Armando Dippet and The Stone Of Help
by Rob Morris
December, 1996
The old-very old-man moved inside his portrait, always willing to give what he had.
"Still hard to believe the dear boy has fallen that far, but there it is. Well, Albus, while a minor incident to myself, I understand why it is relevant to you."
Dumbledore had managed to suppress his ever-magnifying pain entirely for then and there. He needed the focus, and he did not wish to waste Harry's time in case this thread failed to lead anywhere.
"Thank You as always, Headmaster. Now, you went on a search for stolen or vanished property?"
Dippet nodded.
"Not something a Headmaster does, except that this was described as an heirloom of one of the Four, like as not his personal property. When it was spotted out in the Muggle world, I did not wish to let it slip away if I sent the wrong intermediary. I was willing to obliviate the Muggle owner, if I had to, but happily this proved to be wholly unneeded."
LONDON, 1846
The clerk at the banking establishment was as pleasant a chap as one might hope to encounter on either side of the wizarding divide.
"Well, sir, my senior partner is not here yet. You see, I have a young son, who is ill but greatly improved of late, and my partner dotes on him, to the point I fear he'll be spoiled. They are choosing Christmas gifts for my family, and have proclaimed me a chatterbox, not to be trusted with secrets. They're expected in, soon. My kind friend always likes being here when the noonday church chimes ring during this festive season."
Dippet decided to impose a bit on the man's cheerful nature, and perhaps find out just how much of a chatterbox he really was.
"Do you, my good man, know of the item I've inquired against?"
Luckily, the self-assessment of talkativeness was an honest one.
"Indeed, sir. I recall how it came here, because it was so very odd. The fellow that pawned it was a desperate sort, and his plea for funds was ignored by every finance house of every type in this good old town. My then-employer, not yet partner, was a very different man, then. He bargained this unkempt, dirty-looking fellow down to a mere pittance, for he needed-what were his strange words?- 'Dirty Mug' funds to keep him from being noticed by - forgive me- Auroras? Was that what he said? I will swear, he hissed some of his words. After proclaiming himself to be descended from John Of Gaunt-odd thing to say-he started making threats with what looked like an orchestral baton. Told my employer that if he could risk it, he would undo him. But he took his funds, left his item, and was never seen again. That I fear is all I know, and of that one, all I wish to, really."
The cold wind blew in as the door opened. Walking in were a distinguished older gentleman (at least by Muggle standards) and a young boy, favoring one leg and anxious to be nearer the furnace and his father. The older man looked Dippet over, and his eyes shifted. He spoke to his younger partner.
"Time for hard-working young people to take their lunch, and talk with their wonderfully obedient son. This fine gentleman and I will settle our business quickly, and then I will join you."
The junior partner seemed confused at first, but decided he was hungry, and wanted to talk with his boy, so they found the next room, part of the expansion undertaken when the senior partner undertook certain reforms. The senior partner nodded at Dippet, and then pulled a ring lightly embedded in his walking stick from the upper piece.
"I believe you are here for this. Take it, sir."
Dippet was surprised, certainly intrigued, and not a little wary.
"Well, of course we must discuss your fee. I was hardly here to simply demand its surrender."
The old man shook his head.
"My late father gave me several pieces of advice. One piece, badly misapplied, nearly laid ruin to my life. But the one I recall right now is, should you encounter an item from the world of wizards and witches, turn it over without dispute. It was not meant for us."
Dippet had made an effort, very nearly a labor, to dress as Muggles of the era did. He now wondered if and how he had failed.
"Why on Earth would you think such a thing of me, sir?"
The senior partner smiled.
"My late mentor, a delightful jolly soul, was what you folk call a Squib. Still on good terms with his family, I heard one of them mention the wit and wisdom of one Armando Dippet. Not the sort of name our side hears very often, so it stuck with me. Again, Master Dippet, take this item, with my blessing, though I will ask my young friend to write up a no-funds receipt, simply to keep inventory well."
