SNAKE

4 | not all wizards are good

A bell rang when the door of the shop was opened. "Hello?", Harry asked in a low voice. No one answered. They approached the front desk and Cora noticed everything was covered in dust. "Ugh, don't they ever clean?"

Harry rolled his eyes at her and Cora sighed, "What? It's filthy." Repeating her brother's words in a louder voice she said, "Hello?"

A man with white disheveled hair and light blue eyes suddenly appeared, making the twins gasp. "I'd wondered when I'd be seeing you, Potter twins. Seems only yesterday that your mother and father were in here buying their first wands!" He skimmed through the many boxes and pulled out one, opening it and handing the wand inside it to Harry. "You first, mister Potter."

Harry took it. When he did nothing else but hold it, the old man said, "Well give it a wave", as if it was something obvious. Harry followed his instructions and a bunch of drawers flew out of their places. Harry left the wand on the counter immediately and Cora chuckled. "Apparently not." The man grabbed another box and handed another wand to Harry, this time a vase exploded. "No, no, definitely not."

Cora laughed loudly and Harry turned to her annoyed. "You're next, you know?", which made Cora laugh more.

The old man grabbed another box and looked at it curiously. "I wonder...", he whispered to himself, but Harry and Cora heard him. She stopped laughing and paid close attention to what was going to happen next. When Harry grabbed the wand from the man, a warm light and wind spread across the room.

"Curious, very curious", said the man.

"Sorry, but what's curious?", Harry questioned.

"I remember every wand I've ever sold, mister Potter. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail's feather resides in your wand gave another feather. Just. One. Other. It is curious that you should be destined for this wand when its brother gave you that scar."

"And who owned that wand?", asked Cora.

"We do not speak his name. The wand chooses the wizard, mister and miss Potter, it's not always clear why, but I think it is clear that we can expect great things from you, mister Potter. After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great thing. Terrible, yes... but great."

"Your turn now, miss Potter", said the man as he walked between the shelves to look for a wand. As he was searching, both twins were deep in thought about what he just said, adding more questions to the big pile they already had on the back of their minds.

The old man came back to the front desk with three boxes. He took out the first wand and handed it to her. Cora waved the wand and made a lamp explode, which caused her to jump and leave the wand carefully in the counter, just like her brother did a few moments ago. Harry snickered at her sister and she took a deep breath, knowing she had that coming.

The second wand she tried waving made a glass shatter, the third caused some papers on one of the counters to catch on fire and even a fourth one made a chair burst into pieces. Harry chuckled at his twin, but put a comforting hand on her shoulder once he saw she was quite frustrated.

"Worry not, miss Potter, this probably just means that a specific wand wants you. I think I know just the one", the man said after some time of thinking and disappeared to the back of the store. Cora took a deep breath and turned to her brother, "I hope the next wand is for me before I end up destroying this place." Harry chuckled and took her hand in his with a reassuring smile.

"Found it!", the man said from the back of the store. He walked excitedly towards Cora whilst taking out the wand form its box and handed it to her as he explained, "This wand has been particularly picky, it has been here for a very long time and hasn't chosen anyone yet."