no, but really I will never ever be over the wand plotline from book 7. Harry straight up took the wand out of Draco’s hand. They were both holding onto it at one point. Draco could’ve shot a spell at him, but he didn’t. He let him have it And we know Draco has good reflexes because he was almost as good a seeker as Harry and when they duel in book 6, he was actually able to hold his own against Harry longer than any other character ever except Snape and even fast enough to block a nonverbal spell from him. Harry got the wand because part of Draco wanted him to have it.
So that’s part of why it works so well for him but the other factor - which makes me even more unhinged with drarry feels - is their incredible compatibility. Even Hermione’s wand - willingly given to him and thus functional - does not work as well for Harry. It works because Hermione wants it to and because she and Harry are compatible and friends and care about each other. But it doesn’t work perfectly because they aren’t soulmates.
The way the wand feels friendly in his hand even though it’s canonically a particularly complex and difficult to master wand!!!! Ahhhhh!!! THE DRARRY OF IT ALL. We see it throughout the books - they just intuitively understand each other. And care about each other either when they shouldn’t. And the wand’s behavior reflects that. They’re soulmates your honor.
°:. *₊ ° . ° .•Acromantula web °:. *₊ ° . ° .• — If you're thinking about having a wand made with Acromantula web, you're probably a fan of having your wand confiscated by the authorities. Using a wand with this core has been illegal in Britain since 1782, after it was discovered that the wielder of an Acromantula web wand has particular ability with Dark magics, especially the Imperius curse. There are certain diplomatic exceptions, as it is a traditional core for Asian wands, but even those are temporary, and many wizard diplomats on long-term assignments find themselves compelled to procure replacement wands for their stay.
°:. *₊ ° . ° .•Augurey Tail Feather °:. *₊ ° . ° .•—Augureys, or Irish phoenixes, were once associated with powerful Dark wands, as their cries were thought to signify an upcoming death. However, they were in reality never a strong Dark core, and were more accurately a powerful core for Divinations. Misunderstood students may find themselves bonded to an augurey wand, although these wands are altogether quite rare.
°:. *₊ ° . ° .•Basilisk Skin °:. *₊ ° . ° .•—Basilisk wands are incredibly rare, as the beasts are rare to begin with and hard to kill. Due to the rarity, they often are passed down from generation to generation, so basilisk-core wands are either the heirloom of Slytherin-type Pureblood families or reforged wands from family cores. The occasional new basilisk wand will almost always bond to a Parselmouth or budding Dark Wizard. Very little good comes out of wielders of basilisk wands.
°:. *₊ ° . ° .•Boomslang Venom °:. *₊ ° . ° .•—Boomslang venom, whether crystallized or in a rarer liquid core, provides a small boost to jinxes and hexes thanks to its venomous qualities. However, when a wandmaker undertakes the dangerous task of working with the raw venom, it is generally with the aim of creating a powerful Transfiguration wand. Whether or not the advantages outweigh the risks is not generally agreed upon in wandmaking circles.
°:. *₊ ° . ° .•Dementor Skin °:. *₊ ° . ° .•— Dementors are said to be somewhat sentient (Fudge talks to them in POA) and the cloak might be just a cloak. Yet, Dementors are very powerful creatures and extremely dangerous, which explains why such wand cores are so rare. These cores are hard to use in wandmaking since their possibilities haven't been explored yet and they are unstable. They are usually associated with Dark Arts given their origins, but are generally more efficient if their wielder is emotionally controlled. A link between Dementor skin wand wielders and proficient Occlumencers has been observed as well. Interestingly, they are known to produce the most powerful Patronus Charm.
°:. *₊ ° . ° .•Crystallized Basilisk Venom °:. *₊ ° . ° .•—while it would be very difficult to obtain, a wand with this core—however very few wands with this core have been spotted in the hands of parseltongues. A wand with this core would have the ability to obey its master in parseltongue—and would have the unique ability to destroy horcruxes
The Wand That Yielded to Grief: A Snape Wand Theory
Darling, let’s talk wandlore—not the polished kind with Phoenix feather packaging and eager eleven-year-olds. No, no. We’re diving into Severus Snape’s wand. And the story? It's neither charming nor convenient. It’s charred.
