Albus Dumbledore
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49 free Albus Dumbledore trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Albus Dumbledore runs Hogwarts for most of the Harry Potter series, founds the Order of the Phoenix and is the one wizard Voldemort is said to fear. J. K. Rowling named him after a dialect word for bumblebee because she pictured him humming, called him "the epitome of goodness" and then spent the last two books showing how Machiavellian a good man can be. Richard Harris, Michael Gambon, Jude Law and Toby Regbo have all played him on screen, with John Lithgow next in line for television. This quiz runs from the doorstep at Privet Drive to the marble tomb by the lake: the Mirror of Erised, the Dementors, the Triwizard judging, the Wizengamot sacking, the Pensieve lessons, the cave, the cursed ring and the ethereal King's Cross. It also covers the family history revealed in Deathly Hallows, the Grindelwald romance Rowling announced at Carnegie Hall, and the long list of actors who were offered the role and said no. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Play on your phone or print it for a quiz night.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the name of Dumbledore's pet bird?
Fawkes
Fawkes. Two of his tail feathers became wand cores, one in Harry's wand and one in Voldemort's, which is why those two wands will not work properly against each other.
Q 02Who took over as Dumbledore from Prisoner of Azkaban onwards?
Michael Gambon
Michael Gambon. He never read the novels: an actor works from the screenwriter's words, he reasoned, so he saw "no point in reading the books".
Q 03Who plays the middle-aged Dumbledore in the Fantastic Beasts films?
Jude Law
Jude Law. In The Secrets of Dumbledore his character tells Grindelwald "I was in love with you", one of two lines that Warner Bros. cut for the film's release in China.
Q 04Who was cast as Dumbledore in HBO's Harry Potter television series in 2025?
John Lithgow
John Lithgow. He said yes despite calling it a hard decision: the long-running role, he said, is "going to define me for the last chapter of my life".
Q 05Which journalist wrote the scandalous biography The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore?
Rita Skeeter
Rita Skeeter. She finished the 900-page book just four weeks after his death, and got much of her material by slipping a truth potion to the elderly historian Bathilda Bagshot.
Q 06Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog card credits his work on alchemy with which partner?
Nicolas Flamel
Nicolas Flamel. Harry, Ron and Hermione had searched the library in vain for that name until Harry spotted it on the card, which put them on the trail of the Philosopher's Stone.
Q 07Dumbledore says he loves the patterns for which hobby?
Knitting
Knitting. "I do love knitting patterns," he says on his return, and while he was out of the room Harry had talked their reluctant host into taking a job at Hogwarts.
Q 08Which Hogwarts House was Dumbledore in as a student?
Gryffindor
Gryffindor. On her first train ride to school, Hermione says she hopes to be sorted there because it sounds by far the best: she has heard that Dumbledore himself was in it.
Q 09What does Dumbledore tell Harry "was my weakness and my temptation"?
His desire for power
His desire for power. It is why he stayed a teacher and turned down the post of Minister for Magic every time it was offered: he had learned young that he could not be trusted with it.
Q 10What did Rowling reveal Dumbledore truly sees in the Mirror of Erised?
His family alive and together
His family alive and together, Rowling told fans in 2007, with his brother reconciled to him. The thick woollen socks he describes to Harry in the first book were a dodge.
Q 11The name Dumbledore is a dialect word for which insect?
Bumblebee
Bumblebee. Rowling picked the old dialect word because she imagined the music-loving headmaster wandering the castle humming to himself.
Q 12What does Dumbledore leave with baby Harry on the Dursleys' doorstep in the opening chapter?
A letter
A letter. It explained everything to his aunt and uncle, yet for ten years they told Harry that his parents had died in a car crash.
Q 13What lures Dumbledore away from Hogwarts on the night Harry goes after the Stone?
A false message from the Ministry
A false message from the Ministry. It sent him off to London on the very night the Stone was in danger, but he turned back in time to pull Quirrell off Harry.
Q 21Whom does Dumbledore take Harry to recruit at the start of Half-Blood Prince?
