EC Whitzy

Simcoe (left) and Citra (right), both girls. Both rescues. Both biological litter mates (sisters). Both long term loving projects to teach human trust to.

Simcoe got 100% of the meowing capabilities.

Is Credence really Dumbledore’s brother?

1. YES

(As always, please correct my facts if I’ve got them wrong. I am a fuzzy-brained person and numbers are a weak point.)

Here’s the timeline:

1881 – Albus is born

1885 – Ariana is born

1891 – Ariana is attacked by Muggle boys. She’s six. Percival goes to prison for attacking the boys.

1892 – Albus starts Hogwarts

1899 – Ariana accidentally kills Kendra. duel in which Ariana is killed

1908 – Credence is born. Albus is 27. Percival has been in Azkaban for 17 years.

1901 – Credence is born (according to the screenplay.) (Ezra was wrong about him being 18 in FB, I guess.) Albus is 20. Percival has been in Azkaban for ten years.

1926 – Fantastic Beasts takes place, Credence is 25.

Date of Percival’s death=unknown

In order for the ‘Phoenixes coming to Dumbledores’ thing to work, Credence would have to be Percival’s son to be a Dumbledore. Which means that the only way Credence can be Albus’ brother is if Percival fathered a child while in prison in 1901. Which is totally possible. Why not? And it’s also possible that it would have remained a secret. It’s actually the kind of thing I could see JKR writing and I’m already thinking of angsty fanfics in which Percival develops a relationship with a fellow prisoner in order to have some relief from the Dementors. 

2. NO, he’s Albus’ cousin

According to Beedle the Bard, Albus had an aunt named Honoria. She once had a fiance, but she dumped him for fondling Horklumps. We don’t know if she was Percival or Kendra’s sibling, but the fact that she knows about Horklumps and the fact that fondling them is icky kind of a little bit hints that she grew up in the wizarding world. SO, Credence could he her son.

3. NO, Grindelwald is a filthy, dirty liar who made up the brother thing in order to make Credence think that Albus abandoned him and incite him to kill Albus.

The only sticking point in this theory is that the phoenix did come to Credence. Of course, we don’t know the entirety of the lore, so we don’t whether it’s possible for Grindelwald to have manipulated that. Given he’s an exceptionally powerful wizard, I believe it’s possible. 

(Sudden thought. What if a side-effect of the blood pact means that some of Albus’ blood is in Grindelwald’s body (the same way some of Harry’s blood was in Voldemort’s) and the phoenix was attracted to that?)

4. NO, he’s Ariana’s child

Uh uh. Nope. She was 14 when she died, she was 6 when she was attacked (if you think they raped her). Too dark for even JKR. I don’t want to entertain that idea because it’s too upsetting.

ETA 5. NO, It’s been pointed out to me that he could be Aberforth’s son.

Which would make him  Albus’ nephew. 

6. YES, but it’s brother in a metaphorical sense. 

I’ve been having a lot of discussions about the Obscurus, whether it could be transferred from one person to another, whether Credence could be the result of some kind of complex magic we’ve not yet encountered, etc.