Of all the magical artifacts, objects, and weapons introduced in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World, the most sought after and iconic is the magic wand. Flying through the air on a broomstick sounds exhilarating, and a Remembrall would certainly come in handy, but nothing comes close to the unfathomable number of uses, both in combat and everyday life, of a trusty wand. Taking the concept of a magical wooden stick and injecting it with life and history, every wand Rowling wrote about has a story, imbued with the powers of magical creatures Harry encounters in his adventures.
Hairs of unicorns, feathers of phoenixes, and dragon heartstrings at their cores, most of the characters we meet buy their wands from Ollivander, the famed wandmaker who hunts and harvests from the fantastic beasts himself. The wand chooses the wizard, of course, so it only makes sense that the most powerful witches and warlocks possess the most powerful wands. Whether possessed by a member of Dumbledore's Army or a Death Eater, the strongest wands in Harry Potter can be found in good and evil hands alike.
Updated December 22nd, 2021 by George Chrysostomou: The wands of the various Fantastic Beasts franchise, these important magical tools are still front and center. What makes a wizard's wand powerful? How much can they actually impact the abilities of a wizard or witch? Who wields the weakest wand in Harry Potter, and who holds the strongest?
Neville Longbottom's Wand
Despite Neville’s sudden heroic turn to bravery in The Deathly Hallows, his magical abilities unfortunately never flourished. ing Dumbledore’s Army gave him some much-needed confidence, but before then, many of the series’ hilarious blunders involved Neville in some way. Brave and loyal until the last moment, Neville’s most iconic scene, in which he beheads Voldemort’s snake Nagini, is awesome. Still, his wand skills during the Battle of Hogwarts left a lot to be desired.
Made from elegant cherry wood and unicorn hair, this is in fact Neville’s second wand after his first was broken in the Department of Mysteries. Though his second wand must have been powerful enough to keep him alive and not be destroyed during the epic final battle, his best combat skills were clearly swordplay, delivering the final blow to Voldemort’s last Horcrux with the sword of Godric Gryffindor. Overall, Neville owns one of the weakest wands in Harry Potter.
Cedric Diggory's Wand
Hogwarts’ most popular student, Cedric was a reasonably accomplished wizard who was elected as the school’s champion for the Triwizard Tournament in The Goblet of Fire. Handsome and charming, Diggory was, underneath the gleam of popularity, a loyal Hufflepuff at heart who helped Harry when one of the tournament’s clues had him stumped. A final-year student, Cedric’s wand was skillful enough to see him through to the final task, but his real skill was with a broom.
A formidable adversary for Harry, Cedric was Hufflepuff’s Quidditch captain and seeker, even giving the Boy Who Lived a run for his money in the third-year championships. Another with a unicorn-hair core, Cedric’s wand would have been powerful enough to see him through his N.E.W.T.s with flying colors before he was sadly killed by Peter Pettigrew.
Fleur Delacour's Wand
Another Triwizard Champion, Fleur’s wand is more notable for its rarity than power. Not covered by the books, Bill Weasley’s French wife Fleur is in fact one-quarter veela, a species that takes the form of beautiful women but can shift into hideous monsters when angered. Fleur’s slick rosewood wand contains veela hair at its core. It remains an unanswered question in the Harry Potter franchise whether this wand core is unique in the Wizarding World.
Still, it’s clear that the wand’s abilities needed some persuasion as, despite its proficiency in charms, Delacour performed the worst in each of the three Triwizard tasks. Her performance in later chapters more than made up for her lack of skill during her final year at Beauxbatons, however. Surviving both the covert mission to smuggle Harry Potter out of Privet Drive and the Battle of Hogwarts, the Ministry of Magic awarded her with medals of bravery for her crucial role in Voldemort’s defeat.
Dolores Umbridge's Wand
A scarier villain than Voldemort played wickedly by Imelda Staunton, Dolores Umbridge becomes a sinister threat to Harry and his friends in The Order of the Phoenix, frightening anyone who’s ever experienced an authority figure abusing their power. Her wand is surprisingly short at a mere 8 inches, but it was nevertheless very capable of difficult and nonverbal magic.
Her teaching was assisted by the flick of a wand that would right lines of magical theory on the chalkboard. She was also proficient in the Dark Arts, an area of magic that only a witch who was as powerful as she was evil can master. Her biggest achievement was the Black Quill, which she actually invented. Forced to be used by Harry, the quill is a complex torturing device that cuts the words it writes into the hand of the . Only the most insidious of witches could have thought of something so twisted. Umbridge's magical object overall is definitely one of the weakest wands in Harry Potter.
