Life After Death - An Erica Black Continuation (4)

Ten

Willow Elladora Black was eleven years old and entering into her first year at Hogwarts with her twin sister. The sisters hadn't been at the school long, a few weeks but already the Ravenclaw student was adored by all her teachers. She studied long and hard each night, attended every class with an eager smile and a positive attitude and her thirst for knowledge was evident and a breath of fresh air.
She took extra pleasure in Astronomy, spending hours pouring over her work, ensuring every piece was perfect.
Despite her noble name and magical blood, she was often much more analytically than magically inclined. The only quills she was ever seen using were the sugar kind, she'd suck on them absentmindedly in class, to write, she much preferred a muggle pen. Despite her work ethic, enthusiasm and seamless theory work, she had always struggled with the practical side of her education.

Her mother had once told her that she was named after a proud independent matriarch of the Black family- a distant ancestor and her grandmother who her mother had learnt was a powerful, smart and beautiful witch who could've easily changed the world is she hadn't lost her life so early. She had always loved her name, always felt proud to have inherited such a powerful honorific.

She had grown up surrounded by women, her mother was, in Willow's opinion, the most wonderful person in the world. She had also spent a lot of time with her aunties Ginny and Narcissa as well as Molly Weasley who was, in many ways, an honorary grandma to the twins. Their whole family was built up of powerful women. In retrospect, they had only spent time around a handful of men. Their Godfather; Teddy, Molly's husband; Arthur and their son, the twin's other Godfather; Uncle Charlie.

Throughout all of their muggle primary school education, Willow had been top of the class, straight A's and although her mum never placed any emphasis on grades, it was a feat she was proud of. Especially once her younger sister had started displaying magic.. for a long time, she had been worried she may be a squib- not that there was anything wrong with being a squib, but she simply couldn't bare the thought of staying at home whilst her mother and sister went off to Hogwarts. Luckily, when she was eight, she finally began displaying magic and was ecstatic. However, it quickly became clear that her magic was unreliable, volatile and dilute at best. Not like her sister who appeared to find the use and control of magic effortless- and always had.

She had sat on that stool for what felt like hours, in front of the entire faculty and student body. Ever since, countless people had approached her in the hallways to tell her what she already knew; she had been a hatstall- apparently the first in more than 50 years. Finally, the sorting hat decided upon Ravenclaw. Everyone had asked her which houses it had been between. She hadn't told a soul that it was Ravenclaw and Slytherin. She wasn't ashamed of the fact, she just didn't see it as anyone else's business besides, she didn't want her mum to think she had rejected her house and she knew her twin couldn't keep a secret to save her life.

About a week before they boarded the scarlet steam engine, Erica Black had taken her twin daughters to Diagon Alley- more specifically; Ollivander's wand shop. According to the woman, Willow and her sister were directly related to the wandmaker, she told her daughters how their grandmother, the woman Willow was named after, was in-fact Garrick Ollivander's daughter. She had died the day their mother was born; December 19th 1976 and Erica had never known much at all about her mother until she was an adult herself. Ollivander, although almost 120 years old now was still alive, as bright as ever and he had long white hair and, Willow noticed, her mother's silver eyes.
It took her sister only a few tries before she found her wand, their mum had smiled brightly and congratulated the younger girl who's green eyes sparkled with pride.

It had taken Willow a very long time to find her own wand, Ollivander and her mother had been very patient- handing her box after box as she grew increasingly frustrated. After a while, Lottie had grown bored and restless and so their mother had handed the younger of the twins a piece of parchment and a small sack of coins.
"Go ahead Charlotte, across the street is Flourish and Blots, take the money and purchase two of each book on this list. Okay?" the girl nodded and skipped away. Willow huffed softly, even more frustrated at the idea of missing out on the book shop. Erica reaches out and rubs her daughter's back calmingly "Hey hey, It's okay Willa. After we're done here, we can go to Florish and Blots again and then maybe Fortescue's, yeah?"
The girl nodded, flashing her mother a small, brief smile to hide her frustration as she waved the next wand...
The shattering of the ornamental vase by the counter made her cringe, handing back the wand to the man she smiled apologetically. As the elderly shop owner looks at the young girl in-front of him his eyes suddenly widen in a moment of realisation and he scurried into his back room, lines from wall to ceiling with shelves, overflowing with wand boxes.

Moments later, he hurried back to the front of the shop, holding a box in his hand and a sparkle in his eye. "Sycamore wood with a unicorn hair core, 10" and unyielding flexibility" he smiles at the girl knowingly. She tucks her hair behind her ear and takes a deep breath as she gives the new wand a firm swish. Her face breaks into a relieved smile as the vase she earlier broke, repaired itself, the thrill was unrivalled by anything else she had ever felt. Like

"Ah, just as I thought" the man smiles as the girl hugged her mother tightly "Congratulations young lady."
"Thank you Mr Ollivander" she grinned up at him handing over the coins in her palm.

Erica Black went to lead her daughter out of the shop but the girl pulled back and turned to the elderly wandmaker "Mr Ollivander?" she begins, he nods for her to continue, "Could you possibly explain to me what my wand means please?" the wizard's face breaks into an excited smile.

"well my dear, your wand is Sycamore wood with a unicorn hair core, 10" and it has unyielding flexibility. Unicorn hair is great for magic with good intentions, it is reliable and probably the most loyal of cores. However, you must treat it kindly, they are prone to melancholy when treated poorly." Willow nodded, clearly intrigued as he continued "Sycamore wands are ideal for curious owners, they grow bored easily have an innate desire to learn but to maintain its brilliance, it needs to be exposed to new experiences, they despise the mundane. Now, many wandmakers will simply match the length of one's wand to their height. This is a crude practice. The length of one's wand, in my experience, more often reflects one's character. An owner who is inclined to more dramatic expressions of magic tend to be chosen by longer wands, shorter wands - like yours my dear, are better suited of magic of a more refined kind, elegant and precise nature. Finally, a wands flexibility, in your case: unyielding. This simply means that it is loyal, it will finely tune itself to your magical preferences and methods. Particularly good for healing and defensive magic, they prefer an owner with strongly defined principles, these people tend to be intelligent, if some what cynical" the man chuckles softly to himself. Willow looks up at him in awe.
"That's enough Willa, let's leave Mr Ollivander to his work now, thank you Mr Ollivander" Erica smiled brightly, waving as she and her eldest daughter left the shop. "Thank you" The girl echoed. They quickly found her twin and after a leisurely lap of the book shop, they headed to Fortescue's Ice-cream Parlour.
Her mother chose a cone of lavender and earl-grey, her twin picked a cone of chocolate topped with sprinkles and Willow decided upon strawberry and peanut-butter ice-cream in a cone topped with chocolate chips.