The owl was asleep or else faking; she was angry with Harry about the li
m ited amount of time she was allowed out of her cage at the moment.
As he neared the bottom of the pile of newsp a pers, Harry slowed down, searching for one partic
u lar issue that he knew had a r
rived shortly after he had returned to Privet Drive for the summer; he reme m
bered that there had been a small mention on the front about the resignation of Cha r
ity Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher at Hogwarts. At last he found it. Tur n
ing to page ten, he sank into his desk chair and r e
read the article he had been looking for.
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE REMEMBERED
By Elphias Doge
I met Albus Dumbledore at the age of eleven, on our first day at Hogwarts. Our mutual a t
traction was undoubtedly due to the fact that we both felt ou r selves to be outsiders. I had co
n tracted dragon pox shortly before a r
riving at school, and while I was no
longer contagious, my pock-marked visage and gree n ish hue did not encourage many to a
p proach me. For his part, Albus had arrived at Hogwarts under the bu
r den of unwanted not o
riety. Scarcely a year previously, his father, Percival, had been co n
victed of a savage and well-publicized attack upon three young Muggles.
Albus never attempted to deny that his father (who was to die in Azkaban) had commi t
ted this crime; on the contrary, when I plucked up courage to ask him, he assured me that he knew his father to be guilty. Beyond that, Du m
bledore refused to speak of the sad business, though many a t
tempted to make him do so. Some, indeed, were disposed to praise his f a
ther's action and assumed that Albus too was a Mu g
gle-hater. They could not have been more mistaken: As anybody who knew Albus would attest, he never revealed the r e
motest anti-Muggle tendency. Indeed, his determined su p
port for Muggle rights gained him many en e
mies in subsequent years.
In a matter of months, however, Albus's own fame had begun to eclipse that of his f a
ther. By the end of his first year he would never again be known as the son of a Muggle-hater, but as nothing more or less than the most bri l
liant student ever seen at the school. Those of us who were privileged to be his friends benefited from his example, not to mention his help and encouragement, with which he was always ge
n erous. He confessed to me later in life that he knew even then that his greatest pleasure lay in teac
h ing.
He not only won every prize of note that the school offered, he was soon in regular corr e
spondence with the most notable magical names of the day, i n cluding Nicolas Flamel, the cel
e
brated alchemist; Bathilda Bagshot, the noted historian; and Adalbert Waffling, the magical theoretician. Several of his p a
pers found their way into learned publications such as Transfiguration T
o day, Challenges in Charming, and
The Practical Potioneer . Dumbledore's future career seemed likely to be meteoric, and the only question that r
e mained was when he would become Minister of Magic.
Though it was often predicted in later years that he was on the point of taking the job, however, he never had Mini s
terial ambitions.
Three years after we had started at Hogwarts, A l
bus's brother, Aberforth, arrived at school. They were not alike: Aberfor
th was never bookish and, unlike Albus, preferred to settle arguments by dueling rather than through reasoned discussion. However, it is quite wrong to suggest, as some have, that the brothers were not friends. They rubbed along as co
m fortably as two such different boys could do. In fairness to Abe
r forth, it must be admitted that living in Albus's shadow cannot have been an altogether co
m fortable experience. Being continually outshone was an occ
u pational hazard of being his friend and cannot have been any more pleasu
r able as a brother. When Albus and I left Ho g
warts we intended to take the then-traditional tour of the world together, visiting and o b
serving foreign wizards, before pursuing our sep a
rate careers. However, tragedy intervened. On the very eve of our trip, Albus's mother, Kendra, died, leaving
A l bus the head, and sole brea
d winner, of the family. I postponed my departure long enough to pay my r
e spects at Kendra's f u
neral, then left for what was now to be a solitary journey. With a younger brother and si s
ter to care for, and little gold left to them, there could no longer be any question of Albus accompan y
ing me.
That was the period of our lives when we had least contact. I wrote to Albus, descri b
ing, perhaps insensitively, the wonders of my journey, from na r row escapes from chimaeras in Greece to the exper
i ments of the Egyptian a l
chemists. His letters told me little of his day-to-day life, which I guessed to be fru s
tratingly dull for such a brilliant wizard. 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.
