days at Hogwarts

Chapter 609: Conversation with Grindelwald
The innermost prison on the top floor of Nurmengard was decorated to look like the cheapest makeshift guest room on the second floor of the Leaky Cauldron.

The aroma of strong tea floats in the room, mixed with a faint smell of hay and sawdust. Parchment with divination notes with numbers is posted on the leaky glass windows. There are some spices made from autumn leaves dried on the windowsill against the wall of the room. An atmosphere of leisure squeezed out from the boring imprisonment life is released from scattered places, vaguely relaxing people.

Loren held the teacup, the tea reflected his crystal blue eyes. He pretended to glance at the old man casually, and the perspective of another dimension slowly emerged before his eyes.

He has an old face and a thin body, and the magic power in his body is as calm and restrained as the water in a deep lake. He can clearly see that this magic power is not strong, and is even weaker than that of an ordinary adult wizard. For a legendary wizard who has shown his talent since he was young, this level of magic power is completely incompatible with his talent.

This may be the impact of long years of prison life.

Surprisingly, the magic power in his body flowed very smoothly, evenly and silently, which was another manifestation of his superb magic control skills. From this perspective, this talent alone was enough to be qualified for the position of professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Hearing Dumbledore's request, Grindelwald picked up the tea and took a sip, his eyes narrowed into slits in comfort.

"Thank you for your trust, Albus..." Grindelwald said calmly, maintaining the demeanor and reserve that a legendary wizard should have. "But I know very well that sudden changes always have unique reasons... Before that, I want to know what happened?"

"Oh, it's a long story, but I can always summarize the development of things in concise language..." Dumbledore cleared his throat and prepared to start telling the story from seventy years ago.

"Sorry, I want to hear them tell the story..."

Grindelwald reached out his hand to stop his story, and turned to look at the three people who were drinking tea silently beside him, with a gentle smile on his face, "Your headmaster always deliberately omits important details in the story, and is good at guiding people to make the choices he wants... I believe your story will be more true and detailed, right?"

The three of them looked at each other. Harry was signaled by two of them with their eyes. He turned his head to look at the silent old headmaster and began to tell the story reluctantly: "This story starts with the Gaunt family. The Gaunt family is the descendant of Salazar Slytherin. It had declined seventy years ago. Only Marvolo and his children are left in the entire family..."

Harry spoke in great detail. He had been indoctrinated by the headmaster with relevant information about the destined enemy since he entered Hogwarts, from Marvolo abusing his daughter, Merope using aphrodisiacs to deceive the Muggle Riddle, and later Merope pawning the locket and giving birth on a rainy night, to Voldemort's enrollment, making Horcruxes, and stirring up unrest after graduation...

Grindelwald listened very carefully. He was certainly not completely ignorant of this. You know, Nurmengard could also read old newspapers and occasionally chat with the guards who came to inspect. If he heard something that interested him, he would also sneak into the guard's mind to take a look.

After all, he was once a master of Legilimency, and Legilimency did not have such strict requirements for the wand.

As early as when Voldemort first stirred up chaos, he already knew the fate of this man. He arrogantly pursued the dark magic, had a crude understanding of Muggles, had strong magic power but shallow beliefs, and only used fear to gather servants. Even if such a person was not eliminated by external forces, he would go to self-destruction.

But he had never imagined that the Dark Lord would actually dig out the Horcrux from the garbage dump of history and be able to survive for more than a decade and make a comeback.

Grindelwald kept hearing that Voldemort led his men to attack the Ministry of Magic, and was eventually defeated by Dumbledore. All his minions and servants were imprisoned. His thin brows gradually wrinkled together, forming fine wrinkles.

He had thought that Dumbledore could easily defeat Voldemort with his own experience and the help of the Elder Wand, or could directly destroy him after spending some time clipping his wings. However, Dumbledore set numerous traps to lead Voldemort alone, and finally relied on the power of the Department of Mysteries to severely injure Voldemort, but only severely.

The situation seemed more complicated than he had expected and the situation remained serious.

