July 17th, 1965

Margret Anne glanced up at her mother. Her mouth was drawn down in an anxious, disapproving frown, which to Margret Anne meant everything was fine. It was better than fine, it was wonderful. "What on earth would the vicar say?" her mother muttered.

"You'd best not be telling him," the very short man who was escorting them answered cheerfully. He had introduced himself as a professor when he had brought The Letter, and even looking around at everything, Margret Anne still could barely believe it, that this little man taught at a school for magic. A school she was going to attend. "There are laws against it you know!"

"There are magical laws?" her mother asked faintly. "You people make laws?"

"Well you couldn't very well expect Muggles to deal with Wizarding criminals, now could you?" he tittered. "Now my dear, there's just one thing left. The most important tool a witch can possess, aside from her mind. And her magic itself, of course. Your wand."

As he spoke, he held open the door to a dimly lit shop, the interior of which was strewn with long, narrow boxes. They rested on every surface, dangling precariously off the edges of shelves and tables, stacked haphazardly on the floor or on the one chair. As they closed the door, one of the boxes slid off its perch on the arm of the chair and onto its fellows on the seat. "Oh dear," Margret Anne mumbled.

A tall, graying man loped his way over to greet them. "Filius Flitwick, elm and unicorn horn, nine and a quarter inches, quite bendable. Congratulations on your recent appointment, Professor Flitwick," he said, voice creaking softly. "You begin teaching this next term?"

Professor Flitwick's cheeks went faintly pink. "Yes well, I brought a student, Miss Baker."

Margret Anne stepped forward, hands clasped behind her back, and the man turned his pale, distant eyes onto her. "Hold your arms out for me Miss Baker. Which is your wand arm?"

"Er," Margret Anne said.

"Which hand do you prefer to write with?" prompted Professor Flitwick.

"Right," she told him, voice hoarse with sudden nerves.

At that, the man snapped his fingers and a ribbon of measuring tape jumped out of his pocket. All the big bangs and flashes and things looked like stage magic, but this was something Mrs. Baker did all of the time, and here it was being done, nonchalantly, with magic. Made it feel real, Margret Anne supposed.

The measuring tape moved to her her legs, then worked its way through every measurement she thought was even possible as the man wrote down the numbers. At last he said, "You can drop your arms now, Miss Baker."

Margret Anne did, gratefully, as he picked up a stack of boxes off the chair and carried them with him to a rickety rolling ladder. "I do apologize for the mess, Miss Baker. My last customer was a tricky one. Well, not so much him as his father..." He sighed as he rolled the ladder back and forth, putting the boxes away before carefully selecting several more and climbing back down. "I shouldn't speak ill of my customers, but some of them forget that it is the wand that chooses the wizard and not the other way round."

He opened one of the boxes and lifted out a dark wood wand with a gleaming finish. "Walnut and phoenix feather, eleven inches, stiff." He handed it to her gently. "Give it a try."

She took it, looking at him uncertainly, before giving it a halfhearted wave. There was a zooming sound, and one of the spokes on the back of the chair snapped.

"Margret Anne!" her mother yelped. "Be careful!"

"No, this is to be expected," the wandmaker said calmly. "The good professor set fire to my carpet when he was finding his first wand." Professor Flitwick went pink again. "But I don't think this wand is for you."

He put it back in his box and handed her another. "Spruce and dragon heartstring, twelve and a quarter inches, thin and pliable."

She gave it a more cautious flick, and a small fizzling spark floated out. He snatched it out of her hands, passing her another, this time ten inches, vine, with a unicorn hair. It did absolutely nothing at all when she waved it.

"Hmm," the man said, and Margret Anne looked down.

Professor Flitwick reached up to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, Miss Baker, Ollivander has never failed to match a witch or wizard who came into his store with a wand."

Ollivander looked down from where he was fetching more wand boxes, to see Margret Anne walking over to the windowsill, where a box waited, hanging off the edge. She picked it up. It felt warm from the sun, pulling off the lid, she grasped the wand inside, warmth flooding her fingers like she had dipped them in bathwater. "Oh," she whispered.

Ollivander hastily put the boxes away and leapt down. "Ah," he said, drawing the sound out. "Give it a wave."

A cloud of sweet perfume poured out, silver sparks dancing in the air around her like confetti. "Wow." She couldn't stop staring at it, the lustrous gray wood, the elegant round handle, it was... Wow.

"Silver Lime and Unicorn hair, eleven inches, flexible," Ollivander proclaimed. "An interesting wand has picked you, Margret Anne Baker."

"Interesting how?" her mother demanded.

Ollivander blinked at her. "Silver lime was very fashionable in my grandfather's day. Lovely wand wood, but it is not for every witch or wizard who finds it pretty. It prefers witches and wizards talented in some of the rarer and more mysterious magical arts. Your daughter must be most strong minded, and clear sighted for this wand to take to her so." He turned to Margret Anne. "It may have fallen out of fashion, but craft is craft, and you would do well to remember that, whatever path you choose."

As her mother stepped over to pay for the wand with that weird Wizarding money, Margret Anne reluctantly put the wand back in its box and wrapped it back up for safekeeping. She clutched it to her chest rather than let Ollivander bag it for her. She could almost hear it calling her name, but she couldn't hear it well enough to tell what name it was calling, just that it wasn't Margret Anne, even if it was definitely calling to her.

Flitwick opened the door for them, and sunlight and noise from the street poured in, dispelling the wand shop's shadowy quiet. "When you reach third year, my dear, I would recommend taking Divination," he told her. "Not a subject I ever had much talent for, I'm sad to say, but one I suspect you will excel in."

And that, suddenly, even more than holding that wand, even more than listening it whisper her name to her, cracked through the unreality of it all. There she was, standing there in her prim little blouse and skirt, braids and ribbons in her hair, looking just as proper and respectable middle class English as her mother could make her, in the doorway of a wand shop, holding her own wand, listening to a professor of magic recommend which classes she should take at magic school, as if it were completely normal.

o0O0o

Her mother had already gone to bed when Margret Anne ambushed her father in the sitting room. She was wearing pajamas, and her hair was wet from the bath, but she had her new wand in her hand, and that was the important thing. She jabbed it into the back of his neck. "Hi Dad."

"What are you doing, Margret Anne?" he asked sharply. There was a note of fear there. Good, she thought.

"I have a wand now," she told him. "I'm going to school to learn how to use my magic. I want you to know something."

He turned around. The tip of her wand brushed against his Adam's apple. "Margret Anne, you need to go to bed right now."

"Remember when I threw you into the wall?"

He stopped, eyes wide.

"I never want to see you again, but I will settle for you never touching me again."

She turned her back and walked away. When she had made it halfway to the door, her father got his voice back. "I guess it didn't work, taking you in, taking you away from the heathens." Margret Anne whirled around, eyes narrowed, but he didn't stop talking. "We raised you in a good British Christian family, and you still-"

Margret Anne cut him off. "The professor who showed us around today, he's English."

He stared at her wand defiantly. "You're going to hell, Margret Anne."

"Yeah well, you're definitely going there too." She gripped her wand tight. "And in the meantime, I've got magic, and you don't, and you are never going to touch me again, alright?"

When he finally nodded, she swept away, and closed her bedroom door behind her. She slid down to the floor, breathing hard, glee mingling, now that she was alone again, with that same old fear.