The line of little wizards organized for better or worse, and followed vice-headmaster Fontaine through the opened iron gate into a curtain of mist that covered the appearance of Ilvermorny Castle. As Luca and Bryce crossed the gate, magical haze vanished and they could marvel like countless before them at a huge, square white building, a circular dome covering its roof, four white towers shooting high up located on its corners. This central building overlooked a vast grassland surrounding it, other buildings in the same ‘fairytale’ white, tall style further away. In front of the entrance, two marble statues of a man and a woman holding hands in an arch over visitors' heads, Luca knew them to be founders of Ilvermorny, witch Isolt Sayre and her no-maj husband, James Steward.
“So wizards can build tall as skyscrapers too, almost had me fooled by all that stretching curses replacing construction workers.” casually remarked Luca, interested but not that impressed by the place after seeing Iverstead’s opulence.
“You think insides will be as white as floo point? We may need to import sunglasses if that's the case, snow blindness is a serious disease.” Bryce said half-serious, everpresent white stone the defining feature at least from the outside.
“Shouldn’t be, just a facade to create a vibe.” Luca said.
Vice-headmaster and first students reached the huge wooden door, opened to welcome them. Murmurs and whispers that arose as everybody took the school’s appearance in, died down as they entered. A short, straight corridor led them to a circular hall, an elevated platform in the middle of it. Four huge wooden sculptures stood in a row in front of the new students, carved akin to house patron creatures. Hall had three corridors leading out of it, two on the sides, and one forward between the Wampus and Thunderbird. Mixture of common grey stone and wood fixtures made it look like a church Luca attended with his parents. Glass ceiling with Ilvermony logo on it made lighting varied in colour and intensity.
What startled and surprised new wizards, was an auditorium located all around the hall, with thousands of upperclassmen and teaching staff standing still, looking at them as they held their briefcases in both hands in front of them. Slowly gathering as vice-headmaster Fontaine stopped beside the stage and fumbled inside the pockets of his robe, nervous little wizards kept glancing at the silent crowd.
“Abak, Vincent. Run up here as fast as you can.” finally vice-headmaster took out a long, rolled-up piece of parchment and started the sorting ceremony. Bronze-haired boy shaking in trepidation in the first row sprang to a sprint straight to the platform. In astonishment of no one, he fumbled and fell headlong, his briefcase flying out. Now, red as a tomato, he scrambled up and went slowly under the deadpan witness of the entire school to retrieve it, then stood in the middle of the hall. Statue of the Thunderbird lit up in purple arcs of thunder, as Mr. Fontaine announced his sorting.
“That’s the door to Wand selection hall, now Aberhof, Lucy.” in silence, the same scene played many times. Wizards bored out of their minds were forced to suffer it together, conceivably as a rather bland bonding exercise.
“Fritzel, Bryce.” turn of his friend, Luca paid attention. Numb to the unchanging ceremony, Bryce went up in large strides. Blue hoops on the scales of Horned Serpent lit up as well as feathers of Pukwudgie shone golden. This broke the tranquility a bit, the whole hall was interested in his choice.
“We have a pick opportunity! So where do you want to go, Fritzel Bryce? Let me tell you, Horned Serpent is at least ten times better, but that's just my personal opinion, you totally don’t have to listen. Remember, I will approve your grades in the future.” vice-headmaster got more animated in a flash, from his zombie-like look to eagerness to deprive Pukwudgie house of a student.
“...Horned Serpent.” after being rendered speechless by his professor for a while, Bryce chose his wish house, angry murmurs and threatening gazes, or smiles of approval from respective houses involved sounded for a while until everyone got back to trying to sleep upright.
“Excellent young man, you have a bright future. Next up is…” Fontaine continued in high spirits for whole twenty new students, only dying out as Luca’s turn approached.
“Granger, Luca.” Luca went forward calmly, looking at the statues in last moment of guesswork. As both his feet touched the platform, all the statues lit up more intensely than ever. Those sorting artifacts buzzed with power as if vying for his recognition, hall plunged in students and teachers standing in the audience roused shouts for him to choose their house. Luca didn’t expect such a development, he stood petrified watching the fireworks display generated by competing statues until vice-headmaster’s hand landed heavily on his shoulder as he stared at him intently.
“Extraordinary! Young man, you must be confused, so allow me to explain. Every decade or so, there will be a wizard chosen by all the houses. Without exceptions, they accomplish something groundbreaking in the field of magic or rise to be important political figures. Of course, some blow themselves up due to failed experiment or die in a stupid fight to the death with a giant pack of migrating Manticores, nobody knows why that idiot insisted on not running away to this day. There is no rule. It might just mean you have a lot of admirable qualities or more magic power than most, either way, it is a legend in Ilvermorny to pay attention to people picked by four houses. Your name even has a complimentary place in a Room of Notable, honour awarded to our school’s prospective geniuses in freshman years. So, now you can join Wampus freely.” he whispered the last sentence, smiled widely, and squeezed Luca’s shoulder harder.
“Wampus! Wampus!!!” shouted Luca twice, fearing for his life under Profesor Fontaine's creepy gaze, first not loud enough to overpower the crowd. Statue of a black cat emitted bronze light from its tail and eyes even more brightly, while others quickly went dim in disappointment. Luca run dingy forward, the hall behind almost breaking into a riot with several wizards from Wampus house standing in a row taking off their clothes to the bare chest and roaring in celebration.
