[HPforGrownups] Re: Wanderings and Wonderings about Wands

[Beck, Jim]

No: HPFGUIDX 29352

Andrea wrote:
 
"I always thought it most likely that Pettigrew was near the Potter's house
that evening and that it was him who took V's wand and kept it; not
necessarily with the intention to maybe return it (how should he know at
that time, that Voldemort would indeed return?)."
 
I thought about the how does V get his wand back question as I was walking
home from work yesterday (50+ minutes), and I think it is likely to be more
complicated than that, particularly since Pettigrew would have trouble
getting into and out of a crime scene.
 
We know from priori incantum in GoF that between the deaths of the Potters
(frankly, I think JKR got the order backwards in GoF) and the death of
Bertha Jorkins that V's wand cast no significant spells.  We can also deduce
from the way V acted in P/SS that he did not have his wand.  Presumably he
didn't know where it was because he controlled Quirrell and would have used
him to get it had he known.
 
I propose the following scenario as fitting in with what we know.  Whomever
got to V's wand at Godric's Hollow was a DE mole in the enforcement arm of
the Ministry, possibly McNair (which would explain why V wasn't particularly
angry at him in the graveyard scene).  Upon receiving reports of mayhem at
GH, a number of enforcement wizards went there.  When V's powers were
destroyed, the dark mark on the DE's arm abruptly went out.  Thus s/he knew
something had happened to V.  While the other enforcement wizards were busy
with the deaths of the Potters, the injured infant HP, and trying to cover
the whole thing up from the muggles, the DE, who had foreknowledge to look
for it immediately, found V's wand and pocketed it.
 
With the ensuing purge of the DE's, things got too hot for the mole to
retain this particularly incriminating item.  So he gave it to the only DE
who was well enough positioned to be able to retain V's personal effects
with relative impunity -- Lucius Malfoy.  Malfoy organized the group that
included Crouch who tortured the Longbottoms trying to find out where V was
so that they could restore him to power, presumably by (among other things)
returning his wand.  After that group is captured and sent to Azkaban,
Lucius doesn't have any more means to search for V, except at unacceptable
personal risk (and loss of the wand).
 
Pettigrew may well have been lurking in the background, or perhaps he
contacted the DE mole right away when his dark mark similarly was
extinguished and learned where V's wand was and that the intent was to give
it to Lucius Malfoy for safekeeping.  But Pettigrew did nothing with that
information during the decade that he lived as a rat -- one reason why V was
so angry at him.  In the interim, the failure to retrieve V's wand is hushed
up by the ministry, and only a few people -- presumably including Dumbledore
-- knew that V's wand had never been recovered.
 
Pettigrew flees at the end of PoA and finds V.  He tells V where he thinks
V's wand is.  After V is nursed back to sufficient health to be able to
travel, they contact Lucius Malfoy and retrieve the wand -- possibly by
personal visit (although that would raise the question why they didn't just
stay at Malfoy's (since he has a hidden chamber where they could have hidden
out -- and where they probably will be hiding out for a while in Book 5), or
possibly by owl.  Anyway, in some fashion V retrieves his wand from Lucius
Malfoy prior to the encounter with Jorkins.  This would explain why the
resurrected V was not angry at all with LM when the DEs reassembled, even
though Malfoy had very successfully reintegrated himself into wizarding
society after V's fall (I'll leave to those more religious than I to discuss
the significance of identification of resurrection with the most evil
character in the series).
 
Whether or not this scenario turns out to be accurate, the mystery of V's
wand could turn out to be significant, because the unraveling of the mystery
could lead to the exposure of Lucius Malfoy as a DE, the discovery of V's
headquarters in LM's hidden chamber, and the fall of Fudge, who is allied
politically with LM.  The pieces of a plot line for JKR to do this are
available, with Arthur Weasley knowing about the hidden chamber, and
Pettigrew being in HP's debt.
 
Anyway, that's one explanation that seems plausible to me.  Fire away all.
 
-- Bexis




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