Perhaps there was some planning and plotting on Dumbledore's part, but the fact that these people appeared before him now indirectly showed that Voldemort's existence itself was a threat.

After listening to Harry's story about the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, Dumbledore saw that his old friend had not responded for a long time. After a moment of silence, he added: "Just last night, Voldemort attacked your great-aunt, Ms. Bagshot..."

Grindelwald's eyes suddenly became sharp, then quickly subsided. In that brief moment, only Loren noticed the fleeting chill in the old man.

"He found your appearance when you were young from Gregorovitch's memory, and found your identity from Ms. Bagshot's memory. I believe he is rushing here..." Dumbledore paused, shook the wand in his hand, and continued, "For the invincible power."

Hermione noticed his action, a flash of inspiration came into her mind, and she seemed to understand something. Her bright eyes stared at the ancient-style wand.

"Then you don't have to worry about it at all, right, Albus? You should know best that there has never been any invincible power, and this power is not with me." Grindelwald chuckled and said in a calm voice, "As for my insignificant and useless life, don't worry about it."

"I don't object..."

Dumbledore smiled gently. "I just think that a blood relative should be present at Ms. Bagshot's funeral. Otherwise, it would be too cruel to this elderly historian. What do you think, Gellert?"

The smile on Grindelwald's face faded noticeably.

Loren and Hermione sipped their tea in silence. Although Harry didn't quite understand what they were saying, he always felt that there was something wrong with their tone.

Grindelwald put away his smile and stared at him calmly: "Are you really confident in letting me be a professor at Hogwarts? There are so many naive and stupid little guys, with simple thoughts and empty heads, like canvases painted casually, waiting for some thoughts to be filled in and at the mercy of others..."

"In fact, I am a little worried." Dumbledore looked him straight in the eye, his blue eyes as calm as water, and his tone was inexplicably cold and hard, "So I need to ask you for confirmation."

Grindelwald clearly felt some invisible magic spreading along his gaze. As a master of Legilimency, he certainly knew what it was. A feeling of anger rose in his heart, and he manipulated the same magic to peer into his mind.

"..." Loren just watched the two old guys competing secretly.

They trusted each other, and they used Legilimency to blatantly test each other.

They were suspicious of each other, and neither of them allowed the other to use Legilimency, neither of them taking any precautions.

You guys can still play...

Loren drank his tea in silence.

Dumbledore was now absorbed in Grindelwald's memories. Long and boring memories flashed before his eyes. He knew very well that decades ago, even in that summer in Godric's Hollow, this would have been impossible for two proud wizards...

Perhaps, as the ancient fable says, time is the most powerful magic in the world, and it can always change things silently.

In the long river of memory, the scenery outside the window of Nurmengard always appears most frequently, the sky is cloudy or sunny, the stars and the moon are dim or bright, the glass windows sparkle in the sun, or frost flowers. Austria belongs to the temperate broad-leaved forest climate, cold and rainy, and the rainstorms always pour down from the top of the tower like floods. There are also vines winding through the outer stone walls, which are not beautiful. It will always be a bit boring to see them too much. In the early years, the guards patrolled more frequently, and they always looked through the notes of digital divination carefully. In the first few years of imprisonment, the victims' families would break in. The clearest memory is a woman who screamed hysterically.

"You killed my husband! You killed my husband..."

Perhaps it was because he had specifically reminded them of this, or perhaps it was because the Witch Party would occasionally leak news, or perhaps it was out of respect for Grindelwald's reputation, but when the victim's family members started to use fists and kicks, the guards would pretend to block them a few times, and as long as they didn't use wands, no one would say anything.

Seeing this man with bruised face, blood coming out of his mouth and nose, curled up on the stone floor holding his swollen wounds, Dumbledore did not think he was innocent.

Whether it was shattered self-esteem or physical pain, he deserved it because the pain he inflicted on others was no less.

The food was as bland as mud, with a slight sour taste in the summer and always frozen and hard to eat in the winter. He lost weight quickly.

