Broken Wands (was Bella's wand )

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183850

zanooda wrote:
<snip>
> Typically lengths of the wands are in the range from 7 inches (one
of the wands offered by Olly to Harry) to 13 and a half inches (LV's
wand). But we still can't be sure that Hagrid's wand was custom-made
for him, because we don't know how uncommon 16-inch wands are - if
only one is mentioned, it doesn't mean there are no others :-).
>
Carol responds:
Probably sixteen-inch wands were uncommon, though, because they would
be unwieldy. Eleven-to-twelve inches would seem about right for an
adult, if I may judge from a twelve-inch wooden skewer, which is the
closest thing I can find to a wand! Eleven-year-old Tom Riddle was
chosen by a thirteen-and-a half-inch wand, which seems unusually long
for so young a boy, but then Tom was no ordinary wizard and that wand
was unusually powerful. James Potter's rather powerful wand was eleven
inches, the same length as Harry's holly wand. (Lily's "first wand"
was ten and a half inches; possibly she outgrew it.)

It seems absurd that Ollivander would have offered Harry a seven-inch
wand (perhaps suitable for one of the Creevey brothers). That's
shorter than an unsharpened pencil. (Try waving a pencil like a wand
and see how inadequate it feels, even if it's a fat pencil designed
for little kids.)

At any rate, the length of a wand seems to be related to its power,
but it can't be the only determinant. I doubt that Hagrid's wand was
more powerful than Voldemort's. Another reason for the varying length
seems to be what feels comfortable to the witch or wizard; a short
wand might sense compatibility with a short person--Umbridge's wand,
IIRC, is short and stubby like her fingers. Clearly, a sixteen-inch
wand would feel more comfortable to Child!Hagrid, more proportionate
to the length of his arm, than a ten-twelve inch wand, and presumably,
it was proportionately larger in diameter and heavier as well. A big
wand would sense compatibility with a (very) large child.
(Adult!Hagrid might have been better off with a twenty-inch wand of
similar materials, but even given the opportunity, I doubt that he
would have taken advantage of it, sentimental as he was.)

However, children or even adults the size of eleven-year-old Hagrid
being extremely rare (Madam Maxime was one, but she wouldn't have been
Ollivander's customer), I doubt that Ollivander had such a wand
already in stock. I suspect that it was specially made for him, based
on the magical tape measure's findings and the performance of other
wands in Hagrid's hands. (Ollivander does seem to have ignored the
tape measure with regard to Harry, but unless JKR is just creating a
humorous picture of Harry's first encounter with Ollivander (quickly
darkened by the references to Voldemort) the tape measure must have
had some function, perhaps sensing the witch/wizard's affinities for
certain woods or cores (which, in turn, perhaps had affinities with
certain abilities, such as Charms or transfiguration.)

Or we could simply trying to make sense of something that JKR wrote
for fun without forethought for the later story.

Carol, who has just now brilliantly deduced a connection between her
persistent earache and the Pacific Ocean and really, really doesn't
want to see a doctor for swimmer's ear