Twenty or more years ago, if I had dared to say that Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore had made a mistake, I would have been cast out of the Wizarding Community of England or even anywhere in the world. This is the great wizard who took on Gellert Grindewald wand versus wand. This is the Great Wizard who had fought He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to a standstill. This is the Great Wizard whose ingenious prophecy idea had maneuvered He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to Godric Hollow on October 31, 1981. No, in the past, I would never have dared to say that Dumbledore made a mistake.

I dare to say that now. As Dumbledore traveled to Number 4 Privet Drive Little Whinging Surrey early that November 1, 1981, he was making a severe miscalculation. The-Girl-Who-Lived, Violet Potter with the lightning bolt scar was supposed to be raised by Muggles? If Dumbledore had been any other wizard, someone would have stepped in and said,

"You can't do that!"

As I look back on this history, one other upstanding wizard was aware of what Dumbledore was doing. She could have put a stop to it. The Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, Professor Minerva McGonagall had observed the awful Dursleys for a whole day. She had seen what kind of people they were. She knew it. So, when Dumbledore said that little Violet was staying with that family, she objected.

However, when Professor Dumbledore insisted that this was the only way, she did nothing.

If the newspapers are to be believed, there is no telling what horrors young Violet Potter endured in that house. They locked her in a cupboard. There were pictures in the Daily Prophet of that Cupboard. There was a tiny baby's mattress. There was barely a blanket. Spiders! How did the little girl grow up with those things? The girl's picture in the Daily Prophet showed an eleven-year-old who was nearly a foot shorter than all the other girls her age. The records indicate that she had bruises on her arms, her chest and her back. Those horrible Muggles were everything that the Pureblood society of England called them, monsters.

Let's just say that when the tragedy that was the ten years of life between November 1, 1981 and July 31, 1981 hit the Daily Prophet, the shit hit the fan.

Perhaps if it had been a Boy-Who-Lived rather than a Girl-Who-Lived, none of this would have happened.

Boys like to grab spiders and put them into girl's clothes as jokes. Boys have bruises and everyone just assumes they were playing or rough housing. Boys are inclined to adventure. Boys like to tell stories. Boys like to complain. However, this was a Girl-Who-Lived.

There might still have been a chance that no one would have ever known this mistake. The-Girl-Who-Lived grew up away from the Wizarding World, and she probably would have stayed away from that light.

I wonder if we would have even known Dumbledore's mistake if it wasn't for the mistake he made on July 30, 1991. But then, I also wonder if it was just a string of bad luck. This is the story of Violet Potter and the story of the Mistakes of Albus Dumbledore.

In a small two room hut in the middle of the sea, Vernon Dursley had taken his family to hide from the letters that Hogwarts kept sending to the Dursleys to invite Violet Potter to Hogwarts. It was the day before her eleventh birthday. It was so isolated that water spray and wind kept it cold and moist all morning long. And poor Violet was shivering on the floor cold.

Somehow throughout the storm on that sea Violet had fallen asleep. It was a deep sleep brought on by exhaustion and hopelessness. She had been awake for so long. She had been worked by her Uncle and Aunt for so many days. She had given up that anyone would think of her on her birthday when a sound that must have felt like water hitting the very door of that hut hit.

CRASH

Or was it a?

THUD

The little hut that was barely big enough for four people shook with the mighty tremors that shook it.

It was the sound –

It was the lightning flashing just at that moment –

It was the sight of someone that looked like a giant from the World Wide Wrestling Federation, but that was no man.

Violet screamed –

Uncle Vernon screamed –

Aunt Petunia screamed –

Poor little Duddykins cried –

"Could yer make me a cup o' tea?" the giant said.

Violet didn't know it could talk English. She stared at it. Uncle Vernon who was probably too dumb to be scared antagonized it.

"I demand that you leave at once!"

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant right back at him. Then, the Giant – oh, if you were to really know him, you would know he didn't mean any harm – but to Violet Potter he was an absolute stranger.

He took a step toward the girl. He bent closer and started to pull something out of his black overcoat.

Violet screamed in terror. Accidental magic went off. The windows all exploded! The box exploded pouring its contents which was cake everywhere. The Giant stood there absolutely dumb and confused unsure of what to do. The Dursleys looked on in terror knowing it was that Freak, but unsure of which Freak to attack at the moment since there was this freak of a giant in the room.

So, Uncle Vernon said, "If you want the Freak, you can have her –"

Violet begged, "Please no, Uncle Vernon –" She was shaking. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I was scared."

Aunt Petunia shrieked. "Take her. She has been too much trouble for too long!"

