Wait... How is Draco the one who got the elder wand?

[William]

Because he disarmed Dumbledore in the astronomy tower.

[Jennifer]

Draco disarmed Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince .

[[deleted user]]

He disarmed dumbledore like every one else said. Can u all please join my. HP fan club?!?!? PLEASE!!!!! It's called Harry Potter Is Awesome (the best fan club ever)! It's really cool so please join :)

[Maggie]

Ohhhh... that makes sense now. Thanks!

[Taylor]

he disarmed Dumbledore

[Stella (NotAnEarlyBird)]

Ok, here's another question: If all you had to do to be master of the Elder Wand is simply to disarm the owner, then why all the killings, in the past years and in the end (Dumbledore and Snape)? It is mentioned somewhere in the book that the wand had "a bloody history" or something like that...

[Keri]

It wasn't necessary to kill the gain the elder wand but the type of people that desired it were they type that were willing to kill to gain it or at least thought they needed to kill. ;)

[Lostshadows]

If you kill the previous owner, it stops them getting it back. Unlike anyone else looking for it, they know who has it.

[Anna]

Exactly. Whoever took the Elder Wand wouldn't have to worry about the previous owner hunting THEM down to get it back if they were dead.

[Kristen]

Sanilou wrote: "Ok, here's another question: If all you had to do to be master of the Elder Wand is simply to disarm the owner, then why all the killings, in the past years and in the end (Dumbledore and Snape)? I..."

It was explained in the books that when the legend of the elder wand started, people assumed you had to kill to be it's master because that's how the first several owners gained it.
The Peverell brother who owned it originally bragged about it's power and so someone killed him to steal it, and then someone killed that guy and on and on.
It was never necessary, but that was the assumption, and since the types of people who craved it were generally people like Voldemort rather than Dumbledore, they never cared to examine whether or not it was actually necessary. Same with Voldemort. He certainly didn't care about killing people, and since he thought that would do the trick, he wouldn't care to look further into it.

[Stella (NotAnEarlyBird)]

Thank you guys! I didn't remember that part...

[Daisy]

It's not the fact that he "disarmed" Dumbledore, it's the fact that he "defeated" him. Dumbledore was 100% at Draco's mercy on the tower. So he was beaten by Draco, hence Draco became the master of the elder wand.

[Hannah]

Sanilou wrote: "Ok, here's another question: If all you had to do to be master of the Elder Wand is simply to disarm the owner, then why all the killings, in the past years and in the end (Dumbledore and Snape)? I..."

People BELIEVE they have to kill in order to get the wand and to also remove any threats to the wand's new allegiance

[Hannah]

Kristen wrote: "Sanilou wrote: "Ok, here's another question: If all you had to do to be master of the Elder Wand is simply to disarm the owner, then why all the killings, in the past years and in the end (Dumbledo..."

Actually, what he said.

[Rebekah]

Sanilou wrote: "Ok, here's another question: If all you had to do to be master of the Elder Wand is simply to disarm the owner, then why all the killings, in the past years and in the end (Dumbledore and Snape)? I..."

LOL it's a weird situation but adding on to what others have said, the elder wand indifferently switched partners by determining who was the strongest. This could be taken to mean that in some cases, sneaking and stabbing would be required to cut the wand's existing ties. However, I believe that Rowling has not been super specific about the definition of strength, and this may explain why Voldemort, despite being terribly advanced in magical skill, was not able to wrest the wand's loyalty from Harry. It's my theory that the wand could have simply switched from Draco (Voldemort's underling) to Voldemort if Harry hadn't disarmed him just before Voldemort exhumed Professor Dumbledore. There's a bit of a contradiction in Draco's case since Dumbledore probably qualifies as stronger no matter which criterion anybody uses, but Draco WAS able to disarm him and he died without being defeated by anyone else in any way, shape, or form (Snape didn't count because he was acting on Dumbledore's orders).

This is unrelated but I noticed that it only took two disarming spells to prevent the elder wand from working for Voldemort. On top of that, the two spells were performed by Snape's favorite and unfavorite, and on top of THAT, it was a spell that he used to demonstrate in their first dueling lesson. Snape should have gotten a Teacher of the Year award back in book 2: tolerating Lockhart, showing Harry the spell that would save his life time and time AND time again and indirectly saving the world at the same time, you know, the usual.