Mister Tom-Marvolo-Riddle's Wand

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> It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather — just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother, gave you that scar. Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew.
>
> Ollivander expounds on Voldemort's wand, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone

**Tom Riddle's wand** was 13½" long, crafted from yew, and affixed with a ***phoenix feather*** ***core***. The core of wand was taken from Fawkes, Albus Dumbledore's phoenix, whose tail feathers had also been used in the construction of Harry Potter's wand, making the two wands siblings.Template:Wand
It was manufactured by ***Garrick Ollivander*** and was the "brother" or "twin" of the wand of Harry Potter, as their wands share cores.
It was with this wand that Riddle murdered James and Lily Potter and countless others.

## History

### Purchase

In 1938, the eleven-year-old Tom Riddle travelled to Diagon Alley. Riddle entered Ollivanders Wand Shop and purchased a wand thirteen and one half inches long, made of ***yew*** and with a core composed of a ***Phoenix feather*** which chose Riddle as its master.

### Weapon of the Dark Lord

Over the course of his years at Hogwarts, Riddle's personality became darker and darker in secret, while to the outside world he appeared to be a model pupil. Inside, however, he was cruel, greedy and murderous, with a disregard for anyone but himself and seeing all others as either obstacles to be overcome or tools to be manipulated. The ends to which Riddle put his wand were less than noble and at times violent in his school years. Although Riddle rose to stardom in the eyes of much of the Hogwarts staff, he was never fully trusted by Albus Dumbledore due to their first encounter at Riddle's orphanage, where he accidentally let his true personality show in Dumbledore's presence.
In the summer of 1943, Riddle used his wand to enact a plot of revenge against his father, ***Tom Riddle Snr***, who had abandoned Riddle's mother, ***Merope Gaunt***, along with himself many years before and fled back to the village of ***Little Hangleton*** to live in his family's home, the ***Riddle House***. Riddle came to the village and met his uncle, ***Morfin Gaunt***, who told him the full story of Tom Riddle Snr and his sister Merope Gaunt. This story enraged Riddle, who then used his wand to stun his uncle and take his wand from him in turn. Riddle then proceeded to the Riddle House and murdered his father and his Muggle grandparents, ***Thomas*** and ***Mary Riddle***, with the Killing Curse using Morfin's wand.
Riddle then returned to the ***Gaunt Shack*** and replaced Morfin's wand on his person and used his own wand to modify Morfin's memory to make him confess to killing the Riddles so there would be no further investigation into the murders by the ***Ministry of Magic***. Riddle then stole ***Marvolo Gaunt's Ring*** from Morfin's hand and fled Little Hangleton, having committed the first of what would become many murders throughout the remainder of his life. However, he did not use his own wand to do so, in order to prevent any official from discovering his crime at the time.
Shortly after this, Riddle created the name of Lord Voldemort from an anagram of the letters of his true name to spare himself the memory of his "filthy Muggle father." Obsessed with immortality, he began studying Horcruxes from books in the restricted section of the Hogwarts Library and used his wand to create one using his childhood diary through the use of his earlier indirect murder of fellow student Myrtle Warren by means of the Basilisk of the Chamber of Secrets. He later questioned Potions Master ***Horace Slughorn*** about what would become of the wizard who made more than one Horcrux, inadvertently revealing his desire to make his soul a seven-part soul. Riddle continued to perfect his use of the Ollivander wand throughout his school career, eventually graduating from Hogwarts in 1945.
Following his graduation from Hogwarts, the newly-minted Lord Voldemort began to more openly put his wand to evil ends, using it to perform powerful dark magic and to murder others for the creation of new Horcruxes to insure his shield against death. After disappearing for a solid decade, Voldemort returned to request the Defence Against the Dark Arts post at Hogwarts from the new Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, who turned him down upon realising his true intentions in seeking the job. Riddle used his wand at that time to place a jinx on the job, causing its occupant to suffer some misfortune that would drive them from the job in a year or less.

### First Wizarding War

After his failure to acquire the Hogwarts post he sought, he declared open war on the wizarding world, intending to rule the world forever to make his ultimate dream a reality. He frequently employed the three Unforgivable Curses through the use of his wand, not hesitating in using the Killing Curse on those who opposed or annoyed him. Over the course of the First Wizarding War, the wand had become a weapon of murderous intent and a tool of dark magic at the hands of its master, who sank deeper and deeper into the Dark Arts until there was very little left of the boy who had originally purchased it that fateful day in Diagon Alley so many decades before.

