19. Favourite AU

Don't really have a favourite because they're all good, so have a Harry Potter one!

The door swung shut behind Marinette as she entered, the tinkling bell announcing her arrival. Dimly lit, the shop smelled of must, the dusty furniture and floorboards further lending it an antique air as if she'd just stepped back several hundred years in time. She stepped deeper into the shop, her robes brushing over her ankles as she looked around. Rows upon rows of shelves filled the shop, lining the walls and dominating the space, stretching up to the ceiling several metres high and spaced so closely together that the aisles barely had space enough for one person to pass between them. Filling up the shelves, packed so tight they seemed full to bursting, were long thin boxes, each tied shut with a length of string.

Wands, thousands of them. And one of them was hers.

Something whizzed past her face, narrowly avoiding her left ear and hitting the door behind her with a loud bang like a gunshot and a shower of angry red sparks. Marinette yelped, flinching away from what she now realised was a wand as it dropped to the ground and rolled along the floor.

"S-sorry! Are you all right?"

Jerking her head up, Marinette saw a boy with blond hair and wide green eyes donning perfectly fitted black robes much like hers, clutching a wand in his white-knuckled hand. A pile of tumbled wands lay at his feet, another mountain of them piled high on an overstuffed armchair. "I didn't mean for that to happen, I swear! I was just—"

"Perfectly normal, perfectly normal," said a new voice, and Marinette had to bite back a scream as she caught sight of an elderly man with wild hair white as snow plucking the wand from the boy's hand with bony fingers. He blended so well with the rest of the shop, she hadn't noticed he was there until he moved.

The man, obviously the wandmaker himself, placed the rejected wand together with its fellows on the armchair before stooping over to pick another from the fallen pile. "Not unusual for someone to lose a limb or two during wand choosing—" beside him, the boy blanched, "—though I would admit nothing of that sort has happened in my shop for quite a while. Ah! Try this one, boy; dragon heartstring, vine, eleven and a half inches. Fairly springy. Go on, give it a twirl!"

Glancing up at Marinette, the wandmaker gave Marinette a toothy smile—or, it would have been toothy if he had much teeth left to be toothy with. "Just a moment, dear. I'll be with you once this chap is finished up."

Nodding mutely, Marinette backed herself into a corner, wary for more flying objects but watching closely. With any luck, her mother would be done sorting out her packages at the post office and would be rejoining her before her turn came.

The boy glanced at her, back ramrod straight and shoulders held stiffly. Turning his attention back on the wand in his hand, he deliberately aimed it in a different direction and flicked his wrist.

A deafening bang cracked the air like a whip, a burst of white light shooting from the wand to strike the umbrella stand which exploded. Marinette let out a shrill screech, ducking to avoid getting brained by a black umbrella as it sailed through the air. It smashed into the collection of photographs on the wall instead, shattering glass and knocking the frames loose, the photographs' occupants sent tumbling within their photos as they fluttered to the ground.

"Sorry!" squeaked the boy again, hurriedly putting down the wand. "M-maybe I should just—"

"No matter, no matter," said the old wandmaker cheerfully, seeming not bothered at all at the steady destruction of his shop. Replacing another wand in the boy's hand, he stepped back and clapped his hands together with an eager grin. "Try this one, then! Phoenix feather and cypress, thirteen inches. Go on, try, try!"

Sighing, the boy looked down at it before waving it half-heartedly through the air. Marinette grimaced, tensing herself to dive for cover at a moment's notice.

A wave of warmth rushed through the shop emanating from the wand, washing over Marinette like a summer wind. She gasped as something large and black as midnight shot from the wand tip, hovering in the air. She had time to catch a glimpse of a cat-like wavering form before it leapt at her. Screaming for the second time in five minutes, she scrambled away, tripping over the black umbrella still lying on the ground and toppling over backwards even as the ghostly cat vanished in a puff of butter yellow daisies over her head.

Flailing as she fell, her hand brushed against something long lying on the ground. She instinctively grasped onto it in a frantic attempt to stop her fall. A shower of pink and white sparks exploded across her vision, and all at once a horde of buzzing ladybugs was flying through the cramped airspace of the shop. Grouped together like a school of fish, they flowed through the aisles and drifted in lazy circles around their heads, wings buzzing. Stunned, sitting on her backside on the floor, Marinette's gaze dropped to her hand, where her fingers clutched the wand from earlier—the one that had almost hit her across the face. The very same one that still had live ladybugs streaming from its tip.

