The dinner had been fine -- roast chicken with carrots and potatoes -- and they had just polished off one of Amelia Ollivander's infamous pippin pies.

Verity had come home at lunch to get the prep work done, and had rushed home after the day had ended to put the birds in the oven so that they would be ready by the time their guests would arrive.

Prue had spent most of the day reading a book Verity had given her. She was terribly quiet. She had found a nice chair and had rarely moved except to turn pages. Gray was feeling a bit useless.

"Verity, I could have helped you with that. You didn't have to rush. I dated a woman once who showed me how to put things in the oven."

The younger Moody, for her part, looked sheepish. "Next time, you can cook the whole thing," she responded, sipping her mead.

"Now, let's not go that far," Moody interjected. "At least, not until he's recovered a bit." Moody picked up the bottle and offered some more mead to the Ollivanders.

Amelia accepted a half-glass, but Jacob replied, "I think I'd better stop until after we fit this young lady with her replacement wand."

Prue twitched excitedly and sat up straighter. She had not eaten much, but she usually did not. She wished Theo had joined them, but he was looking over Natalie and Dean. Prue understood.

"I didn't say I could cook," Gray remarked. "Only that I could place things in the oven. That's what I had Clem for - the cooking."

Moody nodded. "That's the real reason behind my caution to Verity," he chuckled. "I can remember Claudia mentioning once that you had the uncanny ability to burn water."

"Potions was not my forte, and as most culinary efforts are remarkably like it, I am abysmal. I think the only person to surpass my record in cauldron melting is is the Longbottom boy."

Ollivander chuckled, and Amelia hid her amusement with her goblet. "Did I ever tell you what happened when Augusta brought him into the shop?"

Prue perked up to listen.

"Judging from what I know about him from Natalie, this should be good." Gray frowned for a moment about mentioning Nat so casually, as if she were perfectly fine.

"Now, keep in mind that he was fifteen or so when he got his first wand from me," Ollivander reminded them. "He'd been using Frank's up until then, but it had broken during that business in the Department of Mysteries."

Moody nodded. He remembered running into Augusta not long after that incident; The order had been keeping tabs on all of the kids involved.

"Well, Augusta brings him in, and by the time they'd left, he'd broken three windows, one wand, my wrist, set fire to the carpet and and banished his trousers." He chuckled and rotated his glass by the stem in his fingers. "Ah, an eventful day. Cherry and Unicorn Hair. Fourteen inches. Good for charms."

Prue's mouth was hanging open in horror. Everyone else was snickering.

"Mr. Moody, I don't want to tear up your house."

"You won't," Gray replied, patting her hand. "Neville Longbottom is a unique case."

"Plus," Ollivander said, "I've already fitted you for a wand, so I've only brought the ones that will work properly for you. We'll just have to see which one works the best, is all."

Prue was excited, but she tried not to be too excited about it. She had liked getting her wand the first time. She still wished Theo were here. She was anxious to be away from the table, however, and picking through the wands. She knew she could not use it outside of school, but just to have the wand again would be a comfort.

"I'm ready, sir."

"Gray, why don't you, Prudence, and the Ollivanders adjourn to the lounge while Verity and I clear up these dishes," Moody suggested.

Gray nodded and offered Prue a hand.

"You don't want me to clear the dishes," Prue asked. "That was one of my chores when-"

"You are not clearing dishes anymore," Gray practically snarled. "You are to concentrate on your studies and being a normal little girl."

Verity grumbled under her breath that she'd had to clear the table and help with the dishes when she'd been twelve, earning an eyeroll from her great grandfather. He grabbed some glasses and followed.

When Prue made it into the lounge, Ollivander was arranging open wand boxes on the coffee table.

Prue looked at them with wide eyes.

Gray just had a seat and watched her. It had been a few years since Natalie had been this young. If Natalie had ever been a child. She was so serious. Prue was a different sort of serious though. Natalie was driven while Prue was meek.

"I do believe that we should start at this end here," Ollivander indicated the end to his left. "And work our way down here to this end here. The first wand is the closest to your original wand, and many times replacements are very, very similar in composition to the original wand. However, as I mentioned the last time we met, the witch does not choose the wand, the wand chooses the witch, which is why I have assembled these. Just in case."

Prue picked the wand up gently. She recalled what to do. She flicked it. A rather pathetic puff of smoke came out.

"Well, that's a no," Gray said. "Does a person's experiences change what wand will choose them? I know her brother went through something very traumatic and his is quite different from the one he got upon entering Hogwarts."

"Often times, yes" Amelia piped up. "We've had to replace several Aurors' wands over the years, and those poor blokes' wand components are all over the board from wand to wand."

Ollivander followed that up with, "Young Mister Nott's replacement was quite dissimilar to his first wand. Willow with a core of phoenix tears, if you can believe it. Twelve inches. Very good for charms."

"That's very sad," Prue said quietly. "Weeping willow and tears."

