The Holly Wand, or

Deck Thee With the Holly's Sheen

Chapter 4

Excitement thrilled through Lucia as she watched Lena Precipa examine the bricks in the courtyard. She was really, at last, going to that world which she had only heard about, second-hand, through books and this sweet woman Professor Dumbledore had sent to teach her. Her education had been quite thorough but largely academic, because Miss Precipa, while the kindest woman in the world and very knowledgeable, was almost a Squib.

That was what she had said the first time Lucia and Dita met her four years ago, when she showed up on their doorstep, the purple of her strange dress contrasting oddly with the glossy dark green and red of the two holly trees on either side of the door. "I was in Ravenclaw," she told them, drinking tea in their living room. "I was one of the brightest students in my year, could learn anything in a book, even corrected dear Professor Binns in History of Magic once, but I failed miserably in Charms, in Transfigurations—anything that required a wand. It's all in my brains and not in my fingers, and no one wants to hire someone like that. But that's exactly what Professor Dumbledore wants. He wants you to learn everything so you're not behind, but he doesn't want you attracting attention with spells and things. So he sent me. That's exactly like him; he can always find the right place for a person without a place." She beamed at them over round spectacles with purple rims.

It was Miss Precipa who convinced Dita that they ought to accept the second invitation from Professor McGonagall and send Lucia to Hogwarts at age fifteen and she who loaned them the owl to send their reply. Now she was accompanying Lucia to Diagon Alley for her school supplies while Dita went with Narcissa to perform her investigations into the history of Lucia's missing half-brother.

"Dear, are you sure you don't want this nice hood I brought you?" She held up a sweater with its hood, and Lucia shook her head a little stiffly.

"I told you, I'm not going to start out by hiding who I am. People will learn soon enough that I'm not like the Malfoys, and the sooner the better."

"You have a mind of your own, which is a good thing, but I'm afraid you'll soon learn that people will be too willing to judge you for who you look like, not for who you actually are." She shook her curly grey head and tapped the bricks with her little willow wand. For a moment nothing happened, and then she tapped them again, and reluctantly they began moving. "And that's about the only thing this wand in my hands is good for. Come along, dear."

Diagon Alley was a wonderland, and for a little while Lucia could only stand with whirling head and watch all the people in their odd clothes and gaze at the odd shops with their odd products. Miss Precipa, with a chuckle, let her stand and stare.

"It's so nice to see it back to what it's supposed to be. Recently it was quite dampening to come here. Everyone was so afraid, but now it's going back to normal."

"Miss Precipa, what's that?" Lucia pointed down the lane to a tall building that had the appearance of a person who had gone out dressed up for a silly Hallowe'en party and had been abducted and blinded along the way. It was bright and joyous-looking, but it was all boarded up.

"Oh, dear." Miss Precipa shook her head sadly. "That's one of the saddest stories to come out of the War. During the time when all was darkest and saddest, a pair of twins called Fred and George Weasley started that shop, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, and it was the one bright spot in this whole place. They thumbed their noses at Vol—at You-Know-Who, and at the Ministry, and at everything that kept people from joy, and they made children laugh. But one of the twins, Fred, he died in the Battle of Hogwarts, and they say his twin George has never been the same since. No one knows whether he's going to reopen the shop or not. I think it would do him good, but it just wouldn't be the same without his brother."

"Oh," Lucia said softly. "I can't imagine losing a sibling, let alone a twin. I wonder if it's anything like going your whole life with a sibling you've never met." She shook her head. "I doubt it."

"Well, it's only been three months. Poor George just needs a little time. I hope he knows how much people miss him, as well as his brother. Now, come along, dear. The most important thing first: a proper wand. We'll go to Ollivander's. Of course the poor man's never been the same since being tortured at—" She stopped with a quick glance at Lucia.

"At what?"

"At Malfoy Manor, they say," she said reluctantly.

"Then he's not going to like me much, is he?"

"Well, the business side of things has been taken over by his nephew, Young Ollivander, as they call him. Old Ollivander still makes the wands, but he's been keeping away from people a bit."

Miss Precipa led Lucia into a tiny, old shop lined with rows and rows of tiny boxes, a very quiet shop but one that made her nerve ends tingle. She could almost feel the ends of her hair crackling. A man came quickly out of a back room, a tall man with pale grey eyes and pale, parchment-like skin. He was not the Young Ollivander barely out of his teen years of her ready imagination but was probably twenty years older than her mother; if this was "Young" Ollivander, then Old Ollivander must be quite old. He stopped short when he saw them, staring at Lucia through narrowed eyes.

"Oh. Dear. Another Malfoy. Young Lucia Malfoy, I think? My uncle was wondering if you would ever come here. He was rather hoping you wouldn't."

