Burned Into Glory

Patience

"So?" Queenie wrung her hands in the sitting-room of the Paris safe house. Grindelwald nodded at her and confirmed,

"When I scouted out his place in the Marais, it seemed he was still there. But it's a Sunday. We'll have to wait until tomorrow to visit him. I'd forgotten that he'd never receive a visitor on a Sunday."

"Why not?" Queenie asked, furrowing her brows, and Grindelwald cleared his throat.

"Valentin is an odd bird. He worships the Muggle Christian God. He goes to their Catholic churches and pays homage to him there with prayer and song, and he does it on Sundays. He reserves the day for worship; none are to bother him on what he calls the Sabbath."

"So we can't go to his house today," Queenie said, sounding disappointing. Her face looked disappointed, too. She looked around the Parisian home and shrugged. "What are we gonna do until then, just sit here and twiddle our thumbs while he goes to church?"

"You will find, Queenie, that patience goes a very long way in dealing with this man," said Grindelwald. "He is an eccentric, and we must tread lightly. You and I must both be humble and patient. Can you do that?"

Queenie let out a long, slow sigh. She glanced around the richly decorated parlour and hummed, "I suppose so."

"You are impatient," Grindelwald noted, "because of what was done to you. I understand. Really, I do. But today, we should distract ourselves from the idea of seeing Valentin. We'll go see him tomorrow. You'd have been impatient at Nurmengard, too."

"Yeah." Queenie's stomach growled, and she asked, "Can I go make us something to eat?"

"I'd like that," he told her. He watched her stalk through the house into the kitchen, where she pulled out her wand and started pulling out ingredients. She began to whip up some sort of beef stew, by the looks of things, and soon the kitchen smelled delicious. Grindelwald went to the dining room and sat, waiting, drumming his fingers on the table.

Gaspard Valentin was a strange creature, he thought, but they needed that strange creature right now. They weren't going to make it without him. They needed Leopold, their son, and without Valentin's knowledge of counter-Curses, Dumbledore's wicked deed would go unchecked. Grindelwald licked his bottom lip and stared at the table in the dining room as Queenie came walking in with bowls of stew. He gratefully accepted the stew, and when Queenie sat opposite him, he began spooning beef and carrots and onions into his mouth. He let out a low little moan, and Queenie asked hesitantly,

"Well?"

"Well?" Grindelwald repeated. He spooned more stew into his mouth and drank deeply from his red wine. Queenie clarified,

"Do you like the stew, honey?"

He scoffed. "Queenie, of all the reasons why I love you, your cooking is far and away one of the most profound. You do realise that, don't you?"
She grinned and blushed, shaking her head. "It's just food."

Grindelwald folded his hands on the table and said softly to her, "I admire you immensely for your Legilimency abilities. I quite like your happy personality. I like your intelligence, too, and the way you smile at me. I find you very beautiful. But your cooking, Queenie, is unparalleled."

She laughed a little and waved him off. "You're making fun of me."

"I assure you I am not," he said, and he finished spooning stew into his mouth in silence. He drank more of his wine, and that got him thinking. Finally he looked at Queenie as she Banished the Scoured dishes to the kitchen, and he stared at the wine rack in the corner of the dining room, and he said, "Seeing as we've nothing but time and all manner of anxiety, what do you say to getting blisteringly drunk with me on good French wine?"