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Contrary to Anthony's expectations, the wand selection process was unremarkable.
Ollivander chatted with Professor Burbage about her wand, then stared at Anthony with silvery eyes for a while. Without a word, he took Anthony's measurements and started him on what seemed like an endless trial-and-error process.
Anthony stood in the shop, waving wands one after another as the wandmaker instructed.
Sometimes sparks crackled from the wand's tip like a light bulb about to short-circuit. Ollivander would snatch the wand away before he could trace a figure-eight with the sparks and shove another into his hand. "Wrong, perhaps this one!"
Other times, before he could even reach for it, the wand in its box would start trembling. "Of course, of course not! How could I not have thought of that!" Ollivander would immediately snap the lid shut.
Still other wands felt no different from polished sticks in his hand. In the wandmaker's words, "They're like they're dead."
Just as Anthony was contemplating whether he truly needed a wand—honestly, he wouldn't blow himself up without one—Ollivander pulled the next wand from the shelves and pressed it into his hand. "Try this one. Silver lime, unicorn tail hair. Ten and three-quarters inches, reasonably springy."
Anthony gripped it.
He held his breath.
"This is it." He said quietly.
Ollivander widened his pale eyes at him. "Give it a wave, Mr. Anthony. Do anything."
Anthony gently flicked the wand.
Dappled light and shadow began moving across the shop's walls, forming a winged flying horse with a horn so long it was intimidating.
"Wow." Professor Burbage said.
"Wow." Anthony marveled. The feeling was extraordinary. He no longer felt like he was holding a stick or a sparkler—
He felt complete.
As if this had always been part of him, his wand rested securely in his hand, every curve fitting perfectly against his palm. Magic he'd never experienced before flowed through him—magic different from the skeletal cat and wraith chicken.
"Magnificent. Every time a wand chooses its master, I must say this—absolutely magnificent." Ollivander said. "Your wand likes you very much, Mr. Anthony. Don't disappoint it. Don't harm it."
Anthony squeezed the silver shaft. "I like it very much too. Thank you, Mr. Ollivander."
"Wonderful." Ollivander accepted the Galleons and saw them to the door. "By the way, if you don't mind—what were you thinking when you waved the wand? We don't usually see such a concrete connection."
"I was thinking..." Anthony recalled blankly. "Unicorn. You said it was made with unicorn hair, so I was thinking of a unicorn." He smiled apologetically at Ollivander. "I guess that's not very helpful."
"No, very helpful. Unicorns don't look like that, sir." Ollivander said gently.
Anthony: "..."
Professor Burbage suppressed her amusement. "Let's go, Professor Anthony. We really do need to buy some books."
...
Following the book list Professor Burbage kindly provided, he found textbooks for Hogwarts' first through fifth year required courses (and of course didn't forget Muggle Studies' Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles).
When he picked up the History of Magic textbook, he drew a deep breath at its thickness and weight. He did need this, but the hardcover tome cost two Galleons. If he added the textbooks he'd already found, it would nearly exhaust his remaining money, leaving him only three Knuts.
"That gentleman, the secondhand section is inside—most textbooks are there!" A Flourish and Blotts clerk shouted through the towering bookshelves. "If you don't mind, you can go in and look!"
Professor Burbage also asked him, "You're planning to buy all new books?"
"Of course not." Anthony said. "I just didn't know they sold secondhand here."
He carefully navigated around the packed shelves, squeezing through narrow gaps. These shelves emanated a mixed scent of wood, ink, bread, and dust that always made his nose itch with the urge to sneeze. Some books suddenly opened eyes on their spines as he passed, startling him.
The secondhand shelves were placed at the very back, so full they nearly overflowed. Without magic binding them, these shelves would've exploded long ago.
Anthony laboriously extracted the corresponding textbooks, selecting a few whose covers hadn't fallen off—some secondhand textbooks were so tattered they looked like the clerk had snatched them from a dragon's mouth.
Besides textbooks, the secondhand shelves held many books that tempted him. He had to return to Gringotts to exchange more currency.
After acquiring his own wand, he was eager to understand it better. To this end, he bought many wandlore-related books (Wand Care Guide, Understanding Your Wand, The Tales of Wands), and unexpectedly unearthed some dusty historical references from the bottom shelf—a mixture of official and unofficial magical history.
Professor Burbage watched him pile books on the counter and sighed tolerantly. "Look at you, just like a little boy who's just bought a broomstick."
