The Wandmaker

Wand Against Witch

C H A P T E R s e v e n

Loud screeching shook Symbida from her light sleep. Half asleep, she looked around drowsily through half opened eyes . Standing up, she spun around slowly, slightly unbalanced, searching for the window in her room where the birds sat outside at the farm in the morning, screeching their heads off.

Instead of a window, she found a tiny fire almost burnt out and she saw that she had not been sleeping in her own bed, but a dark orange armchair. Suddenly, all the events from the last twenty-four hours flooded back - the boy from the painting, Dail Gaunt, her wand, Professor Gawndrey, The Service Room, Tippy! She remembered hiding in the room from Lampurn after her wand had tried to send a spell at the Slytherin boy. No, not just shot a spell, it had been trying to protect her!

Pulling her wand out from her pocket, she sat down on a wooden chair and studied it by the light of the fire. She looked at the woven pattern that was carved into it, the rough, slightly crooked handle that snuggled into her palm perfectly, and the beautifully deep brown wood; searching for any sign, any carving or spark, that would tell her the meaning of it.

"Why?" She asked the wand. "What makes me so unique that my wand tries to protect me?"

The wand shivered in her palm, and she felt it tug her hand upwards and give a swish in the air. Golden letters burst from the wand and shimmered in from of her. She read eagerly, desperate to know what made her special.

It is not the witch that makes the difference. The wand holds all the power.
I am unique. I am special. I am full of ancient power. Do not forget; the wand chooses the wizard.
It is not the other way around.

No. No, no, no. Symbida's throat dried into a desert. She felt as though she had been slapped in the face. She wasn't unique? There was nothing special about her? She was, heaven forbid, normal?

No. It couldn't be true. It wasn't possible. What about all the grades she had achieved? All the effort she had sacrificed? The time she had spent perfecting everything? Had that all been the wand too? No, it couldn't have been.

Every insecurity that had been silenced by receiving the wand came back in full force, flooding her mind and tearing her down. She felt like she was drowning, kept under the water by the thought of being normal, average, simple. Tears streamed down her face as all her hopes and dreams came crashing down around her like falling beams in a burning house. The wand had hit her right where it hurt, and she wasn't sure if the wound would ever stop bleeding.

Simple. Boring. Stupid. Plain. Average. Symbida's nails dug deep into her palms as she tried to block out the thoughts screaming in her head. But she couldn't, because they came from inside her, and no matter how hard she blocked her ears, squeezed her eyes shut and dug her fingers into her hands, they stayed, bouncing around, taunting.

The wand tugged at her hand again, and sent green cursive letters into the air to give her another message.

Get over yourself, it's pathetic.

Symbida gasped, utterly offended. Who in Merlin's name did this wand think it was? She opened her mouth to object.

Seriously, so many people would kill to be normal.
And anyway, you're one tiny insignificant dot in a giant world, not some unique princess.
You are not a special snowflake.