I know this has been brought up in a dozen different threads now, but I thought we might consolidate here. This is, after all, a fairly major issue as of book 7.

Many people have questioned the "ownership" of wands now in relation to disarming, duels, etc. etc. There is also the question of how Dumbledore beat Grindelwald if he had the Elder Wand. After taking a look back through book 7 and the end of 6 here's what I've come up with.

How Wands Choose: At the heart of the matter a great deal seems to ride on intent and outcome.

First, a wand chooses its first wizard after creation. We really don't have any insight into how exactly this works other than some aspect of personality possibly.

Second, if a wand is "freely give" to another to use. Examples of this are Voldemort being freely given Lucius' wand, or Harry using Hermione's wand.

Third, if the owener of the wand is "defeated". This is where the "intent" comes into play. If you just disarm someone in a duel, such as in school, your intent was to only do that and win the duel. Thus, ownership does not change hands. In the case of Aurors arresting wizards, it would be similar since the intent is to simply disarm and arrest. However, if your intent is to defeat your enemy and take their wand, then the ownership can pass.

A prime example is Draco's intent to take Dumbledore's wand from him in book 6. Harry's intent to take the wands from Draco and use them against Greyback and his other enemies in book 7 is another example.

We already knew that intent played a fairly hefty role in the magic of the Potterverse. A prime example would be the Unforgiveables. You have to truely intend (aka want) to hurt someone to use the Cruciatus. You have to intend to truely control someone for the Imperius to work, and you have to truely hate someone and intend for them to die for the Killing Curse to do its job.

Thus, it's not a long shot to believe that the magic behind a wand choosing a wizard has an element of intent to it also.

The Elder Wand: Grindelwald is shown to have simply stolen the wand from Gregorovitch. He never "defeated" Gregorovitch, and the wand maker never freely gave the wand to him. Thus, like Voldemort, Grindelwald was never a true master of the wand. Yet, he was the possessor of the wand and when Dumbledore defeated him in their duel, the wand chose Albus as its new master.

When Draco disarmed Dumbledore in book 6 the wand went flying over the rampart of the tower and was lost to Dumbledore. That was his true defeat and Draco had intended to disarm and "defeat" Dumbledore. Snape mearly capitalized on the moment when he killed Albus. Thus, the Elder Wand chose Draco as it's new master.

Later, in Malfoy Manor when Harry took the three wands from Draco he utilized them to defeat Greyback and make good their escape. Draco did not fight back, and Harry's intent was to forcibly take the wands from Draco. For all intents and purposes Harry had "defeated" Draco much as Draco defeated Dumbledore. Thus, even in absentia the Elder Wand chose Harry as its new master.

The Elder Wand seems to have a greater degree of ability to choose it's new master than most other wands. This is most likely due to its nature and/or creation. Since the item is a fabled item of power it can be reasonably guessed that its construction was different than a normal wands. This, combined with the above makes the progression and logic behind the path of succession easy to understand and believe.

EDIT:

As an amendment to the "freely given" issue; ownership does not truely pass obviously. This explains why a person can still get good results, but not nearly the same as with a wand that has chosen them.

On the issue of passing wands down through a family; this is a mix of the "defeat" and "freely given" aspects I believe. Look at Frank Longbottom as an example. While the exact details of his fight with Bellatrix are unknown we do know he was defeated by her. Was he disarmed? Well I'm going to think he wasn't disarmed by intent. He was hit with the Cruciatus and most likely dropped his wand. Bellatrix's intent, however, was torture, not to take his wand. So he was still the owner of the wand, and thus Neville could never really use it well.

As to Voldemort using the Elder Wand he took from Dumbledore's tomb it's similar. Draco was the owner chosen by the wand, but he had never claimed it. Thus, when Voldemort took the wand from Dumbeldore's dead hands the intent to take it and wield it was enough to allow it to work as well as a "loaned wand" would. However, the ownership did not pass.

 

In large I agree with most of what you are saying... but I don't see the need to put intent into the mix. There's no 'canon' evidence to say that a wand that was expelliarmused with the intent of winning a duel or stolen are any different in the wand holders hands.

I see it as, if you expeliarmus someone, that wand wil now work better for you as you have overpowered its first owner... this does raise the issue of whether the wand will work as well for the original owner... it doesn't seem like their is any difference.

I would guess that the original owner is the defacto user of the wand. if its stolen or won in a duel... he/she can still claim it at any other point in time without any side effects.

The other person though; the one who wins the wand, tames it in a way, forcing it to work for him/her when they take it from the owner.

Now that leaves open the plot hole that anyone who has ever expelliarmused a wand from another wizard becomes that wands co owner... I would suggest that if that person looses the wand or willingly gives it back to the owner... they loose all rights to the wand.

It gets more complicated if you add more people into the mix taking the already stolen wand from the secondary owner...

As to the Elder wand... Whos to say gregorovitch was ever the wands owner? Maybee grindewald tracked down the previous owner, or simply beat gregorovitch in a duel with his other wand. I mean for Gregorovitch to claim to have the unbeatable wand would be tantemount to admitting to murdering another wizard... that seems kinda sketchy to me. The myth went that you had to kill the previous wizard to become its master... something that Grindewald clearly never did.

I would suggest that he did it the same way Harry won rights to the elder wand. By beating the master of the elder wand or taking the masters other wand... the elder wand automaticly works for that wizard.

 

This is why I believe the intent plays into it. Otherwise you could end up with a dozen people sharing ownership of a wand. Talk about annoying when half the people around could pick up your wand and go to town just because they disarmed you in a duel in DADA.

Uhm,...it shows plain as day in the book that Gregorovitch owned the wand, or was at least in possession of it. It shows us Gregorovitch's memory of Grindelwald stealing the wand and escaping after having only fired off a stunner that missed Gregorovitch. The theft occured while Gregorovitch was out of the room; he only witnessed the getaway.

How Gregorovitch came into possession, or ownership, of the wand is up to speculation. He was a master wandcrafter though so I might imagine that he too was not and Owner of the wand, but merely a possessor like Grindelwald and Voldemort.

 

I can see the logic of it, I just was uneasy with using intent again for explaining some aspect of magic.

I prefer my theory but to each his own...

No I know he owned the wand... I mean, was he master of it? Cause if he just plucked it off some guys side table while he slept, I doubt he was master... but if he actually dueled someone for it or killed them and took it. That would make him the master.

So that leaves a kind of gap in the wands succesion, which you could place the intent of the wand in to fill... but if you did that, how do you explain why voldemort couldn't get the wand to work properly.

What difference was their in grindewald and voldemort... both wanted to rule ( I think...).

 

The key here is in their individual actions. Grindelwald at least had to overcome whatever safeguards Gregorovich had. I can't imagine he left the wand laying around for anyone to pickup. There had to be some security measures. Voldemort on the other hand was grave robbing. He defeated nothing or no one to get the wand. There were no wards or traps on Dumbledore's tomb, Tom just cracked it open and took it.

 

I think the passing of ownership by conquer works only for the Elder wand. All other normal wands doesn't shift ownership so easily. It does affect the performance to some degree but not significantly. I mean Elder wand did perform exceptional magic for Voldemort, it simply didn't reveal its full abilities.

So any wand will work for any wizard, but will be truly home with its master only. Kind of like wearing another persons shoes. It does its job, but you are not comfortable with it.