Armando Dippet

"We are honour-bound to give service to the present Headmaster of Hogwarts! Shame on you, Phineas!"

- Dippet's portrait scorning Phineas Nigellus Black.

Professor Armando Dippet (October, 1637 —c. 1957 ) was Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and the predecessor of Albus Dumbledore in the post. He was a "nearly bald and a somewhat feeble" man in his elderly years.

Dippet served as Headmaster in the 1940s at least. It was during his tenure that the Chamber of Secrets was first opened by Tom Riddle since its creation by Salazar Slytherin in around A.D. 993. Unknowingly, Dippet was indirectly responsible for the end of the attacks by telling Riddle that the school would have to be closed if said attacks continued. Dippet was also responsible for the expulsion of Rubeus Hagrid after Riddle framed him with the fifty attacks.

Following his death in 1956, his portrait was hung in the headmaster's office, and Dumbledore succeeded him.

Early life
Born in the 17th century in a time where wizardkind were still fiercely prosecuted by their Muggle neighbors during the height of the notorious witch huntings, Armando's upbringing were undoubtedly not an easy one. For many years prior to his birth, it had been the norm among more or less all members of the magical community to live double lives, lying about their heritage and frequently using charms of concealment to protect themselves and their families from the witch hunters. As such, his early childhood were presumably marked by a great deal of fear and uncertainty; not only because the situation would have caused an immense distrust in Muggles, a rather larger population than its magical counterpart among which he would have to have ventured on more than a few occasions, but first and foremost because underage witches and wizards were particularly vulnerable in those grim times due to their habit of exhibiting accidental magic, especially in frightening circumstances, of which it would have been plenty.

Armando most likely attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which, as an old and prestigious hall of learning guarded by many ancient spells and charms to ensure the safety of its inhabitants, would be a place safer for him by far for him to exercise his magical skills than being home-schooled and run the risk of him being observed practicing magic. If so, his magical education would have predated the introduction of the Hogwarts Express, thus resulting in him having to enter the school by either broom or portkey, since successive heads of the school, both the one in Armando's days and those after, refused to allow the Ministry to forge a connection to the school's fireplaces out of fear that the security of the castle would be breached. If he did attend, he would have been sorted at the age of twelve on September 1, 1649. Being the first time in his life where he would have to neither lie nor hide his abilities, Hogwarts would have been perceived as a place of joyful release and freedom. If so, he would presumably have been educated alongside Thaddeus Thurkell and the famous Magizoologist Havelock Sweeting.

If he did attend the school, it can be assumed that he received very good marks on his O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams, taken into consideration his future profession.

Post-education
If he went through his magical education at Hogwarts, he would have graduated at the age of eighteen in 1654. What he did after his graduation is unknown, but he nevertheless lived a long and rich life from that point on. At the age of fifty two, he witnessed the signing and passing of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in 1689, (a prospect in which he might have been more inclined to agree as opposed to the idea of starting an open warfare like the more militant members of the Wizengamot, having been a first-hand witness to the horrors and tragedy in Great Britain as his youth), as well as the establishment of the British Ministry of Magic in 1707, at which time he was about seventy years old.

Armando Dippet seemed to have been held in high regard in the wizarding community in old age, since he eventually were chosen and offered the job of heading the school by the Hogwarts Board of Governors, although it is unknown if he ever took up a teaching post prior to this appointment.

Early years
Professor Dippet became Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the early twentieth century. In his position, it is likely he was responsible for the employment of Horace Slughorn, Albus Dumbledore, Herbert Beery, Silvanus Kettleburn and possibly Galatea Merrythought as teachers at Hogwarts.

Christmas pantomime
"The night's entertainment concluded with a packed hospital wing..."

- Albus Dumbledore

During Dippet's tenure as Headmaster, Herbert Beery, then-Herbology master, proposed an adaptation of The Fountain of Fair Fortune as a Christmas treat for both staff and students. The show, however, was a fiasco: the students playing Amata and Sir Luckless had been boyfriend and girlfriend until one hour before the show, at which point "Sir Luckless" dumped her for "Asha". During the play, the Engorged Ashwinder portraying the Worm (provided by the reckless Professor Silvanus Kettleburn) exploded in a shower of hot sparks and dust, filling the Great Hall with smoke and fragments of the scenery. While the Ashwinder's eggs set fire to the floorboards, "Amata" and "Asha" started duelling fiercely. Professor Beery was caught in the crossfire and his head assumed unusual proportions. While the staff evacuated the Great Hall the fire raging inside it threatened to engulf the place.

