CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

THE HOUSE CAME INTO VIEW, a sleek black door with a silver door knocker. I could see why it stood out from its general environment—the other houses dipped in dirty browns and layered with snow while this one stood dark, sleek and crooked. There were remnants of snow on it's roof, but scattered, as though there was a charm keeping it from gathering anew every time a blizzard hit or even a slight shower. 

Snow crunched under our feet. The street was quaint, and not an another sound was heard in the air except that of an occasional bird and a lone passerby shuffling by, hands taut in their pockets and face buried in the wool scarf around their neck. 

The house, though not much to look at, seemed to belong to a proper magical family. A family that held itself apart from the rest of the village, a family that didn't associate. And that was never good news. My family had been similar. My great uncle had made it so that we lived like shadows in the French village I had grown up in. No association with anyone else but our own. I held back a scoff, our own hadn't even been much. We had been trouble, bad news, despite not doing anything to prove so, despite having no other people know of our existence and our forlorn connections. 

Having approached the Fischer house, Viktor Krum and I tucked ourselves in the shadow of the nearest alley, overlooking the house from behind the bricked alley wall. His breath was steady next to me and I found myself concentrating on my own, and ultimately destructing the rhythm of it. 

"What is the plan?" Krum's voice came, a determined tone as he gazed up at the house, eyes focused and inspecting. 

"Plan?" I started, confused. I hadn't really focused on the specifics and decided that we needed a plan. 

"Yeah," He narrowed his eyes at me slightly. "We can't just barge in, grab Gregorovitch and disapparate." 

I blinked, that actually sounded a decent plan. "Why can't we?" 

He scoffed in disbelief. "Lavigne, these Fischers might be dangerous. They expect us. So they must've put up some sort of defense." 

I let out a focused breath. He was right. As much as I wanted to just get this rescue mission over with and go forth with my own underlying one, I shouldn't underestimate anyone at this point. Not when threats probably loomed for me in dark corners, in faces of wizard convicts wearing broken prison chains around their necks. But why shouldn't this be easy? When my path afterwards was anything but? Why should this one thing test me, when I didn't even have to do it in the first place? 

The thought made me still suddenly. It was true. I didn't need to save Gregorovitch. He had no memory to serve himself or anyone else. I did, however, need The Elder Wand, if I was to severe everything that bound me with my great uncle. My wand, my mark, the visions. I didn't need to do one thing, I just needed to do the other and all my problems would evaporate. 

It was guilt that made it seem as though one needed to do something. Guilt was one of the driving emotions. And for me, in this case, it was guilt that had brought me here, just a matter of a few wooden doors away from where Gregorovitch was being held. If he was even being held in here. 

Slightly panicked, the constellations came faster to me then, as I turned to them inside for a definite answer. They replicated and doubled, until the answer burned bright in my chest in a matter of seconds, a candle flame being lit with a crack in my ribs. Gregorovitch was in there. Relief flooded inside me. 

I didn't realize I hadn't said anything as I focused and found Krum's eyes on me in a curious expectancy. 

"Nothing?" He pressed his lips together, observing me. 

"What?" I asked, slightly dazed. The brief memory loss that came with pulling away from the constellations once I had my answer, lasted about a few flimsy, disoriented seconds. 

"Your magic?" He raised a brow, looking at me as though I had suddenly turned into a dunce.

Frustration ebbed inside me, like it was fire and I was a wick being consumed.

"Why don't you do something for a change, Krum? Or haven't you learnt your spells yet?" 

A smirk broke through his features as he nodded in consideration. His infuriation at being directed the retort was evident still as he tried to school his expression. Then, keeping his challenging anthracite eyes on mine as I folded my arms across my chest, he pulled aside a side of his coat and flicked out his wand from a hidden pocket. 

My eyes fell to it, the wood of it coursing sudden familiarity through me again, just like the last time when I had seen his wand. 

"Gregorovitch made it," The Bulgarian seeker's voice infiltrated my senses and I looked up to find him observing me. 

"You mentioned," I turned my eyes away, suddenly remembering how he had practically shouted that fact in my face in aftermath of the blast at the wandmaker's place. 

"Alors quoi maintenant?" I offered, looking back at his startled expression and hastily realizing I had switched to French.

"Will you just blow the door off it's hinges?" 

His expression morphed into consideration, Adam's apple bobbing as he looked towards the house, face of stone and iron.

"Along with anyone or anything else that comes in my way."

"What happened to the Fischers having a defense, and them possibly being dangerous?" My arms unfolded as I glared at him in frustration. 

