A Little Knowledge: Missing Scenes

“You did a good thing, Reynard,” Knowles told his friend as he listened to the sound of the other professor preparing drinks for them in his parlor. The decanter clinked against the glass in such a way as it to tell Knowles that Krohn’s hands were still shaking. “You saved that poor girl’s life.”

“We saved her life. I’d never have been able to take the curse off without harming her. I’m sure we both know that. It was too complex for the likes of me,” said Reynard wearily. There was a soft thump as he set the decanter down on the table.

“You acted quickly and decisively. That was the important thing,” said Knowles, accepting a glass from Reynard. He sniffed the liquid before taking a sip of it. Cool, very bitter with a bit of a kick. He was tempted to ask what it was, but decided that he didn’t really want to know.

“If you say so,” said Reynard impassively.

“I don’t know whether it means anything to you, but I’m proud of the way you handled yourself today, Reynard. Not everyone in this castle could have kept their wits about them,” Cyrus told him, raising his glass in his colleague’s direction.

“Thank you, and it does. It means a lot,” said Krohn in a very quiet tone. “I ... I don’t know what I would have done, if we had not been able to revive her. I think I would have killed him. I just don’t know,” he confessed.

“Black?”

“Of course, Black,” he snapped.

Cyrus thought he heard him down his drink in a single gulp. He imagined that Reynard needed a good stiff drink after witnessing something like that. Reynard had his strengths, his intellect and his physical strength, but he also had plenty of weaknesses too, and a soft heart, in Cyrus’ opinion, was not the least of them.

“She’s a very promising student then?” asked Knowles.

“Yes, extremely promising. I don’t think I’ve seen the like of her in many years. Not since during the war, I’m sure. You English have no talent at all in potions’ work. Usually.”

“Well, she’s barely adequate at defense. It’s a good thing she has some skills,” commented Cyrus, taking another sip from his glass. It was rather terrible stuff, he decided; he couldn’t understand why Reynard drank it unless it were an acquired taste. It wasn’t one he wished to acquire. That was for certain. When Reynard didn’t say anything to that observation, he asked, “Are you quite all right? I imagine this afternoon was very taxing for you.”

He shifted from one foot to the other, growing uncomfortable. He could understand Reynard’s position well enough. A young girl had nearly died in his arms. Quite upsetting for someone of his constitution, to be sure. But Cyrus wasn’t certain he wanted to stand around drinking Merlin-knows-what while Reynard got it out of his system. He had other things he could be doing that were far more productive and less uncomfortable. Then he heard a stifled sob.

“Reynard?” he questioned, finishing the contents of his glass and trying to find somewhere suitable to put it. Cyrus settled upon placing the empty glass on the floor.

“Perhaps you should leave. I’m really not very good company this evening, am I?” asked Krohn.

“Nonsense,” said Knowles in a gently admonishing voice as he reached toward him. His fingers caught the sleeve of Reynard robes. “You’ve never abandoned me in my hours of ... of darkness,” he said quietly, “and I will not abandon you now.”

“Thank you,” Reynard sniffed.

Cyrus pulled him closer and put his arms around his friend. “Maybe it would be best to let the tears come. Maybe you would feel better,” he counseled hesitantly. This was not the sort of advice that Knowles usually gave. But he could tell that Reynard needed to get it out, no matter how silly the tears might have been.

Through those tears, Reynard even laughed at this suggestion coming from his colleague who abhorred emotional displays of any sort.

“Do you want to sit down ... on the couch, I mean?” asked Cyrus.

“That would be fine,” he replied with another quiet sniff. Knowles heard him place his glass, presumably empty, on the table before the he guided him to the couch in front of the hearth.

Cyrus carefully reached for his friend and pulled him close enough for the larger man to recline against him. Reynard, he could tell, did so hesitantly. He was still shaking. Cyrus could feel that he was keeping the tears inside too. Part of him was glad of that, but a small voice said that it wasn’t good for Reynard, that it wasn’t healthy for him.

“Reynard, we both know you haven’t played favorites in a long time, and we both also know that you see something special in this girl. What happened today was frightening.” And Cyrus truly meant that. “You have every reason to feel shocked by it. I must admit that it made me quite anxious too for a few moments.”

He snuffled softly and replied, “I just kept thinking of all the things she would never do, the happinesses she would never have ...”

“Happinesses is not a word, Reynard,” Knowles interjected not unkindly.

“I know that,” he said with soft, stifled sob.

“You’ve never had very much happiness either, have you?” he gently inquired of his colleague.

