What Dumbledore Has Taught Me

[Freya Fridy]

When I was approached to talk about what Dumbledore taught me, my first immediate thought was to start singing 'APWBD' by The Remus Lupins: "How we're only as strong as we are united/And weak as we are when we're divided", "I'll never forget how you showed this werewolf cub/An endless amount of unconditional love/And taught us what it meant to be brave", "Dumbledore, taught us what magic was for/Dumbledore, I miss you".

All of these things are certainly true, but none of them really rang for me as what I have learned from Dumbledore; nor what the core of his lessons were. So I decided to look at the expositional ends of the books, where we find many of Dumbledore's lessons clearly spelled out to Harry.

From Sorcerer's Stone:
"After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."
This is certainly an important thing to keep in mind, but not quite Dumbledore's main message to me.

"Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."
There is yet another The Remus Lupins' song rattling around now, 'Don't Fear the Word' ("Don't you bite your tongue/Because fear of the word/Only promotes/Fear of the thing itself").

Hm. Perhaps Chamber of Secrets?
"It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
Again, a very good point, but not quite the crux of it.

Prisoner of Azkaban?
"Hasn't your experience with the Time-Turner taught you anything, Harry? The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed..."
Plenty of other books, movies, and television have taught me that messing with time isn't really ever a good idea. This can't be the main lesson.

Goblet of Fire?
"Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."
What is it with The Remus Lupins and Dumbledore's lessons ('Remember Cedric')? Alex Carpenter seems to have taken a lot from Dumbledore per his lyrics, but I still can't quite put my finger on what I have gotten.

Order of the Phoenix? Here we have a highly emotional scene between Dumbledore and Harry after Sirius' death. Maybe here lies the ultimate lesson.
"Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human … the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength."
Things like this are always said by people who you cannot imagine feel the same pain you do. I find I easily dismissed this, just like Harry did.

And where we thought we would have our last quotes from Dumbledore - Half-Blood Prince?
"It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more."
Again, I've heard this rehashed plenty of times. "Nothing to fear but fear itself."

"When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love."
Well, that seems to be a big clue. But Dumbledore has so much wisdom to impart that I can't imagine the most important lesson we have from him is simply a foreshadowing of Snape's real intentions.

And so we are left with Deathly Hallows, a book that I didn't believe at first would bring the final lessons from Dumbledore. After Harry reads both Elphias Doge's obituary and the interview with Rita Skeeter about her impending biography of Dumbledore, he is left confused and doubtful of whether his hero, his mentor, was truly who he believed him to be. When Harry confronts Doge at the wedding, Doge says to him, "Let nothing tarnish your memories of Albus Dumbledore!" For Harry, this isn't so easy. After Harry reads the chapter of Rita Skeeter's biography titled, The Greater Good, it describes him feeling as if, "Some inner certainty had crashed down inside him; it was exactly as he had felt after Ron left. He had trusted Dumbledore, believed him the embodiment of goodness and wisdom."

As Harry continues on his quest to find and destroy the Horcruxes, he is presented with the temptation of searching for the Deathly Hallows, but he chooses to keep searching for the Horcruxes, as instructed by Dumbledore. After Harry's death, when he is speaking with Dumbledore at King's Cross, Dumbledore apologizes for his youthful transgressions and asks Harry to forgive him. At this point, I think it is clear that there is nothing left to forgive. Harry, much like me, already understands Dumbledore's greatest lesson. Dumbledore isn't perfect. He didn't live a life where every moment was something you should emulate. But yet, despite this, he taught us so much along the way. Using this lesson, we can all find someone we can learn from. They may not be the most perfect person, the most righteous person, or the person who gives the best example. This person can still teach you. This person can still offer some wisdom or some lesson that you may not have had otherwise. And this means that this person can be just as important as Dumbledore was to Harry. Therefore, can't we all be a Dumbledore for someone else?

Perfection shouldn't be our goal. Our goal should be to take what Dumbledore did and spread it through the world. That's what Dumbledore taught me. Send out your thoughts about love, acceptance, and tolerance to anyone and everyone. You never know who might just take it to heart.

[Jules]

beautiful! i think you are right... his greatest lesson was not that he had all the answers but that he kept trying to make things right even when he'd really messed up. that he was FAR from perfect but used what he had whether magical brilliance or his compassion to leave the world a bit better and brighter than it was before. It's simple but i think that's the point. everyone is so busy making themselves spectacular or striving after stuff, success and things with labels (in our world the rat race for more money and better jobs in HP the death eaters or even becoming minister of magic- as rufus and fudge both proved even the kindest or bravest of people are corrupted by power) are just not that important. what matters most is being selfless.... a lesson that even if it took Dumbledore his death to learn it was one he imparted well to Harry, who ended up giving up his very self and the glory of defeating voldemort to do what was right, to use what he had where he was.

After all Harry is "Dumbledore's man through and through," and there is no higher compliment.