"Well, you left it up to me and I decided to take a direct approach," He raised a brow at me, then he turned away as rolled his neck and moved a shoulder as a slight crack sounded in his bones and he made forwards, determined. 

I grabbed his arm to hold him back, shooting him a furious glare as he met my eyes condescendingly. 

"Give your ridiculous guts a rest," I let out, "I have a plan."  

He grinned, taking a step back and making a theatrical gesture with his hands, his wand still held in one. 

Trying to uncloud my mind from the frustration he made me feel, I looked around for any potential sightseers or eavesdroppers. Then I brought my right hand up and using two dominant fingers, drew a rune in the air in front. It glowed purple this time, a glowing purple that reminded me of a night sky full of stars and my own bright eyes gazing up at them with no worry in the world. Except, that was not a memory, only a concept. Then I whispered an incantation and closed my eyes. When I opened them seconds after, the rune was gone and the faint purple glow in my fingers at my side was lightly fading. 

Viktor Krum was no longer in front of me. Quickly, I looked around, and spotted his figure standing directly in front of the black Fischer house. His features were hard, eyes peering up at the place as he took a step forwards. Instantly, I made towards him, grabbing his arm and halting him in place. 

"What are you doing?" I snapped angrily. "Couldn't you wait?" 

"Lavigne?" He asked, his tone threaded with relief and surprise. His head turned to look at me, his brows furrowed and his focus flittingly shifted. "I can't see you." 

I let go of his arm. "That is the point. I was about to tell you but you have no patience, Durmstrang." 

"Tell it to me now then," He pressed his lips, finding it hard to converse finding no one in sight. I suppose it made him feel slightly foolish. 

"First," I spoke slowly, cautiously glancing at the house in front with it's darkened windows and daunting black exterior.

"Face ahead, and don't speak. Just listen," But my irritation with him quickly picked up after, "You're literally standing right in front, anyone from inside could be watching you. What were you thinking? How are we supposed to plan if you aren't prepared to wait?" 

He tried to keep shut, but his jaw had tightened to a point which forced him to. 

"I thought you went inside, so I—" 

"Don't speak," I hissed. "Just listen. You will go up to the door, make something up so that they let you in. I will be right behind you. Detain them in the living room or where ever and just keep talking to them while I find Gregorovitch. I will get him out, and once we're out I'll cause a commotion outside as a signal, then you can get out of there. But if something goes wrong before that, you let me know. I don't care what you do, just let me know somehow. Got it?" 

He exhaled, nostrils flaring in a determined expression. 

"Good boy," I murmured, and he tensed. 

"Lavigne," He groaned cautiously, lips parted but not moving. I held back my smirk, though I knew he couldn't see me. 

"Go," I ushered him, and he began to walk towards the door, and climbed a porch step to place his thick fist on the door to knock. 

The resulting sound was loud, and I worried if it would be noted, considering Viktor Krum at present appeared to be a sickly, frail guy, courtesy of me. 

He knocked again, while I stood right beside him. The door lock shifted after a moment from the inside, and the door slowly started opening. I gasped as my eyes observed the scene inside through the slight crack it was opened. Lights were flickering inside. Green, blue, red, purple. The lights switched and flickered and I saw dark figures glide past in the semi darkness. Up beat music thundered inside and I could detect the charm placed. The music couldn't escape outside of the house. A silver light like shards of bright glass fell about the room inside and I traced it to a silver diamond encrusted disco ball hanging from the ceiling. 

The air inside smelled of mulled wine and expensive cologne. It was tainted with perfumed breaths and a hefty underlying whiff of smoke stemming from burnt weed.  

They were having a party, and an especially wild one at that. 

My senses were entirely thrown off. Our plan wouldn't work in this environment. But if I could still get inside, may I could find a way still to free Gregorovitch. 

My eyes fell on the dwarf who had opened the door. He looked to be old, but not quite. He looked to be of about Professor Fabien's countenance, though I had not an ounce of idea how one was to go about assuming the age of a dwarf. The man wore round spectacles, and a polished black suit, as though he were merely hosting a business meeting in his living room and not a full blown party. 

"Yes?" The dwarf wizard asked, his voice was thin, and he dragged his 's', as though he were but a creature trapped in old caves guarding a ring. 

It was then that I finally thought to look at Krum and observe the anxiety on his face. Clearly, the fact that there was a party going on inside had fallen harder on him than me, especially when he was the one who had to get us inside. I'd push the dwarf aside and enter, but that would risk everything. Ultimately, depending on Viktor Krum for this task was an irritable feat. 

