One Wand to Rule Them All!

According to their brief tour, this shop was the very best place to buy his wand. Catherine had tried to persuade him to shop around and get a good price, but she hadn't spent eleven years reading fantasy novels. Or, not so fantasy, it seemed.

A thousand books had taught Sam what would happen if he bought shoddy equipment. He'd rather not be on the receiving end of that, thanks.

Being just a week before term started, the shop was packed with people. A girl ahead of him waved her wand and flame spurted from the tip. Oh, that didn't look unsafe at all.

With a shrug, he walked nonchalantly to one wall of the shop, which was designed like a bookcase, except that instead of books it held long, thin wand boxes.

Sam reached out to pull one down at random.

"Immobulus!" Columbia shot a freezing charm at the boy standing in front of the wand wall.

She finished serving her customers then turned her attention back to him.

"Wands are more like shoes than video games," she told him. "You must get fitted before you can test one out."

"Now, I am going to unfreeze you and you shan't touch anything in this shop without my leave. Unless you want to come to a very unfortunate end."

Columbia assumed his agreement and unfroze the child.

The sensation of the spell hitting him was surreal. Sam's fingers hadn't quite reached the wand box, so he could still feel his arm moving except that all of a sudden it wasn't. There was no pain or anything, his body had simply ceased obeying him. It was fascinating.

As the woman attended to her other customers, Sam tried fruitlessly to wiggle his fingers. Nothing.

Then all of a sudden she was back, telling him off about touching the merchandise.

As soon as the spell was off, Sam took a step back, flexing his hand to reassure himself he could really move again.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't know."

"It's not your fault," Columbia sighed. "You just scared me."

"Some of the wands can be temperamental even through the box," she explained.

She summoned the tape measure and it began taking measurements.

"My name is Columbia. What's yours?"

Temperamental? So wands could think? Or at least had feelings, like animals maybe? Sam filed that information away for later.

The tape measure flew across the room and began taking measurements. Sam stood straight and waited for it to finish. Perhaps there was some kind of magical ratio involved that would tell Columbia which wands to fit him with.

"Er," he said, swivelling his eyes to follow the tape's movements. "My name's Sam."

Columbia smirked as she wrote down the tape's measures.

"Oh that will never do," she replied. "When people in the Wiz- Wixen World ask your name they really want to know if you're related to anyone important. If you just answer with your first name they'll assume you're an uncultured muggleborn."

"Dominant hand?"

Sam stared at her. So far, he'd only heard a few allusions to the way wixes thought about heritage. He could tell it was important to them but until Columbia spoke, it hadn't dawned on him why.

"Muggles have lots of culture," he replied, too stunned to even sound indignant. "We have more culture than you do."

"Right."

"Oh, you'll find a lot of witches and wizards like to take credit for that," Columbia replied as she jotted down his answer.

"I'm not saying it's right," she went on, looking up, "just what they do."

She disappeared into the long aisles of the shop for a few minutes and then was back, carrying a pile of boxes.

"Try this one first," she pulled the lid from a green box. "Ash and dragon heartstring."