[Harry Potter] – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – Revisit the scenes Part 3 - Wands

Diagon Alley – center of England’s wizarding world

Diagon Alley was the downtown of England’s wizarding world. All kinds of merchandise, services and common facilities were concentrated in Diagon Alley.

Diagon Alley had several entrances and access points such as floo powder, but the most famous entrance would be the back entrance of the pub Leaky Cauldron located on 6 Charing Cross Road, London, England.

 

 

Charing Cross Road is an actual street in England and famous for hosting many bookshops. Diagon Alley held famous and important business.

Flourish and Blotts was the famous bookstore where students of Hogwarts would visit to purchase their course books.

 

 

Diagon Alley was of course held the one and only Gringotts Wizarding Bank and Diagon Alley held the Ollivanders owned by the most famous wand master craft Garrick Ollivander whose family ran wand craft-sales business for numerous centuries.

 

 

Ollivanders and magic wands

The Ollivander family has been famous wandmakers for centuries Garrick Ollivander was one of the most renowned wandmakers across Europe during the 1990’s.

As a descendant of a famous wand craft master family and a dedicated researcher of wands, Garrick Olivander had his own unique combination in manufacturing wands.

 

 

Garrick Olivander only used feathers of a phoenix, hair of a unicorn or a heartstring of a dragon for the core of the wand.

Garrick Ollivander along with these three cores would make combinations with wood from magical trees in various lengths. He remembered every wand that he has crafted and each of its master as well.

A magical tree referred to a tree with magic enchantment and such trees differed from ordinary trees as often a magical creature called a bowtruckle would live inside it.

 

 

"The wand chooses the wizard. That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wandlore... These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand."

-      Garrick Ollivander –

 

 

Magic Wand of Harry Potter universe

A magic wand was a magical tool that could help a witch or wizard stabilize magic when they cast magical spells. Magic spells could be casted without a wand but it would be much more sophisticated for the wizard or witch without a wand.

A wand would not only help stabilize magic but it could also amplify or provide aid to the magic caster as well. Although wands couldn’t communicate directly with their master, magic wands had their own personalities and their will.

 

 

Thus wands could somewhat perform certain actions without the intent of the wizard or witch. House-elves and goblins didn’t require wands to perform magic as they had their own physiology and understanding of magic.

Wands were more common in European wizard and witches while in certain other countries, witches and wizards didn’t use a wand at all. The mysteries and characteristics of the wands would play an important role in the Harry Potter series.

 

 

Harry Potter’s wand – 11 inches long made of Holly wood and Pheonix feather core.

Harry Potter’s wand was 11 inches long (29cm) and it was made from Holly wood and its core was a phoenix feather.

Garrick Ollivander has used only a unicorn hair, dragon heartstring and phoenix feather as a wand core as he thought these were the best material as a core of wand.

 

 

A wand with a unicorn hair would be a stable wand as it wouldn’t fluctuate and exerts steady and consistent magic. A dragon heartstring core could perform magic with most power and tends to obtain magic very quickly compared with other cores.

 

 

A phoenix feather core, however, could perform the most varieties of magic. Unlike a unicorn hair or a dragon heartstring core that are mostly loyal to their owner, a phoenix core wand hardly chooses and obeys to a master.

A Pheonix core wand would have its own personality and its loyalty was hard to win even after victory of a magic duel.

 

 

Garrick Ollivander was very surprised at the moment when Harry Potter’s wand chose him because Harry’s wand had the same core of the same phoenix that was used for Lord Voldemort’s wand.

A holly tree symbolizes peace, good will and luck. In Celtic legends holly tree would offer protection to people from thunder. The holly tree would later on become a symbol of Christmas.

 

 

Hedwig – Harry Potter’s owl

 

Harry Potter’s owl which was a birthday gift of Harry Potter’s 11th birthday by Hagrid. The species of Hedwig was a snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus) that is also called an Arctic owl, polar owl.

Hedwig was a female snowy owl that would help and befriend Harry Potter for his school years at Hogwarts.

 

 

Harry Potter named his owl Hedwig after a brief glimpse of a person he saw while he skimmed through the book A History of Magic.

The name Hedwig from real life derived from saints famous as female warriors Saint Hedwig of Andechs that was also the patron saint of orphans.

 

 

Why was Lord Voldemort’s name not spoken?

Lord Voldemort was referred as You-Know-Who, He Who Must Not Be Named or the Dark Lord rather than his name. It is highly likely that the name of Lord Voldemort was under a Jynx called a Taboo

. A Taboo was jynx that was casted on certain words or terms that would reveal the location of the person who spoke of the certain word or term that a Taboo was casted.