Elder Wand

"My most wicked and subtle friend, with body of Ellhorn, who knows ways of magic most evil."

- Godelot

The Elder Wand, variably known as the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny, the Eldruhn Wand, and the Ellhorn Wand, is one of the fabled Deathly Hallows. In the "Tale of the Three Brothers" it was the first Hallow created, bestowed on Antioch Peverell, supposedly by Death himself after the wizard requested, as his bounty, the strongest wand in the history of wizardkind. According to legend, whoever reunited it with the other two Hallows, the Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility, would become the Master of Death. It is said to be the most powerful wand that has ever existed, able to perform feats of magic that would normally be considered impossible, such as mending another wand damaged beyond normal magical repair. It is known that the Elder Wand's core is the tail hair of a thestral, a potent yet tricky substance to master that can only be handled by a witch or wizard who is capable of accepting death.

Mythic origins of the Elder Wand
"So the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for its owner, a wand worthy of a wizard who had conquered Death!"

- The Tale of the Three Brothers

According to the "Tale of the Three Brothers" in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the three brothers&mdash;suspected to be Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus Peverell&mdash;were out travelling the world one day when they came to a treacherous river that had been known to claim many of the lives of those attempting to cross it. The three brothers pulled out their wands and conjured a bridge out of thin air. As they began to cross it, however, they found a hooded figure blocking their path midway across the bridge. It was Death himself, and he did not like missing out on new victims. While pretending to congratulate them for their triumph, Death schemed against them. He offered each brother a gift for outsmarting Death. The eldest went first, and being a belligerent man, he asked for a wand that would defeat all others. Death went to the nearest tree and created a wand of elder wood, which he handed to the eldest brother. The second brother, who wanted to humiliate Death even further, asked for an object that would recall the dead and was given the Resurrection Stone. The youngest was wiser than his brothers and was skeptical of Death's intentions. He asked for an object that would allow him to live his life without the fear of Death following him. Defeated, Death handed over his own Cloak of Invisibility.

Early known history
"Wand of elder, never prosper."

- An old saying about wands made of elder wood.

As Albus Dumbledore thinks it was unlikely that the Elder Wand was made by Death, it may have been created by the eldest of the three Peverell brothers, Antioch. It is fifteen inches long, made of elder wood, and has a thestral tail-hair core. Thestral hair is "a tricky substance that only wizards that mastered death can control."

After killing a rival wizard in a duel shortly after creating the wand, Antioch drunkenly boasted of the wand's powers. He was murdered in his sleep that night and another wizard took possession of the wand. Over time, the powerful wand passed through various owners, usually by violent means, and acquired names such as the Deathstick and the Wand of Destiny. Several of the wand's owners are known, as its "bloody trail" was "splattered across the pages of Wizarding history." Many owners were killed by their successors in a lust for power. In time, the legend included an assumption that murder is necessary in order to attain mastery of the Elder Wand.

Recent history
"I was fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fit to 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 on the Deathly Hallows and the Elder Wand

It eventually ended up in the possession of the wandmaker Gregorovitch, who boasted about trying to duplicate its powers. It was stolen from him by the Dark Wizard Gellert Grindelwald, when he was only a young man; he stunned Gregorovitch to acquire mastery of the wand. Grindelwald used it to cause havoc in an attempt to create a new world order in Europe. When he was defeated by Albus Dumbledore in 1945, mastery of the Elder Wand passed to him.

Many years later, during the Second Wizarding War, in order to save himself from a more agonising death, Dumbledore asked Severus Snape to kill him. As this act was agreed upon, Dumbledore would not be "defeated", and the powers of the Elder Wand would be nullified. However, before he was killed by Snape atop the Astronomy Tower, Draco Malfoy disarmed Dumbledore. Unknowingly, Malfoy became the master of the Elder Wand.

Throughout the later half of 1997 and into the spring of 1998, Lord Voldemort sought the Elder Wand. He desired the Elder Wand in order to finally conquer Harry Potter and, therefore, render himself invulnerable. He traced the wand's recent history, and it led him to Dumbledore. After robbing Dumbledore's grave of the wand which had been buried with its previous master, Voldemort took possession of it. When it would not act as he believed it should, he ordered Nagini to murder Snape so mastery of the Elder Wand would pass to him, since he believed Snape to be the wand's master. However, as Harry Potter, who had been briefly seeking the wand as well, later deduced, its true master was Draco Malfoy. Nearly a year after Draco had unknowingly become the wand's master, Harry had taken Draco's wand by force, making him the master of the Elder Wand. Late in the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry Potter, who had learned that he had been accidentally made into Voldemort's Horcrux when he was a year old, walked into the Forbidden Forest to sacrifice himself to Lord Voldemort. Voldemort cast a Killing Curse on Harry using the Elder Wand. The wand seemingly worked because Harry intended to die at Voldemort's hand, much as Dumbledore had planned his death with Snape. Harry had entered a limbo state, portrayed as King's Cross Station, from which he could choose to return. When he did return, Voldemort cast the Cruciatus Curse on Harry's "dead" body but caused no pain. At this point, Harry realised that he was, in fact, the master of the Elder Wand.





