A Little Knowledge: Missing Scenes

Reynard had almost risked casting a drying charm on his sodden robes, but decided that he just didn’t have it in him to try wand-work after such a trying afternoon as this one. The results would not have been anything but satisfactory.

The chill and the damp be damned, and this rotten earth with it, he decided, striding through the empty corridors leading to his rooms near the very foundations of the school.

With those thoughts, his heart twisted and brought him to a halt. No, Armando wouldn’t have wanted him to think such things. Not on his account. Reynard rubbed his eyes before continuing on his way, shivering slightly as the air around him lost its warmth.

All things considered, he had done well. He had made it through the memorial service, through all the condolences from people he did and did not know and through the reminiscing, all without shedding a tear. A few more meters down the corridor that was all that was required of him ... then Reynard knew that he could safely lock himself up in his rooms, open a bottle of whiskey, and ... then drink to Armando’s memory.

The painful realization that Armando was just a memory now hit him again, perhaps for the hundredth time since he had learned of his friend’s death. He slapped his hand against the wall as he strode toward his door. The sting of the cold stone against his palm helped him to focus, to keep his tumultuous emotions in check, just long enough to reach the entrance of his rooms and growl out the password from between clenched teeth.

He began pacing purposefully toward the cabinet where he kept his spirits only to stop with a start and fumble for his wand as he realized someone was sitting on his couch in the half dark parlor.

“Reynard,” he greeted him softly.

“What the devil, Cyrus? How on earth did you get in here?” asked Reynard placing a hand over his pounding heart as he recognized the other professor.

“You told me the password,” he reminded him with just a shadow of a cryptic smile that vanished almost as soon as it appeared. “How was it?” he questioned with a gentle timbre in his voice.

Reynard took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. “Damp,” he answered, not wanting to talk about it just yet, not even with Cyrus. If not especially not with him.

“Ah,” said his friend with an understanding nod. Cyrus waved his hand in the direction of the fireplace. The embers of the previous night’s fire were stirred to life, casting an orange glow upon the room. “Join me?” he asked.

“Just let me change clothes,” said Reynard, knowing that there would be no getting rid of him, “and pour myself a drink. Do you want anything?”

“No, thank you,” answered Cyrus politely, though it was common knowledge that he thought Muggle whiskey tasted like rats’ urine, especially compared to the taste Old Ogden’s Fire Whiskey.

Reynard walked into his bedroom and was surprised when Cyrus kept talking, remaining on the couch, but raising his voice just enough to be heard:

“I trust you said something fitting about Armando?”

“I did my best,” he answered, peeling off the his dripping robes and fishing a pair of pajamas from his bureau. Fitting? He couldn’t imagine anyone being able to say something truly fitting about a wizard as multifaceted as Armando Dippet. The late Armando Dippet, he reminded himself.

He flung the pajamas to the floor and grasped the edges of his dresser, closing his eyes against the hot pain behind his eyes, the ache of unshed tears. The realization of his mentor’s death had hit him full-force all over again. He let out a long string of curses underneath his breath.

“Reynard? Anything the matter in there?” called Cyrus. He realized that Cyrus would have heard him, of course.

“No,” he answered sharply, “just ... tired.”

Reynard picked up the garments again and hastily threw them on, grabbing a dressing gown to keep off the lingering chill.

In the parlor, he poured himself a shot of whiskey and knocked it back without a word to Cyrus. The sting of the liquor took the emotional pain away for a moment. Not for long, but Reynard was grateful for that moment of respite and used it to collect himself as best he could.

“You aren’t drinking that dreadful stuff, are you?” asked Cyrus, wrinkling his nose as he caught a whiff of the Muggle beverage of which he most definitely did not approve. “Why can’t you drink something respectable, like every other...”

“I have different tastes,” Reynard interrupted. He examined the bottle of whiskey for a moment, amber liquid and fire-light, before deciding that Armando’s memory deserved something a bit better.

“The cognac?” asked Knowles as Reynard began rummaging about in his small, albeit somewhat impressive, liquor cabinet.

“Why not? Shall I pour you a glass as well?”

“Thank you, Reynard, but I don’t think it would help me,” answered Cyrus.

Reynard glanced at him, recognizing the veiled admission of grief for what it was, and felt just a bit better knowing that he was not the only one of them who felt something at Armando’s passing.

