trigger warning: gore/blood/strong
language

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

NOT YET A CORPSE, STILL HE ROTS was what anyone would believe if they looked at him, here and now. A man, devoid of his wand, his powers, his strength—bound up in heavy and rusted iron chains he had had no will left perhaps to toss and turn in. A man who used to be more than that once, a dark wizard with prestige and self made honor, carving rivers for his own respect with the blood of those who did and did not fear him.

You could never tell once, if it was fear that he wanted from people, or if he just wanted their lives for the plain satisfaction of it.

Not yet a corpse but still he rots. That was not it. I knew better than that. Gellert Grindelwald would never rot if he had life left inside of him. He would never rot if he was still capable of breathing. He would never rot if his heart was still beating—regardless of where or why, or when.

The single thick shard of moonlight—considerably wide—from the square window fell on the ground, inches in front of my feet. I was drenched in the darkness the moon had neglected—and so was he.

With his back against the wall under the high up window, knees pulled up to his chest, the once mighty dark wizard sat with his head resting on the wall behind him. I couldn't see him, my eyes only allowing me a faint outline of his hunched form and stealing from me the right to look at the worn details of the man I had despised for longer and harder than the entire world had.

He had sensed my presence, I knew that. The heavy iron chains binding him shifted the tiniest bit, as though he was straightening himself, or straining to make my form out. I knew he couldn't see me as well, but I knew he didn't need to. The small movement of iron rang in the silence of the cell.

"Do you feel like a young goddess?" 

His voice was guttural and low, and it took me hurtling back into memories stored away and locked at the back of my brain. Snippets of conversations, snippets of his anger, snippets of his joy—everything I had overheard, words drenching out past his lips, furious and firm in every case to a little girl who seemed to know and expect nothing else from such a man.

"Answer me," He spoke again, and I stiffened, before realizing that there was no fury in his tone—just a contentment that seemed like it did not belong.

His French was just as I remembered too, curt and a little rough around the edges, making him sound demanding every time he spoke. Gellert Grindelwald's mother tongue was the rich slew of waves of Hungarian. He was born there, before his younger brother—my grandfather's—birth in France two years later.

The dark wizard believed in embracing the tongue of the land he had opened his heterochromic eyes in, and despite no other in our family speaking that language, I heard him spew it out often enough in his anger.

"No," I orated, successfully keeping my voice steady. "I am no goddess."

"But do you feel like one?" He pressed, the iron of his chains grating against the stone floor as he shifted slightly. "After all that you have achieved, my flesh and blood?"

"I have achieved nothing," I let out, frustration making my eyes ache with buildup. "You have let me achieve nothing."

"Nothing?" His tone cracked in disbelief. "You honed into your heuristics, without anyone teaching you. Vous avez affiné votre vrai moi. You stepped in as leader for the acolytes. You have proven yourself to be far mightier than any wizard or witch your age, you have proven yourself to be far greater than I was at your age."

I recoiled from the praise, my gut twisting. Did he think I was trying to be like him?

"That is not what I'm trying to do!" My voice echoed in the small cell, and I didn't care if any of the other captives in the tower below heard what I had to say.

No response. A pause ensued as his chains shifted a little, the sound of iron grating again.

"Step into the light, az én kis pillangóm."

My little butterfly, that was what the term translated to from Hungarian. His terms of endearment were the ones I could place now, after all these years. I remember the same words scribbled onto the box in cursive in which he had sent my wand.

"I want to see you."

I bit my lip, suddenly fearful of his scrutiny. But I didn't have anything to hide from him, and I realized I did not want to hide anything from him either. I wanted him to know who I was, so that I could be rid of him, so that he could realize that I would not be what he wanted me to be.

I stepped under the moonlight and let it wash over me, fixing my eyes on my great uncle.

I could see him a bit more clearly now, though his form was still drenched in a lighter shade of darkness. His eyes were salient, a white right eye and a blue left eye. The sight struck me, contrasting with the platinum hair on his head that once was the brightest thing I did ever see, now was muddied, with dust coating the short strands.

His eyes were widening slowly as he took my form in, and I realized just how much my own silver-gray irises looked like they could be a blend of his heterochromic white and blue.

