Ted and Hermione waited for their friend at the ice cream stand in Diagon Alley. Soon, Harley and the others arrived, and everyone ate ice cream while waiting for Ron. They had all agreed to go buy a magic wand together today.
Ron finally arrived after about half an hour. He was followed closely by the twins, Fred and George, and his little sister, Ginny!
Ron shrugged and curled his lip in resignation. "I couldn't help it, guys. They just insisted on coming to shop."
"Please, sit down!" Ted gestured to the empty chairs.
The twins immediately huddled together next to Ted. George leaned in and whispered, "We need to talk to you!"
Fred nodded emphatically. "You definitely need to know this!"
Ted smacked his lips, suddenly wary. "Hopefully, it's a good thing."
"Of course! We're definitely looking for you for something good!"
Ted thought to himself: Our standards for what constitutes 'good' might be a little different.
Ginny sat down next to Harley and Hermione, but her eyes kept darting nervously toward Neville.
Neville stiffened slightly. I sense danger?!
"Ugh~" Ron suddenly groaned, clutching his stomach.
"What's wrong?" Neville asked quickly, alarmed.
Ron pointed a trembling finger at the large ice cream cone he had just taken a big bite out of. "This... this is poisonous!"
It turned out to be a small promotional event organized by the ice cream shop owner, Florean Fortescue, called "Who's the Lucky One?" The premise was simple: one out of every hundred taro-flavored ice creams was actually eggplant-flavored.
It was painfully obvious that Ron was the "lucky" one.
The ice cream shop owner, Florean Fortescue, was a nice, humorous man probably in his forties. Hearing the commotion, he came over and rewarded Ron, the lucky winner, with three free ice creams of random flavors to make up for the eggplant surprise.
Yes, he had developed a new type of experimental ice cream based heavily on the concept of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, hoping to bring more surprises to his consumers.
"Do you think we're still first graders?" Ron complained loudly to his friends. "Interested in something like Every Flavor Beans? That just proves those beans aren't tasty at all!"
Despite his loud complaining, Ron showed off his true feelings by immediately digging into the free ice cream.
Now that everyone was finally gathered and finished eating, it was time to get down to business and go to Ollivanders to buy a wand.
A large group of people hurrying down the street naturally attracted quite a bit of attention along the way. After all, with such a small overall population in the wizarding world, it's not something you see every day that so many young wizards get together just to go shopping.
As they pushed open the heavy wooden door of the Ollivanders store, the tinkling door bell rang automatically.
Mr. Ollivander, hearing the sudden noise, slowly turned past the dusty shelves in the back room and emerged silently, almost as if appearing out of nowhere. He looked up and was visibly startled—why were there so many people in his shop at once? Were they all here for after-sales service?!
However, Neville and Ron were significantly more nervous than the old wandmaker. Although they were both going into their third year at Hogwarts, it was their very first time visiting Ollivanders and buying their own wands, so they were quite anxious.
Ted took the initiative to step forward and greet him. "Hello, Mr. Ollivander."
Ollivander's pale eyes immediately darted to the wand at Ted's waist. "Oh, a cedar wood and phoenix feather wand, ten and three-quarters inches... Mr. Ted Epifani! I've heard you've done quite a few good deeds at school recently. Is your wand treating you alright?"
"It's me. The wand is excellent, very easy to use." Ted strongly suspected the man had a perfect mental register recording every single wand he had ever sold.
"Sir, these are the two who want to buy wands this time." Ted pointed to Neville and Ron.
"Oh? You two certainly don't look like first-year students?" Ollivander looked at them suspiciously, his brow furrowed.
Neville was now 1.74 meters tall, a big, broad-shouldered, and strong young man. Honestly, if he didn't have such a remarkably kind face, people would probably be worried about him participating in school bullying!
Although Ron wasn't quite as tall or broad as Neville, he was more precocious and had developed earlier than most, making him look like a solid fourth or fifth grader.
Ollivander was understandably a little unsettled by their late purchase of wands.
"They were both using their older family's wands before now, but they finally need to buy their own," Ted explained smoothly.
Ted's voice was naturally convincing, and Ollivander readily believed him, nodding in understanding. "Alright, then!"
However, the old man also had his own deep professional pride. He said softly, "Our wands are not simply bought, but chosen. The wand chooses its master, it's a matter of fate... For just a few Galleons, you have the chance to try and find it."
Ted and his friends were taken aback by the dramatic delivery, but couldn't help but nod in silent agreement. The master is a man of noble character!
Next up, it was finally Neville and Ron's turn.
Ron was immediately pushed forward by Neville. Since Ron wasn't nearly as physically strong as Neville, he had no choice but to accept his fate and go first to the counter.
"Try this one…" Ollivander waved his own wand, and a whole bunch of dusty rectangular boxes flew out from the shelves.
When Ron nervously grasped his first wand, it immediately started violently smoking. His friends, having been bitten once by magical accidents, were now extremely wary of the ropes; upon seeing this highly familiar, dangerous scene, they immediately cast the Bubble-Head Charm on their heads for protection.
The result was just a completely normal plume of harmless black smoke... This highly defensive reaction left Ollivander completely dumbfounded. He stood there wondering if these poor children had developed severe post-traumatic stress disorder? Why else were they reacting so strongly to a simple wand mismatch?
