Harry Potter Dumbledore Is TimeTraveling Ron Theory Explained

A Harry Potter fan theory suggests that Dumbledore was a time-traveling Ron. Here's an explanation of the crazy theory and how it was disproved.

A bizarre Harry Potter fan theory suggests that Albus Dumbledore was actually Ron Weasley who time-traveled to the primary timeline featured in the series. The theory has been around since the novels were still being published but such is its popularity - or its strangeness, perhaps - that it seems to pick up attention in cycles as newly discovered coincidental details feed fuel to it. But could Albus Dumbledore really be the grown-up version of Ron Weasley via the trick of time travel? It's more compelling than you may think.

On the surface, Dumbledore and Ron didn't share too many similarities. One was the headmaster of Hogwarts and renowned as one of the greatest wizards to ever live and the other was a young wizard trying to escape his siblings' shadows while staying out of trouble. But then, as the series by author J.K. Rowling expanded, a few similarities between Dumbledore and Ron arose which caught the eye of the Wizarding World's legion of fans. With the release of the movie franchise, more and more Harry Potter fan theories cropped up and even if some of the theories have been debunked, it's fun to think what could have been had Rowling gone in a different direction with her narrative.

The “Dumbledore Is Time-Traveling Ron” theory came to light in the early 2000s when readers believed that the headmaster was an elder version of the youngest Weasley son. The logistics of the theory are a little murky but it suggests that Ron lived out his life and then traveled back in time as Dumbledore in order to serve as mentor to Harry in his new life. Quite how he would manage such a thing is up for debate: there is some belief that Ron would have been trapped in his own past by accident after using a Time-Turner wrongly and going back too far. And there's an alternative line of thinking that suggests that Dumbledore used - probably Dark - magic to bring his memories to life through Ron in the way Voldemort tried to use Tom Riddle's diary to manifest himself from the slither of his soul hidden in the horcrux.

Dumbledore Is A Time-Travelling Ron Weasley - The Evidence

Surprisingly, there was ample evidence that Dumbledore and Ron were the same person. They both shared physical characters such as their descriptions of being tall and thin with long noses and the requisite hair colour. Ron notably had red hair and it was later revealed that Dumbledore had a similar shade of hair in his early days. Dumbledore was said to have a scar on his left leg and Ron memorably broke one of his legs at the end of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. There was also the fact that Dumbledore and Ron both love sweets. And rather tellingly, the great wizard claimed to have loved Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans since his youth except that Bertie wasn't born until 1935 when Dumbledore was in his mid-50s.

Beyond the surface level similarities, it can't be overstated how intriguing it is that Dumbledore seems to have near-omniscient awareness of everything that goes on in Harry, Ron, and Hermione's lives, including after the point of his death. It is his gift of the Deluminator to Ron that brings the trio back together at a crucial time, for instance, and the easiest solution to the riddle of how Dumbledore knew so much was that he had already lived the events himself. And it wasn't because of a major bond between Albus and Ron, as the books confirmed that they'd rarely interacted: "As far as Harry knew, Ron and Dumbledore had never been alone together, and direct contact between them had been negligible." Could that have been Dumbledore's attempt to avoid a time paradox, perhaps?

How The Harry Potter Movie Franchise Disproved The Dumbledore Time Travel Theory

The theory seemed extremely plausible but it was ultimately disproved by the end of the Harry Potter series. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Dumbledore was given more of a backstory and his family history was revealed following his death, including the mystery of Ariana's death and his estrangement from brother Aberforth. The character also has a prominent role in the prequel series sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, which will be expanded further in The Secrets Of Dumbledore. Unless there's a huge twist in the tale that has already included Credence's true parentage, it's unlikely that the threequel's titular secrets will take in Ron Weasley.

JK Rowling herself officially disproved the time-traveling theory via Twitter in 2015, responding curtly to the suggestion with a mere "false theory" without going into it further. Considering her usual penchant for adding to Wizarding World lore - sometimes in greater detail than anyone would ever have asked for - her reluctance to even entertain the idea is intriguingly stark.

False theory. https://t.co/c89Erq9hnD

In the end, it seems that many of the similarities between Dumbledore and Ron were merely coincidental, or indeed were designed as part of Dumbledore's characterization to explain exactly why he took so much interest in Harry and his friends beyond the prophecy. After the theory started to make the rounds, readers likely examined details that were overlooked by the Harry Potter author and came to their creative conclusion without her intent taken into account.