All what the medi-witch could do was gaping. Several inches down from the tip, her wand had snapped in two, only a few strands of wood preventing the upper part from falling to the ground. What the hell had just happened?

The potion-master had been equally shocked by the sudden turn of events, however, when he noticed Harry slumping down to the ground and crawling into a corner of the room he was roused from his stupor. The boy was more important than a replaceable wand! "Harry!"

Unsurprisingly, the boy didn't give any indication of having heard Severus calling his name but just continued his way into the corner that was underneath the examination-table.
Save. He had to go somewhere save. Somewhere where it didn't hurt. Away from the pain. Away from the force that wanted to rip him apart. This was worse then the demon, far worse.

"Harry! - HARRY!" When he still didn't get any reaction, Severus did the next reasonable thing. He crossed the room and crouched down, trying to reach the small boy that was now hiding in a corner no normal adult could reach. "Harry! Please, come out! Poppy didn't mean to hurt you, we didn't know that you would react so... violently to this specific spell. I'm sorry, Harry, we shouldn't have done it." Severus was too shocked by what had happened to really register that he was currently comforting a Potter.

Slowly, Harry became aware of someone calling his name. Who was this? Did they want to hurt him again? They couldn't do this, they just couldn't hurt him like this!

"Harry! HARRY! Please come out of there now!"

Harry blinked. There, a few feet away from him, was his Potion Professor kneeling on the ground. The man was clearly speaking to him, but he couldn't understand much of it. His head was filled with a buzzing sound and he felt all shaky and unsteady.

"Harry, can you hear me? Please come out of there so that we can talk properly. Harry?"

"Nohcccchh...chchch..." Harry cleared his throat. "No. You'll hurt me."

"No, Harry, I won't hurt you, I promise."

"Yes. You will. She -" He pointed at the few inches of legs that was all he could see from the medi-witch, "she has hurt me!"

"Yes, I know Harry, but she didn't mean to. I asked her to find out what was wrong with your head, she didn't know that you wouldn't be able to handle the spell she used. She is really sorry, too, Harry. There will be no more spells tonight, she won't hurt you again and neither will I." He offered his hand to the boy. Harry eyed it suspiciously for a few moments, but finally he took it and began to crawl out of his hiding-place.
When Harry emerged from under the table, he looked fearfully at Madame Pomfrey. Would she hurt him again? He'd better leave quickly, before she could cast another one of those terrible spells on him!

Poppy finally snapped out of her daze just when Harry appeared from under the examination-table, holding the Potion Master's hand. "Mr Potter! What - what has just happened?"

"I don't know. I want to leave now. I don't stay, no no no, I want to leave!" Harry tried his best to stay calm, but it was rather hard. "I won't let you cast another one of those spells on me! I will beat you if you try and then I will run away!" There. She couldn't have misunderstood that, could she?

"Don't worry, Mr Potter, I won't cast any spell on you, nor on anyone else, for that matter... how-" she interrupted herself, unsure of what to say. Clearly, it hadn't been the boy who had destroyed her wand (how could he have done it anyway?), but the spell that had somehow - incredibly - reacted in such an unforeseeable and violent way to the prolonged exposure to Harry's mind. But even so she doubted that he had any idea as to why this had happened, she couldn't refrain from asking. "Do you have any idea - any idea at all - what has just happened? What caused this... destruction? Or Severus?" She looked at the Potion Master who was standing next to the child, almost as if he wanted to protect Harry...

"No no don't know I want to go!" Harry was almost hysterically by now. Destruction? Madame Pomfrey had destroyed him?!

"Poppy, I don't know what caused this, but I don't think it'll do much good if Harry stays here any longer." He glanced at the distressed boy who was still clinging to Severus' hand. "I think it would be better if he was allowed to go back to his common-room. We can continue the examination later. I -"

"NO NO NO NOT CONTINUING IT! I won't let you hurt me again, NO NO NO!"

"Mr Potter -" but the medi-witch was interrupted by her colleague.

"Harry, we won't hurt you again. I promise. There will be no more spells that might have such an effect on your mind."

"You promise?"

"Yes. Now, would it be all right if I walk you back to your common-room?"

"Mh... yes, Sir."

"Good. Poppy, I'll come back later to... discuss this. I'm not sure... don't tell Albus yet, do you?"

