Neville's Wand

[macfotuk at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 109471

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Boolean" <j.balfour at l...> 
wrote:
> Just finished re-reading the battle scene in the Dept of Mysteries 
in 
> OotP again, and have been thinking about dear Neville...
> 
> It is revealed (sorry, book at home so no page refs.) that he has 
> been using his father, Frank's, wand during his whole time at 
> Hogwarts. As his grandmother constantly reminds him, he is "not as 
> good as his father", but could part of the reason for this be to do 
> with the fact that he is not using his own wand - one which 'picks' 
> him, as Harry's did in PS? 
> 
> I know a lot of people have speculated that Neville's ineptness 
could 
> be to do with having a memory charm placed on him as a child, after 
> seeing his parents be tortured. However, Neville is good at 
> Herbology - a subject which seems to rely less on wandwork than 
other 
> subjects. As we have seen with Ron, a wand which is not personal to 
> its owner will not work as well. Will we see an improvement once he 
> has a new wand in HBP?

This is not a theory new to the internet (a search found it all 
over), but yes it seems solid. It seems clear after DD's discussion 
of the prophecy with Harry and the other snippets about the 
Longbottoms elsewhere in the books that Neville's role and strength 
as a wizard will continue to build. JKR said somewhere that a 
character will find their wizard powers very late in life and this 
might have been referring to Neville, though other candidates include 
Petunia Dursley (Evans as was) or Dudley or even Arabella Figg or 
Argus Filch.