Righties and lefties in Potterverse / Wand taboos

[alshainofthenorth]

No: HPFGUIDX 83853

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ghinghapuss" <rredordead at a...>
wrote:
>
> > Alshain wrote:
> > When Harry buys his wand in PS, Ollivander specifically asks him 
> about his wand hand, and Harry answers that he's right-handed. So I 
> think there must be a difference (SNIP)
> 
> 
> Now me:
> The reason Mr. Olivander asked which hand Harry uses was to see which 
> was the dominant one, not because there is a difference in the shape 
> of the wand.  
> 

Whoops. I meant difference in function, not in shape. Sorry. 
There might or might not be some subtle differences, but Harry isn't
likely to examine every new character's wand closely. Come to think of
it, left-hand and right-hand differences might not be as visible as
differences in size, materials and cores.

I also started to wonder if wizards and witches might be superstitious
about their wands in any way. Wands are broken when persons are
expelled from Hogwarts and non-humans aren't allowed them, do they
have some symbolic meaning apart from being magical tools? There seem
to be no taboos about using the wands of other wizards (I mean the
kind of taboo existing in Philip Pullman's books about not touching
other people's daemons), it's just that you don't get optimal results.
 For a society so old-fashioned and so dependent on magic, the WW
seems to have very modern, rationalist ideas about their wands.
    
Alshain