And this was ... somewhat conflicting. On the one hand, James agreed with Aberforth: he worried a lot about the risks Diana had been taking, starting with, however grateful he was for it, rescuing him - and going on to things like communicating openly with strangers who talked about rebellion. The slight hysteria she seemed to feel nearly all the time scared him: it could get her killed. But on the other hand, well, it was all very well for somebody who'd managed to get out when the Death Eaters descended to dismiss things as 'melodrama'; having been there himself - and been caught and imprisoned by them - he wasn't sure it was possible to overstate the horror. He knew all too well that Diana was only alive because one of them had taken it into his head to rape her rather than kill her - how could anyone go through that and not get a bit worked up? "You know what happened at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement?" he asked softly. "Di was there."
But at the sight of the wands, his breath simply caught: it was like a man who had lost an arm suddenly finding it had grown back - a thing that, admittedly, occasionally happened to wizards. He carefully reached out and began trying them out; being a good enough wizard to wrestle a bit of magic out of even a hostile wand it was more about establishing the feel of them than anything - and thus he tried them out by Transfiguring the salt shaker into a variety of other small objects: a pencil, a cup, a tiny statue of a Hippogriff - and so on.
The first one was no good: it hated him the moment he put his hand on it, and might as well have been Snape's wand. The second and third were better, but had an indifferent feel to them, as though they couldn't bring themselves to care whether the spell was cast correctly or not. But the fourth - now that was promising. It wasn't like his wand had been, he could hardly expect that from such a small selection, but it felt ... friendly. As though he and it might work together comfortably enough. In some ways it was even better than Diana's wand, which treated him well enough - but always had a feel of tolerating him about it, its obedience conditional on the knowledge that he would be returning it to its rightful owner soon. He tried the fifth, as a matter of completeness, but when it felt no better than the rest his hand closed again around the fourth and a little of the tension he'd been carrying around for the past six months slipped away.
Having a wand didn't really make things any better - but at least now he didn't have to walk around feeling crippled, and like a thief every time he took Diana's from her. At least now he could fight.
"Thanks, Aberforth," he said, struggling to suppress some of the emotion in his voice - even with the charms up, it wouldn't do to make a scene. "Anything you need - anything .."
He took a few deep breaths to steady himself, and nudged Diana fondly with his shoulder. "Go on, sweet, try them. So we can get started," and continued then to Aberforth, albeit a little doubtfully: "Yeah, I hope so." There was more than one way to die, and no guarantee that the Death Eaters would always know what they had. "Did you hear what they said about the Longbottoms? Do you believe it?"