“This isn’t about me,” he said as Cyrus gently tugged at his robes and moved so that the younger professor could lie down and rest his head on his knees. Reynard complied without question or further comment. Cyrus exhaled slowly, not realizing he had been holding his breath; he had expected Reynard to draw away from him instead of allowing this.

“Of course, it isn’t. I know that,” he replied calmly.

“You don’t have to do this for me,” sniffed Reynard.

“Do what?” asked Cyrus placidly as his fingers found the tie that held Reynard’s long hair in place. He toyed with the strand of soft leather until it came undone. “I’m not doing anything. I’m just sitting here with my friend who’s had a rather rougher day than usual. Nothing special or particular about that.”

Reynard was quiet for several long moments as Cyrus combed his fingers through his hair. The strands of hair felt blond to Cyrus. He could not describe how so, whether Reynard’s hair merely felt light or soft or strong, but he knew the color in a way that was not merely memory. Perhaps it was only idle fancy, he decided, as his fingertips ghosted lightly over Reynard’s damp cheek.

“I felt helpless in the corridor, when I was carrying Miss Colville. You were the first person I thought to take that curse off. I knew you would be able to fix it, even ... even if I seemed to doubt you.”

“I am flattered that you can still think so much of me, Reynard, but it was really a very simple matter,” said Cyrus, brushing aside the compliment as he was apt to do. “I still insist that you did more for her than I.”

Reynard shifted slightly, perhaps giving something like a shrug in response. Cyrus guessed that he could not voice his answer to that statement, though the defense professor certainly considered it the truth.

“You may wish to consider distancing yourself from Miss Colville,” he said after a few moments.

“I know that in my youth there were certain ... excesses and indiscretions, but never with one so young,” said Reynard, stiffening at what he perhaps considered an accusation of impropriety. When both Cyrus and he had been much younger, the other professor had delighted in teasing him about such things. But those days were long past.

“No, I simply meant that you should not risk becoming so close ... so close to someone that it causes you such unnecessary grief when harm comes to them,” said Cyrus hesitantly.

“I am not so close to any of my students as that,” Reynard argued as Cyrus began almost absent-mindedly stroking his hair again.

“You are a good man.”

“I am a coward and an incompetent,” he snorted back, sitting up and moving away from Cyrus.

The words stung, but Knowles maintained a neutral but interested expression on his face. Those words had been his own, spoken in haste and anger when he had first met Krohn after the war with Grindelwald, when he had first come to Hogwarts as a very angry, but not-so-young wizard. What had been Reynard’s reply then? Nothing, just a hard expression on his face. Reynard rarely mentioned those words, but Cyrus was filled with regret every time his own harsh words were thrown back at him.

Cyrus leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees, disliking the coldness that replaced the comforting warmth of Reynard’s cheek pressed against his knee or of his friend’s presence.

“I was angry then,” he said in a low voice, as he did every time it came to this, though Reynard no longer pressed the point so often anymore. “I was ... We were both so young then, Reynard.”

“I know.”

“You are a good person.”

“Do you believe that? Really? Even though I can be temperamental and stupidly sentimental and not so clever with a wand as ...”

“Those things don’t make someone good nor bad. None of them. And under normal circumstances, you aren’t so sentimental as all that,” Cyrus defended, turning toward Reynard. He felt the couch shift as Reynard moved closer again. He reached out, and Reynard let him put his arm around him. “Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Reynard, “though I believe I will take your advice. Worrying about a student like this would surely drive me insane, especially one who gets into so much trouble as Colville.”

“Very sensible,” Cyrus nodded, imagining that the alcohol was beginning to kick in as Reynard’s soft accent thickened as he gave that rambling reply.

He did not believe that Reynard would be able to do as he had suggested, but he thought it might help him, nonetheless, to be more aware of where and in whom he was investing his emotions.

“You only give sensible advice,” commented Reynard.

Cyrus could smell the scent of alcohol on his breath and feel the warmth of it on his face. Neither the scent nor the sensation were entirely unpleasant. He smiled just slightly at the remark Reynard had made.

“You simply can’t hold your liquor anymore, can you?” he accused as the smile worked its way into a vaguely amused smirk.

“I resent that,” said Reynard, “especially since you don’t even know how much I drank. Or what of, I suspect.”

“Two glasses of something that I would rather never drink again,” answered Cyrus coolly.

“You’re powers of observation never fail to amaze me. But it was Muggle whiskey, if you must know.”

