On Christmas morning, Severus springs a surprise trip on Harry: glamoured and under the cloak, they slip out of Hogwarts to the Leaky Cauldron for breakfast and a very private meeting with wandmaker Gregorovitch. A box full of wands rejects Harry one after another until a final, ancient wand accepts him – ebony with a sphinx hair core imbued with phoenix tears, once owned by Sezar Slytherin, Salazar’s reclusive and legendarily powerful son. After paying with basilisk skin and buying a dragonhide wand holster in Diagon Alley, Severus takes Harry on to the Ministry, where they steal into the Department of Mysteries under cover of invisibility and retrieve Harry’s prophecy sphere right out from under the guard’s nose. By the time they return to Hogwarts, Harry is walking the halls with a new wand, a stolen prophecy in his pocket, and a much clearer sense that Severus is planning for a very different future than Dumbledore ever did.