Chapter 6

So, I haven't updated in a long time, my bad! I've made this chapter a little chunkier than the rest to make up for that fact so I hope you all enjoy. As always reviews are more than welcome, the good and bad. I just want the make this the best it can be, so if you see any errors let me know and I'll fix them up as soon as. J.K Rowling owns all rights to Harry Potter and its Characters :)

Icarus didn't know how her life had ended up like this. She'd never envisioned herself leaving the tiny village she'd called home for 20 years. Mrs. Jones, who'd treated her like a daughter, consoling her every time an adoption fell through or her neighbours John and Julie who'd try with all their might to learn all the little secrets of the street. Icarus laughed to herself, a small puff of air leaving her chest as she thought of the two's faces if they knew about what had happened in her life these past six months, would they laugh back at her, John's greasy greying hair cling to his chalky white crinkling face as he looked at the young girl he'd seen wonder around the village for years say she was a witch? No of course not they'd stare baffled and worried, Julie probably dashing off to call the doctors saying I'd gone mental… that would fuel the hungry gossipers for some time. The witch shuffled her weight onto her other foot, standing awkwardly in her new unusual purple robes, and thought 'I wouldn't blame them if they did think me crazy, who in their right mind would believe me? I wouldn't.' and yet here she was, Diagon Alley and Aberlliw felt like a distant memory.

Tonks had spoken highly of this place along with the rest of the Order and she could see why. It was in all honesty magical. The cobblestone ground could barely be seen with the amount of people that swarmed the street. All of which wore different colours, bright blues, greens, maroon, some with pointed hats others with trunks that levitated behind their owners following them like lost puppies. Various stalls and Peddles were littered around calling at passers-by to buy their latest invention, freshly bloomed flowers or roasted chestnuts.

The shops were all different from each other, crooked buildings that had huge displaying windows showing off all oddities from clusters of Bronze, iron and silver cauldrons that toppled over each other in Potage's cauldron shop to the dragon hide and Egyptian silk robes displayed in Twilfitt and Tatting's. Cleary the latter was one of the higher end shops that were dotted around Diagon Alley Icarus concluded as she took in the people dressed the best walking in and out of it. Her attention stayed particularly on the platinum blonde, almost aristocratic woman peering into the latest fall fashion. The blonde held her head high, her posture that of perfection and her dark green, almost black clothes impeccable, no crease in sight. It was clear to Icarus that this woman, like the way she displayed herself, would be beautiful, even if half of her was unfortunately facing away from the curious witch.

A chirp bell ringing drew back her attention to the shop in front of her, how muggle, the witch thought. She caught a glance of a family walking out, the youngest smiling eagerly at what Icarus presumed was a new wand. The shop wasn't as grand as the rest she had seen. Its windows were dusty and the black paint had faded and began to peel off, exposing worn wood; the original exterior, leaving the small store to look run down and old. Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. read over the door, in gold etching, flaking like its black counterpart.

"Excited to get your wand?" she heard come from her left, Tonks. Not that anyone would be able to tell, she'd disguised herself as a bolding middle-aged man, with brown eyes and quite a thick body. It still amazed Icarus, even after spending these past months beside Tonks what the normally pink haired witch could do… well she supposed what they could do. Tonks, she'd soon learned after agreeing to stay in 12 Grimmauld place didn't believe in taking things easy, easing into something new and decidedly threw Icarus straight into the deep end of learning to control her metamorphism abilities. It was a shock to the system at first, her friend's bubbly and sometimes clumsy demeanour hid a very strict and hardworking young woman who wouldn't take anything but perfection from her students. A trait she believes derived from the Aurors mentor, Madeye Moody. Either way this led to mornings turning into nights were Icarus repeated morphing her body until she could do it without much thought. Which had finally allowed her to leave the mad house and pick up her wand, as she too was in disguise. It also provided as an escape to the close proximity of Tonks she seemed to be experiencing lately and the awkwardness of their last training session.

For generations the Black family was considered powerful, pure and deadly. Their reputation preceded them, they had enough money to make the goblins at Gringotts envious and equally impressed, eager to offer their safes for the noble house and enough raw magic to make many in the wizarding world tremble in fear. They were among the elite of the elite in the eyes of the entire wizarding world. Slowly the family began to die out, family feuds lead to heads of the house to outcast the muggle sympathizers, the blood traitors until the family became a single branch that mainly consisted of women, unable to carry the family name who were married off to several elite and noble families such as the Malfoys, Potters and Peverell. Despite this, their reputation remained strong, their influence unshaken and the name respected. That of course would all go away if the wizarding world, or mainly the pureblood families managed to see what remained of the family's noble house. The walls peeled, mould, stretching throughout the house, mixing with the smell of damp and blackening the walls. Artefacts that were once treasured were coated in dust or broken left tinkering around. The fine wooden floors, splintered at its best but, mainly now rotting. The majority of the house was unliveable, and the ones that were occupied were only just liveable. Mrs. Weasley had attempted to fix what she could, dragging Sirius, Remus and her children all to clean what they could for an entire fortnight, but to no avail. It was in ruins.

