Chapter 37: The Strange Rule About Wands and Dining Sticks
"Ron, I haven't asked yet," Douglas said at last. "Who were you trying to hit with the Slug-Vomiting Charm before it backfired?"
The moment the question landed, Ron's face turned bright red. He gritted his teeth and said nothing.
Harry looked as though he was about to laugh, but didn't dare. He still had a chicken foot in his mouth, and his face was so red it was hard to tell whether it was from the spice or the effort of holding it in.
Hermione stuck out her tongue slightly and answered for him.
"It was Malfoy. He called me a Mudblood, and Ron charged at him. I didn't know what it meant at first, but it obviously sounded horrible…"
Ron looked up, still a little breathless.
"It's a filthy word. Everyone was furious. Mudblood is an insult for witches and wizards born to Muggle families."
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and went on in a rush.
"Families like the Malfoys think they're better than everyone else just because they're supposedly pure-blood. Mudblood means dirty blood, inferior blood. It's disgusting. And most wizards are half-bloods anyway. If no one had ever married Muggles, we'd all have died out ages ago."
Then he turned to Douglas and blurted, "Professor, you ought to punish those Slytherins properly."
Harry leaned toward him and whispered, "Don't forget Professor Holmes is Muggle-born too."
Hagrid suddenly slapped the table so hard the bowls jumped. He looked from Hermione to Douglas.
"That reminds me of something."
Douglas only shrugged. He already knew what was coming.
Hagrid pointed at the three younger students.
"What happened today? I saw something just like it years ago. Only back then, Douglas and Bill put a bunch of Slytherins who'd only just come out of the hospital wing right back into it."
He let out a booming laugh, then turned to Hermione with rough but sincere warmth.
"So don't you take it to heart, all right? There isn't much Hermione can't do once she puts her mind to it. And look at Douglas. He's Muggle-born too, and there's nothing lacking in him."
Douglas remembered the incident clearly. It had nearly driven Professor Snape mad.
The whole thing had been simple enough.
It happened not long after the row over the orchard. A few Slytherins Douglas had already put in the hospital wing came looking for trouble the moment they were released. They found him near the orchard and challenged him to a private duel.
Douglas had already caused enough trouble that year. He had no desire to push his luck and end up expelled.
Unfortunately, the Slytherins had no interest in restraint. They started cursing him as a Mudblood who only knew how to play in the dirt.
Douglas had understood perfectly well that it was meant as an insult. Still, compared to the kind of abuse he'd heard growing up in his previous life, their insults felt almost embarrassingly weak. If he had answered them in the language he'd grown up with, their ancestors would have climbed out of their graves just to object.
He himself didn't care.
Bill did.
The moment Bill heard the word, his face changed. A green spell flew from his wand before anyone could stop him.
Douglas drew his own wand at once and backed him up.
Together, they sent the same boys who had just left the hospital wing straight back into it.
Professors McGonagall, Sprout, and Snape arrived moments later and found exactly that scene waiting for them.
For the sake of order, for the sake of House peace, and for the sake of keeping the matter quiet, every House involved was docked points and the students on both sides were given detention.
The professors hated the word Mudblood well enough. Snape especially. But hating a word and openly crossing old pure-blood families were two very different things. In the end, the compromise was simple: the ones who had started it were injured and punished, and the ones who had hit back were punished too. As far as the professors were concerned, that was the neatest possible ending.
Douglas had no intention of leaving it there.
Just as the professors were about to leave, he had asked, in the calmest voice imaginable:
"But no one has actually told me what Mudblood means."
"Why did Bill get so angry when he heard it?"
"Why do Slytherin students think I'm one?"
"Was it you, Professor Snape, who taught them that word?"
"Do you think I'm one too?"
"Is it because I'm Muggle-born?"
"Why don't students in the other Houses use that word?"
"Are Muggle-borns not allowed to be friends with pure-bloods and half-bloods?"
And in every sentence, he had repeated the word again.
Mudblood.
Bill, standing beside him, had instantly realized that the air around them had changed. He tugged urgently at Douglas's sleeve, trying to make him stop.
Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout had both looked close to tears. To them, every repetition sounded like fresh hurt. Before either of them could say a word, Snape's face had gone whiter and whiter.
Then the air around him changed.
Magic rose off him in a way that made even the other professors react. His hair lifted, his robes snapped in the wind, and McGonagall and Sprout drew their wands in an instant, both of them moving to shield Bill and Douglas.