"Tu vas aveugler le monde avec ta beauté," The words spilled from his mouth, and I saw his thin lips move as my eyes adjusted some more to his darkness.

"You can take the world by storm."

I stayed silent, not knowing what to say. His words, they sounded genuine, they sounded like he meant what he said. But he was Gellert Grindelwald, and he manipulated my family long before he ever terrorized the world. Everything he said and went on to say, none of it could be trusted. None of it should be accepted.

But that did not mean that the dark wizard did not know the art of his words. His words were like every spell he ever performed with his wand, they fit into the twisted situations he orchestrated for himself. He always knew what to say and when to say it. He always knew what words would have the best effect and what words wouldn't.

And right now, a secret part of the eighteen year old witch who had hid her powers with the fear of being condemned for more than half of her life, relished the words she had just heard from the dark wizard Grindelwald.

"The sight of you, heals me," The sixty six year old wizard went on to speak, his voice ever so guttural, his eyes shining brighter than the moon falling onto me.

"You are my successor, you hold my legacy."

"I'm not your successor," I let out, my hands fisting at my sides, my fury turning itself onto me for the treacherous satisfaction swirling somewhere inside me. "You have no successor."

"You have my mark, az én kis pillangóm. You have my trust, and you have my blood."

I shook my head in fervent denial, trying to channel all my fury towards him but suddenly I just felt drained of every last bit of it. I did have the anger, but suddenly, it refused to be directed towards him. All I felt was gnawing vulnerability expanding inside me, choking up my throat.

"Did you kill my father?" The question spilled out from between my lips of its own accord. "He was your successor first, was he not?"

"Il était." The dark wizard's tone was marred with partial consideration, slightly betraying his indifference. "But your father was a coward, he did not have the strength I prided him for. My brother had the strength, but he did not have the patience to get more out of it. My brother was reckless and your father was a weakling. Aucun d'entre eux n'avait ce qu'il fallait. Ils ont été des déceptions pour moi."

"So you did what, to them?" I raised my voice, finding a spark of anger in me again.

I did not care about my ruthless and cruel grandfather—though he had stayed in my life longer than my own father had. The former had terrorized the lives of me and my mother, before finally leaving us behind to go on a run when his connection with Grindelwald came to light during my third year at Beauxbatons.

Fortunately, his exposure had not affected the lives of me and my mother, fate leaving us be for a while in a strange twist of destiny.

My father had left us long before Grindelwald was captured. He had left when I was marked with the deadly hallows in my cot, when I hadn't even been mentally stable enough to distinguish my parents from my great uncle and grandfather.

Grindelwald could've done something to both of them, he couldn't have been unbothered enough to let them be. If he could send me my wand while bound in these chains and held captive in this tower, he could have done something to my grandfather and my father.

"Do you really want to know?" The dark wizard spoke after a long pause, his tone devoid of the pity one would usually suspect with such a question.

He sat fixed in his spot on the stone floor, looking up at me. I found it strange how he wouldn't stand up to face me. The Grindelwald I remembered would always stand up to face someone down—no matter who it was. Perhaps these eight years taught him things about perspective that no other living witch or wizard could place.

"You don't have to know," He added then, his eyes fixed on me. "You can go on without knowing, you can survive without knowing. Vous pouvez devenir le plus grand sans le savoir."

"Je veux savoir ce que tu leur as fait!" I shouted, my voice cracking halfway.

I wanted to know what he did to them, I wanted to know so that I could set my hate for him in stone. I wanted to know so that I will never again dare to feel satisfaction for his praise.

Grindelwald's jaw twitched at my outburst, his face tilting slightly as he eyes deepened their observation of me. He seemed to be relishing my frustration, trying to decipher what it meant and where it stemmed from.

"Your father did just what you know he did," My great uncle spoke, his tone now taking the nonchalant turn that is natural in the voice of an elder of a family.

The realization ebbed at me. He was the elder of my family. I had always known that fact, but it had never openly stared me in the face until now.

"After his numerous mistakes, my forgiveness was not enough for him. I took away my trust in him and placed it onto you when you were but a baby. As a man of twenty four, a Grindelwald, I believe that fact must not have sat right with him. So he left. He left his young wife, an infant daughter, his father and uncle behind. It was nothing but a cowardly act of jealousy and spite."

