Wands
Gabriel came to the shack during Harry’s break after lunch. Saphira hissed at him threateningly when he stepped in the room.
“He’s a friend, Saphira. Get down,” Harry explained. The beautiful snake nodded hesitantly and tucked herself back into her original spot by the fire.
“Harry?” Gabriel gasped with wide eyes. “Did you just talk to the snake?”
Harry nodded slightly. “Uh, yes. I’m a parselmouth. This is my snake, Saphira. Saphira, say hi.”
“Hello, slimy two-legged human,”Saphira greeted. Harry covered his laugh with a cough before looking up at Gabriel again.
The man looked like he just saw his own mother getting frisky with an eighty year old woman. “Uh, that explains quite well why you got Basilisk venom,” he muttered. “Where’s Jayden?”
“Tending to the garden, I think,” Harry replied. “JAYDEN!”
Jayden ran in the house with the family owl, a Red Eastern Screech Owl named Notus, on his shoulder. “Who died?” he demanded when he stopped. “Oh, hey Gabriel.”
Gabriel waved with a smile. “Hey Jayden! I’m just here to deliver Harry’s stuff. Didn’t feel like sending an owl, you know?”
Jayden blushed and nodded. Harry deeply suspected that the two men would have a rather interesting relationship in the future if he just pushed it along a bit.
The wandmaker pulled out two black boxes with a golden symbol accented with a beautiful dark emerald green.
The symbol itself was golden snake with emerald eyes wrapped around a black dragon, also with emerald eyes. The end of the snake’s tail curled around a fancy black letter P. The whole thing was circled in a bright golden circle. All in all, Harry thought it was beautiful.
“This is your family symbol,” Gabriel said at Harry’s look. “And in here…” the man walked over to the sofa and sat down. He put the two black boxes on the table and gestured for Harry, Jayden, Notus, and Saphira to join him. They did.
“…are your wands.” Gabriel finished. He opened the two boxes with a flourish. Harry and Jayden gasped in delight.
On velvety red cushions rested two beautiful grey wands. The one on Harry’s right had a basilisk snake that looked oddly like a black and white Saphira wrapped around the handle. On the end, where the head was, rested a breathtaking red ruby. Harry could feel magic radiating from it. The snake’s fangs secured the delicate gem in its mouth.
On Harry’s left, the other wand was as breathtakingly pretty. Vines lovingly wrapped around the wand were slightly tinged with a shade of red. There were thorns around it, too- pretty dull white twigs from a great branch. Harry knew they would hurt all but him. The vine, like the snake, circled around the gem. Only the gem was a sparkling emerald easily less powerful than the other gem, but still quite powerful.
As Harry examined the two gorgeous wands, Gabriel started to explain about them. He listened with half an ear, “I tried to make the power levels even enough, but it was a difficult feat. Anyways, the wand on you right is the Slither model. Obviously it contains the lovely ruby. The wand also has Yggdrasil wood, basilisk venom, dragon’s wings, and basilisk tongue. I figured you would appreciate all the snake stuff in one wand.
“This one, the Vine model, is the wand with elm wood. It contains the siren blood, hydra head, and Royal Mermaid Eyes. And of course the infamous pretty privilege emerald. I expect you’ll be close to a metamorphmagus after you pick it up. Speaking of that, go ahead.” Gabriel took a huge breath and gestured to the wands.
Slowly, Harry reached out towards the one on his left, but Jayden smacked his hand back. “Pick it up with your wand hand the first time, we discussed this.”
“But I can use both hands the same!” Harry pouted. Jayden stared a him a moment before nodding. The boy smiled as he picked up the Vine model wand. He could feel it instantly- a change in his face, his arms, his legs. Everything was changing, and Harry didn’t know how to comprehend that.
The two older men looked at him in shock, before Jayden started laughing loudly. “Oh, Harry..” he chuckled. “You’re gonna get all the ladies!” Jayden then transfigured a random pen on the table to a mirror with his wand and handed it to Harry. The boy looked at his new appearance in shock.
His skin was now not the slightly tanned mess that it was before with scars and beauty marks. It was really tan now, and perfectly clear expect for the stubborn lightning bolt scar on his forehead, but even that one had faded into pale white. Harry’s eyes shone with a new sort of silent intelligence and awareness. And it wasn’t an illusion- he had perfect recall of things he’d seen before and forgotten. He was pretty sure some stuff wasn’t there before, like all the knowledge of Ancient Greek literature.