Let’s begin with what little we do know.
The Canonical Silence
Official sources—wand replicas, Wizarding World merch, and the occasional lore snippet—suggest:
Wood: Ebony
Length: ~13.25 inches
Core: ?
That’s right, love. The core has never been confirmed. J.K. Rowling left it blank, the movies skipped it, and the books said nothing. Silence. Total silence. Which, frankly, is suspiciously on brand for Severus Snape.
Ebony, for the record, is a wand wood known for loyalty, strength, and an affinity for those who live by their own rules—individuals who walk away from the crowd without looking back. Sound familiar? Oh, absolutely.
But let’s go deeper.
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Was That Wand Always His?
Remember the infamous scene—Snape hanging upside down, humiliated by the Marauders? The Severus in that memory didn’t fight back. Not with magic. He thrashed, cursed, but did not cast. Some fans assumed cowardice. But darling... I can’t help wondering if it might have been something else.
What if the wand in his hand wasn’t truly his at the time?
Perhaps it was a borrowed wand. Possibly his mother’s. A hand-me-down, serviceable but stubborn. It could cast spells, yes—but not instinctively. Not like a wand that had chosen its master in a moment of absolute clarity.
At fifteen, Snape was still divided. One part aching for Lily. Another drawn to the shadows of power. His identity was not yet forged, his inner world fractured. And from what we understand of wandlore, no wand of serious character would yield fully to a master it couldn’t read with certainty.
So when James struck without warning—Levicorpused him into the air—there was no duel. Only shock. Scramble. Exposure. And possibly... a wand that didn’t respond.
It’s just a thought, of course. But perhaps that wand wasn’t his. Not yet.
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The Turning Point: The Half-Blood Prince
When did that change? Oh darling. The moment ink hit parchment and a boy wrote:
"This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince."
That was it. That was the baptism. He hadn’t yet started anything with anyone—no romance, no allegiance. Perhaps Lily was already slipping away, and maybe, just maybe, resentment had started to take root. It might’ve been the first time he truly felt seen within Slytherin—not for being clever or strange, but for doing something that others there deemed right. If there was a turning, it wasn't toward someone. It was away. Away from the pain, the disappointment, the fruitless effort. Maybe that’s when power began to shimmer—not as a prize, but as the only thing that might still answer back.
From that moment on, his mind sharpened. Cunning replaced confusion. The grief hadn’t come yet, but the isolation had—and he began to wield it like a weapon. That’s when he would’ve acquired the wand we now associate with him:
Ebony wood
Inflexible
Cold to the touch, but alive in the hand of someone who never asked to be warm again
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Post-Lily: The Emotions That Forged Obedience
Now, fast-forward. Lily is dead. And Snape is no longer fractured. He is hollowed. The core that once wavered with longing is now filled with singular, punishing clarity. Let’s break it down:
1. Grief (but not the weeping kind)
This is grief weaponised—steady, silent, permanent. He does not mourn. He functions. Every breath is penance.
2. Resentment
Towards himself, Dumbledore, James, the world. And perhaps—even Lily. Not out of hatred, but from a wound so deep it blurred blame and pain. For choosing James. For becoming unreachable. For dying before he could make anything right. He might not have resented her directly—but in a heart that no longer knew how to grieve cleanly, every loss left behind a trace of bitterness.
3. Control
Emotion stripped to its most minimalist form. No outbursts. No chaos. Just tight, merciless control.
4. Duty
The unasked-for vow. The boy lives, so the man must serve. Not because he wants to. But because he no longer permits himself not to.
5. Emptiness
The absence of desire. Nothing left to want. Only actions left to take. He becomes function incarnate.
And the wand? Oh, it submits.
Because by now, Snape’s emotional register is so sharpened, so pared down, that there is no room left to resist him.
