Trying my hand at something new. HP AU. Content note for this story: violence, murder, torture. Special thanks to my beta, raa, for all the help.
The Shadows Cast
Volume One: France
Prologue
3 December 2000
1600 UTC+1
Somewhere in Norway
The cell was dark, and no light shone through the barred window. Even if he didn't have perfect memory, even if he wasn't keeping impeccable records, the prisoner knew it was winter just from the length of the days. Each day now had fewer than six hours of daylight. This far north, days got very short near the solstice. It was a pain. Less daylight meant less time that could be spent reading and writing.
There was a time when he'd write in the darkness. His writing was once impeccable. Gellert's hands were starting to shake a little with age, though, so now the dark nights left him alone with his thoughts and no outlets. Fifty-five winters he had spent here, fifty-five years without a wand, fifty-five years without walking free. Gellert grimaced. How much had he already lost? Could he even kill, now, after being held for so long? Could he even cast?
Prison did not agree with him.
Still, Albus could have done worse. Gellert had all the books he wanted, all the parchment and ink and quills he could ask for. Every day, he could walk in the courtyard for an hour, under guard of course. He got newspapers and magazines. He could receive mail and visitors, though he could not send anything. He had enough food and every comfort he could ask for. Some of the guards liked to slight him in small ways—forgetting to bring him candles, or books, or book-binding materials. No matter; he would kill them when he got free.
It was now six months since the last time that hunter had visited him. For 50 years, Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody had visited him every month and tested him for magical subterfuge. If you're clever about it, there are countless ways to duplicate someone magically. Polyjuice, a Metamorphagus swap, even simple illusions combined with mind-fooling magic like Confundo would be enough to defeat casual observation. Many wizards and witches had escaped prison with the help of confederates using this method.
Nurmengard was warded beyond imagining against such trickery. The moment, for example, that Gellert or another prisoner would try an Animagus transformation, alarms would trigger. Casting a spell inside a cell, or with a wand not specifically keyed into the wards would likewise set off alarms. Nurmengard was also warded against Disapparition, Portkeys, even house-elves. Apparition was still possible for entry purposes. Roughly speaking, there was no way for a normal wizard to actually leave Nurmengard in a hurry. One would need to take a walk or ride a broom outside the walls, then use magical travel from there. Were this prison guarded by Dementors, few of these protections would be necessary. The soul-sucking creatures would make quick work of any intruders or escaping prisoners.
Nonetheless, Moody came every month and cast his diagnostic charms. The paranoid Dark Wizard hunter would check Gellert for every form of magical deception known, as though he expected that the Dark Wizard would disappear and replace himself with a polyjuiced doppleganger at any moment. Gellert smiled at the thought. Of all living wizards besides Albus, only Moody had respect for him.
Unbeknownst to Moody, he had already foiled one escape attempt years ago when he came by a week early for his check-in. Gellert had barely managed to hide his materials after his paid man in the prison guard alerted him that Moody had arrived. Years of planning and a once-in-a-lifetime alignment of planets had created the conditions for a unique astroarithmantic focus. This focus allowed Gellert use a normal rod of wood as a wand—with appropriate preparations. The ritual required four weeks of intermittent magical build-up, and he had begun as soon as Moody left the month before. The blasted paranoiac decided to come early the next month, and by the time he left, the ritual was ruined.
Six months, now, and no Moody. Gellert twirled that useless wooden rod in his hands and he knew: Something has changed.
This guard's name was Lund. Gellert detested him. Gellert detested all the guards, of course, but he detested Lund with a particular vehemence he saved for his tormentors. He had already planned Lund's murder. Finding out about the man was easy enough: Gellert had bribable guards, a deep understanding of human nature, and all the time in the world. Espen Lund, age 45, lived with his husband, Jan, and two adopted children in Trondheim. The eldest, Astrid, would be heading to school this coming year. His hobbies included going to the park with his family, community theater, and bringing Gellert's meals after they had gone cold.
Gellert's lips curled back in a facsimile of a smile as Lund unlocked the door. Lund wasn't carrying a wand, of course—during direct interactions with prisoners you don't take a risk like that. Still, the blackjack in the man's belt was threatening enough, and any prisoner in Nurmengard quickly learned there was no way to overpower a guard and escape during recreation time. Even if one could defeat a heavily armed, if wandless, guard, the sentry on the walls did have a wand and wouldn't think twice before cutting down an escaping prisoner.
