CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

LAST CHAPTER OF DULCET DESTRUCTION ACT I

THE GROUND UNDERNEATH MY SKIN was cold, hard and considerably wet when my senses centered. I felt my limbs twisted in human yet odd angles, making bursts of ache throb throughout my frame. I shifted, a groan slipping from my mouth as I moved to retrieve my uncomfortably bent arm from under my stomach as I lay right on it, it was burning hot and partially numb from the exertion.

My eyes opened to bleak darkness as I gathered myself and pushed to sit up. I blinked, a sudden terror coursing through me. Certain gouged out eyes were still fixated in my head, making fury and fear churn inside me and blend into each other like the brewing of an impeccably undiscerning potion. The thought that my eyes could be gone too—it was terrifying. No, I blinked desperately. He wouldn't take my eyes, why would he take my eyes?

I adjusted to the light then, a soft blue that poured out from a small high window above, a thick straight ray of silvery blue light as it crashed onto the dark and damp stone ground in front of me. The light wasn't enough to illuminate the entire room—or cell—that I was in. Try as I might, the light left a lot to be desired, as I turned my head around and around—searching for a reason or description for the place but only saw the darkness it was clad in, shrinking away from me.

It wasn't a cell. A dungeon cell couldn't be this spacious. Or perhaps, Voldemort had chosen to do me the courtesy. I swallowed. But why? Why would he do this when I did what he asked of me? When I submitted my conscience to him and killed Angus, Aurelius? Why, when I had come to him of my own will?

He wouldn't kill me, I thought then. The heuristics cannot be transferred, and killing me would be the end of it for the next four centuries or more. A dark wizard like Voldemort could not afford such a thing, despite his attained immortality, he would not wait four centuries for anyone.

Night had descended outside, as I observed the unchanging moonlight. How long had I been like this? The last thing I remembered was passing out amidst the reek of Angus tattered corpse and the smoke and smell of the former Credence Barebone's charring flesh.

Suddenly then, a second light flickered fire and my attention was torn towards it so fast my head ached with the sudden exertion.

A small stump had been lit with fire against the wall beside a high backed, clearly visible stone throne. On the throne sat the ghastly form of Voldemort. His sickly white and blue veined skin looked greener under the impact of the yellow orange light. His eyes were almost indiscernible, lost in the abyss of his deep eye sockets. It looked as though he had gouged his own eyes out, but why would a dark wizard do such a thing?

His slender, knuckled and sharp dark nailed fingers clutched the end of each stone arm rest gently, lightly. As I looked at him, a certain awe flickered inside me—a spark of something that I couldn't place or recognize.

The dark wizard was a living corpse, his skin and face a reminder of that very fact as it peaked from out of his tattered dark robes. But, there was a certain gory elegance to him, a vicious authority that left me speechless. He didn't have to attack, imperil, or even curse wizards and witches at every turn to demonstrate his power. Voldemort knew he had the power, and others he faced fell into that trap of his knowing. They believed him, they caught the authority he held himself with and they cowered under it. He did not need to prove anything to anyone. That quality alone was striking to observe.

"How are you feeling, my heuristics sorceress?"

The dark wizard spoke after a pause, seated still, his gaze penetrating into me.

"I—I don't know," I managed, not knowing where to begin if I was to even attempt to describe all that I was feeling at present.

The firelight from beside his throne caught onto copper on my wrists. The manacles. He had put them on me again. I felt the stony emptiness inside me, and while it still felt like the loss I had felt in Severus Snape's office, the feeling was not as gripping now. It was still jarring to know that these things could suppress my magic, but it was a comfort to know that my heuristics will be there ready to rise as soon as the manacles are undone.

I moved my hand slightly and saw the light reflect dark blood back to me. There were no injuries on my hand, and it was then that I felt the sharp ache intrude my senses, centering on my forehead. I touched my forehead briefly, and retrieved my hand to only find my fingers slightly bloodied.