"But why -" Poppy asked, bewildered. Surely this was something the headmaster needed to know? Besides, she would need to inform him that she had to take a day off anyway, in order to purchase a new wand from Asclepius (a wand-maker in Athens, specialized on making wands for healers).

"Just don't tell him! Not yet, anyway. I'll be back shortly, then we can discuss this in more detail! But until then, don't tell him - or anybody - anything!"

Poppy sensed the urgency in her colleague's voice, so she didn't argue. "All right - ehm, I think Harry should have a calming draught and perhaps a pain reliever, though..." she was about to summon the potions when she remembered that she couldn't. Well, she had still both of her legs, hadn't she?
"Here, Mr Potter, you'll feel better after taking these. I apologize for whatever the spell did to you, child, I didn't know... I wouldn't have cast it if I had known that it would cause you such pain." She reached out to hand over the potions.

Harry hadn't paid attention to what was going on - his whole body ached and he just felt dreadful - but suddenly, he saw, out of the corner of his eyes, that the medi-witch reached out for him. He did the only thing that made sense to him - he had to protect himself from that woman! - and struck at her arms.

"Mr Potter!" Poppy exclaimed when the two vials flew across the room and shattered on the ground. "I won't have you wasting my potions! You are to take them, not to throw them to the ground!"

"I DON'T TAKE ANY OF YOUR STUPID POTIONS YOU EVIL WITCH!"

"Mr Potter!" The medi-witch was getting annoyed. She had only tried to help the boy! "You will not -"

"Poppy, I'll give him the potions, I don't think he'll take anything from you just now -" the Potion Master interrupted the angry witch again. While he could understand that she didn't like being called an 'evil witch', he could only shake his head at her thoughtlessness. Of course Harry wouldn't take anything from her, not after she had just caused him an immense amount of pain by a mere spell (even if it had been unintentional)! "Harry, come with me, I'll walk you back to the tower." And with that, he left for the door (after a last meaningful glance at Poppy, that was), a clingy, confused and hurt child in tow.

After he had brought Potter safely back to his tower (where he had been greeted by a rather worried Weasley), Severus returned to the infirmary and explained to the medi-witch why he didn't want Albus to know about what had happened earlier. Well, he tried to explain it, but he was reluctant to reveal too much to Poppy. Of course, she was a healer and worried about Harry's well-being and not likely to do anything to harm the boy, at least not purposefully. But if she though other students might be in danger, she wouldn't hesitate to contact Albus, even if it meant Harry would be sent away.
Then, however, he needed the medi-witch's support if he really wanted to help the boy. He might be an expert when it came to mind-magic, but it was unlikely that this would be enough, considering the effects those substances Harry used to take could have even on the mind of normal mentally ill people.

"So you think that Harry might somehow be affected by the killing-curse you-know-who cast on him that... that night?" Poppy's voice trembled.

"Yes. Maybe. I don't know for sure, of course, but from what I have seen in the boy's mind... well, it's clearly something dark, and if what Albus says is true and the blood-wards have prevented any dark wizard from harming Potter while he stayed with his relatives, there isn't any other explanation for all this dark, gross mud in his mind. I'm almost certain that the mud is the reason for Harry having difficulties with actually casting a spell..." Severus had decided that the mud was the more pressing matter. Sure, the dark, shadowy force that had drawn him into Harry's mind in the first place was worrisome, too (perhaps even more worrisome, if some of his suspicions turned out to be true), but he needed to carry out more research before he confronted Poppy or Minerva with any of his theories about what it meant... it wouldn't do to risk one of them letting something slip to the headmaster, not when he wasn't sure how much Albus knew... and what he was planning...

"I have already arranged to meet Potter again tomorrow evening. He has asked me whether I could help him with practising magic, I'm sure I'll be able to find out more about the mud and everything else I have sensed in his mind then."

"Yes, this sounds reasonable, Severus... yes... but why do you insist on me not telling Albus about the spell I cast on Harry earlier destroying my wand? Surely-"

"Don't you see, woman?!" The Potion Master barked, "You must know how unusual things like this are, not to mention the power that must be stored in someone's mind to cause the utter destruction of a wand! Don't you think that there would be... rumours... if the public came to know about this? Harry doesn't need the 'Prophet' speculating about whether he's a new dark wizard!"

"But Albus wouldn't tell anybody else about it, you know what he thinks about Rita and the whole lot of them!"

