CHAPTER 2 – A SHOPPING TRIP

Jason woke up, retrieved his wand from under his pillow and waved it to open his curtains. For not the first time since his birthday, he thanked his father for being a curse-breaker and laying anti-detection wards over the house. Of course, Jason wasn't supposed to know that they were there, or even that they existed, but one weekend after finishing his collection of books he decided to read some of his fathers. Beginner Warding – A Practical Guide had been immensely helpful in explaining that with an anti-detection ward underage wizards were free from the Trace, even the updated version that had been pioneered by Magnus Hopkirk in the year following the infamous Battle of Hogwarts. Jason had to be careful to not use magic in sight of his parents however, as they believed that the Trace only being effective on either the children of unskilled or poor wizards (who could not perform or afford an anti-detection ward) or on muggleborn children was entirely unfair and they didn't want their son to achieve in school simply by what they considered cheating.

When he arrived downstairs, dressed and ready, he was surprised to see that not only was his mother up and in her workshop as usual, but his father was sat at the kitchen table, flicking his wand idly to turn the pages of the book he was reading.

"Dad? How and why are you up before 11?" He asked with a laugh, taking a seat across from his father and snatching a piece of toast from the rack on the table. He ate it dry, repeating his question when his father didn't answer. Eventually, he shook his father's shoulder to get his attention, but only succeeded in being pushed away absently.

Smirking, he decided to go and visit his mother, since he always loved watching her make wands anyway.

"Oh hello Jason, I wasn't expecting you up this soon" She greeted him, not looking up from the twig she was whittling. He murmured a response, focusing intently on her hand as it guided the wand (with a small blade transfigured onto it) across the twig, every stroke resizing it to the proper wand size. The whittling, along with the insertion of the core, was possibly his favourite part of wandmaking to watch. He anxiously awaited the day he could apprentice under his mother, but due to restrictions on Wandlore, that wouldn't be until his fifth year. Still, he could unofficially learn.

"Is that Elder wood? I thought you weren't allowed to make Elder wands, or wands with Thestral Hair cores anymore?" He asked, when he noticed the colour and texture of the wood.

"Well it's illegal to try to recreate the Elder wand that Harry Potter used to kill Voldemort, yeah, and it was made of those two things, but the law doesn't prevent use of Elder wood completely. This is just going to be a training wand, it's an idea that the Ministry came up with."

Jason nodded, moving to a better position in the room to sit and watch his mother at work.

"What's a training wand?" He asked.

"Basically I would make and mass produce a large number of these wands, all of them with a special core, of Demiguise hair, and they would not work to channel spells through. But, by combining the wandmaking process with some wards that your father is going to help me with, we can set it so that the Head Auror, or the Head of the MLE, or any licensed trainer, can 'load' up to 5 spells onto the wand. They channel their own magic into it, and it copies to the others. That way, Aurors can train using only a certain number of predetermined spells, which allows for better training. I don't know exactly how they'll be used but I know how I'm going to make them."
It was a good idea, Jason had to admit. Maybe something like that could be used for duels to stop people using banned spells.

"So why Elder wood? I get that the Demiguise hair is for the ability to store the spells, since it's so good at keeping a magical current, but why not something basic and easier to carve like Holly?"

His mother opened her mouth to answer, turning from her work with the expression she always got before a particularly interesting lecture, but before she could speak, his father apparated next to her. They jumped slightly, and she slapped him on the arm for startling them, but Jason was laughing too hard to remember what they were talking about.

"Come on, we'd better go to Diagon Alley" His dad managed to wheeze out in between fits of laughter.

Bedgrudingly leaving her work, Jason's mother agreed. She waved her own wand in a complex pattern, muttering words that Jason knew had been passed down through the generations, and the blade receded back into the cherry wood. Another flick and another magic word and a small silver bubble encased what she was working on. Jason wasn't quite sure why she needed a stasis charm on what was essentially still a twig, but he saw no reason to question the well known and well respected wandmaker that was his mother. If she was doing it, it must be needed.

