J.K. Rowling confirmou que Dumbledore morreu de vez, em uma entrevista: ( Uma noite com Harry, Carrie e Garp: Leituras e perguntas nº 2, 2 de agosto de 2006 ):
Cory Mayer: ... In a recent interview you hinted at two main characters dying and possibly Harry Potter too. Was Dumbledore considered one of the main characters or will we have the chance to see him in action once again? Since he is the most powerful wizard of all time and Harry Potter is so loyal to him, how could he really be dead?
JK Rowling: Ohhhhhhhh (Jo puts her head in her arms and crowd cheers and applauds). I feel terrible (crowd laughs). The British writer Graham Green once said that every writer had to have a chip of ice in their heart. Oh no (Jo says half weeping while crowd laughs). I think you may just have ruined my career (crowd laughs). Umm, I really can't answer that question because the answer is in book seven but ... you shouldn't expect Dumbledore to do a Gandalf. Let me just put it that way. I'm sorry (crowd moans and applauds).
Se então confirmou ainda mais para Salman Rushdie:
Salman and Milan Rushdie: ... Our theory is that Snape is in fact, still a good guy (crowd applauds). From which it follows that Dumbledore can't really be dead and that the death is a ruse cooked up between Dumbledore and Snape to put Voldemort off his guard so that when Harry and Voldemort come face to face (crowd laughs).
JK Rowling: Well, Salman, your opinion, I would say is ... right. But I see that I need to be a little more explicit and say that Dumbledore is definitely ... dead (crowd gasps). And I do know - I do know that there is an entire website out there that says - that's name is DumbledoreIsNotDead.com so umm, I'd imagine they're not pretty happy right now (crowd laughs). But I think I need - you need - all of you need to move through the five stages of grief (crowd laughs), and I'm just helping you get past denial. So, I can't remember what's next. It may be anger so I think we should stop it here. Thank you (crowd applauds).
Além disso, da " primeira parte da mesma entrevista ", ela explicou por que:
Audience member question (paraphrased): Why did Dumbledore have to die
Rowling: I did an interview last year in which I was asked this question. In the genre in which I'm writing, you usually find that the hero has to go on alone. There comes a point when his support falls away and to be truly heroic he has to act alone. Harry is not completely alone, he still has his two faithful sidekicks. This was summarized for me by the person who asked the question with, you mean the old wizard always gets it, and that fundamentally, that is what I was saying. I was as trying to dress it up a little better than that. So that's why. In these sort of epic sagas, the hero eventually has to fight alone.
Por favor, note que Dumbledore foi "ressuscitado" por um ano, por causa de um erro de digitação no site da JKR. Para citar Léxico de Harry Potter :
Deathdate: June, 1997 (when he was killed by Severus Snape), but 1996 according to Rowling's Wizard of the Month declaration (JKR).
Regarding the date of Dumbledore's death: Is the "1996" date from Rowling's website a typo, or intentional? We're hoping that Rowling will let us know. Readers are asking why the Lexicon has not changed its official dates to 1996, and our answer has nothing to do with disrespect to Jo or the world she created. Our answer is that a 1996 date has dire implications for the oldest law Jo set for her Wizarding World.
What are the implications? Let's say Dumbledore truly died at some point in 1996. He appears alive to everyone at Hogwarts until the end of Book 6 (firmly 1996-97 according to Rowling), so he would have had to be revived well enough (without dark magic) that a withered hand and reduced energy were the only observable results. So, a 1996 death goes against Jo’s most immutable rule of all: Magic cannot raise the truly dead.