#### Murder of the Potters

   In 1980, at the height of his power during his reign of terror, Lord Voldemort learned from one of his ***Death Eaters***, Severus Snape, that a prophecy had just been made concerning the coming birth of a child who would bring about his destruction from newly-appointed Professor of Divination, ***Sybill Trelawney***. Voldemort panicked at this and sprang into action, despite the fact that Snape had not heard the entire prophecy. He targeted Harry Potter some months later, and the Potter Family was forced to go into hiding in the village of Godric's Hollow. Though their location was concealed by means of the Fidelius Charm, they were betrayed by their Secret-Keeper, Peter Pettigrew, who sold their secret to Lord Voldemort to win the Dark Lord's favour.
On Hallowe'en night in 1981, Voldemort proceeded to Godric's Hollow shortly after Pettigrew's revelation and made his way to the home of the Potters. Once there, he quickly dispatched James Potter using his wand and proceeded upstairs to finish off his newborn nemesis. Lily Potter refused to step aside despite Voldemort's offer to let her live, and he again used his wand to kill her as well.

   This triggered a powerful means of protection for Harry that Voldemort could not easily penetrate henceforth. He then turned his wand on the infant Harry Potter, who was in his crib a few feet away. Voldemort attempted to use his wand to fatally curse Harry, but the Killing Curse backfired, rebounding upon Voldemort and ripping him from his body. At that moment, part of Voldemort's unstable soul fragmented and attached itself to the infant Harry Potter (accidentally making Harry Potter his unintentional seventh Horcrux) while the remaining part of Voldemort's maimed soul fled the scene.
Upon his curse rebounding upon himself and obliterating his body, Voldemort's wand fell somewhere nearby the spot where Voldemort had stood while casting the curse on Harry in the ruin of the Potter home. After Rubeus Hagrid rescued the infant Harry from the wreckage of the house later that evening, Peter Pettigrew returned to the house and discovered the Dark Lord's wand in the wreckage taking it with him as he fled the scene in order to prevent the wand from falling into the Ministry's hands and possibly exposing him as a traitor since all wands have a record of the spells they have cast and can be examined by those trained to do so. He would keep this wand in an undisclosed location for twelve long years afterwards, until the time when he could locate its true owner once again.

## Behind the scenes

* In the film adaptations Voldemort's wand is depicted as being white in colour, with a bone-like handle that matches the wand's sinister aesthetic. In reality, yew wood is a deep, rich caramel colour.
	+ In *Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* and *Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets*, the wand prop briefly glimpsed appears to be wooden, before the design was changed for *Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)*.
* In the film adaptations, Voldemort's wand is curved, whereas the Noble Collection makes the wand with a straight shaft. Also, the wand in the movies is a bit more white than the Noble Collection wand.
* Ralph Fiennes requested the hook-like part coming out of the bottom of the handle.
* Garrick Ollivander described this wand to Harry as "very powerful" (likely thanks to the the potency of the combination of the wood and core); this seems to contradict Hermione Granger's statement that wands are never independently powerful, but are "only as powerful as the wizards that use them." However, it is likely Ollivander and Granger were using two different meanings of the word "powerful", Hermione likely referring to the power granted by magical knowledge and skillfull spellcasting while Ollivander alluded to the raw power of spells cast with the wand.
* Assuming the wand was still intact at the time, Harry Potter might have won its allegiance following ***his final duel*** against Voldemort. If that is the case, it is highly unlikely that Harry will ever physically own, let alone use the wand considering Harry's violent history with the wand and its original owner.
* The wand is part of the Wizarding world franchise logo.
* Interestingly, Ginny Weasley's wand is also made of ***yew***. Therefore Harry Potter's mortal enemy and his soulmate had the wand made of the same material.

## Appearances

* Template:PS Template:1st Mention Template:Flashback
* Template:COS Template:1st Template:Flashback
* Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire
* Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 Template:Flashback

## Notes and references

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1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `PS5`
2. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `GF36`
3. ↑ Template:COS
4. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `HBP20`
5. ↑ Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix
6. ↑ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (film)
7. ↑ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)
8. ↑ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (film)<
9. ↑ Template:PS
10. ↑ Template:PM - Behind the scenes: How the wands were made
11. ↑ YouTube - 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2' Press Conference
12. ↑ https://www.pottermore.com/news/a-guide-to-the-wands-in-the-new-wizarding-world-logo