Wand Allegiance

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182030

grindieloe wrote:
<snip>
> Harry wrestled both Draco's and Bellatrix's wands from Draco, so 
technically, both of those wands had given him their allegiance.  If 
Hermione needed a wand that worked for her, couldn't she have borrowed
Ron's wand and disarmed Harry while he was using Bellatrix's wand;
thus "tricking" the wand into giving Hermione it's allegiance so it
would then work properly for her?  I realize that Hermione certainly
wouldn't even want allegiance from a wand with such a brutal history,
but I'm just talking theory here.

<snip>

carol responds: I'm snipping most of your interesting post to comment
on this one section. I don't think that wresting Bellatrix's wand from
Draco had any effect on the wand's allegiance. Draco wasn't its
master, after all, and it was Ron who Disarmed Bellatrix. But he chose
Wormtail's new wand, which he had clearly and fairly won. We know that
wand allegiance is tricky, and I would guess that a wand that has been
with a Dark witch for some thirty-two years, performing extended
Crucios and who knows what other Dark magic, will lightly shift its
allegiance to a young wizard who snatches it out of another young
wizard's hand after that young wizard has snatched it up, saving it
for his Disarmed aunt. I think Draco's snatching it up more or less
negates the Expelliarmus, and its allegiance (if it wavered at all)
has gone back to Bellatrix. Harry and Ron, and especially Hermione,
who wasn't even involved in the scuffle, would have to do something
drastic (spectacularly defeat Bellatrix?) to affect the allegiance of
her wand. After all, as Ollivander says, subtle laws affect wand use,
the wand chooses the wizard, and that wand had formed a very strong
bond with Bellatrix, learning from her and she from it. I'd say that
the wand itself had become as close to evil as a wand other than the
Elder Wand can be, in the sense that it was Bellatrix Lestrange's wand
and had formed a bond with her (stronger than Harry's bond with his
holly wand because she was more than twice his age), had been used to
perform terrible spells, and was by this time highly suited to
performing exactly that type of spell. I can see that wand resisting
allegiance to Bellatrix's enemies even if it were fairly won.
Certainly, Hermione could sense that it was an "evil" wand and felt
very uncomfortable using it, and not just because it had belonged to
Bellatrix but because of the feeling of the wand itself. Her wand is
not the Elder Wand, the only one that seems to choose its master
*solely* on the basis of the former master being defeated rather than
a wizard/wand bond.

I realize that this is my own reading of the wand motif, and that
other posters don't necessarily agree with me.

Carol, who recently quoted Ollivander in a post on wand's being
sentient and can find the post if necessary