It's broken

[Prof. Raspberry Cheetah]

It's broken

No functiona

R

aspberry looked down at the piece of wood she'd cleaved to throughout her schooldays as a young adult student at Hogwarts. It had grown with her as she'd grown up, endured her accidentally stepping on it, the dare she took to put it up her nose, and the time when she'd almost eaten it, concealed inside a pranked sandwich. But now, it lay in her hands with a long crack across the top part, and broken into two pieces near the handle.

She walked briskly through Diagon Alley, doing her best to hide her emotions of sadness, and feign the smile of someone who'd just won the lottery. When she reached Ollivander's Wand Shop, she noted the 'open' sign, clasped the handle, turned, and pushed the door in. Doorbells clanged in a tin-like tune.

"Awww, what a cute doorbell. I remember it last time I was here!", she spoke to herself aloud, something she did more often that she'd like to admit.

"Is anyone here?", she called, and tried to peer into the long rows of grand mahogany shelves, laden with all permutation of wand core, wand length, and wood type. "By gosh, there must be thousands of them... maybe millions. If there are six wand core types and fifty wand wood types and one, two, ... infinite? No, a wand would start at eight inches and go to eleven, so that's three times twelve is thirty-six... so six times fifty times thirty-six would be the unique number of wands here, but they probably have extras of each type, so that's at least... ten thousand wands all on these shelves... ", she started to consider now if that many wands would even fit in the square footage of the shop. And what if they were out of a kind? What if certain combinations couldn't exist together? She hadn't even considered the fact that there were in fact seven wand core types, and wands range typically from nine to fourteen inches long (so at least sixty different lengths), and that there were in fact, fifty-seven types of wand wood, making her assumptions incorrect.

At least she'd attempted to do some math, but come up short in several areas resulting in a vastly wrong answer. (The correct number of wand permutations is sixty times fifty-seven times seven, which is nearly twenty-four thousand. )

[Diagon Alley Shopkeeper]

((I use more than 7 core types these days. Since Garrick Ollivander's son took over most of the family business he did some spicing up. Course, your character might not know that since it's been a while, but you can.))

A stack of previously tried wands hovered along behind Ollivander as he worked at putting them all back in their proper places. Some people might see his shop and think it overly crowded and disorganized, but it surely wasn't to this wandmaker. It had been this way for generations and had its own special system that was passed down.

Just as he placed a cherry wand back in its spot the doorbell rang, and he heard a faint voice. It was getting close to classes beginning so the stream of soon to be first years was thinning but there were always a few stragglers.

Leaving the boxes to hover in place, he made his way to the front, humming to himself as he went. Well, she's certainly no soon to be first year, he thought to himself when he saw his customer. "Good afternoon. How might I help you today?" he asked, already having a feeling he knew what had happened.

[Prof. Raspberry Cheetah]

It's broken

No functiona

"

Wow! You look just like I remember you! Just like the pictures in the Daily Prophet, too! I read that piece about how your shop is a timeless classic in Diagon Alley. And I remember when you helped me find my first wand!

"But it.... well... I tried to put it up my nose, but it refused, so I jammed it up on in there, and it went and broke on me.", she was lying, but by-gosh, she was determined to make it funny. Because if it wasn't funny, she just might cry, and Raspberry wasn't the sort of girl to be upset - there were far too many poor starving third-world children to be upset about a little wand that could be replaced. And had faithfully served her since she started at Hogwarts. And when she'd accidentally....

She felt a tear forming on her eyelid, brushed it off, forced a sneeze, forced a sniffle, and then coughed twice for good measure. "Seems it went a little too far up before it broke. Good thing, too, I suppose. Anyhow, I didn't really like that wand...", by gosh she did, what a liar she was! She scorned herself. "... and I was hoping to find a new one that could serve me better? Well, I suppose my telling you that it's broken wouldn't be very helpful would it? You'd just ask what was wrong with it, and then I'd tell you it was broken, and then you'd ask again, but I still wouldn't know how to respond any better, so I'd say the exact same thing all over again, that it was broken.

"Well, I ought not to do that. It was a very good wand, except the time in transfiguration class when it turned my water-goblet into a cornish pixie, and then the time it turned me into a rat for a few hours, and the time when it burnt my homework, and I think I had to re-take a test because it - yes, that's right - gave the Monster Book of Monsters frostbite so bad I couldn't study because it would constantly run away from me and refused to cast Immobulus because it was angry that I'd been mean at a monster. I think. I'm not sure. But other than that... well it's done a good job? Er, it's done a good job whenever I didn't really need it. I was so silly as a little girl, though, Olivander, the wand probably picked me because it knew it would be put out of its misery fastest that way.

"Anyhow, I'd really like a new wand.", she stopped for a moment to catch her breath, blinked once, blinked twice, and then continued as if she'd never stopped at all.

"It's broken.", she blinked again, but this time, gave Olivander room to speak.

[Diagon Alley Shopkeeper]

He examined the wand as she spoke, deciding not to question how she had actually broken it. He had heard some wild excuses, some of which turned out to be true, but he just wasn't sure he wanted to know the real accident behind this one. Laying the wand down he listened to the rest of her, well, ramblings, and smiled while nodding. He had noticed when people were upset or nervous for whatever reason they would frequently start doing just that. This shop seemed a rather popular place for it.

"Yes, yes it is," he replied when he was finally able to get a word in. "Wood damage would have been repairable but core damage is not unfortunately. I'm sure we can find something new that will suit you though. We have plenty to choose from!"

He gave the wand a quick look over before turning and heading towards one of many shelves. He plucked a couple boxes from it, another from one slightly farther down, then headed back to the counter. Placing two on the counter, he opened one and removed the wand, offering it to her, "I believe we may see good results from this one. It is familiar to your old wand in some ways, but a bit more updated. 9" even, made of pliant sycamore, with the hair of a unicorn. Try it out and let's see what happens!"

((If you like it, something good happens. If you don't, something bad. Same as the books/movies.))

[Prof. Raspberry Cheetah]

It's broken

No functiona

R

aspberry leaned over and onto the counter, craning her neck as far as it would go in order to watch Olivander scurry through the seemingly disorganized mazes of boxes and shelves. In the process of doing so, she put her greasy handprints onto the finely polished countertop, and nearly knocked her old, broken wand onto the floor. She managed to catch it, but clumbsily and by the skin of her teeth. She replaced the old wand back onto the counter as Olivander came back with a box.

"Oh, what's that?", she asked aloud, and then realized her folly, as all that Olivander sold was wands. "Oh, it's a wand!", she clapped her hands, as if encouraging him to perform a trick, and took the wand when it was handed to her.

As soon as she brought the wand near her to inspect it, it glowed with the light of a Lumos. "But nothing broke? Oh, it likes me, it likes me! The first try! How did you know! You're so good at this!", she now tried to hug him, and then withdrew. Hastily, she retrieved the price of the wand plus a generous thirty percent tip, slapped it on the counter, and wheeled around on the tips of her toes, giggling like a little girl as she did so.

In the next few moments, she had waltzed out of the store, giggling, humming, and twirling, very un-adult like, in sheer glee.

-- exit / salida --

OOC:  My post got eaten so this one is poopier, but it works.