"It's time to get a new wand," Snape said, looking at the parchment in his hand and placing a gleaming silver badge he'd shaken from the envelope onto the table. "Professor Dumbledore is quite trustworthy after all—"
Ten minutes earlier, the school owl had delivered his seventh-year booklist, along with a small badge emblazoned with "HB."
"What's this?" Eileen, wiping her hands on her apron, walked over and curiously picked up the badge from the table. "Oh, Head Boy! That's wonderful, Severus!"
"Yes, yes," Snape drawled, slowly standing up and bowing dramatically, then grabbing Eileen's hand. "My dearest mother, seeing you fills my heart with joy."
"Alright, alright," Eileen's eyes crinkled into slits as she laughed, trying to pin the badge onto Snape's black robes. "Why don't we wear it and take a stroll to the Burrow?"
"Oh, no," Snape quickly jumped back. "I wouldn't be caught dead parading around with a badge that says 'Enormous Head'."
Lily, sitting nearby with her own envelope in hand, burst out laughing.
As she opened her envelope, a Head Girl badge, inscribed with "HG," dropped out.
"Oh dear," Eileen's eyes lit up. "Lily, you have one too, that's splendid! You're both Head Boy and Head Girl. Here, let me pin it on you."
Lily stopped laughing.
"But are you going to Diagon Alley so early?" Eileen asked, having pinned the badge on Lily, then looking back at Snape. "Shall we go together?"
"No, I'll go alone," Snape said, pulling out the wand that had belonged to the old Albanian witch from his robes. "This wand is really quite awkward; I want to replace it as soon as possible."
"Will it affect your Apparition?" Lily asked, trying to subtly remove the badge from her chest without Eileen noticing.
"Yes, it will," Snape said. "So I plan to take the Knight Bus. The Daily Prophet said it resumed service last month."
He walked to the cupboard and took out several brightly colored toys—he'd specifically bought extra when he got Percy's gift last time.
"See you later," Snape said, pushing open the front door.
With a tremendous bang and a screech of brakes, the vibrant purple Knight Bus materialized out of thin air on the country road in St Catchpole village.
Snape waited for a while before the bus door slowly creaked open.
The driver, Ernie Prang, scrambled out of the bus, his grey hair plastered to his forehead, his thick glasses fogged.
"Welcome to the Knight Bus! I'm Ernie Prang, your driver and conductor—"
"Ernie," Snape interrupted him. "Long time no see, how are you? Are you alone?"
"Oh, it's you." Ernie pushed his glasses, which had slid to the tip of his nose. "No one wants to do this. It's just me—gotta work, right? Where are you headed?"
"Diagon Alley," Snape counted out eleven Sickles. "Still the old price?"
"Yes," Ernie nodded, but didn't take the coins. Instead, he nervously glanced back at the empty bus interior.
During the day, the Knight Bus wasn't filled with brass bedsteads; instead, it had an assortment of mismatched chairs, looking quite chaotic.
"Oh, only one passenger, shouldn't be a problem then," he mumbled to himself, then stepped aside to let Snape board.
"Ernie," Snape said as he boarded the bus, pulling out the children's toys from his robes. "These are for little Stan."
A flush appeared on Ernie's grayish-brown face, and his large, rough hands fidgeted nervously with the hem of his uniform.
"It's not like that—" he said in a low voice. "I didn't mean to blame you—if you hadn't been there last time, the outcome might have been even worse."
"It's alright," Snape found an empty seat and sat down. "I understand. Something like that would leave a mark on anyone."
Ernie nodded, walked to the driver's seat, sat down, then suddenly jumped up as if remembering something.
He ran to the back of the bus, pulled out a large bar of chocolate from a storage bin.
"It's free," he awkwardly pushed the chocolate into Snape's hand. "Want some?"
Snape took the chocolate. "Thank you, Ernie."
With a sudden roar, the Knight Bus lurched forward. Outside the window, buildings, rubbish bins, telephone booths, and trees seemed to jump out of the way in alarm.
After a whirlwind journey, Ernie stomped on the brakes, and the Knight Bus screeched to a crooked halt in front of the Leaky Cauldron.
"Here we are," Ernie said, jumping out of the driver's seat again, running breathlessly to open the door. "Diagon Alley."
"Goodbye, Ernie," Snape said as he stepped down.
Pushing open the door, Snape entered the small, dingy pub.
At midday, there weren't many people inside. Only a few old women sat in a corner, sipping sherry from small glasses, smoking long pipes, and playing a card game that bit them. A stout man was chatting with the balding, walnut-faced landlord.
"Anything to drink?" Tom, the landlord, asked, wiping a glass with a grey rag as Snape entered. "Beer? Brandy? Or something more exciting like Dragon's Blood Whiskey?"
"Alright," Snape said. "Just a pot of tea and a plate of toast, please."
He had originally intended to go straight to Ollivanders, but he didn't mind having a drink. Though, he certainly wasn't going to have alcohol; it wasn't exactly a good thing.
A moment later, Tom walked over to Snape with a tray holding tea and toast.
"Tom," Snape called out as the landlord was about to return to the bar. "How long have you been working here?"
"This pub has belonged to me since the twenties," Tom said with a hint of pride in his voice. "What's wrong, young sir, thinking of buying the Leaky Cauldron?"
"No," Snape sipped his tea. "I just think your name is quite nice. I suddenly wondered if you've ever met anyone else named Tom here."
"There are too many people named 'Tom'," Tom blinked. "Young sir, but if you're willing to buy old Tom a tankard of rum, I might be able to recall properly."
"Alright, then, a tankard of rum," Snape said.
"A tankard of rum," Tom said, sitting down, without actually going to get the drink. "Speaking of my name, many years ago, I did meet a lad with the same name as me."
