Wand Theory

[Allyse at my-deja.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 23314

Catching up slowly, as always. :( I see there have been some 
discussion regarding "Charlie's old wand," and the question as to why 
Charlie has an "old wand" in the first place. Someone or other 
mentioned Ollivander's reference to Lily's first wand as 
corraboration - good point there. So I thought it might be time to 
advance a theory, half-baked as it still is at the moment. :)

Alas, I don't have the books with me at the moment (is that 
considered sacrilege?), so I can't check if Charlie is of the tall, 
gangling Weasly flavor or the short, stocky one. Be that as it may, 
it can surely be conceded that everyone, particularly boys, undergo 
drastic changes in their heights during their teen years.

Now, there have been many speculations in the past regarding wand 
lengths and the question as to whether or not they correlate to the 
owner's height; after all, Hagrid's wand is 16 inches (IIRC), much 
longer than anyone else's mentioned in canon. There's no 
confirmation, of course, but since my theory is built on that concept 
(length of wand is related to height of owner), I'm accepting that as 
a given. ;)

So. It may be possible that the same wand that "chooses the wizard" 
at the age of 11 would not be right for that same wizard at the age 
of 19 or so. To use the Charlie/Ron wand as an example, Charlie's 
unicorn hair wand, chosen at the age of 11, was no longer the best 
wand for him by the time he was six feet tall at the age of 
seventeen. So he got a new one (financed by his future employers, 
perhaps, who needed their dragon keepers at optimum magic levels in 
order to control the dragons?) and left the old one in a bureau 
drawer back home. By the time it was Ron's turn to go off to 
Hogwarts, the Weasleys could no longer afford to buy a new wand for 
each child, and dug up Charlie's old wand instead.

I would imagine that every extra inch of wand would correlate to 
several inches of height. I'm not trying to suggest exact comparisons 
here, but rather a general similarity between height of owner and 
length of wand. If the owner grows too tall, then perhaps the wand 
simply won't do the job quite so well any longer. If this theory 
holds true (and I make no claims that it does <g>), then Ron's PoA 
wand might last him all his life; he's gotten so tall already that 
he's probably close to his final height.

Of course, this theory has lots of problems with it. ;) What about 
Voldemort's wand, apparently chosen at the age of eleven? He still 
has it decades later. Was he that tall as a kid? We know he was good-
looking and tall at the age of sixteen, but that doesn't tell us 
about his height five years before. And Harry certainly grew a few 
inches between PS and PoA; he has to get new robes. Of course, he 
might not have grown enough to grow out of the length of his wand, if 
that makes any sense. And anyway, he's surely not going to get 
another wand, considering the need to hold on that particular wand in 
any battle against Voldemort! But I do think the theory is worth 
considering, if only because it suggests a reasonable explanation for 
why wizards would choose to have more than one wand in the first 
place.

On a complete tangent, I am suddenly struck by the phrase "the wand 
chooses the wizard." Does that mean that wands have some kind of 
SENTIENCE? Whoa! Maybe that's why Harry could win the Priori 
Incantatum struggle: Fawkes' feather, somehow sentient in the wand, 
was rebelling against the wickedness of Voldemort's abuse of it! 
Okay, that may be so far out in left field as to be out of sight, but 
I couldn't resist adding it to my post. :)

Allyse, who comes out of lurkdom only rarely