wands

[N Fry]

No: HPFGUIDX 40073

This is something that I've been curious about for a while and was reminded 
about last night while rereading the "Weighing of the Wands" scene in GoF. I 
thought that, with all the endless speculation about enchanted appliances 
and the various degrees of evilness of and/or potential for betrayal by 
[insert random character name here], it might be nice to temporarily 
distract everyone with a lighter topic of discussion. <g>

Mr. Ollivander (sp?) tells Harry that wands pick their owners. But is there 
only one wand that could be yours? In PS/SS, Ron says that he's using one of 
his brothers' old wands (Percy's, IIRC). So Percy has a different wand from 
the one he originally started out with. Also, Ollivander says that he can 
remember when Lily came in to buy her *first* wand. This implies to me that 
she owned at least one other wand at some point in her life, otherwise he 
would have just said "her wand."

I believe that there must be multiple wands that could be compatible with a 
wizard. Some are just more so than others. If not, what are the odds that 
the one wand that is suited to Harry just happens to be in the wand store 
that he stops in? We know from GoF that Ollivander isn't the only wand maker 
in the world.

What about the people who have to replace their wands? Accidents happen, and 
wands get broken or lost. Ollivander says (possibly on a number of 
occasions?) that no two wands are alike. He wouldn't be able to recreate 
them.

Wands don't work in an all or nothing fashion. Does that make sense? I'll 
explain... Harry is told that it is possible to use another person's wand, 
but the results won't be as good as he would get with a wand that has picked 
him. So it's not just a case of only being able to use that one wand. If a 
wizard could use any wand (with varying degrees of success), then couldn't 
there be more than one that would work well for him/her.

Another idea to consider - Do you think it is possible to "outgrow" your 
wand? I'm assuming that the wand picks you based on the person that you are 
at the time of purchase, but as your abilities grow and change, could the 
wand becomes less effective? Perhaps this explains why Percy replaced a 
perfectly good wand. Of course, like many of the Weasley's possessions, he 
could have gotten his first wand second hand. The family may have had a 
little extra money at the beginning of PS/SS and decided to get him one that 
specifically picked him. But that still supports my idea, because *someone* 
had to have gotten rid of it in order for Percy to buy it. Until Ron breaks 
it in the car accident, there is never any description of anything appearing 
to be wrong with it, except for maybe a little bit of the stuffing sticking 
out of the end. It seems to be in fine working order, Ron just has a little 
bit of trouble with it because it didn't pick him.



~ Nik (who wants her own wand and is curious to know what type she would 
get)

Speaking of getting a wand - For those of you who braved the dvd version of 
the CTMNBN (I swear this is book related!), did you notice that they used 
wand discriptions from the books in the extra features? There's a part where 
you can "visit" Diagon Alley and buy a wand (amongst other things). Each 
wand is described before you try it out. I happened to notice they were 
repeats of wands I had read about, because the one I ended up with had the 
exact same description as Lily's wand. The others also sounded familiar, but 
I couldn't remember off the top of my head who they belonged to (or if they 
were just ones that Harry tried out while shopping for his wand).

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