"No—" I shook my head, my eyes stinging with tears that I held back with my might. "My father would never leave me out of jealousy."

Wouldn't he? Did I even know the man to come to such a conclusion?

"Flora Fischer said that it was because he married my mother," I hastened to grasp at my thoughts and voice them. "Your hatred for her and the marriage was why you punished him—"

Grindelwald threw his head back and laughed then, a deep guttural laugh that shook the chain he was bound in. A crow cawed in surprise and abandoned its spot on the main tower's peak, flying away from the disruption.

"It appears the acolytes need to be tightened, their tongues have come loose in these eight years," The dark wizard shook his head slowly before meeting my eyes again. "What care have I, who my nephew marries? I would've preferred it to be one of the acolytes, yes. But I wouldn't spill my own blood for such a nonsensical mistake."

I felt stupid then, in that moment when his words started to make sense. I felt stupid for believing in the words of an acolyte knowing that they were puppets who only knew what they were being fed. I felt stupid knowing that I had held a man possibly jealous of his infant daughter in a higher regard than I should have.

"And your grandfather?" Gellert Grindelwald's lips separated to reveal his teeth. They were dirty, yellowed at the edges with a trace of his usual stark white still showing from underneath.

"I did not misjudge my brother when I called him reckless. He went on a run to try and break me out of here, hoping perhaps to reassemble our empire. A noble thought, indeed. But that mindless fool did not have the power or the wit to execute such a plan."

I swallowed a lump in my throat. "What happened to him?"

"This tower is protected with curses and charms, he must've found his way into the fortress but couldn't get near the tower."

"I heard his screams from below," The wizard threw a shoulder back, a blank expression on his face. "He burned alive where he stood. I could smell his charred flesh. He withstood longer than I suspected, though. Je devrais peut-être lui en attribuer le mérite."

"Then the crows came, in numbers of thousands and fed themselves off of him."

I broke eye contact and turned my face away, my stomach churning at the thought of such an agonizing death. My grandfather was no saint, and he may have deserved the intricacies of his death, but it didn't feel so to me in that moment.

"So you see, you are my only successor, Dominique Marie Grindelwald, az én kis pillangóm. You will carry on my legacy, and no one will ever dare forget your name."

My hands shook at my sides, my exhaustion and fear catching onto me no matter how hard I tried to keep them back.

"Did you care for me?" My voice sounded meek, and I felt disgusted with myself at such a question, but I needed to know. "Ever?"

My great uncle blinked, surprised to find that I did indeed have a question that could throw him off his guard. His features settled back slowly, his unorthodox eyes never leaving my own. Then slowly, his chains shifted, iron grating against stone until I realized that he was trying to stand up.

It didn't take him the effort that I was expecting, a soft cloud of dust disassembled from off his form and flakes of it danced in my vision powered by the moonlight. I took a single step back. His chains were long, I could see them settling on the ground in long loops, and I knew I was standing too close to him. But somehow, I didn't want to move away, I didn't want to hide away from him—to let him mistake my reluctance for fear when it most certainly was.

He made it to his full height, an arm's length away from me. He was taller than me, still. My forehead only reached the level of his shoulders. But they weren't the once broad and muscled shoulders that they had been. Gellert Grindelwald's form had thinned considerably, I could tell now in this newfound proximity. The eight years without the hearty meals he preferred had been harsh on his physique. Though his posture hadn't changed, it still demanded fear. The way he held himself still hadn't changed.

The skin enveloping his frame drooped the slightest at some parts of him, the parts where he had lost his hard gained muscle and stealth. I wondered what he had been reduced to eating now. I wondered who brought him his food and when. I wondered at the task of the poor life assigned to keep this dark wizard alive. This dark wizard—who refused to give up on life just yet.

"I cared for only you, az én kis pillangóm. My world started and ended with you, and it still does now that I have no one left. As long as you're alive and thriving, I will live on—even beyond this body of rotting flesh and bone. I care enough for you even now to give you everything I have got left," He spoke, eyes bearing into mine.

I couldn't read anything except his determination in his irises, I didn't sense the hatred that I expected, I didn't sense the love that I feared. But perhaps those things came in many disguises.

"My acolytes, my trust, my belief."

