Posts tagged Wand

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Posted 11 months ago

J.K. Rowling’s Wand

If you could pick your own wand core what would it be?

Phoenix feather and… let’s see… possibly walnut, I love walnut wood.

Comic Relief live chat transcript, March 2001

J.K. Rowling shares the Phoenix Feather core with the two most important characters in the Harry Potter books: Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. This seems only consequential, seeing that she also shares her birthday with Harry. You can read on Pottermore that phoenix feathers are “the rarest core type” and “capable of the greatest range of magic”. They “show the most initiative, sometimes acting of their own accord” and are “the hardest to tame and to personalise, and their allegiance is usually hard won”. 

According to Pottermore, Walnut wands are usually found in the hands of “highly intelligent witches and wizards” and “magical innovators and inventors”. How fitting for the inventor of the magical world! Walnut is a “handsome wood possessed of unusual versatility and adaptability”. There’s also a note of caution: “The walnut wand will, once subjugated, perform any task its owner desires, provided that the user is of sufficient brilliance.” That’s why J.K. Rowling shares her wand wood with none other than Bellatrix Lestrange: However brilliant the owner might be, in the wrong hands a walnut wand becomes a “lethal weapon”.

(There’s a rumour that J.K. Rowling once said her wand would be “Mahogany and Walnut with Phoenix Feather, 10 ¼ inches”. Apparently this was mentioned in this book, but I couldn’t find any evidence for that claim.)

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Posted 11 months ago
zacharyalllen answered your question: Is J.K. Rowling a Hufflepuff?
Her self-assigned wand is not Pottermore-possible. It’s Mahogany and Walnut with Phoenix Feather, 10 ¼ inches.

I’ve read this on fansites, but does anybody have a source for that?

UPDATE: I actually found a source:

Logan Talbot - If you could pick your own wand core what would it be?

Phoenix feather and… let’s see… possibly walnut, I love walnut wood.

Comic Relief live chat transcript, March 2001

I don’t know where people got the idea about the length and mahogany part. Looks like it was mentioned in this book, but it doesn’t look like that reliable to me.