"Ah," Viktor started, a nervous smile on his face as he lifted his hand and touched the back of his head. I stilled, Cornish pixies re-emerging in my stomach. Had I ever seen him thrown off and nervous like this before? It was.. endearing. 

I held my breath, waiting for anything he would say. 

"I'm here.. for the party?" The Durmstrang blurted and I covered my mouth with a palm, afraid he had ruined it. 

The dwarf tilted his head, observing Krum—or rather—the person I had made him appear. Then he let out a breath that sounded more like a scoff, but I couldn't tell. 

"You are.. Allington, Luke Allington?" The man asked. "Your parents refused to come."

His manner was judgmental as he ran his spectacled eyes over every inch of the Bulgarian seeker's illusion form. The Allingtons were clearly not a favorite. Meanwhile, some one inside turned the music louder, and the beat dropped as people cheered inside. The disco ball flickered madly, the diamond encrusted thing glistening like a gathered sculpture of stars. I saw dark figures spin, a figure of a man spinning a tall thin woman around. The dwarf glanced briefly over his shoulder, letting out a sigh before turning to face Krum again. And though his manner was slow and deliberate, he looked as though he was clearly being kept against his will. I couldn't imagine the sophistication in this wizard even had a place inside the wild party he was hosting in his cottage on this quaint street. 

"Yeah, yeah," Krum hastened to add. "They don't prefer these kinds of... gatherings." 

He had been mistaken for someone else, and I worried if others inside this house would make the same mistake or not. 

"Alright," The dwarf shrugged, stepping aside and holding the door open. 

I blinked, surprised that at how easy that had been. Though I knew not to trust situations that eased one into them, because they always revealed their true faces later. 

"Thank you, Mr Fischer," Viktor spoke, suddenly cautious if it wasn't a Fischer he was addressing. But the dwarf nodded, and gestured him inside. I followed quickly in. 

The door closed shut behind us, and we were plunged into darkness that was tinted by the blue, red and green of the flickering lighting. No person inside was clearly visible, faces and forms cast in red, green, or blue and purple sheens every second, and the rest of their presence covered in a darkness of the ambience. I spotted more dwarves in the distance, and decided that they constituted the Fischer family. Though their name was strangely familiar—ever since I had heard it cross the German boys' lips, their faces weren't. 

The energy in this house stirred something inside me, an electricity shooting down my body. It made my chest feel light somehow, the muscles in my body as though they were glowing. It was my magic being triggered in a positive way, and since it's presence in me was absolute and formed the very threads of my being, my whole body felt like I was walking on air. I sensed it because it had never been touched like this in a surrounding before. I had never walked into a place and felt my magic so in sync with my surroundings.

Realization was only a hair's breadth away, and when it came, I stilled. The Fischers were holding Gregorovitch. They wanted the information on The Elder Wand. If I felt my magic welcomed under a roof like theirs, then that was no good sign. I shook my head. No, maybe it was something I felt and I'm mistaking it for acceptance. I waited for my scar to burn, but the scar wouldn't burn like it burned at Beauxbatons, and when I entered Ilvermorny. This house wasn't Ilvermorny or Beauxbatons. 

I didn't realize, in my reverie, that the Durmstrang I had entered with had been ushered to a side and was surrounded by wizards and witches with gleaming smiles, most of them taller than the dwarves hosting them at their house. They were laughing at something the Bulgarian had said, and I inched closer. 

"Yeah, the Allington manor is quite overrated," Viktor chuckled, continuing a conversation as he traced the rim of the glass he had just been handed with a thick index finger, a natural smirk playing on his lips. Inside, a red liquid swirled. "We've never hosted a party that even came close to this." 

"Why not?" A sturdy old witch in the corner raised her brow. "You have a sister and a mother, have you not? Your father should give them the reins to a party someday. I believe the host of a very glamorous party is always a woman." 

Dense murmurs of agreement floated around in the small crowd the Durmstrang was entertaining. 

"I'll be sure to demand that of him the very moment I cross my threshold," Krum clicked his tongue as the woman smiled in pride of the observation she had just made. 

"Your parents, it seems, have hid you for far too long from us," A witch with stark platinum hair smirked, her voice sleek as she winked. "You are positively charming." 

"Though your face doesn't look the part," The jealous wizard next to her muttered, gripping her waist tighter as she shot him a look, addressing his jealousy and tsked. 

"Yeah, well, I make up for it in other ways," The Durmstrang grinned and I almost scoffed, a Cornish pixie fluttering inside the pit of my stomach, away from it's dormant group. 

