A Visitor in the Magical Kingdom

Chapter 11: The Truth About Wands

"What's the stick for?" Dudley asked as he made his way into the kitchen to grab a snack.

"It's a wand. It helps magic people, er … do magic," Harry finished lamely.

Dudley chortled at his cousin's sudden lack of eloquence before resuming the discussion. "It's like you're Tinkerbelle or something." He then narrowed his eyes slightly before continuing, "They aren't making you into a poofter or anything, are they?"

Harry could only glare witheringly back in retort.

"So … where did you get it?"

"Sirius took me to a magic shop, um, Ollivander's I think it was called."

Dudley screwed up his face in confusion. "So you can just go to a magic shop and get … real magic stuff?"

Harry looked at Dudley quizzically until he mentally reviewed their conversation again. "Oh! No, it's a real magic shop," he corrected. "There's a secret shopping area that only magical people can get into. Sirius took me there; that's where Ollivander's is located."

This appeased Dudley and he soon shifted topics again. "So, can you do anything cool with that wand?"

Harry looked down at the piece of holly in his hand before turning back to his cousin and shrugged a bit. "I don't know; haven't tried yet."

"Well … do you know any tricks or seen any of those other magic folks do tricks?" Dudley pressed, his excitement getting the better of him.

While Harry didn't know any tricks – or even if that's what witches and wizards called their magic stunts – he had seen a couple … tricks. "Well," he began slowly, "This one boy did do a couple tricks after that press conference. I guess I said something …" Harry paused as he shuddered slightly at the memory, "Inappropriate to him, so after our meeting he did a couple things."

Dudley looked confused again, having not heard this tale. "Wait, what happened?"

Harry, cursing himself for revealing this to Dudley, flushed a bit before shooting his cousin a calculating look. "Not a word of this, okay? I didn't even tell Sirius."

"You didn't tell Mum either?"

"No. And she won't find out about it, yeah?"

Dudley let out a low whistle in appreciation. This had to be good! Nodding quickly he encouraged Harry to spit it out.

"Well, I met with Professor McGonagall – the old lady that keeps showing up here – and she took me to meet a few students. They want me to spend a couple hours each week getting tutored by them in magic."

"Any good-looking ones?" Dudley interrupted.

Harry stared at his cousin like he had gone barmy and couldn't suppress a sudden shudder from filtering through his frame. "God, no. Although, there's another girl in this tournament thing that's … wow …" Harry's eyes became distant and a small smile formed on his features. Dudley erupted into a wistful grin, probably imagining something entirely unwholesome.

"Anyway," Harry began again after shaking his head to focus his thoughts, "This bloke said he was a 'half-blood' and –"

"So he's not all human?" Dudley blurted out incredulously.

"See! See!" Harry exclaimed while emphatically pointing at his cousin. "That's what I thought as well! Apparently that wasn't the right conclusion though."

Dudley cocked his head a bit then, with a dawning look of comprehension, nodded significantly at Harry. "So what did he do?"

"I could tell he was hacked off, but he didn't do anything until McGonagall ended the meeting and we began to leave the classroom. This other bloke – um, Justin I think – was asking me a few questions so I left the room last. In the hallway the half-blood git points his wand at me and says a couple things in some foreign language. Light shoots out of the wand and hits me. Next thing I know my legs won't work and I have this … this … clown hair."

Dudley, who was leaning forward with an open mouth and wide eyes while listening to Harry's tale, blinked twice then began howling in laughter. "He gave you clown hair?" he choked out between fits. "How did you get your normal hair back?"

Harry stared darkly back at his cousin before answering, "Sirius came to take me back and found me like that. He had to carry me out to the gates of the school and only then waved his wand to make the hair go away and my legs to feel normal again."

"How come he didn't just do that when he found you?"

"Well I suppose …" Harry trailed off, realizing he had been duped by his Godfather. Seeing his reaction, Dudley broke into fresh fits of laughter. Harry responded in the most mature way possible – by indulging in a rather crude hand gesture.

After a couple of minutes, Dudley finally calmed down enough to speak again. "So … you're going to show me a magic trick?"

"No. No I'm not."

"Harry, quit being a git," Dudley chided, reinforcing his words with a slug into Harry's arm. "Less talk, more action."

While still not entirely over Dudley's laughter at his expense, Harry decided he really didn't want to be slugged again and relented.

"Well, I don't know much, but when we were picking out my wand, Ollivander said I should wave my arm around. The wand would fire off sparks … erm … like this."

Harry proceeded to get up out of the chair and, standing in the middle of the kitchen, waved his wand back and forth in front of him. Sure enough, a few red and gold sparks shot out the end before harmlessly falling to the linoleum floor.

Dudley nodded his head slowly in appreciation. "That's pretty cool. How does it work?"

"Well … I don't know exactly," Harry admitted. "When I pick up the wand it kind of creates a warmth inside of me –"

"Like eating soup," Dudley blurted out.

Harry stared incredulously at his cousin for a solid five seconds. Then with a placating tone he replied, "Sure, Dudley. It's just like eating soup.

"Anyway, if I concentrate on that feeling and wave the wand around a bit, the sparks seem to shoot out."

"So if you really concentrated hard, could you get … bigger sparks to shoot out?"

Harry looked back at his cousin, clearly thinking about this new revelation. Slowly, matching grins spread on the boys' faces and Harry retook is position in the middle of the kitchen. Screwing his face up in concentration, Harry waited until he could almost feel the warmth coursing through his body and then willed it down his arm and into the wand. Immediately the red and gold sparks blasted out of the wand and jetted across the kitchen and toward a mesmerized Dudley.

