The Black Bloodline of Hogwarts

Grindelwald pushed the stone slab toward Julien again.

As Julien drew closer, he could see mysterious patterns emerging from the surface of the stone slab. These were much clearer than the ones he had seen in the Mirror of Erised.

The pattern resembled a star map, but based on his current understanding, it was not Earth's starry sky. Instead, it was some kind of three-dimensional, multi-layered, seemingly impossible geometric structure—perhaps a projection from another world.

"Dumbledore doesn't dare let you see this now. He's afraid you'll choose to activate it; he's always thinking about 'absolute' risk control."

Julien didn't touch the stone slab. He looked at Grindelwald, at this old man defined by history as the Dark Lord, and suddenly asked:

"Why do you believe I would choose what you call 'understanding' instead of refusing to activate it like Dumbledore?"

Grindelwald laughed, a laugh that echoed through the tower, carrying a kind of desolate relief:

"Because you are a hybrid. Because Pixis's blood allows you to sense stargates, and Evans's blood anchors you to Earth. You are not a pure-blooded Black, and you will not be bound by the 'Guardian's mission'; nor are you a Muggle, and you will not be intimidated by the 'unknown fear'."

He took a step closer, lowering his voice:

"And because... I've met your aunt. Lily Evans. When she was a student. She had the same potential for adjustment, but she chose a different path... And you, Julien, you inherited her anchor, but you have Blake's choices."

Julien's blood froze for a moment. Had Grindelwald met Lily?

"Didn't Ophelia tell you?" Grindelwald stepped back to the window, as if his recent closeness had been an illusion. "Lily Evans came to Nurmengard. Not physically—through dreams, through her innate sensitivity. She asked me how to protect her children from Voldemort."

"Did you tell her?"

"Yes, I told her: love is the oldest seal, though also the most fragile. And her choice made Harry Potter a legend."

Grindelwald gazed into the distance. "But you're different. You don't need a legend, you need... a more complicated ending."

"Why me? Rozier's bloodline seems to be—"

“No, no, no, they are supporters, not mediators,” Grindelwald interrupted him, “and…”

He smiled, a smile that finally carried a hint of genuine warmth, "Because that child will choose to be with you. No matter where you go."

Outside the window, the sunlight finally rose fully, compressing the shadows of Nurmengard to their shortest length.

Julien noticed that at the moment when the light was at its brightest, a golden glint also flashed in Grindelwald's eyes—something Ophelia didn't have, as if he were foreseeing some kind of future.

Seeing Julien still hesitating, Grindelwald smiled. "Don't rush, there's still time for the Stargate. You need time to make a choice, and I'll find an opportunity to persuade Dumbledore. But right now, the most urgent matter is Azkaban."

"Azkaban?" Julien thought of the dream he had on the train last summer, and of the lonely prison on the dark sea.

Grindelwald: "The decay of Azkaban is accelerating, and the number of Dementors is increasing. Someone needs to fix it."

"What? A 12-year-old wizard? Shouldn't someone like you or Old Dumbledore, oh, I mean Headmaster Dumbledore, be the one to go?"

Grindelwald sighed softly, shook his head with a smile, and said, "Look at me." He walked to the window. Only then did Julien realize that the light in the room wasn't coming in through the window.

Light seeped through the seams in the walls and emanated from the texture of the stone bricks, as if the building itself were slowly burning, consuming some kind of invisible fuel.

This lighting creates a multiple exposure effect on Grindelwald's image. In the blink of an eye, different versions appear superimposed:

The young reformer in the historical photograph had sharp blond hair and ambitious eyes with heterochromatic pupils.

In Dumbledore's memory, the old prisoner was hunched over, decaying, and consumed by regret.

And the physical entity before us, somewhere in between, a kind of existence compressed by time.

"What did you see?" Grindelwald asked, his voice carrying a hint of testing.

"You have three appearances," Julien answered honestly, "which coexist simultaneously."

"Indeed, you and I share the same potential. We are both excellent observers."

Upon closer inspection, Grindelwald's face resembles a geological profile.

The outermost layer reveals the decay of a ninety-year-old: the skin is as thin as parchment, and the blood vessels beneath appear unnaturally grayish-black. The wrinkles are not randomly distributed, but rather the natural weathering of some kind of runes, forming specific geometric patterns at the corners of the eyes, forehead, and mouth.

But beneath this decay, Julien could see a younger structure. Through a magical resonance, not sight: the muscle memory of a fifty-year-old, the neural reflexes of a thirty-year-old, the spiritual sharpness of a seventeen-year-old. These layers did not replace each other; they coexisted, like different ages of sedimentary rock.

His eyes are the most complex. The color of his iris fluctuates between blue and gray, depending on the angle of the light.

But Julien noticed that when Grindelwald spoke of "observation," the color was always silver-white, strikingly similar to the look in Dumbledore's eyes behind his half-moon spectacles.

When discussing "activation," the color shifts to the abyss black, possessing the same oppressive quality as Voldemort's pupils, but with a more...restrained feel.

"You're making comparisons," Grindelwald said. "Dumbledore, Voldemort, or Ophelia?"

"You are different from them all," Julien said definitively.

"I am one side of the same coin as them." Grindelwald inserted his fingers into the flowing wall structure, the movement causing no disturbance, as if his hand were part of the projection.

"Dumbledore chose stability, Tom chose greed, Ophelia chose loyalty. And I..." Grindelwald gestured for Julien to follow him.

They descended the spiral staircase—downwards, but the view from the windows remained the same fjord at the same height—entering the "interior" of the tower. So there were no floor divisions here, only continuous spatial folds, even time itself.

"Now I can say that my body is part of Nurmengard."

Grindelwald noticed Julien's gaze and offered to explain, "Decades of symbiosis have allowed me to exchange too much with this tower. I can sense the state of things here, but I cannot leave—this is not Dumbledore's imprisonment, but a physical bond. My biological tissues have merged with the spatial folds of the building."

"This is the price. I was young when I built this tower, like Dumbledore, thinking I could control everything and secure Nurmengard. But as Muggles say, everything you get has a price tag attached."

He lowered his sleeves with a certain ancient elegance. "I have been granted a privilege. I will be the first human to witness the complete transformation of the World Wall—whether it is collapse or reconciliation. Except for you, of course."

"You mean Nurmengard is the same as Falling Star Bay or even Azkaban, except that you're here... or rather, this tower is here..."

"Yes, Falling Star Bay, Nurmengard, Azkaban, and let me tell you, there's one more in Romania. These are all wounds of this world."

"So you can't leave Nurmengard?"

"Obviously."

"Do I have the ability to go to Azkaban? Or rather, how can I heal Azkaban's wounds?"

"Every wound is treated differently, Julien. Falling Star Bay is treated with fragments of stars, while Azkaban requires... conversion."

"You don't have that ability right now, but I can teach you."