J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series of novels, revealed that the wizard Albus Dumbledore is gay:

Albus Dumbledore took quite a few secrets with him to the grave. And it’s possible that even he didn’t know about this one.

After helping Dumbledore’s favorite pupil uncover a treasure trove of information about the Hogwarts headmaster in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final installment of her billion-dollar fantasy series, J.K. Rowling has pulled something new out of the pensieve:

Dumbledore was gay.

(What you just heard was the sound of conservative religious groups scribbling down one more reason to loathe the Harry Potter franchise.)

“Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” Rowling explained Friday in front of a packed house at New York’s Carnegie Hall, where she capped off her first U.S. book tour since 2000.

Which explains why the brilliant wizard was briefly blinded as a young man by the charm and skill of Gellert Grindelwald, his companion turned arch-nemesis who turned out to be more interested in the Dark Arts than a three-bedroom craftsman in Hogsmeade.

After Dumbledore was “horribly, terribly let down,” Rowling explained, he went on to destroy Grindelwald in what is considered in the wizarding world to have been the ultimate wand-toting battle between good and evil.

That love, she said to raucous applause, was Dumbledore’s “great tragedy.”

“If I had know this would have made you so happy, I would have told you years ago,” Rowling said.

Visit The Leaky Cauldron for the transcript of J.K. Rowling’s appearance at Carnegie Hall.

Wizard Albus Dumbledore, as portrayed by Richard Harris