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He managed to exit the soul-crushing ceremony by virtue of his name starting with G, so he felt obliged to silently pray for Miranda’s sake as he walked a long corridor, decorated with pictures showcasing wands in all shapes and sizes, sometimes one in a frame, sometimes a pile of wands lay stacked into a mountain, Castle Ilvermorny for a size comparison painted beside it. Being given an opportunity to enter all houses didn’t seem unusual to him after a short thought, as his massive reserve of magic power contributed to it with 99% certainty.
Luca entered a much smaller, circular room with a similar platform for testing as the Entrance hall had. Giant shelves ran along the wall, stacked boxes on them, only one exit forward, and a desk beside it, with a middle-aged blonde witch looking at him across the room. A red, leather armchair on the side of the platform had a short, wrinkled wizard with long and messy beard napping on it, a metal walker standing next to him.
Luca gingerly walked to the platform, pensive about what sort of change he could cause this time. Nothing happened as he stepped onto it, which prompted him to try standing in the middle. Belatedly, a slight hum resounded and increased in volume progressively. Then, it went mute, and a black ‘wand’ appeared in front of Luca’s eyes. The boy could only describe it as a dried black tentacle with a handle attached to the base, none of the wands showcased in the corridor even remotely as outlandish. Considering that he turned to dust a couple dozen ‘normal’ wands, it seemed he had to take it or forget about this whole magical business.
Luca’s hand grasped the handle. Upon contact, he felt the magic from all around the insides of his body rushing autonomously towards his new wand, it changing the shriveled state to a more ‘healthy’ look as if it was just cut off from some octopus. Suction cups grew from within on one side, bulging veins running along the length of the opposite side. Flow of magic only sped up as the wand recovered, eventually, it shot water from its tip. Dumbfounded Luca could only watch blankly as the fountain shooting impotently on the side turned into a thick snake gushing out, then into a bucket-thick flood. His hand glued onto the wand, connection between them established, Luca perceived it to be in a happy mood. If imagination didn’t play tricks on him, this wand could be considered ‘alive’.
“Finite incantatem!” witch sitting at the desk realized him to have a misfiring accident, so she tried to stop the flood by taking out her wand and firing a spell at the water. It didn’t do anything from Luca’s perspective, the witch lifted her brows.
“Five more minutes Juno, I will sign it in five… What is going on?” the shout woke up the old wizard sleeping on the side, his muddled eyes realized the atypical sight and tried to make sense of not dozing off in his office. He took a wand from inside of his tangled beard and prepared to cast spells on whatever disturbed him.
“Headmaster… I’m sorry, it won’t stop.” Luca searched his memory for the name, but after getting bombarded with a hundred of them, he long forgot anything but the eccentric vice-headmaster’s one. The bucket pouring turned into a barrel, water rushing on the sides and to both of the corridors.
“Youth these days… Fine then, expelliarmus.” facts proved that even if his legs didn’t quite work like they used to, accumulated experience still mattered. Luca’s wand got knocked out of his hand, water immediately stopped flowing.
“Evanesco… Now, what is going on?” another twitch of the headmaster’s wand vanished all of the water, even making his own wet shoes dry.
“My wand got excited, I think so at least, and didn’t let me stop supplying magic or put it down.” Luca explained as best as he could.
“Oh? Bring it to me, maybe it’s defective. After all, we still have wands made by James Steward somewhere in here.” headmaster got interested, Luca had no choice but to run fast to retrieve the wand, first touching it with just a finger, confidence soaring because of no reaction, he gripped it again and run to the armchair.
“Merlin’s breaches, hell is this?” headmaster squinted his eyes into a slit, not sure if what he was seeing is what it seems to be.
“I know, right? Tentacle on a stick, ready to be grilled.” said Luca, glad that he could start sharing his shock. In the meantime, the blonde assistant came to them, playing with her braided ponytail swung to the front.
“I took an inventory of wands here before my first appointment to this post, 30cm Giant Kraken tentacle muscle cord, very soft and easy to bend, dried and wrapped for 7cm Kraken skin handle. Creator unknown, but it should be the same one as a series of similar prank wands, like one consisting of twenty dragon heartstrings laced together around a branch of Alihotsy. This look is new, it seems hardened and invigorated, bloated to have 3cm in diameter.” she calmly analyzed the wand Luca held.
“Is there any problem with it?” asked Luca handing her the wand. She scrutinized it before trying to wave it and cast a spell. No effect, she handed the wand to the headmaster to try. He rolled it between his fingers and spoke.
“Unique bond? I don’t have the aptitude to use it, maybe that series of wands isn’t useless, waiting for the right person. Try again.” he could feel an aura similar to the boy standing before him emanating from the black wand, so he handed it back to Luca. Luca waved it with apprehension, wave of magic surged and it started spewing water. Luca tried to let it go, and it dropped to the ground.
“Learn to control your magic, that's it, nothing wrong. Go forward, another kid is coming.” headmaster decided to watch a couple of new students in order to pretend to work hard for a while, then take a nap again. Luca shrugged and picked up the wand again, this time placing it inside a special holder in the cuff of his robe, prepared specifically for this purpose.
“Name, house?” asked the witch as she led him to her desk.
“Luca Granger, Wampus.” Luca stood in front of it watching her write his wand information, name, and house on a square piece of parchment, then she stamped it with the Ilvermorny logo, waved her wand pointing at it as she looked at his face, it appeared sketched on the background of the page, then she signed it, and handed it to him.
“Go check in house room, there are guides outside. And don’t lose this paper, doubles as student certificate.” she told him to proceed forward, cumbersome process to continue.