There was something to the world of magic that made the world seem so much brighter. Better, Tom would say. Despite their disagreements and arguing, Tom and Harry agreed on one thing in particular: they loved magic, and everything about it. So while Harry didn't like the way Tom thought of and treated Muggles (a word they'd learned almost as soon as arriving in Diagon Alley), he was quickly realizing exploring a brand new world was quite enjoyable, and that he depended on Tom's internal direction through the strange place.

So after buying cauldrons, phials, telescopes, two sets of brass scales, heaps of books, robes, hats, gloves, winter cloaks, and eyeing the pet store (neither of them could afford one, but they were nice to look at, Harry thought), the very last on their list was for each of them to acquire a wand. Tom lead him with an acute sense of importance, and Harry noticed how the smile hadn't left the other boy's face since arriving was growing bigger. Tom's smile was nice, although it held a bit of the manic glee that Harry had seen in the talk with Dumbledore, it was subdued. It was as though Tom was aware of how he might be seen by others.

The alley was crowded, on top of it all, as it seemed to be teeming with students and their parents for the upcoming school year. Tom was intent on pushing through the throng in order to get to the other side of the alley, and Harry made sure to reach out his hand to grab Tom's before the other boy pushed through. Instead of the intended outcome (Harry being dragged along through the crowd), however, Tom startled and looked back at Harry. He stared for a second, then gripped Harry's hand in return and started to move and shift through the adults in the crowd. With Tom's guidance, they managed to come out the other end fine, and it just so happened that the next thing Tom saw was the very place they were looking for.

Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B. C. read the gold lettering. It was peeling a tad, but that was no matter to the two excited boys dashing into the store. A bell tinkled wildly at the force of their excitement, and inside it was dark and dusty. Not too dark; there were candles, and the front windows let some light in, but it just illuminated the dust in the air. The walls were lined with boxes upon boxes on shelves upon shelves. It was tiny, despite a single chair. Neither boy sat down, for they were both anticipating what would happen next.

An old man appeared from behind the counter. "Good afternoon," he said softly, his eyes moons in the night of his shop.

"Good afternoon," Tom replied politely, just as Harry said, "Hello."

"And to what do I owe the pleasure? I take it you two are in for a couple of wands, the very first you can call your own? It is that season, after all." The wand maker didn't wait for any outward confirmation and instead took to approaching the two of them.

"Now, Mr. Potter, if you'd hold out your hand."

"How do you know - ?"

"I've served many a Potter in my time. I'm afraid you look just like your brother at his age, and your father before him," Mr. Ollivander was smiling and staring at Harry, just as Tom was, but the other boy's smile from earlier had disappeared. "Although your eyes..."

"Do you recognize me, sir?"

Harry only a little too late noticed that the measuring tape that was taking his measurements was doing so out of its own accord when Ollivander turned to address Tom's question. There was a moment of tense silence as the wand maker looked at his friend.

"I'm afraid not. What is your name, my boy?"

Harry's stomach dropped, and he knew Tom was extremely disappointed. He wished he could switch, and that Tom could find a family here, because they both knew Harry wasn't supposed to be here. He's a Potter who wasn't supposed to exist until fifty years from then, and he guessed the family he had here wouldn't accept him anyway.

"Tom Riddle," the hatred he held for his own name shown through in the way he spoke.

"Well, Mr. Riddle, please hold out your dominant arm."

While the measuring tape started to measure Tom, Ollivander started digging at the walls, plucking boxes here and there, stepping onto a ladder and bringing a couple boxes down to the counter.

After opening a wand box, he lifted the wand from inside and presented it to Harry. It looked short, but with a stylish wave to it. He did the same with the next box and wand, only this was a little longer and had no wave, but was straight as an arrow, and this was held in front of Tom. Both were dark, but Tom's seemed black in comparison to Harry's cherry red.

"Seven inches, dragon heartstring, cheery oak, bendy," to Harry, and then to Tom, "Ten inches, dragon heartstring, ebony, stiff. Now go on, you two," the wand maker said once they both grasped their wands, "Give them a wave! Though I might suggest, one at a time."

Tom waved his immediately with a strong sense of gusto, and one of the glass cases holding one of the candles in the room burst apart.

"Oh, no, no, better put that down," and Tom did, though Harry saw the slight, and quiet, turn of his lips upward at the experience.