"You took a fall," Voldemort articulated. "Back in the cells of the Malfoy manor."

"Are we still there?" I asked, suddenly hating how small my voice sounded, but at the same time, it was a relief to not be assertive.

A sick relief to let someone else take the reins—even if the carriage that was being controlled was me. There was respite, in someone else's directions. I have long since been living life scratching my brain inside out, taking the lead to myself and stepping in to do it for others. All of it had done nothing for me or for them, and Mon Dieu, I was exhausted.

"No." There was the barest of amusement in his tone. "We are in Bucharest, Romania."

I blinked in surprise.

"Look around Dominique Grindelwald," The wizard slightly raised his arms wide in pride. "We are currently on the premises of what will soon become a grand castle. I am having one built in three capitals of three different countries—a testament to my power."

"They will be grand, lavish, extravagant. Everything that denotes my power and authority. I will circulate amongst them, take a seat wherever I feel the need to, and I will fill my courts with only the most daring witches and wizards—my most mightiest followers."

Romania's wizarding government must've given in too. How many countries did he have in his grasp now? Why had there not been a battle at all? Why was nobody fighting?

"It's about weakening them first, my sorceress," Voldemort spoke after a pause, reading my forefront thoughts, his tone calculative. "You stab at the roots discreetly first, so that the plant has no strength at all when it is suddenly faced with an adversary. So the meek thing things up, because it has more too lose."

"We did have some rather uncomfortable fights in a few far off countries," The dark wizard rapped a thin slender finger on the side of his chin. "Georgia and Colombia for two, gave us some trouble. The wizarding world is terribly distributed, you see. It didn't take much time for the delegations I sent to crush the rebellions, and the effort of taking control of news outlets so that word did not spread into Britain, was a minimum one. I don't believe I would at present like to reveal just how much of the lands I have under my control. I fear the shock would be sudden for the wizard kind. I intend to have some laws set in place before I go about taking the credit where credit is due."

"So—," I broke off, swallowing. I thought about Madame Maxime, Fontaine and Karkaroff being forced to abdicate. France, America and Bulgaria were the first known countries under Voldemort's control. In Britain the death eaters had only taken over Hogwarts and the ministry officials were still being forced to submit entirely. The French, American and Bulgarian wizarding governments had given up.

"You left Britain for last?"

"I suppose I did," The dark wizard wiped an invisible piece of lint off of his shoulder, his eyes fixed on me. "I don't know why, perhaps it is a tiny grudge I have that I hold dear. How childish of me, is it not my sorceress?"

I didn't respond as his chuckle reverberated in the cold and clammy area. I felt my forehead crusting up, the blood had dried and the crust felt like an irksome bother to my already weak sensory abilities.

"Alright now," Voldemort got to his feet with a start, and walked down the few steps that led to his stone throne. "Get up, we shall duel."

My face went white, my heart pounding in my chest.

"In my manacles?"

The dark wizard pointed his wand to the copper on my wrists. The manacles clicked open and hovered in the air above.

"Summon The Elder Wand. In order for me to have it, I must win a duel against it. You are aware of that, are you not?"

"Yes," I conferred softly, drawing a rune at my side and pulling The Elder Wand out from between the cold glow of it.

"Fascinating," The dark wizard mused as the rune disappeared and The Elder Wand was clutched in my grasp. The manacles then shot towards my wrist and clamped around my skin again.

"It is a distinct pleasure to watch you perform heuristics. It makes me claw with curiosity to see just how far you can go with it. The limits must be endless."

I didn't respond as he gestured to me to take a position. My weak legs carried me a distance away, the hem of the dress I wore was damp and it added to the weight of it, making the mere task of walking arduous for me.

The dark wizard held no care for my predicament, his acknowledgement of me and his tendency to explain his plans to me were intentional in a place that I could see and somehow understand. But his cooperation did not take anything away from the viciously hot fire he possessed. The ruthless determination in his eyes was evident when he lifted his wand and immediately lent a blow at me—an action that took less than a mere second. Despite my frail aching form, I countered the spell with The Elder Wand—the wand feeling slightly cold in my grasp.

