Harry waited until they could hear Xenophilius moving about in the kitchen downstairs before speaking.

“What do you think?” he asked Hermione.

“Oh, Harry,” she said wearily, “it’s a pile of utter rubbish. This can’t be what the sign really means. This must just be his weird take on it. What a waste of time.”

“I s’pose this is the man who brought us Crumple-Horned Snorkacks,” said Ron.

“You didn’t believe it either?” Harry asked him.

“Nah, that story’s just one of those things you tell kids to teach them lessons, isn’t it? ‘Don’t go looking for trouble, don’t go pick fights, don’t go messing around with stuff that’s best left alone! Just keep your head down, mind your own business, and you’ll be okay. Come to think of it,” Ron added, “maybe that story’s why elder wands are supposed to be unlucky.”

“What are you talking about?”

“One of those superstitions, isn’t it? ‘May-born witches will marry Muggles.’ ‘Jinx by twilight, undone by midnight.’ ‘Wand of cider, never prosper.’ You must have heard them. My mum’s full of them.”

“Harry and I were raised by Muggles,” Hermione reminded him. “We were taught different superstitions.” She sighed deeply as a rather pungent smell drifted up from the kitchen. The one good thing about her exasperation with Xenophilius was that it seemed to have made her forget that she was annoyed at Ron. “I think you’re right,” she told him. “It’s just a morality tale, it’s obvious which gift is best, which one you’d choose—”

The three of them spoke at the same time: Hermione said, “the Cloak,” Ron said, “the wand,” and Harry said, “the stone.”

They looked at each other, half surprised, half amused.

“You’re supposed to say the Cloak,” Ron told Hermione, “but you wouldn’t need to be invisible if you had the wand. An unbeatable wand, Hermione, come on!”

“We’ve already got an Invisibility Cloak,” said Harry, “And it’s helped us rather a lot, in case you hadn’t noticed!” said Hermione. “Whereas the wand would be bound to attract trouble—”

“Only if you shouted about it,” argued Ron. “Only if you were prat enough to go dancing around waving it over your head, and singing, ‘I’ve got an unbeatable wand, come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.’ As long as you kept your trap shut—”

“—Yes, but could you keep your trap shut?” said Hermione, looking skeptical. “You know the only true thing he said to us was that there have been stories about extra-powerful wands for hundreds of years.”

“There have?” asked Harry.

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Harry glanced at Hermione. She was frowning at Xenophilius, but she did not contradict him.	\|	Hermione looked exasperated: The expression was so endearingly familiar that Harry and Ron grinned at each other.

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