Diagon Alley
Going to Diagon Alley with a family of eight was never a good idea. Every shop they went into ended up being jam-packed even without the lot of them.
There were so many other eleven year-olds all excited for their days at the wizarding school. The robes and cauldron alone took ages.
Mum felt exhausted and went home with Jamie and Matthew on her own after all of the main shopping was done.
"We still need some of the books and the...the…what does it say?" Debbie squinted at the list.
Their father took the list from her hands as he read it.
"It says wand, Debbie.” He pointed out.
Debbie flushed. She was nine years old and still had a hard time reading. It wasn’t something to be ashamed of but when muggle classmates make fun of you for something that comes so easy to them, it’s hard to live it down.
Their father pointed at a little bookstore called Flourish and Blotts as he told them, "This is where we'll get the books for Harry's first year. Don't ruin them, Harry, they need to last for Debbie at the very least."
Debbie pouted, "I don't want all of Harry's hand-me-downs."
"All of them won't be hand-me-downs. You'll get your own robes and cauldron. Plus, you'll also get your own wand next year." He comforted her as he readjusted her glasses.
"But Harry's books will have little doodles all over the place." She griped.
Harry didn't really correct her, they were all made to attend muggle school by mum, and it was true that Harry had a bad habit of doodling in the margins of his books.
Their father laughed as he put a hand around Sophie's shoulder, dragging the redhead away from the new Nimbus 2000 she was eyeing dreamily.
"Let's go kids. If you be quick, you'll get to see Harry get his wand faster. It's quite an experience." Their father's brown eyes glinted from behind his rectangular glasses.
___________________
Ollivander's was...amazing? Scary? Disturbing? That's it. It was a wee bit disturbing.
Thousands of wands stacked up in cases at every corner of the shop. Sophie and Debbie looked around with their mouths open.
Harry felt the same way himself, but the dust and the off-putting smell were more of a concern to him.
"Ah! Mr.Potter. Seems only yesterday I gave you your very first wand. Look at you now, kids and all." An old man greeted their dad fondly, his misty eyes fixing him with a pale stare.
"You have quite a memory, Mr.Ollivander. I see you've done some renovations around the place." Dad said, his smile a bit awkward.
That was a tell that dad was either nervous, or lying. Something only family members other than Debbie could recognise. They both gave each other a meaningful glance she most likely noticed but couldn't translate.
"I remember every wand sold, Mr.Potter. Yours was a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. Now, if the younger Mr.Potter comes forward..." He beckoned Harry with a wave.
Harry nervously stood across the counter from Mr.Ollivander. He had white hair and unblinking eyes that put an off-putting sense about him.
Harry really wished he would blink, his silvery eyes were a bit creepy when they were staring into your soul.
Ollivander pulled out a wand from who knows where. "Let's see...Unicorn hair, acacia wood, thirteen inches." He handed Harry the wand.
'The wand chooses the wizard.' His mum had once told them when Debbie curiously asked her about wands once.
When he was given the wand, it seemed to do nothing at all.
Harry felt lost as his sisters shoved each other to get closer to the wand to see what it looked like.
"Well go on mate, give it a wave." His father grinned at him.
He waved it, feeling very foolish as he did so, and a flower vase near them suddenly exploded.
"Not that one then." Ollivander cleared his throat as he took the wand away.
He opened up another wand case and took out a darker looking wand.
"Dragon heartstring core, yew wood, eleven and a quarter inches." He muttered as he gave Harry the wand.
Harry waved the wand and a bunch of wand cases collapsed on top of his dad's head.
His sisters laughed with joy as they enthusiastically watched Harry help his father escape from the pile of dusty packages.
"Definitely not that one, then." Ollivander took it away with a grumble.
They tried a million wands but none of them quite seemed to fit Harry.
They all caused little bouts of destruction that left Ollivander more and more weary as time went on. Harry felt bad for the state the shop was in.
He grew more and more anxious as the pile of wand cases next to Ollivander grew.
Eventually, he pulled out a dusty wand case from somewhere behind the counter.
"I wonder if..." He whispered to himself as he turned to Harry.
"Holly wood, phoenix feather core, eleven inches." He hesitantly mentioned.
Harry's hands were sore from all the wand waving, but this time he didn't even need to wave to feel the energy of the wand.
The wand glowed with a bright, hazy red light that engulfed all around him.
Everything felt warm and blurry for a little while and then the world came back in brighter colours.
His father and sisters that had previously been seated on stools, exhausted from all the wands they were watching him try, came over to him with huge, identical grins.
"That's the wand mate. Good job." Dad laughed in relief.
"It's quite a rare one, every wand is unique but we haven't had the likes of anyone at all with such a wand." The tired shopkeeper stated.
Harry shivered. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? And why was the man not blinking at all as he continued to stare at him?
"Why'd you wait so long to give it to him?" Debbie inquired, always filled with questions and never hesitant to ask them.
"Well you see, the wand has a phoenix feather core from a rather...special little phoenix. There's only two of them ever made from the same bird." Ollivander continued,
"We made it experimentally just to see if we actually could make such a wand. There hasn't been another person with this particular phoenix feather core as a wand." He answered patiently.
“But mum says there’s not two wands out there that are the same. Sort of like fingerprints.”
“That is true. But phoenix feather cores are…rare, per say. People are similar to their wands. If two people have similar wands, you can count on saying the individuals are similar as well.” He muttered.
“Well, Harry is a very queer individual.” Sophie nodded, mispronouncing the word ‘individual’.
Harry scowled, not sure how to feel about that.
“Well, I suppose one of you siblings will come by with the other wand.” Ollivander smiled at Harry eerily.
“Maybe. But I’ve got a very special batch of kids in my family, Ollivander. Nobody repeats the same story, they just make new ones.” His dad wrapped his arms around his son.
Harry smiled up at his dad. He couldn't wait to tell mum about the wand shopping experience. Maybe being rare wasn't such a bad thing.