This talk was delivered at the Harry Potter Academic Conference at Chestnut Hill College, October 20, 2023.
“The Wandmaker,” Chapter 24 of Deathly Hallows, is a chapter of extraordinary range and eloquence. The writing is unapologetically mysterious, almost inscrutable but worth re-reading together.
It starts with Dobby’s death. Harry pulls an all-nighter to dig Dobby a grave and has a series of mystical revelations. He masters Occlumency at last. With newfound and unerring authority, he negotiates with Griphook and interrogates Ollivander. Through his scar connection, he sees Voldemort violating Dumbledore’s tomb to take the Elder Wand. And I understood this chapter not at all the first time I read it in July 2007, binge-reading while obsessed and sleep-deprived. It is full of this kind of passage: “those things that had come to him in the grave, ideas that had taken shape in the darkness, ideas both fascinating and terrible.”
Excuse me – what? On my first readthrough, I wondered: am I supposed to know what these ideas are? Am I the only one who can’t figure it out? All I knew was, I didn’t want to stop and ponder. I had waited for years to find out how this story was going to end. I’ll come back later to figure out what I missed.
This autumn, I’m going to be launching a chapter re-read podcast called “Harry Potter After 2020.” My co-host JC and I will discuss re-reading the series now – compared to how it felt on previous readthroughs, when the books had just been published, or we were at different life stages, or we didn’t have kids asking us to explain the books to them, or we had different feelings about the author. I’m going to give an idea of our approach with this discussion.
This chapter goes everywhere, but it’s named The Wandmaker. To me, Ollivander is probably the most purely magical person in the series. That tells me this is the part of the story where Harry becomes equal to the deepest mysteries. When Harry first enters Ollivander’s shop at age 11, the back of his neck prickles. Yet in this chapter, Harry is completely in control of their interaction. He gets what he needs out of Ollivander and leaves. It’s a new level of mastery for Harry.
While Harry is grieving Dobby, his “scar prickled and burned,” “yet Harry’s grief for Dobby seemed to diminish” Voldemort’s emotions so they reached him from a distance. It’s the first time Harry has experienced the loss of someone for whom he felt responsible – because of Dobby’s vulnerable status, and because he had died doing something dangerous at Harry’s request. This protective grief is what makes this the moment Harry crosses over into adulthood. A year earlier, when Snape healed Draco’s Sectumsempra wounds with “an incantation that sounded almost like song,” Harry couldn’t understand the words, but I think he’d be able to now: they were words of anguish that harm had come to someone under Snape’s care.
As Harry dug Dobby’s grave, “His scar burned, but he was master of the pain; he felt it, yet was apart from it.” The way Harry is able to remain present in this moment is similar to his Patronus lesson in third year: “The screaming inside Harry’s head had started again – except this time, it sounded as though it were coming from a badly tuned radio – softer and louder and softer again – and he could still see the dementor – it had halted – and then a huge, silver shadow came bursting out of the end of Harry’s wand…”
It’s similar, as well, to the first time he’s able to Occlude Snape in a lesson: “…he could also see Snape standing in front of him, his eyes fixed upon Harry’s face, muttering under his breath…. And somehow, Snape was growing clearer, and the dementors were growing fainter…”
Now, at age 17, Harry “had learned control at last, learned to shut his mind to Voldemort, the very thing Dumbledore had wanted him to learn from Snape. Just as Voldemort had not been able to possess Harry while Harry was consumed with grief for Sirius, so his thoughts could not penetrate Harry now, while he mourned Dobby. Grief, it seemed, drove Voldemort out… though Dumbledore, of course, would have said that it was love….”
A few times, Rowling drops Snape’s name for the reader even when he’s not in a scene, hinting at her long game with this character’s theme of disarmament and mental defense. For example, when Harry casts Expelliarmus on Gilderoy Lockhart: “‘Shouldn’t have let Professor Snape teach us that one,’ said Harry furiously.” It’s not typical of Harry to give Snape credit like that; this stands out, signaling the reader to take note that it was Snape who paired up Harry and Draco and taught them the disarming spell that they would later use, along with Draco’s wand, to take down the two most powerful wizards of their age.
During Occlumency lessons, Snape would order Harry, “Repel me with your brain and you will not need to resort to your wand.”
“I’m trying,” said Harry angrily, “but you’re not telling me how!”
Harry was right; it wasn’t safe for Snape to explain how, not when Voldemort was entering Harry’s mind at will. Snape had no choice but to leave Harry to figure it out on his own, two long years later.
As Harry dug deeper and deeper, “the things that had happened at the Malfoys’ returned to him, the things he had heard came back to him, and understanding blossomed in the darkness…” In the rest of the chapter, we get partial clues about what Harry understood.
