Wand allegiance.

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 187269


>
> > Carol, noting that if wands are capable of allegiance and can choose to yield their will to a wizard's (or not), they must be sentient and capable of thought
> 
> Magpie:
> In DH it seemed like they really couldn't choose exactly, since the whole plot depended on them pretty much switching alliances over power. In the first book--and all the way through HBP--I thought it was implied that wands had certain qualities due to their wood and core that were naturally sympathetic to different people. The wand chose the wizard because you found "your" wand, basically, and then the bond was strengthened as you learned together. Thus a Wizard who was shy would have a wand more suited to their personality than a person who was aggressive. I think DH completely overwrote that with the later addition that all wands respond to strength. 


Pippin:
One doesn't have to overwrite the other. In the end Harry prefers the wand that chose him over the two that he won, even though both of them allowed him to do magic that he couldn't do with the holly wand. It shows that Harry learned something since HBP, where he commanded Kreacher to serve him and didn't think of asking Dobby

If there's a choice, IOW, a weak but willing servant is preferable to a powerful one who serves only by constraint. Voldemort made the opposite decision, sacrificing  a wizard that had served him faithfully (as he thought) in order to secure the Elder Wand's allegiance by force. 

Magpie:
> 
> Ollivander's "well, it's very subtle..." could be considered an out but frankly it seems more like a handwave to me.

Pippin:
All explanations come down to handwaves in the end. <g> But perhaps part of it is simple:  underage wizards might just plain lack the power to compel a wand to change its allegiance, even a wand seized by force.
 
If so,  Ollivander would have had no reason to raise the issue with eleven year old Harry during their first meeting, and it would sound contrived if he did. The situations in DH would never arise under ordinary circumstances.   Unless a wizard is seeking  the Elder Wand, or has lost the wand that chose him and for some reason has no access to a wandmaker, he would doubtless prefer to continue to use his own wand rather than replace it with one  taken from  a demonstrably inferior wizard. 

Pippin