Walking out of the woods with his brain-wiped brother was the hardest thing Ford had ever had to do, and he couldn't begin to imagine the devastation Dipper and Mabel felt. Especially Mabel. Something unexpected happened once they emerged from the woods, though: They encountered an old friend.

McGucket had spent the past month or so developing a method to reverse an obliviate—mostly in the hope of putting his own head back in order—and now he'd spent the last several days perfecting the process on Stan. It was remarkable; with only a few hours' work he'd been able to recall the entire summer—to Dipper and Mabel's delight—and the rest of his history came back to him in leaps and bounds every day. Perhaps there was still a gap or two somewhere in there, but by all appearances he'd now made a full recovery.

Stan was pretty sure he hadn't gotten it all back yet, but he remembered all the important stuff: Fishing with Mabel and Dipper, scamming Mystery Shack customers with Soos and Wendy, lazy afternoon "quidditch" practice sessions with Ford and McGucket… (Really they'd just toss a quaffle around for a while, and eventually devolve into Stan doing trick shots while Ford and McGucket tried to magic the ancient school brooms into flying faster.)

Getting this summer back had been the biggest relief. Sure, he was glad he and McGucket had kept going, but part of him suspected he'd be just as happy now if they'd stopped after that and just focused on making the last days of summer count instead. It was fine, though. He'd still found time for Mabel and Dipper's birthday party. To drill Soos on how to run the Mystery Shack. To pack his bags for his trip with Ford.

For the past couple days it'd been just the two of them around the Shack, packing and double-checking enchanted maps and going over plans that had them both so keyed up they barely remembered to eat. It felt almost like their early years at Hogwarts all over again, back when it was just him and Ford all the time, and that was just fine with them.

Right now, though, Stan wasn't sure where Ford had gotten to; he hadn't seen him all afternoon. It was almost sunset and he'd just wrapped up taking inventory in the gift shop for the last time. Realizing he hadn't had dinner yet, he headed into the kitchen for a snack, and that's where he found his brother.

Ford was hunched over the kitchen table, working at a piece of wood with a whittling knife. That raised Stan's eyebrows. He'd never known Ford to use any kind of no-maj tool so long as he had his wand handy. Heck, Stan had even had to buy his own toolbox before trying to repair the electronic and mechanical components of Ford's freaky magic portal, which meant the guy must've gone out of his way to never touch a screwdriver or soldering gun when he built the thing.

He struggled with the knife now, taking it slow, probably trying hard as he could to avoid adding to the small collection of scrapes and nicks his hands had already picked up. Stan couldn't help but shake his head. Whatever Ford was up to, he should probably step in before his brother managed to take himself from Sixer to Fiver.

"Hey, Ford. Wha'cha up to?"

"All the books say it has to be done by hand…" Ford muttered petulantly. He offered no further explanation.

"Thanks for clearing that up…" Stan muttered. He stepped into the kitchen for a closer look at Ford's makeshift workbench. On the kitchen table there were a couple of spellbooks and several thick branches, each a little different, and each labeled in Ford's tidy, slanted script: Walnut, Oak, Pine, Cypress…

"So, what's all this stuff?" Stan asked, a little more forcefully.

Ford paused his whittling to blink at Stan as if he'd just noticed he was there. Then, looking back down at the wood in his hands, he explained:

"Well, this is the first opportunity I've gotten to actually sit down and try it, but I've been doing a great deal of reading about the art of wand-making these past few years…"

"Nerd," said Stan amicably. He fished a Tupperware container of leftovers out of the fridge, grabbed a fork, and plopped down at the table. "So you gonna try to whip something up for me?"

Ford looked up from his work again with a frown.

"I was going to 'whip something up' for me. You should have your old wand back."

"Eh," said Stan with a shrug, "I'm sure it likes you better by now anyway—"

"I sincerely doubt it."

"—and it's not like I'd even know what do with it. You know I've barely touched one since Hogwarts."

"You'll need to get back in practice, then," said Ford, smiling as his gaze returned to his work, "I won't be able to untangle those anomalies all by myself, you know."

"Fair enough," said Stan, picking up one of the sticks and a spare whittling knife, "Want some help with this too?"

"Please."

The whittling and sanding of the wood swathes was satisfying work: Difficult enough to not get boring, but also easy enough that he could talk to Ford. The conversation meandered from topic to topic: What the Mystery Shack would be like under Soos's management, news Ford had missed in the last thirty years (though Stan suspected he was still missing a fair chunk of that himself), memories of Hogwarts that were just returning to Stan's mind…

"So what are you gonna do with all these?" said Stan, dropping his latest sanded stick on top of the pile of wand-shaped sticks they'd collected, "You're just makin' the one wand, right?"

"Apparently core insertion is quite the finicky process. The wood has to be the right shape first, and even then the core may refuse to enter it, or the wood could split in the midst of the insertion spell. Most books advise assembling at least ten wooden bases before even beginning to prepare the core."

The pile they'd assembled had twenty.

"Huh. What kind of core are you gonna use?"

"Unicorn hair. Mabel collected so much for the protection spell there was some left over afterward."

"Enough for a whole wand, huh?"

"More than enough, actually."

Stan smiled slyly.

"How much more?"

"What do you mean?"

"Think you got enough to make two?"

It was past midnight by the time Ford finally got the insertion spell to take twice—the process was every bit as tricky as he'd described—but they weren't tired. They were so intent on the project they hadn't even noticed the sun going down hours ago, or the fact they'd been working by the light of a single elderly lamp in the kitchen. From the outside the Mystery Shack looked haunted: All its windows dark save for one wavery light. But then, suddenly, in the dead of night, from that one lone window shone a sunset glow.