In the final confrontation in the Great Hall, Voldemort used the Elder Wand to perform the Killing Curse on Harry again. However, Harry had no intention of dying this time, and as such the wand had refused to harm its true master. The curse rebounded on Voldemort, finally killing him. Harry, now the true master and possessor of the wand, used it to repair his first wand of Phoenix feather and Holly. The wand was then placed back in the grave of Albus Dumbledore, after Harry told Dumbledore's portrait in the Headmaster's Office of this decision with the portrait Dumbledore's approval. In the movie Harry breaks the Elder Wand by snapping it in half and was never seen repairing his old wand. It could be however, that Harry repaired his wand before confronting Voldemort for the last time.

Known masters of the Elder Wand

 * Antioch Peverell
 * Antioch Peverell's killer
 * Emeric the Evil
 * Egbert the Egregious
 * Godelot
 * Hereward
 * Barnabas Deverill
 * Loxias
 * Gregorovitch
 * Gellert Grindelwald
 * Albus Dumbledore
 * Draco Malfoy
 * Harry Potter

Power
"An unbeatable wand, Hermione!"

- Ron Weasley to Hermione Granger.

The Elder Wand was the most powerful wand in existence. Its owner could have used it to cast spells more powerful than believed to be magically possible. For example, Harry Potter was able to repair his regular, Phoenix feather wand using the Elder Wand in 1998, even though broken wands were supposed to be damaged beyond magical repair.

Although the wand was rumoured to be unbeatable, in Dumbledore's commentary on The Tale of The Three Brothers, in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, he commented that the Elder Wand, while being immensely powerful, had never been unbeatable, as it had been beaten hundreds of times. For it to pass to a new master, the wand must have been beaten, and as there have been many masters of the wand, it was obvious that it was possible to defeat the wielder of the Elder Wand (however, Dumbledore is canonically known to have not revealed all he knew in his commentary). The Elder Wand was the only wand in existence that has Thestral tail hair as its core, hence it was also immune from the Priori Incantatem effect, adding to its power. While it is stated that a wand will not give up its master so easily if it is attempted to be won, The Elder Wand seems to do this time and time again. However this might not be referring to its willingness to give up its master but rather to the amount of effort it took to defeat the wielder of the Wand.

It appears that the Elder Wand is still somewhat more powerful than other wands even when the user has not mastered it, as seen in the hands of Lord Voldemort. However, Voldemort is a very powerful wizard even without special artifacts to aid him. It is unknown to what extent his power was boosted by the wand, but it's certain that he never unlocked its full power.

Symbology
In the Deathly Hallows symbol, the Elder Wand is shown as the vertical line that goes right through the middle of the circle and the triangle; it represents the aspects of power and invincibility of the Hallows as a whole.

Other elder wands
While "The Elder Wand" (capitalised) refers to one of the Deathly Hallows, other wands have been made from elder wood. In general wizards seem to eschew elder wands, due at least in part to the sordid history of the Elder Wand itself, favouring wands made from various other woods, such as holly, willow, vine, and oak. Ron repeats an old wizarding saying, "Wand of elder, never prosper" after Hermione reads The Tale of the Three Brothers, to illustrate how wizarding lore may be passed from generation to generation.

