Tom Riddle's wand

"It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather — just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother why, its brother gave you that scar. Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew."

- Ollivander expands on Voldemort's wand Tom Riddle's wand was 13½" long and belonged to Tom Riddle, the wizard who later became known as Lord Voldemort. The wand was made from yew with a phoenix feather core.

The phoenix feather core was from Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, and Harry Potter's and Tom Riddle's wands were both made from feathers from him.

It was manufactured by Garrick Ollivander and was the "brother" or "twin" of the wand of Harry Potter, as their wands share cores. It was with this wand that Riddle murdered James and Lily Potter and countless others, including Muggle Frank Bryce, Amelia Bones, and Ministry of Magic ex-employee Bertha Jorkins. On Voldemort's orders, Peter Pettigrew used this wand to kill Cedric Diggory in June of 1995 as well.

Purchase
In 1938, the eleven-year-old Tom Riddle travelled to Diagon Alley. Riddle entered Ollivanders Wand Shop and, as was the case with most young witches and wizards, tried several different wands to find one to his liking. Ollivander finally handed Riddle a wand thirteen and one half inches long, made of yew and with a core composed of a Phoenix feather which chose Riddle as its master.

Weapon of the Dark Lord
Over the course of his years at Hogwarts, Riddle's personality became darker and darker in secret, while to the outside world he appeared to be a model pupil. Inside, however, he was cruel, greedy and murderous, with a disregard for anyone but himself and seeing all others as either obstacles to be overcome or tools to be manipulated. The ends to which Riddle put his wand were less than noble and at times violent in his school years. Although Riddle rose to stardom in the eyes of much of the Hogwarts staff, he was never fully trusted by Albus Dumbledore due to their first encounter at Riddle's orphanage, where he accidentally let his true persona show in Dumbledore's presence.

In the summer of 1943, Riddle used his wand to enact a plot of revenge against his father, Tom Riddle Snr, who had abandoned Riddle's mother, Merope Gaunt, along with himself many years before and fled back to the village of Little Hangleton to live in his family's home, the Riddle House. Riddle came to the village and met his uncle, Morfin Gaunt, who told him the full story of Tom Riddle Snr and his sister Merope Gaunt. This story enraged Riddle, who then used his wand to stun his uncle and take his wand from him in turn. Riddle then proceeded to the Riddle House and murdered his father and his Muggle grandparents, Thomas and Mary Riddle, with the Killing Curse using Morfin's wand. Riddle then returned to the Gaunt shack and replaced Morfin's wand on his person and used his own wand to modify Morfin's memory to make him confess to killing the Riddles so there would be no further investigation into the murders by the Ministry of Magic. Riddle then stole Marvolo Gaunt's Ring from Morfin's hand and fled Little Hangleton, having committed the first of what would become many murders throughout the remainder of his life.

Shortly after this, Riddle created the name of Lord Voldemort from an anagram of the letters of his true name to spare himself the memory of his "filthy muggle father." Obsessed with immortality, he began studying Horcruxes from books in the restricted section of the Hogwarts Library and used his wand to create one using his childhood diary through the use of his earlier indirect murder of fellow student Myrtle Warren by means of the Basilisk of the Chamber of Secrets. He later questioned Potions Master Horace Slughorn about what would become of the wizard who made more than one Horcrux, inadvertently revealing his desire to make his soul a seven-part soul. Riddle continued to perfect his use of the Ollivander wand throughout his school career, eventually graduating from Hogwarts in 1945.

Following his graduation from Hogwarts, the newly-minted Lord Voldemort began to more openly put his wand to evil ends, using it to perform powerful dark magic and to murder others for the creation of new Horcruxes to insure his shield against death. After disappearing for a solid decade, Voldemort returned to request the Defence Against the Dark Arts post at Hogwarts from the new Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, who turned him down upon realising his true intentions in seeking the job. Riddle used his wand at that time to place a curse on the job, causing its occupant to suffer some misfortune that would drive them from the job in a year or less.

