#protectthesecrets

So Credence is supposedly a brother of Albus Dumbledore named Aurelius Dumbledore. We’re all still reeling from that one, but I think I may have an idea of how Jo’s going to make something that, timeline-wise, doesn’t really make sense, actually work out to be true. 

But first, let’s lay out the possibilities with respect to this revelation.

1. Credence is indeed Albus Dumbledore’s younger brother. 

Issues: if he is a Dumbledore and is related to Albus through the blood of their father (which we will assume, since Kendra Dumbledore wasn’t born into, but married into, the Dumbledore family), then he would have had to have been conceived after their (and Aberforth and Ariana’s) father was already arrested and locked up in Azkaban for attacking the muggle boys who attacked Ariana. But Albus’ father supposedly died in Azkaban when he was young, and so by that timeline, Aurelius would be much older than Credence is.

2. Credence is a relative of Albus Dumbledore, but not his brother. 

This seems the most likely case? After all, he does have the phoenix talent-connection-thingy, but then why would Grindelwald have told a little white lie in calling him Albus’ brother? It seems to me that Grindelwald tells big lies big time, but doesn’t waste energy on little ones. After all, why would calling him Albus’ long-lost brother make a particular difference to Credence than just calling him his long-lost uncle or cousin or what have you?? The emotional push Credence needs to follow Grindelwald (and remain in constant meltdown mode) is just to believe that his own blood family doesn’t love him and is trying to kill him (which, Albus isn’t, but Credence doesn’t know that).

3. Credence is no relative of Albus Dumbledore at all, and Grindelwald is lying.

A few things seem to support this.1) Timing. Credence is too young to have been born to either of Albus’ parents before they died. 2) What proof do we really have that Grindelwald isn’t lying, save for the phoenix bit? 3) On some level, it just seems TOO ironic and intertwined to believe that Dumbledore’s sibling was swapped with the Lestrange child who was Newt’s friend/childhood love’s brother. Too many coincidences here.

4. Credence is Aurelius, but somehow Aurelius was born into the Dumbledore family before Ariana’s abuse by the muggle boys when she was small. Potentially, Aurelius was sent away (maybe even without Albus or Aberforth knowing about him), but for some reason didn’t grow up in real time. 

What could Jo cook up to make this happen? Initially, I thought “no idea”, but she’s already challenged what we think we know about the rules of magic PLENTY of times in these two movies--think obscurus for one, Nagini being a real person (!!) under a blood curse for two, and then the new development with Dumbledore and Grindelwald having taken a blood oath, which seems to be akin to an unbreakable vow, though possibly and probably deadlier, for three. (More on how she might achieve this later.)

But let me take a little detour to note a few interesting clues or holes that might be important in this discussion before I propose my (very untidy and underdeveloped) theory. 

Who was Credence with on the ship before it sank? (And also, what was the ship that sank? Was this the Titanic or Lusitania or some other real-world sinking that Jo has appropriated, or is it just a generic ship that we can’t attach to real history?) We know that Leta had swapped her real genetic half-brother, Corvus Lestrange, an infant, with another baby (who turns out to be Credence). So when the ship sinks, the family that was in possession of Credence (whether actually his relatives or not) drowns with fake-Credence-who-is-actually-real-Corvus-Lestrange when their lifeboat capsizes. SO WHO ARE THEY? It looked like a black (??) woman in the brief shot that picked him up to take him from the crib, and then the woman (the same?? I don’t recall) swimming toward him when they’re drowning, and that’s pretty much all we know. 

Related to the Previous Thought:

Why does Corvus Lestrange (Leta and baby Corvus’ father--yes, they have the same name just to make things difficult) play a role in this film in supporting Grindelwald? We see him in the ministry at the beginning, taking the “job” that Newt won’t (i.e. going after Credence to kill him in Paris), but then later, he has a nice little chat with Grindelwald under a bridge where he informs Grindelwald that he killed the Lestrange nurse (WHY?), and that he is going to have a tough time with the Ministry officials for letting Credence “get away”. If, presumably, Corvus believed that the obscurial, Credence, was his son (we don’t, but it’s possibly a safe assumption), why would he be trying to help get him to Grindelwald? Maybe because he saw Grindelwald as a way to save his (or who he believes is) his child that he had adored? The important question, though, is: Does Corvus Lestrange (the father) know anything about Aurelius Dumbledore, and what role (if any) will he play for Grindelwald’s rise to power in the coming films?

This one’s a bit of a tangent, but I think it’s worth considering and investigating: I’m curious where Bathilda Bagshot is in all of this Dumbledore/Grindelwald business. We know that she introduced the two teenagers to each other all those years ago in Godric’s Hollow, and that Grindelwald was there because she was his great-aunt, whom he was visiting. Is it possible that Credence is actually part of Grindelwald’s family, not Dumbledore’s, and that Grindelwald lied to him because he’s going to use Credence against Dumbledore somehow in the midst of this shifty blood oath business? I don’t know if this question goes anywhere, but I think it’s worth asking if our favorite wizarding author (okay, maybe Hermione’s and mine, at least) and magical historian will make an appearance.

Grindelwald and Dumbledore’s blood oath seems to be waving a red flag in our faces when it’s announced at the very end of the film, in literally the exact same scene, as Credence’s blood relation to Dumbledore is revealed. Somehow, Credence--or Aurelius, I should say, since none of us is convinced that they ARE, in fact, the same person--seems like he’s going to play a HUGE PART in Dumbledore figuring out how to break that blood oath, or in how Grindelwald is able to break it (OR maybe protect it in order to protect himself from Dumbledore??). 

And lastly:

Aurelius is a Latin/Roman name, taken most famously from Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor and philosopher. It means “golden” or “gilded”--and this got me thinking. Maybe it isn’t significant, but Jo does love to play with names and she doesn’t pick them willy-nilly. Of course, the name fits with all the other ‘A’ Dumbledore siblings (Albus, Aberforth, Ariana), so that does suggest a hint of authenticity (or at least plausibility) to the existence of such a brother, but if he DOES exist--is that even Credence?

But then I noticed something else about the meaning in the name. Gold has to do with (it’s used in) ALCHEMY. The Sorcerer’s Stone can turn any metal into pure gold à la King Midas. D’you think somehow that Albus, in his involvement/partnership with Nicholas Flamel, found a way to keep his infant brother (see possibilities #1 and #3) alive for years without him aging?? 

OR, maybe there were only three Dumbledore siblings after all, but after Ariana’s “death”, Dumbledore found a way with Flamel to take her obscurus, and revive it as a new person, or, at the very least, attach it to a person (to form an obscurial)? Could Aurelius be a name that Albus Dumbledore gave to this child when they brought a part of Ariana back to life as a little boy? A child who was brought back to life through alchemy would make sense to have a name having to do with gold, for sure.

In fact, it would almost make even more sense, because perhaps Dumbledore’s alchemy partnership with Flamel was born from his interest in trying to bring his sister back after her death (and his heavy guilt over it), rather than the other way around.

Finally, I have to ask a question here: Why the hell was Flamel in this movie in the first place? What real function did he serve? Jo could’ve pulled in any minor character--or made one up!--to throw in a place for a safehouse and have an extra wizard body to help stop the weird blue flames from destroying Paris in the end, so WHY PICK FLAMEL? It seems to me that he has yet to fully serve his purpose in this film series and that he will come back to haunt us (with a very old and zombie-like, and yet very real body) later in a more significant plot role.