American Wizard

Chapter 3- The Wand.

"What are you going to do? Poke me with that stick?"

-- C. Dracula

I woke up with a start, still fully clothed, but very well rested. As my vision came into focus I noticed that outside, the sun was shining, announcing a new day. How could I have just fallen asleep like that? I wondered. I had looked forward to taking a look in my trunk before falling asleep.

I looked around the room and noticed everyone getting up, as if some invisible alarm clock had awaken us at the same time. Ken, whose bed was next to mine, was in pajamas that glinted silver in the pale sunlight streaming through the window by my bed. Looking out the window I saw the Chesapeake Bay and I instantly recognized Errant Cove.

When I had turned eight my father had taken me to Errant Cove, a pristine place on the bay, where muggles were repelled. My father had once referred to it as the East Coast's version of Diagon Alley. While I had never been to the British counterpart of Errant Cove I had heard stories of the frantic and claustrophobic place and thought that the cove and its waterfront shops and piers must be a much calmer and soothing place in comparison.

Through my window I saw Owen's Owl Outlet, Bath's Fine Robes and Pat's Transportation Hub. I knew around the courtyard, that faced the bay there were hundreds more stores, some run by Goblins, others by Wizards, I had even remembered some run by Beezles, red, horned humanoid creatures with tails. Dad told me that they were constantly being spotted by muggles and being called devils.

I tore my eyes away from the window, jumped out of bed and took a look at the new trunk sitting at the foot of my bed. It was black, shiny and smooth and on the top was engraved, "Wilmer Gordon Dumas" in thin gold letters. My father had one just like it at home, I would never have thought he'd gotten it at school. I pressed the catch and with a click the chest opened smoothly. When the chest lay open several people let out surprised whispers around the room. I looked up to see everyone looking at me.

"What?" I asked the staring people.

Ken indicated his own chest, "Last night they wouldn't open, I even tried breaking the lock but they must have some hurling charm. I almost killed myself. I guess they didn't want us seeing what was inside them until now..."

As if that were some hidden signal the entire room of boys leaped from their beds and opened their trunks with the excitement of kids at Christmas. With the same amount of excitement I looked down into my chest.

Inside the trunk were a couple objects the first thing I noticed were the books. There were at least seven of them ranging from "Elementary Elementals" by Gaia Aquawinds to "Yakking Yaks" by Catherine Felin. A rather large brown parcel lay next to the books and as I pulled it out of my locker I realized it never would have fit into a muggle chest of the same size.

I untied the string of the package and watched as the paper fell away revealing brand new gray robes. The robes had been lined with the yellow of a dueling specialist. It felt wrong having that yellow there for a couple reasons though. First was the fact I didn't know any actual curses, hexes or charms yet. Heck, I didn't even have a wand yet. Secondly I couldn't help but think I didn't deserve to be there. The globe hadn't wanted to classify me and I'd had to push the crystal to get it to go to a certain color. Never the less, I was quick to slip on the gray robes before I studied the rest of my trunk.

While there were numerous amounts of everyday items like toiletries, scrolls of parchment and standard quills, there was one exceptional item that caught my eye. It was a small black wooden kit that could not be opened. On the side of it in small white letter were written:

Wiley Dumas

Crafter 100

I shoved the black kit back in the chest and soon forgot about it as I exited the dorm. In the common room shared with the girls, all the first years were getting to know each other. I quickly joined Ken and Lou, who were already talking with a very small girl whose head was just below shoulder height. Seeing me coming Ken turned to the small girl and said, "Dina, meet Wiley Dumas. Wiley, this is Dina Bard."

I shook hands with the brown haired girl, trying desperately to look her in the eye and not at the top of her head. My attempts to do so seemed to fail until she looked up at me, "Nice to meet you Wiley. Where are you from?"

We made small talk for about thirty minutes. I soon found out that Dina was from Salem, where her mother worked at the Salem institute. What surprised me the most was that Dina's robes indicated that she'd be studying magical creatures in depth. Maybe the creatures will think she is too small to eat.

Lou turned out to be from Wooster where his father was a well known temporal investigator while his mother commuted to DC everyday. He, like me played Quodpot and was looking forward to playing on the team, "Dad laughed when I told him that. He said that they would provide our brooms, I've been riding a Hawk-12."

I had been riding a Hawk-10 and was about to register my astonishment about how great his broom was when Ken started chuckling. Lou and I gave him a strange look.

"Sorry... Sorry..." Ken gasped, "Didn't you guys know?"

"Know what?" Said Lou carefully.

"They don't play Quodpot here in Annapolis. This school is too old. The traditional game is Quidditch."

Lou and I gaped at Ken. Quidditch was a game played by pretty much everyone BUT Americans. Lately though, Quidditch seemed to be making a rise though. Quodpot is to American Wizards as Baseball is to American Muggles. It is our unique game.

"That's not right!" I almost yelled. "Queer-ditch is for losers!"

Lou nodded violently in agreement and before we could say anything else bad about Quidditch Ms. Selena strode in. She wore emerald green robes that shimmered in the light cast by the windows. "Good morning children," She greeted us, "For your first day of school I will be taking each of you to the School Wand Archives. Your tuition pays for these wands so you needn't worry about gold. I have each of your schedules here. You will be taking your classes with your specialty group, but classes do not begin until each of you has received a wand though. For now, enjoy your breakfast."

As soon as she spoke a buffet full of eggs, bacon, pancakes, cereal and other breakfast foods seemed to grow out of a wall, the steam rising from it causing the man in the picture above it to sit up and lick his lips. As I walked towards the buffet I barely noticed Ms. Selena taking Jared Abrahams through the center door.

Just as I finished my second plate of breakfast Ms. Selena tapped me on the shoulder. "Mr. Dumas, it's your turn. Finish up quickly."

