"Well don't just stand there in the door, child! Come in, come in!" Hikari stepped up to the counter, where old Mr. Olivander beckoned. "It's always an adventure when you come to get your first wand."

The girl nodded, looking up at the old shopkeeper rather timidly. A whirring noise caused her to look down. Near her ankles, a strange device was measuring the circumference of her legs, then the length of her left big toe, visible through her worn sandals. Its little darting movement hypnotized her, and she followed it with interest as it moved steadily up her body. After a trip across her forehead and down the bridge of her nose, it paused. "Your wand arm, my dear. Hold it out!" Olivanders voice called from deep within the maze of dusty shelves. The girl whipped her head back and forth, trying to locate the shopkeeper, even as she held out her left hand. The measurer found the length from her shoulder to her elbow, the thickness of that joint, and her middle finger.

Olivander stepped back into the light with a collection of thin wand boxes as the whirring device landed on the counter. "Right then, lets begin." The first wand he held out was small and molded of a light colored wood. "Nine and a half inches, unicorn hair, pine," the shopkeeper explained.

Hikari reached out with shaking fingers … and the wand slipped to the floor and rolled away into the back of the shop. The girl sighed. She'd scared it away. Typical.

For the next ten minutes, objects exploded and wands backfired and things generally went badly. Hikari was nearly in tears when Olivander brought the last box forth, and offered her the device inside with singed fingers. "Careful now," the old man cautioned. "Hazel, unicorn hair, thirteen inches and slightly springy. You should like this one."

Egged on by the old man's insistence, the small child reached out. The wand practically flew into her hand then sat there quietly for a moment. Hikari's eyes widened when soft twinkling music began to resonate from the warm wood. Olivander snatched it quickly from her hand, in that annoying way that old men have of not appreciating a special moment, and settled it within its tissue paper wrappings once more.

"This one's special," the shopkeeper murmured, more to himself than anything else. "Hazel wood will devote itself to only its true partner, and the unicorn hair will bind it to you forever. She will never waver." He handed her the box, taking three galleons, the last of her gold coins, in return. "Take care of her."

Electricity flooded Hikari's veins and she smiled widely at the gray haired man. The shop's bell rang again as she swung open the door and was swept away by the tide of shoppers beyond the dusty window glass.

Pacing slowly toward his workshop, Mr. Olivander's thoughts strayed from the shelves of magical implements to a time that was, as evidenced by the girl in his shop, a few good years gone now.

He'd been lost for quite a while; he had to admit it to himself now. The grove of elms he'd been searching for was not hard to miss, and yet he'd been wandering for about an hour more than was necessary. At least the woods were peaceful today. With luck, he may even come across a unicorn hair or two caught among the brambles on the forest floor. One could never have too many of those. Lost in thought, he barely heard her approach. But he hadn't been too distracted to notice that the clearing around him had grown brighter than the dim sunlight should allow. Turning, he found himself gazing at a creature so pure he had to wipe his spectacles clean and take another look to assure himself of her reality.

The mare approached him slowly, and so awed by her appearance was he that he never considered the danger of getting this close to so powerful a creature. She stopped just beyond an arms length away, bending her long neck to nudge something settled on her back with her beautiful horn. A child stirred and sat up, rubbing at sleep-filled eyes with a small fist. Her clothes were soot covered and torn, charred around the edges as if she'd just walked through Hell. Held carefully to her chest was an ash-stained toy.

The mare settled gracefully in the long grass so the girl could slide off her shoulders. As she did so, she pulled free a single hair from her companion's mane. After hugging the creature, which nuzzled her back lovingly, the child tottered over to where he stood and stared up at him with wide hazel eyes. She reached out for him, and caught in the beauty of the moment, he picked her up and held her close. Her tiny hand held out the hair for him, which he pocketed carefully, smiling at her.

When he looked up to find the unicorn, she was gone.

Olivander had taken the child to a muggle orphanage in a small village near Ipswich, but he hadn't forgotten her. As soon as he returned to Diagon Alley from his days gathering materials, he brought that one hair out from his pocket and crafted one of the best wands he'd ever made. He'd chosen hazel wood because it was the same as her eyes. That wand had it's own shelf in the back of his shop, and he'd only offered it to a customer once or twice, but only to girls with hazel eyes.

"Take care of her." The words echoed in his tired mind. Thinking of the mare, he couldn't be sure if he'd been instructing the child, or the wand.