and half-moon spectacles, the other of a cloak, and a note with long, spindly handwriting,

Use it Well

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