First Wizarding War
After his failure to acquire the Hogwarts post he sought, he declared open war on the wizarding world, intending to rule the world forever to make his ultimate dream a reality. He frequently employed the three Unforgivable Curses through the use of his wand, not hesitating in using the Killing Curse on those who opposed or annoyed him. Over the course of the First Wizarding War, the wand had become a weapon of murderous intent and a tool of dark magic at the hands of its master, who sank deeper and deeper into the Dark Arts until there was very little left of the boy who had originally purchased it that fateful day in Diagon Alley so many decades before.

Murder of the Potters


In 1980, at the height of his power during his reign of terror, Lord Voldemort learned from one of his Death Eaters, Severus Snape, that a prophecy had just been made concerning the coming birth of a child who would bring about his destruction from newly-appointed Professor of Divination, Sybill Trelawney. Voldemort panicked at this and sprang into action, despite the fact that Snape had not heard the entire prophecy. He targeted Harry Potter some months later, and the Potter Family was forced to go into hiding in the village of Godric's Hollow. Though their location was concealed by means of the Fidelius Charm, they were betrayed by their Secret-Keeper, Peter Pettigrew, who sold their secret to Lord Voldemort to win the Dark Lord's favour. So on Hallowe'en night in 1981, Voldemort proceeded to Godric's Hollow shortly after Pettigrew's revelation and made his way to the home of the Potters. Once there, he quickly dispatched James Potter using his wand and proceeded upstairs to finish off his newborn nemesis. Lily Potter refused to step aside despite Voldemort's offer to let her live, and he again used his wand to kill her as well. This triggered a powerful means of protection for Harry that Voldemort could not easily penetrate henceforth. He then turned his wand on the infant Harry Potter, who was in his crib a few feet away. Voldemort attempted to use his wand to fatally curse Harry, but the Killing Curse backfired, rebounding upon Voldemort and ripping him from his body. At that moment, part of Voldemort's unstable soul fragmented and attached itself to the infant Harry Potter (accidentally making Harry Potter his unintentional seventh Horcrux) while the remaining part of Voldemort's maimed soul fled the scene.

Upon his curse rebounding upon himself, Voldemort's wand was blasted from his body and landed not far away from his body in the ruin of the Potter home. After Rubeus Hagrid rescued the infant Harry from the wreckage of the house later that evening, Peter Pettigrew returned to the house and discovered the Dark Lord's wand in the wreckage, taking it with him as he fled the scene in order to prevent the wand from falling into the Ministry's hands and possibly exposing him as a traitor since all wands have a record of the spells they have cast and can be examined by those trained to do so. He would keep this wand in an undisclosed location for twelve long years afterwards, until the time when he could locate its true owner once again.

Wand and wizard reunited
In June of 1994 many years later, Peter Pettigrew was forced out of hiding in his Animagus form of a rat by his former friends, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. The pair were of a mind to kill Pettigrew for his betrayal of the Potters as well as his subsequent framing of Black for all crimes that Pettigrew himself had committed, resulting in Black's incarceration in the wizarding prison Azkaban for twelve years. However,Harry Potter intervened on Pettigrew's behalf and persuaded Black and Lupin to turn him over to the Dementors of Azkaban rather than kill him, so they could clear Black's name. This created a life debt between Pettigrew and Harry, which would be a great help one day years later. However, when Lupin unexpectedly assumed his werewolf form, Pettigrew was able to escape in the confusion and transformed into a rat, escaping to find Lord Voldemort and help him return to power.



Pettigrew recovered Lord Voldemort's wand and went in search of its master, finding the Dark Lord in Albania. There, he helped the Dark Lord create a rudimentary body so he could travel and perform magic. It was then that Voldemort was reunited with his wand after his fall in Godric's Hollow. Shortly after this, Pettigrew met and overpowered Ministry of Magic employee Bertha Jorkins and brought her to Lord Voldemort, who extracted information about the upcoming Triwizard Tournament from her before using his wand to murder her. He then used his wand to turn his serpent, Nagini, into another Horcrux using Jorkins' murder as the tool.