Snape did not attack.
He only roared, "You are not to say those three words again!"
Then, before either of the other two professors could respond, he spun on his heel and stalked away.
Afterward, Douglas heard what became of those Slytherins.
Apparently, in Potions class on the very day they were discharged from the hospital wing, they were made to drink the potions they had brewed themselves. Unfortunately for them, they brewed them badly enough to poison themselves. The damage was severe enough that even Snape couldn't repair it on the spot, and they were sent straight on to St. Mungo's for a month.
First Douglas and Bill had sent them to the hospital wing.
Then their own potion sent them to hospital.
Douglas, remembering it now, felt only the sincerest pity.
When he returned to himself, everyone in Hagrid's hut was still busy comforting Hermione with one example after another. Under so much praise, Hermione's ears had gone bright red.
Douglas didn't bother trying to comfort her. Hermione was not the sort to crumble over a word. That, however, depended on the times.
What made people truly hate the word Mudblood was not simply that it was insulting. During Voldemort's first rise, it had become something else entirely. Being called that could mean death. Not only for you, but for your whole family.
Once it became a marker by which Death Eaters chose their prey, the word stopped being a slur and became a threat.
More than a decade had passed since Voldemort's disappearance, and that fear had dulled with time. But the hatred for the word had not gone with it. Even among pure-blood families who wanted peace, the word had become deeply foul. In a world where more and more witches and wizards had Muggle-born friends, no one with any sense could pretend otherwise.
Douglas's thoughts shifted. He did not clearly remember the details from the old story anymore, but he did remember one important thing:
Ron's wand was broken.
If he remembered rightly, that broken wand eventually turned on Lockhart.
Ron, noticing that Douglas had been staring at him for too long, slowly put down the chicken foot in his hand and gave him an awkward smile.
"This is really good, Professor. So good I think I'm getting addicted. Ha… haha…"
Then his smile slipped.
"Professor, if you've got something to say, just say it. It's unnerving when you stare like that."
Douglas came back to himself and coughed lightly.
"Ahem. I heard your wand's broken. Let me see it."
Ron visibly relaxed at once. Flushing with embarrassment, he fished the wand out and handed it over.
Douglas looked at it.
Then he looked at Ron again.
The wand had been wrapped in tape. Once Douglas carefully removed the tape, the thing was so badly split it looked ready to fall into two pieces in his hand. He had no idea how Ron had managed not to blow himself apart with it already.
"Ron," he said slowly, "if I remember correctly, this used to be Charlie's wand. Twelve inches. Ash wood. Unicorn hair."
Ron nodded miserably.
"Yes. You're right. You know what our family's like. Charlie's old wand, Percy's old rat…"
Then he looked up hopefully.
"Professor, can you fix it?"
Douglas turned the wand over in his hand, studied it, then shook his head.
"A wand is an extremely delicate magical object. Unfortunately, wandmaking isn't my field."
He paused.
"But I can try a Repairing Charm."
He remembered that a certain wand had once been repaired with a wand of extraordinary quality. As it happened, the one he carried was widely considered to be among the finest in Britain. That, at least, had been Ollivander's opinion.
When Douglas drew his own wand, Harry noticed that he actually had two on him.
All three children watched Ron's wand nervously.
Douglas aimed carefully and said, "Reparo."
Light ran over the snapped wand.
Before their eyes, the wood began to knit together.
Ron's whole face lit up. He was already imagining the next time he saw Malfoy and exactly what kind of curse he would return.
Then—
Crack.
The repaired wand exploded on the table.
Fortunately, Douglas reacted in the same instant. He threw up a Shield Charm around the three children and himself. Hagrid, for all his size, was astonishingly fast too. He flung out one enormous arm to protect the great jar of spiced chicken feet from the blast.
When the noise had passed, everyone stared at one another.
Douglas looked down at the wreckage, then at the wand in his own hand, and muttered under his breath,
"Ollivander, you old fraud."
Ron looked as though he wanted to cry and couldn't quite manage it. He stared at the fragments on the table, then at Douglas, and tried very hard to look as though none of it mattered.
"It's all right, Professor. It's not your fault. It hardly worked properly anyway."
Harry and Hermione both looked at Ron, then at Douglas, unsure what to say.
Douglas only shrugged.
"Don't look so miserable. Since I finished destroying it, I'll replace it."
Ron immediately flapped both hands.
"No, no, really, you don't have to—"
Douglas cut him off firmly.