"Oh, Aberforth is just the tip of the dung heap,” laughs Skeeter. "No, no, I'm tal k
ing about much worse than a brother with a fondness for fi d dling about with goats, worse even than the Mu
g gle-maiming father Ц Dumbledore couldn't keep either of them quiet anyway, they were both charged b
y the Wizengamot. No, it's the mother and the sister that intrigued me, and a little digging uncovered a
positive nest of na s tiness Ц
but, as I say, you'll have to wait for chapters nine to twelve for full details. All I can say now is, it's no wo n
der Dumbledore never talked about how his nose got broken."
Family skeletons notwithstanding, does Skeeter deny the brilliance that led to Dumbledore's many magical discoveries?
"He had brains," she concedes, "although many now question whether he could really take full credit for all of his supposed achievements. As I r e
veal in chapter sixteen, Ivor Dillonsby claims he had already discovered eight uses of dragon's blood when Du m
bledore 'borrowed' his papers."
But the importance of some of Dumbledore's achievements cannot, I venture, be d e
nied. What of his famous defeat of Grinde l wald?
"Oh, now, I'm glad you mentioned Grinde l wald," says Skeeter with such a tant
a lizing smile. "I'm afraid those who go dewy-eyed over Dumbledore's spectac
u lar victory must brace themselves for a bombshell Ц or perhaps a Dungbomb. Very dirty business i
n deed. All I'll say is, don't be so sure that there really was a spe
c tacular duel of legend. After they've read my book, people may be forced to co
n clude that Grindelwald simply conjured a white han
d kerchief from the end of his wand and came qu i
etly!"
Skeeter refuses to give any more away on this i n triguing subject, so we turn instead to the relatio
n ship that will undoubtedly fa s
cinate her readers more than any other.
"Oh yes," says Skeeter, nodding briskly, "I d e vote an entire chapter to the whole Potter-Dumbledore r
e lationship. It's been called u n
healthy, even sinister. Again, your readers will have to buy my book for the whole story, but there is no question that Dumbledore took an unnatural interest in Po
t ter from the word go. Whether that was really in the boy's best inte
r ests Ц well, we'll see. It's certainly an open s
e cret that Potter has had a most troubled adole
s cence."
I ask whether Skeeter is still in touch with Harry Potter, whom she so famously inte r
viewed last year: a breakthrough piece in which Potter spoke e x clusively of his convi
c tion that You-Know-Who had returned.
"Oh, yes, we've developed a closer bond," says Skeeter. "Poor Potter has few real friends, and we met at one of the most testing moments of his life Ц the Triwizard Tournament. I am prob
a bly one of the only people alive who can say that they know the real Harry Potter."
Which leads us neatly to the many r u mors still circulating about Dumbledore's final hours. Does Skee
ter believe that Potter was there when Dumbl e dore died?
"Well, I don't want to say too much Ц it's all in the book Ц but eyewitnesses inside Ho g
warts castle saw Potter running away from the scene moments a f ter Dumbledore fell, jumped, or was pushed. Potter
later gave evidence against Severus Snape, a man against whom he has a notorious grudge. Is ever y
thing as it seems? That is for the Wizarding community to d e cide Ц once they've read my book."
On that intriguing note, I take my leave. There can be no doubt that Skeeter has quilled an instant bestseller. Dumbledore's legion of admirers, mea n
while, may well be trembling at what is soon to emerge about their hero.
Harry reached the bottom of the article, but co n tinued to stare blankly at the page. R
e vulsion and fury rose in him like vomit; he balled up the newsp
a per and threw it, with all his force, at the wall, where it joined the rest of the rubbish heaped around his ove
r flowing bin.
He began to stride blindly around the room, ope n ing empty drawers and picking up books only to r
e place them on the same piles, barely conscious of what he was doing, as random phrases from Rita's a
r ticle echoed in his head:
An entire chapter to the whole Po t ter-Dumbledore relationship ... It's been called u
n healthy, even sinister
... He dabbled in the Dark Arts himself in his youth ... I've had access to a source most journalists would swap their wands for...
"Lies!" Harry bellowed, and through the wi n
dow he saw the next-door neighbor, who had paused to restart his lawn mower, look up nervously.
Harry sat down hard on the bed. The broken bit of mirror danced away from him; he picked it up and turned it over in his fingers, thinking, thinking of Dumbledore and the lies with which Rita Skeeter was defaming him ...
