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The following podcast contains audio extracted from videos on the Harry Potter Theory YouTube channel. Hey everyone, welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory.

Today we're tackling one of the hottest questions in the entire series.

Why didn't Harry Potter keep the elder wand after he defeated Voldemort?

Before we get stuck in, the first thing I'll point out is that the answer really depends

and whether you're looking at the events of the books or the films, because the fate of

the elder wand plays out quite differently in each.

In the books, after repairing his own wand,

Harry lays the elder wand to rest with Dumbledore. I'm putting the elder

wand, he told Dumbledore, who was watching him with enormous affection and

admiration, back where it came from. It can stay there. If I die a natural death like Ignotus,

its power will be broken, won't it?

The previous master will never have been defeated.

That'll be the end of it.

In the film, however, a very different course of action is taken, as Harry dramatically snaps

it in half.

It's mine.

What should we do with it?

We? I'm just saying, that's the elder wand, the most powerful want in the world. With that, we'd be invincible. Harry pauses and has

second thoughts, then snaps the elder wand in half, destroying its power before tossing the two

halves into the abyss. Ron and Hermione proudly smile at

Harry. The elder wand first of the Deathly Hallows is the stuff of legend. Said to be crafted by

...