23rd May, 1888 - Headmaster's Office

"Woopy think it silly, sir." The house elf shrugged, waving his hand dismissively; causing the headmasters drink to refill, "Why they allowed in kitchen? It distracting and annoying!" He huffed, turning back toward Phineas Black from the bookshelves.

The House Elf enjoyed coming to the headmasters office. It was often quiet, tidy, and most importantly student-free (which one could argue made this perhaps one of the best places in the entirety of Hogwarts). Whilst it was true Woopy often felt he didn't deserve to be in the grandeur of the headmasters office, tidying it and the castle as a whole were a part of his job and any time he had wherein he could complain about all he needed without judgement (usually; if the Headmaster wasn't there) was most assuredly welcome

"One came in and tried to steal food yesterday! And Bopsy let them!" Woopy almost hissed, his arms flailing angrily around as if he was trying to swat a swarm of invisible house flies.

Woopy moved over toward a large ornament-looking object, not entirely sure what it was, and snapped his fingers. Almost immediately a sponge and water bucket appeared at the house elf's feet.

"And what is this, Mr Black sir? It a weird looking statue!" The house elf started rambling as he began wiping the object down.

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Nobody was allowed in his office.

Phineas preferred it this way.

House elves however, had their own agenda and this one seemed to enjoy making his presence known while he was cleaning the office while Phineas tried to work. It was annoying to say the least. He would simply banish it from his presence, if it didn't do such a good job keeping things the way Phineas liked them; dust free and impeccably organized.

Making a noncommittal noise in answer to whatever it had said last, something about students in the kitchen, Phineas barely looked up. Students shouldn't be in the kitchen, but changing the way into the kitchens itself was too much work for him to be bothered; if they got hurt in there that was their problem. Normally, unlike this elf, the others seemed not to be bothered with it- so far as Phineas knew anyway, he didn't make it a habit to stop and chat with them.

It asked another question and against his better judgement, Phineas looked up from the Coming Out preparations to see what it was rambling on about. "It's cursed, I wouldn't touch it."

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Cursed? Cursed!? What kind of idiotic, reckless and senseless person puts a cursed ornament in their office for anyone – any house elf – to stumble upon? Woopy recoiled with wide eyes and turned to the headmaster.

He wasn’t entirely sure if the headmaster was joking around but given the elf’s past experiences with Mr. Black, it would have been rather accurate to assume that no, Mr. Phineas Black was not joking and yes, he was indeed in possession of a cursed statue. The house elf thought it best not to ask exactly why he had a statue.

Thinking something was best, however, was not the same as not doing the thing and so Woopy, as ever inquisitive as he always was, put the sponge down and hobbled over to the headmasters desk with furrowed brows, “Cursed?!”  Woopy exclaimed, his ears just about poking above the desk.

He moved alongside the desk and looked up to the headmaster, “Why you got a cursed statue in here, sir!?”

Baffled, confused, and rather concerned, Woopy began his adventure back toward the statue as the headmaster spoke and once there, his head lulled to the left as he observed it. The temptation to touch it, having been told explicitly that he probably shouldn’t touch it, was slowly starting to get the better of him; he was metaphorically twitching with anticipation.

“What kind of curse?” Woopy enquired as he examined it further.

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Why was he having a conversation with a house elf again?

Phineas sighed and cast a slow, annoyed look towards the elf. "I don't know exactly what kind of curse," Honestly there were a lot of questionable objects in his family and none need really be explained to him. "And I keep them to prevent students- or elves, from messing around in my office." Not that any student could get in there without an invitation. Sometimes he wished it was that way for the house elves.

Returning his eyes to his work, Phineas signed the last paper and stacked them neatly, tucking them on the side of his desk before moving onto the next order of business. "Are you going to stand there and stare at it or finish you work?" He drawled without bothering to look at the elf this time.

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"Woopy think you could just tell them not to mess around, sir." Woopy shrugged and turned to the rather annoyed looking headmaster.

Woopy never really quite understood why Mr. Black had become the school headmaster - he seemed to hate children so why he had elected to run a school full of them, the house elf would never know.

At the headmasters next question, Woopy picked up a wet sponge and using the levitation charm, began cleaning the statue (albeit extremely carefully), "Of course Woopy clean, sir. It the reason your office so tidy, sir."