In an instant Dudley's fascinated look became one of abject fear and he threw himself out of his chair and onto the floor in order to avoid the oncoming stream of fire. Luckily for the boy, his surprisingly athletic move saved him from singed hair and clothes; unfortunately the floral tablecloth had no such talent for agility.

With a girlish shriek, Dudley scrambled away from the flames that now lapped across the table in nervous swirls. "Make it stop! Make it stop!" he screamed while unmercifully shaking Harry by his shoulders.

"I can't! Those aren't sparks anymore! I don't – don't know how to stop fire!"

Once he had a chance to process those words, Dudley stopped shaking his cousin and both boys glared down at the offending stick in Harry's hand. Harry took a deep breath to gather himself then commented in a surprisingly calm voice, "Water, then?"

With a blink and a nod the two boys regained their focus and filled two bowls with water before unceremoniously dumping them over the table. Their efforts were rewarded with a quick hiss and lazy tendrils of steam and smoke wafting up to the ceiling.

Now that the danger was over, both boys stood there and mentally assessed the damage. Dudley turned to Harry and murmured in a quiet voice, "Mum is going to kill you."

Sunday morning brought cold, drizzly weather to the Scottish highlands as well as the arrival of one Harry Potter. "I understand your Aunt would prefer we started your lessons off with wand safety?" Professor McGonagall inquired as she led the boy down yet another corridor inside the castle.

"Yes," Harry responded tightly, his mind flashing back to the unholy screaming tirade Aunt Petunia unleashed on him when she returned home from work that evening.

They arrived at a closed door and McGonagall turned abruptly to face him. "I see," she replied curtly while piercing him with a penetrating look. "Today you will be working with Miss Granger on that very topic. She is an exceptionally bright young witch and is a muggle-born, so she has a proper respect for how to deal with magic in such a setting as your Aunt's home."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you," he guiltily replied before turning the doorknob and entering the classroom, thankful to escape the stern professor for someone a little less judgmental. Inside he found a girl with tremendously frizzy hair hunched over a table filled with books and rolls of … parchment? Her face, although partially obscured by the wild mane of hair, was bent low over the table as she intently scrawled out one final sentence before straightening up to acknowledge Harry's presence.

"Er, hi," Harry started and walked tentatively toward the girl. "I'm here for my first lesson with you."

The girl blushed a bit and automatically pulled a bit of that frizzy hair over her left cheek in an attempt to obscure the scar that marred her features. Silently she motioned for him to sit in the empty chair and began to tidy her homework, never once looking at Harry for more than a second.

Harry jogged his memory of his first meeting with this girl – Hermione, if he recalled correctly – and realized that she was painfully shy even then. With a sigh Harry realized this could be a very quiet, very uncomfortable day unless he tried to break the ice a bit.

Seeing Hermione about to shove a feather quill into her bag, Harry asked the first thing that came into his mind. "So you use a quill and parchment rather than pen and paper? Is that a requirement or do you just like it?"

Hermione froze and stared at the offending writing utensil in her hand for a solid thirty seconds before whispering, "It's just what the wizarding world uses. I don't think they would appreciate it if I used a pen and paper instead."

"They wouldn't appreciate it?" Harry questioned, unsure what this world would think is evil about such mundane items.

"The magical world is very traditional," Hermione answered in a stronger voice as she resumed putting her things away. "It's like they're stuck in the last century since they don't use electricity or any of the other modern things you and I are used to in the muggle world. They are isolated by choice, so I think that forcing modern things into their world might offend them."

Harry, while impressed with the thought and depth of her answer, almost let it slip from his mind when she unconsciously flipped her hair mid-sentence. This act revealed the left side of her face, causing Harry to catch sight of that long scar again. Resisting the urge to comment about it he instead turned to business. "So … what are you going to teach me today?"

"Today I thought I we would cover some basics on how to handle a wand safely." Then in a sudden fit of anxiety, she seemed to shrink away and meekly added, "Erm, if that's okay with you?"

Harry shrugged in agreement. After all, he didn't really know anything about the magical world so whatever she taught him would most likely be new information.

Hermione regained her slightly more confident tone upon seeing Harry's approval and chewed her lip a bit in thought. "Okay, why don't you show me your wand and how you grip it."

Harry couldn't help but snigger a bit, earning a blush of embarrassment from Hermione and more hiding behind her hair. Nevertheless, he dutifully fished around in his pocket a bit before triumphantly withdrawing the holly stick. After spending a few minutes correcting his grip, Hermione deemed Harry fit to hold a wand and moved on to proper wand storage.

"Our defense professor says you must never put the wand in your back pocket," recited Hermione in her still-quiet voice.

"Why is that?"

"Well, he insists that some folk have accidentally cursed their … erm … bottom off."

Harry just stared at the girl incredulously. "Cursed their arse? Seriously?" Upon seeing her earnest nod to the affirmative, he countered, "Well then what about the front pockets? It seems like that could be even worse for us blokes."

Hermione turned bright red and gaped at the boy across from her, too surprised to even hide behind her hair.

Harry pressed on, still pondering the repercussions of this warning. "If you get zipped in the bum, it's kind of embarrassing I guess. However it's just a fleshy bum so after a couple of days you would probably be okay. But if you got cursed in the privates, well that's just not right. That could cause irreparable damage. And while girls like scars I'm guessing you wouldn't want to discover that type of injury, right?"

Mortified, Hermione finally squeaked out, "Perhaps it's best to keep it in a coat pocket, or in a holster or something. Just … let's not talk about this anymore, okay?"

With a final shudder, Harry carefully placed the wand on top of the table – pointed away from his being – and nodded in agreement. "All I'm saying is it seems these things should come with safeties on them. I for one like my privates where they are; I don't want some stick rearranging them for me." He made a mental note to ask Sirius about wand holsters … and protective cups.