Ron's Wand

[Laura]

No: HPFGUIDX 56078


Carolyn said:
> > >
How would Ron have been expected to perform spells correctly, not to 
mention pass his exams, with a broken wand? Professors McGonagal and 
Snape both comment on it.
> > > 

Dan responded:
> > >
I've always thought that was kinda silly too. They have school brooms 
and school owls that all students can use who don't have their own, 
surely they have a stock of school wands that students can use if, 
for some reason, his or hers breaks or is lost. It seems that they 
would have other equipment there too, such as cauldrons and such.
> > >

So I say:
OK, so I'm getting really picky here.  But we do have some 
circumstantial evidence that they have extra cauldrons lying around.  
Neville has destroyed quite a few of them, and it would seem rather 
impractical to have him sit out for a few days of Potions lessons 
while his Gran sent him a new cauldron by owl.  Besides, think about 
sending a cauldron by owl.  We don't have much canon as to how big 
they are...but still.  You get the point.  Unless Neville comes with 
2's and 3's of all his supplies because of the liklihood that he'll 
break something. =)

Another thing that just occurred to me- how did Hermione brew the 
Polyjuice Potion in the girls' bathroom for over a month and still 
presumably take Potions lessons, in which she would most likely need 
her cauldron a few times.  More nitpicking, of course, but we can use 
this to speculate that there are spare cauldrons. 

Although the fact that there seems to be no mention of extra wands 
seems very odd.  Perhaps its because of what Kristen wrote in 
response to Phyllis's comment that it was implausible for Harry to 
buy Ron a new wand in CoS:

> > >
it's the wand that chooses the wizard, so to
get a good wand, Ron would have to physically be there
to select it, it seems.

Of course this brings up the point about Ron's first
wand. Wasn't it a hand-me-down? I'm sorry, I don't
have the books in front of me to remember, but
everything else he has is a hand-me-down from his
family or second-hand from some shop. So how well
could it have worked for him?

Of course, Crouch jr. didn't have any problems
conjuring the dark mark with Harry's wand.

By the way, I'm new, so I'd like to say 'hi' to
everyone!
> > >

First of all, Hi Kristen. =)  Now back to the wands. =)  I'm 
relatively certain that Ron's wand used to belong to Charlie.  I know 
used to belong to one of his older brothers, either Bill or Charlie, 
and I'm leaning towards Charlie.

Mr. Olivander tells us something to the effect of "you'll never get 
as good results with another wizard's wand" because of the 
whole "wand choosing the wizard" thing.  I personally think that this 
concept it really fascinating and probably a lot more important than 
we realize.  (Think GoF =))  I would love to know a lot more about 
it.  But at the moment, all we really have to go on is Mr Olivander's 
comment.  *Any* wand will work for you, but your wand is the best for 
channeling your magical power.  "Your wand" being the wand that chose 
you.  So if you were trying to perform a ridiculously complicated 
piece of magic, for example, the Patronus charm, the results you 
would get with a wand not your own wouldn't be *as good.*  But the 
difference probably doesn't show itself in very simple bits of 
magic.  Considering that Ron was only in his 2nd year, he probably 
hadn't encountered too many very complicated charms that would have 
manifested this difference.

But I do find it quite odd that there are no spare wands lying around 
a place like Hogwarts.

-Laura