"Perhaps. Yes... but I can't help to wonder why he didn't bother to have Harry checked over by a healer or an expert for dark curses after... after that night. I'm not sure, but I don't trust the hold coot to really have Harry's best interest at heart. You didn't hear everything he told some of us during the last war..." Severus gulped and tried his best not to think of a certain conversation he and Albus had had shortly after the Dark Lord's downfall. "If he knew about this... well, I just think that I - we should find out more what's going on with Harry before telling him anything."

"I'm not really sure whether to agree with you, Severus, but since Minerva as the boy's head of house and seems to hold a similar opinion - don't look at me like that, she has told me about your little talk and her suspicions regarding Albus! Well, I don't think it would be necessary to tell Albus immediately... perhaps it wasn't due to Harry anyway, my wand was quite old, after all..."

Severus was almost sure he saw the medi-witch wink at him. Well, at least she seemed to be willing to let him do some more research before speaking to Albus again, and if Minerva had confided to her that she mistrusted Albus, too... the transfiguration-professor and the medi-witch were old friends, after all.

Satisfied that he wouldn't have to deal with a nosy headmaster who wanted to exploit the new discoveries Severus had made regarding Harry's mental state for the benefits of the 'greater good' (or who would obliviate Severus because he had found something Albus had wanted to keep a secret) for at least the next few day, the potion-master bid Poppy good night and (finally!) retreated to his quarters. It was quite tempting to go to bed early after the unexpected journey into Potter's mind, but he would need to read a few of his older books, books even Albus didn't know he had, to determine whether that... force in Harry's mind was indeed what he thought it might be...

Harry was glad it was Friday. Going to school again was nice, but he hadn't though it would be this hard. Not only had he to stay awake for hours and hours, but he needed to focus on what the teachers wanted him to do, whether one of his classmates spoke to him, not to do anything too freakish,... but at least the next two days he would be able to rest.
He hadn't slept very well, his legs just wouldn't stop twitching and somehow the demon seemed to have gained strength again. If he hadn't hidden his wand under his pyjama-top (in order to have it touch his bare skin the whole night) he probably wouldn't have been able to sleep at all, and who knows what the demon might have done to him... Breakfast was rather taxing, too, as he had to concentrate with all his might in order to prevent the demon from snatching the knife.

The two boy's from his dorm that had kept snickering and giving him odd looks during the last two days looked at him as if they wanted to ask something when Harry pushed his knife at the other side of the table, as far away from his plate as possible, but fortunately they didn't, and just continued whispering to each other. Harry wouldn't have known how to explain to them that he hadn't been allowed to use knives for the last four years or so.

Ron, however, seemed to be oblivious to Harry's discomfort and kept babbling about how he looked forward to finally having DADA. It was true, the Gryffindor first-years would have their first two lessons of defence-against-the-dark-arts directly after breakfast, and Ron held the opinion that it was the coolest subject ever. After all, you learned how to defend yourself from evil wizards - Slytherins - and though he was bothered by the fact that the Slytherins were actually partnered with them for the defence-lessons (how could you learn to defend yourself against your enemy if the very enemy learned exactly the same?), he seemed to think that DADA was the only class really worth studying for.

When Professor Quirrell entered the classroom, Harry immediately felt the demon getting even more restless. At first, he wasn't overly bothered by it, but it got worse as the lesson continued. Even the stuff the professor was talking about wasn't enough to distract him from the increasingly spiteful voice, although he dimly considered that he should probably be worried about learning that vampires, werewolves and trolls were real.

Additionally, Harry's head had started to hurt, or more precisely, the scar on his forehead.

Meanwhile, Ron was severely disappointed by the obvious uselessness of the teacher they had in DADA. He kept stuttering and didn't seem to know more about dark creatures than any children's book could tell. And this man should prepare them for fighting against evil wizards once they had left school and became aurors (as Ron couldn't think of anything else as cool as being an auror)? When he turned to Harry to share his indignation, however, he noticed that something wasn't right. Had Harry already been this pale when they had had breakfast? Ron couldn't really remember, he hadn't paid close attention to anything else except the upcoming lesson and the food.

He leaned over to the other boy and whispered: "Harry? Are you all right? Well, I mean..." Ron broke of. What a stupid question, it was obvious that Harry wasn't ok!

