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"Professor Umbridge opened her handbag, extracted her own wand, which was an unusually short one, and tapped the blackboard sharply with it; words appeared on the board at once."
— Umbridge using her wand to write words on a blackboard[src]

Dolores Umbridge's wand was 8" long, made of birch wood with a dragon heartstring core.[1] The wand length was considered "unusually short" by wandmaker Garrick Ollivander. This typically meant that something was lacking in the owner's personality.[2]

History[]

Umbridge 002

Dolores Umbridge holding her wand

Umbridge was capable of performing rather advanced magic with her wand, including nonverbal spells[3][4] and Conjuration,[5] for example.

This wand was destroyed during a skirmish in the Forbidden Forest in 1996, when it was snapped cleanly in half by a Centaur's hoof, while Umbridge was carried off by a herd she offended. Harry Potter tried to retrieve it right after she dropped it, but it was snapped before he could reach it.[5]

Umbridge acquired a new wand later, and it was with this wand that she conjured her cat Patronus to ward off the Dementors in the British Ministry of Magic, as she sadistically prosecuted innocent Muggle-borns, when she was the Head of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission.[6] However, this wand was likely taken away when she was sent to Azkaban.

Behind the scenes[]

  • In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Umbridge's wand is a crimson colour with a pink gem placed in the centre. It, too, is shorter than the other wands shown.
  • According to Wizarding World, abnormally short wands (8 inches and under) tend to belong to people who are "lacking" in personality, as there are many short witches and wizards with average sized wands.[1]
  • This wand being made of birch wood is possibly a reference to the practice of birching, a corporal punishment where a victim is beaten with a birch rod, clearly being symbolic of Umbridge's cruelty towards her students when she worked at Hogwarts, and use of physical torture with her Black Quill.

Appearances[]

Notes and references[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Wizarding World (archived here)
  2. ARTICLE - Add to Template:WW at Wizarding World
  3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 12 (Professor Umbridge)
  4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 29 (Careers Advice)
  5. 5.0 5.1 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 33 (Fight and Flight)
  6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 13 (The Muggle-Born Registration Commission)
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