Torn Between Three Me's

4 - The Wand Chooses The Wizard

Finally our time had come. Fred, George, and I were preparing for our first year at Hogwarts. We'd gotten our letters in the mail, accepted them, and now we stood together with their mum, Cedric, and their brothers and Ginny minus Bill at the end of the path of Diagon Alley by Gringotts after a most stressful visit to their vault. My ribs still ached from squeezing into the minecart. Our faces were all grimey with floo powder soot and we looked as if we could have been on a school field trip there were so many of us.

'First stop, wands!' Mrs. Weasley took Ginny's hand and led us all down the alley to a small, lonely shop on the south side of Diagon Alley called Jimmy Kiddell's wonderful wands. The lot of us squeezed inside as the bell on the door rang.

An older man, perhaps maybe a little too happy to see us, came hurriedly over to the door to greet us. 'How can I assist you today?'

'We'll be needing three wands, please, Mr. Kiddell.' Mrs. Weasley pushed Fred, George, and I to the front of the pack.

'Ah, first years?' Mr. Kiddell asked.

'Yessir,' we answered.

The man walked to the racks of wands behind him. 'First time Hogwarts will have seen triplets in ages.'

The twins and I snickered to ourselves as quietly as possible, our beat red faces matching our bright red hair. 'How long has it been?' I asked.

'At least 50 years,' Mr. Kiddell called from behind the racks.

'We can fix that,' Fred said confidently.

'Ain't no triplets like us,' George added.

Mrs. Weasley wasted no time smacking each of us over the head as we giggled silently.

'It's a handful with the three of them, I tell ya,' Mrs. Weasley grumbled.

Mr. Kiddell staggered back over to us with three wand boxes in his arms. We gathered over by the desk. He opened the first box and looked at me. 'You first, miss.' He handed me the wand as I looked at it intently in my hand. It wasn't shiny and new. But it was a wand. A wand that I'd waited my whole life to finally have. 'Well, have a go with it, then.'

I flicked the little wooden stick and a wand box from the shelf went flying right into Ron's head. 'OW!'

'Sorry, Ron,' I sighed.

'Don't be such a magnet!' Fred shrugged. Ron pouted to himself.

Mr. Kiddell gave me the other two wands to test out and neither of those worked either, but they did for the twins. Finally on the 5th wand Mr. Kiddell handed to me, after much ado from the twins and the younger kids, I flicked the wand in hand and nothing dangerous happened. 'There it is! I was holding off on trying this one but...this seems to be the one.' Mr. Kiddell made his way to the register behind the desk with a smile on his face.

'Why is that?' I asked. 

'This wand is not one I'd normally give a first year. Phoenix feather core, beech wood, 12". It's capable of quite a range of magic, you see, normally for someone already settled and rich in their craft. But alas, the wand chooses the wizard,' Mr. Kiddell explained. I nodded at the wand as he slipped it into the box. 'That will be 2 galleons and 5 sickles for the three wands, please, Mrs. Weasley.'

She stepped up to the desk, fumbling with her purse, trying to collect the money. 'My dad gave you mine and Cedric's, right?' I whispered. 

'Yes, dear,' she said, putting a hand on my back as she continued searching. 'Here it is!' She paid the shopkeeper and we made our way to leave.

'You use that wand well, now, Miss Weasley. Do great things with it!' Mr. Kiddell called to us. I turned back and half smiled at him.

'It's not Weasley, actually,' I admitted. 'It's Potter.' 

His smile faded and his face expressed bewilderment. 'You don't say,' he nodded as a slight smile formed on his face again. He went back around to his desk. 'Phoenix feather,' he mumbled. 'Potter.'

We left the shop and entered the cobblestone path of Diagon Alley once more. 'You little celebrity," Fred bumped my arm.

'Can't take you anywhere,' George shook his head playfully. I rolled my eyes at them.

We followed the path down and headed to the other shops, buying our remaining school supplies, along with Charlie, Percy, and Cedric. After we had mountains of books, robes, cauldrons, phials and more, we headed back to the burrow to wait until dad would get home.

***

When Cedric and I got home, we could barely see past the stacks and stacks of packages in our arms. We kicked the door to knock and dad opened it a couple seconds later, happy to see us. 'Finally! You're back! Leave those there!'

Cedric and I looked at each other questioningly and dropped our packages at the door as we walked inside. We followed dad into the living room where he had a blanket draped over something sitting on the table in the shape of a tall, cylindrical cage.

'What's this?' I asked.

Dad had the cheesiest, most excited smiled on his face. 'I found her!' He gestured toward the blanket. 'At work. And Ms. Prickle doesn't know...that I uh...took it...or that it exists at all...so if it's brought up...we got her at the Emporium, right?' Cedric and I nodded wide eyed.

'Right. So, Addy. She's yours. I figured, since Cedric has got mum's cat already, that this could be your pet. How does that sound? Fair?'

'Fair,' we agreed. Dad became overwhelmed with excitement as he lifted the blanket and revealed a little brown owl with white patches. Huge yellow eyes filled most of its face.

I gasped. 'She's so cute!' I immediately hurried to open the cage and picked her up as she jumped onto my hand. She was just the perfect size to sit comfortably perched on my fingers. She looked up at me and cocked her head.

'Now, be careful,' dad warned. 'She's a bit unpredictable.'

'Ouch!' I jumped as I felt a prick on my finger. I looked down and saw the owl nibbling on my thumb. 'Hey, that's not food, ya know.' I brought my hand up to face level as I looked the owl in the eye. She looked completely innocent as if she had no idea she had hurt me. I smiled and scratched her head as she started to flap her wings and kick her leg slightly. Cedric and I giggled.

'She acts like that pet the muggles had at school,' Cedric said. 'A dog.'

'Thank you, dad! I love her!'

'Of course, darling. Just be careful, mind you. Remember, she is a bit...' He watched as the owl spun in circles on my fingers. 'Due lolly.'

'But not dangerous, right?' Cedric asked.

'No, no. She's harmless. Just watch the beak.' Dad smiled at me and put his hand on my shoulder as he walked off. 'Ced, come help set the table, will you?'

'Coming, dad!' Ced turned to look at me. 'She's cute. You know what you're gonna name her?'

I stared into the owl's huge yellow eyes. 'Hmm.' She cocked her head at me and squawked as I giggled back at her. 'Due lolly is right. I'll call her Lolly.'

'Lolly. I like it.' Ced half smiled. He watched as Lolly spun around on my fingers some more. 'Dad could not have found a better pet for you.' He chuckled.

I scoffed. 'Are you calling me due lolly and unpredictable?'

He started to back away slowly with his arms out. 'I'm not saying you're completely...normal,' he grimaced playfully.

'And you are?' I smirked.

'No,' he admitted flatly. 'But have you seen the kinds of things you and the twins get up to? You three are the definition of unpredictable.'

'Alright, I'll agree with you on that one,' I laughed.

Cedric walked off towards the kitchen as I started to put Lolly back in her cage. Almost immediately, she started chomping on the bars around the cage. 'There's food...below you. And I know you know about it because it's half gone.' Lolly's huge yellow eyes looked at me as she continued to naw on the bars. I rolled my eyes and walked away, leaving her to her delicious metal dinner.