Jasna narrowed her eyes, carefully studying the expressions of the Muggles.
"Wizards?"
The freckle-faced young man blinked in confusion, his lips moving as he muttered under his breath. The other Muggles also looked dazed.
"That's right—"
Jasna showed no disappointment. Her hand emerged from beneath her fur cloak, holding her broken wand.
"I'm a professor. While teaching at a university in Berlin, I also joined one of the school's societies, dedicated to researching supernatural powers—"
Jasna held her wand out farther so the villagers could see it more clearly.
"One of the students in the society found this while hiking nearby. After studying it, we all agreed that it might be a wand—the tool wizards use to cast magic."
"But—"
The freckle-faced man's mouth twitched. He carefully examined Jasna's broken wand for a few moments.
"It looks like some kind of craftwork."
"There are no wizards in this world, Professor—"
The brown-bearded man finally laughed.
"Perhaps someone was pulling your leg."
A burst of cheerful laughter rang out across the snow. The villagers had all been amused by Jasna's reason for coming here.
"Oh, really?"
Jasna displayed visible disappointment, though inwardly she breathed a sigh of relief.
"I thought I was about to catch a wizard. Have you really never seen a wand? Of course, it might be made of some other kind of wood and kept in the home of a strangely behaved villager?"
"Everyone here is perfectly normal, and I'm quite sure I've never seen such a little stick in anyone's home, Professor—"
the brown-bearded man said with a laugh.
"Unless that person deliberately hid it from me. Or perhaps this little stick floated here down the river."
"That's possible."
Jasna said.
It seemed unlikely that wizards lived in this village. The Anti-Apparition Charm probably really had been