Top Secret
by Shealtiel
Rated: T for sexual references, adult themes, violence and mild coarse language
Summary: "Oak, fourteen inches, unpliant and resilient, excellent for Transfiguration with a knack for Charms. Veela hair core."
-|XXX|-
Sunday, August 15th, 1971
11:38am
Kitchen Bench
I had a psychotic break down yesterday (and I will use the word psychotic if I want to, Chris). Of course I'm going to Hogwarts. It's going to be incredible. Amazing even. I can't wait. I'll miss my family, but I'll be okay. I'll see them during the holidays and I can write letters to them and everything.
Anyway, so in light of my Boarding School freak out, I completely forgot to tell you about my day yesterday. It was literally unbelievable. Professor Manson took us to this old, run down pub called The Leaky Cauldron, but when we got inside it was full of people. Professor Manson talked to the bartender Tom for a minute and I met him. He was nice, but kind of weird. I didn't really know what to say to him. Anyway, the Professor took us behind the pub to this brick wall. He tapped on one of the bricks with his wand and a doorway opened up. It was incredible. Through the doorway was a completely hidden magical street called Diagon Alley. It had everything.
We went to the bank first. Gringotts Wizarding Bank, it's called. We had to open an account and transfer a bunch of money into the Wizarding currency, which is different, and very confusing. There are twenty-nine Knuts (which are made of bronze) in a Sickle (silver), and seventeen Sickles in a Galleon (gold). There's about £5 in one Galleon, so they convert the money like that. Anyway, that part's boring. The exciting part is that the Wizarding Bank is run by goblins. I'm not even joking. It feels like I've stepped into a fairy-tale. There was even an inscription on the door to the bank. I wrote it on my hand.
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed
For those who take but do not earn
Must pay most dearly in their turn,
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.
Kind of scary. Anyway, we went in, and my parents nearly fell over at the sight of all the goblins. It was like nothing I've ever seen before. They're all these short guys with stringy black hair and knobbly faces and noses. I feel nervous writing that, because what if a goblin finds out I said those things? I mean, they were real stern and grumpy and I wouldn't want to get in the way of one of them. Anyway, Professor Manson told me they run the bank because they're not allowed to possess wands.
Which brings me to the next part of the saga. We opened an account, transferred some money and hightailed it out of there as fast as we could, because it was bloody scary. Professor Manson said we'd find everything on the list in the stores on the street. He told Dad how to get back out on to Charing Cross Road from here, and then he had to leave, 'cause he had other stuff he had to do. While he was with us though, he told us a bunch of stuff about the Wizarding world. He says that non-Witches and Wizards are called Muggles, and that I'm what's called a Muggle-born Witch. That means neither of my parents are magical. Except, of course, he doesn't know that I'm adopted. Who knows whether I'm a Muggle-born or whether my parents were both magical or not? Anyway, he told us about how we get to Hogwarts too. It's totally weird. So on September 1st, we go to Kings Cross, and we have to walk through the barrier between Platform Nine and Platform Ten, so we can get to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. We're going to look completely insane.
Anyway, I keep getting distracted. I was trying to talk about the stuff I bought today. So, after the Professor left, we just wondered in and out of the shops looking for everything we needed. It was pretty easy. We got the pewter cauldron at the cauldron shop, and then we went on to the stationary store and got the scales and telescope and stuff. After that we went to Madam Mulkin's and I got the three sets of robes, the cloak (which is so cool, I wish I could wear it all the time), and the gloves and all the rest of it. You know. Anyway, after that, we had to go to the book store to get all those text books (A History of Magic looks dead boring, but Charming Your Way Through Magic and A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration both look pretty interesting), and so then we put them in the cauldron and made dad carry them around. Of course, this whole time, Chris was hanging out with the owls at Eeylops Owl Emporium. So then we went there to collect him, and Mum and Dad decided to buy me an owl as a gift!
I found this beautiful golden and brown Eagle owl. He's huge. I named him Faust. He's in a cage on my desk, sleeping with his beak under his wing right now. He's so beautiful. Apparently he'll deliver mail for me and stuff, so that's awesome. I won't have to use someone else's owl at school then. I don't really know why they use owls in the first place. And how do the owls know exactly where to go? I mean, they're just animals. I don't know. I've seen so much in the last few days I don't know what to think.
