Garrick Ollivander

"The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter. It's not always clear why."

- Ollivander to Harry Potter

Mr. Ollivander is the proprietor of Ollivander's Wand Shop in Diagon Alley. Ollivander is widely considered the best wand maker in the British Wizarding world, and many wizards and witches buy their wands from him.

In 1996, he was captured and tortured by Lord Voldemort. Ollivander was rescued in 1998 by Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Dobby.

Career as a Wandmaker
It is unknown how old he is, but in conversation with Harry Potter, he discusses making a wand for Lord Voldemort, who would have received his wand around 1937. His shop sign said his family has been making wands since 382 B.C.. Ollivander is a well-known and respected wandmaker and is said to provide nearly all first-year students attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with their first wands, a minority prefering to buy elsewhere.

It is known that other recognized wand makers exist in other countries. Ollivander is asked to inspect the wands of the champions in the Triwizard Tournament before the competition starts, to make sure they are all working properly.

Harry Potter's wand
Ollivander supplies Harry Potter with a wand, and as he does he tells Harry something about wands. He explains that a wand has a core, in Harry's case a phoenix feather, and the body of the wand itself, made from a choice of different woods with different magical properties. We discover that Ollivander made a similar wand using another feather from Albus Dumbledore's phoenix, but different wood. Harry's wand is Holly, symbolizing protection, rather than Voldemort's Yew, suggesting poison. He also explains that the wand chooses the wizard, rather than the other way around. Thus, he considers it remarkable that the wand suited to Harry is the 'brother' to the one Voldemort uses.

Kidnapped by Death Eaters
"Oh no - not Ollivander's, everybody got their first wands from here."

- Hermione Granger upon discovering Ollivander's shop abandoned.

In 1996 Ollivander was kidnapped by Voldemort's Death Eaters, leaving behind an empty, locked up shop and no sign of a struggle. It is believed that the last wand he sold was to Neville Longbottom. It is later revealed that Ollivander was captured by Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters and is being held prisoner at Malfoy Manor. He is tortured by Lord Voldemort for information regarding the twin cores of Harry Potter's wand and his own. Ollivander tells him that he merely needs to use another wand other than his own to face Harry Potter.

After using Lucius Malfoy's wand and seeing its destruction when facing Harry Potter and his Phoenix wand, he rounds on Ollivander for an explanation of why Harry's wand acted as it had. Although he had no answer to give since no wandmaker had ever witnessed such an event, Ollivander was tortured again by Lord Voldemort and questioned about the most powerful wand in existence, the Elder Wand. Harry Potter and his friends are later captured and taken to Malfoy Manor, where they were reunited with Ollivander, Dean Thomas and Luna Lovegood.

Ollivander is subsequently rescued by Harry and his friends and is taken with them when they make their escape from Malfoy Manor with the aid of Dobby, the house-elf. He seems to have bonded with Luna during their captivity together as he says that she was "an inexpressible comfort (to him) in that terrible place" and admits that he'll miss her with her admitting the same thing. He later creates and sends a new wand to Luna.

Study of the Elder Wand
As with other wandmakers, Ollivander make it a business to study the mystifying Elder Wand in depth, such as its history and distinctive characteristics. Unlike Hermione Granger, he believed that the Elder Wand was not a myth or tale, and showed great enthusiasm with the powerful object despite the fact that it was dangerous and has had a bloody history. When held captive by Lord Voldemort, he was forced to relate all information he had known about the powerful wand. He also revealed that the last person rumoured to own the wand was Gregorovitch, a foreign wandmaker, though he did not believed the rumour and thought that Gregorovitch did it to boost his business. The same information was also related to Harry Potter after he and his friends rescued him from the Malfoy Manor.

Personality and traits
"An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop."

- Harry Potter meets Ollivander

Ollivander is an intelligent man, with an excellent memory when it comes to his work; he remembers the details of every wand he ever sold. He seems to become happier, the more difficult the challenge to find exactly the right wand for a difficult customer. He uses a magical tape measure to help assess customers for their wand.

He has a professorial enthusiasm for wandlore and so is immensely learned in it. A less savory aspect of his personality is that his fascination with wandlore sometimes eclipses his sense of right and wrong: he is so fascinated with what a powerful wizard can do when matched with the right wand that he becomes detached from the good or evil nature of their actions. A prime example of this would be Tom Marvolo Riddle, a.k.a. Lord Voldemort. Even after the First Wizarding War, Ollivander remembered him as having done "great things" with his wand - "Terrible, yes, but great." An even more extreme example was during the Second Wizarding War, when Ollivander, having just been rescued from a year of imprisonment and torture at Voldemort's hands, was briefly enthralled by the thought of what Voldemort might do when matched with The Elder Wand.

Behind the scenes

 * Ollivander comments that he remembers every wand he's sold. This might indicate a form of photographic memory.
 * Ollivander is one of the only people before Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone who knew Voldemort's real name. He said in the first book he knows that Voldemort's wand caused Harry's scar. While this is not stated in any explicit way the very fact that Voldemort has only ever had one wand (except for his use of the wand of Lucius Malfoy and the Elder wand very late in life) would ensure that Ollivander would have sold him a wand at age 11 when he still used his former name.
 * In a 2009 interview, John Hurt, who portrayed Ollivander in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone confirmed he would reprise his role in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
 * Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (film)

Notes and references
Ollivander Олливандер