Lore of the Wand

The wand chooses the wizard; that much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wandlore.   

Part I: Ash and dragon heartstring, eleven and three quarter inches, unyielding


There is light.

This one has not seen light since the Slumber began. This one is excited.

His hand is warm and doesn't shake. His grip is sure. He is young, but this one senses a great well of undiscovered talent, and determination, and discipline. He has a kind heart and a sharp mind and a bravery within him like a furnace.

This one is pleased. This one chooses him.

…

He progresses well. His magic is sure and he learns from his failures. He wields this one with confidence and growing skill.

The years pass and this one becomes more accustomed to his thoughts and desires. This one can help him, can create clarity in these thoughts to make his magic stronger. He knows, and he understands the bond.

This one is very satisfied with him, very satisfied indeed.

…

He is in love.

This one can feel the deep satisfaction of it, the grounding feeling it gives his magic. This one revels in it.

He uses this one to create flowers and candlelight, and to summon a trinket that causes a thrill of nerves. This one can feel her presence and her elation through him, and then he removes this one from his person, but this one can still sense him nearby - his emotions are spinning in whorls of color and warmth in counterpoint to hers.

It is a new sort of magic he has found, and it will bolster the magic he uses this one for all the more.

…

He has been fighting.

The spells he uses this one to cast have far more gravitas, more urgency. They are spells to bind and stun and hold. He no longer uses words, but relies on this one to know what he needs to cast. This one is pleased to have such a bond with him, but this one is troubled - what has happened to him that he must cast these spells? What has happened to his world?

He is still in love with her. And there is someone new, another presence that he fights for. This one cannot sense this new presence readily; it is still so young. But it is a piece of him and he fights for it.

This one thinks the fighting will last for some time.

…

He is in so much pain.

This one must shy away from his mind, it is breaking, he is in so much pain, his thoughts are disconnected and fleeting…

He thinks of his wife who is next to him.

He thinks of his son.

He is overcome, he screams his remorse that he cannot hold on any longer…

He is in so much pain...

…

It is his son.

This one can sense him within his son, fleeting impressions of him. But his son is not him. The grip is nervous and the palms sweat. His son is not certain he deserves this one.

This one is not sure either.

…

His son is not him.

His son has trouble trusting this one to do the magic. This one will do the magic, if only because it is his son, but his son does not believe. His son lacks his confidence. His son could be so much more but his son is unsure and even frightened of what he can do.

This one will try, but this one does not think his son will fill the void he left.

…

His son has found an island of quiet.

His son feels almost like him, among the green living things that respond to his son's touch and care and voice.

This one is intrigued. His son is not him, and yet his son has found a way to echo him in a way wholly his own.

…

His son is changing.

There is a determination that is almost frightening in its intensity. His son is casting the spells that he cast near the end, the spells to bind and stun and hold and disarm. Is his son going to fight his fight?

Little by little, this one can sense his son more clearly.

His son becomes more like him each day and with every spell.

…

His son is fighting.

The courage he had is a wellspring within his son, and his son fights valiantly through the fear. His son trusts this one with his life, and this one will not fail him.

His son is like him at last.

But this one does not have the bond shared with him. This one cannot tell what his son wants to cast without the vocalizations, and this one...this one cannot understand, cannot hear what his son wants, cannot feel anything except his son's pain.

This one does not want to fail his son. But this one is. This one cannot keep his son alive.

This one is ashamed.

And then this one is broken flying shattered

asunder

fragments

pieces

this one is done


***


Part II: White oak and phoenix tears, nine and one half inches, pliable


This one has no kin, there are no other wands in the shop like this one, this one is rare. This one is unique in a way none of the others are unique.

This one does not see light often, the Creator knows that this one is a special one. This one has yet to feel the grasp of one with which this one resonates.

It has been many years.

This one is patient.

…

Oh, she is so young. This one needs a more experienced hand, this one does not have the temperament for a young one who will make so many mistakes before learning her true worth.

But...odd. Her fingers hold this one with a surety and grace, and her heart bubbles with happiness. This one feels warm.

She is a thing of compassion. This is good. And her mind is very quick, quick indeed. This is good.

And she desires...yes, yes! She mends. The desire in her heart of hearts is to mend the world and vanquish pain.

So she is very young. So she is inexperienced.

This one will guide her. This one has chosen.

…

This one gleams with fierce pride. She is so clever. There are mistakes, of course, there are always mistakes, but never the same one twice. Her magic is like painting and after only a few years it is effortless.

She shines.

…

She is thinking hard.