After several more failed selections and small explosions, Ron finally got a wand that felt right.
Ollivander stroked the newly matched wand with deep satisfaction, a smile of serendipity spreading on his wrinkled face.
"The core is the heartstring of a Hebridean Black Dragon. It is strong and highly resilient, adaptable to all kinds of difficult situations. The shaft is crafted from the Whomping Willow, making it exceptionally powerful against humanoid enemies. Oh, by the way! You know that famous Whomping Willow planted at Hogwarts, right? That specific one!"
Ron was taken aback and paled. "How could I possibly know about that!"
Ollivander said with deep professional regret, "Unfortunately, someone severely damaged that magnificent tree last year, and I haven't been able to safely harvest or make wands from its branches for the past two years. Do you happen to know who did it?"
Ron remained perfectly calm, his face a mask of innocence. "I don't know anything about that, I've never even heard of it!"
The group of friends standing behind him were trying so incredibly hard to hold back their explosive laughter that they almost choked on their own breath.
Ginny, her face flushed bright red, aggressively bit her sleeve to muffle her giggles, desperately trying to keep up the ladylike act. The twins had already smartly escaped the shop entirely, and their loud, barking laughter could be clearly heard even through the heavy closed door.
Ted remembered clearly that in the original timeline's story, Ron's second wand was supposed to be made of chestnut wood with a standard unicorn hair core.
Chestnut wood is widely considered the most inquisitive of all wand woods. It has very few inherent characteristics or dominating traits of its own, but it naturally attracts highly skilled magical beast tamers, wizards with exceptional herbalism talents, or natural-born aviators.
Unicorn hair is a very neutral, consistent material for wand cores; it depends entirely on the owner's personal choices and moral alignment.
Now, however, Ron is significantly more focused on the raw power of his spells, and so the core of his new staff has appropriately become the powerful Dragon Heartstring. As for the Whomping Willow wood? Well, that's just pure, ironic fate.
In fact, Ron didn't even get to use his second wand much in the original story; he tragically lost it during the height of the Seventh War. His final, most used wand was actually Peter Pettigrew's stolen wand, which also had a core made of dragon heartstring.
Now, they had finally arrived at Neville.
Ollivander clearly recognized the famous boy who had miraculously survived the Killing Curse. But he only gave Neville a very deep, calculating look, said absolutely nothing, and prepared a large number of wand boxes just as he had done before.
But compared to Ron's relatively quick matching process, Neville's situation was much less smooth.
After trying more than a dozen different wands, none of them were even remotely suitable, and Neville could acutely feel the heavy awkwardness filling the room.
Ollivander, however, remained remarkably calm, almost as if he had entirely anticipated this specific outcome.
"Wait a moment," he said softly. "I'll be gone for just a little while." With that cryptic statement, he walked slowly toward the back door of the shop.
Two or three minutes later, he returned carefully carrying a single, light purple box, his expression rather solemn and serious.
"I knew it would eventually find its true owner. It's fate!" he said, looking rather mystical and profound.
Seeing his intense expression, his friends dared not be mischievous anymore, and they looked at him with slight, creeping nervousness. Master, how exactly do you explain this?
Ollivander slowly opened the purple box, took out a pristine wand, and held it reverently in his hand, stroking the wood carefully.
"Holly wood, with a core of phoenix tail feather, exactly eleven inches long..." He silently handed the beautiful wand to Neville.
Neville took it with a somewhat strange, hesitant expression. Instantly, a deep blue magical light shimmered brightly on the tip of the wand, and warm rays of light swirled beautifully around him.
"Wow~" Ron's mouth dropped open in pure shock; he was so jealous.
I didn't get to have such a grand, magical scene just now! Ollivander, why are you treating people so differently based on their social status?!
As the master wandmaker Ollivander deeply admired the beautiful, rare scene of man and wand perfectly becoming one, he explained his reasoning earnestly. "I remember every single wand I've ever sold..."
Ted's internal monologue: Sell? Didn't you just say it was all about fate?
Ollivander continued his dramatic explanation. "The core of this specific wand comes from the exact same phoenix as the core of another, very specific wand. That other one has a yew wood shaft, carved from the ancient Tree of Life! They are brother wands. And it was its brother's owner who left this terrible scar on your forehead…"
Upon hearing this heavy revelation, Neville solemnly touched the lightning-bolt "S" scar on his forehead. "Then we really are destined to meet..."
Neville wasn't in very high spirits after leaving the shop because Voldemort had been so directly mentioned.
Hermione was quickly dragged away to go shopping by Harley, along with Ginny trailing behind them.
The twins took this perfect opportunity to suddenly pull Ted away into an alley, saying urgently that they had something highly secret to discuss with him, leaving Ron behind to stay and comfort Neville.
Ron complained loudly to their retreating backs, "George and Ted should really just be long-lost brothers; they're much closer than I am to him!"
Ted was also genuinely puzzled by the twins' behavior. Why were they being so incredibly secretive all of a sudden? Just tell me what's going on!
What George and his twin brother finally said startled Ted completely!
George leaned in and whispered fiercely: "Ted, we have awakened our Stand!"
Ted blinked, his mind buffering. "...Huh?"
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Word count: 2020
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