[HPforGrownups] Re: Voldemort's wand (was Re: Wormtail's Wand)

[Patricia Bullington-McGuire]

No: HPFGUIDX 54778

Just for the record, I actually wrote this, not Alex:

> > I'm still waiting for some evidence that there is any sort of negative 
> > effect from using another wizard's wand.  Normally I would trust 
> > Ollivander's word on these things, but we keep seeing wizards using each 
> > other's wands with no problem.  I'm kind of wondering if that was just a 
> > line JKR threw in without really thinking about the consequences.  

And then flamingstarchows at att.net wrote:

> I'm at work, so I don't have the books handy, but I think that Mr. Ollivander 
> never actually said one wizard could not use another's wand, but something to 
> the effect that they would never get as good results as they would by using 
> their own.

I don't have the book in front of me either, but that is what I remember
as well.  The thing is, we haven't seen *any* sort of ill effect from
using another person's wand.  No problems with spell results being too
strong or not strong enough, no transformations that aren't quite complete
(pin cushions that squeal when stuck with a pin, for instance), not even
conjured or transformed objects that aren't as pretty as they could be.  
Lockhart's memory spell in CoS did backfire when he used Ron's wand, but
that seemed to be due to the wand being broken, not to it belonging to
someone else.  The wand had also backfired on Ron earlier, when he ended
up belching up slugs.  Until we see something, anything, that doesn't work
as well as it could because the wrong wand was used, I won't be sure how
seriously to take Ollivander's statement.


----
Patricia Bullington-McGuire	<patricia at obscure.org>

The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered
three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the
purely hypothetical.  They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each
nonexisted in an entirely different way ... 
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"