Immersed in my own experiences, it was with horror that I heard, toward the end of my year's travels, that another tra
g edy had struck the Dumbledores: the death of his si
s ter, Ariana.
Though Ariana had been in poor health for a long time, the blow, coming so soon after the loss of their mother, had a pr o
found effect on both of her brothers. All those closest to Albus Ц and I count m y
self one of that lucky number Ц agree that Ariana's death, and A l
bus's fee l
ing of personal responsibility for it (though, of course, he was guiltless), left their mark upon him forevermore.
I returned home to find a young man who had e x perienced a much older person's su
f fering. Albus was more reserved than b e
fore, and much less light-hearted. To add to his mi s
ery, the loss of Ariana had led, not to a renewed closeness between Albus and Abe r
forth, but to an estrangement. (In time this would lift Ц in later years they reestablished, if not a close rel
a
tionship, then certainly a cordial one.) However, he rarely spoke of his parents or of Ariana from then on, and his friends learned not to mention them.
Other quills will describe the triumphs of the fo l lowing years. Dumbledore's innumerable contrib
u tions to the store of Wizar d
ing knowledge, including his discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, will benefit ge n
erations to come, as will the wisdom he displayed in the many judgments while Chief Wa r
lock of the Wizengamot. They say, still, that no Wi z
arding duel ever matched that b e
tween Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945. Those who witnessed it have written of the terror and the awe they felt as they watched these two e x
traordinary wizards to battle. Dumbledore's tr i
umph, and its consequences for the Wizarding world, are considered a turning point in magical history to match the introduction of the Inte r
national Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain; he could find something to value in anyone, however a p
parently insignificant or wretched, and I believe that his early losses e n dowed him with great humanity and symp
a thy. I shall miss his friendship more than I can say, but my loss is nothing compared to the Wi
z arding world's. That he was the most i n
spiring and best loved of all Hogwarts hea d
masters cannot be in question. He died as he lived: working a l ways for the

greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy with dragon pox as he was on the day I met him.
Harry finished reading, but continued to gaze at the picture accompanying the obituary. Dumbledore was wearing his fami l
iar, kindly smile, but as he peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles, he gave the i m
pression, even in newsprint, of X-raying Harry, whose sadness mingled with a sense of h u
miliation.
He had thought he knew Dumbledore quite well, but ever since reading this obituary he had been forced to recognize that he had barely known him at all. Never once had he imagined Dumbledore's chil
d hood or youth; it was as though he had sprung into being as Harry had known him, ve
n erable and silver-haired and old. The idea of a teenage Du
m bledore was simply odd, like trying to ima g
ine a stupid Hermione or a friendly Blast-Ended Skrewt.
He had never thought to ask Dumbledore about his past. No doubt it would have felt strange, impert i
nent even, but after all it had been common know l edge that Dumbl
e dore had taken part in that legendary duel with Grinde
l wald, and Harry had not thought to ask Du m
bledore what that had been like, nor about any of his other famous achiev e
ments. No, they had always discussed Harry, Harry's past, Harry's future, Harry's plans… and it seemed to Harry now, despite the fact that his future was so dangerous and so unce
r tain, that he had missed irreplaceable oppo r
tunities when he had failed to ask Dumbl e
dore more about himself, even though the only personal question he had ever asked his headmaster was also the only one he suspected that Dumbledore had not answered ho n
estly:
"What do you see when you look in the mi r
ror?"
"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks."
After several minutes' thought, Harry tore the obituary out of the Prophet, folded it carefully, and tucked it inside the first volume of Practical Defe
n sive Magic and its Use against the Dark Arts
. Then he threw the rest of the newspaper onto the rubbish pile and turned to face the room. It was much tidier. The only things left out of place were today's
Daily Prophet , still lying on the bed, and on top of it, the piece of broken mirror.
Harry moved across the room, slid the mirror fragment off today's Prophet , and unfolded the new
s paper
. He had merely glanced at the headline when he had taken the rolled-up paper from the delivery owl early that morning and thrown it aside, after noting that it said nothing about Vold e
mort. Harry was sure that the Ministry was leaning on the Prophet
to su p
press news about Voldemort. It was only now, ther e fore, that he saw what he had missed.