The impact of Voldemort's blow was such that I almost stumbled, and the pressure made my back arch, resulting in the merciless pain that swept through my spine on account of that minute crack somewhere in my bone. I could only cry out, steeling my resolve further as my mind focused on the startling silver spewing from my wand that met the stunning purple of Voldemort's own affirmation.

The dark wizard pressed on, his arm extended, the sleeve of his robe riding up to reveal his thin arms that sported sporadic tense muscle distribution in a way that it was so unnatural, it felt as though somebody had molded him—toyed with his decaying soft muscles like clay before he had been resurrected and was stuck with his body looking like it had grown tumors under the earth.

His strength was greater than mine, considering the weak state I was in and the manacles around my wrists that suppressed my heuristics. The Elder Wand didn't seem to be affecting my magic, or even detecting it in some way. Perhaps it couldn't. Not with these copper manacles on. Sirius Black had been mistaken maybe, and maybe I had been a fool to believe every information I was given during my most vulnerable times.

The stark purple creeped forwards. It was hot and blinding in my vision, and I knew it would burn me for life if I let it win. I didn't know if Voldemort would stop once he won. He couldn't afford to kill me. He needed me. But in that moment, the ruthlessness of his strength and his cruel features morphed into fierce determination on his face, made me waver in my realizations.

My wand holding arm burned, and his magic hadn't even touched me yet. My arm burned as though my muscles were dissolving into acid beneath my skin, thinning my bones to the point that I feared that my radius and ulna would both crack—shattering my entire arm.

I bit my lips tightly, tasting the iron on my tongue as I gathered all my remaining strength regardless and pushed forwards. My silver slightly overtook the blinding purple by inches, and that was enough to break Voldemort's determined composure.

He raised his brows, not faltering in strength. Perhaps he had supposed this would be easy for him. He supposed that now that I was suffering from the aftermath of the Cruciatus, and had been led to kill Angus and Aurelius, and was bound in manacles suppressing my greatest strength—it would be easy to put me down briefly and win the duel.

He was mistaken if he thought that a battered body and broken heart was enough to render me completely hapless.

I forged on, a cry escaping my lips as I channeled everything I could extract from my body into The Elder Wand, in hopes that it could still feel the heuristics inside me. For it was there, only caged and desperate for an escape.

Suddenly, the silver of my own jolted forwards with speed, dangerously nearing Voldemort and I saw surprise and a faint alarm flash through his features. Then, he raised his free hand and gestured to someone—or something—in the periphery of our duel.

I couldn't look, fearing that I would falter if I did. I couldn't afford the distraction. What was I even dueling him for? Only for The Elder Wand. The thing would make him more powerful, but wasn't he already powerful enough? To have all those countries under his control so efficiently, didn't that make him powerful enough? He had been fooling us all, making everyone believe he had only just gotten his exploits started—when he had been secretly at it for God knows how long. What difference would it make if he got The Elder Wand too? Did this duel even matter?

Suddenly, a sickening thud sounded in my periphery on the command of Voldemort's strange gesture. Something rolled to my feet, touched me through the skirts of my dark dress. Voldemort's sharp eyes dropped to my feet before meeting my eyes, his strength held on as he purple fought to near me.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I looked at my feet. There, muddied and bloodied, lay the severed head of a familiar face—the witch's dark curly hair stuck with blood and skin to her face.

I screamed. My hand faltered and I was thrown back with the impact of Voldemort's magic, The Elder Wand flying out of my grip. My body flew off and my back slammed against the hard stone floor, dropping like a marionette with all her strings cut. A terrorizing crack sounded from my spine as pain enveloped the entirety of my body in bursts of agony.

I cried out, tears gushing out from my eyes. I couldn't move. I couldn't move any part of my body. The fear was immense, the abnormality of it butchered my resolve like an animal on the cutting room floor. I couldn't move.

