After Arthur left, Draco fell into deep thought.
Lucius, on the other hand, took quite so ti before regaining his composure.
When he ca to his senses, he realized his back was drenched in cold sweat.
"Draco! You never told there was such a figure at Hogwarts!" he barked in a rare loss of control.
That little girl just now… the pressure she exerted was even more terrifying than when the Dark Lord was enraged.
"Father, that girl isn't a Hogwarts student," Draco said weakly.
"Then who is she?"
"She's… that boy's fiancée."
Lucius replayed the earlier exchange in his mind. Draco had indeed referred to the Gryffindor boy as "he," not "they."
And he'd clearly heard it — the girl was introduced as that boy's fiancée.
Judging by the way things looked, it was obvious she centered everything around him.
By rlin's beard… so the real power lies with this one.
Yet Lucius had never heard of either of them among the Sacred Twenty-Eight families.
Wait… the boy's features… they looked Eastern.
A sharp hiss escaped his teeth. Could it be? One of those Eastern sorcerers — from that ancient empire the combined mystic orders of eight nations once tried and failed to breach?
Countless thoughts flashed through Lucius' mind.
At last, he asked slowly, "Draco, what sort of relationship do you have with that classmate?"
"It's fine. I never picked a fight with him," Draco replied, knowing exactly what his father feared.
"Good. That's good." Lucius exhaled in relief. "If you get the chance, you should cultivate ties with him."
A glint flickered in his eyes.
Clearly, he wasn't as wholeheartedly loyal to Voldemort as he usually appeared.
He was thinking of preparing an escape route for himself — or rather, for his son.
Lately, the Ministry of Magic had been conducting multiple contraband raids every day, and it was obvious the target was forr Death Eaters like him.
He'd already been forced to sell off a number of Dark artifacts from the family vault.
And in his gut, he could sense it — the Dark Lord was stirring again.
So, having Draco forge ties with Arthur was his way of ensuring the Malfoy family had soone to turn to when the ti ca.
For in truth, very few of the great houses had ever truly believed in Voldemort's cause.
Most had joined the Death Eaters because his ideology conveniently aligned with their own interests.
They kept talking about "pure-blood supremacy," but in the end, it was just a pretext to keep Muggle-born wizards from encroaching on their influence in the wizarding world.
Now that Voldemort had fallen, and with him planning a coback, most of his forr followers had adopted a wait-and-see approach.
Of course, there were still the truly loyal ones — but most of them were locked away in Azkaban.
Lucius, like them, wasn't sure whether Voldemort would succeed this ti.
Thus, he was already calculating another path forward.
And Arthur looked like a perfect candidate.
Arthur, oblivious to Lucius' careful scheming, was busy taking Ranni to pick up her wand.
The crowd around Lockhart hadn't thinned; Mrs. Weasley and the others were still in line for his autograph.
Arthur had no patience for noisy scenes like that.
"Welco… oh, it's you, young wizard."
Hearing the door creak, Ollivander greeted automatically, then looked up to recognize Arthur.
"Yes, Mr. Ollivander. We've co for the wand," Arthur nodded.
"Of course, of course. They're finished. I daresay these are the finest works of my entire career."
With admiration, Ollivander pulled a box from beneath the counter and handed it over.
Arthur accepted it and opened it before Ranni.
The wand's golden shaft was laced with pale white streaks, the result of incorporating feathers from a Lunar Raptor Feather.
The addition tempered the gold, making it refined rather than gaudy.
"Looks good. Want to try it?" Arthur suggested.
Ranni raised the wand. Magic surged from her body, and at the tip of the wand a fist-sized Dark Moon condensed.
Ollivander broke into a cold sweat.
He could feel the sheer destructive force within that tiny Dark Moon — enough to obliterate half his shop.
rlin's ghost, was this really just a little witch about to attend Hogwarts?
He coughed nervously: "Ahem… does the young lady find it satisfactory?"
"It's fine," Ranni replied simply.
She wasn't oblivious to others' moods.
Seeing Ollivander's nervous face, she flicked her wrist and dispersed the Dark Moon.
Her assessnt, however, was honest.
After wielding the Carian Scepter — one of the top-tier staves of the Lands Between — this wand could only be considered high-grade at best.
Checking the ti, Arthur reckoned Hermione was probably about to reach Lockhart's signing desk.
He thanked Ollivander, and the two of them left the shop.
On the way, Arthur suggested:
"Shouldn't you give your wand a na?"
"Hmm… how about The King's Golden Bough?"
Ranni, for once, made a little joke.
But Arthur nearly missed it, because the na sounded just like sothing out of the Lands Between.
"How about we just call it the Golden Wand?" he said quickly, afraid she might think of sothing even stranger.
"Fine."
And so, the wand's na was decided.
Back at Flourish and Blotts, Hermione ca running excitedly to Arthur, waving her freshly signed copy of Lockhart's book.
She was practically glowing like a fangirl.
At least she wasn't as over the top as Mrs. Weasley, who had taken the full set Lockhart had gifted Harry and had each and every book signed.
Ranni sneered to the side:
"She looks smart most of the ti, but how can she be fooled by a fraud like that?"
Hermione frowned. "What do you an?"
"Exactly what I said. Do you really think that peacock in there looks like soone who's endured all those adventures and journeys?"
Ranni borrowed Arthur's words and shot the question back at her.
"You're lying. The stories in those books are far too vivid to be fake!" Hermione protested.
Ranni couldn't be bothered to argue.
It was like telling a diehard fangirl her idol was trash.
The more rational ones might at least demand evidence before making their own judgnt.
But the blind ones would deny the truth even if you shoved ironclad proof under their noses.
Hermione was in the rational camp — or rather, her true idol was her all-powerful cousin.
Her fondness for Lockhart was closer to that of a reader for a favorite author.
She turned to Arthur, silently asking with her eyes.
He t her gaze and gave a deliberate blink — Later.
Now was not the ti or place. They were standing at the entrance of Flourish and Blotts, surrounded by Lockhart's fanatics.
Their conversation had already drawn attention.
If he said more now, walking out of Diagon Alley might beco… complicated.
Well, not for him and Ranni. With their strength, leaving would be easy.
But tomorrow's Daily Prophet headline would no doubt read:
"The Largest Street Brawl in the History of Diagon Alley."
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