silverbriseis

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Can you shut the fuck up please?

I could, if I wanted to. It's an entirely voluntary action. I am actively choosing to continue talking.

[silverbriseis]

Hey I have a question for you if you ever end up writing more meta on wandlore. In book 7 Harry's wand spits flames at Voldemort. The explanation we're given is that it imbibed some of his powers in the graveyard. The problem is it didn't react to him like this when Harry faced him in book 5. I think this is just a plot hole on JKR's part but from an in-universe POV do you have thoughts on what could have caused this? Only thing I can think of is either that Voldemort briefly possessing Harry in book 5 further linked them and/or that in book 5 Harry didn't even try to defend himself because he was taken by surprise and thus didn't try to do anything before Dumbledore intervened. Interesting to hear your ideas.

Hi!

This is a really fun ask, I love me some wandlore! That and one of my favorite pastimes is solving JKR magical plot holes by figuring out the magical theory she didn't think all the way through.

So, the first thing I did was compare the two scenes you mentioned. This is the one from book 5:

“I have nothing more to say to you, Potter,” he said quietly. “You have irked me too often, for too long. AVADA KEDAVRA!” Harry had not even opened his mouth to resist. His mind was blank, his wand pointing uselessly at the floor.

(OotP, 813)

This is the one from book 7:

It was over: He could not see or hear where Voldemort was; he glimpsed another Death Eater swooping out of the way and heard, “Avada—” As the pain from Harry’s scar forced his eyes shut, his wand acted of its own accord. He felt it drag his hand around like some great magnet, saw a spurt of golden fire through his half-closed eyelids, heard a crack and a scream of fury. the remaining Death Eater yelled; Voldemort screamed, “No!”

(DH, 58)

Now, honestly, you're right, if the magic imbued Harry's wand in the graveyard I'd expect it to react to the killing curse Voldemort casts in book 5 the same as it did in book 7. And clearly, it does not. Even when it's the same situation, same spell, same enemy, Harry can't defend himself (if for different reasons). In both, his wand isn't even aimed at Voldemort at first at all.

So, I started wondering what is different between the scenes. Clearly, the situation is almost identical, so what difference could affect how Harry's wand reacts?

And then it hit me: Voldemort's wand.

In the first scene, in book 5, Voldemort is using his own wand, yaw and phoenix feather, brother wand to Harry. In the scene in book 7, the wand Voldemort uses is Lucius'.

So, my theory is that Harry's wand reacted differently because Voldemort wasn't carrying its brother, but a different wand.

So, with this in mind, let's try to explain what Harry's wand is doing and why.

The explanation we get in the books is that the Piori Incantatum in the graveyard essentially "charged" Harry's wand against Voldemort specifically:

“I believe that your wand imbibed some of the power and qualities of Voldemort’s wand that night, which is to say that it contained a little of Voldemort himself. So your wand recognized him when he pursued you, recognized a man who was both kin and mortal enemy, and it regurgitated some of his own magic against him, magic much more powerful than anything Lucius’s wand had ever performed. Your wand now contained the power of your enormous courage and of Voldemort’s own deadly skill: What chance did that poor stick of Lucius Malfoy’s stand?”

(DH, 600)

But I already mentioned here, that I don't think this scene is the real Dumbledore. So, I'm not sure how much faith can be placed in this explanation, especially since when Voldemort carried the brother wand, Harry's wand didn't shoot out golden flames.

(As an aside, I don't think wands can sponge up magic like that at all...)

But I think Harry's subconscious is right about the flames resulting from the multitude of magical connections between Voldemort and Harry. After the graveyard, they are, like, crazy magically connected. We've got:

Soul - Harry has a piece of Voldy's soul because he's a Horcrux

Blood (spirit) - Voldemort used Harry's blood in his resurrection ritual so their lives are bound to each other.

Magic - wands share a core.

And I'm going to forgo talking about the prophecy for this, but it's kind of bonkers how many layers of magic are binding them. And I think this is the key to it all.

So, essentially you have two wizards, that for the intent and purposes of magic, are as close as kin as possible. By soul and spirit, they are an extension of each other. So certain magic (like Lily's blood protection that is based on blood) probably sees Voldemort as an extension of Harry or vice versa. But they are not the same, as Dumbledore said in OotP: "but in essence divided", and other magic can recognize that (like the Elder Wand).

And the wands know this. Voldemort's yaw wand and Harry's holly wand are referred to as brothers, and I think that name is quite telling. Brother wands don't seem to want to fight each other, they share a core so they aren't meant to turn on each other, they are kin, extensions of each other. This is why the Priori Incantatum happened in the graveyard — to stop them from fighting. And if Harry cast a spell in the ministry in OotP, it would've happened again.

I think that first Priori Incantatum did change something and mattered for what happened in book 7. It basically was like an introduction. Afterwards, Harry's wand can recognize Voldemort, his magic, and his wand.

What I think happened with Lucius' wand is not far from Harry's subconscious explanation. The wand recognized Voldemort as Harry's kin, an extension of Harry himself, but he was carrying an unfamiliar wand - an enemy wand. I think the combination of kin with an unfamiliar wand is what caused it. Kind of like a jealous sort of "Harry isn't supposed to be with another wand". The yaw wand was fine because it shared the same core, the wands are connected just like Voldemort and Harry, so the brother wand wouldn't register as a threat.

For the holly wand, being attacked by an extension of Harry with an unfamiliar wand, felt off. Wrong. The magic felt wrong like it was 3 inches too far to the left. And I think that's what it reacted to. To the sense of wrongness that comes with seeing a familiar person somewhere, they really shouldn't be. This whiplash, I think, is what registered as a threat to the holly wand.