"Won't you look at her?" The dark wizard spoke after a pause. His voice sounded a distance away.

His footsteps were clear in my ears, before he walked around and then started nearing my lying form as sobs escaped my lips.

"Shame, we had her brought all the way along from Hogwarts in hopes that it would please you."

Yordanka Hristova. I wondered if she'd put up a fight. Of course she had, Hristova always put up a fight, no matter what the fucking time or place was. I hoped she had at least put a death eater down, taken some of her fire out before her brutal end. I felt the sympathy for her like a knife in my heart, but I couldn't mourn her. She had chosen to come with me foolishly. She had walked into this of her own accord like I had.

"Poor Yaxley had to invest much exertion in the endeavor," Voldemort continued as he appeared in front of me, looking down at my lying form with slight amusement.

With a start I realized he was holding the Durmstrang witch's severed bloodied head by her hair. I shut my eyes.

"Please bury her," I choked, "Please."

He held The Elder Wand in his other hand. He had cheated in the duel, by distracting me. Was that even considered cheating? It was not his fault that I had chosen to look and faltered. Perhaps employing distraction against your opponent was not cheating—after all The Elder Wand was death's spawn. He had made the rules.

"I'd rather not, my heuristic sorceress," Came the calculated reply as he pointed The Elder Wand to Hristova's head and muttered a spell.

Flames caught onto the severed head, enveloping the lump of flesh, bones and hair. The dark wizard held it for a while; the flames reaching up the hair did not affect his hold. Then he tossed the burning head away. A far throw. I heard it thud against a wall and then drop to the ground in the distance.

"How many burials does one do before realizing that it is just too much?" He observed me.

"Stand up," He spoke then when I didn't say anything, only choked soft sobs escaping my lips.

"I can't," I wept. "I can't move."

The dark wizard narrowed his eyes. "Your spine."

"It's broken," I cried, "I can't move."

Similar words rushed to my head then. A crippled Draco Malfoy, murmuring he couldn't move his hands after every minute that passed him by. I had looked and ignored him, pitied him. And now here I was. What sick, disgusting irony.

"It shouldn't have," Voldemort considered. "Unless it already had a small breach."

I didn't say anything, Narcissa Malfoy's obvious reluctance to help revive my body after the Crucio filled my mind.

"So she went against my orders," The dark wizard read my forefront thoughts, his thin gray lips pursing as his jaw tightened. "Then I must cripple her like her indifference caused you to become."

I shut my eyes briefly.

Voldemort pointed The Elder Wand at me and muttered a spell. Another crack of bones sounded in my back as I let out a scream of pain. It was harsh but it was brief.

"Stand up now."

I stirred, and my body complied, though the pain from my other afflictions was still there, dulled to a thrum. I got to my feet and faced the dark wizard.

My eyes spotted the death eater—Yaxley—standing with his back against a wall, eyes pinned ahead, face and form cloaked in the shadows.

"I like that," Voldemort's gray lips thinned into a small smile. "You keep your head high, regardless of everything that happened."

"I like that a lot, my heuristic sorceress."

He walked then, his eyes pinned on me as he circled me slowly like he had in a chamber at the Malfoy manor.

"I have The Elder Wand now. Surely you must realize that its all over now. I do not have your precious magic, yes, but I have the means to cage it—isn't that power enough in face of defiance?"

It is, I wanted to say, because it was true. He was right.

"You have felt and inflicted pain tonight," He continued thoughtfully. "You have lost some of those you cared for, as well as The Elder Wand and the duel. It is loss and pain that teaches one the most valuable lessons, do you know that, my heuristic witch?"

I bowed my head a little, my eyes fixated on the ground, my fingers intertwining at the base of my stomach.

"You still have so much to learn, and I will teach it all to you if only you submit fully to me. The wizarding world is mine now, my power cannot be subdued. Together we can only become a force to be reckoned with. There is no backwards path worth taking. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," The word planted itself on my tongue, stern, firm. I understood.