Of course, there were several people sent to the hospital wing and Professor Dippet had to put Professor Kettleburn in one of his sixty-two periods of probation. In response to this dramatic fiasco, Professor Dippet imposed a blanket ban on future pantomimes, a tradition is still followed by the Hogwarts' staff and students to this day.

Chamber of Secrets openings


Dippet was the Headmaster of Hogwarts when the Chamber of Secrets was opened by Tom Riddle, during the 1942—1943 school year. Very fond of Riddle, Dippet was unaware of his sinister nature.

That school year, many students were attacked by Salazar Slytherin's Basilisk. On 13 June of the same year, a student named Myrtle Warren was murdered in a bathroom, during one of the Chamber's openings by Riddle. After realising that no one had seen Myrtle for a couple of hours, Professor Dippet asked fellow student Olive Hornby to go and look for Myrtle.

Myrtle's Muggle father and mother were summoned to the school by Dippet, and the Headmaster faced the possibility of closing the school. Dippet also rejected Tom's request of staying at school over the summer holidays due to the situation, but would have given him special permission if the school were much safer. Not wanting the school to close, or possibly not wanting to return to the orphanage, Riddle stopped attacking students with the Chamber's Basilisk and framed Rubeus Hagrid for the attacks. Dippet promptly expelled Hagrid. Under Albus Dumbledore's request, Hagrid was trained as Gamekeeper and was allowed to remain at the school.

Tom Riddle's job application
When Tom Riddle returned to Hogwarts after his graduation to apply for the post of professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts, after Galatea Merrythought retired, Dippet denied him the position for being too young, but invited him to reapply in a few years, despite being advised against it by Albus Dumbledore.

Dumbledore realised Riddle's true intentions, but did not include them as his reasons for denying him the job, as Professor Dippet was very fond of him and believed that he was completely honest.

Death and post-mortem
"The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore – by Rita Skeeter, best-selling author of Armando Dippet: Master or Moron?."

- Cover of The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore.

Professor Dippet was unusually old by the time of his passing in 1956, even by wizarding standards. His immediate successor in the post was Professor Albus Dumbledore, who had been Dippet's Deputy Headmaster and Transfiguration teacher.

The prominence of Dippet's tenure as Headmaster is highlighted by the fact that he even got a Chocolate Frog Card made in his effigy, due to his work as chief administrator of Hogwarts.

At some point, Rita Skeeter published her bestselling biography titled Armando Dippet: Master or Moron?, which, given its title and Skeeter's own brand of sensationalist writing (elsewhere described as "one quarter truth to three quarters rubbish" ), it can be reasonably assumed that it contains false defamatory information, or otherwise facts taken out of context. It is unknown whether Dippet's public opinion suffered from the publication of this book.

Having died in office, the late Headmaster was allowed to leave behind an imprint of himself in the form of a portrait mounted on the wall of the Headmaster's office along with other revered Headmasters and Headmistress. In doing this, he effectively ensured he in some capacity could continue to posthumously serve the school by sharing his knowledge with his successors in office as a final service to his beloved school.

The portrait he left behind present him as very dignified and solemn-looking, attired in long, majestic robes of blue and bronze. In 1995, he scorned the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black, who was feigning tiredness in order to avoid going to 12 Grimmauld Place like Dumbledore asked him to. He was devoted to serving whoever was Headmaster.

Physical description
Professor Dippet had pale skin, brown eyes and, in his youth, a thick brown beard.

In his elderly years, he became frail and feeble-looking. He was balding and had only a few wisps of white hair left.

Personality and traits
As made evident by his portrait in the Headmaster's Office, he was apparently a very proud man who for the most part held himself with dignity and solemnity at all but the most trying of times, in which case he would over time look very feeble and tired after having to cope with such troubles at his age. Very loyal to Hogwarts, Professor Dippet gave a certain impression of holding the school in higher regard than he did even his staff, as he was very distrusting of others, and Professor Albus Dumbledore, his Head of Transfiguration at during the later parts of Professor Dippet's tenure, noted that he was one of the few people that Professor Dippet confided in. He was also a man of tradition, having trained his portrait to scold anyone who showed lack of respect or loyalty to the school, which were shown when it reprimanded the portrait Phineas Nigellus's for attempting to defy a request from Professor Dumbledore, expressing that they were honour-bound to give advice to the current Headmaster or Headmistress, regardless of their personal feelings, showing that the living Professor Dippet taught his portrait to share his unyielding desire to serve the school and professional integrity.

