At the very end of Deathly Hallows, after Harry repaired his own wand with the Elder Wand, he tells Dumbledore's Portrait in the office:
“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.
Now, this seems incredibly foolish to me.
"The previous master will never have been defeated" would only have been assuredely true if Harry had died right after depositing the Elder Wand back into Dumbledore's Tomb.
If not, Harry (the Wand owner) would still be alive, and at the risk of being Disarmed (as was shown with Harry and Draco Malfoy, it doesn't matter if the Elder Wand's owner is defeated by death or simple disarming, AND it's not even required that the Disarming would involve the Elder Wand!).
So, if Harry merely put the Elder Wand back into the Tomb, and some years later, someone would disarm him (or, even worse, kill him) - then that someone would become the Elder Wand owner, either by accident or by design:
By accident - Harry is likely to get into plenty of magical duels in the future. Even discounting friendly one (teaching people the Expelliramus), he plans on becoming an Auror!
By design - plenty of people have been in the Great Hall hearing Harry explaining to Voldemort that he, Harry, was now the owner of the Elder Wand, so the fact of his ownership would most assuredly NOT remain a secret, inviting countless people tempted by owning the Deathstick to hunt Harry down. Oh, and the location is now also known!
So "its power will be broken" is quite unlikely to come true!
Is Harry hopelessly wrong? Or am I missing something in the above logic? Was this addressed in canon/JKR info?
Answer
The fact that he will likely be disarmed by countless people, who will unknowingly become masters of the Elder Wand - and will in turn be disarmed by countless other equally unwitting people - will mean that the true master of the Elder Wand will soon not only be impossible to find, but will also never know that she/he is connected with the Elder Wand in any way.
In addition, anyone who decided they want to be the Elder Wand's master after all would have to track down and disarm or kill a whole lot of - possibly all of - the people who might have been involved. And, considering that we're talking about an Auror and his colleagues and enemies, many of those people will be either other Aurors or hardened criminals, some of whom will believe they are fighting for their life. A really serious set of guards to get through.
As Ellesedil put it in the comments, Harry's actual plan is nuts but accidentally effective. Taking up the Auror profession is, in fact, the safest thing for Harry to do, outside of destroying the wand.
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