He doesn’t ask the wand to obey. He tells it—and it does.
Because if it didn’t? The wand itself might’ve felt it—some deep, ancient knowing—that failure to cooperate wouldn’t lead to a scolding, but a fate worse than irrelevance. Not snapped in punishment, but surrendered to fire, repurposed as kindling for something colder. That’s the level we’re at.
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Final Word: The Wand That Yielded
Snape didn’t earn his wand’s loyalty through brilliance. He bled it out of himself.
"He didn’t tame his wand with greatness. He subdued it with grief."
Darling, if I were that wand and I so much as twitched against his will, I’d snap myself in half out of shame.
Now pour the tea, snap the fan, and tell me I’m wrong. I won’t argue—just raise a brow, maybe. But deep down, we both know how this ends, don’t we?
What other type of wand do you think would suit Harry aside from his holly wand?
Ohhh, this is a fun question. Like, no joke, but Elder would actually suit him:
The rarest wand wood of all, and reputed to be deeply unlucky, the elder wand is trickier to master than any other. It contains powerful magic, but scorns to remain with any owner who is not the superior of his or her company; it takes a remarkable wizard to keep the elder wand for any length of time. The old superstition, ‘wand of elder, never prosper,’ has its basis in this fear of the wand, but in fact, the superstition is baseless, and those foolish wandmakers who refuse to work with elder do so more because they doubt they will be able to sell their products than from fear of working with this wood. The truth is that only a highly unusual person will find their perfect match in elder, and on the rare occasion when such a pairing occurs, I take it as certain that the witch or wizard in question is marked out for a special destiny. An additional fact that I have unearthed during my long years of study is that the owners of elder wands almost always feel a powerful affinity with those chosen by rowan.
(Source)
Unusual, unlucky, marked for a special destiny, and a remarkable person — sounds like Harry to me.
The other wand wood beside Holly that could work with Harry (since I feel Elder is a bit of a cope-out) is either Blackthorn or Red Oak.
Blackthorn, which is a very unusual wand wood, has the reputation, in my view well-merited, of being best suited to a warrior. This does not necessarily mean that its owner practises the Dark Arts (although it is undeniable that those who do so will enjoy the blackthorn wand’s prodigious power); one finds blackthorn wands among the Aurors as well as among the denizens of Azkaban. It is a curious feature of the blackthorn bush, which sports wicked thorns, that it produces its sweetest berries after the hardest frosts, and the wands made from this wood appear to need to pass through danger or hardship with their owners to become truly bonded. Given this condition, the blackthorn wand will become as loyal and faithful a servant as one could wish.
(Source)
I know Harry complained about the Blackthorn wand he used in DH, but that wand had a reason to dislike Harry, and these wands are particularly loyal. The wood itself, I think, could work for him.
Holly and Elder are both unusual wand woods, and fit a similarly unusual person, so is Blackthorn. Harry is a warrior, a survivor, who fits the Blackthorn's ability to thrive after a harsh frost. This wand wood is loyal and faithful to its owner (like the Holly) and thrives in danger. Harry doesn't wish for danger, but when it comes his way, he adapts and handles it perfectly, spurting the thorns he needs.
You will often hear the ignorant say that red oak is an infallible sign of its owner’s hot temper. In fact, the true match for a red oak wand is possessed of unusually fast reactions, making it a perfect duelling wand. Less common than English oak, I have found that its ideal master is light of touch, quick-witted and adaptable, often the creator of distinctive, trademark spells, and a good man or woman to have beside one in a fight. Red oak wands are, in my opinion, among the most handsome.
(Source)
Red Oak is also a good fit, in my opinion. It's an uncommon wand wood, like the others on this list, and the description of owners of Red Oak wands being mistaken for being hot-headed when they just have quick reflexes is so very Harry.
The wand is one for a fighter and works best with a quick-witted and adaptable wizard/witch, again, this sounds a lot like Harry. It does lack the flare for loyalty Holly and Blackthorn have, but I like the distinctive spells aspect, since Harry can cast spells in a very unique way.