I scoffed, the mere reaction sprouting my usual confidence back up inside me.

"Those things are worth nothing to me—not when you treat me like a dog, torturing me with my mind, my mark and my own wand."

"Would you have come to see me otherwise? Had I not called?"

I peered up at him, his expression resolute. He was right, I wouldn't have come if it were not for my mark or my wand. If my wand hadn't forgotten its only loyalty to me, I wouldn't have gone to Gregorovitch at all.

"If you call it torture, then I will not do it again."

I startled at the sincerity in his thick voice.

"Your visions were the gift of channeling your anger into strength. I gave you that gift and I cannot take it back. It will help you manifest your power. Your mark is your connection to me, and I won't touch it unless I have to. And you can have the loyalty of your wand all to yourself."

"Why?" I let out, desperation coating my voice. "Why are you doing this? Why did you call me? Why can't you just give it a rest?"

"I have given it a rest," Grindelwald's eyes sharpened into mine. "Can't you see, az én kis pillangóm?"

"You are my successor, you will carry my legacy, and you will do with it as you bid."

I released a breath in shock. Do with it as you bid.

"What?" I whispered, lip trembling.

"I want you so powerful, Dominique, my precious divine gift," The dark wizard raised a hand—not yet frail but strong as it once had been, his eyes softening.

I didn't move as his hand came closer and the fingers touched my cheek in a caress that made my eyes burn. The rein I had force held on my tears snapped back, and a fat tear rolled down my cheek, my eyes intent in my great uncle's.

"My thunder, my sweet lightning. I want you so powerful that you would not need to yield in front of any dark wizard."

My lips parted but no sound came out. Grindelwald's eyes were unblinking as he spoke, his irises glowing under the moonlight as it cast shadows all across his pale face.

"I want you so powerful, that even if the whole world burns, you are left standing untouched, unharmed."

"And in that way," The dark wizard paused as he moved his thumbs slightly over the skin on my cheek. "You will keep my legacy alive in your own way. In that way you will succeed me. In that way, even beyond the grave, I will know that my power still walks on land—accumulant plus de puissance que je n'en ai jamais fait."

He dropped his hand then with a sharp exhale, as though my skin had burnt him. His hand returned to the side of the dirty and torn white clothing he wore. In the light, I saw how dirty his legs were, feet bare and bound in heavy cuffed iron chains with dried blood encrusted on its edges.

I met his eyes again.

"I don't exist like this," He spoke, his jaw tightening. "I exist through you, my legacy exists only through you and what you go on to do."

A wind entered through the window and swept across my face, making my wet cheeks feel like ice as a strand of my hair blew in my face.

"You require The Elder Wand, do you not?"

I nodded, wiping the back of my hand under my eyes as I maintained eye contact. I didn't trust myself to say anything, because words weren't coming to me at present. Thai was not the Grindelwald I had expected to find inside Nurmengard. The wizard I was supposed to find could drain me of my heuristics, break out of his chains and restore his empire of tyranny. This was not that Grindelwald.

"Bien," He moved his head once, eyes flashing something I couldn't name. "I want you to have it. I don't want its power in any other wizard's hands."

I want it to free myself of you, I wanted to say. I want it to remove my mark and fix my wand, I don't want to keep it. But the words wouldn't come out, and I knew why they wouldn't. I wasn't so sure of them anymore.

If I could carry Grindelwald's legacy, I could change it. His name would no longer be a stain on my life. He would no longer be a dark cloud hovering over me, I can take it all and I can build on it. I can make it different and more powerful in a way the wizarding world has never seen before. I can make the world realize that having power does not necessarily mean that it's meant for only destruction.

I wouldn't have to hide the fact that he's my great uncle anymore. I can wear his mark and make it the source of my strength, my individuality. Now that I have the assurance.

Assurance, I tasted the word in my mouth. Could I trust Gellert Grindelwald's assurance?

"Where is it?" I asked the question, firming my tone. 

"Albus Dumbledore has it," The dark wizard spoke the name tastelessly, as though it held no meaning for him. "He defeated me, he has the allegiance of the wand."

"But—" I started, sensing something inside me fall.

"The Elder Wand needs to be won over like spoils of war."

I should've realized Grindelwald wouldn't have it. But had this been a wasted journey? It had not, I believed that now. Of all the journeys I had ever made, this had been the least wasted one.