Across the bottom half of the front page a smaller headline was set over a picture of Dumbledore stri d
ing along, looking ha r ried:
DUMBLEDORE Ц THE TRUTH AT LAST?
Coming next week, the shocking story of the flawed genius considered by many to be the greatest wizard of his generation. Stri p
ing away the popular image of serene, silver-bearded wi s
dom, Rita Skeeter reveals the disturbed chil d
hood, the lawless youth, the life-long feuds, and the guilty secrets that Du m
bledore carried to his grave, WHY was the man tipped to be the Minister of Magic content to remain a mere hea d
master? WHAT was the real purpose of the secret o r ganization known as the Order of the Phoenix? HOW di
d Dumbledore really meet his end?
The answers to these and many more questions are explored in the explosive new b i ography,
The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore , by Rita Skeeter, e
x clusively inte r
viewed by Berry Braithwaite, page 13, inside.
Harry ripped open the paper and found page thi r teen. The article was topped with a picture sho
w ing another familiar face: a woman wearing jeweled glasses with elab
o rately curled blonde hair, her teeth bared in what was clearly supposed to be a winning smile, wiggling h
er fingers up at him. Doing his best to ignore this nauseating image, Harry read on.
In person, Rita Skeeter is much warmer and softer than her famously ferocious quill-portraits might su g
gest. Greeting me in the hallway of her cozy home, she leads me straight into the kitchen for a cup of tea, a slice of pound cake and, it goes without sa y
ing, a steaming vat of freshest gossip.
"Well, of course, Dumbledore is a biographer's dream," says Skeeter. "Such a long, full life. I'm sure my book will be the first of very, very many."
Skeeter was certainly quick off the mark. Her nine-hundred-page book was co m
pleted in a mere four weeks after Dumbledore's myster i ous death in June. I ask her how she managed this s
u perfast feat.
"Oh, when you've been a journalist as long as I have, working to a deadline is se c
ond nature. I knew that the Wizarding world was clamoring for the full story and I wanted to be the first to meet that need."
I mention the recent, widely publicized remarks of Elphias Doge, Special Adv i sor to the
Wizengamot and longstanding friend of Albus Du m
bledore's, that "Skeeter's book contains less fact than a Chocolate Frog card."
Skeeter throws back her head and laughs.
"Darling Dodgy! I remember interviewing him a few years back about merpeople rights, bless him. Completely gaga, seemed to think we were sitting at the bottom of Lake Windermere, kept telling me to watch out for trout."
And yet Elphias Doge's accusations of inacc u
racy have been echoed in many places. Does Skeeter really feel that four short weeks have been enough to gain a full picture of Dumbledore's long and extrao r
dinary life?
"Oh, my dear," beams Skeeter, rapping me affe c
tionately across the knuckles, "you know as well as I do how much inform a
tion can be generated by a fat bag of Galleons, a refusal to hear the word 'no,' and a nice sharp Quick-Quotes Quill! People were que u
ing to dish the dirt on Dumbl e
dore anyway. Not everyone thought he was so wonderful, you know Ц he trod on an awful lot of impo r
tant toes. But old Dodgy Doge can get off his high hippogriff, because I've had a c
cess to a source most journalists would swap their wands for, one who has never spoken in pu b
lic before and who was close to Dumbledore during the most turbulent and disturbing phase of his youth."
The advance publicity for Skeeter's bio g
raphy has certainly suggested that there will be shocks in store for those who believe Dumbl e
dore to have led a blameless life. What were the biggest surprises she unco v ered, I ask?
"Now, come off it. Betty, I'm not gi v ing away all t
he highlights before anybody's bought the book!" laughs Skeeter. "But I can promise that anybody who still thinks Du m
bledore was white as his beard is in for a rude awakening! Let's just say that nobody hea r
ing him rage against You-Know-Who would have drea
med that he dabbled in the Dark Arts himself in his youth! And for a wizard who spent his later years pleading for tolerance, he wasn't exactly broad-minded when he was younger! Yes, Albus Dumbl
e dore had an e x
tremely murky past, not to mention that very fishy family, which he worked so hard to keep hushed up."
I ask whether Skeeter is referring to Dumbl e dore's brother, Aberforth, whose convi
c tion by the Wizengamot for misuse of magic caused a minor scandal fifteen years ago.
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