Letters and Wands

Chapter 40:

Letters and wands

Knaburgs words held true, and the owl alongside their new documents came 4 days later. Everything was fully approved by the ministry, and they now had their own IDs.

All three of them were celebrating on that day and it ended in a full-blown-out party when Sirius came by. They partied until late in the evening and fell asleep in an instant.

It took Sniffy a bit to get used to her new name, Sophia. But that was only to people outside her family and friends. In the beginning, she did not even respond to that name, but now she at least responded to it.

A few more months went by. It was the first of August 1989 right now. Every one of them had had their birthday before and they kept waiting for their acceptance letter for Hogwarts. Richard was not knowing when that whole letter sending was supposed to be, but he was pretty sure that it was before Harry's birthday on the 31 first of July in the books.

Therefore, he found it strange that none of their letters had arrived till now. Richard was getting quite queasy as they did not have even a month left until they would need to go to Hogwarts. With no letter, it would be troublesome to do that. The deadline that they had all agreed upon was the 10th of August. Then they would send an owl to the headmaster and ask what was going on.

Sniffy, Richard, and Kyle had just completed their morning training and were now on their way back to the house to prepare breakfast. Running through the forest at a leisure speed, they came to a stop at the sight of an owl sitting in front of them on a tree.

"Hoooth, Hoooth."

It was a brown forest owl and hooted at them in annoyance, while it stretched out its leg.

"How cute." Sniffy was the first one to jump forward excitedly and petted it with elan on her face. Being petted by the little elf, the owl let out a few chirping sounds and enjoyed her attention fully.

Richard and Kyle were looking at their friend and then focused on the owl. It took the owl a few moments of getting petted, but it soon remembered its purpose and jumped out of Sniffys embrace.

"Hoooth"

It hooted again and held one of its feet forward. Sniffy was stunned as the owl struggled free of her hands, but then noticed the case around its outstretched foot. She stepped forward and got the case free of its bindings. Opening it, she took out 3 letters. Each one addressed at one of them.

They all instantly knew what these represented and Sniffy handed them out. The owl, now done with its purpose hooted again and looked at her in an expecting manner.

"Good job, little one. Thanks for your hard work. Here, I have something for you." She got back on her knees, took out some treats of her pouch, and fed the forest owl with enjoyment written all over her face. She just loved animals and loved every moment when she could spoil one of them.

Meanwhile, Richard and Kyle looked at Sniffy, who enjoyed this greatly, for a moment and then opened their acceptance letters of Hogwarts, school for Wizardry and Witchcraft.

Richard stared at the open letter and stood there being stunned for a couple of moments. He had a hard time believing that he now had one of the most sought-after letters in hand. Every child in his last life, that loved Harry Potter, would have given much for this moment.

He lived in this world for 9 years already, but now it felt like he truly was in this world. Yes, he had seen all of Diagon Alley and the magical places in Italy, but right now was when he truly felt like he was in this magical world.

Until now, it all felt unreal to him, like he was living in some kind of dream. This letter was akin to something he had forever dreamt of in his last life. It was a ticket to a magical world, and now he held it in his hands.

This revelation hit him hard. Richard was not aware of his feelings before, but this letter awakened all of them. His eyes watered and he needed to hold himself back to not begin crying. Happiness wafted through his whole being, and he thanked the being that had sent him here.

Thinking back on his last few years, Richard remembered all the weird, but magical stuff that he had been through and loved everything about it. These things were everything he had missed in his last life where boredom was filling every day.

Sniffy and Kyle did not see the change in Richard's eyes as they were too distracted. Kyle was reading his letter with a smile on his face, as he could not wait to go to school there. Richard had told them many stories about this whole magical castle and they were anticipating their stay there.

The little elf had some more important to do and spoiled the little owl.

It took Richard a few more minutes before he was getting back to the present, and then he began reading through his letter.

All three of them spent more time here and then sent the owl off and went back home. At breakfast, it was decided that they would go to Diagon alley today and get all of their school supplies.

Richard never bought more than one set of school books from year one to seven. It was useless to have more than that, as they could easily read them in turns. Their morning spell learning sessions had brought them to the part where they have all learned the spells till the 3rd year.

Richard was ahead of them since he had a head start and Sniffy and Kyle were at about the same level. All of them could cast wandless, but not without saying the spell words for the more complicated spells.