He didn't receive any reply, though, and his worry increased. Over the course of the week, he had noticed that Harry was prone to zoon out, but unlike Ron himself, he seemed to be really frightened by whatever daydreams he had. Oh, Ron day-dreamed frequently, too, especially during lessons, but he never forgot where he was or what was going on. Harry, however, had difficulties to distinguish between his day-dreams and reality, it seemed. Perhaps his mother- oh, no, aunt, of course!- was as good in backing cookies as his own mum was (Ron almost drooled by the mere thought of them)? But then, why should Harry be distressed when thinking about cookies? It didn't make sense!

"Harry!" He hissed. And while Harry still didn't give any sign of having heard him, the know-it-all (who had the habit of sitting in the front row in all of their classes, and since Harry inexplicably tended to do the same, Ron had ended up sitting next to the girl quite often) looked at him scandalized.

"What?" Ron argued. It wasn't as if they were learning anything from this useless teacher! "Harry doesn't look right. He's ill or something - hey, Harry! Harry!"

"Professor Quirrell?"

Oh no. Why did the know-it-all have to draw attention to them? He was only trying to help his friend, for Merlin's sake!

"Professor Quirrell?" The bossy girl waved her hand and seemed to have difficulties to actually keep sitting. "Professor! Professor Quirrell, Sir - "

"W-W-hat?" The professor almost jumped, "y-y-yes, Mrs... eh, G-Granger, you have a question?"

"Professor Quirrell I think Harry's ill! He should go to the hospital wing, I think"

"M-Mr P-P-P-Potter? Ill?"

"Yes Sir, Harry isn't well!" Ron chimed in, scowling at the know-it-all. Not that he really was annoyed with her - it seemed that she wanted to help, after all. But calling a teacher? Everybody could do that! He, Ron, had wanted to help Harry himself! This meant he was a good friend, didn't it?

The boy in question seemed to be oblivious to everything that was going on. He hadn't reacted to the Professor calling his name and just kept staring on the desk, one hand pressed against his forehead.

Ron was about to shake Harry when he saw Professor Quirrell approaching them, apparently in order to do the same. He didn't see exactly what happened next, he thought the teacher had touched Harry's shoulder, but he wasn't sure. Suddenly, however, Harry started to scream as if someone was torturing him and then he bolted from the classroom.

"Eh - I'll go looking for him!" Ron said, before running after his friend.

Quirrell remained standing in front of Harry's desk, frozen. And while the rest of the class kept gawking at the door, Hermione looked at the teacher, frowning.

###

"Harry, hey, Harry! It's me, Ron!" Ron had found Harry leaning on the wall of one of the next corridors, moaning in apparent pain. "Harry... are you... what's happened?"

Harry flinched when someone touched him, again, but this time, the touch didn't cause an unbearable amount of pain. He looked up. "Ron!"

"Hey, mate, what happened?"

"Uh... ' don't know... head hurts..."

"Is this why you ran away? Shall I bring you to the hospital-wing?"

"NO NO... no, not the hospital-wing, please, Ron, please not the hospital-wing...!"

"It's all right mate, I won't force you going there, I wouldn't want to have the nurse bothering me either, my mom is worse enough... but why did you run?"

"I don't know... needed to go away... it hurt so much...Professor Quirrell... don't know... it hurt..."

"Perhaps we should go back to the tower so that you can lie down for a bit? I'm sure Professor Quirrell won't mind, I have told him I would go looking for you... and there are only twenty minutes left anyway... Harry? HARRY NO!"

Harry had known it would happen since their defence-teacher had entered the classroom. Of course, he had tried to fight it, but now, away from the prying eyes of his classmates (well, most of them), and already weakened by the terrible pain he had felt when Professor Quirrell had touched his shoulder, he couldn't keep a curb on the demon any longer.
It was as if the demon felt that Harry had given up. The next thing Harry knew was that the stone-wall was much too close to his face - he thought he heard Ron yelling his name but he wasn't sure - there was pain, again, oh why did the demon have to target his head, the pain caused by the professor was hardly gone - and then something grabbed him and forced him away from the wall.

"HARRY! ARE YOU MAD?! WHAT DID YOU DO THIS FOR?"

The boy in question looked up, startled. Why did the demon stop after just one single bang? Then he saw Ron, red-faced and a mixture between fury and fear on his face. Great. Now the demon had ruined his first-ever friendship, too. It seemed as if nothing good was allowed for a freak like him.
It must have been Ron who had pulled him away from the wall, since (fortunately) nobody else seemed to have witnessed what had just happened. Harry couldn't help to be grateful for Ron's interference though, even so the other boy didn't even know that he had just fought against a demon.
Hopefully, the damned thing would leave him alone now, despite it being interrupted hurting him.