"I have given you my acolytes, the location of The Elder Wand, my trust and my belief," My great uncle let out, sensing the fall in my voice. "You have efficiently honed into your heuristics. You must defeat Dumbledore and acquire The Elder Wand."

I realized suddenly that I needed the wand less than I had needed it before. I didn't want to get rid of Grindelwald's legacy, but I didn't want the wand to fall into Voldemort's hands either. But couldn't Dumbledore protect it? He had the wand, couldn't he keep it safe from Voldemort without my interference? Gregorovitch would agree, wouldn't he?

"Dominique," The dark wizard's voice bellowed in the silence of the cell suddenly as if he had read my thoughts on my face. "You need to acquire that wand. It can't be left with Albus Dumbledore, I see no future for him and that wand will leave his grasp."

My great uncle had made it clear that he wanted me to have all the power, regardless of what I chose to do with it. Was this why he was pressing me to retrieve that wand, or did he really believe Albus Dumbledore would lose it? 

"Promise me, Dominique," Grindelwald stepped nearer to me, glowing eyes looking down into mine. "Promise me that you will acquire that wand. Promise me that it will be yours and that you won't lose it to anyone else. Promets-moi, mon nuage d'orage."

Suddenly a crow cawed loudly close to the window of the cell, and I turned my eyes towards it only to see a glimpse of black fly away.

I caught Grindelwald's eyes again, and the flitting panicked touch in his look startled me more than the crow's sudden call.

"My precious thunder cloud," He gazed at me, pushing his sudden panic away as though it hadn't erupted in his eyes in the first place.

"Az én kis pillangóm, you must kill me now."

I gasped, and was about to stumble away but his hand reached up again and cupped my face. That same hesitant and gentle caress I never received from my own father or my broken and distracted mother.

 "I will have another visitor tonight," Grindelwald spoke plainly, the tenderness fleeing from his eyes at the mention. "And he too shall inquire about The Elder Wand."

"Another visitor?" I let out, my voice shaking. "Voldemort?"

My great uncle blinked when the name slipped out from between my lips. Then he threw his head back again and laughed, harder than he had at first as his hand dropped away from my face. He reined in his composure and met my eyes again.

"So that is what the fattyú calls himself," He uttered, tone laced with amusement.

I cringed at the Hungarian curse word, wondering briefly how Voldemort would react to being called a whoreson to his pale carcass of a face.

"He will come here tonight," The dark wizard in front of me continued, firmness returning to his features. "He will ask of The Elder Wand and I will refuse to tell him. Then he will search through my memories, and he will find out that Dumbledore has it. Then, he will end Dumbledore's life and acquire the wand for himself."

"How do you—"

"I need you to kill me before he does," Grindelwald interrupted, his eyes fierce now. "I would much rather die by your hand. I need to die by your hand to ensure that my legacy lives through you."

My mind reeled, my legs shaking underneath the weight of his words. What can I do? Has this been my fate all along? To kill my great uncle in his captivity? For him to submit his life and legacy to me willingly? I could not pull a Gregorovitch on him. I cannot wipe his memories and make this once dark and mighty wizard a blithering mockery for Voldemort to find when he came here tonight as my great uncle prophesied. It was not right, though it may seem like the perfect trick to blindside Voldemort with.

But deep inside me, the idea churned and burned. It wasn't right. It was an abominable fate for a terrible wizard—for my great uncle. It wasn't right.

"There's a divine spark in you, az én kis pillangóm."

My little butterfly. Why did this endearment hit me the most out of all the others he had addressed me with tonight? Would the wizarding world laugh, if they saw him like this? The once most feared evil wizard, with his hands tainted with the blood of thousands upon thousands, calling his great niece his little butterfly, his precious thunder cloud?

"Promise me."

"I—," I started, my voice cracking as I realized I was crying again, tears streaming down my face without my permission.

But I said the words, and in that moment, I believed in them. In that moment, those words were everything to me.

"I promise."

The ends of his lips lifted up slightly, and a shiver trudged down my spine. Had I ever believed that the mighty Gellert Grindelwald would once smile because of me?

"Kill me, my precious thunder cloud."