Anyway, after that, we went to see Ollivander the Wand-Maker. I can't even begin to describe… wow. The wand-maker is really nice. He's old and has a raspy voice, and he's lovely. He started getting out all these wands (they're just nicely carved sticks pretty much, but they're surprisingly really beautiful) and putting them in my hand, but either nothing happened or things would go flying off shelves and stuff. Anyway, after trying every type of wand there is, unicorn tail cores, dragon heartstring cores, holly wood, elm, willow, ash, beech, hawthorn, eight inches, ten inches, twelve inches, he realised that none of them were working out. I don't know how he knew, but he thought maybe the issue was with the core. Except that he only makes wands with those three cores: dragon heartstring, unicorn tail and phoenix feather.
Anyway, so he was just standing behind the desk squinting his eyes at me, obviously thinking really hard, and then he started going, "I wonder if… no, that wouldn't… well maybe…" I swear, he stood there and just looked at me (except he was kind of staring through me, you know?) for five minutes straight just mumbling to himself. Dad had gone off with Chris and Mel to get ice cream, so it was just Mum and I standing there waiting for him to do something or pick another wand for me to try or something.
So finally he said, "I'm going to have to do something that I don't normally do. I'm not one to give up on a hard nut, so I'm going to try my last resort on you." At this point, I was completely confused, but he turned back to the cabinet behind him and pulled out this super dusty box that looked different to all the others, and he set it on the counter in front of me.
"This," he said, "is a very special wand. I didn't make this wand. Like I said, I'm making a special exception for you, because I'm interested to see what sort of Witch you turn out to be, but I have never once before sold a wand I hadn't made." I'm pretty sure I was just staring up at him all wide-eyed at this point, nodding away to every word. "This wand was made by the famous wand-maker Gregorovitch, who is a colleague of mine. He rarely makes wands now. This one though… this one is special. This wand was made with a hair from the Veela that enchanted both Salzagard Slitinher and Glodnick Glindifor (or something like that). In fact, she sparked the initial feud between them, though they must have known she was Veela."
All I had to say, of course, was, "What's… a Veela?" He didn't laugh though, which was nice of him. He just smiled gently at me.
"A Veela," he said, "is a magical creature that is, in essence, a woman. The difference, of course, is that she has a certain charm about her, a certain attraction, and most men find themselves unable to resist her. Veela are also known to have quite a temper when they are provoked." He kind of smiled all mysteriously then, so I don't know what that was about, but I'm pretty sure my mouth formed some sort of 'o' shape. Before I could ask who in the world Sargaza Senerith and Glorcid Gladiffon were, he finally pulled the lid off the box and I saw the most beautiful piece of wood I have ever laid eyes on.
It's fourteen inches long. The handle has clearly been hand-carved into an intricate pattern of twisting lines and contours, with a hollow centre. Around the stem of the wand, there's a groove carved out of the dark oak wood, leaving a lighter spiral progressing to the very tip of the wand, which comes to a definite point (that I could probably gut someone with). It's perfect. I knew it was my wand the moment I laid eyes on it.
He lifted it out of the box then, really carefully, and presented the handle to me, as he said, "Oak, fourteen inches, unpliant and resilient, excellent for Transfiguration with a knack for Charms." I guess I reached out kind of slowly, because I was a little afraid to touch it, but I eventually wrapped my fingers around the hilt of the thing, and immediately the tip burst to life, shooting green sparks kind of like one of those fountains that just bubbles up water all gently. There was the most amazing tingling sensation travelling down my arm as I held that wand.
The last thing he said to me, after the wand had been re-boxed and Mum had paid for it and everything, was kind of frightening though. He said, "You should know that to take that wand lightly might mean disaster for you." That's what he said. He was talking like he was from the Dark Ages or something. I just looked at him, and he said, "Veela hair is not a common wand core, as it is unpredictable and controls its user as much as its user controls it. For that reason, I do not use Veela hair in my own wands. I can see, however, that you are capable of handling the power in that wand, as long as you keep your guard up and don't let it control you."
It probably sounds like I'm making it up, but the way he said it all, I couldn't forget it, word for word. It was just so… startling I suppose. Very startling.
Mum wants help in the kitchen.
-|XXX|-