"I had contracted dragon pox shortly before arriving at school, and while I was no longer contagious, my pock-marked visage and greenish hue did not encourage many to approach me."
On 1 September, 1892, at age eleven, Elphias Doge started at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. No longer contagious of his dragon pox, but still with a "pock-marked visage and greenish hue", not many approached Doge. Albus Dumbledore, however, looked past that and befriended him during their first day at the Castle. Doge believed that their mutual attraction was due to the fact that they both felt that they were outsiders: he had his greenish skin tone and Dumbledore was primarily known to others as the son of Percival Dumbledore, who scarcely a year previously had been convicted of a savage and well-publicised attack upon three young Muggles.[3] Their peers at Hogwarts would often think of Doge as Dumbledore's "dim-witted but devoted sidekick".[4]
When Doge and Dumbledore left Hogwarts in 1899, they planned to take a Grand Tour of the world together. However, when they were staying at the Leaky Cauldron and preparing to leave for Greece, they got news that Dumbledore's mother Kendra had died.[4] Doge attended Kendra's funeral and departed for the Grand Tour without Dumbledore. He wrote letters to Dumbledore about his "narrow escapes from Chimaeras in Greece to the experiments of the Egyptianalchemists".[3] He came back home shortly after the death of Dumbledore's sister Ariana, whose funeral he also attended.[6]
"Original Order of the Phoenix. Found it last night when I was looking for my spare Invisibility Cloak, seeing as Podmore hasn't had the manners to return my best one… thought people might like to see it. […] Elphias Doge, you've met him, I'd forgotten he used to wear that stupid hat…"
"Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain; he could find something to value in anyone, however apparently insignificant or wretched, and I believe that his early losses endowed him with great humanity and sympathy. I shall miss his friendship more than I can say, but my loss is nothing compared to the Wizarding world's. That he was the most inspiring and best loved of all Hogwarts headmasters cannot be in question. He died as he lived: working always for the greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy with dragon pox as he was on the day I met him."
After Dumbledore's death on 30 June, 1997, Doge wrote a heartfelt obituary for the Daily Prophet.[3] A close friend of Dumbledore's, Rita Skeeter "pestered" him to talk to her about the late wizard for her project, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. Doge became upset and called her an "interfering trout", which resulted in Skeeter making various remarks questioning Doge's sanity.[6]
Wedding of Bill and Fleur
Harry Potter: "Well, in that interview, Rita Skeeter hinted that Professor Dumbledore was involved in the Dark Arts when he was young."
Elphias Doge: "Don't believe a word of it! Not a word, Harry! Let nothing tarnish your memories of Albus Dumbledore! Harry, Rita Skeeter is a dreadful –"
Muriel: "Rita Skeeter? Oh, I love her, always read her! She's written a book about Dumbledore, you know!"
Elphias Doge attended the wedding of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour on 1 August, 1997. He wore a moth-eaten fez and sat alone in a table drinking champagne. Recognising him from two years before that, and having read Dumbledore's obituary, Harry Potter joined him and the two had a brief conversation about Dumbledore's childhood, before being interrupted by Muriel, who believed every word of Rita Skeeter's sensationalist and mostly false biography of Dumbledore. Doge passionately defended Dumbledore and his family, but Muriel repeatedly contradicted him.[6] While this was happening, the Death Eaters were staging a coup in London, killing MinisterRufus Scrimgeour and taking over the Ministry of Magic. In an attempt to siege Harry Potter, the Death Eaters infiltrated the wedding, in a short but agressive skirmish.[6] Doge managed to Disapparate from the Burrow just seconds before the Death Eaters arrived.[9]
Physical appearance
Doge in 1995
Doge was described as having a wheezy voice[5] and white hair which made him resemble an aged dandelion clock.[6] In his first year at Hogwarts, he suffered from Dragon pox; he had many green pimples on his skin.[3] Doge also appears to enjoy wearing eccentric hats: a "stupid hat" he used to wear in the 1970s,[7] a pointy hat he wore in 1995,[10] and a "moth-eaten fez" he wore during the wedding of William Weasley and Fleur Delacour.[6]
Personality and traits
In his youth, Doge suffered from dragon pox, and everybody at Hogwarts avoided him, except Albus Dumbledore. That made Elphias be friendly with Dumbledore. Doge has appeared as being a very loyal friend.[3] He also didn't like unfairness, as he got angry when Muriel lied that Ariana Dumbledore was a Squib and that her family had imprisoned her.[6] Doge also appeared as being a friend of the most members of the Order of the Phoenix, such as James and Lily Potter.[5]Rita Skeeter heavily implies Doge to be senile or "dim-witted",[3] but this was most likely because of his refusal to help her in her biography of Albus Dumbledore;[6] the post he held within the Ministry, that of Special Advisor to the Wizengamot suggested otherwise.[3]
Elphias was close friends with Albus Dumbledore, meeting him the first time at Hogwarts. They were both outcasts, as he contracted dragon pox shortly before he began schooling.
