CHAPDISC: DH24, The Wandmaker

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183709

Oryomai wrote:
> I can only speak for me, but the book gave me the impression that
Draco's wand was the Elder Wand?  Let me try to explain it better.  
> When I read the book, I got the impression that Draco's wand somehow
became the Elder Wand?  The entire "wand" thing was just so utterly
lame and complicated to me that I had a lot of trouble sorting it out.  
> I thought that Draco's wand became the Elder Wand when he disarmed
Dumbledore.  Well, then it makes even less sense to me!
> Okay, Draco disarmed Dumbledore.  So the Elder Wand was loyal to
him. The big question for me now is this: why does it matter that
Harry  disarmed Draco if the wand Draco was using is not the Elder Wand?  
> Draco's "regular" wand was still loyal to him when he got control of
the Elder Wand, right?  How does the fact that Harry has possession of
 Draco's "regular" wand affect the Elder Wand?
> 
> Oryomai
> Who's even more confused now...

Carol responds:

I know that others have tried to explain the situation, but I wanted
to clear up one point. Draco's wand, which is made of hawthorn wood,
never became the Elder Wand, which is made of elder wood. It would be
interesting to consider the supposed properties of elder and hawthorn,
but I can't get into that right now.

At any rate, in the final confrontation, Harry is using the hawthorn
wand that he snatched from Draco and of which he has become the
master, according to Ollivander. At any rate, that wand feels
"friendly" to his hand, unlike the wand that Ron took from the
Snatcher (I can never remember what kind of wood that one was made of,
but Harry can't even get the thing to work).

Voldemort is using the Elder Wand, thinking that he's its master
because he's just killed poor Severus.

Look at the narrator's description of the scene and the accompanying
dialogue:

"Harry twitched the hawthorn wand [formerly Draco's], and he felt the
eyes of everyone in the Hall upon it.

"'So it all comes down to this, doesn't it?' whispered Harry. 'Does
the wand in your hand [the Elder wand] know that its last master was
Disarmed? Because if it does . . . I am the true master of the Elder
Wand'" (DH am. ed. 743).

If wands, which are sufficiently sentient to hear and understand
spells (even nonverbal ones), can also hear and understand English
spoken by Wizards, the wand now knows that Harry is its master even if
it didn't know that before Harry told the tale (which appears earlier
on the same page, but which I didn't include here). Or it may have
magically sensed the Disarming of Draco, which I find harder to believe.

They shout their spells, Avada Kedavra and Expelliarmus respectively,
and "Harry saw Voldemort's green jet meet his own spell, saw the Elder
Wand fly high, <snip> spinning through the air toward the master it
would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last.
And Harry, with the unerring skill of a Seeker, caught the [Elder]
wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, <snip> killed by his
own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hand,
staring down at his enemy's shell (744).

So Harry's Expelliarmus, cast with the hawthorn wand, works normally,
as if Voldemort hadn't even cast a spell, and he ends up with both
wands in his hand. The AK, however, doesn't work at all. Instead, it
collides with Harry's spell and backfires on Voldemort, apparently
because the Elder Wand recognizes Harry as its master and refuses to
kill him. Why the Expelliarmus isn't also deflected, I don't know, but
apparently, both spells hit Voldemort, one Disarming and the other
killing him.

At any rate, the hawthorn wand doesn't become the Elder Wand. They
remain completely distinct, with Harry as master of both of them (as
well as his own broken holly wand, which the Elder Wand will later
repair).

Carol, wondering whether Harry ever returned Draco's wand, which, I
think, would return to its original allegiance under those circumstances