"You are an exceptional witch, Dominique Grindelwald," He stopped in front of me. "You have power in not only your blood magic, but in your gaze and in your steps. I relish that."

"Become my strength. Join me in this new era of the wizarding world where magic will hold true precedence regardless of where it comes from. My death eaters will worship your heuristics, and I will cherish and revel in the fact that you have joined the one true side and bowed at my feet."

I raised my eyes and dared to look into his dark hallowed ones. All my life—Mon Dieu—for how many hours and years in total had I yearned for just acceptance for the magic I possessed in me? For how long had I wished that I could reveal it and people would continue to treat me normally and not see me as an experiment they can ship off to wizarding authorities to cut me open on an experimentation table?

Every time I had been threatened by Viktor Krum and Zubair Dimitrova when they had first found out, they had nicked at a piece of me. To be threatened for something I couldn't do anything about but simply have, was abhorrent—inherently cruel.

I had spent my entire life in the shadows, looking over my shoulders, hiding away with lanterns looking for myself and what my heuristics meant for me. I had shouldered it all alone, with no one to confide in, with no one to take guidance from.

And now, a dark wizard brutally terrorizing the world—was offering me a simple acceptance that sounded like a kindness I had come to realize perhaps I didn't deserve. I wanted to crumple to my knees and sob, for the cruelty and the tenderness of it.

"I'm forming a specialized group of death eaters—ones I intend to personally train and mold into powerful individuals. The group would be the army, they would be feared and respected by all the rest of my followers and the entire world. They will be my eyes, ears, touch, taste and smell. They will be everything that I am, but I will make them more. I will give them what I lack, so that they will never let me die—capable of resurrecting me if need be. Through them I shall live, regardless of the distance that separates us."

"They will help me rule," Voldemort's smile firmed in pride. "They will move mountains for me."

He paused, watching me intently. "I want you to be one of them, Dominique Grindelwald."

"I want to train you personally. I want to make you see the full potential of your heuristics and the power you hold aside from your magic."

I looked at him, blinking tears away. I felt like a stone being unearthed from beneath rubble—a stone that someone powerful considered valuable enough to fish out despite the chaos around.

Before I realized it then, Voldemort infiltrated my mind. I dropped to my knees, head dropping as I screamed in the agony of his blatant infiltration. My head was on fire as he scoured my memories, sifting through them as a shuffler might observe the playing cards in his hands—confidently, bemusedly.

Perhaps the most agonizing part of the endeavor was that I was letting him. The dark wizard was in my head, and I was letting him see everything that I had inside. I had no physical or mental strength for Occlumency, and more importantly, I didn't want to do it.

To live with myself—my strange heuristics included—was all that I had ever wanted. He wouldn't weaponize me. He would give me strength, train me in my magic. He would build me. He would accept me and make me accept myself. It was all I had ever wanted. He would make me free in the true sense of that word.

When the wizard was done, he darted out of my head sharply and I screamed at the force of his abandon. With my head bent and palms gripping the stone ground, I gasped for breath and the torturous pain in my mind to subside.

Voldemort stayed silent for a brief moment—perhaps watching me, before he addressed the only other person in the room—Yaxley.

"Bring the two death eaters you recruited in Germany to me, then have a few men go to Northern Ireland—the forests specifically. Search for Harry Potter and the young wizards my heuristic sorceress has left him with. I want them all found."

"Yes, my lord," The death eater uttered, before his footsteps sauntered out of my hearing.

I supposed then, that my heart should've lodged into my throat. Perhaps tears should've rushed into my eyes. Maybe I should've screamed again, cried out for mercy to be shown if it would only save Potter and the others' lives. But I felt.. nothing.

My mind was only concerned with me—the life I could have if only I was free to live it with my heuristics. The life that I had always yearned to have, molding my great uncle's legacy and making it into my own. I couldn't remember what exactly I had wanted to mold it into. How different had my vision been from my great uncle's? The difference between Gellert Grindelwald and me was that he had begged to die, and I was here, on the precipice of a new life.