"I—I can't," I broke off, my eyebrows pinching together in pain at the thought of it as another wind blew across my face. "I've never—I don't know how uncle."

Which rune do I use? What intention do I make? What kind of death could I give him in this vulnerable state I was in?

Grindelwald tipped his head back and shut his eyes. "I never thought I'd hear you call me that again."

I stilled when I realized how I had addressed him. He looked to be in bliss as a result of it, the kind of peace no dark wizard would resort to moments before his death. My heart hammered painfully inside my chest at the sight of him. Where was the hatred I had harbored for him for so many years? How had it just evaporated like this from inside of me? How could it leave me so helpless?

"Use your magic, az én kis pillangóm," He spoke serenely, his guttural voice low. "Use your beautiful magic, my young goddess. Listen inside and you will know what to do. Grant me peace."

With tears streaming down my face I shut my eyes, scouring the mind of my heuristics—the heart of where I extricated all my runes from, and before I knew it, the rune that was required burnt hot at front and center, begging to be let out.

I opened my eyes as my right hand glowed a startling silver-white. Then I drew the rune high in the air in front of me, as my great uncle watched.

His lips had parted, his eyes fixed on the rune in an expression that was akin to awe, before he met my eyes again. I found pride in his heterochromic eyes, I saw him stand taller because of it.

"Grindelwald would be so proud when he finds out."

I swallowed through the thick emotion in my throat. Then I jutted my left hand out and the dark wizard's body froze, his eyes pinned to mine. I moved my hand higher and his erect body raised into the air. Then with a swift flick of my wrist I slammed his body into the wall, and at the impact, several sharp bars born of the thick layer of iron that coated the inside of the cell, pierced his body and pinned him in place like a voodoo doll.

Blood spurted in all directions with force, and Gellert Grindelwald's body was now a patterned canvas with about fifty iron bars jutting out of his flesh, dripping blood onto the stone ground he had traipsed on for the last eight years of his life. A stab through his skin for every single significant life he took would render him a clustered ball of iron rods sticking out, the human flesh underneath almost indecipherable. 

I remembered Viktor Krum, his anthracite eyes bearing into mine, and his grandfather. Have I taken your revenge now, Krum? 

I wanted to look into my great uncle's face one last time, but it was now a lump of blood bearing five bars of iron—his fascinating and devilish heterochromic eyes destroyed forever for those who still existed.

Blood came out of his corpse with fervor, and it seeped underneath my feet, quickly covering more ground each second.

Choked sobs burst out of my mouth as I aggressively wiped at my tears. My chest heaved with a sudden shooting pain, and I realized I was mourning. It was the kind of grief I couldn't explain. The kind of grief that stemmed from losing someone who hated the rest of the world but not you. The kind of grief that was born of threads I could never pick apart and separate.

Crows cawed loudly outside. This time, there were more of them. They smelled death, and now they have come to pick the corpse apart.

I drew another rune, and committed a fool's crime. Making sure every crow or hungry animal that approached my great uncle's body would die at his feet. Except, I was proud of it. That one last service to his body before I contorted his legacy and kept the Grindelwald name alive like he wanted me to—in ways different that he could ever expect. Then I bent down and dipped my hands into my great uncle's blood, coating my palms as I turned to face the opposite wall, clean, save for a light spray of red.

And I left a message for the pale carcass faced wizard who would also visit Gellert Grindelwald tonight.

"He wants The Elder Wand to be mine and no one else's. And I promised him that it will be so. I don't think I can keep that promise entirely, but just know that it will never be yours." 

I watched the message dripping on the wall, clear and bold and readable. I would honor the promise, I knew that. I would honor the fact that I made it to a dark wizard the entire world hated. But he was the only one who really thought of me to hand me everything he could've used to free himself. If Voldemort ground his feet in and became a threat, I could defend myself and those I cared for using everything Grindelwald gave me and my own power.

As he died, he was my great uncle before he was Gellert Grindelwald. And I would honor that fact too. 

***

A/N:
This is kind of the first and last time I'm adding a trigger warning before a chapter? I added all the trigger warnings in the preface of this book and I don't want to add them before chapters to preserve the plot. So please be sure to go through the preface again to check them if you haven't yet. 
Also, thankyou for interacting with the story if you have! <3