Chapter - 23 : The Wand Chooses the Wizard

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I looked up at him in confusion and Harry blushed.

"You don't have to," Harry assured him.

"Yeah, the cake was amazing enough," I added. "It's better than anything the Dursleys have gotten us."

"Tha's not sayin' much," Hagrid snorted. "I know I don' have to. Tell yah what, I'll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went out of fashion years ago. Yeh'll be laughed at. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail an' ev'rythin. I'll get yeh both owls."

I was awed at the inside of Eeylops Owl Emporium. It was full of glistening eyes and fluttering feathers. I'd stared in awe at all the different kinds of owls and the different things that went along with them: bronze cages, owl treats, claw care products, and little pouches for holding small objects.

When we left, Harry and I were stammering our awed thanks, gaping at our new owls. Harry had picked a gorgeous snowy owl with an imperious gaze. I had selected an elegant barn owl with black eyes, and was busy trying to figure out what to name her.

"Don' mention it," Hagrid said gruffly, but he seemed pleased that we loved our gifts so much. "Jus' Ollivander's left now. Only place fer wands, and yeh've gotta have the best wands."

I glanced at Harry, a smile spreading across my lips as my eyes fairly glowed. This was what I'd been waiting for – a magic wand. My mind kept alternating between the classic black and white one used by stage magicians and the elaborate carved stick you saw in fantasy movies. I tried to imagine what my wand would be like.

Ollivander's was fairly unassuming. It was narrow and shabby, with peeling gold letters over the door reading Ollivander's: Makers of Fine Wands Since 382 B.C. Displayed in the front window was a single wand on a dusty cushion of purple velvet. I stared at it curiously and wondered why it was the only one sitting out.

A bell tinkled and they stepped inside. My breath caught ant the rows and rows of long, thin boxes. Dusty floated in the air. The whole place had a sort of quiet energy, like a library. Something about it made me soften my steps like I would if I were trying to sneak food from the kitchen during a punishment.

"Good afternoon," said a quiet voice. Harry whipped around and I let out a soft yelp of surprise. From one of the stacks emerged a hunched old man with big, silvery eyes. I watched in slight awe as he easily maneuvered around the piles of wands on the floor. He looked like he was either blind of close to it.

"Hello," Harry said awkwardly. I gave a small, awkward incline of my head in greeting.

"Ah yes," the man said quietly. "Yes, yes. I knew I'd be seeing you both sometime soon, Harry and Lorena Potter. Lorena, the spitting image of your mother, and Harry, you with her eyes. I seems like only yesterday she was here buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Good for charms work." He stepped closer, observing us carefully. "Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for charms work. Well, I say your father favored it… It's really the wand that chooses the wizard, after all."

Mr. Ollivander was close enough that I could feel his breath on my left cheek. It stirred the hair that was always pulled forwards the cover the scar. Mr. Ollivander raised his hands. One pressed against Harry's forehead over his scar, flicking his bangs aside to get at it. The other crept under my red locks, finding the pale, slightly raised S carved into my cheek.

I hated my scar. It set me apart, drew eyes. For as long as I could remember, I'd worn my hair with at least half of it falling over my left shoulder. Usually it covered the left half of my face from the middle over. I could see through the strands, but no one else could. Occasionally I'd pull it all over my shoulder and braid it or put it in a ponytail starting at my chin, but my cheek was always, always covered.

"I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it," Mr. Ollivander mused. "Yew. Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Powerful, very powerful. If I'd known what that wand would go out into the world to do…" He shook his head, catching sight of Hagrid, who was seated very gingerly on a spindly-legged chair in the corner. "Ah, Rubeus Hagris. Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?"

"It was, sir," Hagrid nodded.

"Good wand, that one. But I supposed they snapped it in half when you were expelled?" Ollivander seemed more present in the conversation than he had thus far, as if they very idea of destroying a wand was a personal affront. Then again, he seemed to see people as the wands he'd made, the wands that chose them, so maybe it was.

"Er, yes, yes they did," Hagrid admitted. "But I've still got the pieces," he added brightly.

Ollivander's eyes sharpened. "But you don't use them?"

"Oh, erm, no sir," Hagrid said, tugging his flowery umbrella closer. I narrowed my eyes at the umbrella. That would explain why he'd brandished it when threatening Uncle Vernon and why he used it to tap the bricks behind the Leaky Cauldron. I was pretty sure that the pieces of his wand were in that umbrella.

"Hm." Ollivander didn't look convinced either, but he turned back to Harry, tugging a long tape measure with silver markings from his pocket. "You first, I think. Which is your wand hand?"

"I'm right-handed?" Harry said, holding up the hand uncertainly. Ollivander went to work, measuring him from wrist to elbow, elbow to shoulder, knee to ground, around his head… all kind of different things that I couldn't for the life of me figure out how they might be relevant. Actually, it was more accurate to say that the tape measured him, because Ollivander had moved off into the shelves, mumbling to himself.

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