When she'd finished her spells, she twirled her wand and let the charms on her holster cause it to shrink and fly into her ring. Jason knew that it would rest in her ring as a tiny little streak of wood until she called it again. He'd always been jealous of the holster, but it had been specially made a long time ago for her great-great-great grandfather and passed down. He'd get it when he passed his apprenticeship and took over the wandmaking business, but that was a long way away.

They arrived in Diagon Alley, popping into his mother's shop backroom and started to leave. When they got to the desk, Jason smiled and waved to his mother's current apprentice (and his youngest cousin), Sam. Sam was a little bit off, and he really tried to play up the mysteriousness of the whole process, and he had still yet to create a sufficient wand, but he was only a fifth year and had only started his apprenticeship at the beginning of the summer, so it was excused. Jason was thankful for him though, it had been a little while since his mother had last had an apprentice, and when she did have one she spent far more time at home. But when she had an apprentice, she could simply leave the shop with them, since choosing a wand for a person was a lot easier than actually making one.

"Hello Sam, how's business going?" His father asked, giving the wards around the shop a quick check with his aura sight as he always did. Cygnus smiled, shrugging slightly.

"Well, since Hogwarts letters went out yesterday, I've had a load of kids coming in here. Most of them were quick and easy, but two of them didn't seem to match any of the wands very well. I did find one of them a wand, although it's not perfect, but the other one asked his dad for a custom and so I said to come back tomorrow when you're in." This last part was directed at Jason's mother, and she nodded happily.

"Good idea, I haven't made a custom for a Hogwarts student since...the year before last. Not counting Jason, of course."

Sam looked at Jason again at this, realisation dawning on his face.

"Oh of course, you turned 11 yesterday didn't you!? Sorry I couldn't make it to the party, but I had to be here. Well, when you get sorted into Hufflepuff with me, I'll look out for you. I got prefect this year!"
Jason laughed, shaking his head at the futile attempts to switch his house allegiance.

"You know I'll be a Ravenclaw Sam, stop trying to recruit me for your house. Just because you know I'm planning on setting records in my exams! But well done on getting prefect."

With that short exchange, Jason's father had finished on the wards and his mother had taken a quick stock check, and so they left.

First stop of the day was the robe shop, Turpin's. Being run by one of his father's old school friends, he got a bit of a discount. Not much really, but even 5% off could be a blessing before school time.

Jason had a healthy dislike of being fitted for robes, much preferring the loose fitting muggle clothing that his half-blood father's parents bought for him to wear around the house, but he accepted the smiling man with the sharp beard and calm face as he pinned and hemmed and ummed and aahed over every aspect of Jason's robes, until he was left with what felt and looked like a shapeless black mass draped over his slender frame. This seemed to satisfy the tailor however, since he threw his tape measure back over his neck and levitated the resulting mass of cloth and pins into the back.

"Okay Kevin, so how much will that be?" Jason's father asked, reaching into his pocket for his money pouch.

"Well, for you Charlie, 6 Galleons a pair. I'll do him some dress robes for an extra 3 though, if you want."

Jason shook his head.
"No, I don't think I'll need any of those. What charms will my robes have?"
The tailor laughed.

"A future Ravenclaw I see! Well my boy, the robes you're being fitted for, the Hogwarts Standard, have a basic warming charm, not much but enough to keep you from feeling the cold on a chilly day, a resizing charm that will, for the year, grow or shrink your robes as needed, and before you ask, I could extend it indefinitely but then I'd be quickly out of a job, a few minor charms that all wizarding clothing has which keeps it from fading or normal wear and tear. Lastly, I've included an anti-tripping charm of my own design which stops your legs getting tangled in the bottom of the robes. I invented that one in my second year after I broke my third crystal ball in the Divination tower."

Jason nodded thoughtfully. He hid it, but his heart leapt slightly when this man, a tailor, told him that he had created a spell in his second year. If a man with so little magical talent that he had to become a tailor could do it, then Jason was confident that he would soon have a nice little grimoire of his own.

They moved on through Diagon Alley, stopping for potions supplies at Slughorn's (named, according to his father, after an old school teacher who had personally duelled Voldemort and been awarded an Order of Merlin), getting the few schoolbooks he had not received on his birthday (as well as a fairly sizeable pile of other tomes which he had picked out for their useful or interesting content. His favourite, and the one he could not wait to dive into was "Spells which saved my life" by Harry Potter. It was full of interesting and wonderful magic that Harry Potter had used and personally agreed with, and it was all centred around protection.

