“Curious, very curious indeed.” Said the strange man, ripping the piece of wood from Taylor’s hand before she could even shake the thing like he’d asked her to.
Taylor was starting to feel disgruntled as well as uncomfortable.
Mister Ollivander looked at Taylor like she was some interesting science experiment that had wandered into his shop. He’d been offering pieces of wood — or wands like he called them — and asking her to ‘try it’, whatever that meant. It started as something fun and new but had become an annoying chore. Taylor had lost count of how many sticks she'd shaken.
She wasn’t the only one getting impatient.
There was a crowd waiting for their turn with the wandmaker. Parents and children filling the cramped store and staring daggers at Taylor and Annette, each getting more and more impatient with each stick Taylor failed to shake to the man’s approval. She was tired of hearing the descriptions of the sticks: Ash, Birch, Aspen, Holly, Willow. Nine inches, twelve, eleven and a half. Flexible, brittle, bendy or stiff, with a core made of unicorn hairs, dragon heartstrings, phoenix feathers. It didn’t matter the combination he presented, none seemed to satisfy him.
“You’re a most difficult one,” Ollivander said, after staring unblinkingly at Taylor for what felt like five minutes. “Maybe…” the man muttered, walking inside the shop, but instead of rummaging through the rows and rows of boxes, he went to what looked like a workshop of some sort. From there, he pulled a different box. It was older, the top almost completely full of dust.
He returned shortly, staring intently at Taylor. He opened the box, presenting the stick inside. This time he didn’t describe what it was made of.
Taylor looked inside the box.
The wand inside looked like nothing more than a branch from some unknown tree. Unlike the other wands that were decorated and had a clear handle, this one didn’t have one, which cemented the normal branch vibe. With a shrug, she picked up the stick.
The first indication that something had changed was the blinding pain in her head. Taylor bit back a gasp and then noticed that every bug in her range had stopped. It was just a blip before Taylor forced them to act normally, but it happened. The second was that her range grew. She wasn’t sure how much, but there were so many new bugs in her perception that it explained the headache.
“Blackthorn, rigid, thirteen inches long. Acromantula hair core.”
Taylor was vaguely aware of whispering from the crowd behind her, but her attention was divided among the many new bugs and senses and eyes.
“I never thought this wand would find its match,” Ollivander said, unaware Taylor’s mind was lost in the sudden flood of new information. “It was an experiment by my father, more than half a century ago.”
Ollivander blabbed on about the wood quality, Blackthorn, and how it defined the wand, how his father had made only one successful wand with acromantula hair, how he’d expected new and surprising things from wand and wielder. He talked like the wand was a living thing.
Taylor barely heard it, amidst the pounding in her head.
Annette, however, was up to task. She paid for the wand, twelve galleons, almost double the usual price, thanked the man, apologized for the waiting crowd, then led Taylor away.
It didn’t take long until she got used to the new range of senses. It took less time to realise she was sitting down on a bench, leaning against her mum, a melting chocolate treat in hand and a gentle hand caressing her hair.
“Are you better? Do you want to go home?” Mum asked, looking into Taylor’s eyes.
A small shake of the head, and a bit of effort of will to ignore sensory overload, a few seconds to lick the melty chocolate from her fingers and Taylor was ready to get back to shopping. There was no way she was leaving this place without getting some books. All of them if possible.
“I’m fine,” Taylor lied, ignoring another spike of pain. “Talk about it at home?”
Annette inspected Taylor’s eyes for a long moment before nodding. “Alright.”
From there, things moved fast. Their next purchase was a school trunk. Mum paid a premium for that one, a magical trunk that could fit more than it should. It was second hand, but it looked well kept and usable.
Trunk secured, Taylor tried to drag her mum into the bookstore, but Annette had other priorities. First were the school supplies. Cauldron (not the self-cleaning one), glass phials, telescope, brass scales. Ready for the bookstore, Taylor whined when they spent the next two hours fitting and adjusting for school robes, gloves and winter cloak. She was sure they were ready for the books when mum dragged her to the pet store.
“Why?” Taylor whined harder.
Mum rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “You need an owl, little owl. Otherwise, how are you going to send me letters?”
Giving up on convincing her mom as a bad job, Taylor looked forward to getting a new pet. There were several types of owls to pick from. Some exotic, others that looked pretty with their fluffy white feathers. There was one that looked startled, with feathers that looked like horns. Others that looked like they didn’t want anything with Taylor at all. Most of the birds turned away from Taylor or tried to peck her fingers when she got close.
The only one that didn’t was an owl that looked like it was a sleepy one. Face flat and eyes half closed, feathers white and brown. Taylor knew all about owls, having been called little owl by her mum for as long as she could remember. The sleepy bird was a barn owl, one of the most common species out there. She extended her hand toward the bird, fully expecting it to peck her fingers. Instead, the owl hooted, flapped its wings and landed on Taylor’s head, where it nested and went back to sleep.
“I guess you finally found one,” mum said from a few paces away, not even trying to suppress the mirth in her voice.
Taylor rolled her eyes. If the lazy bird wanted and could sleep on her head, that was fine. She had more important things to do, like visit the bookstore, like right now! She’d kept a few thousand bugs eyes in the place just to make sure the good books didn't disappear before she got there. The crowd of people surrounding the posh guy had diminished as the day progressed.
And then, finally, after getting a cage and food for her new pet, Taylor marched toward paradise.
The bookstore was everything she ever wanted and more. Books on magic, books about magic, story books about magic, research, gossip rags, teenager witch gossip magazines. She wanted them all.
“A firstie?” An amused voice called out from inside the store.
Taylor blinked owlishly in sync with the owl on her head.
“Right, of course you are.” The man said with a smile. He turned about, bent down and then pulled up a stack of books. A quick glance was enough to see it was all the books in her school list.
Mum was already on it. She walked closer, smiling, asking for prices and more.
Taylor didn’t pay attention to that, nor to the posh man dressed in aquamarine clothes who preened like a bird when the stack of books landed on the counter. No, Taylor had found the section with history of magic and other interesting books. She pulled on a trolley and started piling the goods. Mum could deal with payment. Taylor had waited and suffered this day long enough.
The spending spree had cost most of Taylor’s money. It wasn’t for a lack of want that she hadn’t bought more books, but a lack of space. Even with an expanded trunk (mum was really the best for insisting on that one), there was no more space for more books. She considered getting a normal bag or something, or better yet, a second trunk for even more books, but mum put her foot down. They’d spent all but one galleon and a few sickles in their buying frenzy.
It was now late at night and Taylor was back in her pastel colored room, reading from the standard book of spells and waving her stick — wand, in the movements shown in the pictures and saying the words. It wasn’t going well. The feather, an involuntary donation from Taylor’s new pet, Nap, didn’t budge an inch. Nap wasn’t happy at all with all the noise and hand waving. She kept following the stick and hooting menacingly whenever the wand got closer.
"Wingardum Leveossa!" Taylor said, doing her best with the funny foreign words, sure that this time, the Feather would move.
It didn’t.
It also didn’t matter too much. Taylor had a whole month to practice magic and read her books about magic.