Gasping, she gave the wand a sharp jerk, the stream of ladybugs cutting off as suddenly as it had come. The remaining ladybugs in the room fluttered about for a moment longer, lost, before disappearing in another shower of pink and white sparks.

"Bravo, bravo!" Marinette jumped as the wandmaker applauded, beaming at the boy and then at her as he approached. "Congratulations, both of you! It seems as if you have finally met your destined wands!"

Stooping to touch a fingertip to the wand in Marinette's frozen hand, he said, "Now, my dear, this one; phoenix feather …."

Trailing off, the wandmaker's joyful face transformed into one of wonder as he stared harder. For a moment, he said nothing, merely staring. Then his eyes lifted to the boy, who started and stood a little straighter.

He turned back to Marinette, muttering now, though she wondered if he was speaking to her or to himself. "Phoenix feather and willow, fifteen and a quarter inches. Rather longer than average, but perfect in the hands of the right witch." Straightening, he looked between her and the boy again, both of them too bewildered to do much than stare as the wandmaker smiled.

"Curious," he said, gathering their wands from them and plucking their respective boxes from the pile on the chair, bringing them to the counter. Marinette still hadn't moved. "Curious, curious, curious," he continued to murmur, wrapping the boxes in brown paper.

"E-excuse me, sir," said the boy, "but what's curious?"

Looking up at him, the wandmaker only smiled wider. "Priori incantatem," he said simply.

"What?" asked Marinette from her position on the floor, unfreezing her throat enough to force her voice out.

The old wandmaker laughed, shaking his head."Oh, I'm sure you two will find out one day, in your own time."

Marinette's mother entered the shop just then, and the boy quickly paid for his wand and excused himself. As Marinette exchanged seven gold Galleons for her new wand and left the shop with her mother with the promise of celebratory cake when they got home, she could still hear the old wandmaker muttering to himself, "Curious, curious, curious."

A/N: The Black Umbrella™ makes another cameo! I was short on time when I wrote this so Ollivander's wand shop may not be accurate in this description since I didn't reference and drew from memory instead. So it's ambiguous as to whether the wandmaker actually is Ollivander or if it even is Diagon Alley they're in. I mean, they could be going to Beauxbatons, who knows? Though I have to say I'm way too attached to Hogwarts, which is why I left it up to interpretation rather than have it one way or the other. xD

I did do my reading on wandlore when making up the wands, so if you're okay with some HP nerd talk from the dubious knowledge of a die-hard fan, read on. [all information from here on comes from the Harry Potter wikia, which I totally recommend if you want further reading]

I chose this AU when I got the idea that Adrien and Marinette could actually share wand cores from the same animal. I went with phoenix feather because wands with phoenix feather cores are pickiest when choosing their owners, have the most initiative (sometimes acting on their own), and of the three main wand cores the phoenix is the most independent. I thought this resembled the kwami pretty nicely. Also, I wasn't sure if Priori Incantatem would work with cores other than phoenix feather.

Cypress was chosen to be the wood for Adrien's wand as owners of such wands are said to be 'brave, bold, and self-sacrificing'. Ollivander also said that he was honoured selling someone a cypress wand because he knew that person would likely die a heroic death. That's not to say Adrien would die prematurely, but we all know that if it came down to it he would absolutely give his life if it meant saving someone he loved. Then I made the length thirteen inches because hey, gotta have a bad luck reference somewhere. xD

For Marinette's wand, willow because the wood is said to possess healing powers which I thought was a nice reference to the Miraculous Cure. It's also said that willow wands select owners who have some unwarranted insecurity and who have the greatest potential, rather than those who are are already great, which I thought described pre-Ladybug Marinette very well. Wand lengths usually range from eight to fourteen inches, but it's said longer wands are rare and tend to favour owners with big personalities which is what Marinette kind of is, I believe.

I know more about wandlore than I do about my syllabus, that's kind of sad. xD