Wand question - I speculate

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 130499

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "quigonginger"
<quigonginger at y...> wrote:
> ... my 9-year-old Godson, ... he asked me "how do they know which
> end the magic comes out of?"  
> 
> I had never thought of this before. ... Are they tapered (like a 
> conductor's baton) or do they have a definite "handle"?  Do they
> just  feel it? 
> 
> Any thoughts?  Now he's got me curious.
> 
> Ginger, ...

bboyminn:

Let me be a slight jerk and ask, if you held your cell phone upside
down would it still work? I don't mean would you be able to
functionally use it, but would the device itself still function?

The answer is - of course. What I'm getting at is that a wand is
somewhat like an antenna. It's purpose is to channel, focus, and
direct the magic. 

Let's say for example that you cast a Stunning Curse. I would
(greatly) speculate that if an inexperience person performed a
wandless Stunner, the force would burst from them in a sphere or globe
of red stunning force moving equally in all directions. A more
experience, yet still wandless person, might, through concentration
and force of will, be able to make the stunning force move in a
specific but general direction, but none the less, the force would be
wide and somewhat dispersed. 

Now using a wand, the stunning force is channeled through the narrow
conduit of the wand and focused into a narrow beam so the impact of
the Stunner on it's target has greater force. 

I also think the wand enhances the flow of magic. In a sense, holding
a wand creates a 'path of least resistance', and therefore make the
magic flow easier.

So, given all this admitted speculation of how a wand works, I think
you could hold a wand backwards and still get it to work since you are
channeling magic /out/ of yourself and /through/ the wand. The spell
you cast would just be slightly more dispersed than if you were
holding the wand correctly. Although, that might depend of the amoung
of taper for that particular wand. I would guess a tapered wand would
be more dispersed when used backwards, but a uniform cylindrical wand
would be nearly the same in each direction. 

Just a few thoughts.

Steve/bboyminn