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    1. Culture

    Wait, did The Prisoner of Azkaban predict Dumbledore’s death?

    One fan theory certainly seems to think so...

    By Georgie Lane-Godfrey
    Published 1 April 2021 In Features

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    One fan theory certainly seems to think so...

    Another day, another Harry Potter fan theory. Only this time, it’s pretty big news as it seems as though we may have missed a massive clue about Dumbledore’s impending death.

    According to Tumbler user mynameisdavid23, J.K. Rowling actually foreshadowed Dumbledore’s death three books earlier in The Prisoner of Azkaban – we just missed an obvious clue.

    In the third book in the Harry Potter series, Professor Trelawny refuses to sit down to Christmas dinner as there are already 12 people around the table. While this might sound like bonkers behaviour, the woman had her reasons saying: ‘When 13 people dine together, the first to rise will die.’ So really, she was just being conscientious, you know?

    But according to mynameisdavid23, it was too little too late. In a Tumblr post he wrote:

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    ‘I’ve been re-reading the HP books and I got to the Prisoner of Azkaban (be still my beating heart, it is still the best one) and, at Christmas there’s only 12 people around the dinner table. Trelawny comes along and Dumbledore stands up to draw her a chair.

    ‘She freaks out, I must not! When 13 people dine together, the first to rise is the first to die!!!!!

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    ‘Except.

    ‘Ron had Scabbers in his pocket.

    ‘Which means that there wasn’t 12 people when Trelawny arrived. There was already 13.

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    ‘And Dumbledore stood up.’

    We know. Minds blown.

    The only problem with this theory is that there’s no mention in the book as to whether Scabbers was in Ron’s pocket at that actual time. However, he’d been chilling in there for a lot of the other chapters, so it’s not too far-fetched a theory.

    What’s more, this isn’t the only time the rule of 13 has foretold the death of a character. In the Order of the Phoenix, Sirius is the first to stand up from a table of 13 people months before he ended up in a wizarding duel in the ministry with his deranged cousin Bellatrix (and we all know how that one ended).

    Later, after Alastor Moody’s death, Remus Lupin is the first to stand up at the Weasley’s house in a room filled with 13 people. No wonder then that poor old Professor Lupin ending up biting the dust in the Battle of Hogwarts.

    We know it might be a stretch considering we don’t know where Scabbers actually was that night, but it does seem a little too coincidental when you consider Remus and Lupin’s deaths too.

    And if it is true? Looks like mynameisdavid23 could give Professor Trelawney a run for her money in the divination stakes…

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