Voldemort's wand---that Phoenix feather.....

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 150897

Karen F wrote:
> It seems a curious thing to me that a wand with *Dumbledore's"*
phoenix's feather just happened to be a match for Tom Riddle.  What do
you suppose could have been the reason?  Some kind of tie in with the
prophecy? He did, after all, acquire the wand long before he became
"Voldemort", long before the prophecy was spoken.  How does Ollivander
as the wandmaker come into play?  Why did he use those feathers?  Was
DD involved somehow? DD wasn't even headmaster at the time.  And now
Ollivander is gone, disappeared. I keep hoping something will come up
in each new book to illuminate this situation, but so far, nothing, at
least nothing I can make anything of.  
> 
> I don't know if this was addressed in any JK interviews.....

Carol responds:
Coincidentally, I just brought up the wands in another thread. (I also
just lost a response to your post, which I hope I can reconstruct,
thanks to my own computer freezing up. I can't even blame Yahoomort!)

Anyway, here's what I think happened. Before DD knew anything about
Tom Riddle, possibly even before Tom was born, Ollivander ran out of
Phoenix feathers for wand cores and asked his old friend (and
contemporary?) Dumbledore if he could donate a couple. Dumbledore in
turn asked Fawkes to "give" some tail feathers and Fawkes obliged by
giving two. (Why only two, I have no idea. Maybe he didn't want his
tail end to look bald.)

Ollivander, perhaps realizing that these feathers had unusual power,
wanted to encase them in suitable wandwood, chose two kinds of wood
with similar death/rebirth associations, yew and holly. (The
difference for JKR, but probably not for Ollivander, is that holly has
Christian connotations.) Also, the yew wand at least seems to be
unusually long, perhaps suggesting unusual power.

"The wand chooses the wizard," and both DD and Ollivander would be
interested in seeing which wizardlings the wands eventually chose. Not
being omniscient, neither could anticipate that the first wand would
"choose" the boy who would become the most powerful Dark wizard the WW
has ever known or that the second would choose the boy destined to
vanquish him (or die in the attempt). However, I think that DD asked
Ollivander to inform him when the Phoenix-feather wands "chose" a
young wizard, perhaps expecting "great things" from those children. He
would certainly have taken note when the first wand chose Tom Riddle,
whom DD was already watching. And when the second wand chose Harry,
his suspicions of a link between them via the scar would have been
confirmed. Perhaps he also realized at that point that Harry had
powers he was not born with, sensed by the wand--powers that DD knew
could only have come from Voldemort. (I don't think, BTW, that Harry
is a Horcrux or that the wand could have detected a soul bit, but
powers are another matter.)

Again, the wand chooses the wizard. Both the core and the wood
apparently make a difference, not just in terms of length or
flexibility or level of power but in terms of the affinity of a
particular witch or wizard for a particular branch of magic. Some
wands, as we know from James' and Lily's first wands, are particulaly
suited to Transfiguration or Charms. Others, I suspect, are
particularly suited to DADA or the Dark Arts, with the choice up to
the particular wizard. Harry's and Tom's probably fell into this
category. (Perhaps Severus's did as well.) At any rate, Tom's wand
sensed both his unusual powers and, IMO, his thirst for immortality.
Harry's sensed his affinity to Voldemort, owner of its brother
wand--or rather, it sensed a desire for immortality that was not
Harry's own entering his mind via the scar (LV was at that moment
trying to steal the Sorceror's Stone) and the potential to do "great
things" noted by Ollivander--powers beyond those he inherited from his
parents that were the legacy of Godric's Hollow.

Ollivander didn't know about the Prophecy, but he knew about the Boy
Who Lived and he understood the powers of the wands he had created.
Like DD, he would have paid close attention to the owners of those two
wands, understanding that neither was an ordinary wizard and that
their powers and their fates were interconnected. Ollivanderis not
only a highly gifted wizard but, IMO, a Legilimens (note his eyes and
his suspicion that Hagrid had not thrown away his broken wand).

I'm not sure why Ollivander has disappeared, but it's probably
connected with the brother wands. Perhaps LV wants a new wand, but
since his wand is so perfectly suited to him, I don't think that's the
case. More likely, he wants to torture Ollivander to get information
about Harry's wand and how to overcome the Priori Incantatem effect. I
suspect that Ollivander is, or rather was, one of Dumbledore's "useful
spies" and perhaps a member of the Order, as well. Probably he has
gone into hiding; perhaps he'll serve as the link DDM!Snape needs to
communicate with the rest of the Order.

I wish I hadn't lost my previous post, which expressed all this more
clearly. (Yes, I know. That's what we always say!) At any rate, I
don't recall any information about wands in the interviews, but
there's a section on wands on the Extra Stuff page of JKR's website, I
think under Miscellaneous. (I don't dare double-check for fear of
another computer freeze.)

Carol, wondering what Snape's wand core is made of and guessing dragon
heartstring like Hermione's (for intelligence and cunning coupled with
courage)