Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

2

Chapter 2-In Memoriam

Summary

Harry is bleeding and opens his bedroom door only to step on a cold cup of tea that was sitting on the floor in front of it. He assumes it's a booby trap left by Dudley, throwing the cup in a bin before running his finger under the tap in the bathroom. He reflects on his inability to heal wounds magically, and thinks he should probably fix that gap considering his plans. Harry returns to his room and continues his task of truly clearing out his Hogwarts trunk for the first time since he's started school. As he sorted through the debris at the bottom, he stabbed his hand. Going back to the trunk he finds plenty of oddities, but cut came from a fragment of the enchanted mirror that Sirius gave him two years ago. The shard is all that remains, the rest of the thing ground to sand. Setting the piece aside, he continues clearing out the bottom of the trunk. Then he begins to sort everything; his school supplies and Quidditch gear will be left behind, but he opts to bring his Invisibility Cloak, potions kits, a few books, his photo album, and a stack of letters. He also brings along the locket with the R.A.B. note inside and the Marauder's Map.

Once finished, Harry goes back through the stack of newspapers on his desk and finds one with an obituary for Dumbledore written by Order-member Elphias Doge. It talks of how they met of their first day of school, that they were both outsiders at the start because Doge had only recently gotten over dragon pox, and Albus' father Percival had recently been imprisoned for life after attacking three Muggles. Though some students assumed that Albus held the same convictions as his father, Doge insists that he was quite outspoken on the subject of Muggle rights. His father's misdeeds were soon forgotten when Albus Dumbledore proved to be one of the most talented students that Hogwarts had ever seen, and one who was only to happy to offer guidance to friends and classmates. Three years later, Albus' brother Aberforth started at school, and the two brothers were quite different. Doge insists that it's a mistake to believe that they did not get along, however, just that being constantly outshone by Albus must have been difficult.

Though Doge and Albus had planned to take a tradition tour of the world following school, Dumbledore's mother died right before their trip, leaving Albus to care for his younger brother and sister with very little money. Doge took the trip alone, writing back to Albus with word of his many adventures. But toward the end of his year abroad, he heard of another tragedy-Dumbledore's sister Ariana died. Doge explains that this additional loss had a profound affects on Albus and Aberforth, and that Albus blamed himself. (Doge insists, however, that the man was blameless in her death.) The brothers became estranged and Albus took on the suffering of someone much older. Doge mentions Dumbledore's many accomplishments, including his triumph in the legendary duel against Grindelwald, a turning point in wizard history.

Harry came back to this obituary because it filled him with a sense of humiliation; since reading it he has been forced to concede that he barely knew Dumbledore at all. He is distressed for never asking Dumbledore about his past, for getting to know him better as a person. In fact, he notes that the one time he did ask Dumbledore a personal question, he received an answer he was fairly certain to be false; that Dumbledore saw himself holding a pair of thick socks when he looked into the Mirror of Erised. He tears out the obit and places it in a book he's bringing along. Then he picks up today's paper and notes a new article about Rita Skeeter's upcoming book: The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. In the interview, Skeeter talks of how Dumbledore is a biographer's dream. When asked about the comments from Elphias Doge, stating that the book is mostly gossip with little fact, Skeeter is hardly concerned. She insists that plenty of people were happy to come forward and tell all about Dumbledore-who was not as universally liked as many believe. She insists that she has a particular source who was never willing to come forward before, and knew Albus during his turbulent early years.