As they left the bookstore, they walked past the Quidditch shop. Jason had never been much of a fan of Quidditch, much preferring broom racing or Quodpot, but since Hogwarts didn't have a Quodpot team or racing circuit, his best bet when it came to getting on a broom was to try out for the team. He was a passable keeper, and when it came down to it he could handle a quaffle, but there was no way in hell he was team standard. Still, that didn't stop him drooling at the broom in the window. The Razor's Edge, broom of choice for Ginny Weasley, star chaser of the Holyhead Harpies, was balanced carefully on display. With its sleek lines, the trademark red bristles and the beautifully written script labelling it as one of the first 100, it was a perfect broom. Even someone with no interest in Quidditch or brooms at all would have to appreciate the aesthetics.

He was snapped out of his reverie by his father directing him towards their final stop, the pet store.

Magical Menagerie was a tightly cluttered shop, with floor to ceiling cages covering each wall, owls flying freely around and a small back room with the more...exotic pets. This was the point of the trip that Jason had really been looking forward to. A pet. He knew that the rules stated he was allowed either a cat, an owl (or suitable replacement bird), a toad, a newt or other lizard, or if he gained permission, a magical pet such as a kneazle. He had been weighing up his options since he received the letter and had decided upon either a cat or an owl. Stick to the basics. An owl was good of course, since it allowed him to send mail, but a cat would be better for sheer companionship.

"So have you decided then? Owl or cat?" His mother asked, waving her wand almost lazily in front of herself to keep the stench of animal from assaulting them.

"I'm leaning more towards owl, but maybe a cat if I find the right one" he replied, pausing to stroke the feathers of a large, vicious looking eagle owl. He scanned the shop, his eyes eventually landing on a gigantic crow that had perched atop the shopkeeper's head.

"Wow, look at that raven!" His father said, pointing it out.

The shopkeeper shook his head, lightly so as not to disturb his familiar, and replied that it was a crow.

"Ravens make good familiars but they're too proud to deliver mail or send messages. Crows are much more down to earth, although there is a certain stigma around them since a few dark wizards used to keep them." He said, being certain not to move his head too much.

Jason nodded, containing a laugh at the bird's unusual choice of perch and scanning the back row of cat cages. His eyes lingered for more than a few seconds on a lean, beautiful white cat, with bright blue eyes, but he tore them away and made his decision.

"I'll take that eagle owl by the door please."

His father laid the money on the counter as the shopkeeper walked to the owl, being careful to not dislodge his crow, but as he brought the owl over, Jason felt his head snap back to the cat. It was so adorable, and he couldn't bare to leave it.

"Actually, no, I'll have that white cat please. She's giving me the most longing eyes."

The shopkeeper shrugged, pushed a few of the galleons on the counter back as change and waved his wand at the cage. It floated into Jason's arms, where the cat purred contentedly and blinked at him with those bright eyes.

"I hope you get along with Minerva girl, because she's an ornery old thing." He whispered to his new familiar, not paying any attention to the rest of the shop.

When they returned home, dumping his school things on the bed to sort and pack later, he allowed his new kitten from the cage for the first time. For a few seconds, she did not move, but quickly she seemed to adjust and came to sit in his lap, rubbing her tiny little head against his hand until he obliged and scratched behind her ears. That seemed to be the right thing to do, as her purring increased in volume and she began to knead at his legs with her paws.

"I suppose I have to think of a name for you then darling." He said, his hand lazily gliding along her pristine fur.

"Perhaps Morgana? Or possibly Le Fay." He pondered, keeping up the pace of his scratching.

After a few more minutes of silence, punctuated only by the rumble of his new pet, he decided to simply grab a book and find the first female name. He summoned over his copy of "Gods and Goddesses", and before it reached his hand, had a flash of inspiration. The book clattered to the floor, causing his kitten to jump slightly, but she quickly assessed the threat and went back to purring.

"I'm going to call you Isis. After the Egyptian goddess of magic. Do you like that?" He asked.

Obviously, he got no response, but he lay back slightly, satisfied with the name.