Last night Warner Bros Japan dropped a bombshell of a Secrets of Dumbledore teaser trailer featuring a host of new scenes. If you haven’t already, watch it below, and then let’s get into the breakdown:
1: We start the trailer off with Newt, Theseus, Teddy (& presumably Pickett) at the edge of the black lake with Hogwarts in the distance. From the leaves and dirt on the back of their coats, we can tell they’ve just portkeyed to outside the range of Hogwarts’ protections. We also now know that this is where the Gryffindor vs Slytherin Quidditch match fits in. More context in the scene:
2: Jumping back a few seconds we see now that Newt and Theseus have portkeyed here via Theseus’ phoenix tie (which we discussed in the previous breakdown). From the manticore limb around Theseus’s waist, we can gather the series of events that led up to this moment. I’ll edit the clips together in my next post to give a better idea, but they would have portkeyed from the moment Theseus was grabbed by the Manticore and started being dragged down, still holding on to Newt.
After this, we can now guess that it’s Newt and Theseus who are walking across the courtyard, into Hogwarts.
3: Next up we see a beautiful snowy Hogsmeade at night, presumably from the same scene as McGonagall going to the Hog’s Head to warn Dumbledore. The ‘Professor McGonagall’ from Albus sounds like it’s spliced from another scene, as we heard the dialogue in the last trailer.
4: Next, we’re inside the Hog’s Head with Albus looking up at the portrait of his sister Ariana that appeared in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It being night, and Albus having his jacket back on, suggests that this is right before the scene we see himself and Aberforth in the front of the bar, talking as Albus puts his hat and coat on.
What’s also interesting is that they used the old portrait of Ariana, and not the girl who was cast to play her in Crimes of Grindelwald. This puts some doubt on whether we’ll see flashbacks to what happened as Albus recounts the story.
5: Back to the start of the film now as we see Newt on the ground, opening up his case to let Teddy the Niffler out. By the light, I’d imagine this is early morning, after the Wyvern dropped them to safety.
6: Forwards to Bhutan now and we see Newt looking at someone at the top of the temple steps. This looks to be after the final showdown, judging by the Grindelwald banners behind him, around the time we see the gang sitting at the top of the steps.
Next we see what’s likely the moment earlier on that Grindelwald is declared having won the election to be the Head of the ICW. The main image banners have changed to his visage, but the election coloured banners haven’t switched to all green yet. As his supporters shout their support, we can see one is sporting a GG pin badge on his lapel. (Grindelwald seems to have quite an amount of merchandise in-universe!)
7: This is a scene we’ve seen in all previous trailers, but I just wanted to note that in this one we get an extra split second that shows us the Grindelwald insignia fireworks are 3D, as the camera pans around.
8: Back to Hogsmeade now and here we have a Grindelwald Wanted poster on Newt and Theseus’ way to the Hog’s Head to see Dumbledore.
Looking closer, we can see it says “Wanted for serious and _ conspiracies against the wizarding _”
9: In Bhutan again at the top of the temple, Albus starts saying to Newt, “…if we don’t stop him…”, which infers this is before the Albus vs Gellert duel we saw in the previous trailer.
10: To New York now and we see Lally and Jacob disapparating in a whirl of book pages into the night. I wonder where they headed? A port, maybe?
11: Because in the next scene we see they’ve travelled via the Floo network into the train to Berlin where the rest of Dumbledore’s Army have convened.
I’ve shuffled the images here slightly to the correct order; so we see Theseus and Bunty look up at the fireplace, then Jacob emerging and a very happy Newt saying “Jacob, you brilliant man”, while embracing him in a hug.
Unfortunately the video quality isn’t good enough to really tell what hints the wizarding newspapers contain. Hopefully a better version will be released & this will be updated.
12 & 13: A shot of Theseus in Bhutan, likely before himself and Lally are attacked by Grindelwald’s acolytes.
And then Bunty and the baby (not baby?) Nifflers in the Hog’s Head back room at night, judging by the fire and lantern. I’d imagine that this is also after Berlin, before Bhutan, though when the gang heads to the Room of Requirement, it’s day time – so Bunty couldn’t be going from here to setting up the decoy cases, unless there’s a night’s sleep involved somewhere?
