Albus Dumbledore's life and lies
written by Anni Walters
Did you know that Albus Dumbledore had his Own History ? Well hère is a copy of Rita Skeeter's Book.Not that I aprove anything about her theory I think you like to hère the Story that she has to tell you!
Last Updated
05/31/21
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Chapter 4
Now approaching his eighteenth birthday, Dumbledore left Hogwarts in a blazeof glory --- Head Boy, Prefect, Winner of the Barnabus Finkley Prize forExceptional Spell-Casting, British Youth Representative to the Wizengamot,Gold Medal-Winner for Ground-Breaking Contribution to the InternationalAlchemical Conference in Cairo. Dumbledore intended, next, to take a GrandTour with Elphias “Dogbreath” Doge, the dim-witted but devoted sidekick hehad picked up at school.
The two young men were staying at the Leaky Cauldron in London,preparing to depart for Greece the following morning, when an owl arrivedbearing news of Dumbledore’s mother’s death. “Dogbreath” Doge, who refusedto be interviewed for this book, has given the public his own sentimental
version of what happened next. He represents Kendra’s death as a tragic blow,and Dumbledore’s decision to give up his expedition as an act of noble self-sacrifice.
Certainly Dumbledore returned to Godric’s Hollow at once, supposedly to“care” for his younger brother and sister. But how much care did he actuallygive them?
“He were a head case, that Aberforth,” said Enid Smeek, whose family livedon the outskirts of Godric’s Hollow at that time. “Ran wild. ‘Course, with hismum and dad gone you’d have felt sorry for him, only he kept chucking goatdung at my head. I don’t think Albus was fussed about him. I never saw themtogether, anyway.”
So what was Albus doing, if not comforting his wild young brother? Theanswer, it seems, is ensuring the continued imprisonment of his sister. Forthough her first jailer had died, there was no change in the pitiful condition ofAriana Dumbledore. Her very existence continued to be known only to thosefew outsiders who, like “Dogbreath” Doge, could be counted upon to believe inthe story of her “ill health.”
Another such easily satisfied friend of the family was Bathilda Bagshot, thecelebrated magical historian who has lived in Godric’s Hollow for many years.Kendra, of course, had rebuffed Bathilda when she first attempted to welcomethe family to the village. Several years later, however, the author sent an owl toAlbus at Hogwarts, having been favorably impressed by his paper on trans-species transformation in Transfiguration Today. This initial contract led toacquaintance with the entire Dumbledore family. At the time of Kendra’s death,Bathilda was the only person in Godric’s Hollow who was on speaking termswith Dumbledore’s mother.
Unfortunately, the brilliance that Bathilda exhibited earlier in her life hasnow dimmed. “The fire’s lit, but the cauldron’s empty,” as Ivor Dillonsby put itto me, or, in Enid Smeek’s slightly earthier phrase, “She’s nutty as squirrelpoo.” Nevertheless, a combination of tried-and-tested reporting techniquesenabled me to extract enough nuggets of hard fact to string together the wholescandalous story.
Like the rest of the Wizarding world, Bathilda puts Kendra’s premature deathdown to a backfiring charm, a story repeated by Albus and Aberforth in lateryears. Bathilda also parrots the family line on Ariana, calling her “frail” and“delicate.” On one subject, however, Bathilda is well worth the effort I put intoprocuring Veritaserum, for she, and she alone, knows the full story of the best-kept secret of Albus Dumbledore’s life. Now revealed for the first time, it callsinto question everything that his admirers believed of Dumbledore: hissupposed hatred of the Dark Arts, his opposition into the oppression of Muggles,even his devotion to his own family.
The very same summer that Dumbledore went home to Godric’s Hollow,now an orphan and head of the family, Bathilda Bagshot agreed to accept intoher home her great-nephew, Gellert Grindelwald.
The name of Grindelwald is justly famous: In a list of Most Dangerous DarkWizards of All Time, he would miss out on the top spot only because You-
Know-Who arrived, a generation later, to steal his crown. As Grindelwald neverextended his campaign of terror to Britain, however, the details of his rise topower are not widely known here.
Educated at Durmstrang, a school famous even then for its unfortunatetolerance of the Dark Arts, Grindelwald showed himself quite as precociouslybrilliant as Dumbledore. Rather than channel his abilities into the attainment ofawards and prizes, however, Gellert Grindelwald devoted himself no otherpursuits. At sixteen years old, even Durmstrang felt it could no longer turn ablind eye to the twisted experiments of Gellert Grindelwald, and he wasexpelled.