"Ehm..." Harry didn't know what to say. He wasn't keen on telling his ex-best-friend about the demon just now. "I'm sorry... uh, I'm sorry I startled you... well... I just go back to the common-room now..." he turned around, but before he could take more than a few steps, Ron had gripped his arm, again.

"Mate, you should go to the hospital-wing! That's a really nasty bump on your head, and... I don't know... why did you bang your head against the wall like this? It must have hurt awfully!"

"I'm sorry Ron... I'm just a mad freak. I'm sorry I can't be your friend any more..." Harry tried to yank his arm free, but Ron wouldn't let go.

"What do you mean you can't be my friend any more?" Ron demanded.

"You wouldn't want to be friend with a crazy freak like me. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, I just thought... well, I hoped you wouldn't notice the demon..."

"Why-" Ron stopped. He had been about to ask why he would stop being Harry's friend, but then it occurred to him that Harry might, in this regard, be similar to Luna, Ginny's friend.

Luna was rather odd, too, and she had been convinced that nobody would want to be friends with her just like Harry was! Well, it wasn't that Ron had been very enthusiastic about the girl's visits to the Burrow, sure. But, well, she was girl! What guy would want to be friends with a girl?

He hadn't cared about Luna being somewhat... well, loony, though. Ron wasn't sure whether to believe in Witliwutchs or Snarklumps (or however Luna called all of those creatures, Ron wasn't really good with names), but since Luna had assured him that they wouldn't suddenly attack him and that he didn't need to help searching for them if he didn't want to, Ron was fine with her. Ginny, on the other hand, had been thrilled to go on adventures with Luna and had told the girl that she was well able to decide for herself whether to be friends with her or not, and that she wouldn't let anybody - even Luna herself - forbid her to be friends with the blond girl.

Just then, Ron felt Harry trying to get his arm free once again and remembered that he still needed to tell Harry that he wouldn't stop being his friend. "I don't care whether you're loony I won't stop being your friend! No, you and I stay friends no matter what!" Ron declared, hoping that he was doing this right.

"You- what?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"I won't stop being your friend! Do you want me to accompany you to the hospital-wing?"

"Wha-? I don't go to the hospital-wing!"

"But your head-"

"It's nothing! I go back to the common-room... uhm, what do you mean, you won't stop being my friend?"

"Well, that I won't stop being your friend..." Ron answered, uncertain. There was nothing Harry could have misunderstood about that statement, was there?

"But I'm mad! You've seen it, I'm-"

"It doesn't matter, we're friends, so I don't care whether you're mad or loony, we're just friends, OK?!"

"Uhm.. OK..." Harry frowned. Ron was weird. But if he wanted to stay friends with Harry... perhaps it was because the other boy was weird? Well, Harry couldn't force him to leave, could he?

"So... you're sure that you don't want to go to the hospital-wing? I mean, you hid your head quite hard..."

"Yes. No. I mean, no, I don't want to go to the hospital-wing. It's not even bleeding, is it?"

"Eh, no..." Ron didn't know what to think. Had Harry ever hit his head hard enough to draw blood?

"Good. I don't need someone looking at it, then. No, it's all right. So, shall we go back to the common-room then?"

"' don't know, perhaps we should go directly to herbology..."

The rest of the day went uneventful. After dinner, Harry declined Ron's offer to accompany him to Snape's office and so the red-head went back to the tower on his own, uncertain whether he should feel relieved that he didn't have to face the Potion Master or worried because of Harry doing exactly this. Just when he had sat down in one of the cosy armchairs in front of the fireplace, ready to read one of his beloved Quidditch-magazines (it was weekend, after all), Hermione Granger appeared from behind her pile of books.

"So you're sure Harry is all right, Ronald?" The witch asked.

Ron inwardly groaned. The know-it-all had bothered him and Harry with all kind of funny questions throughout the day! "Yes! He has told me he's all right so you can stop being a nuisance!"

"Well," Hermione sniffed, "I'm sure you must be very interested in what I have seen after you ran out of the classroom, then!"

"Am I?" Ron asked, blankly. What was the girl on about?