We know some wands can be sentient to this degree. Sycamore wands, burst into flames when they get 'bored':

It is a quirk of these handsome wands that they may combust if allowed to become ‘bored’, and many witches and wizards, settling down into middle age, are disconcerted to find their trusty wand bursting into flame in their hand as they ask it, one more time, to fetch their slippers. 

(from Pottermore)

Hazel wands die with their masters:

so devoted to its owner that it often ‘wilts’ (which is to say, it expels all its magic and refuses to perform, often necessitating the extraction of the core and its insertion into another casing, if the wand is still required) at the end of its master’s life

(from Pottermore)

So I think it's completely in line with what we know about wands that Harry's wand would get protective when something in Voldemort's magic feels off due to the unfamiliar wand. On the same page about wand woods holly wands are said to be very volatile and protective, so the behavior fits its personality. I think Harry's wand is protective of him and acts up to protect him when it recognizes it needs to. Voldemort and Harry's connection along with Voldemort using a different wand registered to the holly wand as a threat it needs to protect against.

TL;DR

Harry's wand recognized Voldemort as a kin of Harry. Voldemort's wand is its own kin, and therefore not a threat in OotP. The moment Voldemort, whom Harry's wand now recognizes, used an unfamiliar wand (Lucius' wand) Harry's wand registered him and the unfamiliar wand as a threat and reacted to protect Harry. The magic flames shot out were its own, not Voldemort's sponged-up magic.

At least, that's my theory.

[silverbriseis]

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Harry: My family was murdered by Voldemort.

Tom, without missing a beat: What a coincidence, so was mine!

Tom: We have so much in common.

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god i’d forgotten that in the letter harry writes to sirius in ootp at the end of his first week of detentions with umbridge where she’s torturing him with the blood quill, he tells sirius “we’ve got a new defense against the dark arts teacher, professor umbridge. she’s nearly as nice as your mum” as a way of trying to indicate to sirius how awful umbridge is

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Soulmates Au, but in the weird and fucked up sort of way. In one universe they try to kill each other forever, in another they're childhood best friends, in another they're married with three children and a dog. If one dies the other loses their purpose, they hurt each other and everyone around them, they hurt each other now because they also hurt each other in the past, sometimes they look at each other and only see a version of themselves that died long ago. They'll always be together, always chase each other in one way or another, they'll always crash and burn beautifully again and again.

They're inevitable.

[silverbriseis]

SVSSS fans trying to write a qijiu/bingjiu fix-it

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Harry when Ron’s hair grew out during the beginning of book 7 probably:

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remake of an old doodle

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sorry, i thought we all liked that fictional woman because she sucks

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lan wangji, upon learning that students in his class are cheating on their assignments with ChatGPT, engineers a way of phrasing his homework questions such that they cannot be answered by ChatGPT. this does not prevent people from rephrasing the questions and then asking ChatGPT anyways, but it at least catches the students who just copy/paste everything into ChatGPT.

wei wuxian, upon learning that students in his class are cheating on their assignments with ChatGPT, builds a fake ChatGPT-imitation site that logs the IP address of anyone who accesses it, and then bribes some of the reliable students in his class to spread the link among the rest of the student population. while he does not report anyone to the school's disciplinary body for cheating, he does succeed in scaring several students rather badly.

nie huaisang, upon learning that students in his class are cheating on their assignments with ChatGPT, offers 15% extra credit to any student who turns in another student for using ChatGPT. then he sits back and watches the chaos unfold.

[silverbriseis]

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Voldemort had no equals and he and Bellatrix do not have to be equals for him to care about her. She is the only character who emotionally affected him multiple times. He reacted much more intensely to her death than his last Horcrux's and he put her over his long term plans because she mattered. That is fact. Cry about it, but there's nothing you can do to change that. Nothing. Nil. You and all Bellamort haters are completely and utterly powerless to change the fact that they canonically fucked and Bellatrix was the living being Voldemort canonically cared about the most, no matter how loud you are. Nothing will ever change that fact because it's canon.

See. Swallow it. Don't try to deny literature, stupid little kid.

Voldemort had no equals??!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!???? Who the fuck is the series named after?!?!?!???!?!????!????!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!?!?!!!?!?!! I must have imagined the prophecy goddamnit!

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There's no evidence that Voldemort and Bella had a sexual or intimate relationship when she was young. Why would it be pedophilia if they had a daughter when both were adults? If you think that's wrong, then you're clearly playing the puritan while defending ships where Voldemort would fuck a character that both he and Bella called a little boy. The audacity 🤣

If I, as a over 50 year old met a 17 year old and then proceeded to have a sexual relationship with her down the line– I would be called a pedophile regardless of when this relationship started by other people for obvious reasons.

If you don't consider that as pedophilia then I'm quite concerned for you.

[silverbriseis]

our fates are entwined whether you like it or not you stupid bastard

[silverbriseis]

Fine. You're into a pedophile and illogical ship but since you seem so pathetically submissive I won't torture you.

You're free ❤️

"pedophile ship" as if Bella wasn't indoctrinated into the DEs when she was still in Hogwarts like snape?????? You know she met Voldemort when she was most likely underage like all the other DEs right?????????? do you think that it stops being pedophilia when the victim grows up??????????????????????

[silverbriseis]

In a horrible twist of fate, you and your worst enemy are soulmates. Tell the story of how you two reluctantly fall in love.