“There’s no cause for worry,” she reassured the boy softly. His first three trial wands had yielded nothing to satisfy Mr. Ollivander, who had disappeared back into the shelves for more. Nora did not know Winston well enough how to guess at what he might be feeling, under the circumstances, and so chose to err on the side of caution. “It’s normal to take several tries, before you find the right wand.”

Many years ago, she had envisioned taking her own child wand shopping. It was a strange turn of providence, Elinor thought, that the facsimile of that experience was delivered to her still by the Gower family, strangers for all these years and now, through magic, once more in her life. She had, of course, reassured Amelia that she would arrange for all the magical purchases, but it had not occurred to the witch at the time how much a young student actually needed. This was but their first of half a dozen stops that day.