Well, I'm afraid the muse has rather deserted me in recent weeks but here, at last, in an attempt to kick-start my feeble brain back into life, is a short offering. Many thanks to Minx for reviewing it and ever perceptively spotting something that I agonised over. So I agonised some more :)) In the end I decided to do it my way, so if you don't like the story it's all my fault ...

Foretold

Mr Ollivander looked up as a small bell tinkled. Somebody had entered his wand-shop. From his cramped work-room an enchanted window let him look down into the shop, though nobody could see either him or the window. They just saw a rather dusty room stacked from floor to ceiling with narrow boxes. A spindly wooden chair was the sole article of furniture. It was a functional place, not a comfortable one.

A young girl stood in the shop. A new year at Hogwarts was looming and so the majority of his customers were new pupils buying their first real wand. As he always did with first-years, Mr Ollivander watched the prospective purchaser for a little while in an attempt to gauge something of their character. Some would stand fidgeting, looking anxiously around. Others showed signs of impatience, no doubt wondering where the shop-owner was and why he wasn't rushing to serve them. Some sat down on the chair and adopted a bored, arrogant pose. Those were usually the ones from ancient wizarding families who thought they knew it all.

This girl did none of these things. She looked brightly around, her brown eyes alert and questioning. After completing a survey of the room, she turned back to the one clear space in a wall otherwise stacked high with boxes and stared hard at it; stared hard at his secret window if she did but know it. A thin smile creased Mr Ollivander's face - this was a sharp one. He watched as she walked around the room peering at the labels on the wand-boxes. She even pulled out one or two boxes and held them up to what little light the front window let in, the better to read a faded label. After another long look at the blank space on the wall the girl returned to the front-door and opened and closed it several times. The bell tinkled away madly. He gave a bubbling glue-pot a swift stir and then slipped down the narrow staircase and into his shop.

"Good afternoon, Miss" said Mr Ollivander softly. The girl started, as most people usually did. Mr Ollivander knew he could move very quietly when he wanted to and his staircase somehow always finished at a door just out of sight of any visitor.

"Oh, er, good afternoon" said the girl. "I've come to buy a wand."

"Then you have come to right place" replied Mr Ollivander. "Ollivanders have been making fine wands since 382 B.C. We use only the best materials and each wand is hand-made."

"Right, yes, er, good. Are you Mr Ollivander?"

Mr Ollivander inclined his head. The girl bit her lip and looked around the room at the stacks of wand boxes.

"How do I choose one?" she asked.

"In many ways the wand chooses you" replied Mr Ollivander, "but first I need to take some measurements." He took out a battered tape-measure and began measuring, not letting the tape do anything by itself as he sometimes did. He had an odd feeling about this girl and he wanted to be very sure about the key wand-arm dimensions. Besides, the tape sometimes misbehaved and started recording such irrelevant distances as nostril-to-nostril and ear-to-tongue, a lingering result of a joke-spell placed on it long, long ago by an ex-apprentice. Jokes and this girl didn't seem to go together. He worked on in silence, jotting his results down in an old notebook.

"Interesting measurements, good wrist to elbow to shoulder proportions, ideal for Charms work" said Mr Ollivander slowly after he had finished. He still had a strange feeling about her.

"Oh I knew it" said the girl, beaming. "I just knew Charms would be my thing. I've been looking through The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1, and it all seems very straightforward. And I bought Charm Your Friends as well and I read some of that as I had lunch and I'm just longing to try out something, perhaps Wingardium Leviosa and maybe ..."

Mr Ollivander held up a hand to silence her. She blushed and stood there quietly as he swept around the room plucking a box from here, a box from there. A small stack built up on the spindly chair. Finally his Wand-sense told him he had enough, and he selected a wand and turned to the girl.

"Try this please, eight inches, mountain-ash and dragon-heartstring, flexible but not overly so."

The girl took the wand and raised her arm.

"A nice, smooth, downward motion if you please and then back up" said Mr Ollivander. "Use both arms if it feels more natural."