This is how Icarus believes she had acquired her cold. She also couldn't believe that a civilization as advanced in potions namely medical, still didn't have a cure for the common illness. No potion to help her, only common practices such as warm tea and honey which when suggested by a 'grandfatherly' git led to salt magically appearing in his tea instead of sugar a couple of days later. Dumbledore's twinkling eyes seemed to lose their spark that day, Icarus noted smugly. Being ill made her immature it would seem, and in a sour mood. Of course, none of this mattered to the cheerful pink haired woman who had once again forced her out of her springy bed in the early hours of the morning and into what she deemed the 'chameleon room' that her and Tonks had been building and testing her shape shifting abilities. The room had one body length mirror, that stood, dead centre and illuminated the gloomy space. A mirror that Icarus would have to stand in front of for many tiring hours.

"Do we really have to do this again?" she asked, snuffling and her voice sounding heavy and croaky.

"Of course! Practice makes perfect, and besides we have to come up with an appearance for you." Tonks replied, batting away any complaints the younger witch had and pushing her towards the mirror to begin their training session. With a sigh Icarus relented and asked, "Start with the hair again?"

Like the younger witch had predicted they were there for hours, she shifted into many different forms until settling on Tonks's favourite disguise. The entire process had always worn Icarus out, she had to hold a lot of her concentration to control her abilities and hold onto one form for hours, having to hold her thoughts and emotions in check like they were some sort of dam, which Tonks tried her best to break. The woman would ask her questions about her childhood, her fears, tell her jokes anything to get her attention and brake her concentration. It had taken awhile for the witch to be able to handle conversations and her abilities… especially when Tonks would bring out her dark humour and dad jokes. But if truth be told lately the young witch was finding Tonks's presence enough of a distraction as is. She found the witch in memorizing. Mentally, it was a taxing experience. One Tonks wanted to push to physically taxing as well today.

"Really! You want me to run around like some headless chicken!?" she managed to push out of her mouth, shocked at the grinning woman in front of her.

"No, I want to play tag. You got the mental part down but now you need to get physical and still hold your concentration. This'll get your blood and adrenaline pumping I want to see if you can handle it. Plus, it'll be fun!"

"I hate your positive outlook."

Her disguise was not as drastic as Tonks but enough that the piggish men from that horrible night wouldn't recognise her. Her hair, had shifted from its go to shoulder length chestnut brown hair to a sandy blonde bob cut. She was taller too, with a slightly more pencil figure and smaller breasts. Her cheek bones less sharp and blade like to a more rounded look. All in all, she was impressed and extremely pleased with how her appearance had turned out.

"God yes. I'll finally be able to beat your arse in a fight." She replied cockily, a crooked smirk appearing on her face as she took in her bemused friends face. "Suuure you will short stuff, not like you need to practice spells or anything, just point flick and poof! You win" Tonks teased back. "well what can I say if I can pick everything else up so quickly why not this?" Icarus said, believing in her statement. Not only had she been given training by Tonks but a couple of the other Order members as well to help her try and catch up with her peers as she was very far behind in the beginning, not knowing a thing about Potions, much to Snape's disgust. But, fortunately for her she loved to read, always had even since she was a little girl at the orphanage. The other children never enjoyed playing with her, always saw her as a freak and as a result she turned to the only things that she could consider her friends, books. It was then that she realised one of her many oddities, her memory. It was like her mind was a sponge and the books water, her mind could absorb the knowledge and retain it as easily as blinking. Icarus much to everyone's surprise and Hermione's malcontent and a little bit of begrudged impressment had managed to read all of the required books for any magical student from the start of their education to graduation. And now it was finally time to put the knowledge she had gained to the test. After all, the welsh witch thought. How hard could spell work actually be, if not flick and poof?

"Alright let's go in before you get an even bigger ego." Tonks said breaking through her train of thought and pushing through the door of the wand shop causing a ring to vibrate all around the room on the doors other side. Icarus followed after.