The wizards and witches around him laughed and a tall man slapped Krum's back as the latter grinned and brought the glass to his lips and drank. I had no time to dwell on what he had said when concern replaced every other feeling. He wasn't just supposed to drink anything someone gave him, especially here. I watched his Adam's apple bob with increasing anxiety, but then he lowered his head and wiped at his face with his sleeve and began talking with the same natural enthusiasm he had been displaying before. I released a sigh of relief. If someone had intended to poison him, he'd have been dead after a single sip. 

Then I turned away, making my way past people, being careful not to run into anyone as I tried to scour what I could of the house. There were wizards and witches everywhere, and for a stark moment I wondered what in the hell they were celebrating. I examined faces, and none seemed recognizable until my eyes spotted a particularly familiar face. A woman I had seen the moving image of in the lumière un journal. She was French, and I remember reading that she had been taken in to Azkaban for conduct in favor of Voldemort, before he wiped himself off the face of the Earth. She had been in Britain at the time, and they hadn't bothered to transfer prisons. She was one of them, and she must have escaped. I couldn't remember her name, and neither did my anxiety allow me to. 

She passed directly by me, her facial features contorted to a tightness. I could make out her dark lips, smeared with a dark lipstick. High cheekbones. The green light of the party drenched her face in green, and her dark hair was tightly fastened into a low bun. Her dress was another cacophony of dark that I couldn't distinguish any colors of, in this lighting. 

They were celebrating their escape, what else could it be? This house was full of them, they could all be escapees—heck—they were definitely all escapees. But why gather like this when they should be on the run? Why gather at a single spot knowing that they could be found out easily? That too, in a village in Hamburg, Germany? It made no sense. 

Perhaps if we managed to get Gregorovitch out and escape, we could reveal this party spot and potentially save the collapsing foundations of the Wizarding World security. The act would would be a standing point, wouldn't it? In me doing something my great uncle would never have done. Something like that would be able to define me more, a definition that differed from his entirely. 

But first, the old wandmaker. My mind probed at me to look for hidden basements or heavily guarded doors, somewhere a hostage could truly be held. I focused my eyes raw at every suspecting looking latch in the wall and trap doors, but if they were present, they lead to nothing but dust and storage space holding murky old mattresses and boxes I had no time but immense curiosity to examine. Finding myself in a similar room I had stepped into across a very small door, the boxes inside were large and furniture shaped, quelling my curiosity before it even came about. I exited the small room, very slowly closing the door so no passing witch or wizard noticed. I didn't shut entirely any door, purposefully leaving them all ajar. Even at this heavy party, with music blaring all around me, I feared the latching click of doors would give me away. 

I should know where the wandmaker was being held by now. But I didn't feel him anywhere. No party go-er spoke about a captive, no one mentioned an old wandmaker being held somewhere in the house. I deliberately tried to overhear the conversations for Gregorovitch's name or even his occupation, but nobody mentioned him. Perhaps, most of them weren't in on the Fischer plan in the first place. Perhaps, these escapees did not stand as united as I supposed them to be. 

I walked into an empty room. It was a bedroom, decorated elaborately in expensive furnishings. Velvet curtains were draped along the windows, tied off with gold threaded ropes away from the mahogany bed post. A lush red carpet was underneath my feet, covering every inch of the lavish room floor. It seemed to be a couple's room, the heads of the Fischer family. It was an elegant mix of sophisticated feminine and male energy, and I could feel their intertwined auras somehow.

I walked over to a vanity, and sure enough, spotted a moving framed portrait of the dwarf Fisher couple. The dwarf who had opened the door to us, was indeed the Mr Fischer we supposed him to be. And his wife? My eyes peered at her stout laughing face as she clung onto her husband's arm, and suddenly, recognition flooded my senses and a jolt had me stumble back on my feet.

I had seen her before. Multiple times. She had been a frequent visitor at our house back when I was ten. But I remembered nothing of her conversation, just that face swimming in the whorls of my deepest memories. Her with a shining porcelain cup of tea in her midget hands, lips shining with gloss as she crossed her ankles sitting on a small kitchen chair talking to my mother as the latter prepared lunch. Her taking my chin with thick small fingers and speaking, lips spread apart forming words of excitement and glee I couldn't place at present. In my memories, she seemed happy. Happy every time she spoke to me or my mother.  

But if she associated with us back then, she must be one of Grindelwald's followers. Her face in my memories ended after the time my great uncle was put in Nurmengard. My heart constricted slowly. Many faces in my life turned to dust in my life after Grindelwald was put in Nurmengard. 

"Dominique Marie Grindelwald," A voice broke through my senses and a shocked breath escaped my lips. 

