The wind howled over the Bavarian peaks, whispering through the stone towers of Nurmengard like the sigh of ghosts long forgotten.
Cassius stood at the cliff's edge, cloak snapping around his legs, the taste of ozone sharp on his tongue.
Grindelwald's parting words still rang in his ears—Find your other partner.
Your hidden wand.
The boy's eyes flicked toward the horizon where the sun bled into the clouds, setting the mountains aflame in crimson and gold.
His true wand—the agarwood and dragon heart—rested securely in its thigh holster.
It pulsed faintly, alive, aware, almost watching him as he drew from his bag the brass Portkey he had tuned the night before.
A simple chain link, innocuous, yet humming with power.
He murmured the activation charm and felt reality twist.
The world folded around him.
When Cassius's boots met solid ground again, he stood in the cobbled backstreets of Prague, where the air was thick with mist and the faint shimmer of residual magic.
The old quarter was quiet, its crooked alleys echoing with the distant chime of church bells.
Wizards here did not flaunt their presence nearly as much as they did in London; they moved in silence, behind illusion and shadow, their choice of attire drawing no notice even when they went out in public.
He moved swiftly through the maze of streets until the faint smell of varnish, smoke, and alchemical oils reached his nose.
Ahead, beneath a flickering sign engraved with curling runes, was a narrow shopfront marked:
Gregorovitch Zauberstäbe.
The sign was old—half the letters faded, the door warped with age.
The shop itself looked almost abandoned, but the wards whispered to Cassius the moment he drew close.
They shimmered faintly around the entrance, subtle and ancient.
No ordinary craftsman's work.
He pushed open the door.
A bell rang somewhere in the rafters, the sound warped by time.
The interior was dim and crowded—rows upon rows of boxes stacked to the ceiling, their labels written in cramped Cyrillic script.
Dust motes drifted lazily through the thin beams of sunlight seeping from the upper windows.
Behind the counter, an old man stirred.
Gregorovitch was smaller than Cassius expected, though his presence filled the room.
His eyes—sharp and pale as blue glass—studied the boy in silence for a long moment before he spoke.
"You seek a wand," he said in a heavy accent, not as a question, but a declaration.
"I do," Cassius replied evenly. "For my right hand."
The wandmaker's brow twitched. "Right hand?"
Cassius nodded, slipping his left behind his back, concealing the faint bulge of the holster under his cloak.
"I was injured as a child," he said smoothly. "My left serves only for stability now."
Gregorovitch's gaze lingered on him—skeptical, perhaps—but then he nodded.
"So be it."
He gestured sharply, and one of the ladders creaked to life, sliding along the rows of boxes.
The old wandmaker muttered under his breath as he moved, scanning shelves with an eye that had seen every wood, every core, every temper of spirit.
As Cassius waited, he let his senses stretch outward.
The wands here sang differently than those in Ollivander's shop.
There was less refinement, perhaps—but more soul. Gregorovitch's creations were not polite tools of study; they were weapons, instruments of will.
He could feel them—restless, curious, watching.
Dragonheartstring, Veela Hair...
The types of cores were far greater in variance than could be found in Olivanders storefront but the quality was just as superior compared to newer wandmakers.
At last, the old man returned with a handful of boxes, setting them on the counter with careful precision.
"Try."
Cassius extended his right hand, feeling the faint hum of magic beneath his skin as Gregorovitch opened the first box.
"Vine wood," the man announced. "Core of kelpie hair."
The wand was elegant, pale and slender.
Cassius gave it a flick—immediately a burst of sparks shot into the air, wild and uncontrolled.
One of the candles exploded in a shower of wax.
Gregorovitch grunted. "Too willful. Not yours."
The second wand: "Ash and griffin feather."
It gave nothing—no warmth, no spark, just a flat rejection that made the air grow colder.
The third: "Hornbeam and phoenix ash."
A faint hum, but it died quickly, the magic retreating like a tide drawn back to sea.
Cassius frowned, lowering the wand.
"Perhaps we should look elsewhere."
Gregorovitch's pale eyes gleamed.
"Patience, boy. The wand chooses the wizard—but only if he listens."
Then, from beneath the counter, the wandmaker drew out a long, dark box—older than the rest, its edges worn, its hinges engraved with symbols of storm and feather.
He opened it slowly.
The wand inside was yew, its wood so light it almost looked like bone, polished to a mirror sheen.
Along its spine faint silver threads shimmered, as if lightning had been captured and bound within the grain, almost looking near identical to the golden radience lining the Aagarwood of his true wand.
Gregorovitch's voice dropped to a murmur.
"Yew," he said. "Old, patient, eternal. A wand of extremes—life and death, protection and destruction. Its core—" He hesitated, eyes flicking to Cassius. "Thunderbird feather. A rare bond, that one. It demands both balance and courage. It answers not to greed or fear, but to will."
Cassius reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the wood, the air shifted.
A sharp, electric scent filled the room—the smell of storms over dry earth.
His fingertips tingled, his right arm prickling with energy.
The wand vibrated faintly, then went still, pulsing once in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Gregorovitch froze, his eyes widening.
"Well," he breathed. "It seems we have found you."
Cassius turned the wand over in his hand, feeling the weight, the living warmth of it.
Unlike the dragon-heart wand's ancient, almost sentient awareness, this one felt alive in the present—restless, keen, unpredictable.
He flicked it once toward the air.
Lightning crackled silently along the ceiling beams, fading into gold motes that rained down like embers.
Gregorovitch gave a slow, satisfied nod. "Thunderbird is balance. Chaos and wisdom, storm and calm. You, boy, will find it tests you constantly. Such wands can heal as easily as they can harm."
Cassius smiled faintly. "I'll take it."
The old man's lips twitched upward. "Of course you will."
He reached beneath the counter and drew out a small ledger, scrawling the entry with deliberate care.
"Seven galleons," he said, almost absently—the same tradition held even across continents.
Cassius placed the coins on the counter, then hesitated.
"I understand Yew often favors those with darker inclinations."
Gregorovitch looked up, his gaze sharp as a blade.
"Yew favors those who understand death," he said simply. "And those who do not fear it. The Thunderbird balances that darkness with renewal, but only if you let it."
Cassius inclined his head, his expression unreadable.
"Then perhaps we are well suited."
The wandmaker's eyes narrowed, as though reading something unspoken in the boy's tone.
But he said nothing more.
Cassius purchased a new holster before strapping it to his right leg, and holstered the wand—his private wand, he thought.
Two wands.
Two selves.
One for the light.
One for the shadow.
He stepped out into the gray streets once more, the door closing behind him with a whisper of air.
The sky above Prague was bruised and heavy with gathering stormclouds, thunder murmuring in the distance.
He looked up, raising his right hand, feeling the wand at his side respond to the coming storm—a faint thrum, eager, alive.
"Balance," he murmured. "Chaos and calm."
And as lightning forked across the horizon, Cassius Snape turned his cloak against the wind and vanished into the mist, the storm answering softly to his call.