Rebirth of Lord Voldemort
While he was finally able to use a wand again, he could not perform the extraordinary magic he had done with a proper body. On the night of the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament, Harry Potter entered the Triwizard Maze in search of the Triwizard Cup, the tournament having been grossly manipulated by Lord Voldemort through his servant Barty Crouch, Jr to have Harry get to the cup first and be teleported to the Little Hangleton graveyard. However, due to his sense of fair play and in the spirit of sportsmanship, Harry insisted that fellow Hogwarts student Cedric Diggory take the cup with him to tie for first place. When they touched the cup together, they were teleported to the Little Hangleton graveyard, as had been planned by Voldemort and his minions. Almost immediately upon their arrival, Voldemort ordered Pettigrew to use his wand to kill Cedric Diggory, an order which Pettigrew obeyed without question. Pettigrew then tied Harry Potter to the tombstone of Tom Riddle Snr and performed the gruesome ritual of recreating Lord Voldemort's body by means of adding three ingredients to the potion designed by Voldemort himself: bone of the father, flesh of the servant, and blood of the enemy. Lord Voldemort then emerged from the flaming cauldron set up near the Riddle Grave, fully restored to power. The wand was then returned to the hand of its master by Peter Pettigrew on Lord Voldemort's command. Voldemort then turned the wand on Harry, torturing him with the Cruciatus Curse before attempting to kill him, unaware of his wand's familial connection to his enemy's. Both wands sensed each other's presence and instead of harming each other, both connected in the reverse-spell effect. Harry's wand won the battle of wills and Voldemort's began shrieking in pain (and possibly remorse) as it was forced to regurgitate the last spells it had performed. Harry eventually broke the connection and escaped, leaving Voldemort furious.

Second Wizarding War
After his rebirth, Voldemort began his rise to power and Second Wizarding War began, though the Ministry of Magic did not officially recognise this until the end of 1996. During his acension to power, the wand served its master in many crimes and dark arts, including the murder of Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the summer of 1996, though she put up a good fight. He also tortured Rufus Scrimgeour over the wherabouts of Harry Potter on 1 August 1997.

He also used this wand to engage Albus Dumbledore in a Duel in the Ministry Atrium during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. In addition, sometime before 24 December, 1997, Voldemort may have used his wand to murder magical historian Bathilda Bagshot and cast a piece of dark magic to allow his serpent, Nagini, to inhabit her corpse and lie in wait for Harry Potter, or possibly Voldemort ordered Nagini to commit the murder herself.

Discovering of the twin cores
However, prior to the Battle of the Seven Potters, Voldemort was given advice by a kidnapped Garrick Ollivander of the Priori Incantatem effect between his own wand and Harry Potter's wand and how both twin cores prevented them from defeating each other. Voldemort then took Lucius Malfoy's wand to prevent that from happening, and murdered Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher at Hogwarts, to test out his new wand during the Meeting at Malfoy Manor. However, during the subsequent battle as Harry left 4 Privet Drive, Harry's wand inadvertently destroyed Lucius's wand when it shot golden flames (without Harry's decision) at Voldemort when the Dark Lord personally came after Harry in the motorbike the boy was riding with Rubeus Hagrid. Before Lucius's wand was destroyed by Harry's, Voldemort used it to murder Alastor Moody during the battle. Because Lucius's wand was destroyed, Voldemort went back to using his old yew wand. During the Fall of the Ministry of Magic to Death Eater control, it is possible that Lord Voldemort himself used the Killing Curse with his wand on Rufus Scrimgeour, then-Minister for Magic, on 1 August, 1997, because the Minister refused to give him information on Harry's whereabouts.

Voldemort's search for the Elder Wand
Under further torturing Ollivander, Voldemort discovered a wand of unparalleled power; the Elder Wand, of which Voldemort desired to overcome the Priori Incantatem. However, as he heard of the wand's legendary powers, Voldemort no longer desired to possess it just to defeat Harry, but to own it permanently to immortalise his status as the most powerful wizard in the world.

