I do not remember offhand what I was doing for the entirety of 2004; playing a bit of indifferent tennis on the William Fremd frosh/soph high school team, to be sure; carefully nursing a hallway crush that necessitated careful class-navigation strategizing; rollerblading to Subway with my friend Emily a lot, because we both really enjoyed Subway. I think I worked at Portillo’s that summer, but I can’t be entirely certain. What I most assuredly was not doing, unfortunately, was learning about the “Dumbledore is a time-traveling Ron Weasley” on Harry Potter fan forums.

But I could have done. For nigh on ten years, this theory has been kept from me, until I stumbled across it quite inadvertently on the eve of this new year. Let’s hear this out, my heart cried within me. Let the man speak. Let him produce evidence; let us judge the merits of his argument, unfettered by bias or prejudice.

(Did you know about this? Did you keep this from me? Were you, in short, afraid?)

Ron, our loyal Knight, will become a time traveler. He will be sent back in time to some point in the 19th century to live out the rest of his days at Albus Dumbledore, our venerable King. The exact mechanics of his journey in time are unclear, though we do believe it is unavoidable, and that it will in fact be the very move that enables Harry’s eventual defeat of Voldemort (the checkmate) and that it will also have something to do with the White Queen (Bellatrix). Though you may think us a couple of nutters for making such an outrageous claim, we do indeed have evidence. Lots and lots of evidence.

I am properly strapped in. I have read the precautionary materials; I have no known heart conditions and am neither a pregnant nor a nursing mother. All of my arms and legs are safely inside the vehicle. I am ready to go on this ride with you.

1. Uncanny Resemblance

We often joke about how unobservant Harry is, and though he hasn’t made the connection we have, he does indeed dutifully describe for us both Ron and Dumbledore’s appearance. Harry describes both Ron and Dumbledore as tall, thin and possessing a long nose (though Dumbledore’s has been broken a couple of times). These three characteristics are repeated by Harry when he meets either of these two characters for the first time in almost every book.

Dumbledore is described as having long fingers, while Ron is described as having large hands and feet. Unless Ron is a mutant, having large hands would also mean having long fingers. Dumbledore is very, very old with white hair when we first meet him, but when Harry visits a fifty years younger Dumbledore in Riddle’s diary, he is described as having auburn hair. In other words, Dumbledore was once a redhead just like Ron. While we know Dumbledore has sparkling blue eyes, JKR has very curiously neglected to have Harry mention Ron’s eye color for five whole books now. We know nearly everyone else’s eye color, including Arthur Weasley’s (blue), but we don’t know that of Harry’s best friend.

Dumbledore’s one other key characteristic, the scar above his left knee, is mentioned in the first chapter of PS/SS. While Harry hasn’t noticed any tell tale scars shaped like the London Underground on Ron, we do indeed know from PoA that Ron has sustained a serious injury to his left leg. Though JKR curiously, and very pointedly, dances around which leg exactly it is that Ron has broken, we have determined that it is indeed his left leg. When Sirius conjures the manacles and attaches Peter to Ron and Lupin, he attaches Peter to Ron’s left side. If you are injured and using only one crutch, you would, of course, use the crutch on the side of your injured leg. Sirius shackled Peter to Ron’s injured side – his left.

Unless Ron is a mutant. Ron is most assuredly not a mutant; but he may very well be a long-fingered time-traveler. Are you trying to claim that Ron Weasley, cheerful wizard-lad, is a mutant of some kind? That is a ridiculous claim; you have nothing to back up this assertion. He has big hands; it follows necessarily that he has long fingers. He is not a mutant.

But that is not all… In the last chapter of PS/SS, Dumbledore tells Harry that he lost his taste for Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans after eating a vomit flavored bean in his youth. There is one problem with this… Bertie Bott was born in 1935. While Dumbledore is over 150 years old, and for him, ‘youth’ is a relative term, he could not have possibly eaten a Bertie Bott Every Flavor Bean until the 1950’s, most likely even later, making him well over a hundred years old. Even in Dumbledore terms this is hardly his ‘youth’. Before anyone makes the brilliant observation that the Bertie Bott card isn’t canon, be sure to read the statement from Wizards of the Coast concerning their collaboration with JK Rowling on the making of the cards posted to The Leaky Cauldron.

THIS MAKES SENSE TO ME. Can you explain this? Your rebuttal of this theory must include this. The Every Flavor beans are the smoking gun.

4. Foreshadowing

Ron makes it very clear on several occasions that he hates the color maroon. Could it be because he will eventually be ‘marooned’ in time?

Yes.

 

Socks are a running theme throughout the series. They are used as symbols of freedom, redemption and love. Ron, however, doesn’t ever really fully appreciate the socks his mother gives him. In PoA, he tosses them aside to gush over Harry’s Firebolt. In GoF, he gives his Christmas socks to Dobby. Socks are also seen attached to Molly specifically – she is seen fussing over socks, looking for socks, folding socks, packing socks. And if Molly wasn’t mother figure enough, Tonks tells Harry her own mother has this special knack for magically folding socks. In fact, the first time we see Harry, he is in his cupboard, looking for a pair of socks (though he has to knock the spiders off of them, not having a mother to fuss over them for him). Dobby is set free with a sock. Hermione knits socks for the house elves. Dumbledore, the man who clearly has all of the fame, power, respect, possessions and wisdom one could hope for in a lifetime, sees himself holding a pair of wooly socks in the Mirror of Erised. If you read this scene with Dumbledore being Ron in mind, it takes on a whole new and really huge significance Ron indeed becomes greater than all of his brothers, yet as an old man, he is still wistful for those socks his mother gave him and he never fully appreciated.

This man has thought more carefully and considerately about the use of socks in the Harry Potter books than you have ever thought about anything your miserable and lumpen-headed life. You disgust me. Dumbledore is a time-traveling Ron, and I hate your insipid, moony face.

In OotP, Draco composes a lovely song – Weasley is Our King. If that isn’t foreshadowing, I don’t know what is. One line in particular is given significance by Draco. He is heard singing it loudly during the game by Harry, and Draco later quotes it in italics – born in a bin. While Draco likes to make fun of Ron’s poverty, the phrase has a double meaning. ‘Bin’ is also a prefix meaning ‘double’ or ‘two’ – think ‘binary’. Was Ron ‘born’ twice? Leading a double life? Is Draco trying to tell us something important?

THAT’S FUCKING LATIN MOTHERFUCKERS

In OotP, Ron is nearly strangled by some purple wizard robes while cleaning up Grimmauld Place. Who do we know wears purple robes? Dumbledore, of course.

I don’t even know what this means but I love your commitment and I am so all about this journey we are taking together and yes I said yes I will Yes.