Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them part three is due to hit theaters in November of 2021. The last movie, The Crimes of Grindelwald, left fans with quite a lot to speculate about in the interim, most specifically the true heritage of Ezra Miller’s Credence. While it was quite a surprise to find out in movie one that Credence did possess magical abilities and was an Obscurial, a human host for an incredibly powerful magical source. While this was quite the twist in the original Fantastic Beasts movie, it was nothing compared to what viewers are told about Credence in the sequel.
Not only does the boy possess magical abilities, and quite powerful ones, but he’s also the long lost sibling of the famed Wizard, Albus Dumbledore. The problem with this claim is, first and foremost, that it comes from the evil wizard Grindelwald himself, who is looking to use and manipulate Credence. Not everyone was convinced, and here are just a few reasons why.
Not Related - Dumbledore’s Dad Was in Jail
Percival Dumbledore, the father of Albus, Aberforth, and Ariana, went to prison for attacking a group of Muggle boys who had previously attacked his daughter, Ariana.
At the time, Ariana was six, her brothers a few years older. Albus himself was probably no more than ten or eleven. That means, for there to be any other legitimate children born into the Dumbledore family Credence, or Aurelius, would have already needed to be born, and yet he is not mentioned at all by any of the supposed members of his family in any other Harry Potter property.
Related - Obscruials Run in the Family
As fans find out in the first Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film, Credence is not only a wizard, but is also an obscurial, and can lash out in very powerful, and very violent, magical rages. This is in part due to the suppression of his magical ability for almost eighteen years of his life. Ariana, the confirmed youngest Dumbledore sibling, may also have been an Obscurial.
After being attacked by Muggles as a child she shut down her magic, suppressed it, and needed to be taken care of. Her violent outburst that led to the death of her mother may very well have been her obscurus coming to the surface.
Not Related - Age Difference
Credence, being around eighteen years old in the first Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movie would also have made him around some twenty three years younger than his closest Dumbledore sibling.
This makes the possibility of his being a legitimate Dumbledore almost impossible as Percival Dumbledore, Albus’s father, was already in Azkaban when his last “son” would have needed to be both conceived and born.
Related - Dumbledore Sends Newt to Paris
Sure, Grindelwald is a problem, and Credence has been spotted in Paris, but why did Dumbledore send Newt there to take care of things? For one, Newt was the only wizard alive who had ever kept an Obscurus alive after its human host had perished. Perhaps Dumbledore just wanted to keep the Obscurus out of Grindelwald’s hands.
But, if that was the only goal, Albus could have sent anyone to destroy Credence. By sending Newt he was also sending the message that Credence’s life mattered to him. And why out of wizards across the world, would Credence matter so much to Albus? Perhaps because he knows they are related.
Not Related - Mrs. Dumbledore was Dead
Kendra Dumbledore spent a good portion of her life taking care of her daughter Ariana after the girl was attacked and her father, Kendra’s husband, imprisoned. That doesn’t leave her much time to devote to other small children.
If Credence is in fact around eighteen years old in the Fantastic Beasts movies, and we consider that perhaps he is a half-sibling to Albus and the rest, Kendra Dumbledore would have needed to conceive the child almost ten years after she was killed in an accident caused by her own daughter, Ariana.
Related - Dumbledore’s Good at Secrets
Ask Albus Dumbledore’s one remaining sibling what he thinks of his brother and you won’t get a very pretty picture. Aberforth always thought of Albus as a bit stuck up as well as very good at keeping secrets. “I knew my brother, Potter. He learned secrecy at our mother’s knee. Secrets and lies, that’s how we grew up, and Albus. . . he was a natural," Aberforth tells Harry in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows novel.
If anyone was able to have a secret sibling and keep him hidden from the entire world, it was Albus Dumbledore.
Not Related - Graves/Grindelwald Didn’t think Credence was a Wizard
If Credence really was Aurelius Dumbledore one would have to assume that the man revealing this information, Grindelwald, had been holding onto it for quite some time.
Yet, even fans who have only seen the first two Fantastic Beasts movies will remember that Grindelwald, disguised as American Auror, Percival Graves, didn’t even consider Credence to the wizard/obscurial he was looking for, much less the important lost descendant of his best friend’s family. It makes you think Grindelwald was only telling people what they wanted to hear.
Related - Leta Lestrange Wouldn’t Lie
Leta admits to switching her half brother Corvus for a quieter, more well-behaved infant, while on a boat for America. The boat sank and, while Leta and the stolen baby made it to a lifeboat, her half brother Corvus drowned.
She had no reason to lie when telling her story, and admitting the baby was given to an unknown family in America. Why would this story be important if the baby she had picked up had just been a nobody?
Not Related - Aberforth Doesn’t Lie
Aberforth is nothing but gruff and honest with Harry in both the book and the film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. He is not one to assuage Harry’s anger at Albus about all the details the old Headmaster never explained.
It doesn’t seem like Aberforth would be one to hide another sibling, especially as he was so attentive to his younger sibling, Ariana, in the first place.
Related - Credence’s Age is Wrong
Credence was adopted by Mary Lou Barbone. It’s possible, with the convoluted backstory that currently exists, that Credence is not in fact eighteen, but significantly older than he appears and believes and could, possibly, have been born a half-sibling to Albus, Aberforth, and Ariana before Kendra died. Still, it’s unlikely.