In order to the find the Elder Wand, Voldemort used the information he had tortured out of Ollivander and decided to travel to the former home of the wandmaker Gregorovitch on 1 September, 1997. He found a German family living there, and when the mother of the family told him that Gregorovitch no longer lived there and that they did not know him, Voldemort used his wand to murder the woman and her two children. Upon finding Gregorovitch on 2 September, Voldemort kept the wandmaker from escaping by using Levicorpus and a Full Body-Bind Curse. Voldemort demanded he give him the wand, but Gregorovitch said it had been stolen from him many years ago.

Enraged to have exhausted months of effort to find Gregorovitch and to find out he was not any closer to the wand, Voldemort believed he was lying, and as such performed Legilimency to confirm it. During his search through Gregorovitch's memories, Voldemort found the memory of the incident when he lost the wand to a blond-haired thief. Finishing his search of Gregorovitch's mind, Voldemort immediately demanded to know who the thief was, but when Gregorovitch admitted he never found out, Voldemort, recognising he had all the information he required, ignored Gregorovitch's pleas for mercy and cast the Killing Curse on him. Realising that it was in fact the Dark Wizard Gellert Grindelwald who stole the wand from Gregorovitch, Voldemort went and found Grindelwald in the wizard's cell at Nurmengard in March, 1997. Grindelwald refused to give Voldemort information on the whereabouts of the Elder Wand, and Voldemort furiously killed him. However, Voldemort realised that the wand must have fallen into the possession of the wizard who beat Grindelwald, and this must have been the winner of the famous duel between Grindelwald and Dumbledore. Knowing at last who possessed the wand, Voldemort set off to Hogwarts.

Upon arriving on the Hogwarts grounds, Voldemort saw where Dumbledore was placed to rest and used his own wand to perform its last act: breaking into Dumbledore's tomb, in order to steal the Elder Wand. After acquiring the strongest wand in history, Voldemort no longer needed his old yew wand, which had been with him for almost sixty years. Devoid of any sentiment for the wand, unlike most wizards, Voldemort cast it aside in favour of the Elder Wand, leaving its ultimate fate unknown.

Behind the scenes

 * The film adaptation of Voldemort's wand shows it with a bone handle. No such handle is mentioned in the books.
 * It is, of course, entirely possible Voldemort added this particular embellishment later in the wand's life. Dumbledore clearly states the Tom Riddle went through many dangerous magical transformations to become Lord Voldemort, and it follows that his wand would have been affected in some way by this or gradually changed to reflect his personality. Also, Mr Ollivander does not seem the type to add bone handles to his wands; he revels in knowing the details of his wands, but only ever mentions the type of wood used, its length and the style of core.
 * Furthermore, Tom Riddle's wand is briefly glimpsed in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets where it is made from some dark wood, rather than yew, and does not appear to be bone-like or bone-handled:
 * The handle could also be made of ivory, having a similar appearance to bone. It would be more likely if the handle was crafted by Ollivander that he would use ivory, which is commonly used in the past as a part of ornamental decorations.
 * In the film adaptations, Voldemort's wand is curved, whereas the Noble Collection makes the wand with a straight shaft. Also, the wand in the movies is a bit more white than the Noble Collection wand.
 * Since the Duel in the Great Hall during the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry may have won the allegiance of Riddle's wand. However, it is unlikely Harry will ever use the wand, given his personal history with the object and its original owner.
 * Garrick Ollivander described this wand to Harry as "very powerful" which could be seen as a reference to the potency of the combination of the wood and core although this seems to contradict Hermione's statement that wands are never independently powerful but are "only as powerful as the wizards that use them". However, Hermione was not a wandmaker and may have been partially wrong when she said this.
 * Ralph Fiennes requested the hook-like part coming out of the bottom of the handle.

Appearances

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 * PS F

Notes and references
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