During his time as Headmaster, Professor Dippet was apparently a disciplinarian. Perhaps somewhat harshly old-fashioned in his methods, the school was marked by an acceptance of severe punishment under his leadership, as he continued to allow the Caretaker of the day, Mr. Apollyon Pringle, to use corporal punishment on students for misbehaviour or rule-breaking. However, he was not feared by his students, but seen as revered and very capable in his own right, and ultimately a man dedicated to the protection and preservation of the school and all its inhabitants and did not take the safety of his students lightly, and his success as head of the school is shown by his depiction on a Famous Witches and Wizards Card solely in homage to his long and faithful service to the school as Headmaster.

Professor Dippet was by no means above severely punishing anyone who might pose a potential breach in the security of the castle, be it student or staff: Professor Horace Slughorn once commented, perhaps in jest, that Dippet would not hesitate to put him in detention if he found out that he had been encouraging students to be up and about past curfew. He also placed Professor Silvanus Kettleburn, whom he always considered to be quite reckless, on no fewer than sixty-two periods of probation (including once after the chaos that ensued during a performance of The Fountain of Fair Fortune, for which Kettleburn provided an Engorged Ashwinder to play the part of the Worm), since the catastrophe endangered the students.

His concern for the well-being of his students was shown once more during the 1942-1943 school year, when he, like all his employees, did everything in his power to apprehend the perpetrator and protect the students after the opening of Chamber of Secrets. During that year, it is known that he instructed a student by the name of Olive Hornby to go look for fellow student Myrtle Warren the moment he realised that no one had seen her for some time.

He also seemed to favour status, at least to some extent, as he was fully prepared to believe the word of a Prefect over the word of a younger student, and when Rubeus Hagrid were declared a suspect in the case of who opened the Chamber of Secrets, Dippet promptly expelled him without putting much effort in investigating the matter. However, as the school at the time was dangerously near to being closed down by the Board of Governors after the murder on Myrtle and he was likely to have been under a lot of pressure from parents, the governors and perhaps even the Ministry, and might have acted rather rashly in an attempt to seize control of the situation and come to realise in retrospect that Hagrid was unlikely to have been the culprit, since Hagrid was allowed to stay after his expulsion, showing that Professor Dippet might have been a wise, well-meaning if somewhat strict administrator under pressure rather than mercilessly expelling one student on the word of another.

It is known that during his tenure at Hogwarts, Professor Dippet grew rather fond of Tom Riddle and was, perhaps somewhat biased towards him, partly due to sympathizing with the boy who had grown up orphaned and friendless and partly due to the young man's charisma. However, this did not blind him from keeping their safety his number one priority, nor did it stop him for keeping up certain standards. This is shown when he rejects the request of a recent graduate to become a teacher on the basis of being too young, as well as rejecting Tom Riddle's request of staying at school over the summer holidays due to the situation while unaware that Riddle was the one behind the danger Dippet wanted to protect him from. However, being fully aware that Riddle despised the orphanage where he was raised, he did comment that he would have given him special permission if the school were safer.

Magical Abilities and Skills

 * Magical mastery: Being one of the oldest known wizards known in the international magical community by the time of his death, Professor Dippet had about three centuries at his disposal to study magic, and it is not unreasonable to assume that he was rich in learning experience, and a very accomplished wizard in his own right.  Being the Headmaster of Hogwarts presumably also required him to review the curriculum of his staff to ensure learning efficiency, meaning he had a very high level of knowledge on magic in general.
 * Leadership skills: While he never achieved the level of admiration and reverence of his immediate successor, Professor Dippet was a very capable Headmaster of the school, and remembered as such by his tenure having been the theme of his Chocolate Frog Card. In his time as leader of the school, he was very strict and perhaps somewhat old-fashioned in matters of discipline, yet he never lost sight of the importance of keeping his students safe and well, or fail to uphold the standards necessary to run the school effectively, as shown by how he declined Tom Riddle's request to become a teacher on the grounds of him being too young and inexperienced for the employment to be prudent.
 * History of Magic: Being as old as he was, having grown up in a time predating the Hogwarts Express and even the Ministry of Magic itself, it is reasonable to say that he was quite knowledgeable on historical events having taken place from his younger years and up until his death, and might even have been present in person on some of them.
 * Charms: The true extent of Armando Dippet's skills are not known, but he was skilled in Charms, since he in the job as Headmaster was responsible for controlling the magical protections around Hogwarts Castle, and he was easily able to lift and cast the defensive spells himself, temporarily lifting the Muggle-Repelling Charms to give the parents of Myrtle Warren free access to the school grounds after her gruesome premature demise.