Horace Slughorn
Horace Slughorn. The retired teacher had disguised himself as an armchair to hide from Death Eaters, and Dumbledore brought Harry as bait for a man who loved to collect famous pupils.
Q 22Which Horcrux first made Dumbledore suspect there were others?
Tom Riddle's diary
Tom Riddle's diary. A mere memory that could think and act for itself alarmed him, and Voldemort's carelessness with it suggested there were more: six in all, he later concluded.
Q 23What attacks Harry in the lake when he tries to fetch Dumbledore water in the cave?
Inferi
Q 14Who pressures the governors into suspending Dumbledore in Chamber of Secrets?
Lucius Malfoy
Lucius Malfoy. He had threatened to curse the other governors' families unless they signed, and once that came out he was sacked from the board himself.
Q 15Which guards is Dumbledore forced to accept around Hogwarts in Prisoner of Azkaban?
Dementors
Dementors. When they swarmed a Quidditch match and Harry fell from his broom, a furious Dumbledore slowed the fall with his wand and drove them from the pitch.
Q 16Who does Dumbledore discover has been impersonating Mad-Eye Moody?
Barty Crouch Jr
Barty Crouch Jr. Dumbledore knew the moment "Moody" led Harry away from him, something the real one would never have done, and he found the true Moody locked in his own trunk.
Q 17Which role does Dumbledore lose in book five for insisting Voldemort is back?
Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot
Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. The Ministry demoted him from its high court, but he said he didn't care what they did as long as they didn't take him off the Chocolate Frog cards.
Q 18Which official did Fudge impose on Dumbledore as a teacher?
Dolores Umbridge
Dolores Umbridge. Fudge feared Dumbledore was raising an underage wizard army to topple the Ministry, so he planted her as Defence teacher, where she banned practical spellwork.
Q 19How does Dumbledore shield the students when Dumbledore's Army is discovered?
He claims it was his idea
He claims it was his idea. The group is called Dumbledore's Army, not Potter's Army, he points out, then he overpowers the officials sent to arrest him and vanishes.
Q 20What does Dumbledore use to stop the Death Eaters escaping the Department of Mysteries?
An Anti-Disapparition Jinx
An Anti-Disapparition Jinx. With the Death Eaters pinned, he fought Voldemort in the Ministry atrium, where Fudge and his officials arrived to see for themselves that the Dark Lord was back.
Inferi. The lake was full of these enchanted corpses, and Dumbledore, barely conscious after drinking the potion, drove them back with a ring of fire.
Q 24Who disarms Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower?
Draco Malfoy
Draco Malfoy. Dumbledore had silently frozen the hidden Harry so he could not interfere, then spent his last minutes urging Draco to change sides rather than become a killer.
Q 25Where is Dumbledore entombed?
Beside the Hogwarts lake
Beside the Hogwarts lake. At his funeral white flames flared up around his body, and when they died down a white marble tomb had closed over it.
Q 26What were the names of Dumbledore's parents?
Percival and Kendra
Percival and Kendra. Percival died in Azkaban for attacking the Muggle boys who had hurt his daughter; he never said why, because the truth would have seen her shut away in hospital for good.
Q 27What was the name of Dumbledore's younger sister?
Ariana
Ariana. After Muggle boys attacked her at six she could never control her magic, so the family hid her away, and one of her outbursts later killed their mother.
Q 28To which village did Dumbledore's mother move the family after his father was sent to Azkaban?
Godric's Hollow
Godric's Hollow. She moved there to hide her daughter's condition among strangers; it is the same village where Harry's parents later lived and died.
Q 29What did the young Dumbledore and Grindelwald dream of uniting?
The three Deathly Hallows
The three Deathly Hallows. The two teenagers meant to use them to put wizards in charge of Muggles "for the greater good", a dream that ended when their quarrel turned into a duel that killed Dumbledore's sister.
Q 30In the books, which subject did Dumbledore teach at Hogwarts before he became headmaster?
Transfiguration
Transfiguration. He held the post when the Chamber of Secrets was first opened, and when Hagrid was wrongly expelled for it he persuaded the headmaster to keep the boy on as gamekeeper.