Behind the scenes

 * Dumbledore's commentary on the Tale of the Three Brothers notes that all known Masters of the Elder Wand had been men.
 * The film-makers for the Harry Potter series designed Albus Dumbledore's wand for the films years before it was revealed to be the Elder Wand, or that the Elder Wand even existed. Fortunately, the wand they created happened to be unique among all the film series' wands, even bearing carvings which resemble clusters of elderberries running down its length.
 * The wand has been available to purchase on the Noble Collection website, contained in an Ollivanders Wand Shop box. This implies, incorrectly, that the wand was made and sold at the shop by Ollivander. (Though this could be due to the fact that is was made and relised before it was revealed that it was the Elder Wand)
 * Those to whom the Elder Wand is not loyal can perform feats of magic equivalent to owning a regular wand. In the Battle of Hogwarts, Voldemort remarked about this to Severus Snape, and reasoned that, since he believed Snape to be the master of the Elder Wand, Voldemort would have to kill him to claim true mastery of it. The only thing that it has been shown that the Elder Wand cannot do (or, rather, will not do) is harm its own master if it finds itself in the physical possession of another.
 * At the end of the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the Elder Wand is seen lying on the headmaster's desk, instead of being buried in the White Tomb. This scene must take place before Dumbledore's burial (which is not seen on film), seeing as in the next film adaptation, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, the wand is buried with its former master.
 * In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore claimed he would make it easy for Draco Malfoy and allowed Malfoy to Disarm him, though he could have defended himself. Therefore it seems as though he wanted Malfoy to have the Wand; however it should be noted that the Elder Wand was said to only switch allegiance if it was removed from its master against his will. However it is possible that Dumbledore truly had not expected Draco to attack him, even if only to Disarm him, and was therefore genuinely caught off guard. Also, because he was old and exhausted from his adventure with Harry in the Horcrux cave (and possibly sickened from drinking the potion as well), he may have simply been too slow to defend himself.
 * Albus Dumbledore (with the exception of Egbert the Egregious) is the only known wizard to have defeated a Master of the Elder Wand (Gellert Grindelwald) in a wizarding duel. Other Masters of the Elder Wand obtained mastery through deceit, stealth (as when Grindelwald stole it from Gregorovitch), foul play (the murder of Antioch Peverell in his sleep), happenstance (as when Draco Malfoy disarmed Albus Dumbledore, who was concurrently casting a Full Body-Bind Curse on Harry Potter) or beating the current master while he does not physically possess the wand (as in Harry Potter's disarming of Draco Malfoy). This is another testament to Dumbledore's innate magical skills, which he references to Harry when the latter is in limbo by admitting that although both he and Grindelwald were evenly matched in magic, he was a shade more skillful.
 * In Part 1 of the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, after taking the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's grave, Voldemort casts a powerful lightning-like spell into the sky to test its power. This is when the first Part ends.
 * In the film adaptation for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Parts 1 and 2, it seems that the Elder Wand has a much darker colour; this may be a change the film makers did to make the wand fit better to Voldemort's "Dark and evil" personality.
 * The curse that killed Lord Voldemort came from the Elder Wand.
 * In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, when Voldermort tries to unleash the Elder Wand's capabilities upon the shield surrounding Hogwarts, he seems to feel a slight pain in his arm carrying the wand, similar to the effects of the Horcrux being destroyed. The wand as well cracks under the strain.
 * In Part 2 of the film adaptation, Harry simply breaks the Elder Wand and throws it away as opposed to the seventh book where he repairs his holly wand. This is not justified as Fenrir Grayback finds and throws away the wand Ron gives to Harry after reuniting with him rather than Harry's broken wand when he, Ron, and Hermione are captured by the Snatchers in the forest in Part 1.
 * When asked which of the Deathly Hallows they preferred, Ron Weasley chose the Elder Wand.
 * It is mentioned in Dumbledore's (not entirely honest) commentary that rumours of an unbeatable wand are preposterous. For example, Grindelwald had mastered the "unbeatable" deathstick, and yet was still defeated by Dumbledore in 1945 . However, it is more probable that only one who has mastered the wand by becoming a Master of Death (which is required to truly unlock the Wand's full power) will be unbeatable with it. This is supported by the fact that, although (fifty-one years later) Dumbledore did not defeat Lord Voldemort in their duel at the Ministry of Magic due to the latter's use of Horcruxes, but ended up fighting him to a stalemate, this is only because he fled. Indeed, it appears that Dumbledore would've won had the fight continued (hence Voldemort fleeing).

Author's comments
J. K. Rowling has discussed how the Elder Wand behaves slightly different from other wands in its loyalty:


 * "The Elder Wand is simply the most ruthless of wands in that it will only take into consideration strength. So one would expect a certain amount of loyalty from one's wand. So even if you were disarmed while carrying it, even if you lost a fight while carrying it, it has developed an affinity with you that it will not give up easily. If, however, a wand is won, properly won in an adult duel, then a wand may switch allegiance... However, the Elder Wand knows no loyalty except to strength. So it's completely unsentimental. It will only go where the power is. So if you win, then you've won the wand. So you don't need to kill with it. But...almost inevitably, it attracts wizards who are prepared to kill and who will kill. And also it attracts wizards like Voldemort who confuse being prepared to murder with strength."

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
 * Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
 * Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
 * Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (video game)
 * Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4
 * The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Notes and references
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