When Harry waved his wand, the entire building shook with dissatisfaction.

"Ah, well then. I'll just put these two back."

Ollivander had them go through wand after wand, doing his best to find the right one for each of them. By the time they had each gone through six wands, the store was in a complete mess.

"Clearly not the right one for either of you, once more," Ollivander fretted, "But worry not, I've done this many years. We will get the both of you to the right fit. Just one more tic," And he was off to search the shelves once more, lifting himself high and looking near the ceiling, when he spotted something.

"Oh," he said, "Oh, I wonder..."

Pulling out the next box, he then turned and stared at the boys below him. "Perhaps I've been going about this all wrong," and with a bit of magic his ladder slid to the far right of the wall, and, stepping down a peg or two, Ollivander pulls out another box with just as much care. He stepped off the ladder, carefully setting two wand boxes in front of him.

He began with Tom's wand, lifting the thin piece of white wood out of the casing and handing it to the tall boy. When Tom grasped the wand, Harry knew that was the wand for him. A warm smile spread across Tom's face, the kind which he hardly ever wore, and with a wave the wand shot off large and magnificent impression of a Phoenix in the form of fireworks, bursting about the room in celebration.

"Oh, yes, splendid! Very good. That is thirteen and a half inches, yew, phoenix tail feather. Powerful and unyielding. Now for Mr. Potter," Ollivander lifted to Harry a second wand, "Holly, eleven inches, nice and supple, phoenix tail feather."

Harry knew this wand was the one the moment his fingers made contact. The air in the room shifted, and all at once the room's previous disarray rearranged itself back into its original, clean positions. The awe at seeing it was evident in his face, he figured, because Ollivander was beaming.

"Yes, indeed, very good, boys. Strange as it is that two young gentlemen such as yourselves would come to me together and without sign of any parents or siblings. I take it you two understand that your fates are intertwined? Because I must insist to you the rarity of the situation here. Your two wands share something no other wands share. I must tell you that the cores of your wands come from the same place, the same magical creature, and I do not mean this lightly. This phoenix gave only two feathers to me, and I highly doubt it will gift me a third. So trust me when I say how surprising it is to see this here and now. Often times when I sell wands of the same origin it is not at the same time, years usually separate the two sells. Even twins, the closest of the close, do not elicit this sort of reaction."

The curiosity in Ollivander's eyes glinted at the two of them, and Harry and Tom looked at each other, and then each other's wands. What Ollivander said about years struck Harry with the thought that originally that was how it was supposed to be. Even all those years later he would still get this wand, and it would still have a matching core with Tom's. The other boy seemed to realize this too, because there was a calculating look upon his face, and he was staring at the wand in Harry's hand.

When they emerged from the wand shop, both boys were quiet for a while. Neither of them wanted to return to the orphanage yet, but they were done buying things and were out of money.

Before Harry could do much more than stand there, Tom's hand reached out and grabbed his, pulling him towards their next destination: Petra's Pastries. He brought the two of them inside and went up to the counter. There was a beautiful lady behind it, smiling brightly at the two of them. "Why hello there! What can I get for the two of you?"

"Excuse us, Miss," Tom was doing that polite thing again, Harry noticed, "but we lost track of our parents. They told us if we ever got lost to stick together and head to Petra's Pastries, so is it all right if we sit here and rest a while until they show up? We'll be real quiet."

"Oh, your poor dears. Of course it's all right! Go on, take a table."

When they sat down, Tom stared at Harry in a way that should unnerve the latter boy, but didn't. He just stared right back.

"Do you believe in destiny? Fate?" Tom asked.

"If I didn't before I think I'm starting to now," Harry returned, still holding back the most important of questions on his mind.

"Dumbledore's curious. That's why he didn't take that from you, you know. He wants to see what happens, why I'm so special."

Harry didn't know what to say to that, because he wanted to know the answer to that question just as much as Dumbledore, he thought. After a moment, Harry wondered quietly. "Why you?"

Tom smiled something smug, staring out the window. He gave no answer to that, and Harry figured he'd also a theory or two as to the answer.

"Why me?"

"Better question," Tom admitted, still smiling, "But not entirely unrelated. The problem in dealing with the future is that there's nothing in the past that will give us the answers we seek. I wonder if we're best left to put any thoughts of investigation on hold until we have a little more knowledge of time magic, at the very least."

