Chapter 11: The Wand of Threads (Part 2)
The brick wall behind the Leaky Cauldron clicked and shifted as Pandora tapped the correct sequence of bricks with her wand—three up, two across. With a soft rumble, the gateway to another world opened before them.
Luna inhaled.
Diagon Alley.
It was louder than she remembered. Busier. Full of smells—spices, parchment, burning incense, owl feathers, and old stone. Colors burst from shop windows in wild, uncontained magic. A hat danced by itself on a stall table. A broomstick zipped overhead, trailed by a cackling child and a red-faced parent. Somewhere, a cauldron belched lavender smoke.
And yet... underneath the chaos, Luna felt a deeper rhythm. Time pulsed oddly here. Threads tugged at her mind—convergences. Intersections. Lives brushing against one another.
She stepped forward. Her mother and father flanked her protectively, but she hardly noticed.
"Where to first?" asked Arthur Weasley, who had rejoined them with Ginny and the twins in tow. Ginny, one year younger than Luna, clung to her father's robes with a look of wistful longing.
Fred and George trailed behind, whispering and occasionally making a charmed coin vanish up their sleeves.
"Ollivanders," Pandora said firmly. "Luna has something to complete."
Ollivanders – Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.
The bell above the door jingled like a memory. The shop smelled of dust and magic, old as stone and young as lightning.
Mr. Ollivander emerged from the shadows as if woven from the dust itself.
"Ah... Miss Lovegood," he said quietly. "I was expecting you."
"You were?" Luna tilted her head. "The winds don't always blow in straight lines."
He smiled faintly. "No, they don't. And you've walked through more than one storm, haven't you?"
Pandora stepped forward and handed over the velvet-wrapped bundle.
Ollivander unrolled it carefully. He said nothing for a long moment, only traced the wand's length with a long, pale finger. His eyes flickered—silver flashes of insight.
"A wand partially crafted in the home," he said softly. "Yew wood. Flexible but stubborn. And this core... not a phoenix feather, nor dragon heartstring, nor unicorn hair. But rather—your own hair, Miss Lovegood? Threaded with dreamcatcher feather, star-glass filament... and something else. Something that doesn't belong to this era."
"She's... touched by something old," Pandora murmured.
Ollivander nodded. "And the wand recognizes that. Most curious."
He held the wand out. "Touch it, Luna."
Luna reached for it.
The moment her fingers curled around the wood, a sharp ring of hum echoed through the shop. The lights flickered. Loose parchment fluttered. Somewhere in the back of the store, an ancient wand box burst open, golden motes of light spiraling into the air. The scent of ozone briefly filled the room.
Ollivander's eyes gleamed. "She has already bonded with it. The wand didn't choose her in this moment—it found her long before she entered this room. An anomaly, but a beautiful one."
He bowed low, both to Luna and the wand.
"Well," he said gently, "this wand will be unlike any other. Sensitive to dreams, time, and perhaps... deeper things. Handle it with care. It is not simply a tool—it is a thread of yourself."
Outside, the street remained alive with noise, but Luna's new wand nestled in her grip like an extension of her thoughts. She could feel it singing—quiet, shy, but undeniably hers.
As they moved on toward the shops for robes and books, Luna's gaze shifted.
There—across the cobbled lane—was a boy with wild black hair and round glasses, accompanied by a large man with a beard and a coat full of hidden trinkets. The boy looked lost. His green eyes were wide, trying to take in everything at once.
Harry Potter, her memory whispered.
And beside a display of owl cages, a girl with bushy brown hair was holding up a copy of Hogwarts: A History, lecturing her parents about the theory of magical law.
Hermione Granger.
Further down, near a stack of Remembralls, a soft, round-faced boy was being fussed over by an older witch—his Gran, no doubt. He looked nervous but kind.
Neville Longbottom.
Luna didn't approach any of them. Not yet.
But she saw the way threads wove faintly around them all. Temporal silk, frayed and stained, but resilient.
As the sun dipped low over Diagon Alley, the families paused at the Twilight Cauldron, a quiet tea shop tucked just off the main road, between a weathered bookstore and a wizarding music shop.
"Most families avoid Knockturn Alley," Arthur explained over hot chocolate, "but there are older places deeper down—the Dungeon Alley, the underground spine of old wizarding trade. Only those with reason to go enter those passages."
Luna's eyes flicked toward a shadowed archway not far from where they sat.
Dungeon Alley. Where time pooled and magic took on its oldest faces. She could feel it—simmering behind the wards. The pulse of secrets.
"Someday," she murmured, "I'll go there."
Pandora turned to her slowly. "Not without me. And not until you're ready."
Luna smiled. "I think I've been ready for a very long time. But I'm still growing."
That evening, they returned to the Leaky Cauldron with bags full of supplies, Luna's new wand safely tucked in a rune-sealed case, and her trunk half-organized with robes, cauldrons, spellbooks, and self-writing quills.
As they passed through the final door to the Floo Network, Luna paused one last time.
She turned back toward Diagon Alley.
And whispered to the quiet air: "I'll come back here stronger."
The wind, full of magic and mystery, whispered back.
.