As for cores, I think Phoenix is Harry's ideal wand core and I can't see a perfect wand with either Dragon heartstrings or unicorn hair.
Unicorn Hair is too sensitive, for lack of a better word. Unicron wands are emotionally involved (Ron, with a unicron wand, is the glue that holds the Golden Trio together and the most emotionally intelligent member of their group. Draco, who also has a unicorn wand, is portrayed as "sensitive and emotional")
Dragon wands are too flamboyant. They tend towards powerful and impressive displays of magic — something Harry doesn't do. Harry doesn't care for being flamboyant and using impressive magic, he wants something that works. (Low-key, I think Dumbledore's first wand had a dragon core).
That being said, the wand wood matters and can affect the core's behavior. All the woods I mentioned above would work for Harry with a phoenix feather core, but let's limit myself to chose either dragon or unicorn core to create wand builds for Harry with the woods above, I'd go with unicorn:
Elder + Unicorn -> The unicorn's loyalty will mitigate the elder's fickleness and result in a wand that suits Harry better and is more attuned to him.
Blackthorn + Unicorn -> Yes, this will mean this wand won't be able to be used by another wizard ever, but I think a Blackthorn + Dragon wand (probably like the one Harry used in DH) will require extra attention and be more thrill seeking than Harry would like to be. It'll be a wand striving for danger, and I want to calm it down a little.
Red Oak + Unicorn -> To add the missing loyalty aspect. Also, Dragon + Red Oak would be even more flamboyant with how it wants spells to be cast, so, not. The Unicron + Red Oak combination would be chiller.
That being said, if Holly is on the table, it would work better for Harry with a dragon heartstrings core than a unicorn one.
Holly wood is already pretty volatile and sensitive, pairing it with Unicorn Hair would make it too volatile, I think. The wood is already loyal, protective, and attuned to inner conflict; we need to chill that tendency a little (which, phoenix core does), so if we want Harry with a Holly wand without a phoenix feather core, I'd go Holly + Dragon.
So, yeah.
(I know there are other theoretical wand cores. If we include them, I honestly think Thestral hair isn't a bad pick for Harry with any wood. Thestrals have the same detachment of the phoenix and association with death, if Darker. I think Holly + Thestral or Red Oak + Thestral would be a nice fit. For the Elder or Blackthorn, I'd like a slightly more involved core for Harry, so maybe a Hippogrif feather — loyal, aloof, brave, and a wand that demands respect — which is pretty similar to a Pheonix feather, just without the death & rebirth association and a little less versatile)
Is it just me or do the wands in the Harry Potter show look shorter than they are in the movies? Which might make them the size they are in the books since every film wand is just slightly longer.
Specifically, I like Harry Potter for the worldbuilding---and the wandlore (study of wands)---not so much the events of the books.
On my old RP forum I went through an entire process of researching the wandlore to tell my friends what their wands would be. It was about several days of research.
Last year I did the same thing again for a newer group of friends, and then their OCs. And I miss doing that, and I still have all this knowledge, and apparently I was so good they started calling me Jay Ollivander Strun.
It was a lot of fun, and I still have all this useless knowledge laying around. I'm gonna tackle main universe Ekko and Jinx here, and provide background context for the decisions I'm making with them!
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Ekko: Applewood with unicorn hair core, 13 1/4" unyielding flexibility
Why applewood?
So applewood wands are powerful and very-well suited to an owner of high aims and ideals, and it mixes very, VERY poorly with Dark magic.
Owners of applewood wands are also well-loved and long-lived, and we ALL know Ekko is at least one of those 😉
Ollivander's personal notes indicate a consistent trait of applewood wand owners having great personal charm and high likeability.
There's also an unusual pattern of applewood wand owners being able to communicate with magical creatures in their native tongue (like merpeople) nd I KNOOOOOOW Ekko would have that. My heart KNOWS it.
And Unicorn hair core wands are the most faithful of all wand cores, and the most difficult to turn to the Dark Arts. They are also prone to melancholy if mishandled---the hair might 'die' and need replacing.
