The Greater Good [GrindelwaldxDumbledore]

~Chapter Eight~ Connections

Gellert had hoped that the morning would bring with it a time or date for his first excursion, but he was greeted only by a bowl of gelatinous porridge and the promise of a perfectly fine day spent indoors choking on dust. He struggled to hide his disappointment with a pained glance towards the windows before stepping into Bathilda's cluttered office.

He hadn't noticed the state of the room when he visited it yesterday, the half-light of the evening had darkened the corners of the room enough that he hadn't seen the full-scale statue of a woman leaning against a bookcase. It puzzled him for a moment, it didn't look anything like any of his relatives.

"Oh I see you've seen my pride and joy, that's one of the founders of Hogwarts, Rowena Ravenclaw," Bathilda looked at the wonky statue lovingly.

Gellert bit his tongue to stifle a laugh, the statue had seen better days. It had been made not of marble, but something less substantial, cheaper, and as such was now showing its age. The tip of her nose had been chipped off and the fancy tiara on her head was no longer symmetrical, the finer pieces had broken. He then noticed why she was leaning, the large clump of what appeared to be concrete remained stubbornly at the base, causing her to lean drastically to the left.

"That should have been worth much more than what I paid for it, but people in large houses don't know the value of what they consider rubbish." She syphoned the dust off the poor statue's face, perhaps hoping it would help Gellert see her beauty but quickly desisted when the stirred up dust caught in her throat. She gave a great hacking cough and pointed to the window.

Gellert wrenched it open with enough force he thought he pulled his shoulder out of its socket, but it would only budge enough to reveal a slither of the brilliant blue sky. He used his own wand to pull at the dust cloud, concentrating it into a small ball of swirling air, before forcing it out of the small gap and breathing a sigh of relief.

"Thanks for that, cleaning spells are not my forte." Still wheezing she used the various oddments of furniture to make her way towards the comfort of her chair. She refused Gellert's offer of help politely, instead, she asked him to make a start on clearing the mess that had invaded her space over the years.

It was easier said than done, every item he wanted to send into the non-existent pile to be exiled from the house was met with a thousand reasons why it was required to stay and he was tasked with finding a new place in the house in which to hide it. He complied for the first hour and a half, but when faced with a moth-eaten jacket that was large enough to house a family of four as a tent did he decide that its new location should be in the bin. A pair of mismatched shoes, broken quill and a broken mirror all met the same fate before lunch.

A quick glance around the room left Gellert a little downhearted, while it looked better than it did at the start there was still so much left to do. He heard Bathilda calling him from the kitchen, his stomach rumbled, but he took the chance to fix the statue so it could stand properly. The floorboards in the hallway creaked. He shooed the chipped flakes under the rug and hurried to the door.

Bathilda didn't say anything, but she did give her desk a cautious glance over before she pulled the door closed behind them.

When they returned after lunch he soon realised it had a taste for fingers. He yelled a series of obscenities in his native tongue as he tried in vain to release his fingers from the trap. Tears streamed down his cheeks as his lunch threatened to make a second appearance.

"I should have warned you about that," Bathilda said in alarm, her fingers struggling to find the knot in the wood she knew would release it. Once his fingers were free she took them into her hand to inspect the damage. "Nothing is broken, but that doesn't stop it hurting, perhaps we should call it a day and tackle some more tomorrow."