Lund dropped the day's mail into the cell and sneered unattractively. "Looks like your biggest fan bit the dust, Grindie. Guess you got to outlive him after all. My bad, I guess, for not taking care of you myself."
The door clattered shut and Gellert sat in silence as the guard continued, "Sometimes, I wish you'd try something, just so I could get some action. It's so boring looking after a model prisoner. There's nothing like a fight to spice things up. Still, no use brooding over it…"
As the man's footsteps faded, Gellert eased himself up from his chair and ambled over to the cardboard box. By his count, he'd spent nearly fourteen thousand days here, enough time for an endless amount of mail. Gellert maintained his subscriptions to magazines and newspapers through subterfuge, blackmail, and bribery. He knew that Eide was cheating on her husband with Næss, for example—and that was enough for each of them to make sure he always got his newspapers. Aas ran his letters to the outside world, and it was an unspoken agreement among the more morally flexible guards that his outgoing mail wouldn't be disrupted, or the convenient bags of gold they got each year would dry up.
The Union Seer ("Tomorrow's News, Today!") was reporting on the second rise of a minor Dark Lord in Britain, the suspiciously francophone-sounding Voldemort. Normally, Gellert would ignore an article on such an inconsequential upstart, but the headline shocked him out of his usual stoicism.
UK Ministry Announces: Dumbledore Dead
Albus Dumbledore, UK Minister of Magic and Wizengamot Chief Warlock, has been killed at the Ministry of Magic in London, according to the UK Wizarding Wireless. At 0730 local time reports from the Ministry of Magic announced that Dumbledore had "fallen in combat at his command post in the Ministry of Magic." The Ministry went on to elaborate that he died "fighting to the last breath against blood purism, and for Britain."
The Death Eater Party immediately announced a majority in the British Wizengamot, and called for a vote to elect Lord Sirius Black, a moderate Death Eater, to the post of Chief Warlock.
There followed an announcement by Lord Black in which he called upon the British people to mourn their Minister and Chief Warlock, who, he said, "died the death of a hero in the capital of the Magical Britain." His speech called for unity and a normalization of relations between the Light faction and the DEP. "In these serious times, we must come together as a people, no matter where our political loyalties lie. For too many years have we had chaos when there should be order. We must push for a process of peace and reconciliation."
Reports from Paris say International Confederation of Wizards officials are suspicious of the announcement and certainly are not mourning yet. Still, the news and rumours continue to mount up. The ICW speculates that the timing of Black's announcement may mean that Dumbledore is not dead but trying to escape or go underground.
In London, Interim Minister of Magic, Augusta Longbottom, would not make a statement to the press about the election situation in England other than to say, "There will be a new election when the Wizengamot deems it appropriate."
Harry Potter, famous for his initial defeat of the Death Eater movement's leader, Voldemort, twenty years ago, vowed to continue the battle against the revolutionary group, the Death Eaters, and their political counterparts, the DEP. As putative leader of…
So. Dumbledore was dead. The man had possessed power beyond reckoning and more knowledge than even Gellert. He had not been not alone, either: He had a phoenix, he had a personal army, and more than that, he had the leadership of the British and European governments at his beck and call. No man should have toppled him, and yet he had fallen.
Gellert's knuckles whitened as he clenched the profane, disgusting newspaper. His greatest friend and greatest enemy, slain. Slain by some upstart Dark Wizard. A nobody.
Pitiful.
Aron Næss glanced up from the game of poker again, his eyes wandering out to the courtyard. As prison courtyards go, it was as good as one got. A few chess tables, benches, an exercise area, a garden, and everything you needed for a nice afternoon stroll. Somehow, though, it still seemed incomplete. Such was the nature of prison courtyards, though—no dueling platform, for who could duel without wands?
Still, the scene bothered him, and he didn't know why until he realized Grindelwald wasn't at his usual spot in the garden. Every day, like clockwork, Grindelwald would stroll through the courtyard into the garden, spend precisely three quarters of an hour sitting in the glade, then make his way back. Today, though, something was different. The other guards had noticed something off about the man in the past week or so, but that was commonplace compared to what Aron saw now.
Grindelwald was lifting weights, performing push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks. He was jogging and jumping and stretching, pushing the limits of his aging body. His sweat-soaked face was awash with anger. Not the cold, dark anger that lurked always behind his eyes—Aron shuddered to think about what that man's revenge would be like, were he ever to have it—but a hot, fresh anger: the kind of anger that felled nations, that consumed men, that slaughtered innocents by the millions. Aron averted his eyes.
Grindelwald was out for blood.
