Skip to main content

harry potter - How did the Dumbledore brothers get away with Ariana's murder?


Some of you might insist that it was not a murder, as we know that a rebounding spell had hit Ariana, as shown in this answer.


However, a death in such a well known family would not go uninvestigated, I presume. Were the Dumbledore brothers investigated? How did they get away with their sister suddenly dropping dead?



I'd think that Ministry of Magic has means to recognize a death caused by magical means. That's how we know that Tom Riddle Snr. was killed by Avada Kedavra. So Ariana's failing health might be a poor excuse.



Answer



Her death was believed to due to illness


Doge stated that implies that Ariana Dumbledore died of some unspecified ailment:



Though Ariana had been in poor health for a long time, the blow, coming so soon after the loss of their mother, had a profound effect on both of her brothers.


—Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows



According to Rita Skeeter (hardly a reliable source, but in this case I think we can trust her):




Bathilda also parrots the family line on Ariana, calling her “frail” and “delicate.”


—Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows



In addition, the idea of Ariana's "illness" was widely circulated among those few who knew her:



The tiny number of people who henceforth knew of Ariana’s existence could be counted upon to keep the secret, including her two brothers, who deflected awkward questions with the answer their mother had taught them: “My sister is too frail for school.”


—Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows



If the Ministry had been inclined to offer even a token investigation (which they might have done) they would quickly have found themselves stymied. The only witnesses were Aberforth and Albus (who would have refused to talk) and Grindelwald (who was in a foreign country and busy becoming a dictator).


Now, if they had procured Albus and Aberforth's wands, they could possibly have used Priori Incantato to determine what spells they had performed. But who is to say that the Ministry can examine someone's wand without sufficient cause, any more than Muggle police in the UK can search someone's home merely because a "fishy" death occurred there. Note that we do not even know whether Priori Incantato (as opposed to Priori Incantatem) can reveal all spells cast by a wand, or simply the most recent.



Similarly, an examination of Ariana's body might have revealed signs of magical death (assuming that no one concealed them), but who is to say the Ministry had enough cause to do so? Given that Ariana's illness had been known for a long time among family friends, it is entirely possible that the Ministry would have thought no more of it than that.


So without evidence, it's hard to say the Ministry would even suspect foul play, let alone sufficient legal grounds to inspect the brothers' wands. And given Albus Dumbledore's brilliance, it's safe to assume that that any evidence would have been covered up very well.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more