For the Greater Good || Tom Riddle ||

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Poetry to the Ears

It was poetry night at the Hog's Head Inn. That meant that more souls than normal crawled out of the woodwork for a glass of beer and some stale peanuts to satiate their hungry mouths and sonnet-loving ears. A fuzzy-headed old man with a gravely voice took the "stage" sitting on a wooden box of alcohol, and held a piece of coffee-stained parchment in his frail, speckled hands.

"I and Pangur Bán my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and a pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light."

There were snaps around the room, the lighting low and sensual. This was a newer event for the tavern, and the staff absolutely hated it, but the crying pansies tossed their coin to the witches and wizards at the bar and helped pay the bills. There were greater evils to be had.

"Is that her?"

Two pairs of blue eyes watched as the hooded form of Gwendolyn Gawmdrey descended the staircase. The tips of her blonde curls peeked out from under the heavy green fabric, twisting and turning tresses of honey—a dead giveaway.

She didn't notice the two men situated in the far corner of the bar, one wearing a plum colored three-piece corduroy suit and black felt hat complete with a matching plum ribbon and the other dressed in a ragtag apron and tattered shirt, unable to look more different from one another in their attire. Their subject of interest split the crowd of patrons in the Hog's Head Inn and exited the crowded tavern.

"I believe it is."

There was a sigh and an eyeroll. "Damn Hogwarts students. I knew it—some of them stole a bottle of Firewhiskey from behind the bar in February. Little fucks. Don't you think you should be able to, you know, stop truancy, Albus?"

Albus Dumbledore took a sip of his soda float; he had never been a fan of alcohol. He wiped the whipped cream off his lip and shook his head. "I'm not sure it's in my jurisdiction."

"Bloody liar," the barman grumbled, seizing a towel that rested on the tabletop as he suddenly felt the urge to clean (although, the table was really the least of his worries, the whole place was a mess). He scrubbed at something sticky, perhaps a fragment of kettle corn residue if he was lucky, perhaps something more disgusting if he wasn't.

The truth was, Albus Dumbledore had been extremely concerned about the lack of Gwendolyn Gawmdrey's presence in the halls of Hogwarts following the spring holiday. Her absence could indicate a variety of things, after all. She could be sick. Taking care of a relative that was under the weather. But more likely, she was doing Grindelwald's bidding, or worse...

She became one of his victims.

Armando wasn't too concerned, or rather, he didn't want to concern himself with it. Three petrifications and one death, the expulsion of a student, a misshapen play and the hospitalization of a teacher, the impending wizarding war that was nearly at the gates of the school, and his wife's death that winter had left him crippled with the tendency to have avoidant behavior when it came to difficult matters. He only wanted a simple retirement, was that so much to ask for? The job had suddenly become hard, and life so very bleak.