Dudley peed in his pants.

Violet tried to run, but her Uncle's girth was between her and the other room – and there was nowhere far to run on that godforsaken island.

Oh, and Hagrid picked her up to try to comfort her.

"Don't you remember me, Violet?" He said. "I'm the one that picked you up from your parents and took you to the Dursleys –"

But Violet was thrashing. She was crying tears of betrayal and pain. She was terrified. She was probably on the verge of a second spell of Accidental Magic, but the last one had been so powerful that something else happened. She fainted.

Violet woke up in warm sheets on a soft fluffy bed. It disturbed her because she was never warm when she woke up – except that one time Vernon had been forced to take her to the hospital. It was a soft bed – softer than that hospital bed, certainly softer than her tiny mattress in the cupboard under the stairs. She sat up and backed up against the headrest of the bed. At the end of the bed she saw a giant wooly looking creature.

Violet remembered. She remembered the letters. She remembered the vacation from hell. She remembered the boat ride onto the little hut on the sea. She remembered the storm. She remembered the door of the hut blasting in and she remembered that her Aunt and Uncle had said, "You can have her."

Violet screamed.

The great giant sat up.

"No Violet –" he started to say.

She screamed. He tried to reach for her. And she screamed some more. He pulled out his arms to try to wrap her into a hug. If he had tried to restrain her, he might have done better, but because he tried to hug her, Violet was able to duck under that hug jump down and as small as she was run under his legs. Her screams had been so great that the innkeeper a balding man with a bulging nose opened the door. Violet saw the open door and ran. She ran down the hall.

But then, Violet made the first real choice she had in all this. Clearly on her left was the door of the little Pub or bar. It was closed, but it was the way outside. But on the right was an archway that was open where an aristocratic couple and their young son were walking. Violet chose the sunlight and the exit that was there. She chose to follow a woman. She ran.

She made it through the archway, but the giant was right behind her.

"Violet –" he shouted as he chased, "Come back."

Violet was in shape for running from large beings and she ran past the aristocratic couple, but she did not see the little dip in the cobblestone street and she fell, cutting her face and hitting her head. She didn't black out, but she felt very disoriented.

Violet's hazy vision settled on a tall, slim, pale woman with clear blue eyes, and long blonde hair. Her eyes were trying to focus on the face when she started to hear voices arguing about her in the background.

"I'm under orders, Mr. Malfoy –" the thunderous voice of the giant said. "Professor Dumbledore told me to fetch Miss Potter from the Muggles he placed her with, bring her Hogwarts letter and bring her to Diagon Alley."

The other voice replied with a cold menace, "She does not appear to appreciate being in your presence."

As Violet started to remember where she was and why she was there, she started to shake her head frantically and struggle fiercely.

Mrs. Malfoy who was a mother, and as such understood how to calm the girl down immediately.

"Hush, child," she whispered encouragingly. "Everything is okay. We will not let anyone harm you."

She kept repeating those words until Violet was calm enough to hold still so that Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy could figure this out.

The fine aristocratic gentleman, a man with a pale pointed face, blonde hair and cold grey eyes turned slowly to Violet.

"Is the girl okay?" He asked.

"Now, Malfoy –" The giant tried again, but his wand was pointed at the giant.

"The girl is clearly upset," he said. "I propose," he added with a narrowing of his cold grey eyes, "that we take the girl to the closest café. We shall calm her down with a draft and some breakfast and go from there."

"I'm not letting that girl go anywhere with the likes of you," The Giant thundered back.

Violet started to squirm in the arms of Narcissa Malfoy.

What settled the situation was the slow gathering of a crowd. There were many fathers and mothers present in Diagon Alley that day to get school supplies for their children. They could clearly see a frightened girl, dressed horribly, with the sight of a bruise on her neck that accidentally showed under the oversized clothes. They could see she was malnourished and small.

There were photographers who were taking pictures. One had a picture of Lucius Malfoy with his wand pointing at the giant whose face was screwed up as if he would jump through the wand to chop off Malfoy's head. There was already a picture of the poor girl sniffling in the arms of Narcissa Malfoy.

Hagrid was ill-prepared for such a conflict. He was not the right choice to try to calm a terrified looking girl. He saw Violet starting to calm in Mrs. Malfoy's embrace. He saw the end of Lucius Malfoy's wand. He remembered his orders from someone he revered, Albus Dumbledore. With his prejudices toward the Malfoys and Slytherins he brought his great big hands and threw them at Lucius Malfoy. But suddenly one and then nearly twenty stupefies hit the giant. Finally, he staggered back and fell to the ground.