Dumbledore sat at his desk as the clock ticked past the third hour of the day. Try as he might, the bone-deep weariness that had permeated his body upon the news of Voldemort's resurrection had seeped into his mind, and no amount of thinking seemed to be able to dislodge it. Albus Dumbledore prided himself in not accepting the impossible, yet he saw little potential for an amiable solution to the problem that had grown up around him. He had known this day was coming, like a farmer thinks of the weeds and locus that summer brings, yet he had not been able to forestall it. And he would now have to reap the harvest he had sown, regardless of what calamities would soon befall it. The clock continued to tick, and Dumbledore decided that if wanted to have any hope of making progress, he would need to stretch his legs.
His office was quite and dark, and the warmth he had cultivated in it during times of peace had already bled away. He felt the flagstones through his thick socks as he continued a silent vigil. How could he sleep on the eve of war? The office was quiet for he was alone, yet his mind was caught in a symphony of the dead. It wasn't guilt—not fully—but he had underestimated his own mental vulnerability. With painful clarity, he remembered for the first time in a decade just how close they had been to loosing, and each and every face that had slipped away. And of course his mind was populated not just with the faces of brave or unfortunate adults, but more strikingly with the eleven-year-old children he remembered them being when he first introduced them to magic.
Self doubt had been his enemy before, and yet he had been comforted by the thought that he had not created his first monster. Grindelwald had come to him fully formed, and in the fullness of time had revealed his true nature. Surely his goals had begun before Albus and if anything had stemmed from their time together, perhaps it was some modicum of restraint. But Tom had been his responsibility from the beginning, and if anyone had possessed a chance to stop him, it was Dumbledore.
Fuck the prophecy. Albus knew that pride continued to be his greatest weakness, yet bound by it as he was, he would not allow the coming task to fall to any other. It was by his failure that Voldemort was begat, and it would be by his hand that he would meet his end.
With new found conviction, an idea began to form. It was a terrible idea, but one that had all the proper ingredients to prove exceptionally tantalizing all the same. There were few things that Albus Dumbledore would not stomach doing for the atonement of another man, why should his gut rebel over that which he would need to do for his own?
Getting in was the easy part. And of course, despite the late hour, he was still a well recognizable and respected figure. He'd surrendered his wand of course, but it had been beyond foolish for them to assume it was his only one. Nor was it even the more powerful of the two. He reached the far end of the stone hall way and began the climb up the fortress's only tower. In his hand, the elder wand moved, unraveling enchantments with relative ease as he made his way higher. This was only the beginning, but he would need the saved time on the way back out.
After a rather exhausting trip for a man of his age, he finally reached a large steel door. He carefully stowed his wand in his sleeve, and gently rammed his fist on the door three times. Muffled voices could be heard for a minute before finally the door slid slowly open. Facing him were three wizards with wands drawn, clearly unsure of any reasonable reason for his presence. And behind them from a pile of filth, a pair of piercing blue eyes met his own as a wicked smile formed on the prisoner's face.
"Herr Dumbledore," the lead guard acknowledged, clearly struggling to find a way to address the him in English. "We received no letter of your journey."
An earnest set of faces met Dumbledore's, and wands were lowered to their sides.
"I assure you, it will be like I was never here." Dumbledore stated with the slightest conceit of amusement.
A flash of silver light burst from his wand faster than any of the guards could have anticipated, leaving all three unconscious on the ground. His timer had started. They would know that something had gone wrong now, if they were bothering to pay attention below.
"It seems rather presumptuous of you to launch an escape without first engaging me in conversation." Grindelwald said as he struggled to pull himself to his feet.
"Inaccurate presumptions are the only sort worth considering." Dumbledore responded curtly. The man before him was much changed since that had last faced each other fifty years before. Where once there had been blond hair, Gellert now had matted tufts of grey that were quite outnumbered by numerous bald spots. His body and face were that of a skeleton, which though fed had spent many cold nights in a damp tower. But there could be no doubt of his identity. Even now, inhabiting some frail body—maybe one hundred pounds soaking wet—Dumbledore could see the same casual arrogance that had catalyzed a global war, and nearly engulfed him with it. But where once he had seen true malice, he saw instead only weariness.
"You always were the crueler of the two of us." Grindelwald said as he processed the possible reasons for what was happening. "You didn't kill me. You tell yourself it was mercy, but I see now that it was something more calculated. You keep your enemies around you as trophies until time wears them into tools."
"Mercy is always calculated Gellert. That does not stop it from being good. Indeed, we must choose when to offer it, and when to double the resolve behind the final stroke."
"Then if you are so confident on your pedestal, why are you here?"
"Time is running short, and I do not intend to receive my own space in this prison. I will answer what questions you have when we have left here. For now, however, I have but one question for you." Dumbledore with drew the third wand he had brought from his pocket, and looked Grindelwald steadily in the eye. "If the price of freedom is redemption, and redemption as I see fit, is that a price you can accept?"
"Ja. I will play your game. As long as you promise to kill me before thinking to return me here." The old wizard said slowly, ambling to the end of the cell.
"Excellent." Dumbledore responded, and fire sprang from his wand, cutting away the manacles that bound the dark lord.
With causal confidence, or perhaps a great deal of idiocy, Dumbledore handed over the wand residing in his left hand. Light surged forth as it Grindelwald grasped the handle, and the dark lord closed his eyes as his brought his wand up to his face. A word was spoken and the grim and excrement that cover him pealed away and his ragged prison garment became a simple black robe.