Hitherto, all that has been known of Grindelwald’s next movements is that he“traveled around for some months.” It can now be revealed that Grindelwaldchose to visit his great-aunt in Godric’s Hollow, and that there, intenselyshocking though it will be for many to hear it, he struck up a close friendshipwith none other than Albus Dumbledore.
“He seemed a charming boy to me,” babbles Bathilda, “whatever he becamelater. Naturally I introduced him to poor Albus, who was missing the companyof lads his own age. The boys took to each other at once.”
They certainly did. Bathilda shows me a letter, kept by her that AlbusDumbledore sent Gellert Grindelwald in the dead of night.
“Yes, even after they’d spent all day in discussion --- both such brilliantyoung boys, they got on like a cauldron on fire --- I’d sometimes hear an owltapping at Gellert’s bedroom window, delivering a letter from Albus! An ideawould have struck him and he had to let Gellert know immediately!”
And what ideas they were. Profoundly shocking though Albus Dumbledore’sfans will find it, here are the thoughts of their seventeen-year-old hero, asrelayed to his new best friend. (A copy of the original letter may be seen onpage 463.)
Gellert ---
Your point about Wizard dominance being FOR THE MUGGLES’OWN GOOD --- this, I think, is the crucial point. Yes, we have been givenpower and yes, that power gives us the right to rule, but it also gives usresponsibilities over the ruled. We must stress this point, it will be thefoundation stone upon which we build. Where we are opposed, as wesurely will be, this must be the basis of all our counterarguments. We seize control FOR THE GREATER GOOD. And from this it follows that wherewe meet resistance, we must use only the force that is necessary and nomore. (This was your mistake at Durmstrang! But I do not complain,because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)
Albus
Astonished and appalled though his many admirers will be, this letterconstitutes the Statute of Secrecy and establishing Wizard rule over Muggles.What a blow for those who have always portrayed Dumbledore as the Muggle-borns’ greatest champion! How hollow those speeches promoting Muggle rights
seem in the light of this damning new evidence! How despicable does AlbusDumbledore appear, busy plotting his rise to power when he should have beenmourning his mother and caring for his sister!
No doubt those determined to keep Dumbledore on his crumbling pedestalwill bleat that he did not, after all, put his plans into action, that he must havesuffered a change of heart, that he came to his senses. However, the truth seemsaltogether more shocking.
Barely two months into their great new friendship, Dumbledore andGrindelwald parted, never to see each other again until they met for theirlegendary duel (for more, see chapter 22). What caused this abrupt rupture? HadDumbledore come to his senses? Had he told Grindelwald he wanted no morepart in his plans? Alas, no.
“It was poor little Ariana dying, I think, that did it,” says Bathilda. “It cameas an awful shock. Gellert was there in the house when it happened, and hecame back to my house all of a dither, told me he wanted to go home the nextday. Terribly distressed, you know. So I arranged a Portkey and that was the lastI saw of him.
“Albus was beside himself at Ariana’s death. It was so dreadful for those twobrothers. They had lost everybody except for each other. No wonder tempersran a little high. Aberforth blamed Albus, you know, as people will under thesedreadful circumstances. But Aberforth always talked a little madly, poor boy.All the same, breaking Albus’s nose at the funeral was not decent. It would havedestroyed Kendra to see her sons fighting like that, across her daughter’s body.A shame Gellert could not have stayed for the funeral. . . . He would have beena comfort to Albus, at least. . . .
This dreadful coffin-side brawl, known only to those few who attendedAriana Dumbledore’s funeral, raises several questions. Why exactly didAberforth Dumbledore blame Albus for his sister’s death? Was it, as “Batty”pretends, a mere effusion of grief? Or could there have been some moreconcrete reason for his fury? Grindelwald, expelled from Durmstrang for thenear-fatal attacks upon fellow students, fled the country hours after the girl’sdeath, and Albus (out of shame or fear?) never saw him again, not until forcedto do so by the pleas of the Wizarding world.
Neither Dumbledore nor Grindelwald ever seems to have referred to thisbrief boyhood friendship in later life. However, there can be no doubt thatDumbledore delayed, for some five years of turmoil, fatalities, anddisappearances, his attack upon Gellert Grindelwald. Was it lingering affectionfor the man or fear of exposure as his once best friend that caused Dumbledoreto hesitate? Was it only reluctantly that Dumbledore set out to capture the manhe was once so delighted he had met?