At that moment, the lady from the shop appeared with two brownies littered with chocolate chunks, presenting them in front of the respective boy.

"Surprise! A little treat from us while you wait," the lady winked at the both of them, "Any sign of your parents yet?"

"No, miss," Tom answered her.

"Well, feel free to tuck in, then. They shouldn't be much longer, I should hope," and with that, she left them alone once more.

Harry watched as Tom made faces at his treat, "What? What's wrong?"

"Chocolate," he answered, scowling, shoving the plate across the table, "You can have mine."

"You don't like chocolate?" Harry thought that was impossible, someone not liking chocolate.

Tom only shook his head, and that was all the permission Harry needed to start on the one originally given to him.

"I'd banish it from existence if I could. It doesn't even smell pleasant."

Snickering into his brownie, Harry couldn't keep his giggling down for too long.

"Don't laugh."

But it was too late, and soon Harry was spitting brownie bits back onto his plate because he couldn't contain his laughter, to which Tom scowled. And then he seemed inspired, for he reached out his hand to grasp the cursed confectionary he'd previously given up, and threw it at Harry's face, where it landed with a plop, the brownie splitting down the middle where Harry's nose was, getting all sorts of chocolate bits on his face and glasses.

Unfortunately, it didn't have the intended effect of shutting Harry up, instead making his laughter even louder, and last even longer.

Tom brought a hand to his face at his friend's idiocy.

"Now, you two best not be making a mess of things. What'll I say to your parents if they come and see you a mess?" The lady was back, and Tom decided enough was enough.

"Please excuse him, miss. My brother can be a bit... dim, with a crude sense of humor. We'll leave now, as I've just spotted our father. Come on, Harry," Tom stood from his seat, all seriousness and no fun, And Harry used his sleeves to try and wipe as much of the brownie off of his face and back onto the plate it came from.

"Sorry," he mumbled as he followed Tom out, still trying to hold back snickers despite the quickly sobering mood.

"I'm not amused," Tom whispered harshly as they made their way through the alley once more, and then, once out of the eyeshot the windows of the cafe afforded, Tom grasped Harry's arm and tugged him over to a dark corner of the alley, pushing Harry against the wall.

"I think... If we are to be friends, we should establish some rules."

To which Harry rolled his eyes, "Look, just because you can't take a little -"

"Friends don't make fun of each other, Harry," Tom insisted, "I know they don't, because I've never once had a friend prior to your arrival and I've had lots of people make fun of me, back when... Before I made it in their best interests not to."

"That would make you the expert on friendship, wouldn't it?" There was just enough cheek in that to make Tom's eyes go narrower than they were.

"Fine! Sorry," Harry said, before the other boy decided to magic punch him or something, "It's just... I haven't gotten a good laugh like that in ages. You're so serious all the time. What do you find funny? When was the last time you laughed?"

"Would you really like to know the answer to that?" Tom, serious as ever.

"Yeah?" And Harry, not entirely sure what to expect.

"I laugh when the people who annoy me get what they deserve. I find it funny when those who tease and ridicule get teased and ridiculed. I like the irony of a well-deserved punishment, especially if I'm the only one to see it. That's hilarious."

Through all of that, Tom grew a smile, and now, it was manic, but he didn't laugh.

"I don't know... if that counts as what I was trying to ask. That doesn't really sound like... joking." The more Harry got to know Tom, the madder he seemed to be.

"The young lad is right," came a slithery voice, and Harry jumped. It came from right behind him, and Tom's head lifted and his smile vanished and he looked just as startled as Harry had been.

"Revenge is the best form of humor, that and justice in an unjust world," It was an elder witch, one clad in dark robes and hunched over now that Harry had turned to where he had previously thought there to be alley wall, and was now an open passageway.

"Where... Where are we?" He asked, looking behind her to only dimmer and darker looking shops.

"Oh, best not stop around here too long, young'ins. There's tell of a new Dark Lord, up and coming and so it's best not for wizards as young as ye hang around a place as dank as this." And with that, she shoo'd them away, and they only had back to the bright, colorful alley to go to.

"Dark Lord...?" Harry wondered, and Tom looked like he was thinking.

"We should return for now," And while before Harry would've disagreed, this time Harry understood.