Comparing my great uncle with the dark wizard standing in my periphery would be foolish. Voldemort was right, Gellert Grindelwald was a wizard who had possessed the power but not the brains to use it efficiently. He had been impulsive, and his reckless destruction had soon turned and destroyed him. I wanted to change his legacy and mold it into something that wasn't foolish—something that was so compelling and powerful that it would be mentioned in perhaps the same breath as Voldemort's name was whispered.

A cluster of footsteps sounded then as the death eaters Voldemort had summoned appeared. I knew who they were, and I knew why they were here, but I didn't find any remorse inside of me. Perhaps everything I used to feel once had died with Bridgette Monet, or maybe when I had turned Angus' blood into ice—the rest of it obliterated when Yordanka Hristova's bloodied head had rolled to my feet. All who associated with me seemed to meet fates worse than I could've ever imagined for them.

So be it, I thought wretchedly. They should all have left me alone.

I lifted my head slightly, watching the figures of two of my acolytes, Damian Evans and Lea Duval. I had tasked them to locate Angus and Aurelius, and they had. Yet they hadn't found a way to help them escape, and the time they had lost had caused Angus' eyes to be gouged out.

Their eyes found mine, and fear enveloped their facial expressions. I turned my eyes away plainly, having nothing to offer them anymore. Voldemort waited only a moment before he killed them. The killing curse spewed twice in quick succession that caused the acolytes to drop to the ground before they could even reach for their wands.

"You will forget about your friends, Dominique Grindelwald," The dark wizard began after the dust had settled slightly, his serpent-like voice calm. "They do not mean anything to you anymore. Their fate is in my hands, and it is most likely I will have them all killed. Their protection is not your duty. What use to the world are wizards who cannot protect themselves? What use are wizards who use someone else's powers while they sit by helplessly?"

He spat out the last part, his face contorting in disgust as I slowly pulled myself to my feet, squared my shoulders and intertwined my fingers at the base of my stomach, eyes looking straight ahead at him as he slowly smiled.

"Picked yourself back up and held your head high," He mused. "I like that so much, young sorceress."

"The rest of your acolytes will join my ranks. They will pledge allegiance to me. You may make use of them anytime you want—in case you need aid after I have trained you with a specialized group of death eaters, which is highly unlikely. I would've slit your throat hours ago if I had doubted even for a second that you might require someone else's help to complete the tasks I assign to you—you wouldn't have been deserving of the heuristics in your body then, would you?"

I didn't answer, the pain in my mind dulled to a low thrum now.

"You will keep Grindelwald's mark on your skin. It will remind you of how far you have come. It will remind you of what you have to eradicate—what mistakes you have to avoid. It will remind you to push yourself to your full potential. You will bear my mark somewhere more personal, you will bear the death eater mark inside your mind. You will see it every time you close your eyes. You will feel my authority and I will feel your submission, diligence and resilience in return."

"Together, we will make the wizarding world a striking and convalescent place for pure bloods," Voldemort spread out his arms in pride. "We will conquer, and magic will pulse under the very ground we walk on."

"What do you say, my young, beautiful heuristic witch?" The dark wizard roared then, his voice echoing in the stone room as he let out a laugh. "The world will fall at my feet, and you shall be there to witness it and catch the light coming off of me. You will be invincible. You will be indomitable. Your magic with thread through the wizarding world, tying it to me permanently."

This, I realized then, was my dulcet destruction. This was how I unraveled, this was how I chose myself and my magic over everything else. This was the first time in my life I took the hand that offered me freedom from the cruel bounds of the wizarding world who had only sought to diminish me and then realize they needed me only when the ground started to crumble beneath their feet. This was when I took the hand and I grasped it tight, throwing myself at its mercy, welcoming the promised salvation like it was water and I was deprived.

***

A/N: 

THE END OF ACT I

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BEING HERE! I hope you join me in act II?<3