"Yes, after all, it's not normal for someone to change eye-colours from brown to red and back again within a few seconds, even if the person is a wizard, isn't it?"

"Harry's eyes changed their colour?! When?"

"Not Harry's! Professor Quirrell's! After you and Harry left, he just kept staring at the place where Harry had sat. Everybody else was busy wondering why the two of you left, but since I was sitting directly in front of the teacher, I couldn't help to notice what happened with his eyes."

"So... Quirrell's eyes changed their colour? They got red?"

"Yes. Perhaps someone should tell Professor McGonagall. And I can't quite believe that Harry is all right after what has happened! Any responsible friend would have brought him to the hospital-wing, you know..."

And with that haughty common, Hermione returned to her books, leaving behind a pensive Ron.

Ron had never heard of someone who could just change his eye-colour. Well, except for metamorphmagi, of course. But Quirrell wasn't one of those, was he? After all, if he had the ability to change his appearance at will, why would he choose to look like a complete loser all the time?
Perhaps he should ask his father... he knew practically everything, so surely he would know whether this was something... worrisome? He could ask McGonagall, too, Ron supposed. But then, he didn't like going to a teacher just like some swot...

"Mr Potter, you asked whether I would be willing to help you to practice your magical abilities. Now, in order to do so I need to know exactly what causes your problems in the first place. Therefore, it would be helpful if you would demonstrate everything you have accomplished so far."

"But Professor, I can't do magic..." Harry objected, worried.

"I have realized that, Potter, but I need to see you trying it! How else do you expect me to show you how to do it right, if I don't know what you're doing wrong!?" The potion-master snapped.

"Uuh... all right..." Harry looked at the man, doubtfully. But he didn't have a choice, did he? If he ever wanted to get the hang on making stuff happen with that wand... He raised said instrument, pointed it at a feather that the Professor had put upon the table in front of him and stated "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Just as expected, nothing happened, and Harry looked at his teacher questioningly.

Snape frowned. "Do it again!" He demanded.

After Harry had demonstrated his inability to do any magic twice more, the Professor seemed to have seen enough and regarded the boy in front of him thoughtfully.

He hadn't expected such a complete lack of magical abilities. From all what Severus had seen, the boy could very well be a squib. Nothing had happened. Nothing. The feather hadn't even moved an inch, and he hadn't felt any form of magical energy coming from Harry, or his wand, at all.

"Would you hand over your wand so that I can examine it?"

"Sure!" Harry didn't hesitate. Oh, it would be great if it wasn't his fault that he couldn't do any of the assigned tasks but his wand's! Sure, he might have to get a new one, but there had been plenty at the wand-shop he and Hagrid had visited, so this wouldn't be a problem, would it? He only hoped he would be allowed to keep his old one. Who knew whether a new wand would have the same effects on the demon, and he couldn't afford loosing this kind of support right now, not when the demon became stronger anyway...

Snape's eyes narrowed when the boy submitted his wand unhesitatingly. Had nobody told him that wands were considered one of the most intimate objects wizards and witches possessed?
Deciding that he would address this particular issue later, Severus focused on the wand. Carefully, he felt for any crack or rift. When he didn't find any, he dropped the wand on one of the scales that, instead of the actual weigh, provided you with further details about the components the wand was made of. Fortunately, Minerva had been able to "borrow" it from Albus' office, and even so it was unlikely that the old coot would actually notice the absence of one of the more-or-less useful instrument he stored in his office, Severus was confident that the lioness would be able to make up a story.

The scales coughed up a narrow sheet of paper, but apart from the rather rare combination of holly and phoenix-feather, Severus could detect nothing unusual.

Sighing, he explained to the goggling child: "So far, I haven't found anything that would explain your difficulties. However, there is a spell that would allow me to see every charm, spell and curse - well, any magic at all - that has ever been cast through this wand. As it's a rather... invasive spell, I need your consent to proceed." He looked at Harry questioningly.

"Eh, sure..." Harry answered. So far, he hadn't done any magic, and before he had purchased it, his wand had been in the shop. And it was a new wand, wasn't it? Ron had told him that his wand had belonged to one of the boy's many relatives before Ron had gotten it, but since Harry's wand was from a shop, it must be new. This meant, nobody had ever used the wand. So the spell the professor wanted to cast on it would just show nothing, wouldn't it?

"All right." Snape said, lifted his own wand and roared: "Prior Incantato!"