Hogwarts Wasteland: The Witch from the Borderlands

Chapter 553 Moonlit Interrogation

"Hatred can never be erased, just like the hatred that fairies feel towards humans." He tapped the chains binding him.

"What you have, I don't; what you rejoice, I grieve. Even two completely unrelated people will grow jealousy and hatred if they cannot have absolutely equal emotions and experiences."

His dark eyes were as calm as the night, yet they burned with an equally deep flame.

In his view, the whole world was like a fiery hell, and the people struggling within it were like evil spirits.

"This is the inherent weakness of all living things; this is the extension of hell into us."

He watched as the Seine flowed quietly, dividing the world of wizards and Muggles in two.

Although everyone lives fairly under the sun, resentment, hatred, and discrimination continue to accumulate.

"Whether it's me or Dumbledore, what we're looking for is a stable and lasting social order."

"We are all working for the greater good, for the sustainable development of humanity as a whole."

He felt as if he had returned to his youth, back to that summer in the barn with Dumbledore, where they talked about everything under the sun, two brilliant wizards, embracing their dreams about where humanity's future lay.

"But in the end, he chose to believe in humanity, while I did the opposite."

One places humanity's future in love and in the elevation and redemption of the human self; the other refuses to believe in these delusions and attempts to forge a bloody path through violence and power.

Grindelwald finally turned his attention back to Hermione.

"So, what about you? Will you choose to believe, or refuse?"

In those pitch-black pupils, Hermione seemed to see a series of crumbling and decaying futures.

That was both Grindelwald's sinister foresight and her own insight into the Infinite Serpent.

Every prophet is a pessimist, because they can see ten thousand ways of human depravity, but rarely a single spontaneous redemption from within, just like the fate of the universe, where entropy increases without ceasing.

She could understand Grindelwald; she now knew how difficult it was to trust humanity and others after witnessing countless tragedies caused by human beings.

"Let alone wizards and Muggles, even within the Soviet Union, divisions and struggles have been constant," he scoffed.

He looked at the witch with a probing gaze: "Can you reconcile the conflicts among these Muggles? Can you unite them with the wizards and reconcile new, more acute conflicts?"

This is yet another challenge he has posed to Hermione, just as he did years ago when he faced that tribe in the rainforest.

Hermione looked up at the moon overhead, where Hilmi was shining her light down in her place.

Before he could answer, Grindelwald spoke again.

Did you know that humans are actually domesticating themselves?

The old man, as if a corpse or a demon, whispered his cruel truth.

"In 1871, Muggle scholar Charles Darwin put forward this idea—that humans may be comparable in many ways to animals that have been domesticated over a long period of time."

"In social animals, individual obedience, as a social trait, is itself a result of evolution. According to the evolutionary principle of 'survival of the fittest,' animal groups lacking this individual obedience face greater survival crises. In this sense, this condition of domesticated animals also shows that they were already self-domesticated at least before being domesticated by humans."

"Perhaps it can be said that those who are domesticated are always those who willingly choose to be domesticated."

Hermione frowned as she listened to the Dark Lord's theory, but did not refute it. This theory, from a Muggle scientist more than a hundred years ago, was cold and effective.

Grindelwald stretched out his withered hand and pointed to the myriad lights of the old town.

"Among the Muggles I've taken in over the years, there have not only been Europeans."

"Those of Indian descent from the South Asian subcontinent, and even refugees from the sunken Japanese islands, are all confirming my point of view."

"Religion, class, Brahmins and royal warriors, even societies of different cultures and races, have all evolved stable stratification methods, and their people have adapted to and accepted all of this very well."

"Even here, in the new Paris ruled by wizards, whether they were Brahmins, Dalits, descendants of the emperor, or descendants of outcasts without even a surname, they were all driven into the catacombs and became servants of the wizards."

Grindelwald smiled coldly: "And they adapted very well, finding their place in the new narrative in a very short time, even better than white people, black people, and other people of Asian descent."

"They are the most successful race in self-domestication, thriving in the tomb, which also verifies the validity of this theory."

"It may be very painful at first, but people will process it on their own, understand the pain, and eventually evolve into a form that is better suited to survival."

He looked at Hermione, trying to make her understand this idea, to help her tame the people, and to make them obey orders.

The moonlight was like water, and the witch murmured in the thin golden glow.

"I won't place all my hopes on love," she said softly, a hint of approval in Grindelwald's eyes.

"But I will not use cold, ironclad rules to forcibly sever the chains of contradictions."

The old man's face fell again.

Her eyes shone with wisdom.

"Conflicts will inevitably exist, because this is the only way for human progress. Trying to eliminate contradictions by domestication, as you do, will only cause society to stagnate and turn humanity into a stagnant pool."

Call ~

She exhaled a long breath, as if expelling the dregs that Grindelwald had instilled in her.

"I think I should go," she said, taking her leave.

"You need to take good care of yourself and not keep bottling up your anger; it's not good for you."

The witch chuckled softly, then vanished in the moonlight before the gloomy-faced old man.

She ultimately couldn't give the old man an answer, because that would only be known when she truly reached her time.

However, Grindelwald didn't need a definitive answer; he just wanted to struggle one last time and prove to Hermione that his ideas were correct.

My thoughts drifted back to the moon; Earth's affairs were best left to Hilmi to manage.

She had to refocus her attention on the Great Rune, and the rediscovery of the other half of wisdom caused new disturbances.

The principles of piecing together complete thought must be integrated into the perfectly balanced structure that has just been formed. This process must be done with utmost care and cannot tolerate the slightest carelessness.

>