Side note that I’d love to get a closer look at the brooch she’s wearing.
14: Back to Bhutan again and, while we’ve seen most of this scene before, that extra second at the beginning really changes things. At first, Kama is facing Lally and Theseus, before turning around to blast the acolytes. This looks like the moment Kama shows his true allegiance & ceases being a double agent.
I’m curious if Albus had stored Kama’s memories in the pensieve before he went to join Grindelwald, and this is after he’s had them restored, maybe? Neither Theseus nor Lally have their cases at this point, , and I’m just theorising here, what if the snitch contained in Theseus’ case had Yusuf’s memories stored inside?
15: Right before we saw Lally & Jacob disapparate earlier, is this scene where Lally magically unfurls a suit onto Jacob, replacing his bakery uniform. A rather lovely bit of magic to see!
16: Now we see Jacob (looking rather dapper) at the Ministry Gala dinner, confronting Grindelwald at his table. Unfortunately we can now see that it isn’t, in fact, Leta sitting with them, dashing my #LetaLives hopes and dreams.
As Jacob raises his wand to Grindelwald, a beautiful Carrow side eyes Gellert, seemingly waiting for the cue to deal with the man they all know to be a muggle.
17: Back in China Newt opens his case, revealing a new photo of his beloved Tina with a MACUSA seal, suggesting this could be a promotion portrait. I wonder if she’s now Theseus’ Head Auror counterpart?
18: Inside the prison with the Manticore again and we see it gently touch Newt’s neck as he’s doing his swivel movements. The next clip then shows Theseus in front of him tied upside down over the baby manticores. This is at the start of the prison scene of Newt rescuing Theseus, before cutting the latter down and telling him to copy his ‘swivel, but delicately’ moves.
19: Back to the gala dinner now and we see Lally throwing her charmed book pages after Jacob, which they’ll then portkey from.
Right after this, though, you see something apparate in front of Jacob – but it’s not the book, which has encircled him. I don’t want to speculate too much as it’s hard to tell if something appears in front of him, but it would be really interesting if Queenie apparated something to him as she was leaving.
Also, from the images above we see that Kama is the one who led Queenie away, which suggests there’s not much in between the clip we saw of Queenie staring at Jacob, and them leaving.
20: Now, in arguably the cutest shot of the entire film we’ve seen so far, we see Pickett in Newt’s case in China adjusting his glasses! This is going to make the absolute cutest merch of all time. Tiny little bowtruckle glasses!
21: This is the moment right before the first clip of this new trailer – Newt, still holding on to Theseus, accios his wand (with Pickett attached), and then with the wand he accios Theseus’ tie (with Teddy attached), before portkeying them all to safety outside the boundaries of Hogwarts.
22: Back in China again and, after dropping Newt to safety, we see how the Wyvern uses its winged-ears as well as its breathing to propel itself.
23: In the Hog’s Head again with Albus looking at the blood troth in his hand – this is right before the previous clip we’ve seen of him holding it by his side, scars visible from the chain cutting in.
24 & 25: This is an interesting one. All of the previous Hog’s Head clips, both day and night, have happened in the same day, judging by the clothing. In this shot we see Albus in a different outfit saying “I drew my wand, which was even more foolish”, speaking about the three-way duel where Ariana died. I wonder if this is back in the Hog’s Head with Aberforth after Bhutan?
We then see Newt also in the Hog’s Head, but back during the previous scenes, after himself and Theseus arrive together. This and the one of Albus speaking of the duel are two different scenes.
26: Finally, we see Theseus, Lally, Newt and Jacob walking through the Great Hall to Dumbledore at the top, we see him with McGonagall and some students.
Judging by the looks on the faces of those Slytherins, I don’t think Jacob should eat those sweets he looks to have been gifted…
And there we have it! Unfortunately there’s not much detail we can glean from this trailer at this resolution, but it is enormously helpful in figuring out the timeline of events. I’ll be doing a new post soon to show how everything fits together.
In the meantime, as always, let me know your thoughts and theories over on Twitter!