A flash of brightest blue. Harry froze, his cut fi n ger slipping on the jagged edge of the mi
r
ror again. He had imagined it, he must have done. He glanced over his shoulder, but the wall was a sickly peach color of Aunt P e
tunia's choosing: There was nothing blue there for the mirror to r e
flect. He peered into the mirror fragment again, and saw nothing but his own bright green eye loo k
ing back at him.
He had imagined it, there was no other explan a
tion; imagined it, because he had been thinking of his dead headmaster. If anything was certain, it was that the bright blue eyes of Albus Du m
bledore would never pierce him again.

Chapter Three
The Dursleys Departing
The sound of the front door slamming echoed up the stairs and a voice roared, “Oh! You!”
Sixteen years of being addressed thus left Harry in no doubt when his uncle was calling, neve r
theless, he did not immediately r e
spond. He was still at the narrow fragment in which, for a split second, he had thought he saw DumbledoreТ s eye. It was not u n
til his uncle bellowed, “BOY!” that Harry got slowly out of bed and headed for the bedroom door, pausing to add the piece of broken mirror to the ruc
k sack filled with things he would be taking with him.
“You took you time!” roared Vernon Dursley when Harry appeared at the top of the stairs, “Get down here. I want a word!”
Harry strolled downstairs, his hands deep in his pants pockets. When he searched the living room he found all three Dursleys. They were dressed for pac k
ing; Uncle Vernon in an old ripped-up jacket and Dudley, HarryТ s, large, blond, muscular cousin, in his leather jacket.
“Yes?” asked Harry.
“Sit down!” said Uncle Vernon. Harry raised his eyebrows. “Please!” added Uncle Vernon, wincing slightly as though the word was sharp in his throat. Harry sat. He though he knew what was
coming. His uncle began to pace up and down, Aunt Petunia and Dudley, following his movement with anxious e x
pressions. F i nally, his large purple face crumpled with co
n centration. Uncle Vernon stopped in front of Harry and spoke.
"I've changed my mind,” he said.
"What a surprise," said Harry.
"Don't you take that toneЧ " began Aunt Petunia in a shrill voice, but Vernon Dursley waved her down
"It's all a lot of claptrap,” said Uncle Vernon, glaring at Harry with piggy little eyes. "I've decided I don't believe a word of it. WeТ re staying put, weТ re not going an
y where.”
Harry looked up at his uncle and felt a mixture of exasperation and amusement. Vernon Dursley had been changing his mind every twenty four hours for the past four weeks, packing and unpacking and r
e packing the car with every change of heart. HarryТ s favorite moment had been the one when U
n
cle Vernon, unaware the Dudley had added his dumbbells to his case since the last time it been repacked, had attempted to hoist it back into the boot and co l
lapsed with a yelp of pain and much swearing.
“According to you,” Vernon Dursley said, now resuming his pacing up and down the living room, “we Ц Petunia, Dudley, and I Ц are in danger. From Ц from Ц “
“Some of С my lotТ right?” said Harry
“Well I donТ t believe it,” repeated U n
cle Vernon, coming to a halt in front of Harry again. "I was awake half the night thinking it all over, and I believe it's a plot to get the house."
"The house?" repeated Harry. "What house?"
"This house!" shrieked Uncle Vernon, the vein his forehead starting to pulse. " Our
house! House prices are skyrocketing around here! You want us out of the way and
then you're going to do a bit of hocus pocus and b e fore we know it the deeds will be in your name and Ц "

“Are you out of your mind?" demanded Harry. "A plot to get this house? Are you act u ally as stupid as you look?"

"Don't you dare --!" squealed Aunt Petunia, but again Vernon waved her down. Slights on his pe r
sonal appearance were it seemed as nothing to the danger he had spo t ted.
"Just in case you've forgotten," said Harry, "I've already got a house my godfather left me one. So why would I want this one? All the happy memories?"
There was silence. Harry thought he had rather impressed his uncle with this a r gument.
"You claim," said Uncle Vernon, starting to pace yet again, "that this Lord Thing Ц "
"Ч Voldemort," said Harry imp a tiently, "and we've been through this about a hundred times a
l ready. This isn't a claim, it's fact. Du m
bledore told you last year, and Kingsley and Mr.
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