Unyielding flexibility
For Ekko, the best fit in regards to flexibility is Unyielding.
Wands of unyielding flexibility choose for themselves wizards and witches of well-defined principles they will never stray from. The owners of these wands are intelligent, somewhat cynical and confident.
These wands excel in combative AND healing magic, finely tuning themselves to their original owner's preferences and never changing for anyone.
Any of that sound at all familiar? Heh. It's basically Ekko to a T really. Aspects of the wood will balance out some of the extremes, and the core being Unicorn makes this a very strong, very LOYAL wand that will never stray into the Dark Arts.
Sycamore is a wood that is eager and hungry for new experiences. It can get 'bored' if locked in to mundane activities and may even combust if allowed to get 'bored' and really doesn't that sound exactly like Jinx?
Additionally on its own, sycamore thrives when the owner is curious, adventurous and full of life. The wand would have an ability to adapt and learn at an exceptional pace, its owner a creator or innovator.
Paired with a core of dragon heartstring and it would make for a wand best suited to someone like Jinx; innovative, spontaneous, flamboyant and brilliant.
As an added fun quirk, dragon heart string wands are most prone to accidents and are somewhat temperamental, so imagine a scenario wherein Jinx has become stuck and unable to change or adapt, perhaps in a study rut where the humdrum tasks are all she can bring herself to do. And suddenly her wand starts burning and smoking and she's freaking out? So much fun to be had there.
An intelligent and lively wand for an intelligent and lively personality, a charms extraordinaire and pranking master the likes of Fred and George Weasley.
Quite flexible flexibility
A wand of this flexibility: will typically reject owners it considers restrictive and/or boring; is good for transfiguration, spell crafting, healing magic, and curses; and in the hands of a skillful and energetic sort will become the master of whatever the owner desires.
Owners of the wand are typically characterized as 'very indecisive' but it's noted that they often have a few principles they believe very strongly in.
And doesn't that all sound like a perfect match for Jinx? You can call her many things but restrictive and boring are NOT among them. Her wand feeds into her Jinx persona but there's that strong undercurrent of Powder in there; a vital and adventurous sort that yearns for the next big adventure or idea. The girl always looking at the horizon for what comes next, and eager to set out and meet it.
Fun extra fact you might've noticed: Ekko is taller than Jinx but her wand is longer. And you better believe she's insufferable about it and they're always going at it somehow over these differences.
What are your thoughts on their wands? Do you agree? Do you have other ideas? I love talking about this
Might try and look into it more sometime - but the effects of a Muggle picking up a wand is such a weird topic.
I would have thought that there would be no effect. Muggles don't have magic to channel through the wand, nor any for the wand core to... 'sense'. 'mesh with'. 'like' or 'dislike'.
A muggle picking up a wand would be like picking up a twig - at most perhaps feeling some sort of magical hum from an active core, or the core misfiring from latent magic left in it or something.
And yet from memory there are mentions of a Muggle picking up a wand being dangerous.
Like the Muggle that founded the American magical school was blown back (i think?), or general warnings of it 'not being safe'.
But why...?
Wands are not particularly safe objects - Moody tells harry off for keeping his in his back pocket - but surely that is due to a Wizards latent magic and the bond the core has with their Wizard.
Someone jumps out at you and your twitchy wand core fires a spell directly into your ass - because even if you didn't mean to, your magic still flowed through it.
Wands are trusted enough outside of magical hands not to misfire - left on desks and stuff...
Would that not be the same thing as a Muggle holding it?
Muggles have a latent magic to us that we can't control. We ARE magical creatures, we just lack the ability to channel it...?
Wands are SUPER PICKY about who holds them... but not so much to animals. Your cat can pick up your wand, but a fellow human cannot. Wands are anti-muggle for some reason...?
Shaking a wand about without channeling magic through it is a dangerous action...? but then surely an animal knocking it, or having it just roll off a table, would be equally dangerous...?
I'm not thinking too hard about this rn, I'm more making a note for later
