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HP book 1 ch.5 - Diagon Alley, with wands
Mar. 18th, 2025 03:20 amThe Leaky Cauldron is famous, says Hagrid - despite it being tiny & grubby. The barman immediately knows who Harry is, and everybody there picks up on it. Daedalus Diggle is there - and is stunned that Harry remembers him; Hagrid introduces Prof. Quirrel, who will be teaching him. Q. is doing a good job acting nervous.
The illustrated edition outdoes itself in this section, I think: there's the pub sign, a wigmaker (Tangle & Notts), Briggs Bros Brooms, Bufo's Frogs and Toads. There appears to be a small dragon on its roof. There's a building with plants growing all over it, a bootmaker, an enchanted-mirror specialist, Twinkle's Telescopes, Pettichar's ("shirts for little squirts"), & very large: Flourish & Blotts. (Belcher's Bottled Beers is on the ground floor, & Madam Malkin is squeezed in next door.)
On this section generally: I get it that Hagrid doesn't want to talk about Voldemort or even his school days, generally, although he's very straightforward about having been expelled - but it's weird to me that he holds back that he was AT Hogwarts when Voldemort was there even while they're actually discussing that. I guess there is a pretty serious (unofficial?) ban on discussing Voldemort at all, and nobody else volunteers that they knew him, either. Sort of a conspiracy of silence.
OK, so they buy Harry a cauldron, scales, & a collapsing telescope. Hagrid buys Hedwig as Harry''s birthday present. They get his books, his robes (& he meets Malfoy), and finally his wand. They make Mr. Ollivander deliberately creepy, I think (even more so in the movie, but it's in the book, too)
wand info (per Ollivander)
Harry's mom - 10-1/4" willow, good for charms
Harry's dad - 11" mahogany, pliable, powerful & good for transformation
So the wand chooses the wizard, but I guess the implication here is that the wand's magic sees inside a person somehow and can tell if they're suited? and it communicates this to Ollivander??
(more)
Voldemort - 13-1/2" (does size matter? I'm guessing yes, to some extent)
Hagrid - 16", oak, rather bendy (Hagrid admits to having the pieces. Does he go get a new wand after he's cleared, later? I don't recall that we ever see him openly using a wand.)
Ollivander's uses 3 items as wand cores: unicorn hairs, phoenix feathers, dragon heartstrings
So.... Harry: 11", holly and phoenix feather, "supple" says Mr.O. The phoenix is Fawkes, we learn later. Tom Riddle's wand also had a feather from the same phoenix, and those are the only two that Fawkes contributed.
Harry does try wands with the other two types of cores. The wand costs 7 galleons. Is the "exchange rate" with muggle money ever discussed? because if galleons are actually made of gold, that's a very expensive wand.
Of course in the movie, Harry goes straight to the train, but in the book, they don't discuss how Harry gets all this stuff - incl. Hedwig - back to the Dursleys.
The illustrated edition outdoes itself in this section, I think: there's the pub sign, a wigmaker (Tangle & Notts), Briggs Bros Brooms, Bufo's Frogs and Toads. There appears to be a small dragon on its roof. There's a building with plants growing all over it, a bootmaker, an enchanted-mirror specialist, Twinkle's Telescopes, Pettichar's ("shirts for little squirts"), & very large: Flourish & Blotts. (Belcher's Bottled Beers is on the ground floor, & Madam Malkin is squeezed in next door.)
On this section generally: I get it that Hagrid doesn't want to talk about Voldemort or even his school days, generally, although he's very straightforward about having been expelled - but it's weird to me that he holds back that he was AT Hogwarts when Voldemort was there even while they're actually discussing that. I guess there is a pretty serious (unofficial?) ban on discussing Voldemort at all, and nobody else volunteers that they knew him, either. Sort of a conspiracy of silence.
OK, so they buy Harry a cauldron, scales, & a collapsing telescope. Hagrid buys Hedwig as Harry''s birthday present. They get his books, his robes (& he meets Malfoy), and finally his wand. They make Mr. Ollivander deliberately creepy, I think (even more so in the movie, but it's in the book, too)
wand info (per Ollivander)
Harry's mom - 10-1/4" willow, good for charms
Harry's dad - 11" mahogany, pliable, powerful & good for transformation
So the wand chooses the wizard, but I guess the implication here is that the wand's magic sees inside a person somehow and can tell if they're suited? and it communicates this to Ollivander??
(more)
Voldemort - 13-1/2" (does size matter? I'm guessing yes, to some extent)
Hagrid - 16", oak, rather bendy (Hagrid admits to having the pieces. Does he go get a new wand after he's cleared, later? I don't recall that we ever see him openly using a wand.)
Ollivander's uses 3 items as wand cores: unicorn hairs, phoenix feathers, dragon heartstrings
So.... Harry: 11", holly and phoenix feather, "supple" says Mr.O. The phoenix is Fawkes, we learn later. Tom Riddle's wand also had a feather from the same phoenix, and those are the only two that Fawkes contributed.
Harry does try wands with the other two types of cores. The wand costs 7 galleons. Is the "exchange rate" with muggle money ever discussed? because if galleons are actually made of gold, that's a very expensive wand.
Of course in the movie, Harry goes straight to the train, but in the book, they don't discuss how Harry gets all this stuff - incl. Hedwig - back to the Dursleys.