The woman was behind me. Had she been in the room the entire time? Or had she just appeared now? Somehow, I felt it could be either, so detached had I been from my present as my mind had unraveled my memories—a picture movie for my eyes, blinding me from my current reality. I slowly turned around, and she was right there, standing beside her bed post. 

Her face was the same as it had been in my memories, excepting the parts were her skin was slightly loose, and the parts were mere wrinkles crinkled around her eyes. The same diamond face shape, the same shallow green eyes—though at present they looked stern and full of things I couldn't begin to name. The same sullen cheeks, the same sharp jaw, the same thin dark lips. 

"Flora Fischer," I spoke, resolution creeping up in my voice. "How did you know it was me?" 

"I can sense you," She answered, a tone heavy and devoid of any emotion. "I could sense you very well when you were a child. Some things don't change." 

"I see," I uttered, trying to keep the amusement from my voice. "But I hear other things do. Is the air outside of Nurmengard to your liking?" 

The dwarf witch visibly cringed at the name of the prison she had spent the last eight years in. The same eight years as Grindelwald, the same prison as Grindelwald. 

"It is," Flora Fischer let out, her eyes focusing and unfocusing in my general direction. It irritated her that she couldn't see me, and I could see her fidget as she tried hard to keep her composure. 

I saw her hands at her sides twitch, and I knew she had nothing she could do about it. Starting a blind attack on me with no precise sense of direction to point her wand at would cause chaos, and chaos wasn't exactly what she was looking for, especially in the midst of a party constituting of witches and wizards with prizes on their heads. She had snuck them all in, and sneaking them back out from this quiet town tucked in the corner of Germany, could not be done amidst chaos. 

"And you?" The witch asked after a pause. "Helped your great uncle's friends break out of prison and came to take charge?" 

"What?" I stilled, horror emanating off of me in waves. I never broke anyone out of any prison. 

"Yes. We're all ready to follow you once you show yourself," Flora Fischer shrugged then, a genuine shrug that weaved confusion through me. "Since you didn't break your great uncle out, you have intentions I can't predict. Or, you intend to use us to get him out."

My lip trembled as realization settled in me. This was not my doing. This was Grindelwald's doing. He set them all free somehow, orchestrated this breakout and put the credit on me. He didn't get himself out. He intended to remain unblamed for this, and he was now calling me. But why? What was his intention? 

He had always had some sort of hold even while being in prison. What else could explain me receiving the wand he had had forged for me when I was supposed to be starting school at twelve? He had been locked in Nurmengard for two years then. 

"We are ready to follow you, Dominique," Flora Fischer uttered again, her voice clear and eyes stern. "None of us have seen you. I haven't seen you since you were ten. Most of us presume you to be dead, and with Grindelwald still in Nurmengard, most of us presumed ourselves to be free."  

"How many of you are there?" I managed, my fear barely keeping my voice levelled.  

"About twenty acolytes here," She clasped her thick small hands at the base of her stomach. "The rest are not ours." 

Acolytes. That was what Grindelwald called his followers, a word encrusted with his fondness for all those willing to spill out blood from their jugular veins, just for him. 

"The Azkaban escapees," I spoke, "Why are they here?" 

"Death eaters. They were broken out as well. We have wizards and witches from the MACUSA prison as well," The dwarf woman's thick dark brows furrowed. "Was that not your doing?" 

I didn't answer, my mind crawling with the situation I had found laid bare in my hands. That, along with this, was certainly not my doing. How many prisons had been breached? How many convicts had escaped? How much was the news holding back? This would explain the Dementors at Ilvermorny, this would explain why they had travelled so far.

"We assumed it was your doing," The witch let out. "So I made my husband, Albert, make it a point to gather them all together. Incase you come, demanding our obedience. The Acolytes will bow to you and we can make the others do the same, but I assume the Death eaters will require persuasion. They remain loyal to their Dark Lord, though most all of them have accepted his perishing." 

"If they knew that it was you, the great niece of Gellert Grindelwald, who gave them their freedom, persuasion might be needed in a much lesser dose." 

My heart rattled in my chest, it wavered and it beat in a disturbed rhythm I couldn't control. This was not happening right now, this shouldn't be happening. 

"Why are you holding Gregorovitch?" My voice cut through the air, my hands fisting at my sides. 

If these witches and wizards were mine to control, I will wipe them all out before they dared to do even one thing I didn't approve of. If Grindelwald meant for me to take the lead, I will do it my way. I will show him just how tainted of a reflection I was of him. 

***

A/N:
How's everybody's new year going? Happy 2023! The next chapter is going to be such a blast. Is anyone up for a wild death eater and acolyte party?!