Dumbledore/Grindlewald duel

[va32h]

No: HPFGUIDX 174539

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboyminn at ...> wrote:

>I suspect that the answer is, it was not an unbeatable
>wand EXCEPT when in the hand of its recognized Master.

va32h:

Here's my take: 

First,the wand is only unbeatable if you are dueling to the death. 

According to the legend (and yes I know that Dumbledore discounts the 
legend, but we also know that Dumbledore isn't always right) - the 
Hallows were gifts from Death. Death, who was irritated that the 
three brothers had defied him. Death, who wanted to trick the 
brothers, so he could have their souls anyway. 

So the oldest brother wants a wand that will never lose in a duel - 
to the death. Which doesn't mean the owner of the wand can't be 
killed (just killed in non-dueling methods) and is also doesn't mean 
the owner can't lose a duel - if the intent of the opponent is not to 
cause death. 

Grindelwald did not try to kill Gregorovitch, merely stunned him. 
Dumbledore did not try to kill Grindelwald, merely to capture and 
imprison him. 

Draco was able to win the wand because - as we learned on the tower 
in HBP - his heart was not in it; he could not bring himself to kill 
Dumbledore. An intention the Elder wand would have sensed. 

(What would have happened to Snape? Well, we really don't know. I 
doubt Dumbledore's big plan to have Snape kill him involved falling 
off the astronomy tower in front of several witnesses, and having 
Death Eaters amok in the school. If Dumbledore wanted to die with 
dignity, he probably would have asked Snape to give him a potion or 
something that would let him drift off.  There's no canon evidence 
that Dumbledore intended Snape to use any wand-based method of 
killing him. But Dumbledore does say he wanted the power of the wand 
to die with him, which suggests to me that he and Snape planned a 
different kind of death. )

So anyway - back to the Elder Wand. When Voldemort uses it on Harry 
in the Great Hall, he is definitely intending to cause death, which 
is why the wand works exactly as it should, and protects its master. 

Now - why does the AK work in the forest and not in the Great Hall? 
Because - in the forest, Harry did not draw his wand (which is really 
Draco's wand). 

The Elder wand does not know the *wizard* who defeated it, it knows 
the *wand* that defeated it. In the normal course of events, the 
Elder Wand would then be physically possessed by the wizard who 
wielded the wand that defeated it and so the EW would come to know 
its new master's touch. But Draco didn't know about the EW, and so he 
left the wand untouched. So when the Elder Wand meets *the last wand 
to defeat it* whomever the holder of that wand is, gets the full 
benefit of its mastery of the EW. Which is - protection in a duel to 
the death. Since Harry is the possessor of the wand which last 
defeated the Elder Wand, he becomes the master of the Elder wand as 
well. 

Unlike Draco, however, Harry understands this relationship and 
physically takes power of the EW, which is why Harry can go back to 
using his phoenix wand and still be the master of the EW. 

Whew! Well, that's my understanding anyway. 

va32h