When Harry reached for a wand to inscribe Dobby’s headstone, he discovered that he had two wands in his pocket.
“He could not now remember whose wands these were; he seemed to remember wrenching them out of someone’s hand. He selected the shorter of the two, which felt friendlier in his hand.”
I’m going to take a moment to acknowledge that if that line makes you think of Drarry fanfics, you’re probably not the only one. But aside from that – or maybe in conjunction with that – this is a key moment, and strange for how muted it is: when we get to the end of the book and realize that’s when Harry became master of the Elder Wand, we come back to how unceremonious it was that such a moment should happen so absentmindedly. Why?
Then there’s the realization, which came to me later, that this is the moment Harry became the Master of Death, adding the allegiance of the Elder Wand to his possession of the Cloak and the Stone. Maybe that’s why, from this point in the chapter, Harry is more authoritative and sure-footed than he’s ever been. Even though he’s never laid hands on the Elder Wand.
And then, on at least my third readthrough of the series, I remember finally understanding what it meant in the King’s Cross chapter when Dumbledore conceded to Harry that yes, he had intended the Elder Wand to go to Snape. That’s why we saw the ownership pass in such an uneventful manner. It wasn’t that Dumbledore was setting up Snape to be killed by Voldemort. Dumbledore had trained the wand, through a half-century of magical use, to recognize disarmament as the most powerful fight magic, more than the urge to dominate others or gain personal advantage. The wand could transfer allegiance to any wizard who demonstrated understanding of this, without that wizard even knowing it. What did it matter to the Elder Wand whether it passed to Dumbledore’s protégé Snape or to either of the two young men Snape had partnered together to train them both in disarmament? Magically speaking, Draco and Harry are interchangeable.
As Harry prepared himself to speak to Griphook and Ollivander, he “felt closer, this dawn, than ever before, closer to the heart of it all.” At this point, Harry starts making headway on the crisis of faith he’s had in the late Dumbledore. What has Harry learned from him?
“You gave Ron the Deluminator. You understood him… You gave him a way back….
“And you understood Wormtail too… You knew there was a bit of regret there, somewhere….
“And if you knew them… What did you know about me, Dumbledore?
“Am I meant to know, but not to seek? Did you know how hard I’d find that?”
Bill asks if Harry wants to speak to Griphook or Ollivander first.
“Harry hesitated. He knew what hung on his decision. There was hardly any time left; now was the moment to decide: Horcruxes or Hallows?
“’Griphook,’ Harry said. ‘I’ll speak to Griphook first.’
“His heart was racing as if he had been sprinting and had just cleared an enormous obstacle.”
What just happened? I can’t figure it out from the chapter yet, but I can think about the clues we have so far.
In both Ron’s story and Wormtail’s, they had betrayed loved ones but they still felt an urge to repair, to reunite. In Ron’s case, coming back by choice made him more powerful than if he had stayed all along; he could have continued to hurt his friends, but he regretted it, and it took more strength to return than to stay away. In Wormtail’s case, gratitude toward Harry might have led to remorse, and that would have made him more powerful; Voldemort ensured that wouldn’t happen.
This is similar to Dumbledore being more powerful than Voldemort because he also feels tempted to use his powers for domination or greed, but manages, for the most part, to resist.
This principle is similar to Golpalott’s Law: “The antidote for a blended poison will be equal to more than the sum of the antidotes for each of the separate components.” To reverse damage takes just as much as causing it, plus something extra. It’s similar to what Harry has observed about why Dumbledore always called on Snape, a former Death Eater, to undo Dark Magic: to reverse it, you need the full knowledge of how to cast the Dark Magic successfully in the first place, plus the extra power to resist the temptation, the remorse that you ever gave in, the desire to make amends.
This extra element, which includes the guilty experience of having cast Dark Magic, made Dumbledore more powerful than Grindelwald or Voldemort. In the previous chapter, we saw a demonstration of it from Draco: he has cast Unforgivables but refused to betray Harry further, a choice that took more power than acquiescing. Now that Harry has Draco’s wand, he will soon use it to learn how that feels, casting Imperio and Crucio with it, but then abstaining from using his Dark Magic to cast the Killing Curse and casting Expelliarmus with it instead, the same choices Draco has made with that wand.
Harry tells Griphook he needs to break into a Gringotts vault and argues, “I’m not trying to get myself any treasure, I’m not trying to take anything for personal gain.” Dumbledore taught Harry this rule of magic by putting the Sorcerer’s Stone in the Mirror of Erised, that super-magical objects belong to those who want them to protect others.