The wand swished down and up. Nothing happened. His young customer looked disappointed and started to move her arm again, but Mr Ollivander took the wand from her.

"No, no, not for you, try this, beech and phoenix tail-feather, ten inches, large perhaps for one your height, but I think you can handle it."

Again nothing, again disappointment on her face. Mr Ollivander smiled encouragingly as he handed her another wand. "Eight-and-a-half inches, maple and unicorn-hair, very well balanced."

The girl raised the wand and brought it down in a swishing motion. A stream of bright red and gold stars erupted from the end of the wand. She smiled and tried again. More stars flowed out.

"Good, good" said Mr Ollivander, pleased at his shrewd selection. "Does it feel comfortable? Does it sit easily in the hand?"

"It's all right, but it's not the one."

"Not the one?" said Mr Ollivander. "My dear young lady, that was an excellent display you just produced. I would be very happy if you were to buy that wand and I can assure you it will stand you in good stead."

"It's not the one" repeated the girl, "I just know it's not the one."

Mr Ollivander peered over his half-moon spectacles at her. Normally he would have sent her packing, with the wand wrapped up in brown paper and an admonition ringing in her ears that he knew a witch-and-her-wand when he saw them. But there was something about this girl, something that he couldn't quite ...

"Can I try some of the others you've picked out?" she asked, interrupting his train of thought.

"You may" said Mr Ollivander, taking the maple wand and suspending it ostentatiously in mid-air. The girl smiled sheepishly. He began to hand wands to her, watching her closely. Most wands produced nothing. A few produced sparks that many a witch or wizard would have been proud of, but the girl just kept shaking her head and gesturing for new wands.

"Nine inches, elm and phoenix tail-feather, highly polished, sturdy, a strong wand" said Mr Ollivander as he handed it over. His legs began to tingle - his Wand-sense was trying to tell him something. The girl raised her arm and then stopped.

"This is it" she announced, her arm still frozen in the air. "This is it." She swished downwards and a burst of brilliant stars blazed from the wand and tumbled around. A smile lit up her face and she moved the wand smoothly upwards. Brighter stars yet shot out from the wand tip, illuminating the dim room.

"Amazing, amazing" muttered Mr Ollivander, as he watched the girl work the wand and produce a dazzling firework display. "Who would have thought it, well, well, well ..." And then the half-formed thought that had been nagging at him crystallised in his mind. "Excuse me for a moment" he said, forcing himself to sound calm. He hurried away up the stairs to his work-room, feeling anything but calm.

Taking an ancient leather-covered book from a shelf, he flipped quickly through it until he found the page he wanted. The girl's wand-arm measurements were fresh in his mind and he ran his finger down a Table of Proportions until he located the correct entry. Pulling a Book of Predictions and an Arithmancy book off the shelf he consulted yet other tables, taking into account the exact composition of the wand and the year the tail-feather had been plucked. His face darkened and he sat down heavily on a tall wooden stool and stared at the ceiling. Then he took out his notebook, double-checked the girl's measurements and repeated the whole process. The answer was the same. He rubbed his hand through the hair he no longer had and then, knowing it was pointless, checked once more. There was no doubt. It was foretold. And he could tell no-one, not even Dumbledore. In cases like this, Wand Givers were bound by an unbreakable oath of secrecy. He could tell no-one.

He leant forward and looked through the window. The girl was pirouetting happily about the room, her face radiant. As she revolved around, she used the wand as if it had always been part of her. Cascades of brilliant stars and sparks, red, blue and green, filled the room. Gold and silver traces flowed from the wand-tip. He had seen nothing like it in one so young. She and the wand were made for each other.

He bent as close to the window as he could get. He couldn't tell her. But he drove the thoughts at her mind anyway. She was a contemporary of Harry Potter. Maybe she would end up in the same house as him. Perhaps they would even get to know each other. Avoid Harry Potter he thought at her. Don't become friends. Don't feel anything for him. She mustn't. If she didn't, there was a chance. For his books had just told him that this was the wand that would kill Harry Potter - but only if wielded by a close friend ...

T H E E N D