Viktor Krum's Wand
Only four years older than Harry in The Goblet of Fire, Viktor Krum was already representing his home country of Bulgaria in the Quidditch World Cup when he was eighteen years old. Famously catching the snitch to end the match on his own , Bulgaria managed to lose against Ireland despite his Seeking skills. Despite being a Quidditch prodigy, Krum was also an accomplished wizard under the tutelage of Boris Karkaroff at Durmstrang Institute, which taught its students magic beyond the capabilities of pupils at Hogwarts and Beauxbaton.
Using unconventional yet successful methods to complete the Triwizard tasks (who could forget Krum with the head of a shark?), Durmstrang students, with an ex-Death Eater as their heaster, were trained as formidable duelers – a practice unsuccessfully attempted by Gilderoy Lockhart – and s of the Dark Arts.
Ron Weasley's Wand
Before Harry’s best friend became a famous and skillful wizard in his own right, he of course had to struggle through the second year with a wand that had been splintered in two by the Womping Willow and hastily taped back together. This led to some disastrous attempts at spells, and the wand wouldn’t rank anywhere on a list of the most powerful. Ironically, Ron’s second wand was made of willow, with a unicorn tail hair at its center, that seemed to have served the youngest Weasley boy far better at Hogwarts.
After the pressure to exceed the achievements of his older brothers wore off, his magical confidence grew enormously. By his fifth year, Ron was able to conjure a fully-formed Patronus, a feat only manageable by the most advanced wizards, and survived several battles with Dark Wizards at Harry’s side. He also exceeded expectations in all of his exams despite having one of the weakest wands in Harry Potter and having a shaky first few years at Hogwarts.
Draco Malfoy's Wand
Harry’s worst enemy, until Voldemort’s resurrection, Draco Malfoy is the wizard equivalent of the entitled private schoolboy. Coming from one of the wealthiest wizarding families in Britain, Malfoy is the spawn of Dark Wizards and pure-blood supremacists, and boy, does it show. Eventually switching allegiances after the Battle of Hogwarts, Draco was considered a competent enough wizard to be indoctrinated into the Death Eaters to complete tasks for Voldemort as a spy at Hogwarts.
Though his dueling skills were lacking, he was nonetheless powerful enough to master some aspects of the Dark Arts. Regardless of Draco's debatable amount of cowardice, he was proficient at several wizarding skills. Most talented at potions (perhaps due to some favoritism from Professor Snape), Malfoy excelled at Transfiguration, as well as reaching a higher level of Occlumency, the ability to shield one’s mind, than Harry.
Ollivander's Wand
Described as the best wandmaker in Britain, Mr. Ollivander is the leading scholar in wandlore and supplies almost all of the characters in the series with their wands. Discovering that different wand cores led to different temperaments before Ollivander began his career wizards would forge their own wands, often leading to messy results. It makes sense, then, that the country’s leader in wand making would be a powerful wizard and in possession of a powerful wand, himself.
Wielding a sturdy, 12-3/4-inch wand with a center of dragon heartstring, his wand is a rarely seen yet formidable instrument. Choosing study over combat, Ollivander’s wisdom and skills in magical knowledge rival even that of Albus Dumbledore. Possessing an eidetic memory, the wandmaker is able to recall the details of every wand he has ever sold and is also able to use any wand he chooses with the same proficiency.
Harry Potter's Wand
Who would have thought that the nephew of a simple Muggle family from Surrey would have grown up into such an accomplished wizard? Since he first arrived at the steps of Number 4, Privet Drive, Harry was destined for great things and a great wand. Never excelling in his school subjects, Harry’s skill as a wizard shined in the heat of battle. Despite his dueling classes in The Chamber of Secrets under the misguided tutoring of Gilderoy Lockhart, Harry developed into a fierce combatant and managed to defeat several Dark Wizards.
What makes Harry’s wand special and one of the strongest wands in Harry Potter is its core of Phoenix feather, which came from the same bird as Lord Voldemort’s wand. A detriment at times, it also gives Harry an occasional advantage when the clashing of his Disarming Spell with Voldemort’s Killing Curse forms Priori Incantatum and allows Harry a brief meeting with the echoes of his parents.
Molly Weasley's Wand
The mother of seven children and the husband of a lowly employee for the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, Molly needed a stern temperament and a durable wand to keep up with all the chaos that must have occurred in the early years at the Burrow. Although the statistics of her wand aren’t confirmed, Molly was highly skilled in household spells, even managing to somehow break Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration by conjuring food (probably by using a highly complex Summoning Charm), and was also a remarkable healer after the Battle of Hogwarts and Harry’s excursion from Privet Drive.
Most notable, however, was her defeat of Bellatrix Lestrange, Voldemort’s most trusted and powerful Death Eater. Never considered as a skillful duelist, when her daughter, Ginny, was threatened, she was able to defeat Bellatrix with a few simple flicks of her risk.