She shrank and lightened the books for him so he could easily carry them back to the Leaky Cauldron.
"I suppose you're in no mood to continue shopping. But now you have your own wand—you can come anytime." She smiled. "Let's call it a day. I look forward to seeing you at Hogwarts, Professor Anthony—oh, this year you're responsible for third and fourth years. You can freely choose textbooks, just write Minerva a letter, but I strongly recommend that Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles."
Only then did Anthony suddenly realize a problem: school started in just two months, and he needed to prepare lessons! And he knew nothing!
After bidding Professor Burbage farewell, he hurried back to the Leaky Cauldron and buried himself in books. His cat tried to cause trouble but was held in his arms and lectured earnestly on the principles of Aguamenti, quickly losing interest and crawling under the bed to sleep.
If Tom hadn't come with champagne, he probably would've completely forgotten the time. When he got up from his chair to answer the door, he suddenly felt dizzy and his legs went weak, only then realizing he'd missed both lunch and dinner.
"Congratulations!" The Leaky Cauldron's landlord said. "Hogwarts' new professor—worth celebrating! This is a new product, as new as you, the new professor." He chuckled at his own wit.
Anthony accepted the glass and drained it. "Thanks. Any sandwiches?"
"Champagne is one Sickle, thank you for your patronage." Tom said. "Only beef sandwiches left, five silver Sickles. Want one?"
"One, please, you opportunistic profiteer." Anthony said bluntly, counting out six silver coins.
After eating the sandwich, he opened The Standard Book of Spells again.
Thanks to his past student career, Anthony was quite skilled at reading literature. Textbooks written for eleven-year-old wizards used accessible language and clear formatting. The secondhand book he'd bought even retained notes from that year's student. In just half a day, he dared say he could hold his own against an ordinary first-year student... provided he didn't use necromancy.
Out of curiosity about necromancers, he also read the historical materials.
Due to their excessive fondness for gathering near graveyards, necromancers nearly disappeared during medieval witch hunts—secret denunciations by hostile wizards contributed greatly—then were jointly eliminated by the international magical community, finally declared extinct in the late 19th century, becoming a profession that lived on only in poetry.
A Concise History of Magic excerpted a segment from ancient poetry. In the story, a necromancer summoned an army of the undead, forcing people to fight the corpses of their own loved ones. A witch saw her deceased daughter appear before her. When forced to destroy the child's body, she cursed the necromancer in furious grief with her daughter's bones and her own flesh and blood.
"I curse you with pure bones, I curse you with furious flesh." She cried out. "I want death to torment you the same way! I want to drink your blood with death! How I thirst!"
In the poem, this mother's curse succeeded. When her enemy died, blood gushed forth like a fountain. She sipped it: "Bitter blood! Sweet blood!"
The book noted this passage corresponded with vampire legends in parts of southern England. Meanwhile, another poem circulating in northern Finland had a similar plot, except it became revenge for a son. At the poem's end, the mother also became a necromancer, transforming her enemy's bones into her lowliest slave.
"We have reason to believe these similarities are not coincidental but glimpses of historical fact. Death and vengeance, as primitive frenzied forces, manifested in dark magic, repeatedly appearing in the civilizing process of magic. Literary necromancers vary in image, but their deaths are strikingly uniform: ancient dark magic travels along chains of hatred from perpetrator to avenger, ultimately leading all stories to Death. In any case, this magic most entangled with Death has vanished into the river of time."
Anthony closed the book.
This author seemed to hold a peculiar view of magical history, believing magic originated from humanity's confrontation with Death, and dark magic was Death's weapon. The author repeatedly emphasized that when people became obsessed with dark magic, Death had already caught up with them. Interestingly, when mentioning Death, the wording was quite neutral.
He looked at the author's name on the cover: Pandora Lovegood.
"The answer is written in the riddle." Anthony murmured.
To banish the history of necromancers from his mind, he decided to practice spells before bed.
He used Aguamenti to fill the empty sandwich plate with water, then made it float ("Wingardium Leviosa." He recited loudly.), then removed the spell and let it crash to the floor. He successfully restored the plate with Reparo, but no matter how he pointed at the floor and said Tergeo, that puddle continued to brazenly shimmer with warm yellow reflections in the candlelight.
Anthony sighed and stood to get a towel.
"The simpler the method, the less likely to go wrong." Anthony muttered. "Learn from Muggle wisdom, wizards."
He decided tomorrow he'd flip through the Muggle Studies textbook to see how wizards viewed ordinary people without magic.
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