I'm back. Finally. This is my Spring Break now, the one small breather I get before four final exams (the week I come back), College Placement tests (that Friday), and five Advanced Placement exams (the week after that). So basically twenty hours of tests and God knows how many of cramming.

…I'm doomed, aren't I?

Elfin
Bone White Butterfly

"Lucky"

As orphan servant children went, Fen did hold a certain resemblance to Cinderella. However, his magical transformation was unfortunately permanent, and Severus would hurl the first person to compare him to a bizarrely dressed, wand-toting grandmother into a Potions cauldron.

Furthermore, the chances of Narcissa becoming his stepmother were close to 'nil, and he'd likely kill himself if he had Draco for a stepbrother, let alone two of himm. Yet another telling sign was that Fen did not want to go to the castle. The clincher, though, was that glass was obsessed with his hands, not feet, and instead of falling off too easily, it would not let go. So he was forced to stand before the display case with his palms glued to the tauntingly gleaming surface. Part of him supposed he was lucky he hadn't touched his tongue to the glass. That didn't make him any less frustrated.

He was contemplating the pros and cons of head butting the damn thing when the Wandmaker led Severus back into the room. Upon seeing him, the professor sent him a 'stop misbehaving immediately' look. Fen interpreted this as an order to get his grubby hands off the glass. He wished he could throw up his hands in a helpless gesture. He glanced back at the captive limbs. On second inspection, they weren't stuck on the thick layer of glass; they were stuck inside it. The backs of his hands remained free, but the palms and fingers were trapped in the transparent prison.

Severus had been stalking towards him. Up close now, the man stopped and stared at the sight. In an act of denial, he pinched his nose and very deliberately looked up at a patch of ceiling where the small boy was nowhere in sight.

Behind them, Ollivander tilted his head to the side like only those of avian blood had any right to. "Found a wand that interests you, then, Fenrir?"

Fen blinked. He finally focused his eyes beyond his hostage fingertips and saw a long, dark wand aiming its tip at his heart. He cringed, and, to his surprise, curled his hands into weak fists as they came free of the glass. He took a large step backwards away from the case. The wand twitched.

He held up his hands submissively. The wand…lowered itself. He closed his eyes. Wonderful.

—

"Alright, take it now."

Fen glanced critically at the wand Mr. Ollivander held out to him. He wasn't keen on another explosion. The human's promises that it wouldn't happen again had not reassured him. The fact that he was standing inside a foot-thick circle of wards might have had something to do with it. That Ollivander was wearing a glowing plate mail gauntlet in order to hand him the wand just cinched it.

Of course he was glad the man hadn't yelled 'Elf!' when the first wand had been destroyed. He was just worried that they would keep trying wands with him until either they figured out he wasn't human, or he had become a pile of ashes. Though, to tell the truth, he would prefer to be cinders. For some time now, he'd been having visions of losing his fingers one joint at a time.

This wand was bigger than the first one. Maybe it would do the trick of putting him out his misery. He took the long rod from Ollivander's steel fingers. He studied the wand for a moment. It was the length of his forearm. Though it was smooth, there seemed to be faint carvings in the dark wood. He frowned. Was it wood? It almost felt…

"Give it a wave, then."

Fen looked up at the Wandmaker, who had moved to stand on the opposite side of the room. Behind Severus. Hell, if this whole thing hadn't already been unsettling. He took a steadying breath, prayed for a quick death, and swished the wand down forcefully. And something within him shifted.

The thundering spray of a waterfall, the surge of an avalanche, lightning smashing into the earth—explain it how you will, but a primal whiteness struck the barrier of his flesh, then rebounded and jetted through the seams of his soul, flooded into the wand, and, lawless, roiled into the air, blinding and enthralling, a force that he knew in his bones but could not name.

And, oddly enough, for just a moment he thought he heard his mother calling his name.

Then he fainted dead away.

—

Severus removed his arms from before his eyes when he was fairly certain he hadn't died. It took bit longer for his eyes to convince themselves that they weren't blind. He blinked into the now dim room, slow to take in the pale walls, the wood of the floor, the madly swirling ward runes, and the fallen boy at their heart. Ollivander held him back when he stood and made to go to Fenrir's side.

"Wait for the wards to settle," he was told.

He sagged back into the chair without meaning to. "What happened?"

"What happens every time a wand chooses a wizard."

Severus frowned. He could remember there being a pervading glow when he had first become acquainted with his wand, but it had been nothing like that. He also distinctly recalled not fainting. He told the Wandmaker so with his voice heavily laced with the demand for an answer.

Ollivander shrugged. "He's Untaught."

The Untaught explanation again. His teeth clenched. Would that be the excuse for all of the boy's peculiarities for the rest of time? He stood and stalked through the now unmoving wards. Fenrir lay with the wand still in hand. His veins had gone dark again but weren't trying to burst from his skin, except in the hand that curled around the wand. Severus crouched and studied the ebon stick of… He frowned and almost ran his fingers along the wand's length before he thought better of it. He settled for peering closer. "This isn't made of wood," he said at last and looked to Ollivander. If the man told him it wasn't wood because the boy was an Untaught…

"No. It's bone," was the reply.

"Black bone?" He was incredulous. "What creature did it come from?"

"An Elf."

It was a good thing that Fen had already fainted.

—

Severus seemed about ready to follow the boy into unconsciousness, or to at least settle for an aneurysm. "WHAT!"

Fen stirred at the noise. "…Hell?" he asked in a mumble.

The Potions Master didn't notice the Elf. He stared at the unruffled Wandmaker in disbelief. "That wand is made of Elfin bone!"

Ollivander only nodded with a shrug.

"What?" the boy squeaked, instantly awake and scrambling away from the wand. Severus watched him back into the far wall. At least he was reacting to the bone of an Elf the way he was supposed to. With a look back to Ollivander, he snarled, "You let a child near that thing?"

"He needs a wand."

"That wand?"

The Wandmaker's eyes went hard, his voice low. "Have you any idea how lucky he is that a wand even chose him?"

Severus opened his mouth, then closed it, clenching his fist. He glared at the Wandmaker, and with grim, undying patience, the Wandmaker met his gaze.

—

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, a small Elfin child clutched at his drawn-up knees. He knew how lucky he was that a wand had chosen him. He stared at the blackened bone and shivered. He knew exactly how lucky.

Yeesh, and it was so humorous in the beginning, too. Unfortunately, I had to do something to counterbalance the "OC gets amazing wand" cliché, because that's a common symptom of the Mary Sue, dammit. Therefore, Fen's wand must be a constant reminder that wizards would and will kill him. …poor tyke.

On a lighter note: …Man, if this isn't the longest wand scene ever. It's been 2.5 chapters now, and they haven't even paid, which might get pretty interesting...

Oh, and I happen to really love the Review Reply feature, so feel free to ask questions. I actually answer them.