Carrying both the bottle and the glass to the couch, he said, “You can always change your mind later.”

They sat in silence while Reynard nursed a glass of cognac and stared into the fire as it crackled in his hearth. Twenty years in late August: that’s how long he had known Armando. Would have known him, anyway. Nearly half of his own life.


Reynard pulled his robes closer around him as the wind whipped about his willow-switch thin frame. He stared up at the forbidding Scottish castle ahead of him on the hill. Not exactly awe-inspiring, Reynard felt something rather more akin to terror as he gazed at his future place of employment. He had all his papers in order, including a very nice personal letter from the headmaster of the school, not to mention some other correspondence, but looking up at the place, dark and looming above him, for the first time, he had half a mind to turn back and run for the train station in Hogsmeade.

Except that he had nowhere else to go.

He gathered up his valise, the only baggage he brought with him, and took a deep breath before starting up the hill again, trying to ignore everything -- the forest and its noises off to his left, the flock of bats wheeling overhead, and the lightless windows of the castle -- and just concentrate on making it to the front gate without losing his nerve.

A few minutes later, he had reached the doors of the castle... which creaked open just as he reached the stairs. He, being all of nineteen and a stranger in a strange land, gulped quietly, switched his valise to his other hand and drew his wand before starting up the wide steps that led to the Entrance Hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry... with his heart beating double-time in his ears.

The imposing hall, as he peered into it from outside, was dimly lit and veiled in deep shadows that he could only describe as menacing. Reynard took a step over the threshold. Then another and another, willing his feet forward, though they did not want to heed his commands.

Pausing, he took a breath and called out, “Is anyone here?”

From outside there was a low rumble of thunder heralding a coming storm. He cringed and set his bag down on the floor while trying to force his wand hand not to shake. Then, as he straightened, a figure emerged suddenly from the shadows. Reynard stumbled backward and landed on his rear with a thump.

“Sorry there’s no welcoming committee, but most of our professors are still on holiday,” said a cheerful voice with what he perceived to be a strong English accent. “My goodness, I didn’t frighten you, did I?” And at that moment the figure stepped into the light, revealing a smiling wizard with thinning gray hair and amusement in his eyes.

Reynard scrambled to his feet, retrieved his wand, which he had dropped, and said, “I... I wasn’t expecting... expecting any committee.”

The wizard laughed and said, “Well, you should have had one anyway. You have my apologies again for that.” With a quick swish of his wand, the torches in the hall flared to life and glimmered brighter than before, illuminating the hall in a pleasant glow. “I am Armando Dippet, headmaster of this school,” he said, extending a hand to the trembling young wizard.

“Reynard Krohn, master of potions,” he replied, taking heart from the much older wizard’s firm grip.

“I bid you welcome.”


Reynard was roused from the memory by his dressing gown slipping off one shoulder. He refilled his glass and sighed aloud. Armando had been so kind to him when he had first come to Hogwarts. He had never stopped being kind to him, if the truth be told. The much elder wizard had always been there for him as a friend, colleague, and so much more than that. His kindness and gentle manner had helped to heal many wounds for the young professor.

“All right?” questioned Cyrus.

“No,” he replied, taking a gulp of his drink, “and I’m not certain that I ever will be again.” At that moment he felt as though there were a hole in his chest that nothing would ever be able to repair or to fill.

Cyrus placed a warm hand on his back, which caused him to sniff, despite his intention not to go to pieces in front of Cyrus, to wait instead until he could be alone. The slow circular motion that followed drew a soft sob out of him.

“You can...” Cyrus began to tell him in a tone of voice that held as much understanding as he had ever been able to muster.

“I don’t want to,” Reynard managed.

“I know. If you mourn him, if you grieve, then he really is gone. Am I right, Reynard?”

He shrugged his friend’s hand off, pulling his arm from the sleeve of his dressing gown in the process, and in a hoarse voice told him, “No, that’s not it at all! Leave me be! Just leave me be. Let me drink in peace.” Reynard slid forward and rested his arms on his knees. His hands were trembling.


Reynard clasped his hands together so no one would notice. Everyone in the staff room was talking at once. There was cacophony of English voices around him, but he couldn’t listen to a single word they were saying. Everything was running together and turning to noise and complete disorder.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the copy of The Daily Prophet on the table in front of him: Grindelwald declares war on England.

