An hour later, he was still trying to master the spell. It turned out that cleaning spells were rather far from his area of expertise. The job had to be done however and there was no way he was reverting to using a bucket and sponge – the bucket had a hole in it and the sponge had disintegrated when he touched it. No, this was something he had to master if he wanted to get the place going again. There was going to be a whole lot of cleaning in the not so distant future.

Letting out a sigh, he ran a hand over his face and looked again at the instructions. He sure hoped it wasn't the bracelet getting in the way of casting; he was being monitored on what spells he cast. There had been a list of forbidden spells – all of them based around attacking other people. There would be no more fun with full body binds and the like; however there had been some others that he was able to use – functional ones being at the top. He just had to get his head around how they worked.

He flicked his wand as per the instructions and uttered the word, "Scurgio." He didn't really expect all that much to happen and at first, it didn't. Tempted to throw the book out the window, he didn't notice the sink filling with soap. It was only when he looked up that he realised that it had worked. He smiled. Perhaps things might work out after all. Leaning back against the wall, he watched as the surfaces cleaned themselves. What an amazing little spell that was. He was sure it was going to get him through some of the surface cleaning in the rest of the house.

Problem was, now he needed the food to arrive so he could actually eat some of it. He knew there was nothing to eat in the house, and he had no idea whether any form of tea, or coffee for that matter, would be useable. Probably not after the time he had been away. His stomach growled, letting him know that it was also aware of this situation. There wasn't much he could do about that right now however and there was still the rest of the house to get cleaned up. He'd dared not look at all of it, some of it was going to be in a less than admirable state.

The downstairs bathroom was the next place he'd sort out. If the kitchen and bathroom were functional, then the rest he could deal with in time. Opening the door, he realised the bathroom was every bit as disgusting as the kitchen. The window in here had been smashed and the smell of damp, and was that rot, filled the air. Hopefully, that wouldn't be as bad as it seemed. He had no real idea how to get rid of it, only that it was bad. He recalled hearing Lucius speak of a house that needed the entire floor replacing because of it.

First thing was first though, he repaired the window. The glass was in a pretty bad state and he knew it would need replacing fairly soon, however it would do for now. He then cast the cleaning spell he had used earlier, setting the place to scrubbing itself. This time, he did not stop to watch the event; there were far too many other rooms that needed attention. The bedroom for one thing… he did not want to sleep on dust all over again. Climbing the rickety stairs, he realised that most of the paint was peeling too. Some of it had fallen from the walls and collected in piles on the floor. Fourteen years had been a long time without repairs it seemed.

That was when he heard it. Pausing on the stairs, he pulled his wand from his sleeve and slowly placed the book on the floor. He might not be able to cast much but he was damned if he was going to go down there unarmed. Brushing stray strands of lank brown hair from his eyes, he crept back down the stairs. What if it was someone who had come to finish the job? Merlin knew nearly the whole world wanted to be rid of him. It would hardly come as a surprise if there was someone waiting down there to kill him. He was convinced he could hear someone down there. Slowly, he eased off the stairs and crept into the kitchen. What he found there was not nearly so alarming as he had thought, it was far, far worse than he expected.