Evening

Eeffk--Eeffk--Eeffk--Eeffk--Eeffk

Dingy was making charcoal rubbings of the engravings on the weapons and suits of armor in the armory. Master Casey knew that the some of the suits of armor had protective enchantments in runes or warded spells. Master Casey did not study ancient runes but master said that was unimportant. The enchantments could be determined later. Master Casey said it was more important to have the reliefs ready for when master wanted his own battle armor commissioned.

Dingy could not dirty the armor without cleaning it afterwards, so Dingy would wipe his hands and polish the armor to a gleam after every relief. Dingy had told Blinker, one of the top elves, that Dingy would handle the armory cleaning tonight. Few from the castle ever toured the Armor Gallery but its displays were cleaned every week.

While polishing a towering suit of armor, made for a half-giant, Dingy whistled. Dingy could not whistle all that well. It came out like air leaking from a cracked seal on a window pane.

"Oh, bother."

Alvis hustled down the hall in route to the Armor Gallery with his schoolbag over one shoulder and his copy of Ancient Runes for Beginners clutched tight against his chest. He could be a real ninny sometimes, when his mind got to wandering. Here he'd gotten so caught up in Rune studies this afternoon - locating familiar-looking runes on the various armor suits and guessing at their purpose through their interpretation - that he'd left his Runic dictionary behind.

When he reached the entrance to the armor gallery, an odd combination of sounds reached his ear - painfully out-of-tune-whistling layered over an Eeffk--Eeffk--Eeffk--Eeffk--Eeffk squeaking sound, as though a large mouse were trying to whistle while doing aerobics. Alvis entered the hall and found, to his surprise, that the noise came from a single house-elf with a saucepan on his head, who was diligently cleaning a suit of armor that must have been ten times his size. A stack of parchment covered in charcoal rubbings sat on the floor.

Alvis frowned. He knew that the armor was well taken care of, but somehow he'd imagined a whole team of house-elves took the weekly responsibility. The little guy wasn't even using magic, it would take him all night and most of the next day to polish all these suits. It didn't seem fair.

"Excuse me," he said in his usual soft tone, addressing the house elf. "Would you like some help?"

"Excuse me, would you like some help?"

Dingy turned and went 'EEP!' like a sheep falling from North Tower. Dingy lost his balance, falling one way, and the towering suit of armor tumbled over on top of Dingy. Dingy gripped the pot as parts rained down, bouncing and clattering in a way worthy of Peeves on top of his game.

"Dingy is not to be seen! Dingy Apologizes!" cried Dingy. Dingy launched head first at a nearby column, *DONG* right on the pot helmet.

"Ah...!" Alvis winced as the huge suit of armor came crashing down, then again as the flustered house-elf slammed head-first into the stone. Alvis lowered his hands from his ears, cringed at the sight of the fallen armor, and approached the house elf, more cautiously than before. He knelt on the stone and carefully lifted the pot a few inches to see the elf more clearly.

"I'm sorry, er....Dingy, was it?  I didn't mean to startle you. Are you all right?"

Dingy about let out a squeak when the student lifted up the pot. Dingy clutched at it but relaxed fingers when Dingy realized the student was only shifting it.

"Dingy is not injured, sir," squeaked the elf, worming out of the student's grasp. Dingy turned. "Ooo, what a mess. Dingy shall have to reassemble this." Dingy searched through the clutter and hauled out the two feet, big enough that the elf could use one as a sleeping bag.

Good grief, Alvis thought, watching the elf struggle with the gigantic metal shoe. The foot alone was larger than Dingy, and it couldn't have been light, being made of pure metal. And it was his fault that the elf had been startled...

"Here," Alvis said, reaching for the pile of fallen metal. "Let me help you with that."

The first thing to do, he decided, was to clean off the armor's foundation so it could be more easily built from the ground up, but that was easier said than done. The joined metal arms were almost as big around as Alvis himself and - being made for a half-giant's strength - they were fairly heavy. It didn't much help matters that Alvis was such a wimp. He struggled under the load of a bicep, but finally managed to pull it out of the pile and onto the floor with a thump.

"Oh, and, er." He rubbed his sore knuckles awkwardly. "You, uh, don't have to call me 'sir.' I'm Alvis."

Dingy had joined one of the legs together and was balancing the stack into the right foot. Another clang came from the student dropping an arm. Dingy watched him rub his hands. "Sir Alf'is must be careful or he will break his fingers!"

Dingy noticed that some of the parts of the suit of armor had fallen by the charcoal rubbings and polishing kit. "Dingy must save these." The elf paused to stack up the reliefs, waxing paper between each to prevent smudges, then climbed a shelf displaying gauntlets before putting the reliefs safely on top of it.

Dingy dropped back to the floor. "Sir Alf'is does not need to do this."

"I'm not that bad..." Alvis thought, peering at his own hand; but Dingy was right on one account, that there were better ways to handle this. As the elf scattered to put away his charcoal rubbings - which Alvis recognized, in the brief flash he got, to be of runes from the armor - Alvis drew his wand from his pocket and pointed it at the fallen armor's large head.