And how did the mysterious Ariana die? Was she the inadvertent victim ofsome Dark rite? Did she stumble across something she ought not to have done,as the two young men sat practicing for their attempt at glory and domination?Is it possible that Ariana Dumbledore was the first person to die “for the greatergood”?
The two young men were staying at the Leaky Cauldron in London,preparing to depart for Greece the following morning, when an owl arrivedbearing news of Dumbledore’s mother’s death. “Dogbreath” Doge, who refusedto be interviewed for this book, has given the public his own sentimental
version of what happened next. He represents Kendra’s death as a tragic blow,and Dumbledore’s decision to give up his expedition as an act of noble self-sacrifice.
Certainly Dumbledore returned to Godric’s Hollow at once, supposedly to“care” for his younger brother and sister. But how much care did he actuallygive them?
“He were a head case, that Aberforth,” said Enid Smeek, whose family livedon the outskirts of Godric’s Hollow at that time. “Ran wild. ‘Course, with hismum and dad gone you’d have felt sorry for him, only he kept chucking goatdung at my head. I don’t think Albus was fussed about him. I never saw themtogether, anyway.”
So what was Albus doing, if not comforting his wild young brother? Theanswer, it seems, is ensuring the continued imprisonment of his sister. Forthough her first jailer had died, there was no change in the pitiful condition ofAriana Dumbledore. Her very existence continued to be known only to thosefew outsiders who, like “Dogbreath” Doge, could be counted upon to believe inthe story of her “ill health.”
Another such easily satisfied friend of the family was Bathilda Bagshot, thecelebrated magical historian who has lived in Godric’s Hollow for many years.Kendra, of course, had rebuffed Bathilda when she first attempted to welcomethe family to the village. Several years later, however, the author sent an owl toAlbus at Hogwarts, having been favorably impressed by his paper on trans-species transformation in Transfiguration Today. This initial contract led toacquaintance with the entire Dumbledore family. At the time of Kendra’s death,Bathilda was the only person in Godric’s Hollow who was on speaking termswith Dumbledore’s mother.
Unfortunately, the brilliance that Bathilda exhibited earlier in her life hasnow dimmed. “The fire’s lit, but the cauldron’s empty,” as Ivor Dillonsby put itto me, or, in Enid Smeek’s slightly earthier phrase, “She’s nutty as squirrelpoo.” Nevertheless, a combination of tried-and-tested reporting techniquesenabled me to extract enough nuggets of hard fact to string together the wholescandalous story.
Like the rest of the Wizarding world, Bathilda puts Kendra’s premature deathdown to a backfiring charm, a story repeated by Albus and Aberforth in lateryears. Bathilda also parrots the family line on Ariana, calling her “frail” and“delicate.” On one subject, however, Bathilda is well worth the effort I put intoprocuring Veritaserum, for she, and she alone, knows the full story of the best-kept secret of Albus Dumbledore’s life. Now revealed for the first time, it callsinto question everything that his admirers believed of Dumbledore: hissupposed hatred of the Dark Arts, his opposition into the oppression of Muggles,even his devotion to his own family.
The very same summer that Dumbledore went home to Godric’s Hollow,now an orphan and head of the family, Bathilda Bagshot agreed to accept intoher home her great-nephew, Gellert Grindelwald.
The name of Grindelwald is justly famous: In a list of Most Dangerous DarkWizards of All Time, he would miss out on the top spot only because You-
Know-Who arrived, a generation later, to steal his crown. As Grindelwald neverextended his campaign of terror to Britain, however, the details of his rise topower are not widely known here.
Educated at Durmstrang, a school famous even then for its unfortunatetolerance of the Dark Arts, Grindelwald showed himself quite as precociouslybrilliant as Dumbledore. Rather than channel his abilities into the attainment ofawards and prizes, however, Gellert Grindelwald devoted himself no otherpursuits. At sixteen years old, even Durmstrang felt it could no longer turn ablind eye to the twisted experiments of Gellert Grindelwald, and he wasexpelled.
Hitherto, all that has been known of Grindelwald’s next movements is that he“traveled around for some months.” It can now be revealed that Grindelwaldchose to visit his great-aunt in Godric’s Hollow, and that there, intenselyshocking though it will be for many to hear it, he struck up a close friendshipwith none other than Albus Dumbledore.