Their occlumency lessons were also bearing fruits. They had accessed their own mind place through meditation and sorted out most of their memories, which meant that they now had access to them if they searched for any particular one. Their thinking speed got also enhanced a bit and they could withstand a leglimency attack, albeit not a too powerful one.

If someone like Dumbledore would want to search for something, then he would surely find it, but they would definitely notice something. He also would need eye contact to get into their heads. All of their surface thoughts were hidden behind shields and not accessible through passive leglimency scanning.

Richard was quite proud of this since he knew that Dumbledore or Snape should have no reason to browse any of their memories, and they were safe for the time being.

Sirius was also quite proud of them. They advanced that quickly and kept to their learning sessions with minor complaints. He told them if they would stick to their training, then they could start on their leglimency lessons in about 2 years. This was a tricky form of magic and they would be overwhelmed with all the thoughts they would hear with their passive scans. Which would be forever active after starting this magic and they needed to have full control of their occlumency to withstand this.

Anyway, after breakfast, they headed for Diagon alley. Kyle blood-teleported them there this time, and they appeared at a random corner next to a few shops.

Richard was very envious of Sniffy and Kyle's ability to teleport around. He couldn´t wait to learn this kind of magic and was seriously downcast when he found out that he needed to wait for a few more years.

Sirius was adamant about this. He told him much about some bad endings of fellows who did not follow this rule. Losing a few body parts and organs were the least of things that could go south. Injuries like these could be fixed with potions and spells, but losing parts of your brain was the terrible part. Imagine you apparate to another place and forget how to move some of your body parts, or your body forgets how to let your heart beat.

This could not be fixed with simple magic, at least for now, since it was too complicated. Nobody understood the brain enough to cure such things at this point in time.

Richard understood all of this and waited for a bit. At least until he could figure a way around this. He had tried to ask Sniffy and Kyle to explain to him how they teleported around, but they could only tell him that they did it instinctively and also did not understand it.

Anyhow, they split up to buy the things they needed separately since it was saving time. They would meet again in front of Ollivander's wand shop in about 3 hours.

Sniffy was going to Madam Malkin's shop to discuss something about their school clothes with her and catch up. They had not seen each other for quite some time after all. Kyle had found his interest in potions and was going to the apothecary to stock up on things.

All three of them could concoct potions up to the second year, but Kyle was ahead of them as he found the subject to be interesting and was much better in this area than Sniffy or Richard.

Richard was strolling towards Flourish and Blotts and looked if he could find any book that interested him. He had read many books over the years and was quite accomplished on the theoretical side of magical knowledge, but found his stash lacking.

The room in the basement had grown over the years and could now be viewed as a library. In the beginning, it was just a few shelves, but it had grown so much overtime that Sirius had to enchant the room to be bigger. Richard loved to read about magical things and could be found with a book in his hands at almost all times when he had nothing better to do.

He strolled through the bookstore for some time and when he looked at his watch, Richard could only murmur. "Damn, already this late. I hate being late. Sniffy will let me hear no end about this, sigh." He completely lost his sense of time and was now in a hurry to get to Ollivanders.

Running through the alley, it was a bit before lunchtime, and much more people were frequenting the alley than in the early morning. Easily evading people who were passing by, he got to the front of Ollivanders in no time. Seeing the sign on the shop, he sighed in relief as he thought he was not too late, but that changed when he saw an annoyed Sniffy standing there with her hands crossed.

"Look there Kyle, his highness graces us with his presence at last."

Richard began to sweat a little when he saw her. Quickly trying to placate her, he tried to explain himself.

"Sorry, I completely lost track of time. You know how I get when I see books. Let me make up for it."

"I will hold you to that. Let's talk about this later. We should get our wands before then."

Sniffy reprimanded him and Kyle could only stand next to her with an amusing smile on his face while he looked at Richard's helpless expression. You never anger her queen Sniffy. It will do you no good. They learned that the hard way.

"Ding"

Walking in the old wand shop, the trio looked around and saw some old cases on shelves that should contain wands. None of them needed a wand, but it was required for Hogwarts. Therefore, they were here.

It would look quite suspicious if all of them did not need wands, and they unanimously decided to get them.

After waiting for a bit, an old-looking man came out to the front and greeted them. The trio introduced themselves and they made a bit of small talk, while Ollivander was getting their bodies measured.

The time was ticking by and Ollivander was getting more excited every moment. It was not every day that he has such tricky customers and he needed a very long time to find them their wands.