Woopy nodded confidently and moved over to the bookshelf this time. He unsummoned his sponge and bucket and perused the books. They all looked like gibberish. Important, but still gibberish.

The House Elf then snapped his fingers and every book on the shelf moved into a neat pile on the floor, allowing the elf to dust the wood, and he started murmuring to himself.

"And Woopy not ever understand why these books are here and not in library. Or even why they in library! Put them in big room away from everyone and just summon! That neater but Woopy just silly and not know anything! Haha!" Woopy continued talking to himself merrily with a bit of a chuckle, "Woopy doesn't even see what these scribbles are! Strange wizard language."

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The more the elf talked the more Phineas wanted a drink. He pressed his fingers to his temples and sighed, hardly listening to what the elf was rambling on about. There were lots of questions and assumptions that Phineas didn't have the patience nor the desire to deal with directly so he nodded along every once in a while but other than that, wasn't giving it much attention.

"These are my books, not for the students, nor the staff for that matter." He said with another sigh. Why he had bothered to explain himself to the elf he had no idea, but perhaps if he answered the questions the creature would leave quicker.

He flinched as he heard the books hit the floor. "Be careful with those." He barked, brows furrowed in annoyance. "There's a reason students are not allowed to touch them." Some of them were ancient, passed down in his family and others he just damn well thought they needn't be tossed around.

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“Woopy guess that explain it,” the Elf shrugged at the Headmaster’s increasingly agitated words. It was part of Mr. Black’s charm, Woopy supposed: Mr. Black was in a constant state of ever-exasperated which matched perfectly with Woopy’s own state of always-annoyed. It was a nice change of pace from the other teachers and students. Though in all honesty, anything was a nice change of pace from the students. A snail was better company than students. No, wait, snails were slimy. A rock was better than a student in the same room as Woopy.

As he put the books on the floor which going by the way the Headmaster responded was not quietly or even remotely carefully, Woopy turned around, “These cursed too!?” Woopy raised his hands over his mouth, “Sir, me no want to intrude or be rude but Woopy really think you should not have cursed books that can fall on you.” He nodded sagely.

Granted if they fell, there was an above average chance that they wouldn’t touch Mr. Black given his desk was a few metres away – though Woopy wasn’t the most logical of beings.

“Why you like curses so much anyway? Cursed statues and cursed books. What next?” Woopy pointed to a quill on the desk, “You curse that too, sir?” Woopy said as he shook his head and turned back around to finish dusting the shelving before levitating the books back – a lot more careful this time.

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Phineas could feel the headache setting in. Irritation was likely to make him start twitching soon if he didn't get the house elf out of his office. "They are not cursed, they're fragile. Do not throw them around so carelessly." Fortunately for him, the direct order was unlikely to be ignored.

"Not everything is cursed and frankly it's only to prevent other people from touching my things." Why was he explaining himself again? This was nonsense. "Hurry up would you, I have work to do." Phineas was not in the mood to suffer any more questions from the house elf at this point. He was already irked and had things to do and it was much easier to do them in silence.

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Woopy huffed a great huff that would put any other huffs to shame. He was loathe to follow Sir Black’s orders though the House Elf had no choice. He was the headmaster and therefore, for all intents and purposes, was Woopy’s boss.

And so the order to hurry up was not taken lightly and after his display of obvious aggravation to being told to hurry, Woopy snapped his fingers and within a few moments there were several brushes, dusters, and sponges making quick work of every speck of dust.

“You always so nice to Woopy, sir.” Woopy said with gritted teeth. Phineas never abused the elf and always gave him orders which, though the elf was ever-thankful for, he hated. Mostly because he’d seen many headmasters come and go and all of them were awful. Except Phineas. Phineas, it seemed, was the silver lining on the cloud.

Once the office was practically sparkling, the various cleaning utensils vanished and Woopy moved to stand on the headmasters desk to meet his eye-level.

“Is there anything else Woopy can do, sir?”

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The order was obeyed, thanks to their strict little listening skills and Phineas watched in amusement as the elf huffed about. What an inconvenience to do its job without chatting away for no reason. Phinny returned to his work while things clattered about and then was unexpectedly face-to-face with the elf as it stood on his desk.

"No, and you are to never set foot on my desk again." Otherwise the elf would find itself in Elladora's hands and that would be the end of it. "You may go." Little cretin.

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