Dumbledore as Death

J.K. Rowling's 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard' is a booklet filled with five fables and it accompanies the Harry Potter novels. The book is also mentioned in 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows', the last book of the Harry Potter series. One of the fables, 'The Tale of the Three Brothers' is told in its entirety in that final Harry Potter novel.

'The Tale of Three Brothers' tells the story of three brothers who cheat Death (yes, with a capital C) because they did not drown in a river as most travelers did. Death pretended to praise them and told them they earned a prize for their effort.

One of the magicians wanted to have a wand more powerful than his own. The second wanted to have the power to recall others from death and the third asked for something that would enable him to go forth from place to place without being seen. Death reluctantly gave him his own Cloak of Invisibility.

Now, a novel interpretation of that fable has been debated online. And it suggests that Voldemort, Severus Snape and Harry Potter himself represent the three siblings in the 'Tale of the Three Brothers'. As a continuation of that theory, Albus Dumbledore is possibly the personification of Death.

Voldemort was then the brother who used the Elder Wand for murder, whereas Snape wanted the Resurrection Stone to bring back the dead. Concluding the theory, Harry is the brother who hides beneath the Invisibility Cloak and – in the end - greets Death as an old friend - the latter, of course, being Dumbledore.

J.K. Rowling mentions 'it's a beautiful theory and it fits'. But you never know if it's true, don't you?