“He seemed a charming boy to me,” babbles Bathilda, “whatever he becamelater. Naturally I introduced him to poor Albus, who was missing the companyof lads his own age. The boys took to each other at once.”
They certainly did. Bathilda shows me a letter, kept by her that AlbusDumbledore sent Gellert Grindelwald in the dead of night.
“Yes, even after they’d spent all day in discussion --- both such brilliantyoung boys, they got on like a cauldron on fire --- I’d sometimes hear an owltapping at Gellert’s bedroom window, delivering a letter from Albus! An ideawould have struck him and he had to let Gellert know immediately!”
And what ideas they were. Profoundly shocking though Albus Dumbledore’sfans will find it, here are the thoughts of their seventeen-year-old hero, asrelayed to his new best friend. (A copy of the original letter may be seen onpage 463.)
Gellert ---
Your point about Wizard dominance being FOR THE MUGGLES’OWN GOOD --- this, I think, is the crucial point. Yes, we have been givenpower and yes, that power gives us the right to rule, but it also gives usresponsibilities over the ruled. We must stress this point, it will be thefoundation stone upon which we build. Where we are opposed, as wesurely will be, this must be the basis of all our counterarguments. We seize control FOR THE GREATER GOOD. And from this it follows that wherewe meet resistance, we must use only the force that is necessary and nomore. (This was your mistake at Durmstrang! But I do not complain,because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)
Albus
Astonished and appalled though his many admirers will be, this letterconstitutes the Statute of Secrecy and establishing Wizard rule over Muggles.What a blow for those who have always portrayed Dumbledore as the Muggle-borns’ greatest champion! How hollow those speeches promoting Muggle rights
seem in the light of this damning new evidence! How despicable does AlbusDumbledore appear, busy plotting his rise to power when he should have beenmourning his mother and caring for his sister!
No doubt those determined to keep Dumbledore on his crumbling pedestalwill bleat that he did not, after all, put his plans into action, that he must havesuffered a change of heart, that he came to his senses. However, the truth seemsaltogether more shocking.
Barely two months into their great new friendship, Dumbledore andGrindelwald parted, never to see each other again until they met for theirlegendary duel (for more, see chapter 22). What caused this abrupt rupture? HadDumbledore come to his senses? Had he told Grindelwald he wanted no morepart in his plans? Alas, no.
“It was poor little Ariana dying, I think, that did it,” says Bathilda. “It cameas an awful shock. Gellert was there in the house when it happened, and hecame back to my house all of a dither, told me he wanted to go home the nextday. Terribly distressed, you know. So I arranged a Portkey and that was the lastI saw of him.
“Albus was beside himself at Ariana’s death. It was so dreadful for those twobrothers. They had lost everybody except for each other. No wonder tempersran a little high. Aberforth blamed Albus, you know, as people will under thesedreadful circumstances. But Aberforth always talked a little madly, poor boy.All the same, breaking Albus’s nose at the funeral was not decent. It would havedestroyed Kendra to see her sons fighting like that, across her daughter’s body.A shame Gellert could not have stayed for the funeral. . . . He would have beena comfort to Albus, at least. . . .
This dreadful coffin-side brawl, known only to those few who attendedAriana Dumbledore’s funeral, raises several questions. Why exactly didAberforth Dumbledore blame Albus for his sister’s death? Was it, as “Batty”pretends, a mere effusion of grief? Or could there have been some moreconcrete reason for his fury? Grindelwald, expelled from Durmstrang for thenear-fatal attacks upon fellow students, fled the country hours after the girl’sdeath, and Albus (out of shame or fear?) never saw him again, not until forcedto do so by the pleas of the Wizarding world.
Neither Dumbledore nor Grindelwald ever seems to have referred to thisbrief boyhood friendship in later life. However, there can be no doubt thatDumbledore delayed, for some five years of turmoil, fatalities, anddisappearances, his attack upon Gellert Grindelwald. Was it lingering affectionfor the man or fear of exposure as his once best friend that caused Dumbledoreto hesitate? Was it only reluctantly that Dumbledore set out to capture the manhe was once so delighted he had met?
And how did the mysterious Ariana die? Was she the inadvertent victim ofsome Dark rite? Did she stumble across something she ought not to have done,as the two young men sat practicing for their attempt at glory and domination?Is it possible that Ariana Dumbledore was the first person to die “for the greatergood”?