Despite already liking the changes, there was more. Harry’s jawline was more defined and a bit of the small amount of baby fat he had was gone, but not all of it. His body was a tad bit muscled now, but not overly so. He kind of looked like a buff ten year old, because he was about half a foot taller.
There was a lot of little things, too- his hair had become a bit more controlled, nose slightly smaller and slimmer, eyebrows less bushy, and cheekbones higher. He looked almost like royalty.
Harry also felt a slightly uncomfortable feeling in his mouth, so he opened it. Where his slightly yellow, bended teeth were, rested perfectly straight white teeth. He noticed that some of them appeared to be slightly sharper and bigger than normal. His saliva was slightly black now, just like the basilisk venom. It was probably the hydra head’s work.
Gabriel plucked the mirror out of Jayden’s hand and pulled the mirror away from him. “That’s enough of that,” he stated.
Harry put down the Vine wand and picked up the Slither wand with his right hand. The change wasn’t that drastic like the Vine wand, but it was still there. The random knowledge of all the crap that went on in Norse mythology was suddenly there. He felt more powerful, drastically more powerful. However, there was a certain darkness to it, like he could just slip and use dark magic all the time. Harry shivered at the thought.
“Harry?” Jayden asked worriedly. “Are you alright?”
Harry nodded and put the wand back down. Enough of that for now. Gabriel put the lids back on the two wands and put them to the side. He then produced two scaly wand holsters lined with a suspicious grey fur.
“They’re dragonhide wand holsters lined with demiguise fur, which can turn it invisible and undetectable with just a thought. Pretty cool if you ask me.” He said.
Harry smiled at him. Gabriel took one of Harry’s arms and gently placed the holster on it, wrapping it firmly around his arm. He did so again with the second and then put the Slither wand in there.
“I can’t exactly touch the Vine wand after I completed it,” he said with a chuckle, “so you’ll have to put it in there yourself.” Harry nodded and did so.
The holster was made for the purpose of protecting wands in the hands of children and it worked. Harry rather loved it.
“I’d love to stay, but I have an appointment in about thirty minutes. I best be off.” Gabriel stood and wiped off the nonexistent dirt on his trousers. Then, he took his wand out of a wand holder Harry hadn’t noticed, and disappeared.
“Was that apparition? How did I not see the holder? And isn’t the Trace supposed to detect magic?” Harry asked rapidly. Jayden raised an eyebrow before taking out his own wand and summoning a tea set.
He poured tea into two cups and handed one to Harry. “One question at a time, Harry,” he reminded gently. “And yes, that was apparition. You didn’t see the holder because Gabriel is a sneaky bas- butthole that put it under a Notice-me-not charm. That makes it so that everyone would only notice it if the one who put it under that charm pointed it out or drew something from it.”
He paused and sipped on his tea. “The Trace is only for underage wizards. You would only be able to preform magic outside of school, but since I use magic frequently enough it blocks out your Trace. I also developed something to counteract it slightly, but it took me years and masks it only about 30%. That means you would be able to perform simple first year spells, but nothing else. The Ministry of Magic’s charms are much too strong to cover it all.”
Jayden smirked. “However, if you were to be emancipated…”
“What does ‘emancipated’ mean?” Harry asked.
The older man hummed. “In the muggle world, it would mean to be ‘set free from legal, social, or political restrictions’. In the magical world, however, it is different.
“It means that you are considered a legal adult and will be removed from the Trace and allows you to claim your lordships.”
At that moment, Harry’s kitten, Thorn, waltzed shakily into the room. He meowed when he reached Harry and sat down by his legs.
“Aww, who’s a good boy,” Harry cooed as he picked the kitten up. Thorn was not able to completely cover Harry’s still fairly small hands.
Notus, the family owl, hooted angrily at Jayden’s side. He pecked the man’s poor ear until the man gave him pets as well. Saphira and Hedwig, Harry’s snowy owl, took this as their cue to start assaulting the duo until they got their fair share as well.
If Harry missed most of his lessons again that day, none of the commented on it.