Hermione picks up a clue from the conversation with Griphook: Harry believes there’s a Horcrux in the Lestrange vault. So… is Harry supposed to value destroying Voldemort over pursuing the Hallows? Can that be it?
Harry asks Ollivander about wands switching allegiance when they have been won.
“A person can still use a wand that hasn’t chosen them, though?” asked Harry.
“Oh yes, if you are any wizard at all you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex.”
Yes, they are. Now take that understanding and apply it to gender. Please. It’s 2023 and sometimes these thoughts erupt into our re-reading experiences.
Harry is completely in control of this interaction: “Ollivander looked horrified, transfixed, by the amount that Harry knew” about what he’d told Voldemort under torture. When Ollivander asks how, Harry doesn’t even answer, just inexorably keeps pressing:
“We were talking about the other wand, the wand that changes hands by murder.”
“The idea of the Dark Lord in possession of the Deathstick is, I must admit… formidable….” [Ollivander! This is why we Ravenclaws make people nervous!] “Whether it needs to pass by murder, I do not know.”
So we have more clues. Someone can use a wand without having its allegiance. Voldemort knew Gregorovitch had the wand, confirming for Harry that it was Grindelwald who told Voldemort in the previous chapter, “Kill me, then! You will not win, you cannot win! That wand will never, ever be yours –“
Whatever he meant by that.
“Voldemort was at the gates of Hogwarts; Harry could see him standing there, and see too the lamp bobbing in the pre-dawn, coming closer and closer.” This is a reprise of a moment from the beginning of Half-Blood Prince, when Harry comes late to the start-of-term feast with a broken nose and sees that someone is coming to the Hogwarts gates to let him in: “A lantern was bobbing at the distant foot of the castle” being carried, as Harry realized “with a rush of pure loathing,” by Snape, who’s mean to him the whole way back.
Harry explains to Ron and Hermione that Dumbledore won the Elder Wand from Grindelwald and it’s at Hogwarts now. Harry doesn’t tell them exactly where, only that while they were talking to Griphook and Ollivander, Voldemort went to Hogwarts for the wand. It agitates Ron that they didn’t try to get it first. But Harry says, “Dumbledore didn’t want me to have it. He didn’t want me to take it. He wanted me to get the Horcruxes.”
Then Harry lets himself use the scar connection. “And now everything was cool and dark: The sun was barely visible over the horizon as he glided alongside Snape…” Now that Harry has mastered Occlumency, he’s testing out how to see through Voldemort’s eyes and understand how Voldemort thinks, without fear of losing himself.
“Snape bowed and set off back up the path, his black cloak billowing behind him.”
This, on page 500, is Snape’s first appearance in Deathly Hallows since Charity Burbage died on page 12. Snape has come with his lantern in the darkness to let Voldemort in… and through Voldemort, Harry… and the reader. Now that Harry has learned how to Occlude, he and Snape can work together at last. They’re closing in on Voldemort from either side without his feeling it. From this moment on, Voldemort is doomed.
Voldemort splits open Dumbledore’s tomb and feels “amused derision” toward the corpse. “Had the old fool imagined that marble or death would protect the wand? Had he thought that the Dark Lord would be scared to violate his tomb?”
OH. We will still need more clues, but that’s the final one we get in this chapter.
No, of course Dumbledore hadn’t thought those things. That was why he had arranged things so that the Elder Wand’s true loyalty would be, as he thought, to Snape, to someone who wouldn’t even be aware of it. Just as with the Sorcerer’s Stone, Dumbledore knew it would claim allegiance only to someone great enough to want it to prevent harm to others. That’s what Grindelwald meant in the previous chapter when he told Voldemort, “That wand will never, ever be yours –”
If Harry went after the wand to become Master of Death and survive Voldemort’s attacks, his aim would have been his own gain. Instead, he had faith – he trusted – that the wand would not choose to switch allegiance to Voldemort. He was meant to know this, and not to seek the wand.
So Harry’s job, as directed by Dumbledore, was not to save his own life against dying but to do something greater for Voldemort – to destroy the Horcruxes until he returned to Voldemort the gift of mortality and an unfractured soul. To connect with the lead of Voldemort’s soul and transform it alchemically into gold. And once Voldemort was returned to mortality, to let him die and thereby end his tyranny. That’s as much as we learn before this chapter ends with a brilliant bit of misdirection as Voldemort takes the wand:
“A shower of sparks flew from its tip, sparkling over the corpse of its last owner, ready to serve a new master at last.” Voldemort thinks this new master is himself. Harry has a different theory, but the book withholds it here; that’s for another chapter.