All three of them were soon annoyed after trying out wand after wand. Wood piled up on the counter and the first one to be fitted was Kyle. Apparently, it was an old one with an unknown core, but it acknowledged Kyle as his master.

Sniffy was another matter altogether. Every wand she tried wanted to be hers and she just choose one that she found "cute". It was beyond Kyle and Richards' understanding how a stick could be cute, but they let that matter slide.

Ollivander thought she had found her wand on the first try, but she got curious and picked up another one from Kyle's useless ones, and it also matched her. She tested a few others before she settled with hers.

It was a 9-inch chestnut wand with a unicorn hair core. Ollivander was stunned at her affinity with so many wands and could only look at her with curiosity as she picked herself a wand.

His known words of the wand searches for a master and not the other way around got stuck in his throat when he saw this.

Richard tried wand after wand and it took him 2 hours to find one that suited him. Sniffy and Kyle were just looking around the old shop in curiosity.

When he picked it up, he felt the magic flow in his body change slightly and flow towards the wand. After that, it produced some sparks.

He instantly knew that it would be much easier now to cast spells, but his magic was forced in a straight path to his wand and he could not control it as much as before.

When he started his journey to do magic, he soon found out that it flowed through his whole body very much like blood. After years and years of training, he could regulate this flow of magic in a much better way. The spells he cast were much easier to control and much more flexible.

Richard knew that with this "focus" he would only lose the ability to control his magic to such a degree, and he knew it would be detrimental to him in the long run.

"Thank you for your hard work mister, Ollivander." Richard said to the old man, and the trio wished him a nice day and said goodbye.

The moment they got out of the shop, they all let their wands slip into their pouches and forgot about them.

On the way home, the trio discussed how they felt about these wands and all came to the same conclusion, albeit in a different way.

To Sniffy, it felt uncomfortable to cast magic through it, since it somewhat interrupted her connection with the surrounding magic. It was a suffocating feeling for her to not be connected to nature anymore and she detested this "focus".

In the beginning, she did not feel like that. But it gradually got stronger over time while they were inside the shop and now she could not stand this feeling any longer.

Kyle had a different feeling, it was not that strong as Sniffys, he just felt uncomfortable while holding it. Richard told them how he felt about this and they decided to transfigure some random wood into their wands to show around for others to see.

Since it was dinnertime now, they cooked a nice and fulfilling meal. After enjoying their time together, they went back to their usual activities. They had only less than a month before they would spend most of the year in the Scottish Highlands.

Another few days went by and Richard got a little parcel delivered per owl. He had written a letter to his goblin handler and asked if they had something unique. He could not wait and after sending the owl off, he eagerly opened the parcel and looked at three shining rings.

With sparkling eyes, he took one of them and put it on his finger. After letting his magic flow into it, he knew they were the real deal. Richard could feel the space inside this ring and it felt much bigger than his pouch.

On his hand was a freaking spatial ring. He had forever wanted to get one of these but found nothing about them in the magical world. The idea of asking his goblin handler just occurred to him yesterday, and he instantly wrote a letter to Knaburg.

His hopes were not high for them, but now that he was wearing one of these legendary things, he could only laugh out loud.

"Hahahahaha"

Hearing the laughter, Sniffy and Kyle came quickly to find out what was going on and after explaining what these rings were, they were happy but not much more than that. They did not understand Richard's excitement. It was just slightly different from their pouches, and they did not understand why he was dancing around like a chicken.

After calming down a bit, he told them this was a freaking spatial ring, but they could not understand him. They found it funny to look at their friend in a state like this and concluded that they did not need to understand him.

They both were happy to not need to wear their pouches anymore, as they were in the way all the time. The rings were just normal-looking rings in a silver color and were enchanted against thievery and to adjust themselves to the wearer.

These rings had more space than their pouches and were easier accessible. They would not have to shove things inside the pouches anymore and just needed to touch the ring and channel some magic into it to activate.

Somehow, Richard was so excited that he instantly went into the basement of the library and placed all the bookshelves in his ring. It was not possible with the pouches before, as he would have to shrink every shelf to get it inside the pouches. But with the ring, it was no problem anymore.

He just stood there and put his hands on the shelves, which then vanished into thin air. Every time he lost some magic, it seemed that he needed more magic for bigger things.

They cost a fortune, but that was no concern to anyone.