I put my plate on the floor, where much to my surprise it was sucked into the floor with a slurping sound and disappeared into the blue carpet. With great trepidation I followed Ms. Selena through the center door.

She looked at me as we walked and asked, "Did you sleep well? Don't answer that, it was not a smart question. Of course you did. Ever since the duermite infestation of 1972 we've enchanted the beds so that when you wish for sleep you go into a dreamless coma."

No wonder I fell asleep so quickly I thought.

"What's a duermite?" I asked.

Ms. Selena answered with a very teacher like voice, "Very small magical creatures. They look a lot like kittens except that they are only about the size of your thumb. They feed off of people's sleep. When the infestation happened people could only sleep for about an hour before waking up. It was quite annoying and eventually caused a massive student and teacher revolt."

Confused I asked, "Were the teachers rebelling against the students or the students rebelling against the teachers or what?"

"Well Mr. Dumas, I believe we were all too sleep deprived to care. Eventually Professor Baiter, who is a vampire and does not really need to sleep, was able to enchant enough beds to get the school back running,"

I looked up at Ms. Selena as we took another left and asked, "How come our government lets a vampire be a headmaster of this school? I mean... Aren't vampires dark creatures?"

"That is a discussion for another time Mr. Dumas," although her tone of voice killed any more questions I had on that subject, she continued talking, "Your specialty is dueling hmm? I remember your father had the same specialty. Xander was very good at casting quick and strong spells but he never really had his heart in it. He's a diplomat these days isn't he? He would have made a great Auror or hit wizard, but as the Principal says, the only thing more dangerous than a dark wizard is a politician."

I couldn't help but notice that Ms. Selena seemed to be talking to me as if I weren't a child, but more like an adult... I also couldn't help notice that we'd walked through twelve rooms and I had no idea how to get back to my room.

"Don't you ever get lost? I mean, I couldn't find my room again from here... ma'am." I asked.

Ms. Selena chuckled and smiled. I watched as she laughed, and for a fleeting instant I couldn't help but see her look about sixty years younger. "You can hardly ever get lost here. The patchwork plane was created so any directions a person would take would get them to their destination, no matter where in the school you were. For instance, to get back to your room from the dining hall, all you have to do is turn around once and then go left, left again, right and then the middle door. It's the same thing wherever you are in the school, just follow the directions. I could stop right here, turn around once, take the same directions and I'd be right back in your common room. The schedule you received from me back in the common room has all the directions you'll need."

Before I could ask any more questions we had emerged into a room that contained shelves of what seemed to be shoeboxes of all sorts of colors, a fireplace and a solitary stool. The wand archive was well kept and not a single box was sticking out. Ms Selena motioned for me to sit on the stool as she looked appraisingly at me. Then my eyes followed hers as she scanned the shelves for a minute. She reached up and grabbed a yellow box and handed it to me. "Open it and take a swing with the wand."

I opened the box and took a look at the wand. It was about eight inches long, made of mahogany. Carefully I took it out and swished it through the air. Nothing happened. Ms. Selena furrowed her brow and murmured, "Usually I get it on the first try. Accio."

She pointed her wand and the box flew out of my hands and into the slot it had occupied. Ms. Selena repeated this process for about fifteen minutes. Wand after wand was given to me, but as soon as I had touched them, Ms Selena seemed to just pull them right away. After continuing to do this about twenty or thirty times Ms. Selena began to get frustrated, "Mr. Dumas," she grumbled, "You are a very tough customer. I've tried you with Unicorn hair, Phoenix feather, Dragon Heartstring, Kelpie mane, Demiguise fur, Veela hair and even Clabbert pus. Honestly, I'm stumped. One second though..."

Ms. Selena strode over to a fireplace and threw some floo powder into the orange flames, turning them blue. A second later, much to my surprise two heads popped into view. One of the heads was balding with big pale eyes while the other had thick silver hair and pupil-less eyes that honestly gave me the creeps. The balding head looked very annoyed as it inquired, "What seems to be the problem Anne?"

"Sorry to trouble you Mr. Ollivander, you too Sir Gregorovitch but I have a tough case here. We've gone through every magical substance, pretty much every wood and close to every combination..."

The three of them talked for a long while, arguing about what kind of wand should work. I couldn't help but feel slightly embarrassed. I didn't like all this fuss being made over finding me a wand, maybe I didn't need one. I'd done magic without wands before; of course those had been by accident. Once when I was five I had caused my cat to turn invisible for a week. It had driven my mother insane every time the milk had toppled over and slowly disappeared as the feline lapped it up.

At that moment I remembered, the spell Ms. Selena had used. I concentrated on my fingertips until I felt the familiar tingle of magic building up. I tried to focus my mind on a wand that would fit me perfectly, one that would feel like it was a part of me. With a deep breath I whispered, "Accio."

As I had somewhat expected, nothing happened. Then, quite out of no where there was a whooshing sound which got louder and louder until a red box careened into my head, bounced off and fell to the floor. I swore, quietly enough for Ms. Selena not to hear me. I looked at the red box, lying on the ground, whose top had fallen off after its strong impact with my head.

The wand inside was a dark red and was about twelve and a half inches long. I stooped down and grabbed the wand. Instantly I felt that the wand was like a part of me, that if I bit it, I would cry out in pain. Tentatively I swung the wand through the air and watched as a red line was drawn in its wake. As I lowered the wand, the red line hovered in the air, shimmering for a few seconds, then catching me quite by surprise, it erupted into loud and rather bright fireworks. Ms. Selena, startled by the exploding red fireworks, whirled around and gazed at me with her sharp eyes. I slowly turned my head and looked at her, my mouth hanging open.

I couldn't help but croak, "Ms. Selena ... I think I like this wand."