"You are making me feel terrible. What am I supposed to say to Bill and Charlie? That I blasted their brother's wand into splinters and then left him with it?"
He spoke lightly, but not jokingly.
"Besides, experimenting with spells always carries risk. That's normal. If I hadn't used your wand to test the limit, I'd never have known where the failure point was. So that settles it."
Then he flicked Harry and Hermione a meaningful look.
They understood at once and joined in.
Ron, faced with Douglas, Harry, and Hermione all calmly insisting it was reasonable, slowly began to weaken. Hagrid, meanwhile, remained occupied with his food and contributed absolutely nothing.
At length, Douglas added the final push.
"Ron, I once promised Bill that every new Weasley child who arrived at school would receive a gift from me. Unfortunately, I wasn't here when George, Fred, and you started."
He spread his hands.
"So consider the new wand your school-starting gift from me. Just don't tell George and Fred. I never intended to give them one."
The moment Ron heard the twins were getting nothing, his expression changed completely. He accepted the idea with obvious relief and immediately promised to keep quiet.
Douglas let out a quiet breath. Getting the gift accepted had taken more work than expected.
He didn't know Ron especially well, but he knew enough. Ron was proud, sensitive, and far more easily wounded than he liked people to think. Just as importantly, the Weasleys were the sort of family who understood the burden of a gift. If you gave them something too grand, they would feel obliged to answer it in kind. For a family already stretched thin, that mattered.
That was why Douglas always chose his moments carefully with them.
He never minded Mrs. Weasley's knitted jumpers, however strange the colors might be. Whatever her taste, she was one of only two adults in that world who still remembered his birthday.
The other was Dean George at the orphanage.
Right now, though, the point was not that the Weasleys couldn't afford a wand.
It was that Ron almost certainly hadn't dared tell them he'd broken his in the flying-car disaster. The effect of that Howler at the start of term was still very much alive in his mind.
With Douglas's help, the pork and noodles were soon ready. Left to Hagrid, the meat would have been chopped into slabs nearly the size of Douglas's face.
Just as they were about to eat, Hagrid suddenly rummaged around and produced a long narrow case.
He handed it to Douglas with obvious delight.
"Douglas, haven't you always wanted a pair of dining sticks made from unicorn horn? Have a look, see if they suit you."
Douglas stared at him, surprised, and opened the case.
Inside lay a pair of pale golden dining sticks, smooth and gleaming.
He remembered mentioning the idea once, years ago, while talking with Hagrid about unicorns. He had never thought Hagrid would remember.
Hagrid waved away the surprise as though it were nothing.
"Last year two poor unicorns were killed by some mystery wizard. Harry and the others know about that…"
The three younger ones stared at the dining sticks with wide eyes.
Ron blurted, "I wish my wand looked like that."
Hagrid laughed and looked at the three of them with exaggerated mystery.
"I bet none of you know why there's a rule in the Hogwarts handbook that says you're not allowed to use your own wand, or anyone else's, as dining sticks."
All three of them shook their heads at once.
Harry said, "Before Hogwarts, I didn't even know what dining sticks were."
Ron lifted a hand.
"I did. Mum uses them sometimes when she makes certain dishes. She's the only one in the family who's any good with them, though. I've no idea where she learned."
Hermione frowned thoughtfully.
"I've wondered about that rule since last year. I always thought dining sticks were mostly used far away in the Muggle world, and hardly anyone at Hogwarts knows how to use them except some Hufflepuffs. I wondered whether the school used to have students from abroad."
Hagrid said nothing.
But the look in his eyes made all three children turn slowly toward Douglas.
Douglas, meanwhile, was testing the pair Hagrid had made. They were longer and a little thicker than the ones he had fashioned for himself, but they would be excellent for a steaming pot of food in the middle of a table.
When he felt them all staring at him, he shot Hagrid an exasperated look. Next time, he told himself, he was never eating with Hagrid in front of children again.
"In fact," he said at last, "that rule only really makes sense when read together with another one: 'Do not use cauldrons for table-side boiling.'"
The three children leaned in at once.
Douglas kept his face perfectly straight.
"A few unfortunate students once used their wands as dining sticks while reaching into a cauldron at table. They accidentally triggered spells without meaning to. The cauldron exploded. Several of them ended up in the hospital wing."
He shrugged.
"A sad little bit of school history."
Then he looked at the food and waved a hand dismissively.
"But there's no point discussing such miserable nonsense with good food sitting in front of us."
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