Wandlore and more

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185389

Pippin wrote:
> <snip> The Elder Wand is not an Ollivander wand, and is conceivably
so much more powerful that it can give results comparable to an
Ollivander wand even though it hasn't chosen its user. 

Carol responds:

The thing is, the only evidence we see of the Elder Wand being more
powerful than other wands, specifically Hermione's, is its ability to
repair Harry's wand. Aside from that one instance, we haven't seen the
Elder Wand exhibiting any unusual powers except the power to inflame
certain Wizards with the desire to own it. Owner after owner is
murdered; Gellert Grindelwald, brilliant and talented and presumably
powerful in his own right and the master of the Elder Wand, is
defeated by Dumbledore using (presumably) a wand that chose him (maybe
an Ollivander wand made by Ollivander's father given that the family
has been making wands since 382 B.C.)

Yes, Dumbledore performed extraordinary magic against Voldemort using
the Elder Wand in OoP, but how much was the wand itself and how much
was Dumbledore, who "tamed" it? Is all his greatness the result of his
wand? I don't think so. (He can perform wandless magic, for one thing.
and I doubt that the Elder Wand is responsible for his bond with
Fawkes.) And Voldemort performed "great and terrible" magic with the
yew wand that chose him, apparently comparable to the "extraordinary"
magic he (supposedly) performed with the Elder Wand. How much is the
wand and how much is the Wizard and how can you possibly tell which it
is when the Wizard is so gifted? Would the Elder wand demonstrate
extraordinary power in the hands of a mediocre Wizard? I don't think so.

Let's say that Draco had caught the Elder Wand and run off with it
after Disarming Dumbledore in HBP. Even though Snape killed DD (on
DD's orders), it would presumably have recognized Draco as its master.
(It would have had to transfer what passes for its allegiance since DD
was dead, and Draco, however unworthy of the dubious honor of being
its master, would have won it.) Would the Elder Wand have performed
for Draco as it did for Dumbledore, or even for Voldemort, who was not
its master (but didn't notice anything wrong until it was time to kill
snape)? I seriously doubt it. He wouldn't even learn with the wand
because it knew so much more than he did, and it wouldn't perform
spells on its own as Harry's holly wand did unless it had confronted
its brother wand in the hands of an enemy and absorbed some of that
wand's powers through Priori Incantatem--impossible given that the
Elder Wand has no "brother." The Elder Wand would sense his relative
weakness and inexperience.

Draco's wand, in contrast, feels "friendly" in Harry's wand, not only
because he won it but because there's some sort of natural affinity (a
similarity in what the wand knows and what Harry knows). Had Harry won
Bellatrix's wand as he won Draco's, or had Hermione won it, I don't
think the same affinity would have been there. It would still be the
wand that had (with others) Crucio'd the Longbottoms into insanity and
performed countless other crimes. How could either Harry or Hermione
form a bond with that wand, or it with them?

Again, wandlore is complex. Just as "water freezes at 32 degrees" is
an oversimplification, so is "a wand will bend its will to the Wizard
who captures it" (inexact quote, sorry). As I said before, Ollivander
notes that such things usually happen, but not always. Other factors
must be taken into account, especially with regard to the fickle and
apparently malevolent Elder Wand, whose powers are legendary but never
actually demonstrated except in Voldemort's mad rampage, the murder of
his own followers, an unprecedented bit of violence that can be
accounted for either, as you suggest, by the drop of Harry's blood
(Lily's "Love" and protection creating violence and anger because
Voldemort can now feel emotions) or, more logically, IMO, by the will
of the wand itself inflaming Voldemort's anger and turning it against
his own followers. (If anyone has other theories, please present them!)

Carol, who thinks that Voldemort, blood drop or no blood drop, is
incapable of the sentimentality he ascribes to himself in GoF and the
increased lack of emotional control in DH must have another cause,
probably the Elder Wand