One of the most iconic great wizards of all literature and all time, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is also one of the most beloved characters in J.K. Rowling's magical world of 'Harry Potter'. The wise, old wizard who we meet in the original novels and films is known to have a complicated and dark past, making him a character with a number of unknown sides to him. Here we have compiled a list of some facts which you may not have known about the former Hogwarts Headmaster.
1. He was born in 1881 and was therefore over 100 in 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' and is in his 40s in the upcoming 'Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald'. He died in 1997 at 115 years old.
2. His favourite food was sherbet lemon sweets and his favourite flavour jam is raspberry.
3. His patronus charm is a phoenix, like his pet bird, Fawkes.
4. He enjoyed various muggle hobbies including knitting patterns, chamber music, and ten pin bowling.
5. His wand contained the hair from the tail of a thestral.
6. The name Dumbledore comes from the Early Modern English word for bumblebee, because Rowling said that she always imagined the wizard humming to himself as a bee does.
7. J.K. Rowling revealed a few years after the final book was written that Dumbledore was gay and that he had been romantically involved with dark wizard, Gellert Grindelwald, while the pair were young.
8. Dumbledore had a fascination with the dark arts and explored them in depth with Grindelwald during their teen years. However, whereas Dumbledore acknowledged the danger of this, Grindelwald just sank in deeper, becoming one of the most dangers dark wizards of all time.
9. His Bogart was his sister's corpse, who was tragically killed in the crossfire of a three way battle between Albus, Alberforth, and Grindelwald, when the boys were teenagers.
10. As we learn in the very first chapter of the first novel, but as very few people remember, he has a scar on his knee which is a perfect map of the London Underground system.
In the upcoming 'Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald', it is already clear that we will learn a lot more about the character and be able to see him in a whole new light. The film is coming to cinemas on November 17th 2018.