"Bonnefoy," Lucia said.

"What?"

"My name is Lucia Bonnefoy. Not Malfoy."

"Bonnefoy? But you're—"

"Yes, I'm Lucius Malfoy's daughter. I can't help it. But I'm not a Malfoy."

"Taking a stand, are you? That could be significant. Then you may not go in for the normal Malfoy woods—walnut, elm, hawthorn, yew."

"I've never had an affinity for those woods."

"What do you mean?" he asked swiftly.

"Show him your wand, Lucia," Miss Precipa said.

"But if you already have a wand—"

Lucia pulled her wand out of her purse and unwrapped the black velvet from around it. It was a heavy, slender piece of whitish wood, still looking as though it had come straight from the tree, though sanded and polished a little. "I made it. It's holly. Every time I touch holly, I get this sort of chill, kind of a tingle, like the tree recognizes me. I have an ancestor whose last name comes from the word holly—though he was probably a Muggle, else you would have heard of him. So when I learned that people do spells and things with wands, I thought I'd see if holly does anything for me."

"And does it?" he asked, sounding as if he was holding his breath for the answer.

"It does, though not as well as a proper wand. It takes a lot of concentration to make it work. I didn't know how to put the right kind of core in it or even where to get the right materials."

"It's a good thing you didn't!" Young Ollivander exclaimed. "You don't have the slightest idea how dangerous it is to play about with wood and core materials, do you?"

"I had a kind of idea, which is why I never tried to get any core materials. It seems logical that if you have the right materials but don't know what you're doing, you could cause a lot of destruction."

"You certainly could. If you knew the tales of the horrors of being an apprentice wandmaker, you would run far away. But maybe you have some talent. It's very few people who manage to make their own working wands, especially without a core. But it looks like it's holly for you. Try this one." He took down a long box and handed her a long wand, longer than her own and more gracefully-shaped but the same sort of white colour. "Holly and dragon heartstring, twelve inches, rigid. Do you feel anything?"

"Only what I feel normally when I touch holly. Should there be more?"

"Yes." He snatched it from her and put it back in its box. "Try this. Also dragon heartstring, but eleven and three-quarter inches, supple."

Nothing. Young Ollivander worked his way through every holly wand in the shop and came up with nothing.

"Can we be wrong about the holly?" he wondered. "Let me consult my uncle."

He disappeared into the back. After a moment they heard a kind of growl. "Why didn't you tell me she was here, you young idiot? Give her this one. Just made. No, I don't want to see her, but I made her her wand. Orders from Hogwarts. From Dumbledore before his death, apparently. That man knew more about the future than was good for him, I say."

Lucia and Miss Precipa gave each other wondering looks as Young Ollivander came back with another box.

"Try this, Miss Bonnefoy."

The wand was long, slender, grey-white. When she picked it up out of the box, it did more than tingle in her fingertips. It sang high, clear, and cold through her blood, and a swirl of silver sparks came out of it, whirling around her. In the background she barely heard Young Ollivander saying, "Thirteen inches, reasonably swishy. It's an odd pairing, this wand."

"Why?" Miss Precipa asked.

"The core…it's unicorn hair. Not just any old unicorn, either. My uncle gathered hair from the same unicorn twice, once when it was a foal and once when it was a young stallion. He used the white adult hair to make a particular wand, hawthorn, ten inches, reasonably springy. He put the silver foal hair aside, once he learned who he had made the hawthorn wand for. It ended up being a wand of great significance to us all."

"Whose was it?" Lucia asked.

"Draco Malfoy's."

In the sudden silence, she felt her heart thud.

"My brother's."

"Yes. Young Malfoy used it to disarm Professor Dumbledore of the Elder Wand. Later Harry Potter took it from him, and because of that the Elder Wand carried by the Dark Lord would not harm Harry Potter, and the Dark Lord was defeated."

"Defeated because my brother lost his wand."

"Yes. And there you have its brother. Or sister, whichever you prefer. It has the silver foal hair. Not only that, but the wood is from the same tree as Harry Potter's wand. Holly can repel evil, but its sap is also poisonous. When were you born?"

Startled, Lucia said, "August first, 1983. I'm not quite fifteen."

"Two days and three years after Harry Potter, Miss Bonnefoy. Holly presides over all who are born between July 8 and August 4."

"But what does it mean?" Miss Precipa inquired. "The wood of Harry Potter's wand, the core of Draco Malfoy's wand, and a long history of holly in this girl's Muggle family…?"

"I don't know. Nor does my uncle. Apparently Albus Dumbledore did, but he's dead, and no one else knows."

"I'll just have to learn it for myself," Lucia said.