[x] Be measured.
"I use both," you reply, and it's true. You've always been fairly ambidextrous, so you thought the concept of 'right-handed' and 'left-handed' was odd when you first learned about it. Still, you slightly favor your left hand, and you tell Ollivander as much when he doesn't seem content with your first answer.
"Very good, then. Extend your left arm, if you would, and let me get a look at you," he says. You lift your arm so that it's parallel to the ground. The measuring tape shoots through the air, snapping taut to mark the length of your forearm, your hand, your whole arm. It even snakes around your wrist before zooming up to your head and measuring your height from head to foot. All that finished, it flies back over to the counter, where it winds itself up and lies still. Ollivander must have excellent eyes if he can see all those tiny numbers from where he's standing.
"Five feet already?" he comments, resting his chin on one hand. "My, you'll be a tall one. Though judging by your father, that's hardly a surprise."
Dad grumbles, then goes to sit on one of the stools near the window. Maggie joins him, watching you the whole time, even now that the tape isn't flying everywhere.
"Does height matter much for wands?" you ask. It seems silly for something as boring as height to affect what wand a person gets, but you suppose you're far from an expert on the subject.
Ollivander chuckles.
"Only marginally, my girl. It establishes a base length for the wand, but there are wide variations within that base, and even some who ignore it completely, depending on their personality," he explains. "What matters most is what's up here." He taps twice on his temple, then fixes you with a wistful gaze that's so penetrating you feel he might as well be reading your mind. "But I suspect you already knew that, didn't you?"
He smiles before you can answer, then vanishes into the shelves, kicking up wood shavings and dust in his wake.
"He's weird," Maggie mumbles to Dad, who brings a finger to his lips, though he doesn't contradict her. You simply stand in the middle of the room, shifting from foot to foot while the room remains empty. What are you supposed to do now? Is he going to be back there for very long -- and if he is, can you go sit down? Or do you have to keep standing here for as long as it takes? Can you even talk? Maybe you should be meditating on yourself and your magic, so the wands can sense you a bit better, but you're nervous, this shop makes you sneeze, and he's been gone for so long now--
You've just started pivoting around to go sit down when Ollivander drops at least six different wand boxes on the counter, making you jump.
"You are not an easy one to place, Astrid Ivanovich," he says, removing the top from a box that hasn't been touched in years, if the dust buildup is any indication. "I had to visit some parts of the store that haven't seen light for decades."
"I'm...sorry?" you say. So that's why it took him ages to come back. You hope being hard to 'place' isn't a bad thing.
"No need for apologies. It simply means you have a wide breadth of potential. All that remains is for us to find the wand that will realize it fully," he replies. "Besides, I do so enjoy difficult cases. Clears the cobwebs out of this old head a bit." With a slow, gentle motion, he produces the wand from inside the first box: a light tan wand, neatly polished.
"Holly with unicorn hair. Thirteen and three-quarter inches, atypically supple for the wood. Let's start with this one."
He flicks the wand around, offering the handle to you. You reach out, fingers hovering over the end for a second or two, before you finally take a deep breath and pick it up.
Nothing happens.
You wait, glancing from Ollivander to the wand and back again. You know that something's supposed to happen when you pick up a wand. It's supposed to break something, or conjure something, or shoot sparks, like the girl did earlier. But you don't feel anything, and the wand hasn't so much as twitched in your grip. You may as well be holding a piece of dead wood.
"Am I supposed to do anything?" you eventually ask, twirling the tip of the wand around in tiny circles. Still nothing. "Try and cast a spell?"
"No, no, not at all," he says, more to himself than to you. "Holly is much too brash -- and the flexibility is all wrong." Ollivander snatches the wand back from you unexpectedly and places it in its case, which shoots off to parts unknown. "Sorry about that. You just have a certain...air about you. I once gave a holly wand to someone with a similar air, but I realize now that you are not much like him. You are..."
He gives you that soul-piercing look again.
"Well. Let's continue, shall we?"
He taps his wand against the glass, and several other boxes he brought forward float back to the shelves. Whatever you did or didn't do there, it must have really helped him narrow down his choices.
