What's In a Name?Topic List

To Each His Own...

Fleur Delacour:
Wood: rosewood. "Fleur" is French for "flower", and a rose is a type of flower.

Core: veela hair. Ollivander mentions that veela hair makes tempermental wands, which fits Fleur rather well. Also, it helps that she's part veela.

Length: 9 1/2". I got the impression that wand length and the power you get from a wand are directly proportional (compensating a bit for the wizard's height), and to me, Fleur is the least impressive champion of the Triwizard tournament. She also has the shortest wand mentioned in the series, with the possible exception of Dolores Umbridge.

Qualities: inflexible.

Cedric Diggory:
Wood: ash. This gives us two possibilities. 1) Ash is the type of wood racing brooms are made of (well, at least the Firebolt), which mirrors his Quidditch skill. 2) In addition to the type of wood, ash is also the residue from fire, which could be some weird parallel to his death. I'm leaning more to the first possibility.

Core: unicorn hair. Many have called my paranoid for this connection, but in Philosopher's Stone, Ronan tells Hagrid "always the innocent are the first victims". They go on to discover the dead unicorn. Think about it. Cedric's wand contained unicorn hair, and he was technically the first victim.

Length: 12 1/4".

Qualities: pleasantly springy

Viktor Krum:
Wood: Hornbeam. This wood is very common in eastern Europe, which is probably where Durmstrang is located.

Core: dragon's heartstring

Length: 10 1/4"

Qualities: quite rigid. This is just a porperty of Hornbeam wood.

Rubeus Hagrid:
Wood: oak

Core: ?

Length: 16"

Qualities: rather bendy

Harry Potter
Wood: holly is associated with life. It is also a symbol of Christmas, which is not only the birth of their Savior for Christians, but the time when the amount of sunlight in the day starts to lengthen. Holly, ivy, and pine got that Christmas gig because, as evergreens, they are among the few plants still green and visibly alive in the snow.

Core: phoenix feather (from Fawkes)

Length: 11"

Qualities:

James Potter:
Wood: mahogany

Core: ?

Length: 11"

Qualities: pliable; excellent for transfiguration. This is quite fitting, considering that he later begame an animagus.

Lily Evans Potter:
Wood: willow. A possible connection is through the Chinese bodhisattva Guan-Yin, whose symbol was the willow twig and symbolized the cycle of death and rebirth. This could have something to do with Lily's sacrifice for Harry. Am I reaching too far?

Core: ?

Length: 10 1/4"

Qualities: swishy; nice for charm work. The fact that it's good for charm work may have to do with the charm Lily used to save Harry.

Notes: Ollivander specifies that this was her first wand. I wonder what happened to it? What were the characteristics of her second wand?

Tom Marvolo Riddle (Lord Voldemort)
Wood: yew. Yew is the tree of death, depicted on Victorian mourning cameos showing a woman weeping at a gravestone next to a tree. Yew berries are poisonous, and yew wood is the natural composite that made the English longbow so deadly, and Tex and Molly in the Afterlife says that yews are planted in graveyards because they 'thrive on corruption' (rotting corpses).

Core: phoenix feather (from Fawkes)

Length: 13 1/2"

Qualities: very powerful, Ollivander says.

Charlie Weasley (and later Ron Weasley)
Wood: ?

Core: unicorn tail hair

Length: ?

Qualities: ?

Ron Weasley
Wood: willow

Core: unicorn tail hair. If you want to know why this worries me, see the listing for Cedric Diggory. Both of Ron's wands have had unicorn tail hair.

Length: 14 inches. Aside from Hagrid's, this is the longest wand mentioned so far in the series, giving me the impression that Ron is a much more powerful wizard than we give him credit for.

Copyright 2000-3 Priscilla Spencer