Where Was Dumbledore?

[lagattalucianese]

No: HPFGUIDX 144575

O.K. here's a little zinger out of left field that I'll bet the list 
hasn't discussed before. >;D

Do we know the whereabouts of Dumbledore between the time he attained 
his majority (c. 1857) and the summer of 1938, when he pops up in 
London, with auburn hair and a plum-colored velvet suit, to annex Tom 
Riddle for Hogwarts? (HBP.13: Canon-y bit here to keep the list elves 
happy. ;D)

I ask because while I was researching something completely unrelated, 
I stubbed my toe on this interesting character:

  http://www.los-poetas.com/i/bioinclan.htm

It appears that Sr. Valle Inclan, ostensibly born in 1869 (well maybe 
a *real* Valle Inclan *was* born in 1869...) led a somewhat nebulous 
life up until 1895, when he settled in Madrid and startled the 
residents thereof "por su extravagante vestimenta". Interestingly, at 
some point thereafter, he sustained an injury to his right forearm 
that necessitated its amputation.

After what sounds like an eccentric and highly entertaining career, 
Valle Inclan ostensibly died, aged, white-haired, and missing part of 
his right arm, at Santiago de Compostela in 1936.

And two years, a tick, and a quiver later, Dumbledore is back in 
London with two good arms, auburn hair, and a young wizard to start 
on his way to Hogwarts. A young wizard who in this case, 
conveniently, has no family and grew up in an orphanage.

But what do you do when you run across a promising young wizard in 
the wilds of Latin America some time in the late nineteenth century, 
and it's inconvenient to have him simply go "missing"? Well, you pack 
him off to Hogwarts, don't you, and then step into his shoes, use the 
intervening forty or so years to research Muggle society and have a 
lot of fun generally, and when the time comes you do a "phoenix"....

And turn up two years later much youthened and ready for another 
fifty-something years in the service of the Wizarding community, 
until the time comes to do another "phoenix" and crop up somewhere 
else in a couple of years....

Well, it could have happened. Couldn't it?

And lest you doubt that Sr. Valle Inclan had affiliations with Magic, 
I leave you with this little nugget of his:

ROSA DE ALEJANDRIA

Docta en los secretos de la abracadabra,
dispersó en el aire, tus letras, mi mano,
y al caer, formóse aquella palabra,
cifra de tu enigma y luz de tu arcano.

¿Por qué ley se juntan en nueva escritura
los signos dispersos? ¿Qué azar hizo el juego?
¿Qué ciencia de magos alzó la figura
y leyó el enigma? Sierpe, Rosa, Fuego.

¡Sierpe! ¡Rosa! ¡Fuego! Tal es tu armonía:
gracia de tres formas es tu gracia inquieta,
tu esencia de monstruo en la alegoría

se descubre. Antonio el anacoreta
huyó de tu sombra por Alejandría.
¡Antonio era Santo! ¿Si fuese poeta?...

I'm hoping someone out there can translate it for me. I did have a go 
at it, but I'm no poet, and it's been many years since I studied 
Spanish.

--La Gatta