Robertus Tallis

This individual was a wizard. He smoked a pipe, wore purple, owned gold-and-red striped pants and a fluttery tie and had a handlebar moustache. He was presumaby the scholarly type, as he often carried a pentagrammed book.

Behind the scenes

 * This rather bizarre-looking figure is included on the back of the original Bloomsbury cover by Thomas Taylor. In later editions, he was replaced with a clearly recognisable portrait of Albus Dumbledore. The fandom was left baffled, as this wizard did not correspond to any character in the books. The artist later revealed that he was comissioned to paint 'a wizard to decorate the back cover', and so he did a generic wizard based on the likeness of his father, that 'disappeared in a puff of smoke' to make way for Dumbledore when the publishers were repeatedly called on to explain who that wizard was.
 * Most fans tended to presume it was a younger Dumbledore, Quirinus Quirrell, or Nicolas Flamel (the latter being more likely, with the Philosopher's Stone in his bulging pocket). All these rumours proved false.

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone