Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181652

a_svirn wrote:
> <snip> Wouldn't it? Considering that Snape, according to the plan
was to have the wand? I'd say it would give Harry all the excuse he
needed to go after Snape and visit what he considered a just
retribution on his head. (And considering that he tortured Amycus for
a trivial insult, I really would rather not to contemplate what form
this retribution
> could take.) 

Carol responds:
True, Harry tortured Amycus Carrow for a trivial insult, but Snape is
a much more intelligent and talented Wizard than Carrow. Considering
that Snape is both an Occlumens and a Legilimens and that he's an
expert on deflecting spells and using nonverbal spells, none of which
Harry has ever bothered to learn (he can cast Expelliarmus, which he
learned from Snape, Stupefy, Crucio, and Protego, all of which Snape
can deflect), I rather doubt that Harry would win the duel. Snape
defeated him handily in HBP, and Harry hasn't developed his skills
since then. Besides, all Snape has to do is cast his Patronus to
render Harry speechless. That Patronus helped him. Surely he'd want to
hear Snape's story?

> a_svirn:
> Then again, he could anticipate that VOldemort would try to overcome
> the twin-core connection.  And what better wand than the best of them
> all? 

Carol:
Voldemort knew about the twin-core connection from GoF onward but did
nothing about it until "The Dark Lord Ascending," when he forcibly
borrowed Lucius Malfoy's wand. Had Harry not given away his identity
by using Expelliarmus, Voldemort would have followed the wrong
"Harry." And had his own wand not gone off of its own accord when LV
tried to kill him, Voldemort would still be using his own wand for
most matters and keeping Lucius's to kill Harry. He *only* began his
pursuit of the Elder Wand (whose existence he didn't know about until
he tortured Ollivander) after Harry's wand attacked him, destroying
Lucius's wand, and he realized that just any wand wouldn't do. And,
again, he wouldn't have known who the golden-haired boy in
Gregorovitch's memory was if it hadn't been for Harry's dropping the
photo at Godric's Hollow. Obviously, he didn't recognize Grindelwald
any more than Harry did, and Harry had already seen a similar
photograph (without seeing the name) in Umbridge's office.

IOW, there was nothing inevitable about Voldemort's going after the
Elder Wand, much less about his finding it before Harry found the
Horcruxes (especially if Harry found it first).
>
Carol:
> > Not necessarily. If the wand were stripped of its powers, Snape
could just hand it to Voldemort (protecting himself if necessary with
Occlumency) and tell him that he took it from the dead DD. 
> 
> a_svirn:
> Yes, necessarily.  As soon as Voldemort realised that the wand
didn't work for him as it should, he would surely kill Snape.
Actually, as things played out he didn't have to kill him – it was a
mistake on Voldemort's part. He had to kill Draco instead. But if
everything had gone according to Dumbledore's plan, Snape would have
died for certain. 
> 

Carol:
No, not necessarily. :-) (Sorry about the ping-pong match response. I
couldn't resist.) All Snape would have to do is to show that it
doesn't work for *him*--that it's just a stick of wood--and Voldemort
would know that he wasn't the master, either. Better yet, of course,
the stick of wood could have been buried with Voldemort, who would try
it out and figure that he had been tricked by a fake wand being buried
with Dumbledore. He wouldn't think about Snape at all in that case.

Please explain to me how Dumbledore could have *planned* for Snape to
die when he needed Snape to deliver that crucial message to Harry.
Dead men don't deliver messages.

We know that DD wanted Snape to have the wand *and* wanted it to be
stripped of its powers. The question is what he wanted Snape to do
with the wand. Almost certainly, he would have either prevented
Voldemort from finding it through some lie or demonstrated that it was
just a useless stick, not worth having (or killing for). And once
Draco ruined that plan, I suppose Portrait!DD hoped that Voldemort's
pursuit of the Elder Wand, if and when it happened, would be a wild
goose chase, as it very nearly was.

Carol, who thinks that the only person Dumbledore deliberately
sacrificed was himself and that Snape's death was no more inevitable
than Harry's except in the mind of their creator, JKR (I refuse to use
the word "creatrix"!)

Carol, who thinks that the plot of DH is flawed and wonders what JKR
and Dumbledore