Possessions

 * Wand: Professor Dippet's wand was of unknown manufacturer, length, core and wood. Presumably purchased at the age of eleven prior to his magical education, he was in possession of it during the 1940s. He left it on his desk during his meeting with Tom Riddle in 1943 concerning the summer holidays and the Chamber of Secrets openings.
 * Headmaster's office: When Professor Dippet lived in the office in the Headmaster's Tower, there was a single bookcase, a desk, and several paintings there, including the portraits of his predecessors. His passwords are unknown, though it can be presumed that he told one of them to Tom Riddle in 1943.
 * Strawberry and ling plantations: According to Albus Dumbledore, Professor Dippet planted some strawberries and ling in the castle grounds while he was Headmaster. However, it is likely that Albus was simply trying to distract Cornelius Fudge and Walden Macnair.

Tom Riddle
"I had advised Armando against the appointment - I did not give the reasons I have given you, for Professor Dippet was very fond of Voldemort and convinced of his honesty [...]"

- Albus Dumbledore with Harry Potter.

Dippet was very fond of Tom Riddle, whom he made several "special arrangements" for. His relationship with him was strong enough to make Dumbledore decide not to tell Dippet about why he thought Riddle should not be given a job at the school.

Hogwarts staff
Professor Dippet was, apparently, distrusting of his employees, confiding only in a few professors, which included the Transfiguration teacher Albus Dumbledore.

As headmaster, Dippet placed Silvanus Kettleburn on at least one, but presumably many more, of his sixty-two periods of probation. The one known time was after he provided an Ashwinder with an Engorgement Charm on it instead of a worm for the The Fountain of Fair Fortune pantomime. Dippet, after the chaos, placed a permanent ban on pantomimes from thereon.

Another of Dippet's employees was Herbert Beery, who was the one who adapted The Fountain of Fair Fortune into a play. Beery, who had been teaching Herbology, eventually left to become a professor of the Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Horace Slughorn also worked under Headmaster Dippet. One evening, during one of his Slug Club's supper parties, Slughorn joked that if the student group would be found up and about after hours, Professor Dippet would put them all in detention, including himself.

Etymology

 * "Armando" is the Spanish and Italian variant of the name Armand, meaning "of the army". It is likely that, given his name, Armando Dippet is at least partially of Spanish or Italian heritage.
 * "Dippet" is not a word in English, but "dip" has many meanings, including: to put something into something else, often a liquid; to take something out of something, as in dipping out water; to lower and raise something; a fool.

Behind the scenes

 * Alfred Burke appeared as Dippet in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in the memory scene. His face can be glimpsed only for a fleeting moment, before he turns around and convenes with several other wizards. He is also not bald contrary to the book's description.
 * In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dippet is mentioned in the Daily Prophet article FLYING FORD ANGLIA MYSTIFIES MUGGLES. In the article, witches Leonora Gore and Daphne Mauboisan accuse Dippet, their neighbour, of causing the incident and not a flying car. Dippet is referred to as "a rather feeble old wizard", "well known for his erratic flying", and had his broomstick confiscated pending an ancient age flying test (a past occurrence, comprising a broomstick crash against Felickaria Tugwood, who fell off of her broom and into the River Mersey, is also cited). However, this cannot be canon, given that Dippet had a portrait in the Headmaster's Office and, so, must have died in office and not retired to live to 1992.
 * According to Albus Dumbledore, Professor Dippet had ling and strawberries planted on the mountains surrounding Hogwarts Castle when he was headmaster, presumably a lie to gain Harry Potter and Hermione Granger some more time to release Buckbeak (seeing as apparently neither Cornelius Fudge nor Walden Macnair could see the said strawberries).
 * Dippet was the fourth-oldest known wizard, being born in 1637. The only known wizards older than him were Barry Wee Willie Winkle (b. 1236) and Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel (b. 1327 and 1334, respectively).
 * Coincidentally or not, Armando Dippet shares his initials with Albus Dumbledore (not including the latter's middle names).
 * The portrait of Armando Dippet is currently displayed amongst the other headmasters of Hogwarts in Dumbledore's Office at the The Making of Harry Potter Tour near London. It can be found on the left hand side as you enter the office, just above the sword of Gryffindor.

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
 * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
 * LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
 * The Tales of Beedle the Bard
 * The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Notes and references
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