She didn't want to think of her brother being sad.

Prue picked up the next one. It shot out of her hand and back into its box. "That one doesn't like me."

She moved on to the third. It was a light color of wood. Prue felt a little jolt before she even touched it. As when she had gotten her first wand, the air filled with the scent of wild honeysuckle when she gave it a swish.

"Interesting," Ollivander said, leaning forward. "Hazel with Dragon Heartstring. Nine inches. Good for Transfiguration and Dueling." He looked over at Gray. "You and I will have to have a chat about something in a bit." Turning back to Prudence, he asked, "How does that one feel?"

"Like before but different," Prue responded absently, hoping that made sense. She looked at Gray. "May I be excused? I would really like to help Verity."

"Of course."

She tucked her wand proudly in the sash on her little dress and walked swiftly towards the kitchen.

Gray looked at Ollivander.

"What in the bloody buggering bollocks happened to that little girl?"

Gray sighed loudly. "I'm not even sure of all of it. She was brave enough to save my life, however, so she will always have my support. Anything that child needs. Anything. She will never want, never again go without. I gather from her comments that her mother never truly wanted her, then when she passed her stepfather sent her to the Notts, which ended her being with Tense. House-elves are treated better."

That hadn't really answered his question, but he could see that Grayson really didn't know. "Let me tell you a little bit about young Prudence. When she first came to me, she left with a Lime and Unicorn hair wand. It was ten inches and was incredibly flexible, which tells me that this little girl was incredibly confident and better than average on the power scale."

"It's still there," Gray replied. "It's just been beaten out of her. She'll get it back. She is, after all, Theo's sister. I see it in her. She has that same Nott-ness in her eyes when she looks at you. As if she isn't looking at you, but through you. She just needs proper reinforcement."

"She'll get some of it back, I've no doubt, but with that wand that she just walked out of this room with, she'll never get all of it. She's changed on some fundamental level. Wands know, Grayson. The one she's got now will serve her well, but is not for anyone nearly as willful as she was. It really is sad to see when this sort of thing happens, and I very much doubt that I've seen the end of it."

Gray frowned. He didn't like the sound of that. It only made him want to protect her more. If he was recalling properly, Natalie want was extremely flexible, but his Natalie was a dueler. She always had been. His girl fought hard. Her had no idea where she got that from. Claudia had been such a free spirit, and he was such a jokester.

"If her situation changes, will she need to be refitted? Is that possible?"

"It is possible, but it happens so very rarely that I can't even give you the odds of it needing to be done."

Gray sighed. "If she had only been sent to Theo instead."

He'd still be with Tense now, but Gray had hope that Natalie or Kings would have found him. Hestia even. Speaking of, he wanted Moody to join them so he could ask if the thing he'd heard about her and Black was true. It needed to be. Hestia never quite fit with anyone else she had ever dated. Gray could imagine her and Sirius. It was a scary thought, but he could see it.

"Indeed," Amelia responded. She took a sip of her mead and Jacob began picking up the other wands.

Shortly thereafter, Prue and the Moodys rejoined the others in the living room. The girls sat themselves down on the love seat across from sofa where the Ollivanders were seated.

Moody placed Jacob's wine glass in front of him and poured him some mead and topped off Amelia's and Verity's glasses. He set a butterbeer in front of Prudence and Grayson, and then sat down in the rocker.

"Well," he said, "There's that done. I take it that the fitting went well?"

Jacob nodded.

"So," Gray said, jumping right in. "Hestia and Black? Really? World's still here and everything."

"Amazing, isn't it? There was some initial resistance, but she eventually came around." Moody looked smug.

"Of course there was resistance. It's Hestia. She was always and will always be entirely too stubborn. I wouldn't change her, however."

He didn't know what else to talk about. Normally he'd brag about Natalie at this point, but thinking upon her made him sad just now. He did wish she would wake. The longer she stayed sleeping, the more difficult her recovery would be.

"Entirely too stubborn for her own good, if you ask me. Sirius maneuvered himself into an excellent position early on, and I gave them a bit of a shove at each other," he announced. "It was mostly him, though."

"Good. He could have settled this ages ago if he didn't have to run about so much when we were at Hogwarts. I could have nudged it along back then, but I was a vast deal older than Hest, and at that age, it matters."

Prue was listening intently, just absorbing and remembering names for future reference.

"Well, at that age, children tend to be slightly uncomfortable and more than slightly insecure," Amelia Ollivander chimed in. "Fear of rejection tends to curb them from acting on their..." She paused, searching for the right words. "...Amorous impulses. Even if the other person would be receptive."

Verity colored slightly.

Gray chuckled a bit. "Verity, if the subject of conversation is not to your liking, feel free to start a new one."

She raised an eyebrow and asked, "How about those Harpies, eh? That new chaser who took over for Bell?"

Jacob chuckled.



(SUMMARY) The Ollivanders visit the Moody farm for dinner. The dessert menu? A wand fitting.