The next wand he pulls out for you is also light brown, though a bit duller than the first one in color. The handle curves, giving it a peculiar shape compared to most other wands you've seen. You briefly wonder if Ollivander made it that way for a reason, or if it just suited his fancy the day he made it. He doesn't exactly strike you as the ultra-methodical type.
"This one should suit you much better. It's a lovely elm with phoenix feather, one of the first to be made after the second fall of You-Know-Who. Fourteen and a half inches..."
He goes on, but you stop paying attention after he mentions that name. You-Know-Who...? What a bizarre thing to call somebody -- at least, you assume it's a somebody, and not a something. You, in fact, do not know Who, and your puzzlement must be obvious, because Ollivander cuts himself off and looks at you with concern.
"Is something the matter, child?" he asks.
"No," you say, not wanting to worry the old man. "I just...You-Know-Who. I don't know what that means."
His concern fades abruptly to a seriousness that's almost angry, and you wonder if you've said the wrong thing. But he looks over at your father, not at you, when he speaks.
"You have not told them, then."
You wheel around to look at Dad, whose expression has become just as grave as Ollivander's.
"It is not our history, wandmaker," he says, flat and cold.
"It is all of our history. You would keep your children in the dark--"
"I would keep my children innocent. I would keep them safe." Dad stands up, his every muscle tense. He's not yelling. He's a quiet man, and you've heard him raise his voice maybe twice in your life. But you have heard this tone before, and you know that he's fighting to keep himself calm. "Resume your work, or I will take my business elsewhere."
That's a bluff. You know it, and you're sure Ollivander knows it. There's nowhere else for him to take his business, except maybe Engleby's, but you'd be surprised if those wands are anything more than glorified kindling. You hold your breath, sharing a look of silent, confused anxiety with Maggie. What's made the two of them so angry that they would fight in front of you? And, more importantly, what is so bad about You-Know-Who that Dad's never even mentioned the name to you?
Uncomfortable silence hangs in the air for half a minute before Ollivander clears his throat, turning his silvery gaze back to you.
"Never mind, then. You will learn soon enough," he says, his voice dropping to an ominous near-whisper. Then he offers the curved handle of the elm wand to you. "Give it wave. We'll see if we have any better luck."
You nod and take the wand, your pinky finger sliding nicely into the groove where the wood hooks inward. You do feel something this time -- immediately. Your heart sparks within you, and in your hand, the wand vibrates, responding to you. Encouraged, you flick your wrist like the Charms book told you.
And vast, uncontrollable plumes of fire shoot out, scorching the roof of the store and singeing your face. You shriek, trying to pull the wand downward, but it's taken on a mind of its own, fighting against your direction. There's a commotion behind you as Maggie echoes your scream and your father springs to his feet, knocking over his stool in the meantime. All the while, the flames continue, a steady stream of blindingly bright heat, until--
"FINITE!"
A blast of magic tears through you, with enough force to knock the wand cleanly from your hand. It hits the floor, bounces once, then rolls a few inches before it comes to a stop at Ollivander's feet. He's brandishing his own wand, so he must have gotten to you before Dad did.
"Interesting," he says, unbelievably calm, like he just watched an intriguing game of chess instead of you almost burning his store down. "I haven't seen that reaction to a phoenix feather in some time."
"Are you insane?" you father demands, passing you by to come face to face with Ollivander. "My daughter could have been killed, and you can only say that it's interesting?!"
The old man remains unswayed -- looking less disturbed now than he did when he mentioned You-Know-Who, somehow.
"I assure you, your daughter was never in danger. If you think that's the most bombastic wand failure I've ever seen, you're quite mistaken," he says. The fallen wand shoots from the floor and into his hand. "In fact, I think we learned something rather valuable, don't you? If the phoenix is too blunt for Miss Astrid, even when paired with the mild elm, then she demands a subtle wand indeed." Ollivander strides over to the countertop once more, stowing the failed wand and sending it back, along with two others. A single box now sits next to the register.
You swallow hard.