The shop was everything Icarus expected, dusty and dark. Boxes of what she presumed to be wands lay on top of each other, on shelves that lined the entire room leaving only a small space for visitors before the counter. Sat behind the counter, hunched over with a wand in hand and etching knife in the other was an old man, almost older than Dumbledore looked, with white and grey frizzy hair, that stood on all ends of his head and spurted out of his ears. He wore a helmet peace that had attached what looked like different shapes and sizes of lenses or magnifying glasses, which focused on what his thin and bony hands were doing with the wand and knife.

"Hello Miss. Tonks, Icarus. How may I help?" he spoke not once looking up to see who had entered. His voice was croaky as if he'd been coughing for days, which could be the cause with the amount of dust that was floating around, Icarus mused to herself. She was not startled at all by the man's greeting, the fact that he knew who she was. Tonks had debriefed her about the wandmakers odd tendencies and mystic persona.

"I'd like to buy a wand" The witch said, her voice quiet but audible.

"Ah of course, I have been expecting you for some time now. Wait here, I know just the right one." He said lifting off of his chair and flinging the knife and wand onto the already cluttered counter. The last words of his sentence drifted into nothingness as he wondered off into the wand maze, limping slightly to find her a useable wand. Various noises echoed to the girls, clinks, clangs and the occasional bang as they waited for him to return. It was after five minutes of this constant music that made Icarus begin to fidget. She began gently at first, shifting from one foot to another until she was swinging her arms back and forth wondering around the small room impatiently, humming to herself quietly. She had never been good with patience. It was throughout this that she became increasingly aware of eyes on the back of her head. Turning the young witch found Tonks staring at her with an indescribable look it her soft gaze, in that moment their eyes met like so many other times over the past few months. The Aurors eyes shone, an emotion Icarus couldn't understand, radiating from deep within them drawing her closer and pushing the stampede of a noise coming from Mr. Ollivanders out of her mind.

"What?" She questioned the watchful witch.

Tonks drew in a small breath and broke into a smile, showing all teeth and spoke "Never change Icarus." Before the welsh Witch could react, she heard the soft limp of the old wizards retreating form and turned. Happy with the distraction to her beating heart and flushed cheeks.

"Found some that should work, yes indeed! Now try this first." He began his voice straining with age, handing her a wand that resembled an ordinary twig, except for its curving handle and blue body. "Unicorn hair, 10 inches, made from great oak. Excellent for healing." Grabbing the wand out of his hand Icarus looked at Tonks, who mimed flicking the wand with a wink. Huffing at the older Witches playfulness she did just that. It did not go as expected. Not at all. Like a phoenix it burst into flames traveling down from the tip, racing to her hand until she dropped it narrowly avoiding being scorched. Well that could have gone better, she thought staring at the pile of dust at the bottom of her feet.

"One day I the first one won't go horribly wrong. Atlas the wand chooses the wizard, come now we have more!" Mr. Ollivander spoke, breaking through Tonks's snickering in the background. They continued like this until the fourth wand. The others had caused shelves to shake and walls to crack.

"let's try one more, ahh this, yes. Dragon heartstring, 10 ½ inches. Flexible and durable. Excellent for Hexes and charms." He spoke, handing it to Icarus. Reaching out the witch wrapped her fingers around it and felt instant warmth, comfort. Like a hug, a soft pink light radiated from its tip and settled softly.

"It would seem you have been chosen by a wand I find most unusual. It's made of a combination of Cherry wood and Elder, the rarest of all. This wand will be a challenge, capable of lethal and magnificent magic, if handled correctly. It will be trickier to master than others, a strong will is needed. I have not sold a wand quite like this before. A powerful wand for a powerful witch it would seem. Wands offer an insight to a person's core, you will not meet a better judge of character… Now that will be 20 galleons" he said, finishing his ramble.

"20 galleons! 'bit expensive don' you think?" replied Tonks right off the bat. He offered no response though and continued to stare owlishly in silence at Tonks.

"Fine" she muttered breaking eye contact, rummaging through her pockets and handing the money over. Icarus meanwhile was marvelling at her new wand. She thought it beautiful. It spiralled from the tip down to a slight curve, fitting in her hand perfectly. Its contrast of deep, dark red and grey chased each other like a game of quidditch the twins had tried explaining. It felt good. Magic pulsing deep within in it and into the witch's hands.

'Bang!' suddenly a defining explosion was heard in the distance, that caused a vary of reactions in the small wand shop. Mr. Ollivanders, eyes widened in fear, as he began stumbling back into his work bench. Tonks stood straight wand at ready and quickly pushed past a startled and confused Icarus to look outside the display window into the busy street that had began to fill with screams of terror and panic.

"What is it?" The young witch asked, staring at Tonks's paling face.

"My Aunt."