[HPforGrownups] Re: Various comments/ponderings/questions on Voldemort and his wand (really long!)

[Richelle Votaw]

No: HPFGUIDX 42966

Grey Wolf and Eloise were the brave souls who tackled my ponderings on the
life and times of Voldemort and his wand.  Their responses have made me
rethink a few things, and I'm combining them here.

Grey Wolf writes:

> There is a third possibility you haven't considered: that Hagrid took
> the wand, and then told no-one for years and years because he wanted to
> have a working wand (which he camouflaged in the pink umbrella). Peter
> was hiding as a rat someplace nearby and saw him take it. Years later
> (in PoA, when he spends some time in Hagrid's shack, he discovers where
> it is, and when he flees from the shack scene, he goes for it. I don't
> really believe this theory, but it's workable.

Actually this had crossed my mind, but I had thrown it out before I wrote my
essay last night. :)  Two reasons.  1) I really can't see Hagrid keeping a
secret for 10+ years.  2) I can't see Hagrid able to face Harry after
Wormtail got the wand back to Voldemort.  But instead they have a nice
little visit.

 Grey Wolf again:

> My own version is that Peter grabed the wand just after the explosion,
> when Voldemort had turned into a pile of ash. At that point, Peter
> realized that he was going to have to hide, and possibly thought of
> faking his own death. The best proof in that sort of cases is leaving
> behind something no wizard would ever voluntarily leave behind: his
> wand. But Peter could do it because he had a spare wand: Voldemort's.
> Thus, he could drop his wand and transform into a rat, safe in the
> assumption that he still had *another* wand if he ever ran into
> trouble.

This is probably the most likely solution, whether it's the most exciting or
not.  Ollivander points out what a powerful wand it was, so it could come in
handy.

Eloise writes:

> He could have had it with him then; we don't know that he didn't. Clothes
and
> wands, etc. transform along with the animagus, so he could have regained
> human shape to hide it later. (Someone suggested a little while ago that
one
> of the reasons he chose to hide in Hagrid's hut was that that was the
place
> he had hidden Voldemort's wand.)

So theoretically you could have one wand behind your back, one in your
pocket, drop the one while you cut off your finger and turn into a rat and
still have the one in your pocket.  Interesting.  Definitely handy to have
two wands there.  However, Wormtail didnt' have it on him in the shrieking
shack did he?  Or else he'd have done something?  Or acted like he was going
to?  As for it being hidden in Hagrid's hut, that's interesting.  Hagrid is
always right handy to blame for such things.  Very likely.

Grey Wolf writes:


> also possible that the potion requires particuar strength (which he
> does not want to deplete by doing magics that Peter can do) or that,
> like in some medical procedures, you have to be "clean" no magic during
> the previous 24 hours, for example. I myself believe is more a matter
> of eficiency.

Ah, or perhaps Voldemort wants to be at full strength to tackle the famous
Harry Potter?  Just to be sure he can kill him this time.  And have plenty
strength to make him suffer a while first.


Eloise again:

> Two other possibilities:
>
> Phoenixes are red and gold, so possibly it has something to do with the
> wands' common cores.
>
> More prosaically, if you mix red light and green light, you get yellow
light
> and there's not a lot of difference, I would venture, between yellow and
gold
> when we talk about a light beam.

Hmm, okay, so much for color symbolism. :)

Eloise:

> No, I don't think so. I think it starts because Harry has *forced* the
bead
> of light onto Voldemort's wand tip by his sheer force of mind and magical
> power. The wands were forced to duel and Harry's won.

Oh, I sort of missed that.  Maybe.  A little.  Okay, totally.  Sorry, but
I've reread that scene over and over trying to dissect it, but I always get
so tense I miss something vital!  So, it was a mental power struggle and
Harry won!  Cool.  See, you learn something new every day.  That would
explain why he was pretty much fried by the time he got back to Hogwarts
(everything was a blur, he was dazed, etc.).  Well, that and being Crucio'd
a few times.

Grey Wolf writes:

> (some people think it's *the* person's soul) that was killed by the AK.
> This, of course, rules ut the failed AK from appearing, since it
> destroyed no soul: not Harry's, who's still alive and well, nor
> Voldemort's who's "soul" (or what was left of it after years of dark
> magic) was forced to separate from his body and flee to Albania.

But even though it destroyed no soul, it did destroy a body.  I'd completely
believe that it only showed things destroying a soul, except for Wormtail's
hand.  That didn't have anything to do with a soul, did it?

Eloise writes:

> Although, you know, the wand does emit screams of pain, before the shadow
of
> the hand appears. Perhaps that was the memory of the Cruciatus curses.
> OTOH, as my own copy attests, JKR did get things wrong about this scene.
> The lack of any memory of the curse that failed is odd, I agree.

You know, you might be on to something there. There were screams of pain
coming out of the wand first. Before Wormtail's hand.   There was no pain
involved with the hand being repaired.  It reads as such (corrected
Scholastic version):

"At once, Voldemort's wand begin to emit echoing screams of pain . . .
then --Voldemort's red eyes widened with shock--a dense, smoky hand flew out
of the tip of it and vanished . . . the ghost of the hand he had made
Wormtail."

Sure, Wormtail carried on a bit after cutting it off, (like I wouldn't?!)
but that had nothing to do with the wand.  So the screams must have come
from the Cruciatus.   Harry did scream, very much, "more loudly than he'd
ever screamed in his life."  Which solves that problem, but there's still
the missing failed AK curse.  I double checked to be sure, and it goes
straight from Bertha Jorkins dropping out of the wand, telling Harry "don't
let him get you, don't let go" to "Another head was emerging from the tip of
Voldemort's wand . . . and Harry knew when he saw it who it would be . . ."
and so it goes, that being his mother, of course, since this is the
corrected version.  I would think it was just a mistake, except that this
scene has already been corrected.  I find it very unlikely that they would
go to the trouble of correcting the scene and not completely correct it.

Eloise (this time on my topic of using a different wand to AK baby Harry)

> Not exactly far-fetched; it has its own internal logic and a deal of
pathos,
> but it does rest on the two unproven premises that you *can* fight the AK
and
> that wands *do* overheat if you get AK-happy (if that's what you're
saying.
> I'm afraid I missed that theory first time round).
> I'm afraid these would probably invoke a yellow flag. ;-)

I think the theory was (it wasn't mine, so I can't be sure) that if you AK'd
too quickly too many times in a row the wand could overheat, or something.
However, as you say, Riddle AK'd three at once--grandparents and his father.
Only two possible solutions I can think of.  1) It's easier to AK muggles as
they're doing nothing at all to fight back.  As they don't even *have* a
wand, so can't even try to cast an expelliarmus or whatever.  2)  That Lily
*did* try to resist, if only for a few seconds, and *that* would have
overheated the wand, not necessarily two/three AK's in a row.  As I said,
it's out there.  Way out there. :)

Richelle