“What on earth are you doing with that?” asked Cyrus with a slight sneer. “What would you do if your students caught you drinking something Muggle-made, not to mention perfectly disgusting?”

“I think I would Obliviate them for their own good, and it isn’t disgusting; it gets the job done better than anything of ours,” said Reynard in a mildly offended tone that was followed by a slight chortle.

Cyrus leaned a bit closer to him and asked, “Just how tipsy are you right now, Reynard?”

“I don’t think that’s a fair question,” said Reynard.

“You know I’m a perfect gentleman. I would never take advantage,” Cyrus told him in a very serious tone.

“I would let you, you know,” Reynard said to him, perhaps trying to sound a bit coy.

“You are drunk. I knew it,” Cyrus snorted, pulling away just slightly as Reynard’s lips brushed his cheek. He swallowed hard and withdrew the arm he had had around his friend’s shoulders, giving him a light push as he did so.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” said Reynard a bit more seriously.

It was not the first time that the younger man had let something of that nature slip. Cyrus would have given all of his worldly possessions to have seen the expression on his face, to know if he looked embarrassed, contrite, or as damnably impassive as Reynard had always seemed before the incident that had cost him his sight. He never knew if those little slip-ups were signs of genuine feelings and affection or just Reynard turning into a randy lush at his expense. Granted, Cyrus knew that the small intimacies of their friendship, especially of late, were unusual, at best, but he wanted, and needed, a surer sign that a few drunken words to be willing to risk his own feelings for Reynard, which, he admitted, damning his own weakness, were not insignificant.

“Really? And why not? I am quite flattered that you trust me so much,” said Cyrus quite candidly.

“I would trust you with my life,” said Reynard with a slight sniff.

“And maudlin to boot,” thought Cyrus with a disapproving look. “I think it’s nearly time for me to be going, Reynard. You should go to bed and sleep it off.”

“Don’t go just because I’ve been silly. Please, Cyrus?”

“I’m hardly going because of that. I sometimes like the fact that you are silly. It’s what I love most about you,” Cyrus told him, letting the words tumble out of his mouth before he had fully considered them. “What I mean to say is ...”

“You love me?” questioned Reynard.

“I’ll never drink Muggle alcohol again so long as I live,” thought Cyrus to himself. He cleared his throat and said, “I didn’t say that. I said ... I said something quite different, in fact.”

“Oh,” said Reynard in a softer, perhaps even disappointed voice. “I suppose it would be ridiculous to say that I love you too then?”

“Quite,” Cyrus agreed, blushing despite himself as he pursed his lips.

“I suppose I should go to bed. I’ve classes to teach tomorrow,” said Reynard. The couch shifted slightly as he stood. Cyrus left the couch too and instinctively caught him as he swayed. “Thank you,” he said, using his smaller companion to help him regain his balance.

“Not at all,” Cyrus replied. He made a slight face and tried not to stagger under Reynard’s substantial weight, which never ceased to surprise him. His footsteps were so quietly graceful, his movements so fluid that Cyrus sometimes forgot that Reynard wasn’t exactly svelte.

“You could stay ...” Reynard began to say, putting an arm around Cyrus’ shoulders and pulling him a bit closer.

“Reynard,” he said in a warning tone.

“... for just a bit longer and we could talk some more. We hardly ever talk about anything but our students and classes,” said Reynard before slowly letting go of his friend. Cyrus could hear him begin to fidget with the sleeve of his robes.

“We could attempt a game of chess when you have your wits about again,” offered Cyrus, though he was quite certain that Reynard would thrash him soundly at the game for a long while to come.

“Really?” asked Reynard with more than a hint of interest in his voice.

“Of course. I have missed our games these last weeks,” Cyrus almost grudgingly admitted. “I’m not sure if I will still be a challenging opponent, but ...”

“Cyrus, you will always be a challenge to me,” said Reynard with a quiet chuckle.

He wasn’t sure what to say to that, but his lips quirked into a smile. “The same can be said for you, of course. Shall I take my leave now, Reynard?”

“Only if you must,” said Reynard.

“I have much to which to attend this evening, I’m afraid,” said Cyrus, lowering his head and wishing that he could stay, that Reynard was in a more fit frame of mind for company, that things were somewhat different than they were. “That I could trust him not to toy with me,” he thought to himself.

“Of course,” Reynard agreed with audible reluctance, “but I will certainly pester you regarding that game.”

Smiling ever-so-slightly, Cyrus lifted his head again and raised one eyebrow as he said, “I would expect nothing less.”

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