"Wingardium Leviosa." The helmet shuddered and lifted into the air, groaning under its own weight. Alvis guided it away from the pile and set it gently on the floor, glancing over his shoulder at Dingy as he coaxed the other leg out as well.

"Of course I do. It's my fault for startling you, it wouldn't be polite if I didn't help out. Besides, it isn't fair for you to do all of this polishing on your own. If the other house elves aren't going to help you, then I might as well." He went quiet a moment, focusing on the leg as it slowly untangled itself from the pile and settled onto the ground near Dingy's handiwork. Then he said, "I didn't know house-elves took an interest in Ancient Runes."

Dingy hiccuped when Sir Alf'is stated: "I didn't know house-elves took an interest in Ancient Runes."

"Elves does not, Sir Alf'is," Dingy replied, back to clutching the pot helmet again. Fiction was hard for Dingy. "Dingy is um...um...cataloguing them! For Master Ca--"

Dingy froze. Master Casey was always particular on orders to ensure secrecy. And Dingy had just broken an order. Dingy lifted the helmet, reversed it, and pounded it against the head wrinkled from the helmet as if smashing runaway centipedes. "Bad! Bad Dingy! Naughty Dingy! Dingy Apologizes!"

This self-punishment continued, Dingy oblivious to the surrounding armory.

"Ah!" Alvis was startled out of his spell, dropping the armor's leg to the ground with a crash. "Dingy, ah, stop that! Hey!"

Alvis wasn't used to house elves. He'd never been the sort of student to sneak down to the kitchens, and lord knows his family didn't own one - mother would never allow it. He'd heard that they tended to punish themselves in the absence of their masters, but this was too much. The pot came down over and over again, and Alvis was genuinely afraid that he was going to smash his own fool head in right there.

Desperate to put a stop to it, Alvis pointed his wand at Dingy and did the first thing that came to mind. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The pot sprung several inches into the air, held aloft by Alvis's magic. Alvis took a deep breath, calming his anxious nerves. "Dingy, please, whatever you think you've done, I'd really appreciate if you didn't injure yourself, er, while I'm watching."

Casey, between homework and his grander plans, left a study hall to check in on the elf. The order to copy the scrollwork from the collections in the Armor Gallery may take a while if Dingy felt compelled to clean everything afterward. This wasn't a priority mission, just the collection of information, but Casey still left Dingy to do it because A) he wanted it handled somewhat secretly and B) the amount of time it would take to make the rubbings would eat into his schedule.

When Casey entered the Armor Gallery, he did not see an elf dutifully creating charcoal reliefs of the enchanted armors but something rather incongruent. A student in his year (Alvis? When Casey bother paying attention to his peers) was standing over the scattered parts of a half constructed monstrosity of armor. His wand was out and pointing towards Dingy's helmet, a foot out of the elf's reach, though that didn't stop Dingy from jumping at it.

"Norling? Just what are you doing with my elf's pot?"

"O'Doherty?" Alvis swiveled his eyes to meet his classmate, but only briefly - if he broke eye contact for too long he would drop the pot right back on Dingy's head, and that was the last thing he wanted to do, after all the poor house elf's self-abuse. "He's yours? I thought he was one of the school's...."

With a sigh, he gradually conducted the pot back down, turning it over in mid-air to settle like a helmet where it belonged on Dingy's head. "And a lot of things suddenly make sense...er, to answer your question, I was trying to make sure he didn't bash his brains in with it. It's rather upsetting when the creature you're talking to attempts to bludgeon itself with a pot."

"Of course he's not one of the schools," Casey chided, regardless of whatever Norling knew about house elves. "Not wearing a Hogwarts tea towel, is he?"

"Bashing his brains in?" Casey looked to the elf clutching its pot like a sacred treasure. Then he realized why. "Dingy, it didn't matter if Norling caught sight of you or not. We'll discuss this later."

Casey shifted his stance, prepared for the defensive. "What suddenly makes sense, Norling? That you're the only chap who bothers coming in here?"

"No - that a house-elf would go to so much trouble taking rubbings of ancient runes." Alvis's eyes flickered to the stack of rubbings that Dingy had stored away, then back to the pile of armor. He cringed and flicked his wand towards it, muttering the levitation spell under his breath and getting back to the business of sorting armor out while he spoke.

"I suppose it was on your orders, then?" he said, only half-looking at Casey over his concentration on the spell. "Mind if I ask what for? I mean, you're not even in the class; it seems like an odd hobby to pursue alone."

"I just happen to think battle armor is cool," Casey admitted. Of all the schemes he had on the side, this was the one of minimal consequence. Dingy was just doing it because of all the elbow work.

He glanced at Norling's work materials in his bag. "Besides, Norling, you look about ready to sketch reliefs yourself. So is this assignment, or hobby?"