She does not use this one nearly as much, she is reading, always reading, always thinking. She holds a quill more often than this one, she sketches, she labels.

This one is patient. This one knows what she will become, and this one will be ready and proud to help her.

…

Things are difficult again. She is flustered but so pleased, so pleased that things are no longer easy, and this one is exhilarated. This magic, the closing of wounds and knitting of bones, this magic is a thrill of warmth every time she uses this one.

She makes mistakes again, sometimes even the same one twice, because this magic is not easy magic. But this one helps, as much as possible, and she knows it.

…

The years pass, and the magic grows ever more difficult. She mends flesh easily now, she need not even speak the words, for this one knows her so well and knows her mind and how to focus her magic just so. But now she removes curses from wounds, and it is like prying away slippery ropes, and she struggles with the incantations and her patient screams in agony and she bears down with her mind and the curse SNAPS

Her patient trembles, but her hand is steady, and she uses this one to bind the clean wound, to let it bleed freshly for a day before closing it.

Oh, she is so clever. This one is so lucky.

…

A wizard has come to see her.

This one can sense him like so few others, this wizard exudes a calm power. This one has felt the wizard before, and she has a vast respect for him. She defers to him as she defers to her superiors, and this one quite agrees. The wizard is not a man to be trifled with.

The wizard asks if she would return. There is a place for one with her talent.

She is so flattered. She is excited, excited in a way this one has seldom felt.

…

She is feeling a great satisfaction. She is back in the halls she grew up in, in the halls where she toiled and learned with this one at her side.

She is surveying the rows of beds and smiling.

It is small. But it is hers.

This one is so proud, and this one is honored to heal by her hand.

…

It is this boy again. If it is not this boy it is the other one, the one who snaps bones like twigs.

This one does not like feeling the boy, there is something within him that resists healing, wants to push the magic away.

And yet this boy is here so often. She is both amused and exasperated. Trouble follows the boy and his friends.

She is sure she will see him many more times.

…

She has become a tight knot of worry laced with despair.

She sleeps no longer, catnaps only, because she must be awake if they come to her in the night.

Oh, this is magic she never wanted to have to use. This one cringes to have to cast it: mental shields against lingering phantom Cruciatus pains, special seals for Sectumsempra gashes and slices, and so many bruises and limps and cuts.

It pains her so to leave these last. But she must, lest she be caught. Lest she be punished.

And this young wizard, the one who brings them, he is the worst off, and even this one yearns to take his pain, but he refuses. He's come far from the boy of broken bones.

She bids him to keep the young ones safe. He responds that he's trying.

She folds into a chair and cries. They are hurting her students, her patients, and she cannot mend it.

And this one cannot mend her.

…

Something is happening.

All is confusion, no one can tell her what exactly is occurring, and there is so much fear everywhere that this one is overwhelmed.

The young wizard shouts at her from afar to set up a field hospital.

She has direction, a goal, a plan. She trusts the young wizard, respects him, and this one agrees.

She has no time to brew potions; what she has will have to do. That and her wits.

This one is confident in her ability.

Pride is a furnace within her as she mends cuts and burns and her patients spring up to head back to battle. She is helping in her own way, and this one is helping with her.

…

The first body is a shock. He is not dead, yet, when they bring him to her, but she sets her jaw and murmurs a spell this one has never before cast, and her sadness flows through this one and creates a barrier between the pain and the patient so he can die peacefully.

Then she turns to heal a girl burned over most of her body, but the pain in her chest rings like an old bell, and this one knows she has never before had to triage, but the injuries coming to her are bad and worse, and she cannot mend them all.

This one can take some of her grief. This one can take some of the tears from her eyes and help her stand strong.

The night is not over, and her patients need her, and she needs this one.

…

There are so many dead. There are so many dying. There are so many wounded.

She is exhausted.

…

She cowers at the wizard in the middle of the room, and this one cowers with her - never has this one sensed such malevolent power, such a thirst for pain and chaos.

This one almost cannot sense the other, but then he is burning bright with his own power, and - it is that boy.

She cannot believe it either.

They are circling, talking, this one cannot understand what is said but their meanings clash against each other and she can feel the power of it and she reels, and this one reels with her.

There is a blinding surge of magic brighter than the sun so powerful so hot and this one cannot bear the presence.

…

She uses this one to heal a cut on that boy's cheek. He thanks her, simply, and she smiles.

She could not do everything this night. The number of dead is too high. One is too many. This one can feel the pain in her heart as she recalls who she couldn't save.

But this one is so proud. All will remember that boy for his actions, and many will forget her own heroism, but this one never will.

This one is proud to heal by her hand.