"I don't know how much you know of wandlore, child," he says as he removes the top half of the crimson box. "But all woods lend themselves better to some areas of magic than to others. Take your father's ebony wand, for instance. A powerful wood, perfect for Transfiguration and a fearsome weapon in the right hands, especially when paired with the dragon heartstring. I would wager, however, that complex charmwork is a challenge for him." He looks up. "Am I wrong?"
Dad grimaces. "Challenges can be overcome."
"Indeed they can be. And, unlike some, I believe that no witch or wizard is limited by their wand. Only the extent of their imagination -- and their perseverance," Ollivander continues. He produces a sandy brown wand, relatively plain, except for the decoration on the end of the handle, which is carved to look like a multi-faceted gem. Letting it rest in his upturned palms, he looks it over, holding it up to the light. "Beech with unicorn hair. Fourteen and three-quarter inches, as brittle as they come. The quiet nature of the wood and core's combination makes it ideal for the most intricate of spells, while its uncommon length and hardness allow for a certain measure of power not seen in other wands of the same make."
Ollivander's moon-like eyes flash as they meet yours.
"Tell me: have you any interest in Artificing?"
You let out a small gasp.
"How did you..."
He quirks an eyebrow in reply.
"Try out the wand, Miss Astrid."
You obligingly take it from his hands, feeling the polished wood slide warmly against your palm. Your fingers curve around the handle as though it were carved just for you, and as before, you feel a spark inside your chest. Acting on instinct, you hold the wand above your head and wave it in a single, slow arc. As you do, you leave a trail of diamond-like little lights, which shimmer for a moment before flying off all around the store. You're not sure how many you make in that motion -- dozens, maybe, or hundreds -- but when you look around you, Ollivander's is full of tiny crystal stars, like the night sky shining at noon.
The wandmaker smiles.
"I believe that will be seven galleons."
"That was brilliant, Astrid!"
Maggie all but tackles you the moment you're out of the store, arms slung tightly around your shoulders.
"I haven't seen anything that pretty in my life! And you made it, all on your own! You didn't even cast a spell," she says, jumping up and down, not aware that she's basically shouting into your ear. "I can't wait to get my own wand. You're so lucky to be eleven, Astrid. I have to wait two whole years..."
"You'll survive, Maggie," Dad says, summoning the trolley he'd parked several yards away while you were inside. "You've made it nine years. You can last another two."
"But that's sooo loooong."
Your sister slinks off of you as she complains. Dad ruffles her hair affectionately, then turns to you. You've been staring at your wand since you left the store, too busy thinking to say a word.
"How are you feeling?" Dad asks. "Do you like your wand?"
"Yeah. I like it," you say, in a bit of a daze. Truth be told, you're still processing everything that happened in there. The flock of identical girls, the fire, the magic you did...not even mentioning the business about You-Know-Who and how Dad acted when Ollivander mentioned it. You're glad to have your wand, at least, but that shop gave you have much more to think about than that.
"It was rather impressive, what you did in there. My wand only shot out a firework when I held it for the first time," he says. "I think you'll be a star at Charms, once you get to Hogwarts. And don't feel bad about all that phoenix feather nonsense. In my experience, none of the wand cores have seemed more powerful than the others. Not in my field, anyway."
Not that he's ever told you what his field is -- and you're not allowed to ask. There's a reason he's called an Unspeakable, he says. He's not allowed to talk about work.
"Anyway," Dad says, turning his back to you so he can push the trolley again. "That's all your supplies. All that's left is a quick and harmless visit to Weasley's, and then we go home and enjoy some of your mother's delicious cooking." You nod, and both you and Maggie trail behind your father as he leads the way to your destination.
A few minutes later, he looks over his shoulder at you while he walks.
"Have you spent your allowance yet, Astrid? Or were you saving it for this nonsensical store?"
[ ] Be honest. Tell Dad you've spent your allowance, and tell him about which book you bought.
[ ] Be evasive. Tell Dad you bought a book, but try not to get into the details of it.
[ ] Lie. Tell Dad you decided to save the money instead.
