Please mark and return wtih comments

[mooseming]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Sherry Gomes <sherriola at ...> 
wrote:
>
>
> Sherry now:
> 
> Frankly, I'm still confused about the ending, and I've read it 
twice.  I've
> read it in audio, so maybe I'm missing something, and I'm going to 
try
> reading the scene again in braille this weekend.  But, if Draco had
> Dumbledore's wand, how could Voldemort have gotten it from 
Dumbledore's
> tomb?  And if Draco didn't have it, why didn't he?  He did disarm 
DD in HBP,
> right?  So, Draco disarmed DD, Harry disarmed Draco, ... then 
wasn't it
> Harry who had the elder wand at the end?  Or was it?  I am 
hopelessly
> confused by who really had it and why and how Voldemort was 
actually killed.
> 
> Sherry
>
Hi Sherry

I doubt it's because you read it in audio but good luck with the 
Braille read anyway! I feel that the ending really shouldn't have 
been so hard to comprehend and it's a weakness born of a fair amount 
of ad hocery.

My take on the wand, and I've promised to stop obsessing about it, 
is as follows.

The Elder wand serves the author in two ways, firstly it allows 
Harry to reject absolute power as an option when he chooses HRX over 
Hallows, secondly it allows Voldy to be killed without Harry having 
to use an AK (explanation below). 

DD won the wand from Grindelwald, although we never learn how, and 
thereby gains its allegiance. Draco disarms DD at the top of 
Hogwart's tower but abandons the wand in his flight. However, the 
Elder wand has given its allegiance to Draco. How the wand 
recognises its true owner is never detailed and the only canon we 
have is that "the wand chooses the wizard".

Harry overpowers Draco in Malfoy mansion and removes 
Draco's `everyday' wand. In doing so the Elder wand changes its 
allegiance to Harry, presumably because Harry has defeated Draco and 
disarmed him, as Harry says in his final confrontation with 
Voldy "So it all comes down to this, doesn't it? 
Does the wand in 
your hand know its last master was Disarmed?". Meaning, I take it, 
disarmed of his everyday wand, the proxy as it were.

Previously Voldy has taken the physical Elder wand from DD's tomb, 
not knowing that Harry has already become its master via a 
figurative route.

When they meet at the end of DH Harry is the master of the Elder 
wand but Voldy is wielding it. Harry has Draco's everyday wand, 
significantly the one he took off the Elder wand's former master.

Now if all of that wasn't convoluted and woolly enough for you we 
come to the final twist. The Elder wand's true owner, according to 
legend, cannot be defeated in a dual (which begs the question how 
did DD win it from Grindelwald in a dual? which I cannot answer). So 
when Voldy uses the Elder wand against Harry, and Harry defends 
himself (which he didn`t the first time in the forest) then Harry 
*has* to win even though he isn`t actually using the Elder wand 
himself, in this case his Expelliarmus deflects Voldy's AK back on 
him. 

Why (oh why), we ask ourselves, did the whole thing have to be so 
torturous?

I think it comes down to the second authorial requirement from the 
Elder wand.

At the time of the final dual Harry has already defeated Voldy, he's 
done that by making the ultimate sacrifice in the forest, after 
which Voldy's spells cannot harm him or his supporters. However, for 
narrative closure Voldy has to die. JK didn't want to sully her hero 
by making him an executioner so when they meet Harry tells Voldy (in 
an ironic reversal of the usual ESE extended explanation and faintly 
reminiscent of Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey) why he should give it 
up, which of course Voldy doesn't and promptly offs himself with yet 
another rebounding AK. An AK which could never have killed Harry due 
to his newly minted sacrificial shield status.

Ok so my explanation is now longer than the actual events in the 
book and probably even less clear, I'm done!

Regards
Jo