The Harry Potter Alliance

By Andrew Slack

June 3, 2009

At the Core of Dumbledore's Soul

While through What Would Dumbledore Do, we are off to a start in discussing several ways that we can be loyal to the spirit of Albus Dumbledore, are you ready to go deeper than we already have? Because we aren’t messing around here. In declaring our loyalty to the core of Dumbledore’s spirit we are truly stepping out into the night and pursuing “that flighty temptress, adventure” on an adventure and entering the realm of deep speculation.

The importance of such an endeavor cannot be underestimated. To travel to the core of Dumbledore’s soul is to travel to the core of the entire series of Harry Potter. To travel to the core of Dumbledore’s soul is to travel to a clarity where Voldemort’s attempts at splitting his own soul seem more futile and pathetic than nefarious and evil. To travel to the core of Dumbledore’s soul cannot be done through a journey of the intellect alone and so these words will simply not suffice to hold the meaning for which they are intended. For in reality, to travel to the core of Dumbledore’s soul is to travel into the the elusive spiritual reasons for why I believe the Harry Potter novels were written in the first place. To travel to the core of Dumbledore’s soul is to travel to the core of our own soul, the soul of the world.

In essence, we are traveling into the dark and ancient woods of the human unconscious, into the elusive spiritual realities behind why human beings have ever told stories to our kin within caves, our children within cribs, our brethren around fire pits, and our mass communities within movie theaters. By traveling to the core of Dumbledore’s soul, we are traveling to the heart of it all. And to declare our loyalty to this core with every fiber of our strength, with every fiber of our mind, and every fiber of our being is to fully declare our loyalty to the most primordial and in the same instant, the most evolved Being that has ever and will ever be. In the end, the only Being that truly exists at all. The only Being that has ever and will ever exist at all.

But where words fail us in such an indescribable and transcendent journey to the core of Dumbledore’s soul, metaphor stands a chance. And though I am presenting this metaphor as something deep, intense, and heavy, in truth it is as light as a feather. For to travel to the core of Dumbledore’s soul is to travel to the very core of the wands belonging to Dumbledore’s most famous students, Harry Potter and Tom Riddle. What we find at the core of their wands is what we find at the core of Dumbledore’s soul: the Phoenix feather.

“’Harrys’ wand and Voldemort’s wand share cores. Each of them contains a feather from the tail of the same phoenix. This phoenix in fact,’ he added, and he pointed at the scarlet-and-gold bird, perching peacefully on Harry’s knee” (Goblet of Fire 697).

The core of Dumbledore’s soul, the core of perhaps of the human soul and human experience is, in the Harry Potter novels represented by the Phoenix.

Before we enter into the question of why the Phoenix is so important, let’s at least spell out some examples as to how the Phoenix is associated with Dumbledore.

We’ll start with Harry’s second year where he meets with the the headmaster after his fight with Tom Riddle. “‘First of all, Harry, I want to thank you,’ said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling again. ‘You must have shown me real loyalty down in the Chamber. Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you’” (Chamber of Secrets 332).
In Harry’s fifth year, the Headmaster escapes from Ministry officials attempting to arrest him when “Fawkes circled the office and swooped low over him. Dumbledore …grasped the phoenix’s long golden tail. There was a flash of fire and the pair of them had gone” (Order of the Phoenix 622).

Weeks later, when a snake from Voldemort’s wand was going for Dumbledore’s throat “Fawkes swooped down in front of Dumbledore, opened his beak wide, and swallowed the jet of green light whole” (Order of the Phoenix 815).
Then of course, there is the fact that every time Dumbledore’s heart swells with love for Harry, Fawkes seems to respond as if Fawkes WERE Dumbledore’s heart. Just a couple of examples:

• “Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Behind Harry, Fawkes the phoenix let out a low, soft, musical cry. To Harry’s intense embarrassment, he suddenly realized that Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes looked rather watery” (Half-Blood Prince 358).

• “….Harry got to his feet quickly. ‘Good night, sir.’
“As he closed the study door behind him, he distinctly heard Phineas Nigellus say, ‘I can’t see why the boy should be able to do it better than you, Dumbledore.’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to, Phineas,’ replied Dumbledore, and Fawkes gave another low musical cry.

• When Dumbledore asks Harry to open himself to be brave and retell what happened during Voldemort’s return, “The phoenix let out one soft, quavering note. It shivered in the air, and Harry felt as though a drop of hot liquid had slipped down his throat into his stomach, warming him, strengthening him” (Goblet of Fire 695).

And as Harry battles Voldemort, he is restored by Phoenix song, “the sound of hope to Harry…it was the sound he connected with Dumbledore” (Goblet of Fire 664 [italics mine]).

Within hours of Dumbledore’s death, Fawkes circled the Hogwarts grounds singing “a stricken lament of terrible beauty” (HBP 615) before disappearing for good.

And to take this exploration a step further, when asked what Dumbledore’s Patronus was, JK Rowling tells us that it’s a Phoenix “which,” she says, “is very representative of Dumbledore.”

So I think it’s safe to say that if we are to truly be loyal to the essence of Dumbledore’s spirit, we need to be loyal to the essence of the Phoenix and Phoenix song.

But then the question remains, what does that mean? If the Phoenix and Phoenix Song lie at the core of Harry and Voldemort’s wands and at the core of Dumbledore’s highest aspirations, what does that mean? I will explore that soon, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts. Why would the Phoenix rest at the core of Dumbledore’s soul, at the core of the Harry Potter series themselves, and at the core of perhaps our own souls and the soul of the world? In essence, what does the Phoenix have to do with being at the center of all things Harry Potter?