"Tom is a common Muggle name, but not so common in wizarding families," he said. "So I do have some impression of that young wizard. Especially, for a young wizard born into a Muggle family, he came here alone, with no Hogwarts teacher accompanying him. I wonder which professor was so neglectful."
"Haha." Snape couldn't help but chuckle. He wondered what Dumbledore would think if he knew Tom's assessment of him.
"A handsome lad, just like me when I was young." Tom grinned, revealing a few crooked yellow teeth. "He didn't even have a wand, just stood politely at the bar, asking if I could help him open the entrance to Diagon Alley."
Snape's fingertips unconsciously tapped his teacup.
"And then? Did you ever see him again?"
He asked, simultaneously sorting through the known Horcrux locations in his mind.
As Riddle's entry point into the wizarding world, the busy Leaky Cauldron was unlikely to be a place where he'd hide a Horcrux. So, where else might Voldemort have hidden Horcruxes before handing the "prize beyond the wildest dreams of the Lestrange couple" to them?
"Let me think—" Tom unceremoniously took a piece of toast and spread some butter on it. "He must have come a few more times—but I can't remember exactly when. You know, so many people."
"Alright, young sir, a customer has arrived." Tom spread his palms. "Including the rum, that'll be two Galleons, I'll round down for you."
After paying, Snape got up and walked through the bar to the small, enclosed courtyard, lightly tapping the brick wall with his wand, opening the passage to Diagon Alley.
A winding, seemingly endless, cobblestone street appeared before him.
Pushing through the bustling crowd, Snape arrived at a small, dilapidated shop.
The golden lettering on the shop door was peeling, reading: Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands Since 382 B.C. The display window was thick with dust, and a single wand lay forlornly on a faded purple cushion.
With a jingle of bells, an old man appeared before Snape.
"Good afternoon," Mr. Ollivander said. "How may I help you?"
"I need a new wand, sir," Snape said. "My old one—well—it's broken."
"A new wand?" Mr. Ollivander complained. "Why are so many people coming to me for new wands with the same reason lately?"
"Many people?" Snape thought of the wands that had broken in his hands; he had inadvertently become Ollivanders' strategic partner.
"Indeed," Mr. Ollivander said, staring directly at Snape with his large, silvery eyes. "I remember you, Severus Snape. Ebony and dragon heartstring, quite a powerful combination."
"Hmm," Mr. Ollivander said, sweeping a keen glance over Snape. "You should cherish your companions. Wands are certainly not consumables. Now, Mr. Snape, come, let me see."
He pulled a long, silver-marked tape measure from his pocket. "You're right-handed—"
The tape measure automatically began to measure Snape's dimensions: first from shoulder to fingertip, then from wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit, and finally head circumference.
Snape honestly couldn't understand the point of Mr. Ollivander taking these measurements if young wizards grew. Furthermore, as far as he knew, the length and size of every wand young wizards tried varied.
In the end, he could only attribute this behavior to the peculiar ritualistic flair of the Ollivander family's two-thousand-year wand-making tradition.
Mr. Ollivander wove between the shelves, reciting the familiar words every young wizard heard: "Every Ollivander wand possesses powerful magical substance—"
"Alright," he said. "Then, Mr. Snape, try this one. Same material as your original, just a bit longer, fourteen and a half inches. Generally, a wizard's wand material preference doesn't change. Come, give it a wave."
Snape took the wand, waved it, and a faint speck of light emerged from the tip.
Mr. Ollivander immediately snatched the wand back from his hand.
"Strange, very strange—" he said, puzzled. "While it could be considered passable, it's far worse than the performance of your first wand when you came here. There was much more light back then."
"Perhaps we could try a different material?" Snape suggested, shrugging helplessly.
"No, no," Mr. Ollivander stubbornly shook his head. "It must be due to subtle differences between the materials. Let's try other wands of the same material."
For the next half-hour, Snape tried every ebony wand in the shop.
Ollivander finally reluctantly admitted that other woods might need to be considered.
"Take this one," he wiped sweat from his forehead. "Beechwood and unicorn hair, fifteen inches long."
"Perhaps we can just skip the beechwood," Snape said, taking the wand.
Before he could even wave it, Mr. Ollivander snatched the wand away again.
Next, over a dozen common material combinations failed to produce the desired effect in Snape's hand.
"A picky old customer!" Mr. Ollivander grumbled. "Next combination, let me think... oh, I have it—Acacia wood, phoenix feather, thirteen inches long—an exceptionally rare combination."
The moment Snape took the wand, he felt a warmth at his fingertips. With a gentle flick, a small silver bird flew from the wand tip, darting happily between the shelves, scattering sparkling points of light.
He felt a wondrous resonance between this wand and his own magic, an unprecedented sense of fluidity flowing through his entire body.
"Oh, it's perfect!" Mr. Ollivander let out a sigh of relief. "Finally, a wand that suits you.
"Wands made of acacia wood are very discerning. They usually refuse to perform magic for anyone other than their true owners and only unleash their full potential for the most gifted individuals. Once they recognize their master, they can adapt to any magical discipline, from the most intricate Transfiguration to the most powerful battle magic."
"Congratulations, Mr. Snape," he said. "I believe you will achieve great things!"
"Thanks, this is the second time I've heard that," Snape said, taking seven Galleons from his purse. "Here you go."
"Not that much," Mr. Ollivander waved his wand, tidying the wand boxes piled on the counter. "Seventy Galleons."
"Seven Galleons is the special price for young wizards," he said, "after subsidies from the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts."
"Is that so?" Snape suddenly felt a pang in his heart. Even though he wasn't short on money, he realized he had successively ruined wands worth over a thousand Galleons. "Sir, can I get a discount?"
"No," Mr. Ollivander said firmly. "For over two thousand years, Ollivanders has never given discounts."