When lunch was done, the junior wrote up the receipt, with his senior explaining that this was simply a just surrender of pilfered property. Dippet thanked the junior, and then looked at his very polite, quiet when his elders spoke boy.
"Young man, should you and your wife see owls by your home at some point, do not immediately chase them off. Son-how old are you now?"
The boy was quick to answer the question.
"Come the late summertime, sir-I will be eleven-and maybe not need this stick much longer. I already do without the brace, thanks to Uncle here."
The older Muggle shook his head.
"Thanks only to a diligent boy who heeds his physicians, and delights his old uncle."
As the junior filed the receipt, Dippet saw that the senior understood his meaning.
"Ahh, but what will I do without him, much of the year? I fear I might even become corrupt again."
Dippet seemed almost shocked by this.
"You, sir? You seem the spirit of generosity. I don't say such things often to anyone, and almost never a Muggle. No offense meant."
The senior closed his eyes and thought back.
"I was a greedy monster, overripe for the pit and perhaps already there. People, who should have been all my concern, were nothing to me, so much had I splintered my soul with petty acts and snide gestures. Not long after that ne'er do well sold off the item you come for today, I was granted a vision. Those I had once known, now passed from this Earth, showed me what I had become, and where this could only end."
He opened his eyes, smiling and a bit tearful.
"And they did it all in one night!"
1996
Dumbledore spotted the oddity, as had Dippet, so long ago, but let his mentor complete the narrative.
"Unknowing, I reluctantly returned the ring to the head of house Gaunt - even then it was a wretched place to have to visit. Mind you, I received no thanks for my effort."
Which surprised Dumbledore not at all.
"How had you come to know the ring's location?"
Dippet looked a bit off.
"The Gaunts had claimed both the ring and their locket were the property of Slytherin himself, when only the locket was. The Ministry did not wish to be seen as refusing the wishes of one of the sacred families, even if it was one of their own who sold it off before starving to death, unknowing of how to use the funds he'd obtained. Word had come of a Muggle banker once renowned for vile clutching greed now acclaimed a modern saint, even teaching the poor how to better maintain what funds they had. He had proclaimed before a St. Nicholas Mass how his change had come about, and it was the only truly magical thing my eyes and ears on the ground had dug up. Happily, it led to the ring. Unhappily, I gave it back to people worse than I ever realized, where it became part of what I thought a good young man's downfall. Ohh, Tommy reminded me so much of Good Timmy. But some magic can make one see what one wished to see, I suppose."
Dumbledore did not regret this conversation, despite its distant connection to the understanding of his former student. But now he pursued the oddity.
"How could he have used it? It is, as he himself recognized, a wizarding item."
Dippet nodded.
"I've thought long and hard about that, ever since you told me what the stone inside the ring truly was. I visited my new friend once a year after that to hear the Christmas Bells from his office, and he began to give me a run for my galleons as he kept on. I think his brightened spirit renewed him. So greatly was he beloved, that when he passed in 1901, the Muggle Minister's office asked his heirs to delay the announcement of same for a period, for concern that mourning for him would take away from that for the recently-passed Queen Victoria."
He concluded.
"Albus, he could not have used the stone himself, yet I believe he did not need to. It's been assumed all along that its power serves the needs of the living, to call back those lost to us. Yet-what if, in the case of my late friend, it was those spirits who still wished him well that used the stone to call him back from a living death?"
Dumbledore allowed Dippet to resume his rest, and thought once again about his own upcoming passage, now an inevitability to be prepared for, not to be schemed or gotten around. He thought of his own Good Timmy, how much he had asked of him, and how much more he had no choice but to keep right on asking.
So he vowed, should he be able, to take a Christmas Yet To Come to sit the young man and his dear ones down and tell Harry Potter the tale of how the Resurrection Stone had briefly fallen into the hands of one Ebenezer Scrooge.