Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Ariana Dumbledore
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| Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter - Character | |
| Ariana Dumbledore | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Female |
| Hair color | Blonde |
| Eye color | Blue |
| Related Family | Kendra Dumbledore (mother) Percival Dumbledore (father) Albus Dumbledore and Aberforth Dumbledore (brothers) |
| Loyalty | Aberforth Dumbledore |
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Ariana Dumbledore was the sister of Albus and Aberforth Dumbledore. She died quite young, at approximately 14 years of age.
[edit] Role in the Books
[edit] Deathly Hallows
Our learning about Ariana comes from a number of sources. We first hear about her in a eulogy penned by Elphias Doge, a close friend of Albus Dumbledore's. Elphias simply mentions that she had died when Albus was only just out of school.
The next person to write about the Dumbledore family is Rita Skeeter, who writes a tell-all book full of innuendo and scurrilous rumour. Rita writes that Ariana was very seldom seen out of the house, and suggests that she might have been a Squib.
In conversation with Doge and Ron's Auntie Muriel, Harry learns that Rita's source, Bathilda Bagshot, had never actually met Ariana, and had only seen her in the Dumbledores' yard when she was out gathering herbs by night. Muriel asks why Kendra was hiding her, and says that this suggests quite strongly that Ariana was a Squib and an embarrassment to the family. Against Doge's protestations that Ariana was merely sickly, Muriel says that she had a cousin who was a healer at St. Mungo's, and that Ariana had never been brought in. Muriel also mentions that Aberforth had broken Albus' nose in a fight at Ariana's funeral.
We finally learn the full story from Aberforth Dumbledore. Ariana had been a witch, but some Muggle boys had seen her working her uncontrolled magic when she was still underage, Aberforth indicates that she was about six. When she would not or could not do it again, they had beaten her, and as a result she received substantial and lasting injury. The result of this was that her magic apparently turned inwards and destroyed her from inside. Her father, Percival Dumbledore, had attacked the Muggle boys in retaliation, and as a result had been sent to Azkaban, where he had died. Her mother, Kendra Dumbledore, feared that if other witches or wizards found out about her, Ariana would be sent permanently to St. Mungo's. Aberforth, as so often happens with middle brothers, became the only one who could calm her down when she went into one of her fits of wild magic.
Some time after Kendra's death, there was a conflict between Albus, who felt honour-bound to stay and care for his family, his friend Gellert Grindelwald, who was bent on establishing Wizard-kind in its rightful place (as he saw it) ruling the Muggles "for their own good," and Aberforth, who was still concerned about Ariana's wellbeing. The fight became heated, Ariana had one of her fits, and in amidst all the flying curses Ariana was killed. Grindelwald immediately fled back to Europe. To his dying day, Albus did not know whose curse had killed Ariana, and he was afraid to find out.
While we never see Ariana herself, her portrait is on the wall of Aberforth's living room, and it is this portrait of Ariana that acts as the messenger to bring Neville to open the passage which allows Harry, Ron, and Hermione, among others, to enter Hogwarts before the final battle.
[edit] Strengths
Given that her untrained magic is so powerful, we can safely guess that Ariana would have been a very powerful witch had she been allowed to develop normally.
[edit] Weaknesses
According to Aberforth (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, UK / Canada first edition p455), when Ariana was attacked by the Muggle boys, "[i]t destroyed her, what they did: she was never right again. She wouldn't use magic, but she couldn't get rid of it: it turned inwards and drove her mad, it exploded out of her when she couldn't control it, and at times she was strange and dangerous. But mostly she was sweet, and scared, and harmless." From this description, particularly if we assume that magic is largely a mental function, it seems likely that Ariana was brain-damaged at an early age, and was never able to be trained to use her magic properly.
[edit] Relationships with Other Characters
Ariana had a particularly close relationship with her second eldest brother Aberforth. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Aberforth says "I could get her to eat when she wouldn't do it for my mother, I could get her to calm down when she was in one of her rages," letting us believe that, because we do not have a background for Ariana's relationship with her parents, Ariana liked Aberforth "the best". Also, we explore, somewhat in this chapter, from a third person point of view, the relationship that Ariana had with her eldest brother, and most famous of her kin, Albus Dumbledore. Aberforth says that Albus "didn't want to be bothered with her," that he was always up in his room, skimming over spell books, writing essays and keeping up with his correspondence, that Ariana, though as much his sister as Aberforth's, was his second concern. However, Aberforth also states, that after the death of their mother Kendra, in an extremely unfortunate accident involving Ariana, Albus became better and more responsible in his caring of his younger sister. That only lasted until the arrival of Gellert Grindelwald, Albus' supposed "equal", when Ariana once again took a back seat. It is likely that Ariana's favorite was Aberforth, right up until her unfortunate death.
[edit] Analysis
[edit] Questions
[edit] Greater Picture
Albus Dumbledore, in the "Waystation", tells Harry that once he had seen what power did to him, he never wanted it again, which is why he so steadfastly turned down the post of Minister for Magic when it was offered to him. Looking at the episodes in question, which would have included the duel in which Ariana died, we see that Albus had never really had power, but it was the seeking of power, by him and Grindelwald, which had caused Ariana's death.
