(HOGWARTS MYSTERY) Janelle Morgan -- Year 1: The Forbidden Corridor

Chapter 3: The Wand Chooses the Witch

Once I stepped inside Ollivander's, I had suddenly found myself overwhelmed with anxiety. Several fears came flooding to me at once: What if this place had truly fallen into the hands of You-Know-Who, and someone did end up persuading me to join in his ranks—would I be able to run, or would I be jinxed if I didn't join? If this place still remained a wand shop, would I be able to find the right wand and would hopefully be chosen by that wand? What if I had tried every wand in this shop, and absolutely none of them chose me, just because of my family's 'cursed' history? What would Rowan think if I'd come back to her without a wand? Would she still be my friend, or would she think I'm a freak and would think I'm too 'cursed' to even deserve any friends at Hogwarts?

Before I could think up any more fears, I heard a sudden thump of a ladder hitting the edge of a shelf in the dim hallway just barely visible behind the desk. I looked up and saw an elderly man with curly grey hair and even older-looking eyes the color of maple. His lips curled in a smile the way one did when a well-known acquaintance arrived unannounced.

"I wondered when I would be seeing you, Miss Janelle Morgan," he said in a scratchy voice that sounded like it was a thousand years old.

I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering how in the name of Merlin he knew my name.

After the man, whom I assumed was Ollivander himself, climbed down the rickety ladder and approached the desk with a twelve-by-two-inch navy-blue box in his wrinkly hands, he asked me, "Here to receive your first wand, yes?" After I nodded, he lifted up the box and said, "I have just the thing," and took out a rather fine-looking wand with intricate carvings. "Apple wood wand, dragon heartstring core, nine inches, rigid. Go on. Give it a twirl!" He presented the wand to me, and I nervously took it from him.

I looked expectantly at Ollivander, hoping he would give me some instructions on what to do with the wand, but he just gestured his hand to nothing in particular, meaning that I was free to wave it at anything I chose to test it on. Naturally, I waved the wand over my head, and suddenly several papers went flying off the desk and scattered everywhere on the floor. Some even got shredded in midair, however that happened. Did I do that?

"Sorry about that," I said, feeling embarrassed by the mess. I had felt an urge to clean it up, but Ollivander spoke up before I could do anything about it.

"It's not your fault," he said as if he had had this sort of thing happen to him several times before. "The wand chooses the witch, and that is clearly not the wand for you." Then he paused for a moment, as one would recall something from the past. "I recall your brother exploded my favorite inkpot when he tried his first wand."

My eyebrows rose in shock at these words. "You knew my brother?" But then I thought, of course he knows my brother. Anyone who had been paying attention to the Daily Prophet would know what he did and how that impacted the Wizarding World.

"I remember every wand I've ever sold," Ollivander explained. "His was maple wood, dragon heartstring core, ten inches. A fine wand. Shame they snapped it in half when he was expelled." Yup, he had definitely been paying attention, I thought dismally. "I understand that he ran away from home after being expelled and has been missing ever since. That must have had a profound impact on you..."

I could suddenly feel his sympathy towards me, but I couldn't stop the words from coming out of my mouth. "Expelling him was completely unfair," I said angrily, almost like a whiny five-year-old, "and it was just as wrong of him to run away without telling us."

Ollivander raised an eyebrow, considering my seemingly huffy statement. I honestly didn't mean to sound so huffy; it just sort of came out that way. "Hmmm...I can tell there's a lot of fight in you." Here, I raised an eyebrow quizzically. I never really viewed myself as a fighter, and I didn't even think it possible to see that happening in the future, either. "I think I may have just the wand..." He turned back down the narrow hallway and skimmed several boxes until he picked another box that was black as tar. Then he returned to the desk with the box and took out what looked like just a twig roughly pulled from a tree. "Blackthorn...very unusual wand wood. Unicorn hair core, eleven-and-a-quarter inches. Slightly springy and flexible."