His throat constricted as he realized that his brothers and sister would most likely be in the line of fire, that he could not go home, not ever again now, that he was homeless and a refugee, that he was alone in a country that was not his own. He could not stop shaking.

“Don’t worry, my boy. You are perfectly safe here with us,” said a warm, and by this time familiar, voice quietly in his ear. A comforting arm wrapped around his shoulders.

With some effort Reynard tore his eyes from the newspaper and looked up at Armando, who was paying his arguing staff members no mind as he sought to provide solace for his youngest colleague, who had been hit harder by the news than the rest of them.

“We’ll take care of you until everything has been put right again,” Armando promised him, giving his shoulders a firm squeeze. There was no doubt in those piercing brown eyes as he looked down at him. “You have my word of honor, Reynard. You will have a place on my staff and a home here at this school for as long as you should need them.”


Squeezing his eyes closed, he drained another glass of cognac and avoided drawing any attention from Cyrus as best as he could manage. Memories: he could handle those. He could take some comfort from them, just as he had taken from Armando himself in life. But he could not let Cyrus comfort him, not at this time. He could not grieve, just as his friend had said, because grief made it more real, more permanent, more undeniable than just remembering made it.

“I’m not going to be very good company,” he told Cyrus after a few minutes. “I would rather just be alone now. I think that would be for the best.”

Reynard hated to drive his companion away, but it was too painful to have him sitting there on the couch with him. He had wept in front of Cyrus more times than he cared to admit, but this was different. Even after everything they had shared with each other, this was not something he wanted to share with Cyrus. It was too personal, too intimate of a matter.

“Are you certain?” asked Cyrus, furrowing his brow as he spoke.

“Quite,” answered Reynard. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to push you away, but I need solitude right now.”

Cyrus slowly left the couch and gathered up his cane with an undisguised sigh of mixed incredulity and frustration: “So be it, but you can find your way to my quarters should you decide otherwise.”

“Of course. Thank you,” said Reynard as he watched Cyrus find the pot on floo powder on the mantle and take a handful.

A few moments later he was gone.


“The new defense professor will arrive on the morning train,” said Armando from his seat behind the desk of the headmaster. He shuffled some parchments before putting them aside and looking at Reynard. “He has had a very nasty time of it: wounded during the war, family difficulties, all sorts of problems. I know I’ve mentioned that he’s a Gryffindor...”

“...which certainly explains the war wounds,” Reynard interjected, shifting uncomfortably in his own seat on the other side of the desk from Armando.

“Indeed it does. At any rate, as a personal favor, I would like you to be especially kind to him and help him to adjust to life here at Hogwarts...”

“But I’m the head of Slytherin House!” he interrupted incredulously. “How would it look to my students?”

“Yes, well, his house affiliation is not widely known. I think the two of you would have a lot to talk about.”

“You said he was an Auror,” said Reynard with an expression of keen distaste. “You know that I don’t get on with them very well, not since that Moody fellow...”

He had never forgiven that particular Auror for the interrogation he had put him through, but his dislike had generalized to others who carried that title over the intervening years. Nothing in his experience had taught him to see them any differently.

“He was training to become an Auror, but he never finished because of the need for good wizards, fully trained or otherwise, on the continent. So he isn’t really an Auror, if that makes you feel any better,” said Armando, trying to put everything in the best possible light.

“Loads,” Reynard remarked, shaking his head.

“My dear boy, you really ought to give him a chance. I happen to think the two of you would have a lot in common and get along splendidly,” said Armando with a vaguely vexed expression. “Neither of you have had a nice time of it these last years. I think you could do each other a world of good. I won’t be a round forever, you know...”


Reynard wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, watching the fire as slowly began to gutter. A careful wave of his hand caused it to flare back to life again. The pot of floo powder on the hearth rattled. He sighed softly and finished his drink.

“Armando was always right about everything,” he muttered, acknowledging, in part, why he wanted to be alone. Or at least why he took no comfort from Cyrus that evening. “I would like for him to have known that,” he said to himself before wiping his eyes again. A laugh bubbled up from his chest. “I suspect he did know,” he decided.

And with that Reynard refilled his glass and drank a toast to the memory of Armando Dippet: wizard, gentleman, scholar, friend, and perhaps something of a matchmaker as well.

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