Dumbledore, on the other hand, was an outcast because of his Muggle-hating father.[3] After graduating from school, they had planned to tour the world. However, when they were packing to go to Greece at the Leaky Cauldron, Dumbledore got an owl informing him that his mother had died and that he had to go home instead.[4]
While Elphias was travelling to Greece, Dumbledore had to take care of his siblings. At the time Elphias was ending his travel, Ariana was killed.[3] Elphias learned that she was accidentally killed in a duel between Albus, Aberforth and Gellert Grindelwald. No one ever learned who killed her.
In their later life, Dumbledore and Elphias remained close friends. Elphias had a high opinion of Albus; he thought that he could see the good inside all the people, however apparently insignificant or wretched. After Dumbledore's death, Elphias wrote a heartfelt obituary for the Daily Prophet. At Bill and Fleur's wedding, Elphias stated to Harry Potter that he "certainly knew Albus the longest", if you didn't count his own brother, Aberforth.[3]
Elphias was also close to the Dumbledore family. Elphias wasn't able to meet Percival, Albus's father, as he was imprisoned in Azkaban for punishing three Muggles who had scared Ariana.[3] After that, Ariana lost her sanity and could not control her magical abilities. Doge also liked Kendra, Albus's mother. He later stated that she was a fine woman.[6]
Kendra was accidentally killed by Ariana. A few years later, Ariana was also accidentally killed in a duel between Albus, Aberforth and Gellert Grindelwald, when she attempted to help Albus and Aberforth. It never became clear who did kill Ariana. Elphias participated at her funeral, where Albus and Aberforth had an argument.[4]
Elphias thought that Albus was much more popular than Aberforth, and that people never do seem to count Aberforth. Aberforth also thought that Elphias admired Albus very much, and that Elphias "thought the sun shone out of Albus's every orifice", although Aberforth does not seem to have such an high oppinion of Doge, referring to him as an "old berk".[11]
Elphias seemed to like Harry Potter.[6] He appeared to have been friendly with his parents, James and Lily, too. When he first met Harry, he said that he looked like his father, but he had his mother's eyes;[5] something that everyone told Harry. Elphias was also a member of the Advance Guard, a group of members of the Order of the Phoenix who escorted Harry to 12 Grimmauld Place.[5]
Elphias met Harry again in 1997, at the wedding of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour. They discussed Albus Dumbledore, and Elphias told him that Albus was a very good person, something that helped Harry feel better.[6]
Muriel
Muriel was the loud, ill-mannered, rude, 107 year-old matriach of the Weasley family. She enjoyed gossip very much and Rita Skeeter, and thus was incredibly pleased that Skeeter was to be writing a new book, known as The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, that would slander Dumbledore. Muriel was delighted in revealing the dark parts of Dumbledore's history to Doge, who idolized and admired him and refused to hear anything bad about him. Being close to the Dumbledores, Doge was very emotional about the tragedy of Ariana, so to hear Muriel so rudely cackling about it made him furious and feebly wheeze about how untrue it was. Muriel brought Doge to the verge of tears as Muriel made him feel wretched and miserable as he heard slanderous lies being told about Albus. While it is true that some of the information in Skeeter's book was true and Doge did skip over the parts that didn't make Dumbledore look very good, Doge still disliked Muriel for horrifying him with the terrible things Skeeter was going to write and the way Muriel took pleasure in hearing them.
↑We learn in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Chapter 2 (In Memoriam) that Doge started at Hogwarts on the same day as Albus Dumbledore. As Rowling tells us Dumbledore was born in 1881, Doge was most likely born in that year.
↑ 2.02.1We learn in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Chapter 2 (In Memoriam) that Doge had dragon pox sometime prior starting at Hogwarts in September, 1881. That being a wizarding illness, it is unlikely he grew up among Muggles.
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