The Fault In Our Names

Part 1

"What a massive family!" I exclaimed, as soon as they were out of earshot.

"The Weasley family? Rather." Said an old croaky voice from the shadows. I jumped when I heard it, as I was not expecting an answer. The figure emerged, and in the dim light, I could see his white hair, his skinny body and ragged old clothes. "You two must be Tom Riddleson and Zoe Baggot, yes?" he asked. We nodded.

I was very surprised that he knew our names, but I a summed that it must be some magical mind reading thing.

"So, which of you youngsters will be receiving their wand first? You must remember, you do not choose your wand, the wand chooses the wizard." His old wise voice made me strangely curious about what he was saying. The wand chooses the wizard? But how?

Zoe let me go first, and Mr. Olivander lead me into a back room, stacked high with boxes. He climbed up onto a ladder and rummaged around for a little while, muttering to himself, and then pulled out several boxes. "Oak, eleven inches, mockingbird feather," he said, as he handed me a wand. I just stood there not knowing what to do with it. "Well, wave it around then" he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. I did, and nothing happened. He tutted to himself, the gave me another want to try. "ten inches, teak, foxtail," he said, as he handed me another, shorter, darker wand. I waved it around, but still nothing happened. He gave me the next one to try. No success. After trying my fifth wand with no success, I started to wonder if maybe I was not meant to be a wizard. I voiced my fear to the old man, but he dismissed it, saying it was just the wrong wand. He got back on his ladder, but this time climbed all the way to the top shelf, where all the boxes were golden.

"The first time a wizard makes a wand with a new core, it is made part of something called the top 100. The top 100 are one of each core, all the most powerful of that core group." He said, pausing to look down to see if I was following what he was saying. "Here try this. Ten inches, birch, emerald core." I took a deep breath before trying it. Please work, please work, I thought. When I waved it, green sparks came out of the wand. I looked to Mr. Olivander questioningly. He gave me a smile and then said, "never doubt yourself, Tom Riddle" he said with a wink, "Your father was a powerful, intelligent man. I'm not saying that what he did was good, but the qualities he had could have made him a great man. It was his choice."

After Zoe got her wand, ironically the same oak, eleven inches, mockingbird feather that I had first tried, we went to get books for school. Since we were going into our first year, we only needed the basics, so we were quick to buy our books and leave. By this time, my hunger had escalated to a point where I couldn't control myself anymore, so we went to get lunch at the three broomsticks. I was hoping for a really big meal of roasted chicken, but the food at the three broomsticks was not what I would call normal. They had vegetables with gravy, bread with gravy, everything with gravy, probably to mask the bad taste of the food. They also only had heavy alcoholic drinks, so the four of us just settled for ale, one of the only names on the drinks menu that we actually recognized.

After our not so delicious lunch, our little group split up, because Zoe and claire were going to get a pet cat. I was very intrigued by the broomstick shop, which was next to the pet shop, so my mum said we could go in while we waited for the others to finnish their shopping. Inside the shop were all kinds of different broomstick models, and posters of teams that played something called Quiditch. On one of the tables there was a book called Quiditch for Beginners, so I read a bit to see what the game was about. It seemed to consist of people racing around on broomsticks, scoring goals in three hoops at either end of the field. Unlike football or Cricket, there were three different balls; two of which moved on their own! After reading a bit more, Zoe came in looking like she'd just got a gift from god. She came right over to me and said "look at my new cat! isn't it gorgeous!"