In the first few years, he could not adapt to the dead silence and emptiness here. Occasionally, he would become irritable and yell and curse, mentioning his name many times in an unfriendly tone... Dumbledore just found it interesting.

On a sunny afternoon, he paced back and forth in the room. Three mice jumped past his feet one after another. He stepped on their tails, twisted their necks, bit off their arteries to bleed them, and then hung them upside down on the window with a rope made of hay, leaving them to rot and stink...

The memories after that gradually calmed down, and the man's figure became gradually hunched, and his steps became gradually unsteady. When he was bored, he would read old newspapers to kill time. Occasionally, when he saw some interesting people, he would use numbers to divination to calculate the life of those people. The tip of the pen made of hay ears was dipped in ink made of mouse blood and wood ash. Predicting the death date of those people was an enduring hobby, and it was very accurate measured by the scale of his long life.

From what Dumbledore knew of him, these should be signs of repentance.

Grindelwald looked through the man's memories and felt only bored and irritated. He spent most of his time huddled in a cramped office in Hogwarts, living a prison life similar to his own. His space was even narrower than the room he was in. He flipped through those boring joke books, never revealed his true feelings when talking to people, and was evasive and mysterious in his words.

The only interesting thing is probably the stupid Potions professor...

Grindelwald watched the man's mouth gradually curl up into a smile, and he unconsciously narrowed his eyes and frowned slightly, always feeling that it was very boring: "Life is boring, spirit is barren, you are becoming more and more boring, Albus..."

"Really? I think I met a lot of interesting people."

"Deceiving yourself."

"..."

Dumbledore smiled indifferently, shook his head and looked at several students: "Dear children, I have to go to the Austrian Ministry of Magic to hand over some documents. Can you wait here for me for a while?"

The three of them came to their senses and glanced at the side, where Grindelwald was drinking tea with an expressionless face.

This scene had happened once before, but that time they needed to persuade Professor Slughorn.

There should be no need to persuade them now, as the two have reached a consensus.

The three of them thought for a moment and then nodded.

The Apparition caused the air to fluctuate slightly. The faint candlelight in the room swayed gently, and the four figures sitting around the table and chairs swayed along with it. The room suddenly seemed empty and deserted, and the atmosphere was a little stiff.

"You all lived in Muggle society for a long time and then entered Hogwarts, right?" Grindelwald was the first to break the silence and asked gently.

Loren nodded, "It's like this, we are both Muggle-born, and Harry is boarding at his aunt's house."

"What do you think about the future of wizards and muggles?"

"..."

Loren and the other two didn't know how to answer for a moment. The question from this legendary wizard was a bit grand and a bit sudden.

Grindelwald's smile was still gentle. "Or, what do you think of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy?"

Hermione thought for a while, organized her words and answered, "The Statute of Secrecy is not just a secrecy law for wizards, but also a secrecy law for the entire wizarding world. It involves many magical races. I have read a lot of information in books. With the development of science and technology, the activities of ordinary humans are becoming more and more extensive. The unicorns in the primeval forests are migrating, the mermaids in the oceans and lakes are retreating, and there are also giants in the mountains, centaurs in the jungle, werewolves and veela on the edge of society...

"The memory cancellation program cannot keep up with the progress of human media. Decades ago, in the event of a large-scale leak crisis, the Winged Demon could be used to erase the memory of a city. But now, digital information can be spread to the whole world in just a few minutes. Therefore, the exposure of the magic world is inevitable..."

Grindelwald looked at the little witch, with approval in his slightly cloudy eyes: "So how do you think the Muggle society and the wizarding world will develop?"

"I have no idea……"

Hermione shook her head. "But I am very sure that if wizards and Muggles can help each other in peace and develop together, they will create a better world."

Grindelwald did not comment, and asked, "Do you think the Muggle society and the wizarding world can coexist peacefully?"

Hermione was suddenly in a dilemma.

Harry scratched his head, thought for a moment, and decided to have another cup of tea.

Loren put down his teacup and replied softly:
"No."

(End of this chapter)