"They are coming up the corridor as we speak." He said finally. "I built this place to be nearly impossible to escape, and they will have many tools at their disposal to stop us once they fully realize what has happened."
"Then lead the way."
The solid steel door melted away before them even as Dumbledore deflected the pieces of the wall that were attempting to lacerate them. They made their way down the steps quickly, though the flagstones attempted to bite their feet, and magical will held the walls back as they closed in before and behind them. When they reached the bottom, the floor and ceiling snapped together like a jaw as the pressure holding them apart left with them. Cursed fire filled the hallway ahead even as frantic voices made their way steadily closer. Dumbledore had not come unprepared, however, and from his pocket he removed a frosted vial. Cool air filled the hallway as the vial shattered, and vile shapes could be seen dancing in the winter's breath as it extinguished the orange light, plunging the corridor into darkness.
A harsh german word was spoken and light returned as hundreds of carved ruins were illuminated along the walls. Gesturing for Dumbledore to stop, Grindelwald brought his wand to his side. Two guards turned the corner, only for one to be sucked into the wall and another turned to stone as the wall flashed beside them. Wielding the elder wand like a scalpel, Dumbledore began disabling the enchantments before them with urgent precision. While the wand's strange power gave him near surety in his counter spells, the sheer number proved challenging. Beside him, Grindelwald deflected blasts of light from aurors who had not repeated the mistake of their colleagues.
Finally, the light from the runes faded, and the only light came from the spells splashing against stones and shields as the dark lord wheezed with effort. Before another spell could be fired, Dumbledore swished his wand, neatly sending all three guards into a pile while parting them from their wands.
"You do not trust my capacity for restraint." Grindelwald said. It was not a question.
"Of course I don't. And I hardly sought you out with restraint in mind. But perhaps you will surprise me yet." Dumbledore responded, taking the lead as he moved through the rubble spread across their path.
A minute passed in silence and they approached the gate leading to the entrance checkpoint. No additional attempt by guards or the prison itself had been made to challenge them but the greatest obstacle lay here before them. Dumbledore quietly assured himself that now was not the time for half measures.
The elder wand flashed, and the inner battlements of the great gate were worn away as if by the erosive force of a thousand thousand tides. Behind the now defunct wall, fifty grim face aurors faced them with varying levels of determination and fear. It was surely an adequate force to apprehend even the mightiest of wizards. But Dumbledore had come prepared. One could never be too lucky after all.
The two tremendous guardians of Nurmengard shook the ground as they approached from either side. Giant steel statues of Gellert's vanity, they wielded massive swords that glowed with a deadly touch. Their steel bodies were all but impermeable to magic, and what injuries they sustained, quickly repaired by the magic that made them. They had been one of Grindelwalds greatest achievements, and their strength had been only refined by the magic of his goblin slaves. The guardians existed for a single purpose: to kill any prisoner that had succeeded in defeating the prisons other defenses.
But today they would serve another function.
Dumbledore dodged the opening salvo of spell fire with the uncanny ability of a stumbling drunk as Grindelwald watched him for a plan. With both statues now blocking the middle of the broken gate, guarding their escape, Dumbledore's face bore a small smile.
The floor below rippled like quick sand under Dumbledore's sudden transfiguration, and both colossal statues fell to their waists. Then, as surely as it had started, the solidity of the floor returned and the walls shook as castle adjusted to the increase strain caused by wedging in the additional mass. And then the plan became clear, for the aurors found their spells blocked by the monstrous, spell-proof bodies of the two guardians.
"Gentlemen—and ladies—" Dumbledore began, voice amplified through the castle. "I understand your concerns about my visit with the prisoner, however you have my assurances he will be kept under the most stringent parole. I am confident we can reach a solution without resorting to additional wand work."
His words were met by bolts of green light as several aurors attempted to sneak around the defensive wall of steel. Grindelwald's wand flashed, and the two aurors found their torsos switched by silent transfiguration, leaving both convulsing uncontrollably. No other aurors braved risking themselves around the sides of the statues, and the aimless struggles of the angered guardians were proving as much a threat to the defenders as to the fugitives.
Dumbledore, satisfied that he had made some token of effort toward a peaceful solution, turned to the right to face the thick outer wall. Unlike interior of the prison, this section had been designed to withstand the full arsenal of a magical army. There would be no spell work to break through it, and no magic to fly over it. But again, he had of course realized this in advance.
"We do not have the strength to break through the outer wall Albus." Grindelwald said, keeping an eye on the now exposed main gate where there aurors were ensconced.
"Of course you would think so. Like many others, you believe that magic is the greatest tool for any task. Alas, if once that were true, it is no longer so."
Dumbledore carefully transfigured several crates in a cluster along the wall. With a resolute flick of his deluminator, a ball of flame shot towards the central crate, and he raised a shield in a dome that covered the two wizards as well as their assailants. Moments later, the ground shook as the wall was blown outward by a chemical explosion. Protected as they were, they heard only a dull bas note produced from the shaking ground itself, but the explosion as angled by the shield flattened even the surrounding grass that lay beyond the prison's walls through shear pressure.
Breaking into a light jog—at least for someone his age—Albus made for the newly created exit, banishing what ruble remained toward the shocked aurors behind them. Seconds later, they crossed the prison walls, and disappeared into the night.