THE MASTER OF THE WAND
“I was fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fitto own the Elder Wand, and not to boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and to use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it.”- Albus Dumbledore
I really feel sad because Harry Potter has to end. I wept so hard in the theatre especially when it was about the Prince’s Tale. At my back I can hear the bickering of two girls who probably didn’t read the book because they were sooo clueless! They kept asking about the Elder wand and who’s mastered who. I was controlling myself real hard to give them a lecture while the film was on going. JKR wasn’t definite in answering fan questions. So this is me at my most generous. This is really complex if you don’t read the books and relied only in the movies.
The Elder Wand is a part of the hallows given by Death (yes, capital D) himself to the first brother, Antioch Peverell. After defeating a wizard that he once had a quarrel with, he bragged about his invincibility with the wand that “he snatched from death himself”. In his sleep another wizard crept inside his room, stole the wand from him, and slit his throat, making that wizard the new master of the wand. After several generations the wand was handed down to different masters and finally to Gregorvitch, who boasted that he will duplicate the powers of the wand. He was stupid enough to boast that he had it in the first place. When Gellert Grindelwald knew about it, he stunned Gregorvitch and stole the Elder wand from him, making him the new master. Grindelwald and Dumbledore had a battle, the latter won. Now here lies the dilemma, how could Grindelwald be defeated if he had the most powerful wand of all? It is a fact that the wand had been handed down by overpowering the incumbent master. How can one be overpowered is also a question. If stealing the wand from the master is counted as overpowering, then that would be the case of Grindelwald and the man who stole the wand from Antioch. They say the elder wand is undefeatable but I believe that if a wizard is stronger, skillfull, and more superior even with an inferior wand, that person could defeat the master of the wand. The wand is only and object, the one who helms it must also fill it in.
Dumbledore became the master of the wand for a long time. This would be the tricky part, we all know that he was already dying because of the horcrux ring that poisoned him. He talked to Severus to premeditate his death. So when Snape killed him in the tower, the wand did not acknowledge this as defeat because the master and Snape already agreed to it. However what the wand considered as defeat in the part of Dumbledore is when Draco Expelliarmus-ed the Elder wand. I have no idea how this wand thinks but the Elder wand saw what happened as Draco overpowering Dumbledore, and made him a master unknowingly. Voldemort stole the Elder wand from Dumbledore’s grave. After some time he noticed that the wand’s powers doesn’t work in him so he killed Snape because he assumed that he is the master of the wand because it was him who killed Dumbledore in the first place.
Now let us move to Malfoy manor where Harry overpowered Draco by stealing (same as Grindelwald’s) his wand. Unknown to Harry, he became the master of the wand. Let’s speed up to where Harry surrenders himself willingly to face death in the hands of Voldemort at the forbidden forest. Harry was harmed when Voldemort Avada kedavra’d him. Harry was harmed but not fully affected because he came to face death willingly (the curse just passed through him). He did not die he just went into a state of limbo (JKR answers this). What was killed wasn’t Harry but the part of Voldemort’s soul (horcrux) that’s why he weakened too.
So when he came back to reality, Voldemort Crucio’d Harry’s body to make sure that he was dead. To Harry’s surprise he wasn’t affected. It is when he fully understood that he was the real master of the wand, because the wand refused to hurt its master.
As a proof that the elder wand wouldn’t harm its true master is when Voldemort and Harry had their final battle on the grounds of Hogwarts. Voldemort Avada kedavra’d Harry for the second time. This time Harry is not willing to die unlike when he was in the forest. When they dueled the wand refused to harm his true master, Harry and so the curse rebounded to Voldemort himself. By the way it doesn’t need murder to be the new master of the wand, unlike the horcrux. It only needs to be overpowered because that is the essence of the wand after all, Power. In the end Harry decided to return the Wand to Dumbledore’s grave and if he dies a natural death he believes that the power will be broken.
