67

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ollivander is missing and his shop is closed.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Bellatrix gets a new wand (somehow) and:

Voldemort / Death Eaters have taken over Hogwarts

Since Ollivander's is closed, how are new first years entering Hogwarts acquiring wands? Book 7 does show some measure of wand legislation under the new regime.

Does the Ministry have possession of all of Ollivander's wands and only release one to first years/replacements after verification of blood status, or do the Death Eaters have them all or a cache of some (see the Bellatrix question linked above)?

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  • 74
    The first time they mention olivander, hagrid says he's the best, which i take to implicitly mean there are other, albeit worse, wandmakers
    – user88476
    Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 18:42
  • Bellatrix got her wand off Ollivander because Voldemort had him make wands in captivity
    – Mikasa
    Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 18:57
  • @MikasaPinata - you'll want to go answer that (w/ evidence) here: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/171969/… :)
    – NKCampbell
    Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 18:58
  • 3
    @MikasaPinata Bellatrix lost her wand in the same fight where Ollivander was rescued, so if he made her wand it would have to have been before she lost hers.
    – Kevin
    Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 21:57
  • 3
    At Sickle Tree, Family Sickle, Sickle General, etc.? Cheap wands from the Orient? Commented Oct 17, 2017 at 20:33

6 Answers 6

110

There are other wand-makers.

When they first get the news that Ollivander is kidnapped by the Death Eaters, Ginny asks how people will get their wands.

“Talking of Diagon Alley,’ said Mr Weasley, ‘looks like Ollivander’s gone too.’

‘The wand-maker?’ said Ginny, looking startled.

‘That’s the one. Shop’s empty. No sign of a struggle. No one knows whether he left voluntarily or was kidnapped.’

‘But wands – what’ll people do for wands?’

‘They’ll make do with other makers,’ said Lupin. ‘But Ollivander was the best, and if the other side have got him it’s not so good for us.”
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 6 (Draco's Detour)

The first years at Hogwarts under the Dark Lord's control could have gotten wands from any of them. The Dark Lord wouldn't have considered it important to make sure first years had the best quality wands.

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    presumably he may not only be the best wand maker but also the most expensive, with quality often comes cost. Competitors would surely have existed to meet the needs of the less well off or those looking to save money
    – nickson104
    Commented Oct 17, 2017 at 8:44
45

Not the highest level of canon, but at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter exhibition you can visit a rival wand-shop further down Diagon Alley, Wands by Gregorovitch.

enter image description here

Apparently their key selling point is that rather than going through a bunch of wand-choosing-mumbo-jumbo with that old buffer Ollivander, you can just walk in and buy the wand of your own choosing.

19

Even though Olivander's Shop is an important part of the Harry Potter story, it's not reasonable to assume all wands were distributed through that shop alone. There would be other shops around the world, and as with the Weasley family, there would be hand-me-downs. And of course there must be some number of other wizards around the world who actually craft the wands in the first place.

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  • of course, there are other wandmakers (Gregorovitch being one), but, we've seen that Diagon Alley is the main avenue (no pun intended) for obtaining first-year accouterments.
    – NKCampbell
    Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 17:41
  • 2
    But the books don't say there isn't another wandmaker IN diagon alley. Since olivander left, i would assume someone else would come and fill the vacuum (or wizards just aren't good businessmen haha&
    – user88476
    Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 18:44
8

What do you think the Ministry of Magic under Voldemort's control was doing with the wands of Muggle-borns that were sentenced to Azkaban?

The Commission punished anyone who could not prove to have wizarding heritage for this alleged action, sentencing them to Azkaban.

... or were punished less severly?

Furthermore, their "interviews" were shams, fully intent on sending innocent Muggle-borns to Azkaban, or stripping them of their wands and jobs, leaving them impoverished.

As discussed at How do the Azkaban escapees get their wands back? Wands don't just vanish when one is sentenced to Azkaban. And since the muggle-borns were unable to keep their wands, there is an ever-growing inventory of potentially available wands for new First Years.

(I don't have definitive evidence that wands were recycled in this way. I doubt we will ever know. So many records from that period were poorly recorded, poorly filed, or were destroyed ...)

5

As the other answers said, there are other wand makers, Olivander himself mentions his competition in The goblet of fire (chapter The Weighing of the Wands):

Viktor Krum got up and slouched, round-shouldered and duck-footed, toward Mr. Ollivander. He thrust out his wand and stood scowling, with his hands in the pockets of his robes.

"Hmm," said Mr. Olivander, "this is a Gregorovitch creation, unless I'm much mistaken? A fine wand-maker, though the styling is never quite what I. . . however. ."

3

Hagrid says something along the lines of "Olivander's - no place better" which hints at their being more than one shop.

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    Can you elaborate a bit more with canon evidence?
    – Edlothiad
    Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 19:01
  • 1
    Or hints at there being no other shop at all! :) Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 20:25

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